#because that would make it harder for people to see WHY marginalized people don’t like it

[is-the-owl-video-cute]

I’m scared for the kids who might unknowingly buy the Harry Potter game or the books or the movies without knowing what’s going on. We need to ACTUALLY ban this franchise. Burn copies in stores. Smash your friend’s computer if you have to. I don’t know why we’re simply telling people to “read other books” and not going full scorched earth. There’s children out there who could be entrapped into this thing and not know until it’s too late…(It’s not censorship because it’s actually bad. Only minorities should be allowed to censor things because we know best.)

Nice try, buddy.

[i-cant-even-function]

I feel like I see a lot of “Enid fell first but Wednesday fell harder” stuff out there but I would like you to take a moment to consider the opposite.

Wednesday fell first. She started noticing the signs early on, but she couldn’t put her finger on what they were. Why did she listen to what Enid said all the time ? Why did she go out of her way to make Enid more comfortable in the space they shared ? Why did she feel so protective of her ? Then she realized “oh no, it’s because I’m in love with her”. Of course nothing really changed in her outward appearance towards Enid. Wednesday is too in control for that, but it was always there. The whole school already knows Enid is one of the only people Wednesday wouldn’t kill over a minor indiscretion, so it wouldn’t be weird that Wednesday started spending more and more time with her. It became a part of her self identity. “My name is Wednesday Addams. I like murder and mayhem, and I’m in love with Enid Sinclair.” There wouldnt be much to give it away, either. Sure, Wednesday would actually listen to her talk about drama instead of openly ignoring her, and exchanging small gifts would likely be more common, but Enid is someone who watched RomComs and reads fanfiction. She would notice the big signs of love, but the little ones that Wednesday would show would likely go right under her radar. She had no hope of Enid returning her interests, and she was much too busy investigating murders and stalkers and what have you to put much thought or time into a relationship anyways, but it was still there.

Enid however, was too distracted. By boys, by school drama, by everything. Hanging out with Wednesday became a part of her daily activities, but she didn’t give it much thought. She was used to people liking her, so when Wednesday started opening up (in her own, reclusive way, of course) she didn’t think much of it. Of course Wednesday liked her, EVERYONE liked her. But then something happened. I don’t know what it would be, maybe something small, maybe a grand gesture, but it flipped a switch. Suddenly EVERYTHING changed for her. She couldn’t go two seconds without thinking of Wednesday. She dropped everything to go on expeditions and stakeouts with her. She started doodling her name in the margins of her notebooks. She couldn’t even look at her without making a wistful “sigh”, her pupils all but forming cartoonish hearts for pupils. She LOVED Wednesday, and would have razed the world to express it to her.

Wednesday fell first. Enid fell harder.

[frozenjokes]

mentally well people have mentally well reactions to each other

“Come on now, what happened? I’ll needle it out of you, you know I will, so you might as well just spill.” Cleo’s voice from the other end of the room dented Scar’s half asleep haze, and his ear pricked, listening. Scar doubted he was hearing anything he wasn’t supposed to, but if this was ‘girl talk’ (defined as Cub and Cleo gossiping about him, Scar came to learn), he didn’t think he was explicitly invited either, hence Cleo waiting until Scar took his intermittent afternoon nap up near the ceiling.

Cub only grunted in response, which clearly was not the answer Cleo was looking for.

“I’m not going to believe that you and Scar went and slept on top of each other in his starting room for no reason.”

“Nothing ‘happened,’ Cleo. Just couldn’t sleep.”

“That is so lame.”

“It was lame. I couldn’t sleep.”

“So you went to the Scar room to sleep on the floor. With Scar.”

“Yes. That’s what happened.”

“You seriously suck.”

“Maybe I missed sleeping with someone, it’s been lonely all by myself.”

Cleo scoffed, making quite the fuss given all the shuffling Scar heard, “No one’s making you sleep alone. I bet Scar would be thrilled to have you, the more the merrier, whatever.”

“You don’t want me.” Cub seemed to be doing his best effort at sounding sad, but he wasn’t very good at it.

“Nope,” Cleo popped the ‘p,’ “I don’t. But whatever, three’s a party.”

“This is why I slept in Scar’s room.”

“You are such a liar! What’s your problem!? You didn’t fuck, Scar wouldn’t fuck you. Neither of you are injured.”

“I have a couple scratches.”

“So do I, it’s called living with a cat, doofus.”

“Damn.” There was a lot more shuffling of blankets, and Scar opened an eye to see Cub hiding under the covers of his bed, only for Cleo to get up and pounce on him.

“You’re not off the hook yet, mister!”

Scar closed his eye as fighting and squabbling ensued, uninterested in their bickering. At least they were playing, Scar preferred when they played. Sometimes they tuckered themselves out like that, just laying in a winded heap. Ideal, honestly. Perfect for perching on top of; Scar always took full advantage. Today though, the noise started to escalate, and Scar glared through narrowed eyes as Cleo started to play whack-a-mole with Cub’s knees. Bad sign. Next Cub would start cussing them out, he always got nasty, and Cleo would go for the throat until the both of them were upset and seething.

Scar leapt from his place near the ceiling, crossed the room in four short bounds, hopped up onto Cub’s bed and delivered a quick bite to Cleo’s shoulder, shoving them off the blanket so Cub could escape, only to snap at him too the moment he surfaced. Scar had to resist stomping on him the moment he hid back under the covers with a squeak; sometimes that deep seeded instinct to Kill Small Thing came out of nowhere, but Scar refrained.

“I’m sick of you. Both of you.”

Cleo snorted, “Me too.”

“Personally I’m doing alright,” Cub mumbled, to which Scar gave in and stomped on him, effectively shutting him up.

“If you don’t want to be treated like children then you’d better stop acting like them. I’m tired of it! Not every disagreement has to end in pummeling each other, you’re going to start being nice, I swear it.” Scar’s tail lashed, only whipping harder at the amused look on Cleo’s face.

“Good luck with that. I’ll trade you a compliment if you tell me what the hell happened with you and Cub last night.” Scar bit them because they really deserved it, then sat back up as Cleo yelped, smoothing the fur at his shoulders when they huffed, “Will you stop that?”

“Maybe that’s a good idea. Maybe you should say something nice, but not to me.” Scar’s tail continued to lash, but now in a growing excitement, “Each of you are going to say one- no- two nice things about each other! Clearly you need the practice! I can count on one paw the amount of marginally kind things you’ve said to each other, both of you, and that’s terrible! How can you stand that?”

“I don’t.” Cleo snorted, “That’s why I kill him.”

“And you don’t like to do it. You don’t like killing each other or yelling at each other or any of it! It hurts, I know it hurts.”

Perhaps this was a sentiment relayed to Scar in confidence, the atmosphere shifting in a split second to something cool and dangerous.

“You- You said- It’s okay if it hurts your feelings, Cleo, I mean- I don’t like it either! You know I don’t like it. I didn’t mean to overshare-“ Scar struggled to amend, but was painfully aware his stammering was only digging himself into a deeper hole.

The silence was deafening, and the withering look Cleo whipped Scar with almost made him falter, fur beginning to prickle under the intensity. Well, Cleo didn’t want to kill Cub anymore, that was for sure. Scar was starting to wish they’d go back to arguing.

“Cleo-“

“I can’t help but notice that Cub has nothing to say,” Cleo spoke thickly, honey-sweet dripping off venom loaded fangs, hot and begging to strike. Cub knew it, and he wasn’t surfacing from his blanket cave any time soon; Scar envied him desperately. “What do you think of me?”

“I think,” Cub started, tiptoeing, more than aware of the cobra looming above him, “Maybe. It’s not a terrible idea. Niceties- Compliments, however Scar phrased it. We can try.”

Cleo sneered, disgust raking through the air like barbed claws, snatching the oxygen from Scar’s lungs. “I see.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Oh you don’t, do you?” Cleo’s voice was scathing, and despite the words not being directed at him, Scar shrank away as if burned, “Don’t want to talk about it? Why? Never kept anything from me before, no reason to, nothing to hide, unless there is,” Cleo whirled on Scar, and all he could think of was hiding, running away, but he was frozen in her blistering glare, “What did you say about me? Jump to a couple conclusions, have you? What did you fucking say.”

Scar’s mouth went completely dry. He prayed that his microphone would miraculously combust.

“Scar.”

“Stop it.” With some strain and awkward shuffling, Cub resurfaced from underneath the blankets, shaking out his hair, “Leave him alone, no one said anything about you.”

Cub did not flinch under Cleo’s vehemence, always mild, and Scar didn’t know how. “Do you think I’m fragile? Go on, I can take it.”

“For fuck’s sake, not everything is about you,” Cub’s frustration left him in a huff, and silence afterwards was so utterly petrifying, Scar could do nothing else but cover his eyes. “-Wait. No, that wasn’t- That came out wrong.”

“Oh did it now?”

“I’m sorry.”

No one moved. The whole spaceship seemed to stop in time, no white noise, no chugging machines, no sound. Scar wouldn’t have been surprised if both their planets stopped spinning, if only for a moment. Cub managed to find his footing.

“I really- I really didn’t mean that. It just- it wasn’t about you, it really wasn’t, it was about me. It was about me. Me not- not being good enough. And I didn’t want to talk about it because I don’t like thinking about it because I don’t want to hold myself to a higher standard, but I am starting to feel like maybe I should, and there’s- there’s just a lot of dissonance happening. Because I want to be fine with this. Unkindnesses. Because it’s not worth fixing, right? My life is already over, there’s no point whether I get out of here in one year or five, no point trying to preserve any humanity in myself, because it’s over. Every day it’s worse, even through the resets, I feel myself going, I know it’s over. And it’s over for you, too. We’re not making it out of this. There’s nothing left for either of us back home. No point.. no point trying.” Cub pursed his lips. “Unless you do care. Unless it matters to you how we live here, how we treat each other because it- It. What matters to you matters to me. And I-” Cub laughed, sheepish, “I don’t really know when that happened but.. I don’t know. I don’t really want to talk anymore.”

It was slow, the way Cleo leaned over, almost lurched, and wrapped their arms around Cub, pulling him toward her, so the both of them ended up in the middle, inclined awkwardly, hugging tightly. Scar wanted out. He wanted out so bad. He wanted out more than he’d wanted out of anything his entire life, but when he started to move, Cleo grabbed him, and there was no more escape.

“‘M sorry, buddy,” she mumbled, and maybe she sensed his panic, because graciously, Cleo released him, and Scar scurried away out the closest door, which just happened to be the one to his reset room. He managed not to die on the way there, and reveled in air that wasn’t hot, sliding back against the wall right where he’d been the night before.

…

“It’s not over, Cub,” Cleo mumbled, and they did mean it, they meant it with their whole heart, but they did not know if it was true. All the same, if Cub was convinced he had no life to live after they were released, she would not change his mind. Cub was rigid, immovably stubborn; he decided things about the world and himself as a form of control, he needed that control, because letting go meant Not Knowing, and that was so much worse than being unhappy, being bad, committing acts of interpersonal and environmental violence on purpose, becoming a man that no one could forgive. It was easier to be intentional.

If you weren’t bad, then what were you? Why were you here? How did you get so sick?

Cub couldn’t face those questions. He had to answer them objectively, conform to the new person he needed to be, erase all dissonance, and become the type of man who’d wage that kind of war.

But it couldn’t be over. It couldn’t be over for Cub because Cleo wasn’t ready for it to be over, and she couldn’t do this without him. She didn’t know what came after this, she was afraid, and she couldn’t face it by herself. So Cub needed to believe it would be okay, at least for a few months, a few years, as long as he lived after this was over.

“You matter too much to me for it to be over. I’m not ready.”

“That.” Cub paused for a moment, and Cleo wished they could read his mind, because they had no fucking idea what was going through his head. “Is extremely inconvenient for me.”

Cleo laughed, a relieved sound maybe, because an answer like that was just so Cub, so human, and that was proof enough he wasn’t as far gone as he believed, “That so? Bet it would be a lot easier for you if I only considered you a pain in the ass.”

“How did I fuck this up so bad.”

Cleo shrugged, resting their chin on his shoulder, “You’re kinda fun.”

“Fun? Fucking hell.”

“Uh huh. Where’s my compliment?”

Cub pursed his lips, to which Cleo smacked him gently on the forehead, chuckling when he scoffed. “I didn’t study for this quiz.”

“How about we come back to you later, then.”

Cleo felt Cub breathe against her, deep, full, he always breathed so deeply, and Cleo wondered if he struggled to get enough air, or maybe he just appreciated the breath in his lungs while he still had the chance to take it in.

“That’s okay with me.”

“Good,” Cleo mumbled, closing their eyes, but opening them just as quickly, “I’ll go fetch Scar.. shouldn’ve bit his head off like that. Just.. struck a nerve.”

Cub nodded against their shoulder, then hardly loud enough to hear, “But I’m glad he said something..”

…

The walkthrough was over. Finally, it was over, and the humans were ready to begin the puzzle. Scar was antsy to get started, contrasting infuriatingly with the general apathy the humans seemed to feel, taking their sweet ass time writing notes and setting off traps and making sure everything was Literally Perfect before they began. Scar had hoped he could get a head start while Cub and Cleo finished everything they needed to do, but he didn’t know how, and the humans either didn’t trust him to not fuck something up, or they were just dismissive because they were so damn apathetic about this whole scenario. Either way, it was driving Scar crazy. ‘I’ll show you where we start when we’re all ready to take a look,’ JUST SHOW ME NYEEOW!

But it was done. The walkthrough was done, and Scar could finally see what the hell was the deal with this ‘box’ they two of them kept vaguing about.

“Don’t get too excited,” Cleo mumbled as they typed something into the monitor; maybe this is why Scar had been dismissed before, acquiring the box meant working with the computers. Teaching him his own name in Human had been hassle enough, Cleo probably didn’t want to continue with any more of that, and Cub would likely rather shoot himself.

Regardless, Scar was still restless, whiskers still twitching, tail still lashing. When Cleo made a snide comment about Scar getting all worked up, he snapped back, “It’s hard not to be when you guys have both been so secretive.”

Cub snorted, “We told you exactly what it was. Each room has a puzzle, you solve the room, get a pendant, stick it in the box, what else is there to know.”

Scar threw up his hands, “But what about the riddles!”

“There are riddles on the box,” Cleo said, bland, “They tell you where to start. It is quite literally that simple.”

“Mumbo says all sorts of things are simple but they’re always more complicated than that, come on, you two have been terrible these last couple days.” Scar crossed his arms, to which Cleo only rolled their eyes.

“In a couple years after you’ve been through the ringer on stupid traps you missed, accidents, annoying puzzles, and all sorts of other bullshit, you can get all pissy with me, but in the meantime, all your impatience accomplishes is providing motivation for me to fuck with you.”

Cub hummed behind them, but Scar wasn’t paying much attention, focused on what Cleo was doing with the screens. Typing something into the search bar; ‘C-A-T-S S-M-E-L-L,’ erased after Cub chuckled, ‘S-H-I-T-T-Y P-A-W-S,’ erased, then, ‘Z-O-O-M-I-E-S T-I-M-E W-I-T-H S-C-A-R.’

“Why’re you searching my name?”

“Oh hey, he is paying attention,” Cleo smirked, to which Scar straightened suspiciously, and Cub breathed a soft chuckle.

“He’d make a good iPad kid.”

“Hey.” Scar growled, “What does that mean. You’re not allowed to call me names I don’t-” and then Scar turned around, and Cub was holding a box, a little wooden thing, it fit comfortably in his two hands, his fingers almost wrapping completely around the length of two sides. There were indents on the faces, each side a different color, and Scar could see the inscriptions that had to be the riddles, “-HEY!”

“Take a look,” Cub shrugged, tossing it, and Scar snatched it out of the air, holding tight with all four paws.

“Please don’t break the very important escape room box.” Cleo was deftly ignored, as Scar was swiftly remembering that he could not read.

“What does it say?” Scar shoved the box back in Cub’s face, who continued to stare at him blankly before seeming to think better of defying Scar, adjusting his glasses to read.

“Soldier boys line up to fall, seek illusions reflected off the stars.” Cub turned the box back around for Scar to see, as if having the line read aloud would magically transform the words into something readable. “This feels pointed.”

Cleo snorted, “Not every riddle is pointed, Cub.”

“A lot of them are.”

“A few.”

“They don’t like me, Cleo.”

She laughed, “Yeah! They don’t like me, either!”

Scar cleared his throat, interrupting, “This one’s for the safe room-control room hall. The mirror, right?” Cleo and Cub looked up, stares equally blank. “The mirror?” Scar tried, “With the winged humans? They’re kinda falling, aren’t they? They’re going down, not up.”

“Uh,” Cleo tried, her hesitation rejection enough to make Scar nervous, “I mean, maybe. I don’t remember. We can check, but let’s go through the rest, first. I’ll make a note.” They did so, scribbling something in their notebook, but Scar couldn’t help feeling a little dejected regardless. “Read the next one, Cub.

Cub did as he was told, flipping from the green side to the magenta face. “Judgment crash down upon unworthy souls, snarling at the gates, deny, deny.” Cub pursed his lips, “That is pointed.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty explicit.”

“Well that’s the Scar- My room. I don’t know what to call it. The Scar room. Right?” Scar’s fur started to prickle when Cub and Cleo Looked at him again- What was he doing wrong? “The statues! You guys have seen the statues in there, up on those tall shelves, right? I always feel like they’re judging me..”

After a moment, Cub shrugged. “I agree. They are judgemental. The ‘gate’ thing might be an allusion to heaven or whatever, up high, yeesh. The angels on the last riddle might fit with a theme, also.”

“How do you guys remember this shit? Those statues are in the corner of the room, I wouldn’t have remembered if you didn’t bring it up.”

“They’re judgemental, Cleo.”

“I got that, thanks.”

“Okay, well the next one,” Cub turned the box to the cyan side, “How to step in another person’s shoes? Take a look through a different point of view.”

“What do you think of that? Pointed?” Cleo teased, but Cub nodded sharply.

“I’m sure wherever we’ll be ‘looking’ will be plenty pointed. What do you think, Cleo? Up to the pearly gates where we’ll never be allowed to go, or down into the fiery pits of hell? Does Scar know where we’re going yet? I think I know.”

“I- I mean there were sunglasses in a drawer in the control room-Scar room hallway. It’s pretty outdated technology, even for the sun..”

“No one wears those anymore,” Cub agreed sagely, and Cleo laughed, shaking their head.

“I can’t believe this, how are you so fast at these, Scar? Were you just studying the rooms all this time? Usually we get one or two off the bat and then we’re wandering aimlessly until we stumble into the rest of the answers.”

Abashed, Scar shrugged, a paw sliding unconsciously behind his ear, “I mean, you don’t have people back home that talk like that?”

“Nope. Assuming you do?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s everywhere. And they reference little things too, and if you don’t get what they’re referring to.. prone to offense is what I’ll say, but honestly, I just happen to know a couple.. unhappy.. sphinxes. Stereotypically they’re uppity but I think the guys I know may take that to an extreme..”

“Saw that,” Cleo snorted, though not without a little awkwardness, which made Scar deflate slightly. He didn’t mean to make her uncomfortable. Now that Scar was paying attention, Cub looked a bit awkward himself, glancing away, shifting his weight almost like he thought something was going to jump out at him. Scar didn’t want to leave the conversation like this, dangling over his miserable call back home; maybe he could change the subject?

“Why do you wear glasses? They’ve got lenses, I checked.”

“Some people just wear glasses, Scar,” Cleo bordered on aggressive with her assertion and Scar backed down, ear drooping, but he was deeply relieved when Cub laughed.

“Did you put them on while I was sleeping? I bet that did a number on your eyes.”

“Well yeah! Enough to tell they’re prescription!” With some apprehension, Scar perked up, but Cleo said nothing else, only looking wary.

“Uh huh. That’d be because I’m blind without them. Literally. Legally, and by most peoples’ definition.” Cub took off his glasses, batting Scar away when he started to sniff at his eyes, “I just see a little pinprick of you,” Cub attempted to tap Scar’s nose with a finger for emphasis, but missed. “Woof. My depth perception has seen better days.” Cub instead planted his entire hand in Scar’s face, eliciting a startled yelp as Scar winced back. “Gotcha. Anyway, usually you super die of sculk sickness before you go blind, but hey, the sculk’s got a friend in me, right?”

Cub returned his glasses to his face, shrugging, “What’s more expensive? Changing your escape room for blindness accessibility, but not using braille, I don’t speak it- you know what I mean. Second option, correct my eyes with surgery, which may or may not be successful, who knows with the sculk. Or glasses? Glasses are cheaper. They don’t entirely fix the problem but hey, all he needs to do is see and read.” Something about Cub’s demeanor shifted, his light hearted tone gaining a dark edge that set the fur at Scar’s neck on end. “Pump him full of weed killer and it won’t get any worse, right? No thought to what I want to do, no, no, I would have been fine, they- they think they know better than me-“

“Cub. You’re fine. You’re okay.” Cleo reached for Cub’s hand while Scar took a step back, frightened that he’d set something off just by asking- just seconds ago he’d been fine!

“I don’t know. I don’t know, Cleo, I don’t know. I wasn’t- This wasn’t supposed to stop yet, I wasn’t done,” Cub took off his glasses and Cleo snatched them from his hands, shoving them just as briskly into Scar’s paws without explanation, though, Scar could guess it would be very bad for the loop if Cub broke his glasses. “Cleo, I wasn’t supposed to see.”

“I know, Cub, I know, let’s sit down, alright?”

“It’s too bright.”

“I’ll take you to the safe room, I’ll turn off the lights.”

“I can’t see.”

“I’ve got you.” And Cleo did, taking Cub’s arms, so gentle, and Scar wanted to help, he didn’t understand, but he was scared, and he did not move.

“I want to go home.”

“I’ll take you.” Cleo looked back at Scar then, she mouthed something, but Scar didn’t speak Human, he didn’t have a single clue what she meant to communicate. He hoped he was doing the right thing by staying. Cleo didn’t turn around again, so. Nothing else to do.

It wasn’t long before Cleo returned, Scar sitting on the floor by the two other seats while he waited, staring down at Cub’s glasses in his lap and wondering what he’d done wrong. Gently, she took them from him.

“Sorry about that, Scar. I don’t.. I mean, I don’t really know what to say. Sometimes he gets.. caught up. He’ll be alright though; give him an hour with every blanket in the complex and the lights off and he’ll calm right down.”

Scar pursed his lips, unable to face her. “Did I do something?”

“Oh.. I mean, technically yes, but nothing you could have known better.” Cleo sat down beside Scar on the floor, “He’s been through something really traumatic, I think. The transition from wrecking environmental havoc on the Midwest to jail cell was particularly difficult. He’s always got that sort of calm exterior, right? He wasn’t very concerned about being caught or questioned, but whatever happened to him with the sculk, it really got in his head- whether that’s literal or metaphorical, I genuinely don’t know. I’d bet a bit of both, honestly, but that facade or.. whatever it was.. kinda fell apart when they started killing the sculk in him. Psych ward level breakdowns, he was seriously messed up, and it was only a few weeks later we were introduced. He was holding himself together somewhat fine, but put him in a doctor’s office.. any doctor; general health, specialists, optometrists- for god’s sake, if he knew you had so much as a PhD he would flip his shit, and he still does, he hates doctors. Sometimes he raves about it in a funny way, and other times.. that happens. He’s particularly sensitive about things relating to his symptoms, his eyes for example. He can be sensitive about his skin, too, he covers up like he does for a reason, sleeps in the dumb lab coat, you know.”

“Oh.. I wish I’d known..”

Cleo shrugged, awkward, “Sorry.. This kind of stuff doesn’t come up frequently, and he’s usually well tempered about it. There are some circumstances where he's fine talking about this stuff; sometimes he brings it up himself, but usually I would avoid topics like specific health issues; eyes, skin, any of his meds, doctors in general. He’s anxious enough about all the appointments he’s going to be forced through when we’re back home.”

Scar huffed a short breath, “Damn glad I didn’t grow up on your planet. Criminals or not, everything I’ve heard just feels cruel. Do you have no rights? No choice of anything? This whole ship! This is terrible!”

“Oh, well, in theory we’ve got rights. Half of them get thrown out the window once you’re given a prison sentence though. You have a lot more freedom with prisoners, whether they’re innocent or guilty of the crimes that landed them there. You can justify a lot of shit. Incarceration is a business and we’re just lab rats I’m afraid. We’re here to be used or studied, and even in Cub's case, where it’s entirely unclear what happened to him, it doesn’t really matter. Whether he was a puppet to an alien parasite or did this all of his own free will.. he’s still here. For the record, I do not think the answer is as simple as Cub being straight up possessed, sculk sickness does not escalate like that and Cub should have known he was sick, he should have gotten help- but that’s neither here nor there. Whatever the case, that illness left him significantly impaired, and the way he’s been mistreated afterwards has only made the whole thing more of a shitshow. I mean, come on, he’s far from perfect now, but this is leaps and bounds better than day one, and if he’d gotten proper care and treatment the second he was apprehended, maybe he wouldn’t be so fucked up.” Cleo threw up their arms in a great exasperation, “But what do I know.”

“Oh. Guess that makes sense.” Scar fiddled with his hands, looking down. Most things he heard about Cub confused him, the sculk especially he did not like. The idea something like that could ‘possess’ you at all was frightening, even if Cleo didn’t believe that’s what happened. Scar’s ear turned downward in his thought, brow furrowing. “What do you think happened?”

Cleo shrugged. “You mean how it started? I haven’t got a single clue. Like I said before, Cub has a different story every time, and 80% of those excuses aren’t even feasible.”

“But what about after? Do you think he wanted to do all that? Spread it around?”

Cleo was quiet for a moment, and they closed their eyes, shaking their head. “Who knows. Could’ve, but he has no motive besides Thinking It’s Neat, which isn’t really anything to go off of. I sure think Present Cub believes he wanted to commit all that damage, he says he’d do it again in a heartbeat, but he says just as much he’s tired of being eaten alive, so do with that what you will. Honestly, I think he hates it, sculk. How could he not? It’s sufficiently ruined his life, even if he did set out to infect half of his own country with it intentionally. But I don’t think he knows he hates it. I don’t think he’d ever be able to let himself know it, because then he’s trapped, and you got a taste of what Cub does when he feels backed into a corner.”

Scar grimaced, but took a breath to let the discomfort pass. “Do you guys talk about this stuff a lot? Cub’s only really brought up the sculk to me once, just the other night. He wanted to know if he’d gotten me sick after I ate him.”

“Oh, right,” Cleo looked amused, “Did he?”

“Well he sure thinks so, but I don’t.”

“Right. Well to answer your question, no, not anymore. But we used to, god did we used to. It was around half a human year where all the walls came down and we just talked and talked and talked.. Everything. Secrets I’ve never shared with anyone, shared like it’s a regular Tuesday afternoon. He had so much to say about sculk, so much, a lot of it repetitive and most of it pretty incoherent, but he talked about it regularly for almost a year before tapering off. I think he was trying to figure it out for himself. Thinking out loud. It was damn interesting to listen to, though with how inconsistent and straight up contradictory 90% of what came out of his mouth was, I bet the assholes eavesdropping through the cameras were slamming their heads against their desks trying to figure out what the hell happened. I hope so.”

But Scar’s ear pinned, whirling around in his search for cameras, “I- They can listen?”

Cleo raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? I mean, not 24/7, but with you here I bet someone’s almost always checked in; not every day we get to learn a thing or two about the catfolk all those light years away.”

“This- I gotta get out of here.”

Cleo laughed, “You get used to it. I wouldn’t worry too much, your planet isn’t in any sort of danger.”

“I.. I really don’t like that.”

“Well, nothing you can do. Best to forget about all the ways your privacy is being violated because it will never end. Only one camera in the safe room, though, and if you talk quiet they can’t really hear you.”

“This sucks.”

“Yup! Welcome to prison life on planet Earth! Plenty more horrors await you, though luckily, this is pretty much as bad as it gets. Oh, joy!”

Scar huffed a laugh despite the lack of humor; nothing funny about it, really, but what else could you do? Any objections weren’t going to make him any less stuck. Did the folks at home know about this? Scar wondered if they objected or if anything could be done. A pang of longing dragged his shoulders into a hunch. How long had it been since that last call? A month at least, maybe more.. Scar struggled to keep track outside of human units. Would they still be angry? Bitter? A surge of homesickness almost pulled him straight to the monitors, and very clearly he could imagine himself at the keys, clicking in his name, struggling to remember the steps to call home. Anxiety overcame him in the end. He said nothing. Maybe Cleo knew, but she didn’t say anything either.

[shipping-isnt-morality]

I was frankly shocked the first time I discussed the Shoah with Israelis (rather than American Jews). There was a level of… I don’t know what to call it but victim-blaming, that I wasn’t sure how to handle. That’s of course not universal but the very fact that that’s an accepted viewpoint in Israel is kind of telling I think. For example there was even some scandal on the right in America when Ben Shapiro suggested that arming the Jews (more) would have prevented the Holocaust. In Israel that viewpoint is quite common.

There’s a kind of scorn among some Zionists for victims of the Holocaust, and if you really understand their point of view it’s easy to see why. If anti-Semitism is inevitable and incurable, if the very presence of Jews brings it about, then they should have fought harder, or at least left sooner. They should have known better than to ever think they could be welcome or safe in their home. It’s almost an exoneration of the anti-Semite; like a force of nature, he is inevitable and inexhaustible.

Not to always bring everything back to what I know, but it reminds me of how we talk about abusers and victims. These posts about protecting yourself from attackers in your car, in a parking lot, in your home, on a boat, whatever: They take for granted that you can not and should not feel safe in these places. They treat the danger of sexual predators the same as the danger of wildlife. Zionists talk about anti-Semites in a similar way, I’ve noticed.

Lord knows in many cases these are born from trauma. It’s no surprise that victims of serious violations would like to know how to protect themselves from it ever happening again and would want to protect others from the same.

The problem is that this trauma-informed response cannot actually fix the root of the problem. Neither anti-Semitism nor male sexual violence are forces of nature. They are byproducts of exploitative and imperfect systems run and populated by highly imperfect humans. Different systems have had different outcomes, though, some better than others, and recently some quite well indeed. Systemic solutions to these problems - at the least, to greatly reduce them, and to make justice more accessible - do exist. Humans can and have built them.

A systemic solution to the problem cannot start with the victim, though. It has to start with the perpetrator. It has to ask why the system keeps producing people who can and would do this. It has to ask what the perpetrator wants, why they want that, and why they think harming someone else will get them what they want. Simplistic, spiteful, or dehumanizing answers to these questions aren’t helpful; neither are trite or fatalistic ones. Only truthful, consistent, verifiable, rational answers will allow us to change the circumstances which lead to these crimes.

The victim is rarely in a position to change that system, or even to change the circumstances of a single abuser; on a personal level it makes sense to treat the threats as inevitable. On a societal level, though, it is essential that we recognize the perpetrators as rational actors who are fully responsible for their actions and whose excuses must be challenged.

Ideologically it is completely backwards to start from an assumption that it is up to the actions of a victim to avoid victimization. It is infinitely easier for perpetrators, who are after all themselves rational actors and members of our society, to choose a different action which does not victimize someone else. And where possible it is our role as a community to make better choices more accessible, and to punish exploitative behavior.

Because a victim-led initiative, at worst, would result in avoiding victimization through in turn becoming victimizers of a different, even more marginalized group. It recreates the problem: the victim cannot feel safe because the only defense they can conceive is one which never puts them in the position to be victimized ever again, but there is no battle to be won against the entire system. So a smaller battle is chosen, and a weaker opponent singled out (and rhetorically aligned with the systemic danger and hostility), and the exploitation dance happens again, one level down.

I’m hardly the first to observe this. This is probably a clumsy rephrasing of common philosophy examining human exploitation.

But the point is: all of that makes sense as a protective coping mechanism for the victim, but as a society it must not be where our analysis begins or ends. On a societal level this exploitation is not omnipresent, inevitable, or inexhaustible. The perpetrators are in our society as much as the victims are; an uncomfortable fact that I think people need to grow up about.

Our solutions can, should, and must look at why this happens and what we can do about it. The answer is not “nothing”. We have accomplished extraordinary things as a species. We have concepts of justice, of empathy. We have written documents of shared humanity, we have demonstrated shared humanity - for better and for worse. It is possible for us to find answers to these brutally difficult questions.

Palestine must be free, and Jews must be safe. These imperatives are not mutually exclusive. Those who tell you otherwise have something to gain from your fear.

[cod-dump]

I’m never gonna write fics for this fandom so I’m gonna throw this SoapGhost thought at you.

BUT— the 141 has 4 people. Captain Price, First Lieutenant Riley, SGT Mactavish and SGT Garrick.

They’re rounding out the team, adding another person. Second Lieutenant whoever. Price knows him, Ghost knows him, but Gaz and Soap don’t. This guy shows up and immediately fits in with everyone— except Soap. This dude *does not* like him. But he doesn’t make it known in front of the others. But Soap can tell.

That’s fine, he’s had to work with plenty of people he doesn’t get along with, it’s just another day at work. But this guy’s contempt for Soap just gets worse and worse. It starts with subtle comments, little digs at Soap that seem like jokes to other people, but the Second Lieutenant just gets this look in his eyes— Soap knows they’re meant to be insults.

It’s worse the first time Soap has to go out on a mission with the Second Lieutenant. *Ghost* was his partner, why did he have to work with *this guy*? Soap tries to keep things professional— he doesn’t joke over comms, he hardly speaks at all actually, just does his job to the best of his ability. But when he comes back, Price calls Soap into his office— something about “insubordination.” But Soap didn’t *do anything.* He can’t argue back, it’s a lieutenant’s word against his.

But things get worse. This guy is the definition of a “hostile work environment.” But Soap can’t do anything about it. Can’t say anything. He just has to take it, because he knows that Ghost and Price respect the LT2, and anytime Soap acts anything like his normal self, the LT2 is up his ass about it— actively *trying* to get him in trouble.

Eventually he just tries to be as straight-laced as possible, so much so that Ghost notices the weird behavior. Soap is too quiet, too rigid— he’s damn near a shell of his former self. Soap doesn’t spend time with anyone on the team any more, just spends most of his free time alone in his room. He draws way more, trying to distract himself. He’s anxious all the time now, waiting to get in trouble *again*. Waiting for a shitty comment *again*. Waiting for that second Lieutenant to finally convince Price to get Soap kicked off their team.

It reaches a breaking point one day.

It’s Soap and both lieutenants on a mission. Soap gets injured. Badly. Ghost is the first to reach him. Soap’s bleeding out, apologizing for fucking up; and is begging Ghost to not leave him there, to not make him die alone, to not kick him off the team— anything that comes to his mind. Nothing but desperate pleas and apologies. He promises to be better, to work harder, promises that he’ll do anything if Ghost and the LT2 don’t ask Price to make him leave.

Ghost doesn’t understand at first. Why would Johnny ever think that Simon would do any of that? He gets them all back to safety. When they finally get back to base, and once he ensures that Soap is safely in medical, he starts looking. He reads through every report the LT2 wrote, looks into every physical documentation of interactions between Soap and the LT2, and— despite his apprehension, Ghost finds Soaps journal and looks through it. His heart breaks.

His drawings are full of pain. The notes in the margins are full of quotes from the second Lieutenant, all of the shitty things he’s been saying to Soap for months. Ghost sees it all. Soap’s fear, his anxiety, his isolation, his desperation. This guy was harassing and hazing Soap right in front of him and he did *nothing*. This guy convinced Soap that he couldn’t trust Ghost or Price, that he couldn’t confide in them all of the shit he’s been dealing with.

He shows it all to Price. Everything he’s found. Price, too, is taken aback by it all. How could could he have missed this? How could they both have missed it? They knew *something* was wrong with Soap, but couldn’t figure out what. The answer was right in front of them the entire time.

They know that the second lieutenant needs to go.

Soap wakes up in an uncomfortable medical bed to find his captain and first lieutenant staring him down. He prepares for the worst.

But it doesn’t come.

*incoherent screaming*

THE ANGST! THE SELF HATE! GOD IT’S SO FUCKING BEAUTIFUL! AHHHHHHH!! GOD DAMN IT! I HAVE SO MANY FUCKING WIPS ALREADY! AHHHHHHHHHHH!!! YA’LL HAVE SUCH BEAUTIFUL MINDS AND IDEAS GOD! BEING SURROUNDED BY SUCH CREATIVE AND BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE!! AHHHHHH!! THE BEAUTY!! I CAN IMAGINE THE LT2 EVEN FLIRTING WITH GHOST TO PUSH SOAP AWAY! TRYING TO EVEN BEFRIEND GAZ AND COMPLETELY ISOLATE SOAP FROM EVERYONE! EVERYTHING SOAP DOES ISNT GOOD ENOUGH! SOAP BECOMING A LESS VIBRANT VERSION OF HIMSELF, THINKING THAT HE’S NOT GOOD ENOUGH! IT HURTS SO GOOD FUCKING HELL!!!

[necrotic-nephilim]

re: your thoughts on new52 version of jayroy because roy harper was done so dirty that I can’t stand that ship, but you can make it good and I appreciate it

I have a vague idea for a jayroy/outlaws rewrite that leans into roy’s pre52 characterization because honestly I think they could have a decent friendship, like you said Roy isn’t a stranger to working with people he morally disagrees with. Roy also has a habit of taking people under his wing when he think they need support (I miss grant) and I think that if he saw Jason at his worst, angry, violent and hurting, then he’d still try and help him even if he wasn’t his best friend’s little brother.

I think that a romantic relationship between them would be a little harder to justify when you keep to Roy’s original character, he knows a lot about trying to fix people with love and just how much it doesn’t work. sleeping together casually is one thing but dating is another, and rule number 2 for recovering addicts is don’t get into a new relationship, is it the same for recovering villains? He can’t be that person who takes advantage of someone at their lowest Or be a conscience for someone, talking them down from bad decisions. I imagine that Roy sets pretty firm boundaries early on, and Jason doesn’t push him on this since it’s supposedly just causal.

The best way to shake things up between the two of them is to add a third person to the mix lmao, things would never progress past the fuckbuddies stage without some drama. You’ve gotta add Dick or Tim or Helena or Donna or Bruce for some spice

first of all, for you to just passingly mention the idea of HelenaJayRoy without any further thoughts how DARE you anon that was the most enlightened thing you could've said- /lh

BUT YES I AGREE. i think Outlaws *could* have worked, which is the most frustrating thing about it. i don't think Kori was the right pick, simply bc *why was she there* but i do agree, you *could've* made Roy work. there's this belief in Outlaws that somehow Jason is the one saving and helping Roy get back on his feet and Roy is leaning on Jason. but for me to make it work, it'd *have* to be other way around. like you said, with Roy being the one trying to take Jason under his wing and set him on the right path.

bc when it comes to superhero teams, a lot of times you can shove just about anyone together under the right justification or circumstances. so Jason and Roy working together could *easily* be pulled off, i just think they needed another more grounded, street-level vigilante/anti-hero to balance them out instead of someone like Kori who either feels like the deus ex machina solving everything *or* incredibly nerfed so the plot doesn't just revolve her fixing things instantly. really a lot of picks could've worked, but i *love* the idea of Helena. just bc i'd give anything for DC to give us a proper comic team-up between Helena and Jason. on a surface they *seem* like they should work well- lethal justice, protector of the marginalized, driven by vengeance. but i could see them heavily clashing and arguing over schematics and each other's methodologies. so putting someone who doesn't believe in murder at all like Roy in the middle is fun. especially with Roy finally having some semblance of adult stability after his addiction and having a child, he'd naturally fall into the role of being the one in charge, trying to guide the others. he has a habit of wanting to help others get their lives back on track bc well, he knows how it feels to be at rock bottom and feel like everyone gave up on you. there's definitely levels where Roy could sympathize with Jason, and possibly even agree with him. Roy's storyline with addiction existed to be meta-commentary on how parents fail their children going through addiction by not providing communal support, so a lot of Jason's feelings on how he was failed by Bruce (and adult heroes fail their sidekicks as a whole) can be reflected in Roy's experiences. Jason's beliefs on how sidekicks shouldn't exist and superheroes don't do enough is something Roy could possibly even agree with. i would've *loved* to see an Outlaws run acknowledging that Roy is far more emotionally mature than Jason and trying to help Jason out as Jason doesn't want it.

and like the said, that makes the relationship more fun. bc even if feelings develop, Roy's not going to jump on them for fear of taking advantage of Jason and potentially backsliding Jason's progress they've made inch by inch. it makes their friendship and relationship far more slow and careful. and adding Helena, imo, is a lot of fun. bc while she agrees with Jason's lethality, she'd have a bit more emotional stability going into the team. this is a woman who has a full time day job as a teacher and has worked on the Birds of Prey. while she doesn't have the teenage sidekick experience, she certainly has a level of "real world" experience, and a closeness to growing up around crime and tragedy. while Helena also has her emotional misgivings, they're very different from Jason's. a lot of Helena's character is driven by feeling trapped as a little girl, paralyzed by fear, witnessing a tragedy she can't stop. and Huntress is her way to try and break free of that. she's running from her trauma in a way, where as Jason is running *at* it. that's the difference. Jason wants to boldly face his trauma in bloody ways and force everyone else to face it too, even if it means that's all he'll be, bc that's all he sees himself as anyway. Helena wants to escape it and prove she's bigger than it. she doesn't want it to be her defining trait. sure she got her vengeance, but she tried to move on from it and make her identity something more.

so i think she could provide a level of stability to the relationship in that she'd try to force Jason to move on from the worst of his feelings. his trauma is always going to follow him a little, but he can't keep letting it define him. especially when they're all trying to work together on a team. it makes the three of them getting together a lot of fun bc there's balance in all directions. Roy cares about them both and has getting very comfortable with working with them, and they all have clear, unspoken feelings. i think it's fun if Roy is trying so hard not to take advantage of Jason while Jason is pissed that Roy thinks Jason isn't in the mindspace to make his own decisions about what he wants. i think he'd make a move on Helena just to prove his point and get Roy to finally cave and join in. Roy knows Helena won't take Jason's shit and won't let Jason go off the deep end just bc he's upset, she's very no-nonsense about it all to contrast Roy's more gentle attempts to reasoning.

anyway now i have a new rarepair idea ty anon i'm in love with you. i usually say i don't ship Helena/Jason just bc i think they're too intense for each other, but with Roy in the mix there's a really good balance that makes it work *so* well. i'm going to be thinking about this forever.

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

complain about autistic tiktok hour again

(okay to rb just note i get very angry in this)

love seeing a tiktok by late diagnosed person saying “don’t compare late dx & early dx experiences” and “don’t come on my video talking about late dx experiences & tell me it would be so much harder for early dx people”

which like without context, yeah! late dx ppl early dx people have different experiences with their dx! and don’t derail other people venting about their own experience with your own! without context this critique sounds very warranted!

BUT. adding back in context which the late dx person make their video in…. you realize how much conversation shift.

the late dx person literally say “it would have been better if we had known earlier”—if they diagnosed earlier. and go on to say how much better it would be. so now you see how the “hey early dx people have it fucking hard too” is genuinely fucking reasonable, a much needed reminder.

“if you are early dx, it means that your autism was affecting other people to the point they need support dealing with you, and you may or may not have your support needs actually met, but us late dx people had to internalize our autism and not have support blah blah” AKA a subtle way of saying “but i have it worse” directly after saying “don’t compare experiences.”

it’s so fucking clear that some late dx, high masking (& lower support needs & level 1 autistic) have no fucking idea what autism spectrum actually means, because they think all early dx people are is someone who look exactly like them, who experience their autism the exact same way as them, who disabled by their autism the exact same way as them (maybe even with more privilege for example white & male)—but essentially exactly the same but only difference is just happens to be early diagnosed.

sure, some early dx people may be like that. but i guarantee you many many early dx people are not. fucking. like. that.

the reason why i say some late dx ppl think early dx ppl are exact same as them just diagnosed different times is because the rhetoric of you only early dx because your autism “affect other people to the point they need support dealing with you…” fucking consider. some people are early diagnosed because they fucking have speech delay, because they don’t talk until much later, or because they are still fucking nonspeaking as a teenager as adult maybe probably whole life. because they aren’t potty trained pass typical age. because they so disregulated they have daily violent meltdowns they harm self harm others. because they elope run into traffic. sure, these actions affect others, but consider: they affect the autistic person too. intensely. severely. have you considered that some autistic people need more support for themselves?? in “dealing” with themselves????? have you ever fucking experienced not being able to communicate any fucking want desire (yes, maybe even nonverbally!) and no one understand you (even if they try their best! which many don’t!!), how fucking frustrated they may be? because THAT is the reality of many life long nonspeakers who didn’t get access to communication through AAC later in life adolescence or adulthood.

have you ever fucking considered that people have different experiences because people are fucking marginalized to different degree and some people may be more marginalized than you??

you snarkily add the “may or may not” to “early dx people may or may not get their support needs met because severely affect other people blah blah” but we all know your tone and context means you actually mean to imply early dx people get more support while ALL late dx people don’t get any support. which is so fucking blatantly ignorant and false. who gets disproportionately dumped to neglectful abusive ableist group homes because their family either can’t or don’t want to deal with them, abusive conservatorship that strips you from all basic autonomy, who gets disproportionately restrained, sent to seclusion, institutionalized, heavily drugged, murdered by their family, given bleach to “cure autism,” etc? have you fucking looked at the autism industry the ABA industry in early 2000s 1990s or earlier, when many early dx people who are now adolescents or adults are born?

some late dx say “don’t compare struggles! don’t trauma olympics!” to any early dx person or higher support person yet imply or directly state “but i have it worse than you uwu” it’s fucking hypocritical. like please get off your ass and reflect on your own trauma and privilege.

(emphasizing on the some on some late dx people)

saying this as a not-early-diagnosed person (due to birth country etc unrelated reasons)

i’m so fucking angry i hate you

[wickedsnack]

Hi!! I wanted to mention that the reason Tumblr is changing is because they need to draw in new users!!

They kinda have to develop because they need people to give em money, and they've essentially accepted that most of the current user base would rather kill them than give them a dime.

i unfortunately know how corporations work but thank you!

i’m assuming this is in response to my tags about how the user base doesn’t want someone to develop the site; we want someone to maintain it.

since you came to me to politely explain why tumblr needs to progress as a company, i’m going to politely explain why tumblr repeatedly fails to progress as a company (as i am 29 and have been here half of my life). i’ve touched on this in another recent post of mine, but to expand on it a little, tumblr (the company) is facing a two-pronged issue here;

1. as you said, the current user base would rather kill them than give them a dime. this is partway true. on the one hand, we have the fact that much of the user base is SO BROKE they couldn’t spend money on this site if they wanted to. on the other hand, we have the company trying to sell us the same kind of shit other socmed sites sell, but tumblr (as we know) is not anything like other socmed sites.

in a normal situation where you have a largely “unwilling/unable to spend money” user base, you turn to ads. but, like my previous post explains, tumblr as a community is not friendly to advertisers. the last major attempt to make us more friendly to advertisers—the great porn ban—had the adverse effect of driving half the user base away. it becomes a lot harder to sell yourself as an advertiser if half as many people are seeing your site. which leads into the second part of the problem

2. the current user base doesn’t want a new user base. we especially don’t want a new user base that is more friendly to advertisers; the whole reason we’re here is because people like that have been unkind to us everywhere else.

you’ve seen joke posts about “keeping the rent low by firing shots” followed by some superwholock shit or “keep the rent low by calling my friends faggots”—they aren’t jokes. they are very real ways to keep tumblr from drawing in a new user base that would make this site as unkind to us as every other site is. they compare, in a joking manor, making this site more advertiser-friendly to gentrifying a neighborhood, and in some ways it is similar. (though author’s note here to say that gentrifying a neighborhood is obviously WAAAAYYYYYY worse than making a website advertiser-friendly. community is important, but housing is a necessity.) it’s taking a place where an “Othered” community is safe and “fixing it up” so that it’s easier to sell, for the profit of a third party.

when i say we don’t want someone to develop the site we want someone to maintain it, i say it with the knowledge that it will 1) come at the cost of profits and therefore 2) never fucking happen. but a bitch can dream.

(as an aside i don’t think it’s true that the current user base would never give tumblr money. i think tumblr’s just largely barking up the wrong tree for what to sell. the fake internet check marks did numbers���maybe not as many numbers as tumblr wanted, but it did do numbers. merch i think was a bad idea��few of us want to talk about our tumblrs in the real world let alone advertise them, plus merch has a lower profit margin than, say, the badges, because they have a physical cost associated with them. they try to sell subscriptions when half of us came back to escape a subscription. they’re trying to sell to us based on what’s worked on other socmed sites when we have proven time and time again that shit doesn’t work on us.)

[fineinkline]

Swing

Chapter Four: Only Angel

Lil detour from the main plot, oopsies. We'll get back on track soon folks! Maybe! Who knows! Thank you for all the likes! I really appreciate it! I haven't written fic for any fandom in a really long time so I know I'm a little rusty and it means a lot that you all are sticking by while I get back into a groove. Thank you! If you want to follow me on Ao3 my user is the same as it is here @fineinkline

---------------

After an hour of convincing Robin and going over their relationship from the moment it started until now, she believed them. “I still don’t see why you didn’t just tell us,” she said, getting into Steve’s passenger seat after he offered to take her home, “Or tell me at least.” Steve rolled his eyes for what felt like the millionth time that evening as he buckled himself in and waited for Robin to do the same. He turns his head to watch Eddie get into his van and pull out of the driveway and down the street before putting his car in reverse and backing out. “It’s not that simple Robin. If we had just told everyone then it would be different.” Eddie could explain this part better. He could explain how telling everyone meant that there would be more expectations put on them and they just wanted to figure out themselves, together, as a couple before everyone else tried to figure out for them. “Different how? You know that the kids wouldn’t have a problem with it, Dustin would be thrilled that his “cool adult males” are practically his dads now! And you wouldn’t have to constantly be worried about looking ‘spilling the beans’! How can ‘different’ be bad?” She asks, throwing her hands up and turning in the passenger seat to look at him fully. “I don’t know how to explain it, Robs. I just wasn’t ready to tell everyone. If we told people then not only are we coming out about our relationship, but then that means I would have to come out too and- I don’t know- it’s just-” he was mumbling and stumbling through his words. God, Eddie was so much better at putting these thoughts and feelings into words and Steve couldn’t remember any of them right now. Robin stopped his stuttering by putting a gentle hand on his knee and giving it a quick squeeze before saying, “I get it. I’m sorry and I get it. I guess I’m just a little mad that my best friend is in his first homosexual relationship before I have even kissed a girl and he didn’t even tell me about it!” She chuckled lightly, but Steve knew that she wasn’t truly upset. “Sorry if I ever made it harder for both of you to tell me.” She said softly, leaning back in her seat probably starting to replay every interaction she’s had with the both of them since Eddie got out of the hospital. “It’s Nancy.” Steve blurts out. If they are telling Robin the truth tonight, might as well not leave anything out. “What is?” She asked, eyes darting around trying to connect invisible dots to make the conversation make sense again. “Nancy is making it harder for us to tell. It’s not like she’s doing it on purpose, I mean- I just don’t want her to think that I never actually loved her, because I did. I mean you know that,” Steve was rambling now, but Robin sat there and listened as Steve finally got this off his chest, “I just know she’ll find some way to make me feel stupid about the whole thing.” 

Steve knows that Nancy doesn’t try to make him feel dumb, but she does. It’s the way she tried to help him study and then would look at him funny if he didn’t know the answers to what she called “basic questions”. It’s the way she would edit his essays, covering his pages in red circles and crossed out sections with question marks in the margins. He knows she was only trying to help, but the way she spoke reminded him of how his dad spoke to him when he was in trouble or didn’t do something right. There had been a time when he loved Nancy for the way she was able to find little mistakes and fix them or research something until she found the exact answer she needed, but then she started doing that with him. Finding all his little mistakes and flaws and trying to fix them. Trying to pull answers out of him that he didn’t have. All he did was try to love her and for some reason that wasn’t enough for her. He’s come to terms with that now, he has truly moved past that phase of his life, but he still isn’t ready to face Nancy when it comes to this. 

When Steve got home he saw that Eddie’s van was pulled up again outside of his house and Eddie was leaned up by the front door smoking. As Steve pulled into the driveway, he saw Eddie drop his cigarette in the grass and stomp it out with the toe of his Reeboks. Steve didn’t think that they had made any plans for tonight and thought maybe Eddie forgot something at the house. It was late in the evening now and the only light on Eddie were the two lights by the front door. Steve took a moment to look at Eddie just standing there waiting for him to come home. His curls had frizzed up a little throughout the day and the way the light was hitting him made it look like there was a halo around his head. His checks looked flushed in the summer heat and Steve knew exactly where the freckles were sprinkled on his sun kissed cheeks. He was wearing a t-shirt from some band that Steve had never heard of, but he had cut off the sleeves and through the arm holes so you could see his sides. As he stood there, he shoved his hands in the pockets of tattered gray sweatpants and rocked back and forth on his heels, the smirk on his face growing by the second. Steve got out of the car and called out as he closed his door, “Back already? Did you forget something?” He had started walking across the lawn to the front door when Eddie started his little run to him, arms spread wide. The older boy knocked into him, arms wrapping around his waist and burying his face in Steve’s neck, taking in a deep breath. “Yeah, I did,” Eddie sighed happily. “What did you leave?” Steve asks, moving his arms to wrap around Eddie’s shoulders, one hand on the back of Eddie’s head as he buries his face in Eddie’s halo of hair. “You.” Eddie giggled it out and placed a kiss on Steve’s neck, swaying them from side to side. “Come on,” Steve said, pulling away from Eddie’s embrace to grab his hand and lead him back into the house, “Sleep at mine tonight? Or would you rather go back to yours?” Steve is already heading up the stairs to his room to start packing a bag. Ever since they started having these little sleepovers, they have always been at Eddie’s. Even before Eddie had a real mattress they would still stay in his room in a pile of blankets and pillows on the floor in the middle of the room. Even though he knew Eddie would always pick his place, Steve would offer up his house anyways. “I was actually thinking we could stay here tonight,” Eddie said shyly from the doorway to Steve’s room. Steve froze mid tossing a pair of jeans into his usual overnight bag, “I have my bag in my van,” he scratched the back of his neck and studied the carpet in his boyfriend’s room trying to look anywhere but in his eyes, “but if you wanna just go back to mine we can. Uncle Wayne has already left for his shift.” Before he could process what was happening, Steve was grabbing his waist and tossing him onto the bed. He made a surprised oof sound as he hit the mattress and Steve crawled his way up the bed to hover over Eddie. Once he had braced one hand on either side of Eddie’s head, he leaned in to start placing kisses all over Eddie’s cheeks, forehead, nose, jaw, eyelids until Eddie was wiggling under him and had descended into a fit of laughter. Steve finally leaned in and pressed their lips together and Eddie lifted his head a little to meet him halfway. As Eddie’s hands came up to Steve’s waist, he ran his tongue along Steve’s top lip as a way of asking for more. Steve gave him more, letting his teeth graze along Eddie’s bottom lip before giving it a gentle bite. “You taste like red pepper flakes.” Steve giggles into Eddie’s lips before pulling away to look at Eddie. His hair was splayed out around his head and the soft lamplight in the room gave him that hazy halo look again. 

Sometimes Steve wondered if Eddie was an angel who had come down to earth to save them all. He disguised himself as a gruff metalhead with a reputation for Satanism as a way to throw people off, but really he was on a mission to make sure Steve and Dustin and Robin and Lucas and the rest of the party made it out of all this Upside Down shit alive. There was a time earlier in the summer when Eddie had taken off his shirt in front of Steve so his bandages could be changed. His back was facing Steve and when he pulled the shirt over his head, the way the muscles in his back moved and flexed, Steve could’ve sworn he saw angel wings. And then there are times like tonight where Eddie’s hair catches the light just right and Steve can see his halo. It makes Steve wonder, if Eddie is an angel (and Steve firmly believes he is), then why would he ever choose to be with Steve? How is it that Steve Harrington, Keg King Steve, Steve whose love is bullshit, Steve who is bullshit, Steve who no one would ever believe is a good babysitter, how is it that he gets to have these moments with Eddie. Whatever the reason was and whatever god had sent Eddie to him, he was thankful for it. 

“What are you thinking so hard about?” Eddie asks, reaching up to push away hair that has fallen into Steve’s eyes. “You’re an angel.” Steve breathes out, eyes half-lidded like Eddie’s presence alone made him drunk. Eddie chuckles as Steve lowers himself to cover Eddie, his chin resting on his chest so he doesn’t have to stop staring at the angel under him. “You should see yourself. You look pretty angelic to me, sweetheart.” Both his hands have moved to play with Steve’s hair now, making sure to brush it back and out of face every once in a while. “No, you’re a real angel.” Steve’s eyes are getting heavier and heavier with every blink and the day he’s had is catching up with him. Here, with his angel’s hands in his hair and the view of his chocolate eyes and soft curls and a smile that always started on the left side of his mouth and grew to stretch across his face. He was happy to fall asleep in his angel’s arms, knowing he was there to take care of him. Eddie hums a little in response, “Then as an angel, I can’t let you go to sleep in jeans.” Eddie shifts onto his side, effectively moving Steve onto his side as well. As Steve begins the struggle of trying to wiggle out of his jeans without actually getting up, Eddie gives him a hand and pulls off his shoes and socks before finally tugging the jeans off his legs. Steve can hear the thunk of Eddie’s shoes hitting the floor as he kicks them off by the bed. He can feel Eddie trying to yank the blankets out from under Steve’s body and he lifts his hips and legs slightly to make it easier for him. When Eddie finally turns off the lamp and gets the covers on top of them, Steve pulls Eddie back into him, burying his face into his chest again and tangling their legs together. He starts to press lazy kisses into Eddie’s chest and neck as a thank you, “You’re my angel,” Steve mumbles, settling himself even further into the mattress as sleep overtakes him, “I love you, my angel.” He finally lets his eyes close for the night and tunes out the rest of the world knowing that he’s safe in Eddie’s arms. He is so content and peaceful that he doesn’t even seem to realize that that was the first time he had ever said I love you to Eddie and he wasn’t even awake to hear Eddie say it back.

[bc-johnson]

The Inconvenience of Drama

I guess I just don’t understand what story the Mandalorian is telling? 

Season 1 had the typical “Wolf and Cub” mixed with a traditional Western. Hardass man becomes slightly less hardass, learns to love, etc. 

Season 2 had a “what’s best for the parent isn’t always best for the child,” Din tries to make a better life for Grogu with his “people,” even if it hurts him.

Season 3 seems to be “Din sees some stuff, starfighters are cool.” 

Like, the season isn’t over so obviously the narrative arc is harder to map, but I feel like this show takes every possible opportunity to do the least interesting thing possible. When Grogu left, the most interesting season 3 would be to explore Din WITHOUT Grogu but with the lessons he’s learned in season 1 and season 2. Then they just brought the little dude back on a different terrible show that no one watched?

What they should have done was keep the drama of season 2′s ending, but do a Luke/Grogu/Jedi Academy show. That way Din’s decision still holds and season 2 actually mattered, but the audience still gets to see Grogu in a different show (which also becomes a hook for that show). So you can have your corporate desires and your story, too, but for some reason they did neither. 

So now Grogu is back, but there doesn’t really seem to be a story there. He’s just gonna be Din’s kid now. Din is sorta just content. They’ve chosen the least dramatic path possible. 

And now with the Darksaber. They seemed to be setting up an confrontation between Bo and Din, where two marginal friends and actual allies have this nearly literal Sword of Damacles hanging over their heads. They’re going to have to fight, both of them know it. 

That’s drama! Story is drama! Milk the drama! They want to be friends or allies (or more?!?!), but they literally can’t because her ambition conflicts with his honor. The audience gets to feel the tension knowing this won’t work, they will have to duel at some point, and they’ll have to both mean it. 

Then they just...side-stepped it? “She saved me guys, trust me, here’s the saber.” Like, are we going for convenience or drama? 

Is Mandalorian the story of the guy who is kinda friends with the person who unites his people? What are we doing here? 

Of course, the answer is “we’re making an endless loop of shows that introduce other shows that introduce other shows,” but its so transparent that it’s killing the enjoyment. I don’t want to watch the next thing if it’s just a commercial for the next thing. Every show should stand alone, or at the very least, every show should actually have a story. 

Has this ALWAYS been done? Yes, of course. But it used to be done with a little subtlety. Sure, Winter Soldier introduces Falcon, but it’s in service to Cap’s story: he’s finding veterans to connect to, he easily inspires people to join him, etc. Falcon doesn’t suddenly become the main character of the Winter Soldier. He doesn’t beat the Winter Soldier in the climax while Cap cheers on.

I’m for a Bo Katan show, I’d watch that in a heartbeat. But just, like, make that show. Don’t spend six episodes of another show sneaking in the first season of the Bo Katan show. 

What does Din want? Season 3 has yet to even hint that he wants anything. He’s literally a protagonist with no desires or apparent agency. I get that this is a franchise for selling toys, but, like, there used to at least be the bare bones of a story there. 

Boba Fett suffered from the same problem. I had no idea what he wanted, or WHY he wanted to do the things he was doing. 

Star Wars plays in archetypes, that was always the fun of it. Big cliches slamming together at high volume. But, also basic stuff like three act structure, protagonist wanting something, drama. We can do this. It’s not asking a lot. 

[nickgerlich]

Five Hours Or Less

People have laughed at Jeff Bezos for about as long as he has been in business with Amazon. When he launched Prime in 2005, people scoffed about why we might need something in two days. When he started talking about drones in 2013, people laughed even harder, and some people threatened to shoot them down from the sky.



Prime is still with us and going strong, and drones are starting to take off. But not everything can be carried by them, necessitating ground transportation, which Amazon also wants to happen faster and faster. Remember last week when we discussed Target’s sortation facilities to facilitate faster order fulfillment? Now Amazon has responded by increasing its sub-same-day delivery (SSD) to include 100,000 items. The goal is to never let more than five hours elapse between order placement, order picking, and order delivery, all within a 60-minute radius of a distribution center.



Not bad, once you factor in urban traffic, because SSD is only going to happen—for now, at least—in the nation’s largest cities. Think one million and up.



Amazon already has in place, or is planning to build, special smaller order fulfillment centers that only handle SSD orders. The sprawling million or more square feet DCs we see in industrial sectors along freeways and near airports will remain, but for all of the other things that Amazon sells. Basically, the new smaller warehouses will almost be like a convenience store equivalent.

Of course, there are some issues, like whether extra charges may be incurred by customers. After all, getting something delivered in a few hours comes at a price for the company. Walmart has already made such promises with its Walmart+ option. And then there is the thorny issue that many of the workers making this all happen are actually in the gig economy. This means they are not employees of the online vendor, and thus do not receive benefits. Individual states could weigh in on this in a crushing kind of way. I’m looking at you, California, as is everyone else, because you’ve already made noises about doing so.

I am most interested in the product selection that will comprise the 100,000 SKU assortment. It will have to be those items that are most frequently purchased, and typically with a current—and sometimes pressing—need. But these items are typically on the lower end of the price spectrum, and therefore don’t leave a whole lot of room for hefty margins. Volume could make up for that, but you have to actually get that volume first.

As for those gig workers, they will likely be driving personal vehicles instead of shiny new Amazon EV delivery vans. I’ve seen them before. They have a magnetic sign on their door, and they zoom around suburbia as fast as possible, because their paycheck is dependent upon their own ability to maintain delivery volume.



Then we have to think about a society that has become so busy and/or enamored of rapid delivery of everything. Are we really that busy? Or lazy, as some might say? Maybe I have it too good, with a Walmart and a United Supermarket both within a couple of minutes of my parking space. That’s pretty convenient for me, and I get what I want right now. Of course, it may mean I have to delay my workout by 15-30 minutes that day, but so be it.

And never mind that I will never be able to take advantage of SSD anyway, because of living outside a major urban area. Sorry, Amarillo and Canyon peeps: this will never happen here. You’ll have to move to Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, or Houston. And I suspect you would appreciate it greatly, because you won’t have to venture out into the never-ending traffic.

Now that I think about it, I’m rather happy that I don’t need SSD. I’ve got pretty much everything I need at my fingertips. Anything else can wait two days, just like I have been doing since Prime was introduced.

And don’t worry about drones out here on the High Plains. The way the wind was blowing two days ago makes that kind of thing a losing proposition. 

I think we’d all be having the last laugh on Mr. Bezos.

I mean, unless he could harness an 80mph wind to his advantage.

Dr “Dust Gets In Your Eyes“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[gun-witch]

Venting about “Acceptable Targets” and Bigotry.

Fair warning, this is me just speaking my mind with no real concern for formatting or making any kind of coherent point. I’m just venting.

And a TLDR if you don’t wanna read it all: There’s a problem in Leftist spaces with deciding certain bigotries are okay, I used antitheists going from attacking genuinely harmful kinds of Christian faith to attacking all Christians to attacking marginalized religions as a way to explain the issue, but this happens in many other ways.

I’ve been trying to reduce my time on twitter lately for mental health reasons. It’s the kind of site that just highlights the worst kind of people imaginable. When I made the account I currently use, I did my best to block liberally and curate things as much as I could, because I know twitter is just an awful website full of awful people.

For a while, it really seemed to work. The times politics came up on my feed, it was like it is here, curated, people having reasonable reactions to the horrible things that happen in the world. Yeah I also got into the occasional argument with right wingers, but honestly, it’s easy to disengage when you know they’re just not operating in a worldview that remotely resembles reality.

A conservative promoting racism, transphobia, homophobia, etc. is really easy to disregard because they’re so ridiculous, that any sensible person isn’t going to take them seriously. You can just post information on why they’re wrong and move on, it’s very easy to disregard what they think about you.

But, more recently, I’ve noticed bigotry creeping its way into leftist spaces (online, I’ve yet to see anything of this outside of the internet). Sometimes it’s the familiar, TERF talking points dressed up as progressive. I’m sure you all know the type, people who wanted to exclude nonbinary people when that was “new”, people who want to exclude neopronouns or xenogenders, or otherkin or whatever else. They’re usually really obvious, and having been one of these people in the past I know exactly what to say, I just tell them what made me realize the harm in gatekeeping and exclusionist thought. Usually, people ignore them, because Leftists usually know better.

Usually.

If you know me outside of tumblr (which most of you do, I’m not exactly big on this site, and I don’t want to be either), you know that antitheism is THE bigotry that pisses me off. Not because it affects me, I can write off transphobia, acephobia, etc. pretty easily even when they’re actively making my life harder, I’m just good at not letting things get to me emotionally. The real reason antitheism gets under my skin is that it’s just different enough from the big “isms” that a lot of genuinely good and well meaning people fall for it.

See, when I inevitably check the profile of someone being nasty over religion on twitter, saying that because I’m a priestess I’m the same as a Christian priest and therefore naturally evil, I often have a lot of mutuals with them, and they’re otherwise an outspoken leftist.

Antitheism is something that a well meaning atheist who sees the very real harm done by the biggest religions in the world can fall for. On the surface of it, it makes sense. A surface level reading of the Bible, the Torah, the Quran, the “big 3″ religious texts in the eyes of many activists, would have you believe they promote some really nasty stuff. If you don’t know that the Bible was written as a compilation of conflicting beliefs, and that cherry picking is a feature and not a bug, you could be forgiven for thinking Christianity is evil by default.

And on top of that, you experience hate and violence from Catholicism, American Protestantism, and so many other sects. Eventually that violence just becomes “Christianity” to you.

Then it becomes “Abrahamic” religions, because to the uneducated, Abrahamic means Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and as far as you know, these religions are identical. You haven’t done the research to know how ridiculous this idea is, and you won’t because nobody has prompted you to.

Then, because the only preachers you hear are from Christianity (which you’ve already decided represents two other completely different faiths), and you never talk religion with someone who isn’t trying to convert you (really, why would you?), that violence you experienced becomes “religion”.

Religion becomes synonymous with conservativism, fascism, and every other political ideology that we rightfully write off as harmful. So then when you meet a Gnostic, a Jew, a Pagan, a Satanist, a Native American who believes in the religion that’s intrinsically tied to their culture? You look at them and you see a Nazi.

The very important aversion to hateful ideologies is hijacked, you begin to hate marginalized groups in the name of opposing bigotry.

It gets worse though, because from there, antitheism becomes a gateway bigotry of sorts. I’m sure everyone’s heard the statement “religion is a mental illness” at this point. The antitheist becomes so attached to their bigotry, that when they realize a religion isn’t harmful directly, ableism comes in to save them from introspection.

This happened on a large scale a few years ago, in the mid 2010s we saw a lot of youtube channels and social media pages dedicated to opposing religion turn their sights on “social justice warriors”. I remember these channels promoting this hip and new thing called “the alternative right”, what they described as a secular form of fascism, a “good” fascism, because they were so deep into hating religion that they forgot why religion was bad to begin with.

This isn’t unique to antitheism by any means, like I said before it happens with exclusionary movements like transmedicalism, anti-mspec crap, and one could even argue it’s got something to do with how transphobic “feminism” rose to prominence.

I think more people should be aware of how radicalization happens, more critical of what we consider “acceptable targets”. Racism isn’t bad because of the race aspect, race is bad because prejudice itself is wrong, attacking groups of people who lack social power is wrong.

Because it isn’t the big corrupt churches you hurt when you label all religion evil. It’s the marginalized faiths. The Pagans, the Jews, the Muslims, the sects of Christianity which do genuinely preach love and compassion. Focus your criticisms on groups in power, not people who seem similar at a glance.

And this applies everywhere, transphobia and exclusionism toward transmasc people also come from a fundamental misunderstanding of what male privilege is. I’m really only using religion and antitheism as a vehicle to talk about a more general issue because it’s the one that’s on my mind.

[jaitropdonglets]

The Highly Sensitive Person is Autistic Autistic Autistic

The sooner we admit that HSP is masked autism the better.

6min read

Most people, if not all people, who identify as HSPs are autistic. They don’t realize it because most people don’t understand what autism is really like. I didn’t until two years ago when I got diagnosed.

People find the stigma around autism to be distasteful so they reject that autistic traits could pertain to them. Autism horrifies them because the unknown is scary and being marginalized is hard.

Those of you who identify with HSP and deny you have social or communication differences are likely so highly masking (hiding your autistic traits) that you think you can’t be autistic because you are social and have a lot of friends. So was I and so did I.

If you look closely, you may find that you aren’t quite as accepted in your social circles as you think you are or you just sort of float from group to group with the appearance that you belong.

If you admit it to yourself, you will realize no one really knows the real you because you keep that person hidden. You may not realize you are autistic, but you know something is off which is why you have latched onto the Highly Sensitive Person label because it fits.

It fits because it’s autism.

The Highly Sensitive Person is an illusion and its marginal acceptance in psychological spaces does not make it valid. The practitioners and researchers who believe that HSP is a thing in and of itself are using a very outdated model of autism with which to compare and contrast.

The papers and articles I’ve read that claim there are differences, all claim that autistic people lack empathy, are unable to read facial expressions, never understand social situations, and blah blah blah repeating myths about autism that have either been debunked in recent research or do not apply to all autistic people on the spectrum.

I cannot reiterate enough that autism is a spectrum and that autistic people have more varied presentations than previously thought. That is why so many women and AFAB nonbinary people are being diagnosed now.

We were missed because they didn’t think we could be autistic and now we know better.

The Highly Sensitive Person profile was created at a time (the 90s) when those assigned female at birth were not believed to be autistic. People like Temple Grandin were considered an aberration.

Few researchers or clinicians realized, until the last 5–10 years, what chameleons some of us autistic folks can be. Countless numbers of autistic people have gone stealth for decades and many of us — about 80 percent of autistic people — are still undiagnosed.

We don’t realize we are autistic because we have masked ourselves so well that even we can’t see it. After all, to see it would potentially cause the house of cards we’ve built, to fall, and then where would we be?

Society forces autistics who can mask to hide who we are and how we move, think, and communicate because we are ridiculed, rejected, infantilized, and worse if we don’t hide our “odd” behaviors.

We have to keep safe. We want to be liked. We become compliant.

Life is harder for those of us who are sensitive people with undiagnosed autism. We are working harder to just do the basic things, and we do not realize that this is not the case for everyone.

We might be hyperempathetic and not realize that current research shows that a huge proportion of autistic people are.

People who come into my comments and argue with me because I say that HSP is just an ableist term for autism, always tell me that they can’t be autistic because they don’t have social and communication difficulties.

And to that, I always say that I thought that as well.

Incorrectly assuming that I didn’t, is why after 5 decades of going in and out of severe autistic burnout (which looked like depression), going in and out of psych wards, working hard in therapy that never helped, and losing friendships, I finally figured out that I am autistic.

HSPers also say, well I can’t be autistic because I don’t have meltdowns. But you might be having shutdowns instead and not know it.

You might get migraines from sensory overwhelm and go to bed or you might freeze like a deer in headlights and go quiet for a while. Those episodes can be autistic shutdowns. They can look like that for some people.

Dear HSPer, until you thoroughly research masked autism, read a book like I Think I Might Be Autistic by Cynthia Kim or Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, or interact with autistic people, you won’t truly know if you could be autistic or not.

I once identified as HSP and I was very very wrong because the psychiatric community was very very wrong and refused to see that female autistics exist. It’s time to face the music.

Highly Sensitive Person is an illusion. HSP is autism.

Elaine Aron, the clinical psychologist who created the HSP label, literallybased her criteria for the Highly Sensitive Person on autistic family members. She didn’t know they were autistic at the time but they were later diagnosed autistic. Therefore, Highly Sensitive Person traits are autistic traits.

Elaine Aron has admitted that she does not study autism, and it shows.

Aron refuses to engage with autistic autism researchers and clinicians who criticize her concept of HSP and call her out for using an outdated profile of autism to contrast with her concept of HSP. That is telling.

Why would she? She has built an entire industry around the concept. She has sold countless books and workshops. She gets attention and makes loads of cash. She has a vested interest in maintaining that HSP is not autism.

White, middle to upper-class women especially love her concept of the HSP because then they don’t have to lose face and admit they are struggling. Their perfect, whitewashed social media version of their lives does not have to be “tarnished” by a stigmatized disability.

Aron avoids autistic people because as long as she does, she doesn’t have to address her biases and ableism, or the fact that she might also be autistic. After all, autism is genetic and runs in families.

She insists that HSP folks don’t withdraw from the world and hyperfocus like autistic people do but monotropism, which has to do with the narrow hyperfocus and intense interests that autistic people have, is a trickster

I have been monotropic my whole life and people just thought I was very studious as I sat at my computer, had my nose in a book, or sat making art for hours without getting up to pee or have something to eat. I just had my “little obsessions” as my spouse called it.

I recently took an online assessment of monotropism and I’m more monotropic than 88 percent of autistics. I never realized how much I was hyperfocusing on interests and neither did anyone else around me.

Aron claims that HSPers do not withdraw from stimuli but can instead tolerate them for a time before it gets to be too much. As if autistic people can’t also be like that. Some of us can most definitely do that.

I’m formally diagnosed by an autistic professional, and I can tolerate a certain level of an offending stimulus until I can’t anymore and then I will get angry and start yelling at everyone or start crying inconsolably (those are meltdowns).

For decades, I rationalized away my sensitivities because I had no choice. I blamed my sensory issues on POTS or on just having sensitive skin and allergies.

I told myself I was just particular about things and called myself “quirky”. I told myself that I just have a phobia about going barefoot. I just have a phobia of heights. I am just agoraphobic because of trauma. I just like comfortable clothes because I am practical.

No, I was having sensory issues because I was autistic and I had no language or blueprint for autism that didn’t look like the classic white male, low empathy, socially withdrawn, train-loving autistic (this profile is valid and I am not making fun of it) that was fed to us all these years.

HSPers need to know that they are autistic because not knowing damages your health and can render you permanently disabled.

One day you might go into autistic burnout from pushing yourself too far and you will not recover. Some highly masking people have had heart attacks because of how damaging the stress of masking is to our bodies.

An undiagnosed autistic person may completely give up on life as a result of stress and isolation they don’t understand because they have no context.

Holding on to the outdated label Highly Sensitive Person is no longer useful now that we know there is such a thing as masking one’s autism.

[kudzucraft]

This is personal thinking/ranting so I’ll put it under a cut, sorry ^^; tw for suicidal ideation

This is some idle, uh, journaling/ranting I guess. Just wanted to say it into the void: I really wish that people would stop saying/spreading around this idea that “we are all responsible for countless deaths/endless harm, indirectly through our every action as participants in capitalism/our current system, so technically we’re all murderers/awful people” or whatever—because while to a certain extent it may be true (our systems perpetrate violence and we have no choice but to participate in them in order to survive, so we indirectly support those systems) it redirects the blame to place a huge burden of moral guilt on individuals rather than the systems actually at fault. Like, maybe that sufficiently motivates some people toward political action, to fix the brokenness? But I feel like the end result is mostly ennui and despair.

For me, at least, and I imagine people like me, it just makes me feel hopeless, and deepens my own sense of worthlessness. There’s enough self-harm and negative worth in the world. Saying “you’re responsible for this through your existence” doesn’t help. It’s…well, I’ll be frank. For people with a history of suicidal tendencies (raises hand), it’s two inches from “if you didn’t exist, you wouldn’t be a drain on the system. Why don’t you just die so that there will be marginally less suffering in the world?” (Hurts a lot more if you’ve dealt with disability, too.) Obviously it’s not intended to cause harm! But it does make it a hell of a lot harder to engage in activism when one of the “motivating quotes” is “you can never do anything good/your very existence causes harm.” And it’s not exactly the kind of thing that people trigger tag, so it’s hard to avoid… People tend to use it as humor, honestly, but it’s hard to see the humor when it’s part of a mindset that I, personally, have been trying to overcome for most of my life so that I can see myself as a Whole Person who deserves to live, rather than a burden.

Augh. Maybe it’s just a personal trigger I need to learn to fuckin cope with. I do appreciate proactive rallies for change, like “these specific businesses/movements are responsible for X amount of harm, and we can bring them down through collective action! Here’s what we’ve done so far!” Nihilism is also just unfortunately prevalent in leftist circles. So be it I guess. 🤷‍♀️

[fiercynn]

please show me exactly where i said you shouldn't vote or who you should vote for, either here or in my other post that clearly neither of you read? literally what i said was "stop calling voting for biden 'harm reduction'" and, in the other post, "stop lecturing marginalized people who are saying they won't vote for biden". but even those simple things are apparently too hard for you to respect, because you are so fixated on the idea of trump that you are willing to let biden get away with literally anything, and you refuse to see that by both sanitizing his actions and negating people's right to threaten to withhold their vote from him, you are part of the problem of him continuing to act this way.

there was literally no time within biden's presidency where it was possible to criticize him without people like you jumping in to say "but you have to still vote for him in 2024 because trump is worse!!!!" despite the fact that the vast majority of americans and democrats (up to 75% in july 2022) have been saying for years that we didn't want biden to run for reelection (more on that here). so why the fuck would biden change what he's doing when any criticism of him is drowned out by the chorus of people who are ready to say they'll vote for him no matter what?

the fact that @mermer404 think saying "i won't vote for a president who is genociding palestinians" is a "nebulous principle" says a lot about you and who you care about, frankly. i am also literally in all of those categories that you listed – i'm a queer brown disabled woman. you wanna know how i became disabled? because in spring 2022, the TSA – led by the biden administration – dropped the mask mandate for air travel, and as a result i, who had been incredibly careful about isolating and taking protective measures for the whole pandemic, caught covid for the first time in june 2022 from a family member who got it while flying, and for me it turned into long covid. i've now had covid twice more as biden lets it run rampant and dismantles our public health infrastructure. i'm literally in bed as i type this because i'm too sick to get up.

and what exactly do you hope to achieve by condescending to people who criticize biden? do you know how hard it is to get people to vote? i do, because i've worked on campaigns, including for a democratic presidential candidate. on the presidential campaign i worked on more than a decade ago, the stats we were given were that, just to get people who are already likely democrats but who maybe aren't regular voters to vote, you need to phonebank them ten times and/or show up at their door to canvass at least four times, in order to get them out to vote. and that's for people who already agree with you on who to vote for! do you know how much harder it is to persuade someone to change their mind about who to vote for? and do you really think that marginalized people who have decided not to vote for biden have done so without remembering was trump was like, and without thinking about it deeply and coming to what was most likely a very painful decision about it?

by lecturing people who are suffering on why we should vote for biden, instead of taking our concerns seriously, you are telling us that our pain from what biden is actually doing right now – and our efforts to do something about it by publicly threatening to withhold our vote – don’t matter as much to you as you feeling secure that trump is not going to win. not only is that going to make you fail at your goal of convincing us to vote for biden, but it is going to make it hard for you to be in allyship or solidarity with us on other forms of political action – which i guarantee most of us are taking, because we understand that voting can never be your only political action – either, because why would we believe your sincerity if you can’t simply listen, empathize, and not condescend to begin with?

you honestly have a better chance of making a difference by turning all your electoral attention to demanding better from your candidates than you do of convincing people who have already decided against biden. and that's actually the ethical thing to do, considering it is not us who are, you know, responsible for mass death and genocide. so please go do that instead and leave us alone.

oh my fucking god can people stop coopting the term "harm reduction". i know language can change but i refuse to let this term change into the literal opposite meaning just so people can justify their decision to vote for a genocidaire.

harm reduction is literally, meaningfully, about reducing existing risk of harm. a person who uses drugs is at risk of disease or illness because they only have access to dirty needles? provide them with a needle exchange program to make it safer for them. a teen who is sexually active is at risk of becoming pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted infection? provide them with sex ed and protective devices like condoms or dental dams to allow them to have safe sex.

and yes, there is a part of harm reduction that is aimed at not moralizing about the behavior that you're trying to reduce harm from. but if you're a progressive - as most of the people lecturing us about "harm reduction" purport to be - you should already understand that these behaviors are not ethically bad in and of themselves. it is not inherently unethical to use drugs or be sexually active as a teen, so the fact that harm reduction efforts could "encourage" that behavior is also not unethical! if you think that it is, then you're actually a conservative!

and, importantly, the people who benefit from harm reduction were only at risk of harming themselves in the first place. so helping someone make those activities safer for themselves is not only reducing the risk of harm to that person, but, in doing so, it is not increasing the risk of harm to anyone else either.

voting is giving your active support to a candidate, and thus to that candidate's platform. so please tell me how giving your vote to a president who is actively driving a genocide, perpetuating a pandemic, funding cop cities and a border wall, and driving up deportations - none of which he has pledged to stop if reelected - is reducing existing risk of harm? because harm reduction also isn't "choosing an option that you believe is better than the hypothetical even worse alternative". and voting for biden is, in fact, increasing the existing risk of the harm that he is currently enacting on other people, and encouraging his despicable behavior!

if coopting the term "harm reduction" is the only thing making you feel okay about your decision to vote for biden despite all the people who are dead, disabled, deported, or destitute because of him, then honestly, that seems like a you problem. STOP COOPTING THE TERM.

(and if you feel the urge to respond with something along the lines of "but biden's just doing his best! i'm just telling people to vote for him because i'm scared of trump!" then please at least read this post as well before you say anything to me about it)

[thebad---catholic]

Anti-voting rhetoric will be the death of the left. Literally.

Not a single fucking Republican voted to protect roe. It was fucking overturned in the first place bc trump got three Supreme Court appointments.

Every fucking thing wrong in this country is almost certainly the result of Republicans being in power. In 2020, Texas cut half of the polling places in black neighborhoods, and doubled them in white ones, regardless of population. It was Republicans bitching about mail in voting, and constantly, constantly fearmonger about voter fraud. Literally, their platform is about making civil rights harder to practice.

Would you like to know why? It’s because Republican politicians know better than anyone that higher voter participation means higher republican loss.

But what do I see from the online left, champions of the oppressed?

“Voting doesn’t do anything, the parties are the same, the system is rigged, etc, etc”

Don’t sit here and tell me you give a fuck about marginalized people if you aren’t ready to march your ass to the voting booth and vote out the party actively stripping their rights away.

Protest, donate, community build, unionize, and vote, vote, vote.

By the time direct action is the only option, it will be too fucking late.