#been ​feeling uncomfortable with how... reactionary certain people are

[tr1ppykay]

yknow i do think it's possible to support trans men and transandrophobia theory without obsessing over the existence of baeddels

[punisheddonjuan]

So Cate is a member of this Facebook group for autistic women looking for advice from other autistic women, and just so you know what we're getting into here, it's historically been a source of some truly awful advice for her specifically e.g. that she should put up with her ex's cheating and emotional abuse and that she was actually taking financial advantage of him if she couldn't afford to move out on her own (???). Anyway, she showed me this thread the other day that fully broke my brain to the point where I'm still thinking about it two days later. A user relayed that there was a man who lived in her apartment complex and who happened to take the same bus route as her. This man would sometimes make an attempt at friendly conversation when he saw her, and she wanted advice on what this meant, and how she should deal with it. At no point in her post did she say she was made to feel particularly uncomfortable by this man, or indicate that he had acted inappropriately. By any reasonable analysis you might say that he was acting neighbourly, especially seeing as he is in fact her neighbour. The top response to her question which had accumulated dozens of likes and positive reactions instead offered this assessment and advice "he's dangerous, he's stalking you, you need to be carrying a knife at all times, here is a list of good necklace knives, also google him, find out where he works, find out who his parents are, call his parents, call his boss, call the landlord, check to see if he's on the sex offender registry, also you should call the police, you need to carry pepper spray, but you should definitely call the police, this is unacceptable." Many other commentators were in agreement with this (insane) assessment, and those who countered that poster with "it sounds like he's being friendly" or "maybe he's lonely and trying to make a friend" were shouted down and accused of wanting to get the OP raped or murdered because she is especially vulnerable as an autistic person. Reading some of the comments truly broke my brain.

The proliferation and explosion of True Crime into the fore of popular culture has really broken a lot of people's brains. I think that the way True Crime, as a genre, presents its subject matter, i.e. with an obsessive voyeurism and erotic charge, engenders a certain reactionary paranoia in the people who heavily consume it. They start believing that every interaction with a stranger is potentially deadly, that there are Dahmers and Bundys lurking everywhere. It's always a certain sort of person whose brain is liable to break this way too. You can't really define them as a group, it's like defining pornography, you know it when you see it. Anyway, clicking through to that top responder's profile and seeing the Handmaid's Tale profile picture and the cover photo showing off a shelf of YA novels was enough to confirm that she was indeed that sort of person.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hello! I've been following you for a while and you've given really good insights about types (I was quite blown by the way you've been able to read into INFJ's shame and what not. It was really cool to read.)

Anyway, I am an ENTP and recently I've realized that my sense of empathy is rather odd…I am able to understand others, I can predict how certain things may affect others emotionally within logic, however my sense of empathy never truly reaches me. I know it sounds a little weird, but truly I find so hard to be moved by things that often move others, or to care beyond the basic courtesy. I can understand how and why someone feels in x way, however said empathy often comes from logic more than actually feeling in the shoes of others.

At the same time, I take my sweet time when it comes to understand my own feelings. Like, I can experience something that leaves me feeling weird and take a whole day, nap included, just to realize I'm kinda angry or sad or surprised. This inability to guide myself through my own feelings or even experience what others experience has caused me some troubles through the years, because of course, despite being able to read others, one is bound to fail or misunderstand at some point.

From running my mouth, having bad timing, to doing hurtful stuff that in my view were not hurtful at that moment (because I somehow reached the wrong conclusion in my attempt for empathy) I often find myself a little on the sideway when it comes to feelings of vulnerability, to the point I even end up pushing myself through stuff that makes me uncomfortable after I failed to understand I was weirded out on time; or even the opposite when I end up stating that I am really angry just to realize I didn't even cared that much.

The fact that I am a woman and people tend to expect women to be more sympathetic doesn't help either, so it's not rare for a group of people who knows me superficially to think that I am too reactionary/intimidating/out of reach/aggresive/harsh when in fact most of the time I'm trying to be friendly and outspoken, all while my inner circle define me as very lighthearted and even motherly. And, keep in mind, I am actually very adjusted socially, quite functional. I'm the type of person who will push through depression and very bad scenarios out of will which has been incredibly useful in dark times, but again I wonder if it was less will and more me not being vulnerable at all.

So, do you think this is some kind of failing in my Fe? Is this something that happens often to ENTP's or maybe I should check on other things like mental health etc? Do you have tips that could help me being more understanding of my own feelings? (Thank you before hand!)

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

Generally speaking, the focus of therapeutic psychology is mainly on the individual. Behavior is labelled "problematic" when it causes pain and suffering and negatively impacts one's ability to live life in the manner one aspires to. It is a self-evaluation. Since you claim to be functional in daily life, there is no reason to believe that you have any mental health problem or disorder.

However, abnormal psychology is but one of many perspectives through which to understand the human mind. E.g. What about highly functional yet existentially unhappy people? What about people who live a comfortable life but still yearn? What about people skilled at brushing aside issues to keep moving forward in life?

These people might not suffer from any serious mental disorder, but that doesn't mean there isn't enormous room for improvement. The subfield of psychoanalytic psychology helps people get to know themselves more deeply. The subfield of humanistic psychology helps people understand and fulfill their needs better. The subfield of positive psychology was created to tackle subjects like: how to live a better quality of life; how to flourish and thrive; how to realize greater potential.

You've described a psychological "issue" that you struggle with at times, but not to the extent that it poses a serious problem. Whether this issue is common for ENTPs with tertiary Fe is not the right question to ask. If I say "yes", then what? If I say "no", then what? Unless your behavior is very harmful, it's not for me or anyone else to tell you that there's something "wrong" with you. I don't want to play the role of judge and jury.

The question boils down to: What, if anything, do YOU want to do about this issue? The motivation to change shouldn't come from me saying that there's something "wrong" with you, as though I'm your parent. You should have some kind of intrinsic motivation, stemming from deep within your own soul, to improve yourself and your life. Unfortunately, without this intrinsic motivation, many people end up choosing unhealthy paths to self-improvement.

From your description, you have the capability to be emotionally aware and empathetic. However, "capability" is different than "ability". A capability is something you can potentially do but perhaps lack the knowledge or skill or will to do well. An ability is what you possess after you've put in the necessary hard work to learn the knowledge and skill required to do something well.

Of course, there are certain capabilities that are harder to develop for some people than others due to genetic predisposition. But this shouldn't be a barrier for anyone seeking personal growth for the right reasons. When you have the right intrinsic motivation, you understand that self-improvement isn't about being "the best" but about being a better you.

At any point in life, you get to choose to be a better you by turning your capabilities into abilities, by realizing more of your potential. To be clear, there's nothing "wrong" with refusing to. However, when you refuse, are you making the choice consciously, fully aware of the implications? Refusing essentially means you will never truly know that aspect of yourself nor see its benefits. And then you are likely to feel a strange "hole" in your existence, as though part of you is missing.

How does this relate to tertiary Fe? Generally speaking, people have plenty of capability or latent potential with the tertiary function. However, to develop latent potential and learn how to use the tertiary optimally requires a lot of difficult self-work. Why is the tertiary difficult to develop? Two main reasons:

1) It can only come after sufficient auxiliary development, which is hard enough. It sounds like your grasp of Ti is average at best, perhaps immature but not unhealthy. You use Ti in its most basic form to understand and solve problems, including human problems. However, it seems you haven't yet learned how to use it optimally to turn your capabilities into abilities.

2) People often don't understand the true value of the tertiary function and perhaps even unconsciously resist developing it in the right way. Most people use it merely as a tool to gain some egotistical advantage but then discard it whenever it becomes inconvenient. Does this not encapsulate your relationship to emotional life?

Chasing the good aspects while rejecting the bad means you don't have a full appreciation of the function. If you care about Fe, which includes having a healthier relationship to your emotional life, then you must learn to appreciate its true value and WANT it. Nobody can convince you or force you to develop a function that you overlook, ignore, or disdain as it suits you.

Gender may or may not play a role depending on how you choose to react to societal expectations. Rebellion against gender norms is sometimes necessary to promote fairness and equality, but it can also work against you, if you just end up resisting or rejecting things that are good for your personal growth.

As explained in the guide, type development is about improving your self-awareness, with the implication being that knowing yourself better allows you to make better judgments and decisions in life. It is entirely your decision as to whether you're going to: stop devaluing Fe; become more aware of its role in your psychology; accept and embrace its presence with both its positive and negative aspects; and fully integrate it into your way of being.

If you choose to take your personal growth in this direction, your emotional awareness will certainly improve which in turn will help improve your empathy for others. I've explained before that empathy requires both the cognitive and emotional components to work at its best. So far, you have favored the cognitive (as it relates to Ti) and been resistant to the emotional (as it relates to Fe). Rectifying this imbalance requires proper auxiliary and tertiary development, such that they complement rather than interfere with each other.

I've already written about emotional intelligence and recommended books that provide advice for self-improvement. The tools already exist, so it is a matter of study and practice. You say you want to be more understanding of your feelings but then your actual behavior toward feelings suggests otherwise.

For example, instead of being patient and vulnerable and listening to feelings in order to become more aware of them, you treat them as alien or as a nuisance, unwilling to take full responsibility for them. In terms of type development, it is this kind of ambivalence that keeps people stuck in a rut.

In short, is your question really about whether you "can" do it, or is it really about whether you have enough will to change and grow? Until this is clarified, your true purpose remains muddled, and that will continually limit and slow your progress.

[klysanderelias]

@kitabasis so this is one of the posts I was thinking of, there's more context I can't remember how to find but basically the core premise of the argument is that a lot of western fantasies end up recreating a lot of these sort of ideas - stardew is the big one in my mind though because as much as it can be read as an anticapitalist text (and I think that's definitely part of the intention) there is still a lot of libertarian and reactionary ideas embedded in there -

I want to reiterate that I LIKE stardew, and I think in general anything reactionary is unintentional, but it's hard not to draw those comparisons - especially given that you start as an established landowner inheriting a plot of land that you have to 'reclaim' from the 'wilderness' and of course because it's a 'cozy' sort of game, there's no concerns about crop rotations, ecology, etc, and yeah there's a homeless guy but actually he's just weird and LIKES being homeless and digging out of trash cans so it's not like you have to actually reckon with that

Which is being a little reductive but illustrates the overall point - a lot of these fantasies are based around the American Dream ideal of getting married and having 2.5 kids in your single-family home and often it completely sidelines the work you do, or it turns it into something optional, or something that's so much fun it's not really work at all, and at some point if you were to attempt to translate the things happening in-game to a realistic framework you'd have to be a millionaire with passive income in order to make it work.

And as a white guy living in the US, I definitely understand how people get there! That's what we've been sold all our lives, and that plays into our understanding of the world. The problem is that it's whitewashing a lot of the underlying structure of that fantasy - if you're selling cash crops in stardew, hell if you're selling ANY crops in stardew, who are you selling them to? What are the ecological ramifications of the choices you're making? What are the economical ramifications of flooding the market with cauliflower, or coffee, etc? Stardew leans into automation more than anything else but farming absolutely relies on an underclass of cheap labor - either that's migrant workers, or impoverished locals, or in the older days that's why you'd have like ten kids. And of course it's not even mentioning the mines and other dungeons in stardew, and the weird implications of the shadow people and dwarves.

And I don't think it'd be impossible to address those concerns - you can decorate a condo in a 50-unit building as much as the inside of a house, and instead of landscaping your owned land it could be public cleanup or a community garden, and there's enough things out there that gamify boring drudge work like retail so you could do little minigames for your shift at the factory or whatever, but the core issue is that it's hard to sell that as a fantasy - putting aside 'number go up' as an inherent part, a lot of the fantasy is no longer being beholden to anyone, no longer being able to be told what to do or given limitations on your desires. And that's just not... I mean, it's realistic, in the sense that there are definitely people who get to do that, but not only are those people few and far between, they're also kind of the major drivers of human suffering partially because they get to do whatever they please.

And also like, there's a certain point where trying to construct a utopian game genre to make you feel comfy isn't really a valuable desire? At least in my mind. There's too much designed to absolve us of all those uncomfortable back-of-the-mind things, too much out there trying to cover up things like child slavery and the povertization of nations for US luxury, and I just don't think it's worth trying to create a game that focuses on calming our guilt without actually addressing it or changing the underlying causes.

But also I think it's important to critically examine the media we consume to see what sort of things it promotes and reinforces, partially just because I think good media rewards that, and because often it's easy to miss fascist or racist or homophobic etc undertones as both the audience and the creator and speaking as a white guy from the US, there's a lot of stuff that I can enjoy uncritically simply because it's tailored to my cultural expectations that is actually deeply fucked up to basically anyone else, and it's important for me to be able to recognize and address that privilege.

Also also I have a brain disease and I am unable to stop thinking about things period so even the barest interest in a thing can cause me to spend hours turning it over in my head over the sputtering grease fire of my brain

I love calling shit wehrbauer this is because so much liberal/leftliberal/anarchist shit is wehrbauer shit. oh everyone will live on a harmonious developed yet rural commune/settlement where they will be a self sufficient petite bourgousie farmer, who sells their crops at market to other petite bourgousie farmers? and theyll live in a spacious single family home? maybe the whole ocmmunity will be based entirely on their extended family structure? will they work in communal self defense and justice too? will every commune have a theater and everyone will get to have cheap luxury cars too?

[gay-furry-poseidon-lover]

I actually need to just stop talking about Calypso cause it stresses me tf out and gives me chest pains. I just like. I don't get it. I really dont get it. What are we meant to do? What is the "correct" way to talk about Calypso. Its not my fault if you are projecting your own trauma onto fictional characters. I dont know you. Im not attacking you. Im not meaning to upset you, im not talking to you. If youre uncomfortable with it thats fine i encourage you to go somewhere you feel more comfortable. Its just another case of, you can dislike something without generalizing everyone who does like this thing as a bad person. That's not a healthy reaction.

Maybe its all the dbt ive been through but it feels like no one knows nuance anymore. Maybe its getting off tiktok when I was young because that app tends to provide a lot of reactionary polarizing content. And Ive never been on twitter.

It's just so frusterating. I have a very clear distinction between fiction and reality. If you dont, okay. Thats fine. But I do, and you dont get to project random assumptions onto me.

Anyways here i go yap yap yapping. I think too much. I need to go into the woods. Theres just certain parts of internet culture that really get under my skin and I have so much to say but people set this standard of "If you disagree with me i dont care about anything you have to say." But thats okay. People dont need to care about my perspective or how i explain it, i am not owed an audience. I know what i believe and how I see things, I know my own morals. I know who I am and other people do not get to dictate my character based solely upon my liking of one specific version of a character from greek mythology.

[riastarthe]

when people with an impassioned call for death in their bios follow me, i don't know What the fuck to feel. like why are you advertising this... this... pro/anti whatever... i know it's reactionary but is this politics to you and if so how? do you think these insular words mean something to me and if so why? i try to be understanding because these are largely fandom terms and if fandom is important to them then... yeah. i'm not there though. i don't use this terminology for my work, where it comes from, what it's for.

having been a teen and now being in my 30s i don't think the ability to dream up dark and edgy sex is an objective sign of maturity/superiority either, and i say that as someone who gets a lot out of writing bad and mean shit. the id's inexplicable drive to ship is beautiful but not automatically interesting to me as A Personality, nvm the content. looking around at 30-40+yos be like "back in my day" is like... at a certain point in arguing with children you cross a threshold and become the fool. but, i also recognise that having it out over this makes Me very uncomfortable (being forced to defend myself against a bunch of trigger-happy little weirdos, i mean) and it might be pretty easy for other people.

regardless, i end up on the side of "trans/queer adults whose work gets shut down for running counter to the mainstream auto-generated hays code schlock" by default.

stories are stories, not ikea manuals. we know this, especially if you're into like blood and gore and war and girl boss murderers or something— the righteousness that's superimposed on these things is personal, not universal, it's often conservative, and denying that other concepts can't be a sandbox, like sex in any form, pleasure or horror, can't be sanctioned like how death is sanctioned... idk. i just dk. i really think people trick themselves or are desperate to be tricked into settling for less, for the simplest most bugbrained surface-level milquetoast shit because it's just easier. safer. don't think so hard about impulse, attraction, obsession, don't let it change you into that which is much safer to vilify.

it's just like— do you think that when i call myself a "transsexual leather faggot and pervert" that i'm JOKING? your attachment to Concepts and Ideas might be shallow and tenuous but i actually want you to treat me with the seriousness and respect that i deserve. why on god are you automatically trusting my art and stories to be safe for you? or is following me a guilty secret that only you and i know about.

[aces-to-apples]

Damn I’m disappointed you’re falling in the camp of going from threatening an abuse victim with a lawyer and telling them to shut up, I had hoped with stance on other fandom harassment you would empathize.

............hey remember when I first got into Star Wars fandom and ended up following and being pseudo-friends with goddamn clonehub of all the fucking people and participated in a fucking smear campaign against several other artists for such "crimes" as "drawing icky art that made me, personally, uncomfortable"? Can you even imagine how fucking embarrassing that is to recall as a actual adult rn?? I literally want to tear my skin off sometimes remembering that I was absolutely certain that my personal discomfort and fucking ignorance was more important than other peoples' right to just fucking exist and vibe in their corner of fandom and I think we should all take a minute to contemplate how much more of a goddamn nightmare my loud obnoxious ass would be if I'd actually ended up full-on puriteen..... Fucking harrowing, isn't it?

And you know what? Maybe I'll end up having backed the wrong metaphorical horse this time as well and find out that I once again am running in the same circles and happily interacting with yet another goddamn bully. Shit's fucking embarrassing, if nothing else, lemme tell you. (God remember that bitchy little "ah shucks weren't you and clonehub friends once?? What happened???" anon ask a while back? Talk about harrowing lmao.)

But I've been running in the same circles as Jer for years, I'm friends with several people who've been Friends-friends with her for years and even decades who vouch for her, and I've witnessed several hate and harassment campaigns run against her already. And I don't know any of these people crawling out of the woodwork to start shit so idk. I'm going with my gut here. Maybe it'll work out like shit again. Or maybe I'll dodge the bullet this time and not participate in a vindictive smear campaign against people who make the "wrong art" or whatever the fuck.

And like.

Hey, Anonymous Goddamn Citizen, you ever considered that I'm fucking tired? That I'm tired to my goddamn bones of how every reactionary bitch on this planet with an internet connection can and will just make heinous shit up about random fucking people that they don't like and convince enough people to jump on the dogpile to the point where the truth doesn't even matter anymore?? Do you how many times I've witnessed this in the last three years alone??? I'm fucking tired man! I'm tired!!

So like. Idk. Maybe fuck your snotty ham-fisted attempt at a guilt-trip? And fuck your manipulative, performative bullshit "disappointment" with Internet Rando #7014?? Maybe even fuck you personally???

I mean, I don't know you, because if I did then you wouldn't be on anon, you'd be in my DMs actually trying to talk to me instead of, in all likelihood, hunting through Flamethrower's posts and copy-pasting this shit into the inbox of everyone who reblogs her posts or whatever. Like that's usually how I see this shit go. And believe me, I have seen this shit go. If we were friends, and therefore someone whose opinion I care about, you wouldn't be hiding behind an anonymous function, taking advantage of the observable fact that I am fundamentally incapable of not having both an opinion and the last word.

Yet here you are.

And here I am, answering the bait, as is my custom. But hey, I extra super deluxe mega promise that if I end up on the wrong side of history here, I'll do the whole YouTuber Apology song and dance and you'll get to smugly say I fuckin told you so. I'm sure that'll make you very happy.

'Til then, just as an unnecessary bit of extra snotty pedantry to sign off: I'm actually hypoempathetic, so feel free to hold your breath waiting for me to empathize with literally anything. Funnily enough, I'm actually trying not to let my personal knee-jerk reactions dictate my sense of morality and ethics these days. Just as a fun change from Anti-Lite Apples of 2017-2019ish??

[lethargicsunlight]

'Demon': Prologue ♡ BakugouXFem!Reader (Book 1)

Alright I'm doing it.

I'm doing the thing.

It literally keeps me awake at night I gotta write thisss *cough* okay

Originally I was only going to post this unto Wattpad, but getting traction on their website is a little more difficult than good ole' Tumblr, so I'll be posting it on both. Feel free to visit my Wattpad here: LINK if you want to support my writing on that end. (I would so appreciate it)

This post is going to run pretty long, as it will host both the prologue of the story and my author's notes. Just a heads up.

Summery:

A slow-burn action/romance where you begin in the bowels of a Villain base and rise up to join U.A.'s top Hero Class. This life was your choice. In the event of learning then losing the love of a friend, you make a decision that changes your reality at the core--to become an imposter among villains and bring them down from the inside out. The organization that ruined your premature perfect life was known as H.H., after their leader Head-Honcho. His crime of choice: intelligence. Training and conducting espionage agents and assassins across Japan as a means to further the dark underground network. Your training began at thirteen, after managing to impress the multi-faced villain with your stealth and your conviction. Rumors would soon spread through the dark alleys of Naruhata City of a masked assassin known as Demon, whose bare face could steal the souls of her targets. Everything appears to be going to plan; but the Hero Agencies you've been slipping information to are calling for an end to your superior sooner than you had anticipated. Your time as 'Demon' is limited. What will happen when your world comes crashing down? Where will you go, when everything you had known you helped to destroy?

AUTHOR'S NOTES

This is a slow burn fan-fic; and I am not italicizing those words without reason. This is going to be an agonizingly slow action-packed adventure-romance. This is a self-insert story, just like my three-part series 'Some Combat Training' (link) where you as the protagonist will not be described outside of being female, general physique, and a generalization of your uniform(s). Skin, hair, eyes, etc. will not be described at all--besides ambiguous adjectives. That said, I am taking liberties with physique and stature due to the nature of the story. You're abilities rely on stealth as well as close and fast combat, therefore you are described as 'small', 'lithe', 'athletic', and all of those other fancy little ninja woman words. Your personality has been shaped by the events of your life and the people within it; but if I were to describe it I would choose words like: Intelligent, determined, self-sacrificing, quiet, humble, and studious. The story will follow along with the anime for the most part starting at around the time of the USJ event, though at some point the story will branch off and become more my original concoction. (Such as, fast-forwarding the time-line to when the characters are older.) Some information about you as the protagonist will not be written here, as I plan for those to be revelations within the story. There will be angst, blood and gore, adult-humor, trauma, death, bad language and warnings will be listed with each chapter as needed. Feel free to comment on those chapters as soon as you see something that isn't mentioned that might make someone (if not yourself) feel uncomfortable. I will not be offended. This story is meant to get a little dark. Please comment if you can about your opinions! I have never posted an on-going fic before, and anything you have to say I would appreciate! <3 Now, please enjoy this short prologue~ Chapter 1 is being reviewed and edited, to be release very soon! 👹🖤⛓🔪💣 ...four...five...six.. You counted the footsteps behind your left ear, round the corner of the dim abandoned subway. You'd been stationary; still so long that your digits had all but numbed. Turn... one...two...three... The footsteps were distancing from the hall your attention had been set upon. A T-section, where the entity had gone down and away from your destination. You had to cross that 'T' to get to the junction--where you needed to leave a note completely undetected. The slightest mis-step would lead to suspicion. Suspicion would lead to investigation. Investigation lead to the five percent chance they could find that note--and no percentage was too small. It all hinged on absolute perfection. Nine...ten...eleven... This was their fifth round. A patrol. You had to make sure their movement were predictable before this would work--despite having successfully delivered the note fourty-two times and counting--you did not have the luxury of assumption. Only if their stride was even, only if you absolutely knew they were moving at a certain pattern, could you depend on the following information: It took fifteen steps before they would reach the broken light on their route. The haze of the dust and pollutants reflected in the working lights prior to that was your cover. Cross the 'T', leave the note, and cross it again. Out of sight and out of earshot, mission successful. Fourteen... f-- You turn, and it takes three steps to arrive at the drop to the tracks. You bunch and leap, and even the quietest friction of fabric from your uniform creases your brow. You land, just outside of the light's reach on the thin concrete slab beyond. Your eyes track the metals, the jutting wall tiles; that with which the barest touch could emit a sound--and you maneuver around them. Under, creeping low--and over, leaping to land on the balls of your feet and checking your balance before moving forward. Careful to not cast a shadow into the hall. Paced, so as not to move too quickly nor too slowly. Counting, because every second was controlled and calculated. You reach the juncture, and once again

edging the light you propel yourself to land back on the main thoroughfare. The next obstacle--removing the loose brick. Behind a metal bench centered between two closed-in stair cases, where the tile meets what had once been a decorative brick mosaic; eight bricks right and eighteen bricks up, was your note's destination. Just above your head, where you had to bend at an awkward angle to reach. Not practical, less detectable. You're wearing tight fabric gloves with grips on the pads, but thin enough you can feel the texture of the brick as you gently lace your fingers at each of the corners. Lifting, centering, and pulling the brick from its slot. Holding it just right, you can avoid the loud scrapes and grinds--but you have to hold it perfectly centered. Success. In goes the note. As does the brick, back into the wall. But you're only half-way done. Leap. Quiet, maneuver, avoid, measure. Silent. Leap. Hide. You're back is once again at the wall, the footsteps of the lackey you'd been avoiding closing in proximity to the Hall you'd just left. Four... five... six... Your eyes focus on the wall opposite of you as you ground yourself. The next few seconds determined a new reality. Either they followed their pattern, or they didn't. You had to be flexible. No assumptions. If they move towards the junction, you have to follow. If they move towards you, you'd calculate on your feet. Seven... eight... nine.. Turn. ...one...two...three.. You don't relax. Even after you count their steps to fifteen, even as you slip away back through the hall, even as you exit the unattended vent and breathe in fresh air--you don't relax until you're sitting on the floor in your room, calming down, your mask in your hands. After checking to make sure your door had not been opened, and no one had looked for you. No tracks in the dust. Only then do you allow yourself to ruminate on the contents of the note you had written, because you could still see every letter of it in your mind. ------ 55-1, Minami Senju 5-chome, Musutafu Target: Fukui Mitsuo Floor 8 3 AM. 7. Accompanied. Head. ------ For the briefest moment, you feel your hands shake. They always did on these nights. Realistically, you'd left no openings. Tested and re-tested every method. Calculated every movement. Left nothing to chance. But the 'what-if's' still linger, and you let them. The fear is good. It keeps you on your toes, your mind on edge, your tongue to the roof of your mouth. If he found out, you wouldn't know it until it was over. So you pretended he already did. Below you, underground in his base, plotting how to get at you when you were most vulnerable. Tear you to pieces, throw you in a pit or in a cage. No--too risky, he'd just kill you. A dead-end is better than a possibility. You'd learned that from him. You swallow, head turning so the amber morning sky is in your peripheral. All things considered, you would still unfortunately need sleep. You cherished the brief moments of sunlight and let your mind swim in the memories of your childhood spent in the daytime; before retiring to the broken and borrowed mattress. Seven days. You would check the location of your note in two. If there is another note in response, you would create a reactionary plan. The pattern continues. Until he finds out. ...Until he finds out.

[spaceorphan18]

Someone needs to put you in your place because you are absolutely disgusting and creepy. you’re a cishet woman who’s pushing 40 and has this fetish for men kissing (i’m gay and saying the way you talk about it feels like that). ranking the “hottest klaine kisses” is really gross when you’re a cishet woman in your late 30s and these men were in their TWENTIES. and this brings me to my next point: why are you talking about how hot chris colfer was when he was twenty two? and 21? thats barely an adult and someone your age shouldnt be attracted to him especially when he looks really young for his age. mentioning that “theres no nakedness, unfortunately” in the “naked” is once again disgusting. because why do you wanna see a 22 year old naked? and don’t try pulling the “it was a joke” card or saying you weren’t serious. because that’s not something that should be joked about. and just all the posts about them having sex is really weird too.

i also saw your post where you said you saw chris at his book signing in 2017. why do you think it’s okay to look down his shirt like that you weirdo? that’s so creepy and gross and also textbook sexual harassment. yeah i cant believe you were thinking about that in a room full of kids either. if you’re so self aware of your own creepiness maybe you should try to do something about that. and learn to look at men your age.

Wow! You definitely put me in my place. [sarcasm]  You know you’ve become a BNF when you start to get this kinda shit in your inbox.  

*pinches nose* - maybe it’s time to close up the Ask box, because I am too old to deal with this shit. 

So - first of all, hello wank -- this is what it looks like guys, and the only reason I’m not deleting and blocking it right off is because I feel like there are a few points that do need to be addressed.  But any more in the inbox is an automatic deletion.  You’ve been warned. 

1. Believe it or not, I don’t consider myself straight.  I’ve, for a long time, labeled myself as demisexual.  Which is, a form of asexuality. And if you’ve been on my blog for any length of time - you would know that, I talk about that all the time.  On top of that -- something that relatively few people know, because I don’t talk about my sexuality very often, is that I consider myself open.  It’s loosely bisexual - but I’m not big on labels.  

But the fact that I have to say that doesn’t excuse the level of judgment that is coming from this ask.  Anyone’s sexuality is not your business -- it’s not what defines a person, and you shouldn’t be using your own sexuality to be the arbiter of what’s right and/or wrong in any community.  

2. Your commentary about how women over a certain age should fandom is misguided, misogynistic, factually wrong in some cases, and quite frankly deserves a whole other post that I’m not going to write up here.  But in short -- discussing sex and sexuality within works of fiction is completely valid.  Discussing and enjoying fictional characters, especially in the privacy of your own home? Also completely valid.  

However, since it clearly makes you feel uncomfortable, maybe you should seek out to figure out why that is.  

3. The thing that really, really gets me, though, is the stuff about the book signing and meeting Chris in person.  This is WAY over the line -- because you do not know me, or what or why Chris means something to me.  You don’t.  It has nothing to do with how he looks or that he’s gay -- and I’ve never said anything of the such when talking about meeting him (the numerous amount of times I’ve met him).  Nor did I look down his shirt -- what?? 

So the fact that you have the audacity to come into my inbox and tell me how to fandom, and to tell me how to feel about someone who has literally changed my life in a positive way that has zero to do with any kind of fetishizing or physical attributes is simply wrong, ignorant, and reactionary.  

You can kindly get the fuck off my blog and not come back.  

[insomniac-arrest]

Is there a word for nationalistic except for a state? Because you’re being uncomfortably that about colorado. Let’s maybe chill with the glorifying warfare and joking about your state killing or assimilating all the people in those other states 😬😬😬

I should have been more clear: I absolutely DO NOT want a war in the united states or between states. I am not pro-Colorado and I think war is horrible and terrifying in every single possible way. WAR IS BAD. I DO NOT WANT A WAR. I DO NOT WANT ANY STATE VIOLENCE IF WE CAN HELP IT.

That being said, I am not feeling very optimistic about the peaceful continuation of the American Empire. I don’t think anything is going to happen immediately or within the next couple decades even, but our current allocation of resources is dangerous. Cost and cohesion are two things that create a healthy continuation of a state. Cohesion is fraying all over the place with polarization at an all time high. Cost is a bit trickier since the US is still wealthy and has a robust military.

However, what often happens in Empires is that the wealthy elite start to hoard resources and alienate the populace and underclass. You’ve probably heard about this in relation to Rome and how they had to balance “panem,” bread and circus, with the grievances of the general population. Once the grievances and alienation reach a certain point the underclass rises up.

Anyway, the challenges ahead are incredibly massive and we’re either going to have to radically change or, you know, fall apart. And it’s not that we can’t change, but the American system is intentionally built to be slow and reactionary instead of proactive.

I probably shouldn’t have joked about it, but at the same time, what else are we gonna do? I am one person with very few resources and not enough time or sway to possibly address the horrors of the political reality we live in.

I mean, there’s probably, a “good scenario” where history is NOT a circle and warlords don’t rise up and states don’t fight each other for resources and there isn’t one of the largest power vacuums the world has ever known causing international chaos. But I am not optimist.

[violentviolette]

1,4,7,15,19

its from the ask game that you reblogged, about the uncomfortable shit

1. what’s the best advice you’ve ever been given?

u gotta get out of ur own head. I'm an over thinker by nature and delusional with a tenuous grip on reality at the best of times, and I easily get swallowed up in an echo chamber of my own thoughts and make problems bigger and more complicated then they need to be. sometimes the best solution really is to touch grass lmfaooo

also that I have all the control and power over myself. I decide who I am and how I act and what I chose to believe. nothing happens unless I do it myself. constructing a purposeful sense of self like that was really helpful to me in getting more control over myself and my life

4. tell me about your most vivid memory, good or bad.

u ask for a memory and suddenly I have none. I have zero object or emotional permanance so rn my most vivid memory is from last week lmfaooo

ryo and I were watching youtube vids about random ass shit at like 2am and somehow we got on the subject of how smart certain animals and specifically certain dinosaurs were and he went on a little info dump rant and told me that a trex was as smart as a fucking chimpanzee and this knowledge both amazed and terrified me and I am now forever changed

7. tell me something you don’t like telling the people you are close to.

I dont like saying anything especially about myself and my feelings ironically enough and so genuinely the ppl who are close to me are the ones who are observant and understanding enough to either work it out themselves or flat out ask lmfaooo because I do very much hold to the rule that I will answer direct questions as honestly as I can when it comes to my interpersonal relationships, but volunteering any info is still Rough lmfaoo

15. do you prefer to be numb or overly emotional? why?

its always a grass is greener thing for me. when I'm numb I'd rather be manic and when I'm manic I just wanna turn off. really what I'd like to be is emotionally stable but here we are lmfaoooo a boy can dream

19. what is your fatal flaw?

u mean I gotta pick just one? lmfaoo but probably my defensiveness and how reactionary I am. I work on it a lot but its probably still the thing I do most often, its just hard not to constantly be on edge but ive gotten really good at being able to walk it back and come at something the right way after a second at least

[solocyclepolyamory]

Be Gentle - I Might Not Deserve It

Conflict is uncomfortable; No matter how you slice it, emotional responses are mostly inevitable and it takes practice to come out the other side with transformation rather than hurt feelings. I have been staring at this blank screen for 5 days now and my fingers have finally found their way to the keys. Being an individual who struggles with perfectionism, simply the thought of discussing my shortcomings in conflict resolution was enough to stop me in my tracks. Admitting to one's self upon reflection that you could have done better is very different from putting such admittance into practice in real time, especially when the heat of battle has your head and your mouth in a state disconnect. Lucky for me, there is no shortage of opportunity to practice the art of making space for authenticity and acceptance of other conflict styles when relating to people outside of common relationship structures.

When I originally sat down write this I wanted to talk about Karpman's drama triangle (in case your are unfamiliar, you can find it here: https://agile-od.com/mental-model-dojo/karpmans-drama-triangle). Understanding this concept has been integral to my personal growth trajectory, so much so that I have the triangle tattooed over the spot one might refer to as the throat chakra. Interestingly enough, as I proceeded through the mental gymnastics of taking an end concept and working it upside down and backwards towards my internal experiences, I had a realization that left me stunned and steeping a few days longer than expected. My intent for this article was to explore the concepts around my tendency to operate from the position of 'the victim.' This has often been the end point of my own spiral, and something I have come up against recently in the processes of the people around me. As I pulled up the drama triangle and started to read, I clicked a link that brought me to another article called "Radical Candor." Then something happened. As I read, a connection was made to a behavior that I have recently become aware of through working with my counsellor. I had no idea that this behavior had a name: fundamental attribution error.

(I am going to paraphrase what I learned from this article and do my best to link it to my own experiences, but you can read the full article here: https://agile-od.com/reflective-leadership/radical-candor)

When I look back at many of my relationships, I can pin point where this concept has been the first step in a cascade of reactionary hardening in my emotional demeanor, and has very quickly lead to recoil and refusal to be physically touched. In those moments I have always placed the blame for my recoil on my partner's behavior; I truly believed that if they had not acted in a certain way I would not have felt the need to recoil. After reading that article, I can clearly see that while my partner's behavior was indeed a catalyst, it was not the reason for this emotional response at all. I can also see that the intent I had for this entry, to examine myself through the lens of 'the victim,' is no longer appropriate.

If I consider this chain of events through the scope of the drama triangle, it becomes obvious that this recurrent dissonance is not a byproduct of my habitual self-victimization. Rather, this is a consequence of my incomprehension around my own defensive routines where I gravitate to the position of 'the persecutor.' There is a monumental difference between these two positions, and I was mistaken in my certainty that my conflict style was to move quickly through persecution and rescuer and land firmly in victimization. In reality it appears that I have been making assumptions about my partners' internal experiences, and in my hard-headed responses I have been oppressing them rather than working with them to heal.

This is where this dance begins.

The more my partner experiences what I perceive to be self-pity the thicker my shell becomes, especially if that partner reaches to me for comfort. As my emotional plasticity evaporates, the harder it is for me to access compassion and gentleness. This quickly slides into blame in order to justify that the behavior I am observing is a character flaw rather than a circumstantial reaction. Where I should be extending compassion and space for the other side sort through their own healing processes, my defensive instinct is to assassinate their character and blame them for my emotional upheaval. This autopilot setting is not solely attached to conflict either. This can also be triggered situationally; I have had this pattern arise when partners have been struggling with self-doubt or depression, and I am aware that it even showed its ugly face while a past partner was recovering from surgery and struggling to reach the dishes in the top cupboards. How awful! This is something I can never unsee, and realizing this has come loaded with shame and embarrassment. What a terrible way to treat people.

I could take some time and dive into the childhood reasons why I behave this way, but justification seems trivial when I know that I have done damage to the relationships that have lived this with me. If you are reading this, you know who you are. I am so sorry if I have added to your trauma. I lacked the ability to see my own patterns and certainly the tools to acknowledge and navigate them.

Healing is a lonely process full of looking at the undesirable ways that you have treated people, and yourself. I am astounded that I still have people in my life who care to be around me, and I fully understand the reasons why some people have chosen not to stick around. I am also actively working to extend my past self compassion around my complete absence of self-awareness. It is alarming to realize that I have been actively responsible for many of the fissures in my romantic connections. I own that I have caused harm, and I am working hard to implement accountability for that harm. I am making amends where I can and slowing things down to avoid repetition.

I hate that my past partners have had to make sacrifices for my rigidness. I hope to do better.

I am trying to do better.

[gateauxes]

the war on gender terror

At this point in my life, the presence of mostly-white liberal feminism is inescapable. While I'm excited to see more people taking baby steps to a radical analysis, largely I am frustrated. On the other hand, involuntary exposure to popular feminism is the reason why I'm noticing a trend in it. Here's my report from where I'm standing: the liberal feminists don't know it, but reactionaries are trying to scare them.

Reactionary feminist projects begin the same way as any other reactionary project - concern trolling liberals over topics at arms' length from the main goals of exclusion and domination. With regard to reactionary feminists the progression of topics are well-known: women's sports & 'human trafficking', then domestic violence shelters & kinky porn, then policing gender-segregated bathrooms, defunding trans healthcare, and opposing sex work of any kind. I've been watching a pessimistic thread emerge in liberal feminist (and radical!) circles which I believe has been pushed into place by reactionary feminists. This bio-pessimism places women into a perpetual state of victimhood that can never truly end due to the essential rapacious nature of men. If this seems like the same shit the second-wave lesbian separatists were peddling, that's because it is. What I want to question is how today's essentialist pessimism differs from its initial appearance.

RADFEMS ARE OBSESSED WITH DICK

Reactionary feminists have not dispensed with a religious-conservative perspective on the power of the penis - and by extension they imagine women identically to how the rest of the right views women. The penis, apparently, is the mechanism by which rape becomes possible. Therefore, any engagement with a person with a penis is a grave risk. Vulnerability is a mistake if you might be dealing with a rapist. The MeToo movement activated an enormous public forum about how incredibly prevalent the violence is, but I now see it used as a tool for re-framing this prevalence as a biological reality. (MeToo, even without being used as a tool, was ineffective at acknowledging that violence is perpetrated by all sorts of people). An explosion of survivors talking openly about violence as an unacceptable status quo has been infiltrated by reactionary feminists who whisper that this is the fate of all women, always. The new bio-law absorbs the third wave's progress in acknowledging diversity of experience - right up to the point where it would be forced to note that sexual nature, like categories of racially-dictated nature, is a myth.

This pessimism rooted in the power of the penis is hypervigilance beyond a realistic assessment of risk. (I also blame true crime podcasts and the media in general) This is not the careful awareness of one's surroundings which comes naturally to many of us. What I'm describing is avoiding going out at all, because of statistics on sexual violence which may not even reflect the risks in the neighbourhood. This, for instance, is purchasing and insuring a vehicle for the express purpose of avoiding public transit. I frequently notice that popular discussion of domestic violence neglects to mention the disproportion of violence toward people with disabilities, asserting that all of us have identical risk. Ultimately, this is the justification for a culture of exclusion as the only recourse to the ever-present threat of men. The fortress must be defended, and the enemy could be anywhere.

BUT HOW ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GET LAID?

I do not want love or children, so my interest in sex is purely recreational. I have been told this is not in line with my female nature - I stand before you deviant and happy. However, anyone attracted to men must grapple with the contradiction of desire and very real risks. I support caution, and even precaution. My concern is with a bio-law that requires a baseline of suspicion if one is to survive, the assumption that one is always a moment away from violence. To be explicit, how am I supposed to have fun when I am letting the enemy penetrate my figurative fortress?

I think this is why kink is such a problem for reactionary feminists. The only way to make the horror of sleeping with the enemy worse is to find that some people like to confront, satirize, and role play the power dynamic. To choose recreational pain or literal bondage flies in the face of the notion that a woman’s lot is to be in constant pain, and to tolerate penetration as a miserable necessity. The reactionary feminist must sleep with one eye open, aware that her biology has already sealed her fate, and mitigate vulnerability by excluding the threat, since she can’t defend herself (biologically speaking). This is why trans women can’t stay at the domestic violence shelter, this is why you should worry for your life if your boyfriend watches kinky porn. As with vanilla dating, there are true risks - and reasonable precautions. But kink is about play with vulnerability - there is no room for play under the martial law of bio-pessimism. By hijacking post-MeToo popular feminism, reactionaries can reinsert the bone-chilling suggestion that it’s all rape, all the time. All the men want kinky sex, because it’s the closest they can come to hurting women the way they secretly wish to. According to this logic, the only way to safely navigate the risk is constant surveillance of men, the self, and any woman who could be a traitor. He’d better not be watching kinky porn, you’d better not be watching kinky porn, and the women in the kinky porn are either hapless victims or remorseless collaborators. Once we have arrived at this point, it’s obvious why the next step is a crusade against any pornography, and a mission to ensure that kink is understood as something men want and women tolerate. 

How can reactionary feminists get this done? By linking the prevalence of trauma with the increased visibility of alternative sexuality & gender, from kink-at-pride to polyamory to transcending assigned gender. They ask, do you feel uncomfortable when you see all this change? We’ve all been traumatized - who do these people think they are, flaunting a lifestyle that feels wrong to feminists like you? You should trust your gut, they urge. Perform a little more vigilance to be sure you’re safe. If you find yourself unable to open a dating app or sit next to a man on the bus without feeling deep dread and revulsion, that’s vigilance, and realistic given the state of things. Any - and most - men mean women harm.

REDPILLS AND RADFEMS BELIEVE THE SAME SHIT

Incels hate women, reactionary feminists love a certain kind of woman. This distinction is relevant, especially since incels pose a physical threat to women in general whereas reactionary feminists only attack trans people, black athletes, sex workers, the wrong kind of queers, kinksters, child athletes... Despite their own active hostility toward many types of women, reactionary feminists hold up incels/redpillers/the far right as evidence of the threat that all women live under. There is no doubt that women face misogynist and antifeminist violence. Reactionary feminists are are far from the only ones highlighting this. What’s worth investigating are the given reasons that a target is vulnerable, and what should be done to mitigate risk in the future. In these, an incel and a reactionary feminist are in perfect harmony. Instead of a realistic assessment of risk at an individual level, or an assessment of group dynamics that allowed a survivor-victim to fall through the cracks, both parties will insist that all women are simply unsafe at all times. This notion suits a reactionary feminist’s goal of closed-rank suspicion, and an incel’s dream of terrified submission. This perspective neglects to really ask why things turned out the way they did, because that’s not the point. Whether women are innately inferior or innately vulnerable, we must travel in flocks if we want to survive. The reactionary feminist offers herself as the shepherd, having assured the flock that the enemy is close at hand. Women cannot, of course, be a pack of wolves. Members of a wolf pack work cooperatively but diverge at will.

THE WAR ON GENDER TERROR

The cumulative effect of this mindset and focus is a miserable hypervigilance, which is further hostile to any who are not miserable and vigilant. We know this scrutiny well from living inside a war on terror, which resulted in a vast expansion of state power to exclude, surveil, and punish. Because they have not abandoned their desire to dominate, reactionary feminists would like to do the same along the lines of gender law. Exclusion requires a concrete set of criteria by which a person can be marked acceptable or unacceptable, and there is trouble when a person shifts between the two. Whether you’re an immigration agent or an officer of the gender police, you’ve got to demonize those who shift, and shifting itself. Special attention should be paid to possible ulterior motives. At the overt end, this looks like the myth of the predatory trans woman and the slavery-complicit sex worker. However, these will not be widely accepted until the audience is made nervous by less ridiculous threats with a basis in reality. Sex trafficking is real, and pickup artists really do share tips online about how to pick up, manipulate, and coerce women. However, alarmist chain-mail suggesting that ‘gang members’ are stealing women off the street via box trucks does not reflect reality, but rather supposes that the threat could be any construction worker or labourer with a truck. Given the way people of colour are disproportionately represented in blue-collar work, the implications of this racially-biased hypervigilance should be obvious. The rapid dissemination of information (true or false) online is useful when stoking fear of ulterior motives. Genuine desire to spread a message that could save another woman fuels the sharing of partially-true and emotionally charged statements. Given the existence of incel and pickup artist subcultures, it seems believable that most men could have consumed advice on how to covertly film during sex, or remove a condom without being noticed. Whether that is true or not is irrelevant - the thing to do is be cautious. No matter how they seem, anyone could be concealing their motives. It begins to make sense to suspect a male social worker, or police bathrooms. Furthermore, failure to agree to this assessment of risk is evidence of insufficient solidarity with the rest of the female sex. Solidarity is imperative, given the horrors made visible by feminists who just want to protect women. Inaction could suggest complicity, and asking for a source on a claim is indicative that one does not believe victims. An avalanche of scorn awaits those who ask questions out of turn. the terror cannot end until the defenses are fortified and the infiltrators exposed. As footage of atrocities is replayed during news coverage of foreign occupations, the danger inherent in womanhood must be grimly acknowledged when we consider stepping out into the world.

WHAT IS MY POINT?

Reactionary feminists cling to the second-wave notion of sex and gender as stable categories by which most oppression can be measured. For reactionary feminist strategies to be accepted by a popular feminism informed by intersectionality, popular feminists must at least partially believe in the inherent vulnerability of women or the base instincts of men. While this sentiment was more readily at hand during the second wave of feminism, third wave feminism resists homogenizing by sex, race, or class. While white liberal/popular feminism has an embarrassing tendency to acknowledge intersectionality only out of politeness and/or use it as a cudgel, even performative acknowledgement is a ward against overt essentialist dogma. For this reason, reactionary feminists must harness movements like MeToo, incel attacks, and further misconstrue actual misogynist violence to encourage hypervigilance against terror. The war on gender terror perverts the desire to confront diverse facets of misogyny into the pursuit of covert internal threats. The war compels commitment to defending the home front. A feeling of perpetual vulnerability is the perfect environment for the proliferation of exclusionary strategy. We must feel our goodness and our weakness to the core. Fully enjoying relationships with men, sexual diversity, and private moments of peace are collateral in pursuit of remaining ever-vigilant.

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

one: Hi Em. It has recently come to light in social media that Myers-Briggs was racist and wrote racist books, so people started saying we shouldn't use MBTI anymore. While I know it's mostly based on Jungian theory, it still has a bit of her theory into it and I wanted to know your opinion on that matter? I stand by the Black Lives Matter movement and it makes me uncomfortable to keep talking about something made by an antiblack person and I also don't want people I care about to think

two: I support racist people and cancel me/stop talking to me/pick up a fight, but MBTI and Jungian theory have helped me a lot and they make me happy, I genuinely enjoy reading about it and having it in my life. I feel like I'm in a moral compass that will inevitably make me feel bad in some way.

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

So I’ll talk about my thoughts below re: my personal opinion about this sort of situation. That said ultimately this is your choice and I cannot make it for you. I am going to use the term “you” a lot in like, a general sense, but this is just how I’m talking about it. You yourself can choose whatever you want.

So: I did have to look this up, and the most reliable article I could find was from several years ago on New York Magazine’s the Cut, indicating that Isabel Briggs Myers in particular had written a novel in the 30s that had a very racist plot with overtones of eugenics. She also indicated that a person advocating for equality (circa the 1950s) indicated an undeveloped type.

As for my personal opinions: Briggs Myers was pretty obviously racist, and while arguments of “it was normal for the time” are never great anyway (normal doesn’t mean correct), the timing indicates this was particularly conservative/reactionary. Eugenics was a very popular idea earlier in the 20th century, but was falling out of favor and heavily targeted by progressive activist organizations by the 40s and 50s. That’s not going to be the argument here; it’s racist and you can’t paint it as not racist.

As for how I personally choose to engage with such things:

If you stop engaging with all literature, theories, or ideas created by people who were racist (or bigoted in other ways, or problematic for whatever definition you use for problematic) - or even ‘more racist than usual at the time’ - you will be left with very little to engage with. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be critical. You should. But it does not mean you need to cancel or throw everything out. This personal opinion is heavily influenced by me being Jewish; if I tried to stop reading anything by someone who had engaged in antisemitism, I would pretty much have to throw out anything from before like, 1950, unless it was written by someone who was either Jewish, whose other works were lost such that we know nothing about their opinions, or who was from a place that had little or no Jewish presence.

The concept of canceling really only makes sense for me for people who are ongoing creators. It makes no sense to, for example, cancel Shakespeare, despite The Merchant of Venice being quite antisemitic. He’s dead and we’re not going to change his mind. Nor do I think we should ban access to The Merchant of Venice (I have a general hard line against censorship on the grounds that it will be used against antiracist works as well - and indeed often is). I think a theater group choosing to put on The Merchant of Venice does need to think about how they will present it and what context they will use. But I don’t think they need to attempt to strike it from their repertoire.

The same goes for works by antisemitic and racist creators that are not themselves explicitly bigoted (eg: Roald Dahl was very antisemitic, but I don’t think Matilda, for example, was itself a book with antisemitic themes).

The point where canceling does make sense to me is for a living creator who is still being racist (or bigoted), with the intent being to limit their access and show them that this behavior will result in negative consequences. Ideally people should be anti-racist (or respect women, or accept LGBT people) out of a sense of compassion, but when that fails, shutting them up because they fear losing their movie career is at least better for the world as a whole.

I would note again, in my opinion, that if you already have supported them in the past/own things they created, you do not need to throw those things out. Don’t burn your Harry Potter books because of JKR’s transphobia, but don’t spend money on Harry Potter merchandise.

Now, when it comes to specific theories, it does get a little more complicated because I am sure some motivation for MBTI was coming from a place of eugenicism. I also think nearly all personality and intelligence tests were. The SAT was originally created to prove the superiority of the so-called Nordic Races. We live in a racist society, and the categorization and ranking systems of said society will, unfortunately, often reflect that.

I believe the way to use such tests in the modern day is first, to remove the idea that a certain type is better than others (you can have personal preferences; you don’t have to like all people. This is more the idea that no type is inherently more intelligent or kind or whatever, since MBTI is about cognitive processing and the expression of intelligence or kindness) This includes ideas about which types might be more or less racist. Second, I try to include cultural context in typing people, as a lot of theories about the intelligence of different ethnicities being in some way inferior come from a gross misunderstanding of culture (eg: a more competitive academic environment is seen as a negative thing in some cultures and students will consciously not engage, and this has been incorrectly seen as them being unintelligent, rather than a cultural divide). And finally, I have never given money to the MBTI foundation and don’t intend to nor do I think anyone needs to.

None of this erases the racism Myers and Briggs had, but it does mean that your own use of cognitive theory as they interpreted it is not perpetuating ideas of anyone being inherently superior. I take the things I find beneficial (understanding yourself and others) and leave behind anything else.

[shewhohangsoutincemeteries]

stay

Rocket Raccoon x Gender-Neutral Reader

Requested by: @b-oys-do-c-ry​

Summary: after the events of endgame, you’ve tried to settle back into life with the guardians, but feel the need to return home to your family and help them adjust to the new reality. rocket catches you packing.

Characters: rocket raccoon, reader, mentions of other guardians

Warnings: the relationship is understandably platonic. only warning is for mild adult language and angst

Word Count: 2,380

MARVEL MASTERLIST or CHECK OUT MY FANFIC DEDICATED BLOG

One of the side effects of living with five other ‘people’ on a ship with only three bunks – one of which was actually a converted storage space – was that you didn’t have a lot of space to call your own. Sharing a room with Drax, Mantis and Nebula meant that you really only kept the essentials, along with a few sentimental knick-knacks you’d picked up both back on Terra and in ports across the galaxy. On the bright side, that meant that the phrase ‘packing a bag’ could be taken quite literally. Almost everything you owned fit in a single duffel bag.

“What’re you doin’?”

You jumped slightly as a voice sounded behind you, a mix of confusion and amusement coloring his tone. Turning from the bag on your bunk, you offered an awkward shrug of one shoulder to Rocket. He was standing in the doorway, arms folded over his chest and an eyebrow cocked.

It was amazing that after everything that happened with Thanos, you’d been brought back into existence and Rocket still seemed for the most part, the same gruff, smart-mouthed guy you’d bonded with when you’d first joined the crew.  There were a few greyer hairs around his muzzle now, and sometimes he seemed more tired than anything else, but otherwise, he just seemed happy to have you all back.

“Nothing. What’s up?”

“You’re missin’ dinner.”

“And you came all the way to the other end of the ship to tell me that?” you joked, mirroring his posture. You smirked jovially down at him. “I’m touched, man.”

“Shut ya mouth,” he groused back at you despite the beginnings of a smirk of his own on his face. You laughed despite your unease at being caught out, shaking your head. “Groot’s fussin’ about you not bein’ there.”

“Sure, he is,” you replied snidely, smile widening. It was unlikely that Groot had even raised his head from his game long enough to realize you weren’t there. “That’s why he’s here bugging me instead of you.”

“Watch it, humie. You can’t be butt ugly and friendless.”

“Ah, there’s the Rocket I know and love.” you teased. “And please, you know I’m gorgeous.”

He snickered, nodding almost absentmindedly. “Yeah, yeah. Ego like that and you’ll be putting Quill to shame in no time.”

“Oh, shudder the thought.” you said with a dismissive wave of your hand. You turned back to your bed, speaking over your shoulder. “Don’t worry yourself, Rock. I promise, you’ll never see me getting into a pissing contest with a Norse God.”

“Because you’re leavin’?”

You stopped, hands hovering over your bag. You closed your eyes for a moment, exhaling a long sigh through your nose. You had tried so hard to do this quietly.

The last thing you wanted was the crew fussing over your decision or trying to get you to change your mind. You didn’t get a lot of privacy or time alone between ports, but you’d figured that the notion of a hot meal would be enticing enough to the rest of the crew to grant you at least twenty minutes in which to pack your bag. You’d barely made it more than five.

You’d told Quill. Two weeks ago, you’d found him alone, pouring over the screens that held the scans he hoped would lead you to Gamora. The new Gamora… an old Gamora. The Gamora that didn’t know you yet. It had taken him a while to comprehend what you were saying, to pull himself out of his thoughts long enough to understand. He’d tried to convince you to stay, tried to tell you what he thought you needed to hear, but he’d finally agreed all the same. You were to get off in a couple of days when you were Terra-side again. He’d agreed not to tell the others – it was your business to share.

Honestly, part of you was sure it would have been anyone but the anti-social Rocket to come looking for you… but maybe another part of you wasn’t so surprised by it at all. He’d been more attentive since the second snap, more concerned. Of course, he’d shake you off with an insult and a scoff if you pointed that out.

“Damn it,” you breathed quietly, turning around and fixing him with your best attempt at incredulity. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re packin’ a bag, Y/N.” he said pointedly, nodding his head toward the bed behind you.

“Maybe I’m just… reorganizing.”

“Into a bag.”

“It’s a… system. Keeps everything in one, easy to access place.”

“So does your locker,” he pointed out, gesturing under your bed.

“Well, only if you want to get all… logical about it,” you admitted in a childish grumble. When his only response was to lean against the edge of the doorway and give you an exasperated look, you sighed, running a hand through your hair. You sat on the edge of your bunk, shoving your bag to the end of it. “How many of you did Quill tell?”

Rocket’s expression turned offense. “So, you are leavin’.”

“Ah, shit.”

“And you told Quill, but not—not the rest of us?”

“I, uh… well, yeah?” you tried for a humored smile. It curled the side of your lips awkwardly. This whole conversation was making you way too uncomfortable. You didn’t do emotional confrontation. A gunfight on some random planet all in the name of the adventures of the Guardians of the Galaxy, sure. But talking about your feelings? There was a reason you got along so well with every other emotionally constipated crew member on this damn ship. “I needed him to steer the ship in the right direction. Did you think we were going back to Terra because we’re already out of mac and cheese?”

“What the fuck, Y/N?” he growled, clearly unamused by your attempt at humor. “You’re leavin’ and you weren’t even gonna tell us?”

“Of course, I was!” you protested. “Just… figured I’d wait.”

“’til when exactly?”

“…until it was time to get back on the ship?” you said, almost hopefully. Rocket rolled his eyes disparagingly, fixing you with a long look. The cold disappointment… the betrayal… in his eyes made your blood freeze, and he shook his head as he turned away. You called after him as he left. “Rocket. Rocket, c’mon, man—I just…”

You fell back onto your bed with a huff, staring at your ceiling. “Goddamn it.”

***

Two days. It had been a bit over forty-eight hours and Rocket still wasn’t talking to you. Sure, he wasn’t the most sociable guy on the ship to begin with, but this was different. This was cold.

The two of you usually exchanged good-natured, sarcastic barbs as easy as breathing, only to round on whoever told you to shut up first together. It was fun, easy, and something you never really thought about – your friendship with Rocket was always something you didn’t really have to think about – it was reactionary. So, to be thinking about it now… you’d been completely lost at what to do for the last two days.

He didn’t talk to you, and when he absolutely had to, it was curt. The sarcasm he still flung your way under his breath didn’t hold the same humor. More than once, Quill and Mantis had cast you questioning glance at the change in his attitude towards you, but all you could do was shrug. You weren’t even completely sure as to why he was acting this way; you were friends, sure, but it was Rocket. He wasn’t exactly the touchy-feely type.

“Hey, Rock.”

He didn’t react to your entrance other than a small flick of his ear in your direction. He was on the late shift piloting the ship back to Terra, and you’d spent the last four hours staring at the ceiling of your bunk, sleep unwilling to take you. So, you dragged yourself out of bed, pulled on a jacket and your boots against the cold of the ship, and headed for the cockpit. You hadn’t had a chance to talk to him without interruption he left the room whenever someone else entered.

“Are you really giving me the silent treatment here, man?” you asked after a few moments, exasperated. You moved to sit in the co-pilot’s seat, pulling your jacket more tightly around yourself. “C’mon, Rocket. Seriously.”

He didn’t take his eyes off the sky. “I’m busy, Y/N.”

You followed his gaze with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, I’d hate to distract you from this completely empty expanse of space we’re travelling through right now.”

He sighed at your sarcasm, giving you a sidelong, exasperated look of his own. “What’re you doin’ here, Y/N?”

“Right now?” you replied. “Right now, I’m just amazed you’ve managed to string more than two words together in my presence.”

“Just…” he paused, shaking his head as he searched for the words. You felt your stomach twist at the seeming uncertainty you could see in him; this was different. Rocket didn’t consider what he said; no, he’d just shoot back with whatever first came to mind, consequences be damned. For all his faults, he always seemed so certain of what he meant when he spoke, even if it was just a quick insult or a jibe. This wasn’t that. “Just… what do you want?”

“I want you to talk to me, Rocket.” you said. “Like before.”

“Why bother?” he shrugged, his voice gruff. He was back to refusing to look at you. “You ain’t gonna be around much longer, anyway.”

You sighed, fixing your eyes on the wide, black emptiness in front of you. That view used to excite you, a promise of adventure. Ever since the snap, it just felt… cold. “Look, I… I gotta go home, Rocket. They need me there. Everyone being back… it’s more complicated than we thought it would be. But… but me leaving, it’s not a big deal.”

“Sure, it’s not.”

“Dude,” you bristled at his tone despite yourself. “Why are you being like this?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re pissed at me!” you exclaimed, throwing your hands up in annoyance. You stuttered over your words for a moment, lost, before standing and shrugging dramatically. “Look, just forget about it, Rocket. I don’t know why I bothered coming up here in the first place; why the hell would I ever expect you to actually fucking talk to me instead of just being a complete dick about this.”

It wasn’t until you were stepping back onto the ladder to leave that he spoke again, his voice so quiet you almost missed it. He was still sitting in the pilot’s chair, his eyes still on the stars. “Don’t.”

You stopped short, surprised by the sudden vulnerability in his voice. “Don’t what?”

“Don’t…” he exhaled slowly, a steadying breath. “Don’t go.”

Your brow creased, and you moved slowly back towards his seat until you could see his face again. He looked embarrassed at speaking up, his ears drooping back. In fact, you were almost certain that under all that fur there could be a blush burning in his cheeks.

“Why not?”

“Be… because… ah, fuck…” he muttered to himself, a paw rubbing almost nervously at the fur on the side of his neck. “Because we… we need you here.”

“You… no, you don’t.”

Rocket finally turned to look at you, incredulity in his eyes. “We don’t? What about Groot?”

You paused, pressing your lips together as your stomach dropped. You loved the plant, you’d helped to raise him, and leaving him behind was one of the hardest things you were facing right now. Leaving any one member of the crew behind was going to be hard, but Groot… he was still a kid. “He’ll… he’ll be fine. He’s got all of you here, and he probably… he probably won’t even realize that I’m gone.”

Rocket raised an eyebrow at you. “Really? You think he’s an idiot?”

“No! I think he’d have to get his head out of that goddamn gaming device for more than thirty seconds to realize I wasn’t around?” you shot back in frustration. “Is that what this is about? You think you’ll have to look after him by yourself if I’m not around? Are you seriously pissed at me because you’re losing a babysitter?!”

“I’m pissed because you’re leaving me!” he shouted, the intensity in his voice surprising the both of you. He seemed to realize he’d admitted something he hadn’t intended a few moments too late, and he rolled his eyes at himself, tugging irritably at the fur at either side of his neck.

“…Rocket?”

He growled in frustration, rubbing his paws over his eyes. When he finally spoke again, he sounded tired… weary. “Just… you have no idea. You have no idea what is was like… all of you were gone. Gone, and I was…”

He broke off with a long exhalation and a slow shake of his head, his eyes closed. When you spoke for him, you could barely bring your voice above a whisper. “Alone.”

Rocket’s breathing shook slightly, the only sound in the ship’s quiet cockpit. You moved to kneel beside his chair, your gaze beseeching. You almost reached out to touch him but thought better of it. Honestly, you weren’t sure anymore if that was still a trigger for him.

“Rocket, you’re not alone anymore. We’re all back. Just because I’m gone doesn’t mean the others will be too. You’ll still have Groot and Quill and Nebula… everyone else will still be here. You’re not going to be alone; is that what this is all about?”

He sighed, opening his eyes. “It don’t matter. You go, that’s one more time, one more person I’ve got to mourn. And I don’t think I’ve got it in me to do it again.”

“Rock…” you murmured. You could feel tears welling in your eyes, and you could see them in his. You steadied yourself, wetting your lips. “I need to go home.”

He turned to face you, his jaw set. “Then don’t stay.”

“What?”

“Come back. Don’t stay on Terra.”

“I don’t…”

“Please.”

You stopped short; you didn’t think that in all the time you’d ever heard Rocket say ‘please’.

And that was, suddenly, all that it took.

“Okay.”

.

.

.

tags: @lovely-dreamer19 @spacesuitsforemergency @wittyforachange @wefracturedmotivation @january-echoes @glossyloner @capitalnineteen​ @dragon-chica​

[hotforhandman]

What tf is wrong with you? Tumblr suggested that stupid ass dAbI r RaCiSt! shit and I’m physically sickened by you. There are so many horrible things going on in the world rn and for you to fking MAKE UP problems in a fandom that people use to escape is DISGUSTING. Ffs I’m at a loss for even logic because of people like you being so damn stupid I’m just tired. Just gg for being part of the problem.

Um... okay. Some points:

1) If one of my posts offends you, it's going to be far more effective if you actually tell me it's offensive, explain how so I can avoid doing it again, and then I can apologise or tag it or take it down as is appropriate. Reactionary insult-throwing just makes me think you're inclined to hate me no matter what, so there's no point trying to make amends. As a side note, if you want to actually ask me to do something productive about it, please do.

2) When did we stop being allowed to use fiction as an analogy to talk about real-world issues? Like... as far as I'm aware that's something that people have been doing since the dawn of storytelling. Or is it only professional literary analysts and english lit textbooks that are allowed to do that now? Look, if I'm wrong I'm wrong, but part of consuming media is interpreting it. So like, I don't understand what my crime is here.

3) I don't intend to ruin anyone's safe space. If my existence in the fandom is ruining it for you, then please, feel free to block me. I can't control the content you see, but you can. You can choose to just ignore and cut out content that makes you uncomfortable.

4) That being said... I don't think I made up anything. I can cite in-text sources if you don't believe me. Anti-mutantism is a canonical, in-universe issue, and I think to say it draws parallels with real-world racism isn't an irresponsible take. The biggest debate to be had is whether or not certain characters that seem to play into it actually hold those beliefs, which... is exactly the debate we were having.

So please, if you still have an issue with me can you please just... say it to me next time? This feels gratuitous and unnecessarily mean to me. I'm not a callous or unreasonable person, I will listen and apologise if I've done something wrong. I will even delete the post if people tell me it's harmful. Just please explain to me why it's harmful first, so I can learn from my mistakes.