#i enjoyed writing this because the hypocrisy and nonsensical logic is very felt but also grabs my head about it

[townofcadence]

Her expression at the show of teeth is certainly one that's affected. Her eyes widen just a second, before she scoffs and shakes her head. Her arms cross, and she regards both of them with watchful eyes.

Artair meanwhile feels the rising heat from Butch, but the guy doesn't act on it, for which he's grateful. He wants this whole mess to go in the right direction, and it already feels so tenuous.

It is... somewhat undercut by Butch correcting his name. The notion of it is equal parts sweet and well... bless his heart. He was doing his best to put respect to his name, and--- honestly, it's sweet. He'd chosen his own name for himself after all, and dealt with his fair share of rough times for it, but it was his. It was the one he wanted to be called. Even if the situation wasn't one where he needed defending, the fact that Butch would...

He's perfect. He wants to...he doesn't know. His brain is piecemeal. But a kiss at least crosses his mind. Peyton meanwhile looks like Butch has grown a second, even more annoying head. She looks at Artair again and her expression screams "Really?". Probably on his taste in company, but this time she's polite enough not to say it. Maybe because Butch is louder, and other patrons are glancing their way. An audience that isn't online is probably the last thing she wants.

He feels those gentle ministrations, sees Butch's expression, which eases any initial worry of earlier, and Peyton is giving up. His next breath is relieved.

Butch continues.

Peyton goes from lamenting to-- maybe pissed, to thoughtful in almost rapid time, as she looks at both him and Butch. Then she focuses on Butch. She nods and her face says she understands now. It's a very 'I've connected the dots' kind of expression, but he's not sure what there even is to piece together. She huffs at Butch. "I am not a journalist. I'm a true-crime Podcaster, which is a brave and intellectually stimulating career about solving cold cases others can't, and the pursuit of the truth. And now I understand the racket here. Your game." She almost looks disgusted.

"People like you two are everywhere. Profiting off your information and others' loss like-- like vultures! But fine. If that's the game you want to play, I can pay for your info. But it better be good."

Artair blinks. "...What?"

"Don't play dumb now, Air-tair." Her tone is derisive as she reaches into her bag. "You and your crony here were just waiting to extort me. You act all innocent and then you have him strong arm me about seeking the truth, and then you demand payment! This is just about the money. Blood-money I hope you know. You're a bunch of leeches, for feeding on a tragedy like this."

"... What the fuck are you talking about? You approached me?" Upset and panic still run like an undercurrent to his thoughts, but the sheer volume of confusion makes it hard to feel anything else. That verging breakdown is miles away, pushed out by incredulous bafflement.

She gives them both a cool look. Out of her purse comes-- a checkbook. "Don't try to trick me. You probably knew I'd been following you this whole time and set this up-- didn't you?"

"Wh--" She talks over him.

"You knew I was hot on your trail and you got this dense asshole to lie in wait so you could ambush me and demand payment. Well fine! What's the price? I want this story."

“I can be, but I can’t promise I don’t bite.” Butch comments, baring his teeth at her in a grin, small fangs visible and for once, he’s glad. He hopes they unsettle her!

His brows knit together a bit tighter when she brings up those two names again, and refers to Artair as some third wheel. Oooh, anger stirs inside of him like a hot soup! She was about to be a third wheel—a wheel with a gash in it, if she didn’t shut her mouth. Butch wasn’t the type to discriminate when it came to throwing punches, but he’d come to learn that there were better ways of handling situations like these—from Artair no less. A little patience went a long way more often than not, as much as he hated it, and this was about Artair anyway. He should be afforded the opportunity to stick up for himself, like he had for him.

Suddenly, he finds himself a bit offended by (what he perceives to be) the butchering of Artair’s name at the end of her words. Arthur? Butch makes a face and suddenly none of her other words seems to matter, and he can’t help but cut in, “Uh, his name is AIR-tair.” The cowboy states, pronouncing it incorrectly as he seemed to have a habit of doing thanks to his accent. “A-R-T….A…-I-R!” He spells it out plainly just in case she doesn’t get it the first time, his volume certainly beyond the appropriate library volume despite his earlier gripes with her.

There’s a long silence that hangs between them, including the other book fair attendees, and Artair is quick to move right along (thank god), actually telling her like it is—and he’s proud, even though personally he would have been far more rude about it. He can still feel those fingers trembling some against his palm and his thumb moves to brush tenderly over the back of Artair’s hand, a soothing gesture. He’s watching the taller man’s expression with sympathy, his own expression shifting back to an irritated one the moment he’s looking back at Peyton.

“That’s right, y’wasted yer time jus’ like ya wasted ours. Big deal. Listen, ‘sides th’ fact that he obviously don’t wanna share nothin’ with you anyhow—what makes ya think he’s gonna tell ya anythin’ at all fer free? Y’think bein’ pushy alone’s gonna get ya answers? Ain’t ya some kinda journalist? Get real!”

[rabbitindisguise]

oooo my phone died, killing the possibility of me doing my Daily Assigned Task (I only have one because aside from staying afloat with food and stuff that’s all my brain can cognitively handle. Yes, I also do this doing the school year. Yes, I know that sounds absolutely bonkers) right this moment so while I have my boredom captive in this textpost, let’s ruminate over the nature of humanity some more ignore me I’m talking to myself 

it is also very extremely weird and by “very” I mean “not at all” and “extremely” I mean “minimally, if anything, actually not super weird in any of the senses of the word” and weird still just means weird because otherwise the previous things I just said would no longer be accurate BUT

let’s just say it’s totally expected 

that people find These Weird Things That I Do generally, absolutely fascinating in fiction. Like, my original works for example are steeped in weirdness. Rolling with abnormalities. Boiling with oddity. And so on. And I don’t pull this out of my ass! Oh no. This is all like . . . gosh, inspired stuff. From things I saw and liked and felt reflected my very soul in fiction. 

But they’re totally hated in meatspace 

I wonder 

Anyway, it’s also really strange to see posts about this Weird Things That People Do on tumblr and to read people complimenting them and to feel a warm glow of pleasant optimism about the state of humanity, and hear the very same audience of tumblr people absolutely go nuts over the strangest bullshit I have ever seen or heard or conceived of in my entire life. Like I get weirdly tense and fraught subjects. I get really tense and pissy if someone headcanons a character as binary trans when I headcanon them as non-binary when I’m a nb trans it literally doesn’t matter aside from my emotional attachment to the concept. I’m not proud of it! But I get it, is my point. I understand. It makes sense to me. 

But what just doesn’t quite click, doesn’t snap into the convoluted logic of my brain meats, is HOW exactly SO MANY people have the same weird gripes of this obscure stuff that should be totally okay if people are accepting the activist principles of ableism as nonsense and weirdness not being bad. Many others who are probably smart have said it is simply, nay, merely hypocrisy and I’ve met a human or two in my time alive, I can see the potential for that sort of thing to happen. However, considering that Herd Mentality is what it is, I don’t think it’s possible that the plague is actually “being widely inconsistent in the execution of your beliefs to fit in to society” when that’s so stigmatized but actually that being angry about the same things is good for some reason. 

This is important! It’s important because Reasons. Because if you say “hypocrite!” when there’s a fire, I don’t think anyone will understand or listen to the concern. If the answer is anything but hypocrisy, talking about it generally pisses people off and makes them yell at you- a near identical response of an actual hypocrite, confusing everyone further. So I don’t think it’s unfair to talk about hypocrisy, of course not, there is nothing I enjoy more than finding logical inconsistencies because it means the world can be improved etc etc that’s not the problem. The problem is most definitely that if the problem isn’t even hypocrisy than the solution isn’t the solution to hypocrisy.   

If my theory is right, or semi-right, or at least not wrong, then approaching a bunch of people yelling about a thing to encourage others to yell in tandem is not going to be won by yelling something opposing to that, especially if it makes them angrier and also makes them feel wronged. Instead, calmly being like “nah, dude, I don’t feel the same way, but it’s chill” is way better. Not only because it makes them look ridiculous for having an out of proportion reaction to someone being weird in public (the horror, whatever shall we do about ~being weird~ and doing it ~in public~) but there’s no defensive position to get on. There is no “debate tactics” to use. There’s absolutely not a disagreement about ableism or politics or intersectionality. Rather, it uplifts a contrary option that is confident and secure and this is exactly the same rhetorical device that Centrists or whatever they’re called, use all the damn time. People have talked At Length about jeez, idk, it being exhausting to constantly talk to a person that’s not as invested and doesn’t see it as the Serious Issue It Is- but from the perspective of when they’re actually talking about serious issues, rather than complaining that someone referenced a tumblr meme in public or plays mc and oh, no, how cringey 

This is of course blatant emotional manipulation but as the fairness complaint generally goes, they did it first. Multiple people weighing in on a topic with angry voices telling someone not to do something doesn’t work because they have secret actual good reasons and that shines through, it’s because there’s a number of angry people and they’re trying to subdue someone’s Weird with force. Emotional force, but there’s nothing about consent involved in this exchange. No personal boundaries. Shame is a mode of control. Power, even. Which is why I hate those second hand embarrassment fics and avoid them like the plague because it’s icky to me and makes me feel gross and I guess one of my personal triggers is someone feeling bad for doing something Shameful in public 

Which brings me to Weird Humanity Musings part II (III? I can’t do math) that have taken a weird non-activist and highly personal turn for the worst: 

I don’t think people notice how often emotional manipulation plays a part in subtle power plays that go on in human interactions every day. Humanity made dominance ffs. Humans are the ones that get upset and feel challenged with eye contact- not dogs. Dogs use sustained eye contact all the time for a bunch of reasons. Humans too. But it’s humans that recontextualized that behavior as exclusively dominance, a wholly human concept, and, whatever I’m not going to spend too much time on this because I don’t actually particularly care about it. But the point is actually just that humans went out of their way to create this thing, and it plays a part in social interactions. Mothers and daughters and siblings and friends all have scripts of code that basically go for the emotional center of the other person to get them to obey. Most people can’t recognize it because society has that whole “if everyone does it THIS must be the baseline of normal” be as well All Know, normal doesn’t even exist so that reaction is bullshit before it’s even analyzed in any meaningful sense. 

Example time because I highly doubt I can just say that off the cuff and actually get people to follow that train of thought to completion (unfortunately, I’d rather not have to write this post at all because it means one less problem in the world and that’s a good thing). 

Anytime someone says “I’m your mother!” it’s to reinforce the authority of the child that this person probably have financial, social, physical (such a medical) and emotional control over for almost two decades of their life, or however much it actually was. This is often used to make the child of the mother Do Something, like maybe they’re questioning her judgement or smth I don’t know I get this one a lot and it’s lost all meaning to me by now 

Whenever someone says “thank you” it generally plays into the social script where they do the whole dance of “I got this service from you, I say thanks, you say you��re welcome.” This works as a subtle manipulation (not necessarily negative! these examples aren’t Get Mad and Force Conformity examples, just How It Works examples) when someone doesn’t feel like they’ve done something for someone else, so saying “thanks” shows appreciation for the effort and can force an acknowledgement of that effort by expecting a “your welcome” or “no problem” from the other person. This gets shitty and creepy when someone doesn’t take silence aka “I’m not doing the dance because I don’t agree” to a degree where they’re like “oh? are you not going to say you’re welcome?” aka are you gonna be a conceited shithead that thinks they’re better than saying “you’re welcome” the most common social nicety that supposedly always costs nothing? Which does nothing to make the person to feel better and everything to leverage the situation and make them preform social interaction for the other person’s amusement. 

“Good morning” is another example. It doesn’t actually matter if the morning is good or not, but it establishes rapport and focuses on the positives- one of those things called “small talk.” (Never heard of her.) This is something someone can actually observe better at the cultural level- someone says “good morning” in english, in another language they say something else. Both show ideological underlying beliefs of the culture Because That’s How Culture And Language Work because it’s a sneaky not-liar that can’t hide its true feelings about things. 

I’m not actually all that good with the line between “what is acceptable emotional manipulation in a social context when the fundamentals of the english language rely on subtle power exchange to function [and holy shit would some people hate knowing That] and the unacceptable abusive emotional manipulation” and I generally err on the side of stuff that people seem to be explicitly asking for and prompting but I don’t always succeed and I don’t know that I’m doing the best method but that’s the most chaotic good thing I could come up with  

But it still remains that calling things emotional manipulation is both true and a misnomer because in some ways, they’re necessary to exist in society without being considered a jackass (as a self proclaimed “I was called a jackass using many different words that all basically mean jackass” that mostly doesn’t participate in these social nicety dances because I don’t like my brain yelling at me that I’m doing the same bullshit I hated as a Youth and I don’t like disappointing myself) and in others, they’re totally unneeded and artlessly cruel. I mean, heck, going through this internal debate every time someone says “good morning?” Who does that? (I do. This is why people think I’m a dumbass lmao. Jokes on them unfortunately,) 

Regardless of what people actually DO about it though, these things are the underlying mechanics of how emotional manipulation works. It’s a concoction of societal expectations, situational contexts, personal histories, selective pressures, and a bunch of other things in smaller amounts. Most of the time it’s “normal” social stuff but with a ton of exaggerated features (I almost used my own handle from a different Social Media and that my friends is having a lot of issues and self hatred due to abuse! and also anxieties over becoming abusive ofc but who doesn’t have those these days). Which is why I think it’s so important that it’s expansively defined so much because otherwise people are really thickheaded about emotional abuse specifically. They think it’s impossible to do in some cases and in others, think it’s exclusively the realm of insults and humiliation. 

Those exaggerate features are even harder to spot if someone doesn’t even recognize the interpersonal dynamics of language in the first place. It all just becomes nonsensical and no one can tell what came from where or what this particular question is abusive and not this other one. The logic gets poked with holes easier and abuse survivors get dismissed. 

Of course, expanding that definition to reshape thinking might just go along the same direction as representation, where even alluding to the truly abusive mechanics of actual, you know, emotional abuse, is seen as abusive. Everything, literally, would become problematic. There could be callout posts about any human interaction in any context with anyone ever. I’m confident in holding myself to a higher standard than the rest of society but I Cannot overstate that being bullshit to the nth degree that I couldn’t even put up with myself telling myself to keep to it as a standard. It just doesn’t work. I’ve tried it. That way lies the nonsense form of madness as in the non-nd kind. That, along with purity culture and censorship and doxxing and death threats and so on: I don’t fully want to release this theory out into the world in practice because I’m afraid society will just use it as fodder to be cruel to people but I’m also equally afraid that not saying anything will just cause people to, I don’t know, keep accidentally causing suffering to others. So I’ll stuff it under a read more and hope that keeps the impact minimal but not non-existent. 

But yeah this whole post is a demonstration that just because someone’s behaving weirdly doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re bad people. Even if they do something that seems downright mean. I read a post that was basically “there’s no such thing as asshole disorder” but there really is, and it’s whatever I have. I get so compelled to Do the right thing by my ethics and morals that I go through above *gestures* and take longer than neurotypicals do to respond to “good morning” and I don’t mean anything by it so I assume that people can tell because I assume the best in others, and others are free to assume the worst in me so they do. 

I’m not upset by it but I also wish that there were a better system to screen assholes than assuming that non-compliance with normality is a sign of evil, because that’s the system we seem to have. It might have a high reward in the brain via confirmation biases and whatnot, but that doesn’t seem worth the risk of basically knocking down any and every mental illness symptom that’s unpalatable. Because they’re all unpalatable to someone, somewhere. That’s what makes them symptoms. We don’t have any “glowing green hair” as symptoms because that’s just sick as fuck and I want some. People who have working with their symptoms and turned them into something beneficial have largely challenged societal ideas about what is “good” and “natural” to get there, and that type of work isn’t someone everyone is cut out for. 

Many physically disabled people are all medical model, all the way because they’ve been largely neurotypical their whole lives, and I’ve read their grieving posts like people recommend that I read and I just don’t see how I can help them empathize with me as a person that doesn’t give a shit if my clicking pen annoys people if it helps me focus. That’s an Asshole move if any has ever be determined by society, but at the same time, a common fundamental symptom of many disorders, and as such, I don’t feel bad about it and I don’t know that I could, ever, be made to feel guilty for existing. I’ve never seen myself as a drain on society. I’ve never felt like a freeloader. And I’ll never feel bad for being disable or neurodivergent. Does that make me the bad guy? Or the weird cool antihero from fiction? My impulse is to say “yes” to both ‘cause what people like in fiction is not always what they tolerate in real life 

It’s kinda weird and paradoxical that I can feel bad about not feeling bad but not feel bad about being disabled at the same time but w/e I’m an abuse survivor we, collectively, excel at stuff and things that most people may not understand so I guess that’s all the explanation I need