#i'm talking about how people react to discomfort IRL

[littlestarprincess]

I still haven't gotten around to reading Haunting Adeline (I was reading something Worse) but the fact that it's recently come out to be lowkey QAnon conspiracies all over is wild to me, especially because everyone is acting like this is somehow because the author is crazy.

When are we gonna talk about the fact that QAnon and other cultlike movements thrive off of letting people escape into a fantasy world that justifies and validates their shitty, uncomfortable feelings and it works so well because we have built a society that insists toxic positivity is the only answer to anything?

[symptoms-syndrome]

I feel like. A big part of why I don't tend to get along with a lot of other autistic people is my own trauma, which is unfair to them but like. IDK what to do about it so I just sort of sit there in discomfort feeling like I'm being ableist.

To be more specific, I was raised with a lot of rules. I went to finishing classes and was trained to sit up straight say the right things do the right things don't speak out of turn always be polite etc etc etc. And autistic brains tend to love rigid rules I think. Because I definitely latched on. Having a very clear set of rules for social interactions is like. A godsend for someone who struggles so so hard with that sort of thing.

The problem is, a lot of other people don't follow that ruleset. So while I can be a smoothly operating gear within the machine of "polite society," I'm just sort of. A loose, weird thing among regular people.

What stresses me out, I might even say trigger me, is when people are "rude." I'm not sure if they're actually being rude or not, but that's the first thing that my brain comes up with for this kind of behavior. Talking over others, talking about inappropriate/uncomfortable topics, talking too loud, not giving the right body language. It sets off little alarm bells in my brain. And I feel really bad about it, and I feel really bad about how judgemental I can be sometimes about it, and I feel really bad about how it makes me feel. But it makes me feel panic!!!

Like. For example, when we were interviewing for roommates, my brother kept sort of? Pacing? Or doing his own sort of thing away from the rest of us? And it kept. Setting off alarm bells. You're being rude! You seem unhappy to be interviewing! You seem uninterested!!!

Ugh. It's frustrating. I wish I could react to things other autistic people do normally or with more compassion. I try my hardest I really do. It's just really triggering sometimes and when I'm triggered it can be hard to not respond with a panic response. Though I don't really act on it often. Just feelings. It depends on the behavior. I just wish I either fit with other autistic people or fit with neurotypical people. I fit with neurotypical people...okay. but I really struggle to connect with a lot of other autistic ppl IRL. Not even bringing in the fact my experiences are wildly different from a lot of people I know who are (low support, late diagnosed, "quiet") autistics.

[bisolationist]

Wtf wtf im soooo mad. Why are women blaming me for having a female abuser do they fucking think i got to pick the sex of that fucking bitch. The first fucking thing that comes out of their mouth is "well maybe she's...." followed by a buttload of excuses. Maybe she's had a bad childhood, maybe because she's under pressure because we live in misginsytic society and your dad doesn't help her. Maybe because this because that what the actual fuck.

I've seen these women treat "normal" abuse survivors with the utmost grace and kindness but because my experience was different I don't get to be affected by my personal experiences.

If I express discomfort at having to visit a female gyno, being alone with a woman, being scared of women and all that im a whiny asshole who doesn't understand what real abuse is and it doesn't even matter anyway because men are worse just get over it already.

Why the fuck won't they let me by traumatized peacefully why are they punishing me for my abuse. The day I told my best fucking friend how I felt uncomfortable when the first girl I've ever been intimate with wouldn't stop when I told her to she said well she would never do that, I felt my heart break into million pieces.

Idk what other women want from me do you want me to apologize because the people who took advantage me were both women is that waht you want. Why the fuck is it surprising for you that a person who was abused/sexually assaulted or whatver by a woman might not be comfortable around women.

Why couldn't you have been nice to me. I didn't even ask you to fight for me or fight for victims of female abuse/SA. All I expected was inaction. I expected you to not belittle my pain I expected you to not find excuses for them i expected you to not react poorly because I fucking know you know how to react towards victims of abuse. Why couldn't you have extended that sympathy to me ?? Why does all your sympathy go towards understanding why my mom abused me

I've never done anything bad to you why would you do this to me?? What did I do to deserve this from you ?. You talk all day about female/class solidarity whatever you wanna call it but yeah

I'm sorry if it feels like I'm alshing out at you. Im not <3 you're a really nice guy. It's just that I feel like other women's kindess/support etc is extremely conditional and men would use what happened to me as an excuse to be misogynistic assholes.

I'm so sorry you have to go through this anon. I understand the frustration so much, especially at the fact that people are always trying to make excuses. I've definitely had that with my mother. I'm actually very cognizant of the ways misogyny has impacted her life; it doesn't mean her abuse was in any way mitigated or justified and bringing it up as an excuse is completely fucked up. I can't even imagine someone trying to go down that line with my rapist; I would lose it. That's part of why I never ever talk about it IRL. You're not wrong for dealing with your trauma in your own way. Nor are you wrong for wishing you could have a little compassion and understanding from people that claim to be on the side of victims. The only thing I want to say is that, I would be careful of implying victims of male abusers are generally treated well. They also get awful treatment from women and men alike. I know you were complaining about individuals, but since you are an anon I want to clarify so it doesn't get generalized. Sorry just thought it was worth mentioning.

[jonesyjonesyjonesy]

Good evening,

Since we're all part of the old man lovers club here, i have a question for you, and everyone else who it may interest (i actually would love to hear more people's opinions on this:)

I've recently matched with a man on tinder, now this is the first time I've started talking to a man (slightly) older than me. He is 48, and I'm 23.

Now the age difference to me doesn't fucking matter, we've hung out twice now, and i have truly never felt such a deep connection with someone ever, apart from my closest friend.

I told a friend of mine who i met with for a cup of coffee last week about this, they were happy for me, up untill they asked me about his age. I told them his age, and when i tell you, the pure disgust and discomfort i saw on their face, quite shocked me.

For me, age is just a number, and if it's a relation with two consenting adults, i don't see a reason with someone being 'too old' ever. But okay, not everyone thinks like this, and that's also okay.

So anyway, this is turning out to be way too long I'm sorry.

Now i don't mind what other people think about age differences and such, (i think the boys of Led can still get it as much as they could get it in the 70's :)

but since my friend reacted in such a way, I'm wondering what you lots think about age differences, what is the 'line'? What is appropriate or not.

I always used to say, 'as long as he's younger than my dad', as a joke, but i don't think it's a joke anymore. :))

Okay peace OUT!!

I love you

Oh anon yes...the older man irl debacle.

I don't think age is just a number...but how much that actually matters TOTALLY depends on the people and how willing they are to meet each other where they are at in their life experiences.

I think my opinion has changed on this since my early twenties. I feel like a completely different person than I was even just three years ago. That being said, your twenties are like second puberty.

My ex-boyfriend was 11 years older than me - I was in my early 20s, him in his early 30s. We got on in so many wonderful ways (which I tend not to dwell on due to the trauma I am still overcoming from that relationship). But he wasn't as mature as his age indicated to me in the beginning. We were developmentally on the same level. In fact, I was more mature.

However, my life experience was so severely different than his, not just because I come from a privileged background (relative to many), but because I was younger and hadn't experienced a lot of life yet. Now, just a few years later, I've matured a ton and stepped into a completely new chapter. I wasn't able to do that growing with him.

Since my relationship ended, I've been on dates with guys as young as 23 and as old as 57. I'm currently talking to a guy much older than me. You vibe with who you vibe with, plain and simple.

You just have to leave room for each others' journeys. On one hand, younger partners need to be respectful of life already lived and on the other, older partners need to be respectful of a life being lived (not to imply anyone older has stopped living life). These age gaps can turn dangerously parental.

I know people who think even a ten year age difference is too much. My roommate has grimaced when I say I'm going out with a guy in his thirties, even though someone who is 33 is only 6 years older than me. I understand from the aspect of gender dynamics that sometimes it can feel like older men are leveraging their privilege against younger women. But we also can't ignore pervasive ageism (in both directions).

It boils down to this: different strokes for different folks.

People are always going to yuck your yum. If it's going well and you both are feeling it, that's amazing. Cherish that. As long as you feel safe and happy in your relationship with this guy and it continues to grow that way, that's all that matters. And fuck the haters. Periodt.

Tl;dr: If John Paul Jones showed up at my door and wanted to bang, I'd say yes. Live your life gurlina.

[delusion-of-negation]

What? You're saying that if I hate something, and don't want to see it, I should NOT interact with it, and force all my fellow haters of that thing to see it by making a big post announcing that I hate this thing?????? However shall I be righteous and act like I'm better than everyone else if I can't publicly proclaim I hate the thing? /SSSS lol, the amount of people who seriously act like that is impressive tbh. 😂Thanks for your original post, I legit had a chuckle.

an irl friend (who was thirteen then but is older now, thanks to the effects of time) once was talking to me about a youtuber I liked back then, and how I shouldn't like them any more because a friend of said youtuber had some problematic kink art, and I asked how he'd found out and other relevant follow-up questions. he'd been watching callout video after callout video about this person, and all of them had been directing his understandable discomfort with the mature topic into a self-righteous campaign - they'd weaponised and re-directed the distress they had caused him by showing him something, that they hadn't age-restricted, that was too mature for him. he didn't even seem aware that the callout videos were the ones who'd exposed him, the ones who'd been careless with him, because they'd put the information across in a way that made him angry at the person who'd just been chilling on their own private blog drawing their silly pictures, far away from him.

and so I had to figure out how to convey that, regardless of what he felt about the person, he should not be viewing content about this topic - which, if you know anything about upset teenagers, is not an easy challenge, especially when, unlike the callout videos, I actually really didn't want to talk to him about that stuff. the event came up in conversation recently, and now that he's older and calmer I was able to be more upfront, and he said that I'd handled it well at the time (idk if there's an objective way to tell if I did a good job, but I tried), but I said that honestly I wished I'd known how to get him to just go talk to his parents about what he was watching back then, because he clearly was not ready to be watching that kind of thing, and he said that if I ever tell him "go talk to your parents" now, he promises not to react negatively and to take that advice (not that it really matters any more since, y'know, the passage of time). I made the post you're talking about a little while after said more recent conversation, and immediately after seeing antis going off about (iirc) people from old memes who make incest porns now - I wanted to make something serious but funny about how utterly fucked it is that people expose teens to that shit just so they can weaponise the distress they cause by doing so.

as an aside, we were recently hanging out with a younger relative of his, and my friend made a more adult joke, and then a friend was like "language", and I was like "oh how the tables turn".

my stance is more that, if you hate something, and you want to go off about how much you hate it 1) age-restrict anything you think is too sensitive for kids so you're not being a massive hypocrite when you talk about it, 2) be aware that you will be recommended that kind of thing as a result, and it's not some evil cabal trying to spread the thing and it's not that the thing is everywhere, you did this to yourself via algorithms, and 3) be aware that when you do this you're blasting someone's private stuff to thousands of people, and that's kind of uncool when they never asked for that, so censor or otherwise take steps to protect the person where necessary. I think if antis did those things I'd take less issue with them being like "ew this ship is so gross", because as much as I disagree with them on that point, at least they wouldn't be weaponising the discomfort they knowingly caused in young teens to harass people. like, the best thing would be if they just avoided what they hate altogether and went on with their lives, but I understand the allure of bitching about things you dislike so I can't be too pissy.

re

[abeautifulblog]

Okay I saw that post you reblogged re: body language, FBI interrogators, etc, and it reminded me that I was wondering if you have any Opinions or musings about the whole “witchers can smell lies” trope, esp. since it’s such a big part of the AWAU lore. After a while in this fandom, I’ve come to find it rather off putting, in part because I think it reinforces some false and dangerous beliefs about deception that are aligned with, like, copaganda about lie detector tests and all that sort of stuff, and also because I think it tends to streamline interpersonal challenges in a way that is kinda boring, y’know, narratively. So I kind of just wanna stop seeing it so much, but I also think it COULD be really interesting to explore, eg, the ethical implications of that kind of imbalance of available information in interactions between humans and witchers. Or like, what kinds of conventions about boundaries and privacy do witchers develop among themselves? I DUNNO. I have lots of thoughts on this, but my intention was to ask about your thoughts, so I’ll leave it here.

Hah, so many places to go with this ask!

Aight, first off let's talk about "lie detecting" irl -- I didn't go into the weeds about it on that other post, but if there's one takeaway to be had from body language studies, is that there is no such thing as "detecting lies." You can learn to identify the physical tics that often correlate with discomfort and stress, and polygraph tests etc provide, in essence, a witcher's eye view to that by also making changes to heartbeat/respiration/blood pressure/whatever visible.

But that's all they are -- indications of discomfort. A polygraph test going nuts is not irrefutable proof of guilt, it just tells the interrogator where to push, and keep pushing. It's a game of hot-and-cold, not a straight-up yes/no. Body language and polygraph tests don't tell them what the truth is, just what subjects they should dig into further, ask more questions on, press for more details, until you either slip up and contradict yourself, or break down and confess.

(I actually wrote an original-fiction short story that explores that in a fantasy context, Let Justice Be Done.)

And I tend to take a similar approach when I'm writing witcher fic -- that it's not an exact science.

@grison-in-space, one of my regular beta readers, is a biologist who actually knows how all those sensory systems work, anatomically, and we have had some long discussions about the feasibility of witchers being able to "smell" emotions. And I do not always let myself be constrained by the limitations of reality, but I do take them into consideration.

My personal headcanon (which I think I talked about in the director's commentary of For the Asking) is that it's not strictly smell that they're picking up on, it's a whole host of other cues -- respiration, heartbeat, body temperature, facial microexpressions, hell, let's say they can detect the body's electrical fields too -- that, taken holistically, they have learned what correlates with which emotions. It just gets shorthanded to "smell" because that's the sense that feels most salient.

Moreover, I don't believe that it necessarily has to turn interpersonal relations into easy mode -- because knowing what someone is feeling is a far cry from knowing why they're feeling it, and therein lies the stuff of drama.

In Song of Selfish Hearts, a story entirely predicated on dramatic irony, Geralt is paying close attention to Jaskier and he does pick up on those emotional shifts -- but unlike the audience, he lacks the context to understand why Jaskier is reacting to certain things the way he does.

In The Very Dubcon One, Geralt's witcher senses are as acute as ever, but that doesn't help if the only emotional states he understands in other people are "content," "angry," and "distressed." Experience and context are a prerequisite before you can interpret the data you're getting, and he lacks it in that story.

Recall also that all the "tells" of lying are just indications of stress -- if someone is genuinely unconcerned about the untruths coming out of their mouth, there is going to be no physiological indication of it. This causes some consternation in the dubcon fic when Geralt realizes how easily and how casually Jaskier is capable of lying to people, that it's indistinguishable from when he's telling the truth -- and realizes that he has no way of knowing if/when Jaskier is lying to him.

As for the privacy issues involved in witcher-senses, I really just see it as an extension of being able to read body language? They're privy to some data that normal humans are not (such as hearing heartrate increase, etc), but I feel like someone paying close attention to body language cues could pick up on those same emotions. It's not telepathy, they're not plucking your secrets out of your head; they're just noticing the signals you're giving off.

In conclusion:

A) The notion of body language or polygraphs can TELL WHEN YOU'RE LYING!!! is indeed copaganda.

B) There are still lots of interesting things to do in fiction even with the "cheat" of a character with a preternatural ability to read emotions.