#non-intervention

[trans-androgyne]

Thinking about “trans women/fems never pass while trans men/mascs pass fine, they just get carded all the time” sentiments and just. It’s so weird to acknowledge that we frequently look way younger than we are but act like that doesn’t have anything to do with how hard it is for us to pass. Lou Sullivan’s chapter about passing is called “How to Look 30 When You’re 30.” I’ve noticed myself getting misgendered more instead of less now that I dress in professional men’s clothes instead of more androgynous casual clothes — I’m more believable as a very butch woman than a guy who in work clothes who looks 14. Yeah I’ve gotten perceived as a slightly fem teenage boy. But I also get perceived as a very gnc woman. It just depends on context; if any of it indicates I’m an adult it’s really, really hard for me to pass as a 5’0 trans guy with an androgynous voice and asian/baby face.

[lunarharp]

the scrabblers and their bored boyfriends

[triski73]

This wasn't on my bingo card - steven cree finding one direction and fandoms colliding.

Thanks @kiaora45 !!!!

[sh5]

all the addiction resources on this site are spread by neolibs who don’t truly understand discrimination against addicts and still think some kind of come-to-jesus moment is what an addict needs to break out.

like, you wouldn’t post, “if you are stimming and you have social anxiety, YOU NEED TO ACCEPT THAT YOU’RE AUTISTIC AND HAVE A PROBLEM. HERE ARE RESOURCES FROM A GOVERNMENT THAT HATES YOU. HERE’S A WEBMD ARTICLE ON HOW AUTISM IS YOUR FAULT AND NOT GENETIC. FIX YOURSELF (because I am frankly morally bothered by the autism epidemic in my peers)!!!”

but people post and reblog posts like that about addiction, often, and honestly, it’s a club of reblogs of people complaining about how teenagers are soooo stupid today for getting hooked on one of the most addictive, most easily accessible substances on earth. don’t y’all drink caffeine? eat/drink sugar? anyways.

it’s just a circle jerk of chronically online people patting themselves on the back because they’re not currently an addict (and they are, they’re on an addiction forming medication or at least caffeine, most likely), that they, unlike their peers, have resisted temptation. it’s, again, like the government, like other anti-addict sources, the conception that addiction can be avoided with the right steps, that addicts chose to be addicted, that you can be too smart to become an addict. these posts aren’t directed at addicts, they’re directed at the friends of addicts, ones who aren’t quite over a literal cop telling them that they’ll go to hell if they touch a joint in middle school. these friends are less socially conscious than they’d like to think, evidenced by the fact that they believe interventions through tumblr to literal strangers are A: effective B: respectful/kind/right to the addicts themselves.

[whumpiary]

How much does Future!Cass maintain his French and Mandarin from Bergen?

Also, I love the detail that his Mandarin is better, both with how logical its grammar is, and also I assume that characters suit his dyslexia better than French spelling. There's something fun and unexpected about Cass projecting nonchalance yet enjoying a language which is tonal. For a person from a non-tonal language, especially the relative flatness of English, Mandarin demands a kind of rhythm and attention which doesn't come naturally.

Also also, who do the tutors who come to the Estate tend to be? How much do they know/suspect?

Future Cass absolutely maintains his languages! He falls off the wagon a little while he's at the Facility, but his languages are actually one of the things he comes back to through his recovery later on, and maintaining them become really important to him. I've had in my head for a while that he probably joins a Tai Chi class so he has a bit more of an excuse to maintain the Mandarin.

Cass has a talent for languages, which Christopher figures out and encourages him toward, because he knows its a lucrative skill. Cass learns mostly aurally from language tapes and conversation, which means he speaks both languages better than he can write or read them.

He's better at Mandarin than French, and generally prefers it too. He really likes the tonality of it, and copying the sounds just so is something he gets fixated on early on while learning it. He also likes that he's better at picking it up than some of the other charges who pick up the same languages. It's not often he feels book-smart, so he latches to it

The tutors are just tutors! They are carefully vetted and have... an awful lot of NDAs to sign. For the privacy of the charges of course, they understand. And they're also prepped and primed for tall tales their students might spin about how they're treated on grounds. But they've seen the facilities. Does it look like anyone's getting abused?

The people who run the tutoring program are absolutely in Christopher's pockets however, so if a tutor was to show any amount of inappropriate concern... well maybe they're just not a great culture fit for the company.

[ollieofthebeholder]

to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

Read from the beginning on Tumblr || AO3 || My Website

Chapter 99: February 2018

“Hello?”

Normally, nothing good followed someone yelling Hello into a seemingly empty room, especially something like, say, an archive in the basement of a two hundred year old building housing an institution devoted to the study of the paranormal and the supernatural. Conversely, nothing good ever came of answering a greeting cried into an otherwise empty room. Sasha had never forgotten the ancient American grandmother of one of her foster parents leaning down to peer at her through those gigantic coke-bottle glasses and impart a bit of wisdom to her: If you’re in the woods at night and you hear something call your name, no you didn’t. But the voice was Tim’s and he sounded panicked, and he would wake Melanie up if he kept shouting, so she at least needed to shut the door. Jon or Martin could tell him where she was and what was going on.

When she got up, though, and peeked through the glass window out of habit, she had a moment of panic. Tim was standing in exactly the same spot he’d stood to pick up the dropped tape recorder the day Jane Prentiss attacked, bending over in the exact same way, and for just a moment, the wild thought struck her: He didn’t see her! You have to save him!

Without thinking, she burst out the door of Document Storage and barely stopped herself from slamming it as she ran across the floor. “Tim!”

Tim looked up, and over his face spread a look of unalloyed relief. “Sash! Jesus, where is everyone? I thought…” He waved a hand at what was next to him.

Sasha’s brain caught up with the present. No attack, or at least not a new one. Tim wasn’t in danger. He’d thought she was, and the others, which was probably a reasonable assumption to make since none of them were present. As she got closer, she realized he was standing directly next to where they had done the impromptu surgery on Melanie.

“Melanie’s asleep in Document Storage,” she said slowly. “Mostly asleep. Jon and Martin are—actually, I’m not sure where they are. Probably doing first aid. Martin kind of got stabbed.”

“What? Christ Almighty.” Tim turned pale again. “I have to—are they in the office?”

“Maybe?” Sasha frowned, but Tim wasn’t even waiting for an answer. He was already striding across the floor, reaching for the door of the office—

“Tim, stop!”

Tim froze, hand outstretched. Sasha whirled around to see Jon rushing through the door connecting the Archives to the rest of the Institute. From the fact that he held two cups of tea, he’d obviously been in the break room; how he was managing to run without spilling it was beyond her.

She relieved him of Martin’s mug and set it on the desk. “What’s in there?”

“Where’s Martin?” Tim demanded, turning away from the office door.

“Back corner.” Jon closed his eyes and took a deep, shaking breath. “Tim, I’m—I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I—”

“Jon, it’s okay, I get it. You’re under stress, it’s harder to control.” Tim held out a hand and took a couple breaths himself. “Can someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?”

“Melanie stabbed Martin,” Jon blurted out before Sasha could say anything. “She had a bullet from the ghost that shot her in India in her leg, it was poisoning her—he cut it out, but then Breekon o-or Hope, one of the two, turned up and delivered the coffin.”

“The Buried is in there?” Tim’s voice jumped an octave.

“Why only one of them?” Sasha asked at the same time.

“Yes, it—we, we got out of there, but…” Jon closed his eyes and clutched his mug of tea tightly, probably to stop his hands from shaking. “I—think Daisy killed the other one. That’s what Martin said. I—I was having a hard time following…i-it said something about paying our respects, and then said we might want to join our friend, and I—I panicked. I thought it was you. You weren’t here and—”

Sasha’s stomach twisted. Hadn’t she just believed the same thing—that Tim was in danger? God, what was it about today that they were both convinced they were going to lose him, be too late to save him?

Tim’s face creased in sympathy, and he crossed over to Jon, holding out his arms for a hug. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you—I overslept a bit, and I texted Martin as soon as I could, but—”

Jon set down the mug of tea and accepted the hug with a fierceness that belied the stoic, prickly exterior he’d tried to put on when he’d first joined the Institute. Sasha came over and joined them both, sensing all of them needed it. She also took the opportunity to subtly steer them a little further from the Archivist’s office. “Are you saying—what are you saying? Someone—something—is in there?”

“Daisy.” Jon’s voice was slightly muffled by Tim’s bicep. “Martin—he, he got its statement, sort of…e-extracted it, I guess? I don’t know how to describe it. He just…Looked at it, and kept—there was the static, and…” He took a breath and pulled back. “He’s, um, writing it down now. I think.”

“Just finished.” Martin’s voice from behind them made all three of them jump, and Sasha turned to see Martin coming towards them, a sheaf of statement forms in one hand and the patchwork cardigan he rarely wore dangling from the other. His shirt was torn and bloodied like Captain Kirk’s on an away mission, but much like Kirk, the wound appeared to be healed over already; unlike on Star Trek, though, Sasha didn’t think it was anything to do with the magic of television. There was a weariness in his eyes, but it didn’t seem like it was because he’d spent too much energy—more like he was just over everything right about now. “Tim, are you okay?”

“I’m—yeah. I didn’t mean to scare you all.” Tim glanced at the door of Document Storage. “I was coming to…Jon said Melanie stabbed you?”

“Tensions were…a bit high this morning. Yesterday, too, I think, but I wasn’t there for that one. Sasha had told me she stormed out in a huff after a fight yesterday afternoon, and she didn’t have her phone…I was getting ready to, um, use the Eye to find her when she showed up. I made the mistake of—no.” Martin shook his head firmly. “No, it wasn’t a mistake, she deserved to know I was going to do that, I can’t—anyway, she didn’t react well to me telling her what I’d been about to do. Everything escalated and I still don’t know where she found the knife, actually, but she ended up impaling me.” He gestured vaguely at the rent in his shirt. “To her credit, that did seem to shock her out of her rage. Long enough for Sasha to chloroform her, at any rate, so we could take a proper look at what was going on. It was the bullet in her leg, from when she got shot in India.”

“I thought she said there wasn’t one!”

“She said the doctors didn’t find one. I’m not entirely sure they could have found it to begin with. It was…I mean, it was real enough, I managed to get it out, but it was deep, close to the bone, and it definitely, um, had a somewhat complicated relationship with reality. We got it out.” Martin nudged the tray on the floor with his foot. “Probably ought to burn it later, if we can. It’s the Slaughter clear enough. She’d already been Marked by her encounter with whatever Sarah Baldwin stirred up at Cambridge Military Hospital, but—”

“Um—about that.” Tim held up a finger. Somehow he managed to look both sheepish and distressed, which was truly an expression only Timothy Stoker could pull off. “She was probably Marked a lot earlier than that.”

Martin stared at Tim. “What do you mean?”

Tim hesitated. “Gerry’s told you about his flashbacks, right?”

“Yeah,” Martin said slowly. Jon nodded, too.

Sasha shrugged. “He hasn’t, but Melanie did once, in one of her rants. They’re not just dreams, right? He’s reliving the moment?”

“Right. Well…they’re not always his, either. He doesn’t usually know—it’s a bit complicated, you’ll have to ask him to explain. But he had one yesterday, a really bad one, and it wasn’t his…moment he flashed back to, it was Melanie’s. She was at a…a lion dance, I think? Something like that? Anyway, one of the…lions…was attacking the musicians, and they called her for help and gave her a knife and she killed it. There’s probably more detail, but…” Tim took a deep breath. “It was before her mother died.”

“Jesus. She was seven.” Martin turned pale. “She was Marked that young? No wonder that bullet took hold so fast.”

“So fast? It’s been a year,” Sasha pointed out.

“And she hasn’t been feeding it constantly. Not really. If I’d known it was in there I never would have let her help fight the attacks off, but even with that the infection shouldn’t have spread that far that quickly.” Martin stared down at the sheaf of papers in his hand. “God, I should’ve Looked at all three of us for Marks years ago, but I just—I-I assumed I knew all the encounters we’d had. Gerry never really…got that close, before he had us in tow, and Melanie never talked about it, so I just…”

“It’s not your fault,” Jon protested. “Anyway, even if you’d known, what could you have done? You were children, Martin.”

Tim nodded. “If anyone should be apologizing, it should be me. I should have just called and told you what was going on, but…”

“I was already getting out the first aid kit when you texted.”

“Still. I should’ve reached out sooner, maybe I could’ve stopped this.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“See, Gerry finally realized this morning there’s kind of a pattern to his flashbacks,” Tim explained. “Every time one comes up, especially one that’s not his originally, it’s usually been something that’s been a problem not long after. Like, right before you got kidnapped by Trevor and Julia, Martin? Gerry had a flashback to Daisy knocking someone out outside a bar and dragging him to a remote clearing to murder him, or, well, take him out, I guess, because he definitely belonged to the Slaughter. And he told me after you got back that he’d had a flashback about coming home himself just before you and Daisy turned up. So when he…woke up or came back to the present or whatever you want to call it, he realized there was…probably something Slaughter-related going to happen today. He had an appointment with someone about some books that he couldn’t cancel, so I said I’d handle it.” He looked down at his shoes. “Guess I handled it badly.”

“You didn’t,” Sasha argued. “You texted as soon as you woke up, didn’t you? Even if you’d called, it would have been too late at that point. You couldn’t possibly have got here any faster than you did, and it was all over by then. If something had been planning to attack us, or intending to attack us or whatever, you’d have made it in time to help us fight it off, I’m sure—certainly enough time to warn us about it—but how could any of us have known it would actually come from Melanie?”

“For her, maybe,” Jon said softly. “Even if you’d called and told us about the…flashback or whatever in time to give us warning, we’d have just been more worried about Melanie and she might have done worse.”

“Like stabbing someone out on the street,” Martin added. “Someone who wouldn’t heal so quickly. And if you’d just texted me with ‘The Slaughter is coming’ or something, I’d have panicked about what was going on with you two. They’re right, Tim. You did everything you could possibly have done. This isn’t your fault, or Gerry’s.”

Tim didn’t look convinced, but he did at least drop the subject. “And what were you saying about the coffin? Breekon and—or Hope? Not both?”

Martin shook his head. “Daisy killed one of them. I—I don’t know how much they really think—thought—of themselves as separate, they were always Breekon and Hope, a unit, even before they called themselves that—they were always one being in two, rather than two in one. But the surviving one is the one that usually spoke first, so I guess he’s Breekon.”

“And Daisy killed Hope. Fitting,” Sasha said under her breath.

Not under her breath enough, because Martin turned an extremely sharp look on her. His eyes flashed briefly, but his voice was mild as he corrected her, “Daisy killed the thing that was pretending to be Hope. That was never what he really was. Only what he called himself.”

Sasha held up her hands. “Fair enough. But…Breekon…delivered the coffin…to you?”

“Yeah. Probably hoping to get revenge by convincing me to go in there to rescue Daisy,” Martin said, sounding and looking tired once again. “I mean, it’s my fault she’s in there in the first place—”

“It is not,” Jon, Tim, and Sasha all said at once.

“I’m not going to argue with you about this.” Martin looked as though he very much would like to do exactly that, though. “Point is, it’s probably meant as a combination temptation and threat. Breekon is pretty much the strongest surviving aspect of the Stranger right about now, and he’s missing half of himself—you could hear when he was talking to us that he’s still expecting someone else to say the next sentence—which is probably why it’s taken him seven months to be strong enough to get through the Institute’s defenses and into the office. But he’s still making the effort to threaten us—me—and probably figured I wouldn’t be able to resist the urge to go into the pit after her.”

Sasha didn’t bother asking if Breekon was right. From the look of pure, abject fear that flitted through Jon’s eyes, there and gone in a second, she knew it was—that the second Martin had unfettered access to that office, he was going to attempt to sacrifice himself for Daisy, because that was what he always did and it was worse now that he thought it was his job.

“So which one of you made Breekon go away?” Tim asked, obviously thinking the same thing and knowing not to poke at it.

“Martin did,” Jon said. “I tried to, but…i-it didn’t work, any more than it worked at the House of Wax. I, I’d hoped…I don’t know.”

Now it was Martin’s turn to have fear run across his face. “Don’t lean into that, Jon. Please. I—I don’t want to risk losing you, too.”

Jon bit his lip and shot a guilty look at the door to Document Storage. Sasha’s stomach twisted unpleasantly again as she realized how close she had come to losing Melanie to the Slaughter. Well, not losing, necessarily; Martin was still Martin despite being an avatar of the Beholding, and Gerry was still Gerry despite being an avatar of the End, so the likelihood that Melanie would still be Melanie after becoming an avatar of the Slaughter was…okay, lower than if she’d been falling to a less destructive power, but still a possibility. Still, if she’d leaned into it without them noticing, without anyone to check her…

“Martin,” she said suddenly. “Melanie ought to be waking up soon. Why don’t you go in and sit with her while you record that statement you…extracted? That way you can get some privacy, somewhere that isn’t the tunnels and making you weak, and when she comes round she can see for herself you’re okay and you two can…talk or whatever.”

Martin stared at her. Sasha stared back at him, keeping her expression as blank and innocent as possible and hoping the lack of static meant he wasn’t looking into her head. After a too-long moment, he nodded. “You’ve…got a good point. Will you three be all right?”

“We’ll be fine,” Tim assured him. “And if Gerry gets here before you come out, we’ll clue him in and send him in too. This seems like a day for sibling time.”

His voice cracked slightly on the last words, and Martin’s forehead creased in obvious sympathy. He reached over and gave Tim a tight hug, then kissed Jon’s cheek and headed back into Document Storage.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, Jon turned to Sasha. “All right, despite your…recommendation, I have to ask. Why did you just happen to have chloroform on hand to take Melanie down? And isn’t it illegal to purchase or sell?”

Sasha thought about lying, or avoiding the question, but something about Jon’s expression said he already had an idea. “Second question first, absolutely, and no, I’m not telling you where I got it. And as to your first question…it wasn’t for Melanie. Not originally, anyway. It was for Martin.” She dropped her eyes and held up a hand to forestall his reaction. “It’s for his own good. I just—I got worried about him, and I worried that he might…go too far. I talked it over with Tim, one day when you two were out somewhere, and we both agreed that we needed to have a backup plan to, well, take him down if he got dangerous. So I, um, did some research that probably got me put on several international watch lists.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Any watch list that would have put you on, you’ve probably been on since before I met you.” Jon sighed heavily. “I won’t pretend I’m happy about it…but I won’t pretend I don’t blame you, either. You’re right. Precautions are…smart. And I’m pretty sure Martin will feel the same.”

“You’d know.” Tim rubbed his hand over his face and glanced at the door to the Archivist’s office. “New question…what are we going to do about that? We can’t just leave it in there.”

Jon hesitated. “Martin suggested maybe taking it up to Artifact Storage, but…”

“Nope,” Sasha said with a shake of her head. “Last memo from Peter Lukas’s office, remember? ‘If resources are needed from another department, send the request in a memo and it will be sent to you if deemed necessary.’ No visiting around. We can’t just take things up there. And I don’t think putting a blatant artifact of the Buried up there would be ‘necessary’ in his opinion.”

“We could always just take it up to Basira’s office,” Tim mumbled. “She’s the only one that wants Daisy back so bad.”

“Tim!” Sasha said reproachfully.

“What? I’m just saying, She got all pissy about her being left behind, even if she did the leaving too.”

“Yeah, but—” Sasha and Jon said in unison. They looked at one another, and Sasha realized—to her surprise—that they were probably thinking the same thing. She gestured for Jon to go ahead.

Jon nodded, then turned to Tim. “She won’t go in after her. She prides herself so much on being logical and calculating…she won’t consider it worth the risk. She probably wouldn’t believe Daisy was still alive in there, let alone that anyone could safely get in and out. And if she climbs in, she won’t have anything to help her climb out again.”

Tim looked back and forth between Jon and Sasha, then evidently decided not to ask questions. “Fine, but…we have to do something to keep the others away from it. Martin thinks part of his duties as Archivist is to take all the danger on himself, no matter what that means, in the slim hope it might make things a little safer for any one of us, and he’s still blaming himself for Daisy whatever he said. Melanie will probably feel so guilty about Marking Martin and being…you know, all Slaughtered up for months on end that she’ll try and atone by going after Daisy, and Gerry feels like he has to protect his younger siblings, which right now includes you two. And if any of them go down there, you know they won’t be coming back up. It won’t let them go.”

“You’re right.” Jon stared at the door to the Archivist’s office.

Sasha definitely did not like that look on his face. “Jon. What are you planning?”

“No,” Tim said, voice full of foreboding. “No, absolutely not, no way in hell. You are not—”

“I have to,” Jon insisted. “If Daisy is still in there, still alive—she doesn’t deserve that, nobody does, Tim. I’ve been Marked by the Hunt—”

“By Daisy herself!”

“Which means it should be easier for me to find her,” Jon pointed out. “You two don’t have that.”

“And how do you plan to find your way back out again?” Tim demanded.

Sasha’s mind raced. It was a bad idea, of course it was, but Jon was right—someone was eventually going to go down there, someone had to go down there, and logically, it being Jon made the most sense. On the other hand, Martin would absolutely throw himself into the coffin after him if anything happened…

Martin. That was it.

“Martin,” she said out loud. “You two have been saying it for ages—you ground each other, you anchor each other. He’s got part of your heart and you have part of his—maybe not literally, but fuck it, these things are more than half metaphor anyway, right? Once you find Daisy, all you have to do is remember Martin and you’ll be out in no time.”

Jon straightened and smiled a little, the way he frequently did around Martin in their saner, less stressful moments. Tim looked unhappy. “You don’t know it’s going to work.”

“It’s the best chance we’ve got,” Sasha said. “Not like he can leave a literal part of his body out here as an anchor. Can’t cut off a finger or toe or whatever.”

Obviously picking up on where she was going with that, Jon gave a thoughtful shrug. “I suppose I could ask…try to get hold of Michael and see if he’ll let me talk to Jared Hopworth. I don’t think he killed him, so if he’s trapped down there, maybe he could, I don’t know, pull out a rib for me to use as an anchor. If you think me having something physical will be better.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you two?” Tim scowled. “Trusting the Distortion or the Boneturner would be the height of stupidity, trusting both of them is so far above stupid it’s bordering on insanity, and it’s not like you just know where your bones are even when they’re not part of your body, or kids would know what happens to their teeth when they fall out.”

Jon crossed his arms over his chest. “Then you agree. Martin as my anchor is the best bet.”

“Obviously that’s the best bet.”

“Good, it’s settled then.” Jon opened a desk drawer and pulled out two things—a small tape recorder and a strip of pictures from one of those photo booth things you sometimes saw at carnivals or in shopping arcades. He tucked the photo strip into his pocket and gripped the recorder, then looked at Tim and Sasha. “Tell him where I’ve gone, and that I love him. I’ll be back soon. I hope we both will.”

“Be careful, Jon.” Sasha hugged him.

Jon hugged her back, then turned to the Archivist’s office and walked up to the door. He squared his shoulders, took a deep breath, and pulled the door open, then closed it firmly behind himself and was gone.

Tim blinked hard, then looked at Sasha. “What the hell did I just agree to?”

Sasha should probably feel guilty about the way she and Jon had manipulated Tim into acquiescing to the scheme, impromptu though it was, but she didn’t. It was their only option, and they’d had to get him on board with it somehow. “The only chance we’ve got to make this right.”

Tim swallowed and turned to look at the closed office door. “Hope you’re right, Sasha. I really hope you’re right.”

[star-wrld]

caramelinda is probably one of my favorite d20 npcs and honestly she deserves so much more than what life has handed her. she seriously was running all of candia and likely all of the concord when amethar is made emporer and shes never gonna get any fucking credit for it!!

[gracegrove]

My brother has bleached his hair blonde (blonder than even mine) and gotten curtain bangs.

I have legitimate concerns.

I'm worried he's becoming Ken...

[fooltofancy]

the alliance raid writing room sitting around considering how they're gonna make these raids emotionally impactful in comparison with the Many Expansions Exploring Ascian Involvement like hm. what if. instead of that.

little guy big eyes.

[brbgensokyo]

the song that inspired Amy's Answering machine bit came up on shufffle and now im very sad. Despite what the rumours would have you believe I did like her as a character and it hurt to beat her like that

[jokerlennon]

okay between becoming the celestis & recruiting(??) the weeping angels it's interesting how apparently time lord shadow organisations invariably get involved with beings that aren't exactly a traditional part of spacetime. the ultimate loophole in the time lord non-intervention policy or something

[samwiselastname]

I am like, pretty squarely antipsychiatry btw and it does seem like any time I bring up what is a very nuanced disability movement operating in a specific context of forced institutionalization, I get people assuming I lack critical thinking or am doing/falling for some kind of grift, which is like, fun considering my whole deal. sorry if it makes you uncomfortable that the woo-woos got their claws in my stupid psycho brain and that you had to see a piece of writing that comes from an unfamiliar discursive base

I am being a bit catty and indelicate here. this is omnipresent and patronizing. people get angry with me quickly when they find out I mean it. they read all sorts of things into it that I am not saying, that antipsychiatry advocates are not saying. if you're going to reblog antipsychiatry content from me with comments about how you do not trust the content because (checks website) the author argues that we shouldn't force children to develop lifelong dependencies on potentially unnecessary medications - please take that argument to the OP, or take a screenshot, or vaguepost. I don't need more of it funnelled to me directly as a push notification

[comradecowplant]

my god people really love coming out of the woodwork for any sort of subject that even tangentially relates to compensating artists for their labor to twist it into "wow simp for U.S. IP law much? kekdoubleyou"

just say you don't respect artists & writers with your chest, makes you look less like a little bitch.

[pandemichub]

The Project N95 shop will remain OPEN until December 15th, 2023.

Reblog to circulate post on Tumblr

I'm uncertain if there's a way to save this non profit but I'd like to encourage us all to try. We already lost another this past year 'Body Politic' because they did not get the financial supported needed to continue, which included expansion to be able to operate well.

Part of building community and a better future involves investing. And we cannot hope to have resources, infrastructure and responses to meet the progressive derailing and degrading conditions and societies around us without doing so.

It requires time, energy, heart and sometimes yes, money. The more we put into projects like this, local and small companies, sustainability, kindness, deconstructing & decolonization and less of ourselves and resources into people, organizations and projects that do not care about us or are harming us, we actually have a road to the bright possibilities we hope and speak of so beautifully.

[bedlamsbard]

sorry to anyone who thought they were free of the Star War who might be experiencing Rebels Rage And/Or Love right now

also sorry to the people who came here for Marvel and are wondering what’s going on, we’ll go back to that shortly

[not-a-bumblebee]

Interdimensional Fix-it Bure.au

- It works like this: when a little world, like your own, is having a WDE, the emotions of many people-

- A what now?

- Sorry, a World Destroying Event. It is exactly what it sounds like: an event that is apocalyptic, or, at least, destructive enough in its nature to count. It can be caused by anything from natural disasters out of anyone's control to actions from a very determined individual.

- I am starting to get an idea which one I am dealing with.

- A combination of those two, actually. A very common cause. Where was I? Ah, yes. When such an event occurs, the intense emotions of the people who are experiencing it generate the kind of energy that allows a contact to be made with our Interdimensional Fix-it Bureau. We process the call for help and send an agent, if the situation fits the set parameters.

- Which are?...

- It needs to be preventable. There needs to be something that evokes a very particular feeling of "if only there had been a person to fix this particular issue, none of this would have happened!". We then seek out a person that possesses the exact set of skills needed to fix the issue, and send them in, usually at a point far in the past of the world's timeline. With their actions, they cause a new timeline to split off, one that has a chance of survival, and they assure that this new timeline persists.

- Just like that.

- Yes?...

- I'm sorry, I am merely finding it difficult to believe that there is no catch. No big price one needs to pay for such a service. No strings that your "bureau" can pull on to force the inhabitants of the little worlds to do your bidding in exchange for salvation.

- I see how you could come to this conclusion, and I will be honest with you, I cannot exactly deny it, but it is nothing as insidious as stealing your soul, per se. What usually happens is that the person who made the contact with us to request our services, may in turn be hired to aid another small world with the skills that they possess.

- I... see. And so, you are here because the destruction of this world is judged to be preventable by... what exactly? I am sorry, It's just that there must be better targets, better times...

- Perhaps, from a certain point of view, but this is not a mistake. The one who has contacted us at your world's end, however, had judged that it is detrimental to the timeline that you do not proceed with your attempted, ah, jailbreak.

- Great. And the person who so graciously judged that I need to die like this is?...

- Classified.

- Of course. Why would you tell me that. Why would anything be fair. Fuck.

- ... I can tell you that they do not want you dead. In fact, merely killing you would make the WDE arrive faster. In order to prevent it, you need to be alive, and also, not escape from the prison.

- Are all of your agents this well-informed?

- No, we usually send them in with less information. Giving them too much tends to interfere with their character arcs. I am actually the Bureau's founder, and rarely participate in missions myself.

- Character arcs. Of course. So then, the world needs me to stay imprisoned? Why am I not surprised. Of course I would not be allowed to escape that part of the plot. Stupid novel.

- Not exactly. In fact, this is where my specific skill-set comes in. I am here to defend you.

- Do you even know the crimes I am blamed for?

- Yes, I have familiarized myself with the accusations.

- And you would still defend me?

- It is my job.

- What if I actually did it?

- Did you?

- ... No. Not most of it, at least. It is... complicated.

- I did not think the fate of the world would rest on a simple case, no. I will try to understand it, if you explain.

- It is not your understanding that I am concerned about. It's... You would not believe me.

- Ah, but believing in the client is my duty!

- Hah. Okay. Sure, what the fuck. Let's save the world by talking to my anachronistic lawyer. These past five years have already been crazy enough, this may as well happen.

- I am ready to hear whatever you have to say.

- Sure. I have one last question, though.

- Ask away.

- "Interdimensional Fix-it Bureau"? Seriously?

- "Anything Agency" was taken by my son-in-law.