#specifically because i know people who would get vaccinated if they could but can't

[tlbodine]

So, Things Are Terrible and You Want to DO SOMETHING

The election is over and, ah...did not go well. While a lot of folks are doing a post mortem of the campaigns and trying to understand what happened with the vote and fighting over who shoulders the blame, we've gotta turn an eye toward the future and figure out, okay fam, where the fuck do we go from here.

I don't have all the answers on this, and I'm not an authority by any means, I'm just a horror author with a blog. But I've been thinking a lot about it and I wanted to share my thought process with others who might want to DO SOMETHING but feel they're spinning their wheels.

Buckle in. This will be a long one.

Step One: Understand the actual risks and stakes.

I think it is very easy to start panicking now about the worst possible case scenario -- jackbooted military busting into the door to disappear everyone who ever said something mean about Trump or bought a banned book or something -- and let fear turn into inaction.

I'm not saying things can't get that bad, and I'm not saying that it won't be absolutely terrifying right out the gate for some particularly at-risk groups -- but the distance between "now" and "V for Vendetta" is long and filled with a lot of intermediary steps. There will be so many opportunities to prevent the worst case scenario.

I say this because, if your mental image of "Bad Things Happening" is The Purge, it will be easy to wake up on inauguration day, look outside to see that the world is not on fire, think, hey, maybe things will be okay after all, and then completely disengage. Alternatively, you might feel so frozen with terror at the possibility of persecution that you do nothing. This is why people are saying: don't obey in advance.

It is essential for those of us with more privilege to use it to take care of those who are more vulnerable.

So. Who is most vulnerable? What does that vulnerability actually mean? What are the most likely risks of Trump's presidency? Here's a Guardian article that I think does a good job of summarizing some of the main issues. Go read that, then come back here.

Step Two: Take steps to protect yourself

You've gotta put your oxygen mask on first, right? So before you start getting involved in other causes, figure out what risks YOU are at, immediately, and do as much as you can to secure yourself. Some potential action steps depending on your circumstance may include:

Renewing your passport (helpful for leaving the country, but also for gender/name change purposes)

Getting vaccines / boosters

Securing birth control

Ensuring your necessary papers (birth certificates etc.) are where you have access to them.

Drawing up legal paperwork for spouses/partners (always a good idea, a helpful safety measure in case you lose marriage rights)

Bolstering your data privacy and online security. Here's a step-by-step guide I found that could help with that.

The specific steps you need to take here depend on what risks you, personally, face. You'll want to do some more research into this for your particular scenario.

No matter who you are, though, it's probably a good idea to start saving money and being a little more conservative with your spending and/or pay down debts to free up some cash. You don't know what kind of emergency may befall you, and having spare money for an emergency is never a bad idea.

There is a possibility that the cost of many things you rely on might go up, if Trump goes through with his tariffs plan. You will want to plan for that.

Food costs may also rise due to tariffs (we import a lot of food from Mexico and Latin America for example) as well as a loss of immigrant labor. There is also a possibility that food safety standards could fall due to overturning regulations. Now would be a good time to look into local food resources like farm share/CSA, community farms, etc., and to stock up on a few key staples like rice and beans.

Okay. Now that YOU are reasonably safe...what can you do to protect your community?

Step Three: Get Involved

Here is your mission: You need to stay engaged enough to know what's going on, without burning yourself out or exhausting yourself, and to take actual decisive actions instead of wasting your energy arguing on the internet.

Got that? Okay. Good. Here are some action steps:

Support independent journalism. Subscribe to local papers, donate to and watch public broadcast programming. I signed up for news from ProPublica, for example, as well as the news-roundup service What The Fuck Just Happened Today. The goal is to stay informed without falling down an endless rabbit hole of upsetting information.

Share news and resources with others in your circle. This can be a good use of social media. It's what I am doing right now!

If it is safe for you to do so, challenge and educate your friends/family members/neighbors/coworkers. Only if it is safe for you to do so. Do not put yourself at risk doing this. And do not waste your time arguing with people who are unlikely to change. But if you have well-meaning people in your life who you think could be won over, look for opportunities to do this - the right way. I've had some success with this, I will probably write a guide about it in the future. In the meantime, here's a good article that can help.

Join local grassroots activism groups. You'll have to do some work to decide what groups to join and which causes you want to support, because you cannot do everything. But there are tons of organizations taking direct action in all kinds of causes. Search "grassroots [cause] activists in [where you live]" to start finding things. Once you get involved in one group, you might meet people who can introduce you to other groups and causes. Yes, this means you will have to go outside and meet people. I'm sorry.

Join direct action groups. Same concept as above. You'll have to search in your area but once you know people it'll be easier to find more opportunities. Some of these groups may overlap. You might find direct action opportunities by engaging politically and vice versa. GO OUTSIDE AND TALK TO PEOPLE WHO ARE DOING THINGS TO HELP.

Get involved in local politics. Here are some quick tips. A lot of things are affected at the city level - stuff like book bans and bathroom bills are often battled first at local libraries and schools, and you can be part of those conversations! Sheriffs are elected and can have a big influence on local policing. Local elections affect how tax dollars are spent, how homeless populations are treated, and lots more. Don't snooze on local elections. Get involved and stay involved.

Look up your representatives. Get in the habit of calling, emailing, and writing letters. Figure out what legislature is being passed and then call your reps and harangue them about it - both to support bills you approve of and shoot down ones you don't. Sign petitions. Join email campaigns. Here's one you can go sign right now from the ACLU. See? Not that scary.

I think a lot of people figure that getting involved in politics doesn't matter or that it's all small potatoes but...man. The president is not god, no matter what he thinks. The sitting administration is not the sole power in the universe. There is an entire machine of government we can lean upon and act upon.

Finally, some general safety notes:

Some forms of direct action are not legal. Take steps to be safe if you choose to partake. Follow the lead of more seasoned activists for what forms of communication to use and so forth.

If you're not willing or able to put yourself at legal risk to act, you can help others by donating to bail funds and legal defense funds.

We've already seen this in some areas, and it will only get uglier - some bad actors are feeling emboldened by the change in regime and will misbehave. It's a good idea to learn some self-defense skills, in whatever way is comfortable to you, and brush up on some tenets of victimology that can help you stay safe. I'll write more about that in the future.

All right. That's all for now. It's by no means comprehensive...but should hopefully help you get started taking the next step. Stay safe out there.

[trlvsn]

phoenix wright making apollo justice present forged evidence is, as rightfully rage-inducing as it is, also perfectly understandable and even justifiable to an extent. in this essay i will not cut my introduction off with an old-fashioned tumblr punchline and will actually elaborate on why i think so and what i think about phoenix wright in general.

the first few paragraphs will be rather surface-level, but bear with me: i'm writing this in one breath. it has already been established that the change in phoenix's character was so big and shocking that the fandom is still actively discussing it and making theories. i have seen people compare his sprites with mia and diego, kristoph and miles, yanni yogi and many others, and every single on of them is, in in my opinion, correct: there are actual similarities between them, intentional or not. i believe it can all be explained with two simple statements. one: phoenix is a sponge of a man. even before aa4, we frequently see him adopt mannerisms and figures of speech from the people he encounters. he learns, he absorbs, he changes, but only for a short while, as he stays true to his motivations, passions and drive. two: the seven years of being watched by kristoph and collecting data made him turn to that mimicking quality of his and use it as a weapon. phoenix wright could not afford to reveal his true motivations, therefore, he could not reveal what he was in general. it's a simple metaphor, really.

did he get lost in the deceptions somewhere along the way? absolutely. "what tangled webs we weave when we practice to deceive", a line said by him about kristoph, can easily be applied to phoenix. this is where the bloody ace comes in. incidentally, he is given the idea by zak: he is the one who says one can't win unless there's a ace up their sleeve, and, no matter how much of an influence that particular phrase had on wright, he follows the principle. here is phoenix's first motive for forging the ace: insurance. without concrete, dooming evidence, a trial could not end in his favor at the time. phoenix wright, post-disbarment, is no longer a man who relies on bluffs and "just believing in the client", he is strongly dissapointed in the system, outraged, offended, hurt, wounded, and he does not trust it at all, hence the dirty tricks. you can't just play fair against something unfair and win.

what i find far more interesting however, are his other motives. if the only thing that drive him to forgery was distrust and carefulness, he would have shared the plan with apollo or, perhaps, done something similar to the turnabout succession trial, where the letter is shown to the culprit, but never submitted as evidence and quickly admitted as a fake. really, i believe he is smart enough to find other ways. however, he doesn't. he gives the ace to apollo in a very specific way: through trucy wright, not a word of proper explanation. why is that? he is teaching apollo a lesson.

clearly, something about apollo reminds phoenix of himself. a young, bright, nervous mind, fighting for the truth and justice, full of belief, a little naive. phoenix knows what that naivety cost him, and he destroys it right away, because then it will hurt less, he thinks. the forged ace is a vaccine of sorts: you will experience some minor symptoms, but no actual serious consequences, and it will hurt for a moment, but for the rest of your life, you will never catch that sickness again. phoenix is already planning the jurist system reform and has already planned how this trial will go: the environment is controlled and safe for apollo, he will not get disbarred. if the truth is revealed later, under the new system, surely apollo won't be receiving the same harsh punishment wright did. so here you go, kid, learn your lesson, punch a lawyer or two in the face, and never ever, ever trust anyone like that ever again.

but wait, if the truth does get revealed, who will be receiving the punishment for it? of course, the man who forged the evidence, phoenix wright. here comes the third reason: punishment.

remember the class trial? young phoenix wright, blamed for a crime he didn't commit, overwhelmed and crying. what does the abandoned child do when the whole class accuses him of stealing? he stands up slowly and comes up to the kid with the grey hair to apologize for the money he stole but did not steal. he admits it. it doesn't matter what the truth is anymore, because if everyone thinks you did it, you might as well have.

you might as well do it again, for real this time, and maybe a weight will fall off your shoulders, because what you see in yourself will finally match the image the whole world has of you.

phoenix wright is working on the jurist system. phoenix wright is a father and phoenix wright is someone who will do his best to put kristoph gavin to jail. that doesn't mean phoenix wright sees any other use or future for himself. it simply does not matter. well, by the end of the first case, anyway.

he gathers more evidence. he thinks, a lot. he gives apollo advice on the cases, inevitability reminiscing. the new system is a success. in a new, better world, maybe he will take some piano lessons: he has grown tired of pretending he can play. he has grown tired of pretending in general. hell, maybe he will even take the bar exam again.

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

I'm allowed to "give up" on treatment

I got sick with COVID in January of 2020 when I was 19 years old. Instead of getting better I gradually got worse and by April I was nearly bedbound with CFS/ME. I have been unable to work this whole time and was only able to return to college (part time) in 2022.

I've been in a physical health crisis since the onset of my illness. Even with resting pretty much all the time I was getting sicker and sicker. It was a race to find a treatment that worked before I got bad enough that I needed help that my parents couldn't provide. It was a race to get well enough to get out of my parents' house so that I didn't have to deal with the abuse between them and directed at me. It was a race to convince SSI that I was really disabled so I could get the money I needed to live on my own.

After I sorted out my last big health crisis I made the decision to stop seeking treatment for a time. I would try treatments or cures if they were offered to me, but they're not being offered right now because they don't exist. I don't know for how long, or what level of efficacy a treatment would need to have to convince me to give it a try, but for now I'm limiting doctor's visits to mental health stuff, checkups, vaccines, and treatment for any new or acute symptoms. I got SSI, I'm on two meds that are working to reduce my symptoms, I have a better powerchair now, and I'm living in accessible housing. My race is over.

My parents, especially my mom, were upset with this decision. They don't or can't grasp that my condition is not treatable despite me saying it all the time. My mom especially also doesn't understand that doctor's appointments aren't neutral for me, that they're usually negative and difficult. When I was constantly going to the doctor I was dealing with people who didn't understand my limits, who didn't understand ME/CFS, and were "willing to learn" at best. It was exhausting. None of the doctors I saw could provide me with more than they could find from an internet search, except for the specific CFS specialist who prescribed my current medications. Most doctors didn't even know the difference between chronic fatigue as a symptom and chronic fatigue syndrome and would just run diagnostics on me trying to find the "cause" of my CF even after I told them what it was. Every time I left an appointment I was depressed, hopeless, and angry. I was in a mental health crisis for days or weeks following each appointment because the doctor would show pity or even horror about how disabled I was and then not offer anything that would help me.

I debated whether I was even going to talk about this or if I was just going to stop. There's such a stigma around accepting your condition and moving on, especially if you're reliant on others or the government for care. But I want to say that regardless of what people around you are saying it's fine to be tired of doctors. It's fine to want a break or to want to stop altogether. People who have never dealt with chronic issues have a difficult time grasping how exhausting constant medical care can be, especially when you continue to be the same level of sick throughout the entire ordeal. You don't have to continue wearing yourself out to please people who don't understand what you're going through.

[gin-juice-tonic]

i think itd be interesting if leaving a bit of zombie in a person would effect their life span. would they live longer or shorter lives? will they ever truely die, or would they turn back to being a zombie instead?

also think itd be a really cool thing to explore just overall. would laboratories pick it up? find a way to test for it? find a faster/safer way to neutralize it? maybe even make vaccines for effected towns so people are less likely to be effected. or would you even be able to do that since its not actually a virus?

Im gonna answer this under a readmore because it got long.

I talk about my zombie lore stuff a liiiiitle more in this post:

https://gin-juice-tonic.tumblr.com/post/704995046015041536/gin-juice-tonic-part-of-something-the-little

But for specific answers to your questions:

1) If you have more not-zombie in you than zombie in you, all major zombie operations in you are supposed to cease, so I'd be inclined to say nothing special about your life span would happen. (The bit about vegetarians having a hard time after being cured was more of a joke.) If something WERE to still happen though I would say it'd increase your life span a little, because of zombies ability to stay together despite their whole... everything. But hopefully that wouldnt happen.

I guess I sort of implied that humans with zombie in them can drink formalin and be okay... until they cant anymore. That's the only perk you get.

2) If you die and you have zombie in you at the time, your body becomes a zombie. But your life force isn't in there anymore, so you can't really say it's still that person anymore. That's the zombie's body now. Cures will no longer do anything at this stage

3) In journal 3 Ford says he analyzed Soos and could tell he survived being a zombie "Due to evidence of autolysis". I did bad in biology in high school but I'm still pretty sure that doesn't make any sense at all lol. Maybe we're to assume that like, a minimal amount of his cells are still self-digesting in a unique way but not enough to affect him as a whole. Which lends credence to the idea that there is no perfect cure, i guess.

4) In my mind the only test for it is "Is the person looking or acting like a zombie", and its about as an exact science as the blood test from the movie the Thing (1981) lol. But as noted up in point 3, Ford I suppose tested Soos somehow. Perhaps one could take a sample of blood and use the titration method I described earlier on the sample until the all cells in it are no longer killing themselves. But then you'd have to make some assumptions involving the ratio of zombie to human based off that tiny blood sample if you wanted to try continued curing at a larger scale. Ford doesn't mention trying to cure Soos further or anything, so I'll just go ahead and claim it's too dangerous to attempt, even for Ford.

5) The thing that kills the zombie force also kills normal humans, so I'm inclined to say a vaccine wouldn't be possible. Who knows though

[theramseyloft]

What’s your opinion on pigeon racing and flying? Do you think it benefits the health or tractability of a breed or could it ever be done in modest ways without the large aspects of neglect?

Ooh, this is a tough one.

Racing, in particular, is not exclusively for entertainment.

Just like riding horses or running sled dogs isn't.

The races that earn the biggest pot, for example? Supply breeding stock to the parts of the world that still exist where they are depended upon as messengers, and having them or not is still a matter of life and death.

Hell, if anything ever happened to our current means of electronic communication, Racing Homers are very literally the best possible alternative to fall back on, historically tried and tested.

And because their ability to navigate is central to meeting that need, training tosses and actual races are genuine necessities that cannot be replaced by any other means.

So I can't, in good conscience, say that the breed or practice should die out.

That said, GPS trackers are much smaller, cheaper to make, and easier to come by, though I don't know what kind of power they would need to transmit in real time, or if the addition of that would make it too heavy to carry.

If a GPS capable of real time transmission could be made small and light enough for a racing homer to carry without effecting their flight speed, I would love to see them used in tosses and races so that races could be monitored and birds who stop flying either very suddenly during the day or longer than it takes to wait out a night can be recovered.

A volunteer team of spectators would be ideal for that.

I can see some potential down sides to this, like people tracking the birds specifically to take pot shots at them, or trying to find a way to intercept and steal some, but a healthy racing homer's base speed is 60mph, with some sprinting lines clocked at up to 100.

And unless they physically can't, they do not stop until they get back!

The average person isn't going to be able to trap or catch that bird unless something is seriously wrong.

And having the on-the-move flight data in real time would be valuable to racers both for the data itself and as a means to draw spectators.

There isn't an aviary on the planet big enough for the length of sustained flight from which the musculature of the Performing breeds has developed, but we have ways to artificially enhance the immune system: Vaccines.

Natural immune systems develop over generations of survival.

Pathogens adapt to their host by becoming less lethal over time.

No host? No spread. Pathogen population dies out, and that strain becomes a dead end.

Hosts adapt to their pathogens over time by developing more and more aggressive immune responses with each exposure.

Vaccines work by presenting the immune system with the means to identify a pathogen without the damage to the host that would usually happen while the body is trying to organize the response to take it out.

We have vaccines for Paramyxovirus and Paratyphoid. There is an inoculation for Pox.

It would be amazing to have a full vaccine for Pox, not to mention Adenovirus, Circovirus, avian flu, and ornithosis, or if it were possible to vaccinate against protozoa like coccidia and trich.

Honestly, the improvement of medicine is a matter of time and funds.

In the mean time, all we can do is our best to selectively breed hosts with strong immune responses to the pathogens we don't have vaccines for yet.

[velvetvexations]

Ppl act like gender essentialism (the man/beard brand) is necessary to keep women safe but even that scenario could actually make them less safe bc it downplays the danger of bears, which I think also illustrates the issue I have with true crime. When you're taught as a woman that there are certain dangers that are the worst (be it men or serial killers or rape as the very worst thing that could possibly happen to you), you might underestimate dangers that appear less obvious to you like wild animals, unpreparedness, inappropriate equipment, lack of spatial awareness, going alone when you're inexperienced, heat exhaustion bc, dangers from other animals or bugs bugs (where I'm from in Europe we need to get vaccinated against tick-borne encephalitis, my father didn't, got it & almost died).

I'm from a culture that's big on hiking & hiked a lot pre-transition, mostly with a cis male best friend, and I never had a bad experience with other ppl (except maybe when someone didn't say hello, very impolite) but we did get lost pretty badly once on a new trail with no phone signal & that was scary. I was always safer in the woods with men around bc if there are ppl, you know you're on the right path & won't get lost! Also it you get injured & can't walk or god forbid lose consciousness, you want other ppl there to help you. I also worked at a homeless shelter (pre-transition as well, they all knew me as a short, not at all threatening looking woman) and that taught me to shake off the fear I had of homeless people, men especially, because they too are just ppl & it was bigoted of me to have my gut instinct tell me I was in danger when I saw a homeeles man just existing or behaving erratically in public. It was classist, ableist & was not in fact justified just bc I was navigating the world as a woman.

Yes, keep yourself safe, but actually learn to recognize potential dangers & how to handle dangerous situations, don't just rely on your gut instinct.

I also think we can absolutely teach ppl how to keep themselves safe around other folks without resorting to gender essentialism & sex profiling simply by focusing on behaviors instead of gender presentation.

This would serve to protect trans & queer ppl with a masc appearance/presentation including non cispassing trans fems/women, trans mascs/men, non-binary & multigender ppl, intersex folks, even cis gay men, who are also at a higher risk of being assaulted than cis straight men and yes, even straight men, who are also capable of being victimized. Because nobody is truly safe from violence & abuse, we all need to know how about dangers & be able to get protection from others in our communities!

That reminds me of what I've been talking about recently where someone blamed a fixation on punitive justice on people being tricked into it by white supremacist background radiation in Western culture when it's actually just an apolitical fault of the way human brains are wired that goes back to the earliest human civilizations. And like, granted, this is the third time I'm bringing that post specifically up so maybe I'm overexaggerating the issue because I don't follow that kinna discourse closely, but especially in conjunction with transandrophobia discourse I feel like there's this trap of viewing the things you face as cosmic forces rather than mere sociology, you know?

[cagandante-communistoide]

there's a level of comedy in the cognitive dissonance anticommunist cubans here have that's like little else i've ever seen. "it's propaganda when cuban public figures speak positively of cuba overseas" except you were also just complaining that every diaspora cuban is doing mental math to figure how much of the year they can spend in cuba without losing residency once they get here...so they're not the only ones who miss it lol. also it's not propaganda when the USA is constantly smearing cuba as an intensely repressive society where everyone is miserable, even though the USA prohibits its own citizens from traveling to cuba without a first degree relative there to keep them from seeing for themself? "some people really actually believe that cuba's medical and education system are that good!!!" yeah, a lot of people, actually, on account of having world-standard care, developing our own covid vaccine after nowhere would sell their own to cuba, and exporting our professionals to work in other countries for everyone to see for themselves the results of cuban healthcare and education :3 you can't fabricate that whole cloth through propaganda. why is the cuban literacy rate higher than it is in the USA if our education is so shit? why is the cuban mortality rate and average lifespan higher than in the USA if it's so bad, even though we cannot even import aspirin from most of the world? why do diaspora cubans often still travel to cuba specifically to have surgery, because they trust the doctors and it's far less expensive? "everybody secretly hates cuban communism in cuba" and "the cuban people are too stupid to revolt, they don't want to" aren't statements that can coexist, buddy. how come people could revolt even though they were scared when it was spain, but the mere presence of communism suddenly conjures a situation where over eleven MILLION people are suddenly scared stiff to do anything against their government? A government they would have all the support in the world to overthrow, because it's extremely unpopular in the USA...if they actually wanted to? A government that has an attempted coup against it every other week sponsored by CIA and anticommunist cuban-americans, but that hasn't been gotten rid of by the people for some reason? "they force you to attend political rallies so that you know what the guy that is running for supports!!" compay I think your only issue with this is that you didn't want to pay attention, which explains why you think it's suspicious that other people listened, agreed, and voted for the guy, and why you don't know anything about the country you were fucking born in lmao

[sineala]

Do you know of any Captain America comic where Cap thinks about or does go back to his original time, but then decides he doesn't belong there anymore and comes back (or decides not to go back at all idk)? Is that a thing, or did I make it up in my head? I figured you might know, but if you don't sorry to bug you!

You are thinking of a real comic! The comic you are probably thinking of Mark Waid's five-issue miniseries Captain America: Man Out of Time, which is a modern retelling of Steve's origin story. Man Out of Time is probably my favorite Cap comic, specifically because of the decision Steve makes.

So there's him getting frozen and found by the Avengers in Avengers #4, but the retelling also covers a few more of the issues after that. In particular, it goes up through Avengers #8, which is the first appearance of Kang the Conqueror. (Though, technically, of course, he says he's also a couple other villains who have already appeared. Kang's gonna Kang.)

What actually happens in Avengers #8 is a fairly standard supervillain fight -- the Avengers fight him, mostly get captured and taken to his spaceship, get rescued, then punch him some more. They destroy some of his weapons and reflect others, and then he gets in his spaceship and retreats, zooming away. So that's canon. Just so you know what canonically happens. Nothing that happens in Man Out of Time is technically 616 canon. But that doesn't mean it's not a good story.

So this isn't how it goes in Man Out of Time's version of Avengers #8. At all.

I was going to make this a much longer post with many more panels but the very very short summary of the miniseries is that this is a version of Steve's early days in the future focusing heavily on his alienation from modern society -- he spends almost all of Avengers #4 convinced he's dreaming and he's going to wake up any minute.

He must be dreaming. Why are the Dodgers in Los Angeles?

When he finally accepts that it's real, he immediately wants to find someone who will send him back so he can try to save Bucky.

Reed Richards has a time machine, so Steve does possess the capability to go back.

Tony takes Steve on a date to the Smithsonian (as well as a private Radiohead concert and apparently Steve likes Radiohead?) and tries to sell him one last time on the wonders of the future, like how we have space travel now and less sexism and less racism and way fewer vaccine-preventable diseases and God I liked this book so much better when I thought people would all want to be vaccinated against diseases that could kill them.

Anyway. Steve can't be convinced; he still wants to go back to the forties. Eventually the president has to tell him he can't go back because he knows too much about the future.

Steve's not happy.

I was going to say that Mark Waid did not have to go this hard but I think maybe he did.

So Steve has to stay and he's miserable and then he starts to hate a lot of things about the future that are still bad. He finds out human trafficking exists. He finds out the designated-hitter rule exists. These things are not really comparable but he's upset about both of them. He finds out about domestic terrorism. The Vietnam War. MLK's assassination. This wasn't what he thought he was fighting for.

(The events of Avengers #5-7 happen in the background.)

And that's when we get to Avengers #8 and Kang. Kang captures the team. And Kang sends Steve back in time. To 1945. To V-J Day. So this is after Bucky is gone, but still, this is Steve's home, right? He should be happy. And for a bit, he is. He's a returning soldier, just like all the other GIs. A hot dog costs a nickel, like it ought to.

And then things start to fall apart. He goes to a Dodgers game, the Brooklyn Dodgers, as they obviously ought to be. I don't know why so much of Steve's personal betrayal by the future and also the past is about baseball, but, yeah, it is. So he watches the game and he starts talking to the kid and his father sitting next to him and the kid's a big Dodgers fan, right? Loves baseball. So Steve asks him if he wants to play for the Dodgers when he grows up.

Relevant information: the kid's black.

(Other relevant information, if you're not a baseball fan: Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play in major-league baseball, started playing for the Dodgers in 1947. He was in the minor leagues in 1946. But this story is set in 1945.)

So naturally the father would like Steve to stop lying about how his son could ever play for the Dodgers because obviously integrated baseball is a fantasy.

Steve is starting to suspect that maybe the past isn't as great as he remembered.

(Incidentally, a nice development in actual baseball news a couple years ago is that Baseball Reference, the big baseball stats organization, finally integrated... their data. All of the Negro Leagues statistics are now listed as major league, so a lot of good players are finally getting the recognition they deserve.)

Anyway. Steve can't find most of the people he knew in the war but then runs into a GI he knew, who wants to talk to him about how great life is now. He's not feeling it.

He realizes it's because he left the Avengers. He couldn't save Bucky. But he can still save the Avengers from Kang. He needs to help them. That's where he needs to be.

Luckily, he has his identicard still on him! And he can leave them a message!

He tells Rick when and where he is, and Reed comes and picks him up in his time machine.

And then he and the Avengers kick Kang's ass.

The miniseries then ends with Steve going to the Grand Canyon, where Bucky said he always wanted to visit. So Steve draws Bucky. But Steve knows now that he can't live in the past. It's tempting, he says. But it's where fossils come from.

So he lies there. He goes through his CDs. He sets aside Bing Crosby. And he listens to Radiohead. Because he lives in the future now.

So, yeah.

I love this miniseries and it really shaped how I view Steve as a character and I love that he got the chance to make this decision and he made it and I really didn't like Avengers: Endgame.

(There is another universe where Steve faces a similar decision. This is probably not the issue you were thinking of, but Marvel Adventures Avengers #37 has a plot where the Invaders -- who seem to be some kind of combination of the Invaders and the All-Winners Squad, and also it's the 50s -- come to the present and offer Steve a chance to come back. Steve seems to be seriously considering it but before he can decide whether to use the doll that will send him back to the past, Wolverine destroys it because the future needs him here and Steve's like, yeah, you're probably right. So he's still in the future but... he didn't actually get to decide that.)

I hope Man Out of Time is the comic you're thinking of! If you like Steve at all, you should read it. It's the best.

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Hey if the GF kids + GP team were watching horror movies (the oldest because no horror movies for the youngest kiddos or they will not sleep because some horror movie ARE terrifying) What movie would scare the most at every child/teen?

Like i can see Emma being scared of IT, whatever which version, especially the first scene (you know what i mean, right?) for exemple.

Ayshe would be probably scared by White Dog or Cujo :/ but not scared by the movie but scared and sad because of the poor dog (who is a victim in both movies, infected by rabies in one and trained to attack in another). she would speak for the first time to Norman to ask him do find her an appointment to vaccinate her dogs (because it's real dogs, not demoniac dogs or it would be hard for her to feed them in the human world. I doubt that people would be happy to see their beloved pet dog "vanish" (and be eaten).

Barbara would play "the cool sister who isn't afraid" but would be afraid by Scream (for exemple and would be clingy to Cislo/Norman/Vincent's arm for all the movie XD

Have you other ideas? =)

Feel this comes down to semantics because I don't think they'd find mainstream horror scary but more so unsettling? Besides like a well-earned jump scare getting the best of them that's immediately, viscerally frightening and might result in a comedic reaction they tease each other over.

But given everything they confronted in the demon world—both the direct, palpable terror of almost being eaten alive by the grotesque

(Chapter 117)

to the existential horror of realizing everything you've come to understand about yourself and that your very humanity and the humanity of all the people you care about is systemically devalued in such a cold, detached, clinical way—

(Chapter 28)

it doesn't seem like it would result in an immediate bubbling up of palpable terror for them with both the barrier of the screen and their understanding of horror media and media in general often being used to communicate an idea between a creator and their audience (e.g., the possession scenes in Talk to Me being used to symbolically convey the silent brutality of drug addiction, the existential dread presented by pregnancy and STDs in It Follows, etc.). But the important thing with a lot of these pieces is that while horrific violence might be perpetrated, there's still an underlying upholding of human life as inherently valuable and something to be protected, so they can have fun with it and appreciate the works for what they are.

What I believe would be a sticking point for them would be abject, wanton cruelty with no purpose. So like, torture porn, purposefully edgy works that revel in the audacity of boundaries pushed and the shock value of the obscene, exploitation films. Hostel, Funny Games, A Serbian Film, 120 Days of Sodom, etc., I can't imagine them growing up and being fans of this subgenre after everything they experienced.

So I wouldn't say Emma is scared of King's It, but would perhaps be unsettled by a cosmic malevolent force preying on children for no purpose other than personal gratification, and how that servers as a metaphor for the underlying fear of stranger danger present in the 1980s in the US. The specifics might be inaccurate based on statistics (child abduction more often being committed by someone a child knows), but it's the possibility of harm being done by fellow human beings and that one can't immediately combat it with physical retaliation like they did in the demon world due to optics and laws in this world that could lead her to dislike it for her own personal entertainment.

I feel like works that involve medical horror could be triggering for Barbara, or scenes where there's gratuitous focus on flesh being violently bludgeoned into viscera mush with how it might bring back the smells of when she'd enact that on demons.

And I haven't seen Cujo or White Dog, but it does sound like something Ayshe would find disquieting with how she considers her dogs family. Same thing with The Thing, though the dogs being killed and impersonated don't last the whole film. None of these would compare to Cannibal Holocaust, though; I don't think she could watch a movie knowing animals were killed on set for the sole purpose of entertaining people. It would be too upsetting (and why I haven't watched it).

[possessionisamyth]

previous anon about Carlos should have been in here: there is a few things about RE2R that I wish wasn't left out was Chris having anything to acknowledge why he didn't tell Claire himself he'll be "taking time off" and she had to hear it in the midst of the world ending from Marvin (in OG2 we find a file saying can't tell Claire I'm being watched and she would want to come with me to guard my back... does that get addressed in OG code veronica? i don't remember much all I remember is Chris "I always keep my promises"... hi call back in Village Mia in the cells says something like "you promised you would keep us safe") and Jill already being there and suffering/tying up loose ends (she had a planned time to leave its on her calendar and suffering is the pills on her bedside table and that letter "barely eating/ barely sleeping") the only people she had with her is Carlos and Tyrell and they were ubcs

the only form of "jealousy" i want to see from Chris when it comes to Carlos is none (maybe a little angst about Carlos did something Chris didn't which is get to Jill in time). Chris is in a horrible situation with Jill AND more importantly Claire who we barely get to see him interact with (he couldn't even try to reach for her when they were in neighbouring cells?) and then we throw in Carlos? who went through so much helping Jill (does Carlos know that giving the "vaccine" to Jill is what made Wesker want her- that her blood had the t virus specifically modified for the Nemesis and the vaccine?)

i enjoyed the film... the one time i watched. it any time I rewatch my enjoyment will be because i am watching it with my sister (after her first time watching it obviously) and we start making fun of it

(next and only time I want to see Leon again is when he is getting dragged by a horse. watch trick riding then watch that motobike scene in vendetta as to why)

Welcome back! There was a lot in the first paragraph, so I spent the day rereading and poking at what events you're talking about. I know after reading the rest of this ask that there's something I need to state.

I don't know what train of canon these movies are going for post-RE2 Remake (2019). Vendetta dropped in 2017 the same year as RE7 and as far as we know follows the canon timeline of all the games prior aka RE0-RE6. But after this? Infinite Darkness and Death Island? Entirely up in the air. With all the changes they're shifting to make things more realistic they could be going from the remakes, but Infinite Darkness dropped before the RE4 Remake and takes place after those events. Other than hard dates for what movie or game happens when, I'm genuinely adverse even considering touching which canon trail the movies and animated series are following from 2021 forward. The best I can do is say the original games are one canon, the remakes are another, and they're not supposed to be interchangeable, but Capcom is trying to shove them into one box for???? reasons??? (Money. The reason is money.)

I always try to compare them as separate trails just to see what the remakes try to pull from the original games based on inspiration and improvements. One of the most notable changes they make for the remakes is how important information is delivered to the player.

In the original games they make you read a lot. There are tons of documents and files sprinkled all over the area, in desks, behind paintings, on the ground, in lockers, on doors, in windows, in safes, under chairs, on the stairs, buy my wares, it's all over the place! And it's overwhelming! Especially because you don't even need half of the information you find to progress. It's good for people who want to know lore, but if you're a seasoned player, you can filter out the lore from the "this has a hint or keycode I need to unlock the next area". So you won't read what you don't care to read meaning character beats like Chris' notes can be skipped with no consequence other than losing some of the story. By having a different character voice this information to the player, you can't skip it. You are getting vital information that helps enrich the backstory and the nuance of the characters and the world around you in those same bites of time.

The best example of this is the changes they did for Luis from Resident Evil 4. In the original, you learn all of his information, his backstory, his motives, everything about him through a fuck ton of notes and letters that are very easy to skip or miss. From a storytelling perspective, there's no value in that. If you miss most of this information, he's just some guy the entire time, who's kinda sexist, and gives you bullets and healing items. In the remake, he's telling you and showing you who he is through his actions. You the player get to see his motivations and character through cut scenes with Ada and Leon with minimal sleuthing with a couple pictures and a singular journal you find that may or may not relate to him. And the last edges of the truth come out in just a couple documents in his lab before the final boss fight. It's not through this 20 page lore dump that's supposed to inspire sympathy at the end of the game. This change worked because everyone wants to fuck Luis now.

So it's small, but I do appreciate Marvin being the one to tell Claire about Chris. It highlights that Chris trusted Marvin adding a little more sadness to his death because maybe they were friends. It let's the audience know that Chris talks about Claire at work enough that Marvin knows how important she is therefore telling the player Chris cares about her a lot. It also lets Claire and the player receive this information very painlessly because not everyone is a completionist who needs to play the game 50 times and wring everything out of it.

As for Chris being in a bad situation with Claire and Jill, I really don't think that's the case. I know Chris drops the ball sometimes, but it's not on purpose, and it's never out of malicious intent. He tries, and he beats himself up when he fails. He's his own biggest critic because he's lost so many people, and it hurts him to see others doing what stupid shit he does, because he doesn't want them to get hurt. He wants the people he cares about to be better than him.

Chris did blame himself for not being there for Claire in Raccoon City, and he apologized to her in Code Veronica. As for not holding Claire's hand through the bars, I don't know how he would've done that.

Look at Jill's hand and how she grasps one of the bars of the cell. The gaps are very narrow, and Chris has huge arms. Maybe Claire could squeeze a limb through, but she'd have to bend her arm very awkwardly for Chris to make that reassuring contact unless they both sat on the floor. I know he very much did want to hold her hand, and I do blame the directors for not giving us a single Redfield hug. But I don't think it was a matter of Chris not wanting to make sure she's okay. He does love Claire. This movie was terrible about showing that kind of care between literally everyone in the cast.

As for Chris being on bad terms with Jill, I can't say that's true either. This movie takes place 6 years after Wesker is finally dead. Presumably that means this is Jill's first year back on the field since her traumatic event. Chris isn't going to leave her on radio silence after all they've been through together. She's not Leon. I like to believe Chris was there for her through a lot of her recovery and probably endorsed her return to the BSAA because she wanted to come back. It's a small moment, but when Chris first approaches her in the shooting range, Jill tells him not to worry about her and passes him a water bottle. There's an understanding here. Their friendship isn't gone nor diminished, but Jill is putting herself under a lot of pressure, and Chris doesn't know how to take that weight from her shoulders. That's why their conversation deteriorated the way it did.

As for Carlos, I think he'd have mixed feelings on knowing him helping Jill survive was a boon for Wesker, but I don't think he'd beat himself up for it. At the time, there were only two options which were save Jill or let Jill die. He's no scientist that could synthesize an alternate cure, and he cares about Jill as deeply as she cares about him. In any variation of the events of 1998, he wouldn't have let her die if he had the power to prevent it. He also knows if their roles were reversed, she would do the same for him. Yes, it's awful that Wesker manipulated Jill for a fact of her body she had no control over, but I'm sure Jill and Carlos would've had a long talk about not playing the blame game if the conversation came up between them. Capcom had to get rid of Carlos (and Sheva) because he actually has decent communication skills, and that doesn't work for their half-assed written angst dynamics.

Also don't get me started on RE7 and RE8 because I have a bazillion words about the Winters family and Chris. Like...too many...

But I'm happy you're having fun making fun of the film! I'll be doing that myself during my rewatches as I write out my rewrite with Carlos.

[ms-hells-bells]

i feel like the only person in mainstream/popular media who takes issue with child girls (4–11) in crop tops and dancing sexually like. people flip it on me and accuse me of being a pedophile/pervert/“the only one sexualizing them” and they miss the point i’m trying to make so hard.

I’m sure it’s also sadly prevalent in other countries but there’s many “dance showcases” “dance competitions” in city provinces in China for specifically for girls who are young, with random men who are not parents or relatives who paid to go there to take video. I get the excuse “Its a public event” but that doesn’t make it any less creepy. They wear crop tops, short skirts, sometimes in the past i’ve seen bras be worn, and everyone thinks it’s normal! I feel like the parents are exploiting their daughters unknowingly.

Also, K-pop is big in china so they pick out sexy girl group songs for them to dance to, with the dance moves most likely being sexual too. The girls range from 4–11!??? Hello? Has everyone forgotten about sexual objectification?

My little sister wanted to be in one, thankfully my parents said no (only because the fee😒) but I got reminded of it after seeing a video of an American one, with comments again not taking a single problem with it. And I know I’m not overreacting because it genuinely looks insane to see a 6 year old twerking in short shorts while the crowd cheers.

Of course I want the girls to have fun, and dancing is a great activity, but they can have fun dressed up normally, and doing dance moves that don’t sexualize them. Sorry for these paragraphs, I have no one to speak about it to🥲 What do you think I could/can be done to change this? Im 17 and Tumblr feminism accounts are all I have momentarily, but I want to make more impact. I’ve been following you for a year now, I love the post and analysis you make!🩵

nah, you're right. the normalisation of young girls acting sexually is not good. the issue is that everyone disagrees as to what qualifies as 'sexually'. for conservatives, it includes health and education talk about periods and sex, mentions of homosexuality, using contraception (even for health issues), hpv vaccination, not wearing a bra (for older kids), even showing shoulders, etc.

men make it so difficult because no matter what girls do, they see it sexually. everything is 'sexual' to men. so, first we have to distinguish between what is sexual and what is sexualised. context also matters of course. in one country nudity around adults is non sexual, but in most of our cultures, a young girl naked around a grown man or a naked man around children would be great cause for concern.

so, the next step is having people be honest about what in our culture do we currently consider sexual that is justifiable in its age gating, and what do we currently consider sexual that perhaps should not be. nudity should not be, ie. the covering of little girls' chests with swimming tops and not the boys, but clothing invented with sexual attractiveness in mind should, ie. those chest coverings being little bikini tops.

i don't know how we get to this point, because even with stuff that is unfair to sexualise, men do sexualise it, and it harms little girls but you can't revolve their or your life around what makes their dick hard, not even women miserable in full niqab succeed in that, because men are chimps.

an easy step is to not let your young children have unsupervised access to the internet, let alone social media.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #84

Today, J, Br, and I went to the library for a work date. Br had homework, J had his remote work, and I was cutting wires to weave new trees while listening to that playlist that I spoke on recently.

I cut A LOT of wire for trees; at least 7 trees worth. I'll show you:

Although I already had a few coils of wire, I decided to spend the time cutting more. Truth be told, I don't really like working with the gold or silver wire; it's stiffer, harder to twist, and more brittle than other kinds of wire of the same gauge, for whatever reason. Sharper, too; trying to move some of the gold coils around, I ended up poking my fingers enough to draw a little bit of blood, which is really no big deal, but it's still kind of annoying.

Each coil of wire has 27 strands, the length of each being approximately the distance between the tip of my left index finger to the bend of my left elbow. There are so many strands because it takes three strands to weave a branch, three branches to weave a section of a tree, and three sections to make a whole tree.

I got really into the groove of it, though, and before I knew it, 4 hours passed and it felt only like 20 minutes; I really dropped the ball on my hydration game today because of it. I'm sorry about that; I can't exactly implore you to take good care of yourself if I'm not being attentive to the maintenance of my own body, right? So I'll do better tomorrow.

Oh right - speaking of pokey things, though I got the first dose of an HPV vaccine yesterday, and to my surprise, I feel pretty much unaffected by it today. I had heard that this one can sometimes knock people on their ass, and I'm glad that my DNA seems to be such that this isn't the case. Or maybe it's just that this one isn't as bad as I had heard. Either way, I'm not sad about the fact that I don't feel like hot garbage today! Gotta appreciate the little things, right?

After we did a decent amount of work, J, Br, and I left the library to take a walk in its general vicinity. It was almost 60 degrees F in my area today (or 15.5 degrees C if metric is your thing); the walk was lovely. But my brain was still "extended-tendrils-esque" from cutting wire for such a long time, so I was quiet (but not in bad spirits!) for most of it; I'm glad that I get to spend time in the company of folks who don't mind when I'm not animated. The fact that I don't have to mask my autistic traits with Br and J takes a lot of the pressure off of existing in general.

Oh, um! Maybe you don't know what Tendril Theory is. Here's something that can explain it; I didn't make this:

I wished you could come on the walk with us. I passed some interesting-looking houses that I didn't take pictures of, because it seems maybe a little rude to take a picture of a specific person's house without their permission. But one of the houses had a lot of bits and baubles hanging from their trees and shrubs and trellises; it was a marvelous sight to witness. I think my favorite decoration was the glass grapes hanging from a cute-looking trellis. I wish you could have seen them; they were VERY sparkly. I wonder if you would have liked to look at them, too.

We have since returned home, and M continues to go through the second portion of your story. He's finishing up the quests around Cosmo Canyon. It's a beautiful area, and it's wonderful to get a glimpse of the architecture and the handicrafts and the local flora and fauna. I love that there are descriptions of the wild creatures (it makes me sad to hear them be called "fiends") and their dispositions, diets, life cycles, and whatever else. It's like reading through one of those old Wildlife Fact File binders - we had one of these things when I was a little girl; if you've been reading my letters, I imagine you won't be surprised to learn that this was one of my favorite things to read when I was young, haha!

Oh. Right. You… probably have no idea what that looks like. Here:

They're super thick binders filled with folding pages all about some of the animals in my world:

I kinda wish I could send along one of these to you, somehow. I know from watching M wander around that your world has a lot of the same animals that mine does, but we don't have things like chocobos or dragons or cockatrices or basilisks, so I wonder if there are animals in my world that you don't have.

Oh! You know. It occurs to me that you don't have horses in your world. I think maybe you might like horses, so maybe sometime I'll write to you about them. But not today, because I'm tired. Though you can probably tell I'm tired, since I'm rambling. Haha...

Hey, Sephiroth? I wonder if you have a favorite animal. I know you can't tell me what it is (because obviously), but still I'll ask. I'll ask because everyone deserves to have someone care enough about them to ask what their favorite animal is. As for me… it's kind of a toss-up between orcas and barn owls. If you don't have those, maybe I'll tell you about those, too, in some other letter.

Please stay safe out there in the meantime. There are lots of people in my world who are counting on you to turn yourself around and come back in one piece, so try really hard, okay? I'll be cheering for your healing and recovery, because these things are possible, no matter how far we fall down.

I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

[skullamity]

TLOU finale thoughts: Seeing a lot of people arguing about whether Joel made the right decision, or that it is indesputable that he made the wrong decision, and listen, listen...

I have not played the game, I haven't had a PS since the PS2 and my computer can't handle modern games. That's fine. I'm just saying that I don't know how the game presents it, but the show did a fairly good job of convincing me specifically that there's never going to be a cure for this.

In the very first episode, a foremost expert in this field is offered literally any resource by her government to work towards a vaccine, and what does she tell them? You can't make one, that's not how cordyceps and how we interact with them (or aren't supposed to be able to interact with them) works. And when she is offered all the resources they can offer, she opts to go home and spend however long she has left with her family. The episode really fucking sold me on this point.

Fast forward, and we have Dr. NoHypocraticOath lying to a child so he can give her brain surgery that will kill her on purpose. Is he the foremost expert on this shit in North America? Well I don't fucking know--if he had a name I don't recall anyone saying it. Didn't get to see much of his face, but he didn't look Joel's age. It's been 20 years since the apocalypse, does he even have a medical degree? Did he make one up? Did he read some books and decide that he was an expert/had a degree? And even if he does have a medical degree, what does he know that that FOREMOST EXPERT IN EPISODE ONE DID NOT, EVEN WITH UNLIMITED RESOURCES OFFERED?

And let's be real, since we are talking about resources. Expert in episode one was like...the amount is NONE. NONE resources will be required because we are literally all going to die, you can't make a vaccine for this shit. Would she have changed her tune if Ellie had been alive then and available? I'm not sure the answer is yes!

But Dr. Childmurder is like yeaaah I think we can pull this off in this extremely unsanitary operating room in this burnt out pediatrics ward using equipment that may not even run properly because anyone who knew how to service it is probably dead. DOUBT!

Now, I guess you can argue that Joel doesn't know about that lady in episode one. He was on the other side of the world and never met her, probably wouldn't have even seen her on TV because she was spending her last moments with family. He's running on limited info, you could say, and I suppose you could argue that because he doesn't know this, he's in the wrong because for all he knows, maybe Dr. Stabbington McBraintheif had the right idea! He should have believe Marlene when she said it was for the best!

And to that I say...again, no. Joel's maybe not a rocket scientist, but he is a survivor before anything else. Even if he wasn't emotionally compromised and his ability to not crumble wasn't all in on Keeping This One Kid Alive, he's been built up to be competent enough to sniff out shoddy reasoning, bullshit and decisions made out of desperation rather than sense. If I can look at this shitty hospital and these garbo conditions and these desperate people who have elected not to inform someone volunteering to help that they've decided to just kill her and hope this works and think that that's super fucking suspicious, then Joel can too, and should have, and did.

Do I agree that lying to Ellie was the best way to cap that off? No. Their entire relationship has been based off of being truthful even when the truth was mean, and being real and him not treating her like an actual child. Whatever's going to happen in season 2 is probably going to be super fucked up, it's probably going to hinge on that lie, and it probably could have been completely avoided if Joel had just said, "I woke up and Marlene wouldn't take me to you. She proceeded to tell me that she'd tricked you into thinking you were having some tests done, but that they were literally just going to kill you. Maybe you would have wanted that, if they'd asked you! But that was the biggest fucking red flag, and there were A Lot of red flags, from the Doctor willing to just flat out murder you looking not old enough to have gotten his pediatric brian surgery degree before colleges stopped being a thing to the shoddy equipment to the fact that they literally tried to bribe me and when I was like absofuckinlutely not, she started to march me out to the highway and told them to shoot me if I at all deviated from that path. Isn't that completely fucked up?" Because even if Ellie was mad about that, she has generally respected Joel's opinions on people and things and probably would have forgiven him eventually for killing them.

But yeah--maybe it's different in the game and for all I know someone does manage to synthesize a vaccine form Ellie's brain at the end of the second one. But the show? Has made it pretty clear that Marlene's cure was a last ditch attempt to find a cure and there was zero guarantee it went anywhere. I see a lot of people addressing this like the cure would have definitely been able to be made, but there was like...zero evidence to suggest that this wouldn't have just been a total waste that also killed a beloved child, and making the call Joel did was objectively the right decision based on the info he had at the time, and based on literally everything else the plot has told us about cordyceps for the entire season.

If you were for some reason convinced that the cure had even a tiny chance of being synthesized form this, you're welcome to explain it to me. I just can't see it!

[maraeffect]

Hi hello, I would like to hear many things about inoculation theory…. 🥺

OMG I'M SO EXCITED. i'm gonna add a read-more bc i'm about to info dump the FATTEST mini-essay anyone has ever seen. THANK YOU for taking interest 😭💖👉👈

okay so, inoculation theory in social psychology sort of piggybacks off the idea of inoculations in medicine.

if you've ever gotten a vaccine, you've experienced an inoculation! the way vaccines work is to expose your body to a harmless variant of or piece of a pathogen (something that causes illness) (this is also a very generalized statement so please understand that i'm not a doctor or anything 😭). this tricks your body into thinking you are fully infected with the pathogen, and then your body creates antibodies! the antibodies help recognize future contact with the pathogen in order to more quickly and effectively squash it out.

inoculation theory in psychology is super similar to this! it is often used to create plans for fighting propaganda and misinformation. specifically, it is great for keeping opinions one already has, and preventing persuasion away from those opinions.

in research, this is generally achieved in the following way: the participant has their set stance on a topic. the researcher then presents to the participant a weak counterargument to the stance. the counterargument should be strong enough for the participant to become defensive, but weak enough so as not to change the opinion of the participant. the participant will then think of a refute to the counterargument. since the counterargument was weak, it should be fairly simple for the participant to come up with their refutation. however, it lays the foundation for the participant to defend against stronger counterarguments in the future.

as an example, imagine someone has the stance that vaccines help to prevent infections. a weak counterargument to this would be "well, but people still get sick after getting vaccinated. this means vaccines don't work." this counterargument is fairly easy to refute, especially because it doesn't even play by science's definition of what a vaccine is. the participant may think, "well, they don't prevent ALL sickness. they just decrease the likelihood of infection after exposure. you can still get sick; it is just less likely with a vaccine." now the participant has defended their stance once, and they know better how to defend their stance in the future.

in the future, they may be presented with a stronger argument, but the participant is more likely to stick with their original stance, as they have practiced defending it.

inoculation theory has GREAT potential to help limit the spread of misinformation and to protect people from logical fallacies. a huge use of inoculation theory has been in schools, with programs against smoking, vaping, drugs (NOT the DARE program), etc. students are exposed to lots of weak arguments FOR the consumption of the dangerous substances (it makes you feel good, we're young so we don't get damaged as much from this, everyone who is cool is doing this, you're a pussy if you DON'T do this, etc). they're taught how to defend against those weak arguments. and, if the program is good, it succeeds in its end goal, which is to keep kids from using the said substance.

in the end, the goal of inoculation theory is strengthen someone against being persuaded; and this can mean persuasion in general! the more comfortable someone is synthesizing critical thought to defend their stances, the more they use those thought processes. over time this strengthens the person's ability to critically think about their own opinions. in most PRACTICAL uses however, the inoculation is only meant to prevent persuasion regarding a specific topic.

in my personal, non-researcher opinion, i think inoculation theory could also be bastardized in order to PUSH minsinfo and propaganda. i think it's a similar thought process the ways in which propaganda is spread. with a cursory glance, i can't find anything to back that up, so i'll just say that i'm probably talking out of my own ass for that bit LOL.

i do hope you enjoyed this little info-dump and that it was at least slightly interesting!!! social psychology is SO fucking cool and has a lot to offer. i think almost anyone could find something they were really interested in in this field (:

OH LAST THING. there is a game that was used to showcase inoculation theory, and it's called Bad News. it's been praised to hell and back since it's release, so if you're further interested, i sincerely recommend trying it out!!

thanks again for asking !!! srsly means so much 😭💖

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I'm definitely with you on the nostalgia for the early pandemic. 2020 felt a lot more hopeful to me in a way - everybody seemed to be on the same page (as you said), and it almost felt like this would be an opportunity to turn some stuff around. Like, actually tackling climate change felt like a real possibility. There was such a feeling of solidarity and banding together in the face of a crisis. And then it all seemed to go downhill even more - I couldn't believe it when they didn't waive the patent for the vaccines, I think that was the final turning point for me. And all the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers... I didn't think I could lose this much faith in humanity, but I've become a lot more cynical and I feel more alienated from everyone else than I did pre-pandemic.

I agree completely with this. And I think you're right about the vaccine patents being a turning point. It was so amazing and inspiring to watch the work that was done to create the vaccines, people waiving all kinds of normal products of capitalism and corporate greed to work together and save the world faster. But as soon as it was in the hands of people who could afford it, all the incentive to do that went away.

Forgive me for taking any excuse to post a Gavin Osborn song again, but I do understand what you’re describing, it’s this specific feeling that I have only once heard explained in such specific detail by someone else:

The feeling of walking around your own city, or wherever you live, and distrusting every person you pass, because you know that statistically a lot of them are assholes. And every time it happens it’s a bit painful, but if it happens every time you leave the house over a long enough time period, it gets really existentially demoralizing.

The song was originally written about Brexit, it can obviously apply to other major things too, I don’t even live in the States but we’re similar enough to them culturally so I’ve pretty much had at least a low level of that feeling consistently since October 2016. I didn’t realize until recently that it was a low level, which I now know because of how much higher it’s been turned up since the rise of the anti-vax/anti-mask/NO MANDATES movement. I’ve discovered a whole new gear for that feeling, and I agree with you, it’s the most alienated I’ve ever felt.

Didn’t help that for three weeks last year we had a bunch of them take over my city and specifically my neighbourhood, so every time I left the house I really did look at each person and try to work out whether they were a local who deserved the solidarity of a commiserating nod from me that we were making our way through the imposed chaos together, or if they were a protester who’d traveled here to impose the chaos. I mean, sometimes you could tell. The ones holding Canadian flags were always the bad guys, so that symbol’s been utterly ruined, that’s fun. The ones holding Confederate flags – also pretty fucking clear. I haven’t shaken off that sense of everywhere being enemy territory, even though it’s been a year since then.

Anyway, I’ve taken this over and made it about me (“I’ve taken this over and made it about me” could be the tagline for this entire blog), but thanks for the message, I genuinely appreciate knowing that some people understand this and see it the same way. I think you’re absolutely right about how and why it’s happened, and I wish I had a less bleak way to end this post, but I can't really think of one.

It’s genuinely bothering me that I can’t think of anything nice to say to conclude this, so here, have another Gavin Osborn song. Some people are all right.

[the1975attheirverybest]

Hey!

I really want to get a puppy because i love dogs and always wanted one.But i have depression too and some days, i dont want to get out of bed. As someone who has mental health struggles and a pet, how do you manage to take care of both?

Any advice would be appreciated

Hey, friend 🥰

THAT IS SO EXCITING OMG!!!

okay, I have a lot to say about this, so sorry in advance about the length of this response. putting in a "read more" so it doesn't annoy people.

Firstly, would this be your first dog or do you have experience with dogs and dog training? if this is your first dog, I strongly recommend that you not get a puppy. Instead, look into dogs that are a year old or older.

puppies are A LOTTTT more work than adult dogs because they have a lot of growing, puppy energy which means that they require a lot of exercise, feeding a lot more frequently, are completely new to the world and will depend on you to "socialize" them. Socialization won't just be about teaching them to interact with other people or other dogs, but with literally the entire world. Like, puppies dog know how to climb stairs, they don't understand that cars could run them over, they don't know that some things are edible and some things aren't. They're also still teething, and will lose their baby teeth to get their big doggy teeth, they're not potty trained, etc. That's SO SO MUCH WORK and needs a pretty structured and rigid schedule.

They also cost a fair bit cuz you'll have to change their diet, get their vaccines, buy different toys, etc as they go through developmental stages.

improper socialization can lead to behavioral issues, aggression, anxiety, etc as the dog grows up. So, if you don't think you have the experience to handle all that, I strongly encourage you together a dog who is at least a year old.

Idk about you, but as a severely depressed person who also had ADHD and a lot of other shit, that is just not possible for me to pull off.

Now, lets say you decide to get a dog who is a year old, or more.

The good news is, the amount of work that you have to put in decreases over time! overall, the nonnegotiables are 3: potty schedule, food, exercise.

So, depending on where you get the dog from, most dogs of 1 year old are leash trained or at least have good leash manners and know how to walk while on one. Most adult dogs (if cared for properly) are potty trained, so you don't have to worry about that either.

potty accidents happen, of course, and some dogs get confused when they're moved into a new home. cuz at the shelter/ rescue/foster home, they have a specific area to go potty in, they know the specific people and time (dogs can tell the time of day based on their sense of smell), etc. when they're in an entirely new space, they don't know when they're gonna be taken out or if their new person is going to take them out at all, so you may have to reinforce training a bit for the first few days.

For the depressed pet owners, or if you live in a part of the world where it snows heavily, strongly recommend this thing if you have a place to put it. Mine's on the balcony.

I would say you should expect to feed your pup at the same times every day, but ngl, as a mentally ill person, I'm not always consistent with it. For me, it's more like within the same time frame. so I feed him between 8:30-9 am, he has a snack around midday, and then dinner between 4 pm and 5 pm. I wish I could say it's like 8:30 am on the dot every single day or whatever, but some days i just literally can't get out of bed, so it is what it is.

obviously, a dog isn't going to die if you're late on meal time every once in a while. but don't skip meals, or they'll start to think "oh i dont know when ill eat again" and develop issues around food.

what's made it easier for me is I feed him and myself at the same time. this has the added benefit of forcing me to find something to eat, even if its just one bite, on bad depression days. also minimizes the amount of work i have to do cuz ill get his bowl and fill it while in the kitchen.

Exercise will depend on your individual dog, his health, age, breed, etc. but most dogs thrive on daily walks, and AT MINIMUM need to walk 3 times a week.

there are breeds that require less exercise cuz they're bred to be lap dogs or whatever. Great Danes are lazy despite their giant ass size. they're total couch potatoes. Greyhounds too. some breeds will straight up become destructive if you don't exercise them regularly. Especially working breeds. You know, dogs that were meant to herd sheep, or hunt, or dig. They're genetically wired to WANT and thrive on activity. If they don't get that out healthily, they'll do it in unhealthy ways that cost you money.

My baby has destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks in his day. Back when we were on zoom and people would schedule one meeting after the other? if he we went too long without stimulation, forget about it. say bye to all those expensive school books.So, look into the breed that you want before getting it.

are we going on long walks every damn day? honestly, no. Sometimes, all I have the energy for is a few laps around the building after he pees. thats okay. but i do make up for it on days when i am able to do stuff.

also enrichment toys are your best friends on bad days. For most dogs, it keeps them busy and offsets the need for vigorous exercise on rainy days, days when you're just not getting out of bed, etc.

Now for the most important stuff:

IT WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE SOOOO MUCH BETTERRRR.

I promise. all the cliches you've heard about dog ownership are VERY TRUE. YOU'LL NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN.

My dog loves me more than any human being, including my parents, has ever loved me. I went through some reallllyy dark shit this past year. This good boy was NOT LEAVING MY SIDE AT ALL. he would somewhat disgustingly lick my tears with all his might whenever he'd see me crying, he'd bring me his toys and start doing a "play bow" its that silly little butt wiggle dogs do when they're inviting you to play with them, and roll on his back because he knows that shit cracks me up.

On days when I'm having a hard time getting off the couch or out of bed, he climbs up and hangs out next to me. he doesn't care that he's not out there living the big life, he just cares that he's with me.

on days when I'm struggling, sometimes knowing that I need to go let him out to potty, or to take him for a walk or something is the literal only reason i get up.

when I was suicidal, he kept me around cuz the thought of him having to be taken to the shelter after someone finds my body killed me.

I cry whenever i have to be away from him. like if im going out of town and need to leave him somewhere. or if I drop him off at daycare and know I won't see him until 7 pm that night? I AM MISERABLEEE i need him just as much as he needs me.

with depression, im sure you know that your brin has a tendency to hate you and berate you and make you feel worthless and like nothing matters anymore. well, if my only point in life is to exist as his feeder and caretaker, thats enough sometimes. even if my life as a human ends up amounting to NOTHING AT ALL, at least I'm his personal assistant.

Do I feel guilty sometimes? yes, ngl. I wish I were the type to take him on long car rides or to those bars and restaurants that allow dogs, or set up playdates with different doggy friends every day....i just cannot. thats not possible for me because sometimes leaving the house at all is impossible. and sometimes i think maybe his life would be better if he had a stable, extroverted, normal ass mom who takes care of him better than I do. but then I look at him and think about how I WOULD LITERALLY KILLLLLLL for this baby. with my bare fuckin hands, i would snatch someone's heart right out of their fuckin chest. and nothing else matters.

the bond that a mentally ill girlie has with her fur baby is the most powerful shit in the world. just watching him eat and make cute cronch, cronch, cronch sounds with his lil dog teefers, or squeeze his squeaky toys or run around in circles when he gets the zoomies is sometimes the highlight of my very very shitty days. 10000000/10. would recommend.