#these are very important things to know and so many people never receive this education

[kiy8mis]

for anyone else coming from a similar background, because i believe everyone has a right to be well educated about their own bodies, here are some vaginal discharge facts:

1. it’s supposed to be there— it is completely 100% normal and healthy to be constantly throughout the day getting your underwear damp

2. the consistency and even the smell/taste change depending on where you are in your menstrual cycle. the thick, egg white consistency discharge happens during ovulation, and “The Slime” is a thinner, slippery discharge that you tend to get right before and after menstruation (the consistency means it tends to get everywhere and feel like a period). as you approach ovulation, your discharge should get more opaque and less slippery— i hate the word creamy, but it’s the best word to describe what this texture is moving towards.

3. discharge contains vaginal flora (good bacteria that are necessary for a healthy vagina) which produce lactic acid, which keeps your vagina acidic to prevent infection. two effects of this are that your discharge will have an odor that may change based on your cycle and also as you age, and it will eventually bleach your underwear. these are both completely healthy and normal phenomena. there is no amount of washing, douching, or perfuming that will get rid of the smell or stop your vagina from secreting discharge, and doing those things disrupts the little ecosystem of helpful/necessary bacteria and yeast in your vagina (called your microbiome) and makes you significantly more susceptible to yeast infections and bacterial vaginosis.

4. here’s a list of discharge characteristics that ARE a cause for concern (likely not comprehensive):

- foul/fishy odor— the important thing here is to be sure that it’s the actual discharge that smells bad and that you’re not also smelling sweat/body odor. you sweat and have body odor in your crotch just like in your armpits, and that sweat/odor will get on your vulva and vaginal opening during the regular course of your day. if your actual discharge smells bad, you likely have an infection.

- ammonia/urine smell or anything chemical-smelling— also indicative of infection, be sure that it’s actually the discharge that smells bad and that you aren’t also smelling urine (easier to do than you’d think).

- grey, green, or yellow color— indicates infection, particularly if you have itching/burning/pain or if the discharge on its own smells bad

- pink/red/brown color IF you’re nowhere near your period and you don’t have a history of spotting (those colors are usually period-related but sometimes they happen for other reasons, this one is less concerning than the others but if it happens regularly when you’re not on/about to be on your period and/or if it comes with any of the above symptoms then please see a doctor)

- milky/cloudy white IF it looks different then your more opaque discharge normally does, if it has weird texture, if it smells like fish/smells foul (the actual discharge, not your vulva) and/or if it occurs alongside any kind of itching, burning, or pain

- chunky, cottage cheese texture, frothy/bubbly— indicate infection

- thick and creamy IF it seems like more than usual/comes out faster than usual, doesn’t look like your opaque discharge normally looks, smells fishy (again, make sure it’s not just body odor), or comes with any of the aforementioned symptoms.

side note about “fishiness”: between the natural odor of vaginal discharge, the sweat glands you have in your crotch area, and the fact that most of the time you’re probably wearing underwear and maybe even pants, it is normal for your vulva to have an odor that you notice when you take off your pants/underwear even if you just showered this morning. the odor is very likely to be stronger if your underwear/pants are made of synthetic fabrics that hinder airflow and prevent sweat from evaporating. the odor may also become stronger if you sit in one place for a long time, particularly with your legs crossed— you sweat more in that position and the sweat can’t escape as easily as when you stand/walk. anyone who tells you that “smelling fishy” is a sign of bad hygiene is either misinformed or bigoted (tends to be the same people that refer to vulvas as “roast beef” and claim a vagina can get loose from too much penetrative sex… i’m sure you all know the type).

having a uterus SUCKS man bc all day you'll be feeling the "hey bestie check your pants 😃 check it right now 😃 you might be getting your period 😃 hey bestie i think youre bleeding 😃" and then when you check if you got your period and your body is like WRONG ❌️ its The Slime

[creature-wizard]

Toxic Individualism In Modern Witchcraft

The modern witchcraft movement is very much a product of the 20th century, and one thing it picked up from that was a pretty individualist way of thinking. This isn't all bad, since it helped normalize people being allowed to do spirituality in a way that truly resonated with them, rather than following whatever an institution prescribed for them.

But as many of us know, western individualism comes with a lot of really toxic shit, encouraging and even enshrining apathy, cruelty, and social Darwinism. This, unfortunately, is very much an attitude you occasionally see within modern witchcraft.

This is sometimes expressed through a "let 'em sink or swim" attitude. For example, you might see people bristle at the idea of warning people about dangers such as toxic plants; "well, they should know to just research this themselves, if they get hurt, that's their own faults." Never mind that most of us live in a socioeconomic environment where "natural" tends to be equated with "safe," and few people were taught any real amount of research skills. (Most people don't know how to research beyond "type a thing into Google and click the first link" or "watch a video on YouTube and follow the algorithm.")

There's this sort of idea that witchcraft and the occult is this kind of Darwinian proving ground. You're either just born having what it takes, or you're not. Supposedly, there's no need to warn people about red flags, fascist rhetoric, pseudohistory, or anything, because supposedly, the "worthy" will just be able to find their own way on their own. Anyone who doesn't make it? Anyone who ends up poisoning themselves or falling down the alt right pipeline or abused by a predator? Couldn't be helped; they were never "meant" for this path anyway. It was simply too much for them. Why, if you really think about it, it was their own faults for daring to reach above the station they were born for, anyway.

This is a completely irrational view, because it's simply not how things work. People aren't born having research skills, critical thinking skills, or knowing the difference between real history and pseudohistory; they're taught these things. And some people are statistically much less likely to receive a good education than others. There are a few people who beat the odds and end up better educated than most people in their socioeconomic status, but this doesn't mean that they were born with inherent greatness; it just means that they were curious and lucked out in finding the right materials.

As many of us also know, Victorian-era eugenicists believed that members of the upper class were just inherently better. They had the genes for intelligence and strength of will. (Yeah, that whole modern occult fixation with willpower has some dodgy origins, too.) They just ignored that whole thing where they lived in a socioeconomic system designed to keep most people in poverty. If they ever saw someone beat the system, they attributed it to that person being born exceptional for some reason. I would highly recommend that anyone who hasn't done so already watch Shaun's video, The Bell Curve, which criticizes the book by the same title that effectively tries to argue for Victorian-age eugenics, to get a better picture of this whole thing.

Toxic individualism also encourages thinking of individuals as main characters on some kind of hero's journey, where every pain they suffer and every mistake they make is a vitally important part of their journey and growth; so much so that any effort to prevent them from making mistakes or suffering harm is hindering their personal growth.

Sure, people do often gain valuable insight from their mistakes and suffering. But it's absurd to claim that this is always the best way for people to learn and grow, especially if there's a risk of serious harm for themselves or others. Certainly it's much better to learn from a friendly Tumblr post that essential oils can give you chemical burns or harm your pets than experience it first-hand. And it's much better to learn what far right rhetoric looks like beforehand so you can recognize it when you first see it, rather than get drawn into some far right belief system and perpetuate harm on vulnerable minorities for any amount of time. (This whole thing of acting like you're life's main character and other people are basically just NPCs on some hero's journey that you imagine yourself to be on is so immensely fucked up.)

And finally, if anybody out here finds themselves thinking, "but nobody should expect help from others; after all, I didn't get any!", I'm gonna tell you: it shouldn't have been that way. You didn't not get help because that's just how the world works; you didn't get help because that's how modern western socioeconomics are created to work. Toxic individualism is a construct, and it's one that we can dismantle and replace with something better.

[fabbyf1]

Regarding that consent reblog: I appreciate the way you handle consent, education and kink in your fics so much! I love kink in fics, I love fics that are deep dead dove territory, but nothing makes me nope out more quickly than a story that has dubious consent or rape, but doesn't address it narratively or even downplays it. I read a published erotica novel recently that a friend recommended and I was close to tears by how upsetting I found the way it dealt with consent. I have no issue with reading rape, and do read it occasionally, but I find it fucked up when non-consensual situations are downplayed to something just slightly toxic, but acceptable. After that, I had even more appreciation for how you write. Specifically the warming verse made me re-evaluate how I would approach certain kink conversations with a partner. So, thank you!

tl;dr kate's rambling again but this time about consent

😭😭😭 thank you for writing all this out, bestie. this was very well said and i'm so glad that you enjoy the way i handle consent/kink in my fics!

i know not everybody likes talking about it, and clearly some people don't want it in fics at all (though i don't think they're readers of mine. i've received a lot of weird anon hate and "constructive criticism" over the years and never once has it been like "ew you write too much consent" lmfao) but it's always nice to know that people are enjoying the way i write it.

believe it or not, i never set out to be a smut writer 😂 if you go back to the very beginning of my ao3 history, i reallllllly struggled with smut at first. my first dabble into smut was in my 1D fic (which has little to no smut) and it took me ACTUAL MONTHS to write one scene. it just wasn't something i ever saw myself doing. but even though this is fanfiction and not all that serious, i still feel responsible to make it as realistic as possible.

mostly because that's what i like to read, but partly because... i think it's important people read it.

it's easy to get sort of... lost in ao3 kink/smut/dead dove stuff when you're consuming SO much of it (or too much of it) which sort of goes in line with what you were saying about non-consensual situations being downplayed to something just slightly toxic.

i feel (personally. this is different for everyone, but i'm sure some people can relate) you can easily get into a bad place where the lines of reality start to blur and you can almost... forget? that there's a difference between fanfic smut and real life sexual encounters. and i never want any of my readers to forget that they should ALWAYS advocate for their safety, for their consent, and for any other thing my characters talk about.

i never want any of my readers to go out looking for a kinky relationship (especially if they only realized they might be into that from reading my fics) and forget to protect themselves. because their safety is more important to me than views. it is more important to me than pleasing random anons who are just looking to get off and not reading the full story. and it is definitely more important to me than ao3 kudos.

i'm 33 years old, and i've found myself in too many situations in my life where i haven't always felt heard or safe in my surroundings. and if i can gentle-parent my readers into always remembering that consent is sexy and that their safety is valid and important and not worth leaving out of a silly fanfiction, than i can sleep soundly at night.

thank you.

[hiiragi7]

(Warning for discussion of abuse)

There is a certain ableist and classist feel to the way that a lot of people talk about highschool education and graduation that I've noticed. "I bet they never graduated highschool" is often used as an insult and to imply stupidity, for example. I've noticed this trend for a long time, but struggled to put it into words.

While education is important, I often feel very put down by the amount of emphasis placed on being a highschool graduate (and, on the opposite end, the disdain for non-graduates). I never graduated, due to a variety of factors; I suffered very extreme abuse starting in first grade from the school environment (As a diagnosed autistic kid growing up in SPED in the 2000s, ABA was the standard), I was being abused at home, I moved schools a lot, I struggle with several disabilities which impacted my ability to learn and developmentally I was never really at the same level as my peers besides in English and art, I developed chronic physical issues while I was still in school due to a genetic condition, and finally, I was kicked out of the house when I was 17 by my parents and I just never ended up going back to school (not that I could have graduated anyway due to a variety of issues).

I was never able to learn quite right and that lead to me falling further and further behind. By the time I was in middle school, I was already so far behind my peers that even if my teachers had wanted to help me learn the content, there was so much they would have had to teach me that it would have been impossible for them to fit it into the time I had with them, especially when they had a lot of other students to attend to besides me. On top of that, I had already given up on my own education sometime during elementary school, so any attempts that were made by my teachers were not well-received by me. I had already developed a complex web of trauma responses to anything to do with school by that point.

It seemed that I was caught in an impossible situation where between the trauma I suffered with and my autism, I could not tolerate even being in a classroom setting, much less learn in it, but there were no other options, which lead to chronic activation of trauma responses which overwhelmed both me and my teachers as well as everyone else in my life. There was also no understanding for me in these settings either, and nobody informed enough to realize what was going on with me and why I was constantly either shutting down and unresponsive or having severe panic attacks. Rather, I was called lazy, manipulative, not trying hard enough, making excuses, acting out for attention, and a slew of other insults as well as near-constant punishments which only served to traumatize me further.

To this day, I only have a second grade education in math. I do not know multiplication, division, algebra, physics, chemistry, and a variety of other subjects. Attempting to study school subjects gives me flashbacks no matter which method I use, whether it's online or with another person or on my own. I am gifted in English, but otherwise I do not know many of the things that people are generally taught in school as kids.

When I tell people I never graduated, often the response is "it's okay, you can still get your GED!" as if me not having graduated is a character flaw that I must eventually work to fix. It makes me feel as though my worth and value as a person is tied to whether or not I have at least a highschool education, and that without it I am less worthy of people's time.

Going back to my initial point, if not graduating highschool makes you "stupid", you must also consider who in practice is unable to graduate highschool - I find it is often disabled kids, traumatized kids, and impoverished kids. Not all of them, I'm sure, but definitely a lot of them.

Tying intellect and a person's worth to whether or not they graduated highschool fucks over those who couldn't through no real fault of their own and frames them as lesser for it. How can you say you believe in disability rights when you shit on those who are too disabled to complete school? How can you say you are against classism when you view people who could not graduate due to having to work full-time as lesser than you?

I feel that regardless of how much people insist they are an advocate (or how much they say "No no, when I said people who don't graduate are stupid I didn't mean those people, I only meant what I see as the acceptable group of non-graduates to call stupid"), there are biases at play regarding perceived intellect and formal education. I am viewed as inherently less-than when people learn I did not graduate. My lack of a highschool graduation certificate or "at least" a GED is viewed with pity by just about everyone I talk to.

I don't have a neat way to wrap up this post, but I do think it is important for people to examine their own biases when it comes to discussing formal education, as well as the overlap of non-graduates and marginalized groups, especially as it pertains to disability politics and capitalism.

[redtsundere-writes]

Tyrant's Favorite | Sukuna Ryomen

Chapter 11 “Apprentices” is available now!

King!SukunaRyomen x Servant!FemReader

Summary: You used to be just another servant among the army of humans operating under the command of the terrible king, Sukuna Ryomen. An ordinary human who only knows how to wash, clean and cook. Until one day, he notices something in you that you hadn't seen before.

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A couple of weeks had passed since the day of the harvest. You watched the new servants getting used to the new life they had been forced to live. You couldn't help but feel sorry for them, as you were once one of them. You understood how they felt being in such a dark and depressing place against their will. Whenever you had the chance, you greeted them with a friendly smile in an attempt to calm their nerves. Mrs. Inoue had befriended a few ladies and taught them how to do things the way Sukuna likes. Although you cared about the old people, the only one that was in your mind the most was Yorozu. 

When you were children, she used to do the housework wrong on purpose so that your mother would get mad at her and ask you to do it for her. She would run off into the yard giggling while leaving you with all the dishes to wash. You hated it when she did that, but at the end of the day she was still your sister. Your stubborn, rebellious sister.

Being a somewhat rebellious and free-spirited girl, you worried that she would purposely make Uraume angry and freeze her to death or that the king would catch her slacking off. You tried not to think about that while writing the essay Kenjaku had asked you to do for homework. 

“As the last lesson of the day, let's start with what I think will be the most important subject of all,” Kenjaku said as he erased the notes he had made at the beginning of the class. As a title, he wrote the word “debate.” “Debate is the art of discussion. It is an excellent way to improve one's speech, as well as helping to develop the skills needed to construct convincing arguments.” The teacher explained enthusiastically. 

Since he received the letter from Sukuna where he said that you were a person who always knew what to say, Kenjaku knew that you had the makings of an excellent speaker. Maybe you didn't have cursed techniques nor were you a prodigy warrior, but you were magnificent with words. Speech was your best weapon, and he would help you to constantly sharpen it. You had a long way to go in terms of your education, so he couldn't afford for you to fall behind when you were in constant motion towards the crown. 

“When you become a queen, in addition to obeying the king and understanding what he says, you must be able to help him make informed decisions regarding the interests of the kingdom,” Kenjaku explained. 

“I don't think I can do that honestly, Sukuna and I have very different priorities,” you replied. Kenjaku came over to tap you on the head with a scroll. 

“First rule of debate. Never say ‘I believe’, ‘I think’, ‘I have an opinion’, etc. Debate is based on facts, not thoughts,” Kenjaku scolded you. 

“Anyway, I don't know anything about ruling a country, leading troops or invading villages,” you replied while rubbing your injured area. 

You had seen Sukuna a couple of times leading the curses in different formations, giving many orders and walking at the head of the troops with his head held high. He was an imposing leader like no other who knows exactly what to do under pressure. You didn't feel you had the ability to do that. You could barely control your sister, how could you control a nation? Kenjaku smacked your head again. 

“Second rule of debate. Never let your opponent know what you don't know,” Kenjaku scolded you again. 

“But what if I'm not the one to give my opinion?” You asked while rubbing your head. It was already starting to hurt. 

“You are going to become the queen of this nation. You are going to have a say over anyone else, so you must prepare yourself to have a say in these matters.” Kenjaku explained. “Stop thinking like a mere servant and start thinking like the strongest woman in this nation.” 

You knew Kenjaku was right, but it was such an abrupt change of your persona. One's personality doesn't change overnight, and you weren't even sure that would happen. Kenjaku noticed that you were worried, so he approached you to take your hand. 

“I understand that you are confused and worried that you are not capable enough, but I am sure you will be. In a year, I promise you that with my help you will be a different person,” Kenjaku smiled at you to trust him, but you weren't sure if you could really do it. 

Open fanfic commissions!

Masterlist.

[vikkirosko]

Hello! Can I request Miles, Phoenix, Franziska, Manfred, the Judge and Dick with a female anarchist child reader?

Reader is a homeless 12 years old who lived all her life in the street. She was raised by other homeless and even got an education from them.

Reader is street smart and smart in general, she's nice to old people and poor/homeless people but is an anarchist in heart and hate all that touch the legal/financial system.

She's a little delinquent too, making illegal street art, steeling things (food, clothes, nice little things for her and the other homeless) and regularly messing with the police forces for fun. She was arrested many times, but never got judged since she's only 12.

Things are that reader is a key witness in a murder case. Her testimony is very important for the trial. The only problem is... she refuse to say the truth or even testify correctly. Taunting the lawyer, prosecutor, police forces and even the judge for their inefficiency.

The truth is, she hate how "the normal society" view her and the other homeless/delinquents and how they treated them. So why helping those who rejected her and her people.

How they convinced her to be at their side is up to you.

Thanks!

Platonic headcanons Little Anarchist

⚖️ Phoenix Wright x child fem!Reader 🚲

Phoenix was not very good at communicating with children. That's why when you met him, he didn't know what to do. You were a homeless girl who turned out to be a witness in a murder case. You saw with your own eyes everything that happened and it would seem that you should have told the police, the prosecutor, or at least him, the lawyer, about everything, but it was not so. He realized this when your testimony, which he received from the police report, was radically different from what you told him

He tried to find out from you about it, but pretty quickly he found out that you were openly mocking him. At first you didn't talk about yourself and didn't answer the question why you refuse to cooperate, but your patience quickly ran out. You shouted loudly that you would not help the system that rejected you and your family. As it turned out, you were homeless and considered other homeless people as your family. It was unknown where your blood relatives were, but you clearly didn't want to help people connected with the law. You were wary of everyone, even Maya, but you usually didn't express any obvious negativity towards her. However, Phoenix understood that without your help, the real criminal would remain unpunished

After the first day of the meeting, he decided to try to talk to you again. At first you didn't want to talk to him. You just wanted to spend time with your family. However, when Phoenix said that the killer could kill you or someone from your family because you were a witness, you were visibly worried. You and Phoenix talked for a long time, after which you were able to come to an agreement. You didn't want people close to you to suffer, so you agreed to tell the court about what you actually saw

Even after the case was closed and the criminal was in prison, Phoenix continued to communicate with you. He and Maya visited you, brought various things and helped you and your family. They understood that you didn't become homeless because you wanted to, but you were a smart girl who could have a bright future and if you had agreed, Phoenix would have tried to help you get into school or improve your life in other ways

⚖️ Miles Edgeworth x child fem!Reader 🚘

Edgeworth is sometimes seen at the police station. He didn't understand who you were, sure that you were a bully or just a kid who often ran away from home. However, when you were the only witness to the murder, he found out that your situation was much more complicated than he could have imagined. You didn't have a home, your family were homeless people with whom you lived and you hated the police and the entire judicial system as a whole and he couldn't get honest testimony from you

Several times he tried to talk to you himself. Each time your testimony differed from the previous ones and it was not clear if there was any truth in what you said. He tried to stay calm, but you did everything to make him lose his temper. Sometimes it even seemed to him that you didn't really see anything but were lying to annoy the police. However, when he went to look for you after the first day of the court session, he found out that you really saw something. This was confirmed by other homeless people with whom you lived

They told him that on the day of the murder you were in the next building where the murder happened. You ran to them scared, but despite that you didn't tell them about what happened. It was thanks to one of the homeless people that the police found out that you were a witness to a murder that happened. When Edgeworth told you what he found out, you looked annoyed. You didn't want your family members involved in this, but Miles told you that your family's safety depends on you. He was sure that the killer would try to get rid of the witness who knew the truth if he was free, which means you and your family would be in danger. His words had an impact on you

You couldn't keep hiding the truth when the lives of your family members were at risk. That's why you were honest about what happened at the trial. You breathed a sigh of relief when the killer was found guilty. Every time Edgeworth saw you at the police station, he turned a blind eye to some of your misdeeds and helped you to the best of his ability. He gave you money and tried to help you and your family start living better. It was the least he could do

⚖️ Franziska von Karma x child fem!Reader ⚜️

Franziska didn't have much patience, so when she found out that a police detective couldn't get testimony from a key witness in a murder case. She got angry because of this and she went to conduct the interrogation herself, but when she saw the witness, her resolve weakened for a few moments. That witness was you. You were a twelve-year-old girl in old, many times darned clothes and with a look full of contempt and irritation, and even the formidable appearance of the prosecutor did not cause you fear and did not destroy your determination not to tell the truth

She tried several times to get the information she needed from you, but you didn't tell the truth. You've changed your testimony a lot of times, confusing the investigation. At first Franziska assumed that you were connected with the suspect, but she learned from the detective that you were a frequent guest at the police station. You were caught stealing and painting on the walls of various buildings. You were homeless and lived with other homeless people. You were caring towards those whom you considered members of your family, but you were distrustful of the police and everyone connected with the judicial system. Franziska felt it for herself when her patience came to an end. She started shouting at you, but you responded by shouting too, although even grown men were lost when she was angry

She spent a long time trying to find out from you what she needed. For all the time that the investigation was conducted, she managed to get attached to you and find out your story. She found out that your parents abandoned you and the tramps took you in. They took care of you and you took care of them in return. You were angry that others turned away from you, your family and other people who found themselves in a difficult situation. That's why you didn't want to help the police. Franziska talked to you for a long time. She was able to convince you that the system was really not always fair, but deceiving the police you will not do better and the criminal will be released. It was able to convince you to tell the truth

After the criminal was found guilty, Franziska decided that you could grow into a decent person, so she decided to take care of you herself. She gradually gained your trust and intended to take you with her to Germany so that you could grow into a person who could change the system and make sure that the people you considered your family and similar people could live much better than you and your loved ones lived

⚖️ Manfred von Karma x child fem!Reader 🔫

Manfred von Karma was not the most patient person. For the sake of closing the case, he was ready to go to great lengths. Therefore, when he found out that the investigation was not progressing due to the fact that the witness was constantly changing his testimony, he felt annoyed. He couldn't let this ruin his perfect string of victories, so he decided to take up the witness interrogation himself. However, he did not expect that this witness would be a twelve-year-old girl. It was you. A homeless girl who saw a murder, but lied to the police about what she saw

You didn't care about what the prosecutor was trying to find out from you. You continued to hide the truth, ignoring all his discontent. You weren't going to tell him what really happened. He even started to put pressure on you, but you weren't afraid of his threats. You knew he couldn't put you in jail, so you weren't afraid of him. Even when you were told who exactly he was, you did not change your position, continuing to change your testimony every time

He had to resort to threats. You didn't care what happened to you, but when he started threatening that people close to you would be in an even more difficult situation. You couldn't let that happen, so you had to tell him the truth. You weren't sure if he needed the truth or if he just wanted to hear from you what he needed. You were angry and left after the court hearing, not wanting to see him ever again in your life

Your opinion about the judicial system has only strengthened. You understood that no one would believe you if you said that the prosecutor threatened you, so you were forced to remain silent. You just hoped that Manfred von Karma wouldn't ruin the lives of your family members after closing the case

🚔 Dick Gumshoe x child fem!Reader 🐶

You and Detective Gumshoe met before the murder took place. You were brought to the police station several times when you were caught stealing or painting on the walls of city buildings. He didn't understand why you did it every time, but he couldn't hold you accountable for your actions anyway, so he tried to appeal to your conscience, but you didn't listen to him. When you were brought to the station as a witness, he knew your story and the last thing he wanted was for you to get involved in this case

He took over your interrogation, trying to soften it for you, but you were silent, did not tell him about what really happened. All he knew for sure was that you were a witness to a murder. This worried the detective. He knew that you were a smart and kind child, but sometimes you could be rude because you didn't trust the police and everyone connected with the judicial system. He tried to take care of you as much as he could. I brought you a snack and didn't let others be rude to you, but you kept silent

Gumshoe talked to you for a long time, trying to convince you to help. If it was someone else, you would never have told the truth, but the detective helped you for a long time. He treated you to delicious food, bought groceries and necessary things for your family and helped you in any way he could. He was the only cop who cared about you. That's the only reason you told him the truth, knowing that it was important to him and that he would not deceive you

Even after the case was closed, he continued to take care of you. He didn't know how hard your life was, but he didn't want it to be even harder for you to live than it is now. Sometimes you forgot that you should be mad at him. Sometimes you thought that if there were more police officers like him, then maybe it would be much easier for you and your family to live

👨‍⚖️ Judge x child fem!Reader ⚖️

It was not the first time the judge saw how children became witnesses at meetings. In all the years that he worked in court, he saw a lot of strange things, so he was not surprised when a twelve-year-old girl acted as a witness in a murder case. You didn't look scared, on the contrary, you were annoyed and didn't hide it. However, he quickly realized that it would be a very long court session, because when you were asked to repeat your testimony, you told a completely different story

You didn't tell them what really happened. Because of this, the court session was greatly delayed. When the court session was postponed to the next day, he met you in the corridor. He saw you trying to steal some food from the cafeteria. He didn't expect this, but instead of calling security or somehow interfering with you, he paid for a full meal and treated you to it. All the time that you ate with him at the same table, you did not stop looking at him suspiciously from time to time

During lunch, Judge tried to talk to you. At first you were in no hurry to talk, but then you told me why you didn't tell the truth. He was surprised when he found out that you were homeless. He didn't know how to help you, but he tried to at least make sure that you would leave well-fed and you wouldn't have to steal food for at least some time, which is why he gave you money so that you could buy food and things that you and your family needed. You were surprised by his action and looked at him with the same suspicion, but the next day you did something that surprised Judge. You told the truth about what you saw

When the court session ended, you told Judge that the only reason why you did it was because he helped you. You were grateful to him for helping you yesterday, but you're not used to being beholden to someone, so you decided to help as best you could. Judge hoped that over time your life would become better than it was at the moment and was ready to try to help you if you turned to him for help

[sophieinwonderland]

Tagging @explaceholder for post alert.

So, until recently I absolutely didn't care about multiplicity and in fact education that I received suggested that multiplicity is not real, including DID.

What coincided is that in the last few weeks several posts about it made it on my dash and I lurked r/fakedisordercringe. The subreddit left me with conflicting feelings because on one hand it's true that many of the featured people clearly don't fit the criteria for their disorders, but also the place felt too aggressive considering that the "fakers" may be just misinformed.

With most disorders it's clear because there always exist states that severely deviate from the norm but are not pathological. With multiplicity though it's clear that most of those people don't have DID, but some people noted (and later I saw it on your post) that said "fake" multiplicity may be just non-pathological spiritual practice. I know a number of ideas about how human psyche can be dissected into sub-personalities, including those that were proposed as psychotherapy techniques and for a time I semi-regularly interacted with tulpamancers who also fit the criteria of "believe in possessing multiple personalities inside one body". And while I never experimented with splitting psyche and don't want to, I have some experience with other spiritual practices and know that power of believe and symbolism may make you feel very interesting things. And some of the "ex-fakers" even report that those other personalities felt real as long as they were doing practice but eventually disappeared after they stopped.

So while having DID without trauma is scientifically impossible, I can easily accept that people may have brains or experience that makes them feel like there are multiple hypostasises inside of them. Which is very different but as legit as any other self-conceptualization.

What I am getting at is that I don't want to dismiss endogenic systems as non-existent, but they are obviously non-pathological. Main complaint from the cringers is that endogenic systems downplay the severity of DID and misinform people, and it would be in fact a very bad thing to do. But like, do they? Or are you mostly having discipline and distinguish pathological and non-pathological states?

I just recently learned about the whole thing and want to study it for scholarly reasons and also because it feels like it becomes louder and louder, so I decided to just ask the most important question directly. Also feel free to correct me on any of the mistakes

Thanks for taking an interest in this and being open-minded!

If you're interested in studying multiplicity, this doc has a ton of sources you can check out:

For plural history, you may want to check out the Plural Deepdive:

Something I find about r/Fakedisordercringe is that a lot of ableist misinformation gets spread around there. Many of the things they claim aren't symptoms of DID are, in fact, and have been well-documented.

I also think you shouldn't necessarily conclude based on behaviors from brief snippets that their experiences aren't pathological.

In the end, the only things you see are the snippets these systems want to show, which are then further cherry-picked by the cringe subreddits.

While it's great that you're more interested in non-pathological plurality, please don't assume that someone's plurality isn't pathological just because you see a video of them being happy with their system. Because dissociative disorders are immensely complex, and there are plenty of systems that get along very well. One study even showed a majority of people with DID said they would miss the voices of their alters if they were gone. But they still had DID.

It's very, very common for people with DID to enjoy some aspects of the disorder, even if other aspects still would result in clinically significant distress or impairment that would make it pathological.

So while having DID without trauma is scientifically impossible

I wish people would stop saying this. We are... in a very gray area.

What we know for certain is that people with DID nearly always report a trauma history with statistics being upwards of 90%, which is huge. And the fact that it's not quite 100% can possibly be explained by amnesia... but we can't know that for certain.

There is a huge difference between "DID is virtually always caused by trauma" and "it's scientifically impossible to have DID without trauma."

Remember, a lot of science operates in these gray areas and our scientific knowledge is constantly overturned with new research.

I don't mind if people believe that all DID is trauma-based. I just don't think it should be presented as if it's some sort of scientific law when there are still too many unknowns.

Main complaint from the cringers is that endogenic systems downplay the severity of DID and misinform people, and it would be in fact a very bad thing to do. But like, do they? Or are you mostly having discipline and distinguish pathological and non-pathological states?

Personally, I think it's kind of silly for people to say "these people who don't say they have DID are downplaying the severity of DID."

Because by and large, that's what we're talking about. Only a very small number of DID systems identify as endogenic.

At least purely. There are mixed origin DID systems who may report being plural before they experienced the trauma that caused them to develop their system, or they may identify some of their headmates as spiritual, or consider themselves mixed for other reasons. But people who will say they have DID without any trauma are an exceedingly rare anomaly.

So yeah, most purely endogenic systems are not saying their plurality is related to any disorder and there's no logical reason their presentations of plurality should affect the perceptions of disorders they aren't claiming to have.

...

Anyway, hope this was able to help! 😁

[goingpostal1980]

The world MUST know about this.

If you're wondering who owns your copy of The Catcher in The Rye, it's me. I legally own all copies. My collection spans lifetimes.

Let's start off by saying... the real 'atrocity' is the spelling in this document. And total lack of any apparent sense... The world has to know what they've put me through... Everyone I know has already seen this. I'm very proud. I was ecstatic to receive this letter.

More than 8... less than 25. 25 is a little too far, do we think?

So I was put on the terrorist register for this... but it's okay because they took me back off. Pretty badass, right?

Tumbler is like my diary. It's so easy to post here. I love Tumbler.

Anyway, I felt so pathologized by this. And what a loss of dignity. The only way to combat this is to share it in a way that makes me feel that I have regained power... Is posting medical documents on the internet all good with you?

Note the logo at the bottom of this next picture. 'Young people friendly'. Funny.

The letter I sent the Psychosis Team about my life story was 5 pages long and contained printed excerpts from my journals spanning back to 2022. This didn't help. I guess I'll update you all on Wednesday.

Some have said my life is like a performance art project, I guess you could say that. I care a lot about my Public Image. It's important to Keep Up Appearances. Everyone, EVERYONE is sick of this stuff. It's too late now to stop, though.

Droped as a kid innit.

This lady asked me, 'Do you Google instructions on how to make bombs?'

I told them I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't currently self harm, I don't speak to strangers online, I don't have any social media, I don't have the means to make a bomb or cause destruction in any way, and I have no solid plans to do so. I told them 2026 and they put 2025. They sent me for an MRI scan. There was no MRI scan, just an interview with a Malay doctor who was shorter than me who asked me terribly worded questions... 'What do you hallucinate?' 'How many times a day does this happen?' (If I had a Malaysian Ringgit for every time I've been asked that)

I told the school nurse I was hearing voices telling me to hurt the people around me. I was told my self harm was superficial. I was told I had 'Generalized Anxiety Disorder' and 'Depression'. The family did not find CAMHS helpful at this time...

She asked me the HEADSS assessment questions - a psychosocial tool used on teenagers. My mother turns to me and asks me, 'Are you going to tell her..? About the... John Lennon stuff?' ...I tell her no. It's irrelevant. Did they think I had a brain tumor? Like the Texas Tower Shooter? Like Charles Whitman?

H- Home and Environment

I told her I have a good relationship with my mother. I really do. I swear. I feel that throughout my entire life I have been neglected. Our house is a wreck. I will never forget the things that have been said to me throughout my life with her. I I don't know if I can fix the impact of what has happened to me.

E- Education and Employment

Yeah, I love College. I dropped out of school, innit. I guess that's cool. Thanks for asking.

A- Activities

I don't know what these are, to be totally honest.

D- Drugs

I love getting high. I was given magic mushrooms at a party when I was 14. I love smoking weed with my friend winking emoji. I love to drink. I drink once a week or more, hard liquor or beer or whatever I can find. I smoke every day. I'm not planning on quitting. I will take whatever I'm offered. I don't think it's cool. I told her I'm not interested in that kind of stuff.

S- Sexuality

No, this one's true. I'm the Super Virgin. N.F.I. Not Fucking Interested. Don't you think I have enough on my Plate?

S- Suicide and Depression

I told her the last time I self-harmed was last year, in Winter. I told her I used to have suicidal thoughts but I don't anymore because I love my life. They left me with no support over the Summer for 3 months this year and I almost died. Nobody's going to find out about that. She tested my reflexes and put her hand directly on top of my scars. Bloody hilarious, I thought, as I had a heart attack and nearly died on the spot. She told me I looked very uncomfortable. No, I don't want to die, really.

She had an absolutely abysmal bedside manner. She told me, when I saw that I had a patient with psychosis, I was so scared you'd be... violent or something. But you're so nice. Or something along those lines. They made me wait for almost an hour in the pediatric X-Ray ward surrounded by crying children and snot and my mother nearly went batshit crazy. She said there were too many broken bones. The pediatric neurologist told me she liked my hair. Twice. She said I was 'Beautiful and Well-Mannered'. Isn't that nice.

There's a lot more I could say. I'll save it for another time... isn't it funny? I think it's hilarious. That this has eaten up 2 years of my life now and there's no sign of it stopping. I have become dissilusioned with the concept of 'Mental Illness' after reading some Foucault. It didn't take much to convince me. The real problem is what's around me, not myself.

I'll tell you all about the other stuff another time.

[raisedbyfandomwolves]

Birds and the Bees : Kara and Mon-El’s child asks some tough questions the two don’t really know how to answer.

So... just to be clear, I set this in PiaD's (distant) future but mixed in some show canon details to avoid spoiling stuff. Also, whoever sent this, I hope you enjoy it (if you even remember sending it, that is).

“Mommy, are you a robot?”

The unexpected and bizarre question breaks Kara's concentration on the important but mind-numbing Legion paperwork in front of her and she jerks her head towards its source in surprise. “I'm sorry?”

Dawn's adorably confused frown deepens as she holds up her educational datapad as high as her little arms will allow. However, the way she's holding the device makes it hard for Kara to see what's being displayed on the screen. “It says Kryptonians come from machines called Birthing... May Trees...?”

Oh. “Birthing Matrices,” Kara corrects her daughter with a touch of laughter, having finally figured out what this is all about. When she and Mon-El had agreed to give Dawn basic access to the Fortress of Solitude's database so she can learn at her own incredibly fast pace, Kara is sure neither of them had expected it would lead to this. “I promise I'm not a robot, sweetheart, and before you ask, neither are you, okay? In fact, no one born from a Birthing Matrix is a robot; it's just a machine people on Krypton used to... um, help make their children for them.”

Despite having received clarification on the matter, Dawn continues frowning even as she lowers the datapad. “But why would they do that?”

As smart as Dawn is for her age, Kara has a feeling that genetic engineering – not to mention the more... unpleasant aspects of Krypton's preference for it – might be too advanced a subject for her daughter at this point in time. Best to keep her answer as simple as possible. “Well, they wanted to make sure all their children would be strong and healthy and... well, perfect.”

To Kara's surprise and concern, Dawn not only continues to appear confused but now also strangely looks a little... lost. “...But I didn't come from a Birthing Matrix.”

“No, you didn't,” Kara confirms slowly even as she wonders where this conversation is heading. “I gave birth to you myself.”

When Dawn's expression turns into one of hurt and heartbreak, Kara already knows there's been a grave misunderstanding before her daughter asks her next question. “Does that mean... I'm not perfect?”

In the space of a second, Kara goes from shocked and bewildered to horrified and panicked. “Oh Dawn, no.” She closes the distance between them using her superspeed and cups Dawn's face with both hands as if the physical contact will further reinforce her next words. “That is not true. You are perfect. You've been perfect since the moment you came into your father's and my lives and you'll always be perfect to the both of us no matter what.”

Dawn sniffles slightly, hopeful but clearly still harbouring a few doubts. Forgotten in the moment, the datapad slips out of her hands and falls to the floor unnoticed. “Then why didn't you use a Birthing Matrix to make me?”

“Because I loved you so much before I even had you that I was a bit selfish,” Kara admits with a soft smile as she wipes an errant tear running down Dawn's cheek with her thumb. “When your father and I decided to have you, I told him that I didn't want to use a Birthing Matrix because I wanted you to grow inside me instead – to be with me from the very second you came to exist. I wanted to be able to talk to you and sing to you and do so many things with you even though you probably couldn't even hear me at all. I was never once worried about whether you would be 'perfect' or not because I already knew that your father and I would love you no matter what and that was all that mattered. And look how you turned out in the end: perfect. That's the truth and don't let your doubts or anyone else tell you otherwise, okay?”

Another sniffle escapes Dawn but the shine in her eyes communicates not unshed tears of sorrow but rather pure hope unburdened by doubt. “Okay.”

The ice-cold grip of fear around Kara's heart finally dissolves and she pulls Dawn in for a tight hug. “Okay,” she repeats, beyond relieved that the unexpected situation has been resolved with relative ease. At least she'd managed to handle it on her own without needing to call Mon-El for backup because she can't imagine how he would've reacted to their daughter's misconceptions.

No sooner has the thought finished forming in her mind than the front door of their home unlocks with a cheerful beep and unceremoniously gets thrown wide open. Startled, she looks up to find the very person she had been thinking about standing there with his hand still on the door and his face a visage of pure panic. Despite his obvious anxiety and her own surprise, the primitive part of her brain goes through its routine appreciation of the way Mon-El's black Legionnaire instructor suit accentuates his toned physique. “What's wrong? What happened?”

“I thought you were training the new recruits today.” For some reason, that's the first thing out of Kara's mouth although her words are immediately drowned out by Dawn's enthusiastic cry of “Daddy! You're home!”

As expected, Mon-El's enhanced hearing manages to pick up her pseudo-question regardless. “I said there was a family emergency and asked Rokk to take over,” he replies distractedly as he shuts the door and opens his arms to welcome the hug-seeking missile that is his flying daughter. “What happened? I felt...”

He trails off there but the rest of his sentence is obvious enough to Kara that she can't help but feel a twinge of guilt. She must have been so distraught by Dawn's misunderstanding that she'd forgotten to keep her distress from flowing to him through their connection. Now that she's fully calmed down, however, she can feel his lingering panic and rushes to calm him with both a verbal clarification and their connection. “It's nothing too serious, I promise,” she says as she gets to her feet. “Dawn just found out about Birthing Matrices and got the wrong idea about certain things, that's all. I'll tell you more later.”

“Mommy's not a robot even though she came from a machine and I'm perfect even though I didn't!” Dawn helpfully summarises their earlier conversation with a beaming smile.

Unsurprisingly, Mon-El shoots a quizzical glance in Kara's direction at that apparent non sequitur but evidently decides to pursue the matter later in favour of focusing on Dawn first. “Of course you're perfect; you're my little princess, after all,” he tells their daughter with exaggerated gravitas and punctuates his statement with a noisy kiss to her golden hair.

Ever the daddy's girl, Dawn giggles as she soaks in her father's affections like an adorable sponge and for a moment peace in their household is restored. Then she suddenly pulls away from Mon-El's embrace and gives Kara the same confused frown from before. “But Mommy, if Grandpa Zor-El and Grandma Alura used the Birthing Matrix to make you, does that mean they don't love you as much as you love me?”

The new unexpected line of questioning throws Kara for a loop and she flounders for an appropriate response.

Luckily for her, Mon-El manages to come to her rescue despite his lack of clarity on how Dawn could have ended up with such a strange conclusion. “No, Dawn, they definitely love your mother as much as your mother and I love you. It was just normal for everyone on Krypton to be born from a Birthing Matrix until your id-”

“Mon-El...” Kara cuts in with a glare and a warning note in her voice, all too aware of just what he's about to say.

“-idealistic Uncle Kal-El came along,” Mon-El finishes, feigning innocence as if that had been the word he'd intended to use all along.

Oblivious to the ongoing silent war between her parents, Dawn accepts the simple answer but remains confused. “Did people on Daxam use Birthing Matrices too, Daddy?”

“They did, princess, but some people chose not to use it for their own reasons,” he affirms simply. Like Kara, he's apparently decided to leave the more complicated aspects of Daxam's views on reproduction for a future date. “I came from a Birthing Matrix too just like your mother.”

“But Grandpa Lar and Grandma Rhea still loved you, didn't they, Daddy?” Dawn asks innocently.

All at once, Kara feels the warm atmosphere in their home evaporate to be replaced by a chill so extreme that they both freeze where they are standing. Old hatreds rise from the depths of her heart where she had buried them long ago, and the uncharacteristic stillness she feels through their connection only feeds her fury.

The silence doesn't go unnoticed by their ever-perceptive daughter who glances between her parents with open concern and distress. “...Daddy, did I say something wrong?”

Her guilt-ridden question snaps them of out their respective trances, and Kara finds herself darkly marvelling at how she has found a new reason to hate Lar and Rhea.

While she silently stews in her rage and does her best to keep it to herself, Mon-El manages to recover from his unwanted trip down memory lane and puts on a forced smile. “No, princess, you didn't. It's just... My parents didn't like me very much,” he tells her gently, and Kara has to swallow the bitter scoff trying to escape her lips at his understatement.

Predictably, his answer only makes Dawn even more confused and upset. “But why?” Considering how much she adores her father and vice versa, the mere idea of him not being loved – by his own parents, no less – must be unfathomable.

Once again, Kara bites her tongue to stop herself from saying anything while Mon-El is the one who struggles to give a satisfactory answer that isn't an outright lie. “...I guess... I wasn't the son they wanted me to be.”

“...Does that mean...” Dawn's lower lip trembles, as does her tiny voice. “...Does that mean... they wouldn't have loved me too?”

With that one simple question, Kara's loathing of Lar and Rhea reach a new level she hadn't even known existed even as her heart breaks for her little girl. “Dawn...” is all she can bring herself to say as she all but runs to her daughter and mate to provide the comfort both of them desperately need.

Mon-El welcomes her efforts the way a man dying of thirst would the sight of an oasis and sends a weak wave of gratitude through their connection. As always when moments like this one descend upon them, he draws strength from her and brings himself to answer Dawn's question to the best of his ability. “I don't know, princess.”

To him, it's as close to the truth as he'll allow himself to admit but to Kara, it borders on an outright lie. Rhea in particular would have viewed any child of Mon-El's with disdain and perhaps only seen value in said child in terms of the preservation of the royal bloodline. But a child that was half Kryptonian? And not just any Kryptonian but rather her, Kara Zor-El, specifically? Rhea would have strangled Dawn in her crib... if she would have even allowed Dawn to be born in the first place.

Naturally not privy to her mother's dark thoughts, Dawn keeps her tear-filled gaze entirely focused on her father as her young mind struggles to comprehend everything she's just been told. Just as Kara is about to try and console her daughter, however, Dawn blinks away her tears and puts on a brave face. “It's okay, Daddy,” she says, bold and resolute, “because as long as you and Mommy love me, nothing else matters. And it's okay if Grandpa Lar and Grandma Rhea didn't love you because that just means I'll love you even more forever and ever to make up for it!”

Pure unadulterated joy and wonder. That's the only way to describe Mon-El's expression and the emotions flooding their connection from his end, not to mention Kara's own feelings at their daughter's declaration. Maybe it's a strange thought to have but Kara finds herself beyond overjoyed that the child she brought into this world loves Mon-El as wholly and unconditionally as she does. Unable to hold herself back anymore, she wraps both daughter and mate in as tight a hug as their position will allow, creating a small bubble of blissful happiness for their family in the process.

“Thank you, Dawn,” Kara hears Mon-El murmur softly in the silence of their home.

“You're welcome, Daddy,” Dawn replies, her voice equally gentle and overflowing with adoration.

They stay like that for an untold amount of time until the beep of Dawn's datapad powering down ends the comfortable silence. The sound reminds Kara of just how this admittedly emotionally draining conversation had begun and she pulls away to regard her daughter with gentle carefulness. “Do you have any more questions about this, sweetheart?”

“Nuh uh!” Dawn shakes her head vigorously, beaming smile in place and the tears from earlier nowhere to be found.

“Right. Okay. That's good.” Kara lets out a small sigh of relief, glad that they've managed to achieve a positive resolution despite the wretched subject. Then a thought occurs to her and she shoots Mon-El a worried look he has trouble deciphering based on his puzzled reaction.

If Dawn is already reading about the Birthing Matrix, then it's only a matter of time before she starts asking questions about the... other method of creating children. In fact, Kara would be surprised if she doesn't have to field such questions within the next hour or so considering Dawn already knows she came about through... traditional means, so to speak. Might as well get it over with as quickly as possible, she tells herself with no small amount of trepidation.

Bracing herself for a highly embarrassing conversation that promises to be even more humiliating with Mon-El present to tease her at every turn, Kara clears her throat and starts. “So Dawn... Since you've already learned about the Birthing Matrix, I think this is a good time to teach you about... um... how babies like you are made without it...”

Instead of being curious, however, Dawn brightens up. “Oh, I already know, Mommy! You have sex!”

The rambling speech Kara had been mentally putting together crumbles to dust and all she can do is choke on air. At the exact same moment, Mon-El stifles a noise of his own that sounds suspiciously like a full-bellied laugh at her expense. Combined with the mirth she feels from their connection, it's enough to snap her out of her stupor and she levels a death glare his way, silently promising a terrible and painful end for him.

Aware that he's now in mortal danger, he schools his expression and holds up the hand not supporting Dawn's weight in a gesture of surrender. “I swear it wasn't me.”

“Daddy didn't teach me about sex, silly Mommy!” Dawn giggles. “Aunty Eve did!”

This time, Mon-El makes less effort to stop himself from laughing out loud but Kara is too incensed to care, busy as she is with mentally cursing Dawn's godmother who is soon to be an ex-best friend.

[raggedyhive]

For moonknight representation i didn't like how Oscar Isaac implied that he portrayed only Steven as autistic, when the entire system would be autistic even if certain members can mask better

Ah, yeah, I remember seeing that initially and getting the ick. I understand it's one of those things people are often misinformed about (and--while not specifically autism--it's a sentiment I see rather often on Tumblr even among people trying to represent the community: disabilities or developmental disorders are rarely--if ever--only going to affect a single alter in a system).

I can respect his attempt for a degree--making sure Steven was a fully realized identity rather than just an "alternative" to Marc--and while it would be fantastic and brilliant were Steven Grant just Steven Grant, but it did fail to recognize that... yeah. It's... not just Steven. He's a part of the whole, and either that whole person/system is on the spectrum, or they aren't. So while the interview and this take respected Steven as a character and respected his development, the statement given failed to do that in tandem with respecting the reality of dissociative disorders as well. The fictional development unfortunately superseded the real-world facts there.

I will say that I agree with the masking statement as well, of course. I know it's largely moot to what Oscar Isaac said (or, rather, what he didn't say), but many people in the fandom, at least, have embraced and do understand that having one alter on the spectrum means they all are, even if their experiences with it can and will differ. It's one thing I have come to especially appreciate from the fandom, honestly.

That aside, I do wish Oscar Isaac and the other creators had been a bit more aware of this reality. I do think that if he was educated about this, he'd likely roll with it, but perhaps that's just me being hopeful. Off-the-cuff remarks in interviews are harder to master, and while I understand they did a lot of work to educated themselves about DID and try to provide accurate representation, it still is frustrating to be left wondering if they'll ever realize that this was a mistake, that it is a misrepresentation. While the larger consumer base of Moon Knight will never see that interview or even hear about it to any degree, and perhaps will draw the same conclusions as much of the fandom of "they're all on the spectrum" instead of "just Steven," it still is frustrating to feel like we need to wave our hands and be like, "Ah, hello, actually! It's important to know that isn't how this works!!"

It was a pretty isolated statement. I'd be curious to have it dug into and expanded upon, because--if I'm honest--even in that initial interview, Oscar Isaac was very vague. It's good representation theoretically. But you can't just dismissively handwave something like autism and fail to research just because the focus is supposed to be on DID. I guess. Kind of.

I have complicated feelings about it, and sometimes am in disagreement with myself on the feelings of this, but I think that's mostly because there was never a moral prerogative in the intention here, and it was dismissive and a well-intentioned simple insight into character development. It's hard to be angry when you get the feeling that if the statement occurred in a back-and-forth and you brought up the, "Um, actually," to him, he'd receive it well.

[inside-black-moon]

Today is a special day for me.  Before this, I had never “celebrated,” so to speak, this day.

So, if anyone doesn’t know, today is World Autism Day and its main goal is to educate the public.

Speaking specifically about me, I received my official diagnosis last year.  To be honest, this allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief.  My difference from neurotypical people was finally scientifically explained and it helped me accept myself.

Do you know what my life was like?  It was like I was a duck in a pack of wolves.  I sincerely believed that I was also a wolf and refused to face the truth.  But other wolves, for the most part, convinced me that I was a wolf, without focusing on the fact that I had no fangs or fur.  And ducks don’t know how to howl like a wolf.  What was most difficult about this was that the wolves expected and demanded from the duck the behavior and lifestyle of a wolf.  A duck cannot hunt deer, a duck cannot run as fast as a wolf.  And instead of howling at the moon, I'd rather sleep, I swear.

I tried in vain for many years to be like everyone else.  But my body and psyche began to fail.  The critical point was just that year, a few days before visiting the psychiatrist.  And from that moment I had to start rebuilding my whole life.

The first thing I needed to do was accept the fact that I would never become a wolf.  Yes, I can coexist with people in society, but not in the same way as most people.  There will always be some invisible barrier due to the purely biological aspects of the brain.

Despite this barrier, I had very long-term close friendships with people - with one friend we were friends for 12 years, with another - 4. It was like a discussion club, an eternal search for something new, studying, self-education and mutual support in this.

The second important aspect for me was to explain to people close to me that I, in principle, am not able to do certain things due to the way my brain works.  For example, most autistics have very poor vestibular function (this also manifests itself in clumsiness) and in my case I am very unfriendly with stairs and transport.  But nevertheless, throughout my childhood I was forcibly forced to travel in public transport.  What’s funny is that I lost consciousness, I felt sick, I fell, but my parents and I went to the doctors to find out what was wrong with me.  And for many years of such trips, not a single doctor could diagnose me.  Now only 1 person understands me and is tolerant of my characteristics.  I didn’t announce the diagnosis to my relatives because I know them and I know their reaction.  This will again be a situation where the wolves will force the duck to hunt the deer.

Fact - culture, level of awareness and tolerance greatly influence the acceptance or non-acceptance of autism by others.  Sometimes it really makes sense not to tell some people about it because you might get rejected.

In my homeland there are big problems with this - culture and ignorance destroy even the hope that a person with autism can be part of society.  The culture of “disdain for those who are different” and autistic people are equated with the disabled, the lower class, the scum, the biological trash.

They bully us, humiliate us, avoid us, wave their hand - “he/she is sick”, some believe that it is contagious, some believe that autistic people are doomed to live a short life, the majority are convinced that people with autism should (!) be permanently in psychiatric hospitals  basis away from normal people.

This whole outcast attitude is depressing.  Yes, there is a certain percentage of autistic people who cannot withstand such pressure and die - either on their own or due to diseases caused by overload of the nervous system.  But there are also those who find the strength to swim against the tide and become outstanding people - media, famous, geniuses in their field.

Third - acceptance and study of yourself.  At some point you come to the realization that you are not like everyone else, you do not fit into the general picture of society, the world, the universe.  It’s as if you live on planet Earth, but at the same time you feel like you live on some other planet.  Even the atmosphere is different, even the laws of physics.  Everything is different, everything is not the same.  Understanding this in time, before you run out of strength in stupid attempts to be like everyone else, is a great success.  Time is our main enemy.  I really spent most of my life living incorrectly; doctors of different specialties and ranks were looking for the reason for my “difference”.  But all this was to no avail, because they were looking for the wrong thing.  For most of my life I tried to play by rules that I didn’t understand and tried to somehow rationally explain to myself.  How to be friends, how to communicate, how to live.  But one fine day I heard a very good phrase - you think rationally, and they think emotionally.  At that moment I was in a stupor - how is this “emotionally”?

This is one of the main and very controversial problems for autistic people - emotions.  I think many people imagine a stereotypical autistic person who does not speak, sways from side to side and looks at one point.  Yes, the spectrum of autism is very wide and such people also exist (more on this later), but believe me, even such autistic people have emotions, feelings and are even capable of love.  But not like neurotypical people.

And now I will tell you about the magic of autistic emotions.  Ooh, guys, believe me, you won’t find this in books about autism.

It’s as if our nervous system is not under the skin, but on the skin.  We love not with our hearts, but with our minds.  We love not through emotions, but through awareness.  The best gift for an autistic person is something that will give him a pleasant tactile or visual sensation.  Way back when I was in school, when I had a scientifically minded friend, we discussed the theory of the development of the mind.  At that time, I was a volunteer and was developing the first “scripts” for the AI, according to which it would further train itself.  My friend was working in parallel on another project, at a higher stage - he created learning algorithms for AI.

And we had an argument.  My theory was about associative thinking.  For example, if as a child you liked yellow color and free-flowing consistency, then there is a high probability that as you grow older you will like yellow rice, sand, and yellow beads.  And this affects your overall lifestyle, hobbies and even food preferences.  And the greater the variability of “favorite things,” the greater the variability of the “end point.”  Following this concept, I trained AI.

Now I can say with more confidence that this theory fits perfectly into the mind of an autistic person.  Many parents of autistic children complain of an unpredictable reaction to something - it seems like an ordinary sunny day, but the child screams endlessly and cannot explain what is wrong.  And it turns out that a certain brightness of light irritates him.  Therefore, this child does not need to be taken to the cinema, where there will be the same bright light.  Often, even speaking autistic people cannot understand what causes sensory overload just because the world moves at a breakneck pace.  We just don’t have time to understand what suddenly unsettled us.

I don't like bright light, by the way.  And that’s why I became a big fan of various lamps, garlands, and fixtures.

The system of associative thinking is precisely the key to the emotions of an autistic person.  For example, if your gift fits into the associative system of pleasant things for an autistic person, then it will be the best gift in his life.  In turn, don’t be surprised at how accurately he gets the gift for you right.  He will not only guess what exactly you want, but will also know what color and texture are ideal for your preferences.  Because an autistic person cannot do otherwise - he does not know how to do otherwise.

Also in love relationships, family relationships.  Any.  If an autistic person finds common ground with someone, if that person intersects with this internal network of “nice things,” then these will be the most sincere, open, honest and considerate partners.  Autistic people are not capable of behind-the-scenes games and intrigues - this is too difficult for an already overloaded brain.  We see no point in lying, deceiving, saying one thing and doing another.  But we expect the same attitude in return.  And we are sincerely perplexed that it could be otherwise - that a partner or friend could lie (why?), be a hypocrite (why?), use it for selfish purposes (why?).  And this greatly affects our psyche.  We are naive and gullible.  We are open and absolutely do not understand hints/sarcasm/innuendos/intrigues/conspiracies.

In a work group, autistic people work the most - they don’t waste time on intrigue, talking about the weather or the past weekend.  But at the same time, they may be considered outcasts (because they avoid general conversations) or upstarts (you work harder than everyone else = please your bosses = you put yourself above everyone else = an arrogant egoist).  Therefore, the ideal job for an autistic person is not in a large team, or completely without contact with people.

But unfortunately, the autism spectrum can be quite...severe, let's put it that way.  I'm talking about those boys and girls who don't even live to be 20 years old.  I'm talking about those young people who barely made it to 30 and, due to the lack of a guardian, ended up in psychiatric hospitals and their lives were reduced to 4 walls, belts on their arms and legs, and tranquilizers.  And I'm talking about those who have lived to an old age, are left alone and create very serious and dangerous problems for those around them.

But society in my homeland equates all autists with one red line - these are sick people, these are dangerous people.  Moreover, due to a backward healthcare system, autism diagnosed at an early age is reclassified as schizophrenia upon reaching adulthood.  And autism is being treated as schizophrenia.  This is a terrible mistake.

Throughout my life I have met several autistic people of varying degrees:

- One guy, he studied with me in the same class at school.  We all thought he was normal, but also a little strange.  He spoke exclusively in lines from his favorite films and at the same time perfectly imitated the voices of the actors who spoke these phrases in the original.  This is how he communicated with other guys.  Teachers rarely bothered him.  What’s interesting is that he voluntarily chose a literature exam (one of the most difficult) as his last exam at school.  He was the only one from the entire school who chose literature.  He really had some crazy talent for writing and analyzing literature, even though he literally never spoke his thoughts in his own voice.  On paper, everything was completely different.

- Another guy who went to school, but was separated from all classes.  Sometimes our class crossed paths with him in the same office.  He always sat somewhere in the back and everyone tried not to be distracted by him.  But it was difficult - he could laugh, shout numbers, throw things.  God bless the teachers who tried to teach him at least some minimal knowledge.  He was over 20 years old at that time.  After school his mother always picked him up and they walked leisurely around the city.  I often met them together.

- The worst case... I confess - despite the fact that for personal reasons I have not communicated with this person for more than a year, I still worry about the life of his child with the most severe form of autism.  I understand that this is not my child, not my responsibility, but... it’s difficult to explain.

There is a type of autism in which the instinct of self-preservation is completely absent and there is no speech.  There are very few such children all over the world.  They are unable to take care of themselves, they are hyperactive.  They may not sleep for several days.  But at the same time, parents/guardians should not sleep either, because such children require constant supervision due to the high risk to the child’s health.  These children are monstrously strong physically.  They can literally start beating themselves until they bleed and suffer a concussion due to sensory overload or any other discomfort.  This could be anything - from a chafing tag on the inside of clothing to a vase standing “wrong” in the hallway.  But they cannot say this because they are not able to speak.  They see hallucinations, which can also frighten them.  In some cases, with age (puberty), they develop epilepsy and most often this is the reason for the end of their lives.  My mother talked about a similar family, where there was only a mother and daughter.  Daughter with this form of autism.  And the mother looks like a zombie - after all, she needs to somehow support her family and look after her daughter.  It's terribly difficult.  I've read stories of similar families.  Most often, parents are afraid to inform others about this situation.  This is both shame and fear... fear that people will turn away, that there will be very tactless questions and unsolicited advice.  Believe me, in such a situation, to receive advice “can you get rid of this child?”  It just blows your mind.  Parents of such autistic people are in unbearable and hopeless conditions.  The only thing that can save is outside help.  Even a simple trip to the store to buy food for such a family a few days in advance will save them and make their life much easier.

But I really ask, if you know or suspect that there is a similar family in your environment - do not give advice, tactless questions, do not say “can I help with anything?”, but say “I can help. I can buy you food,  fix something, do something, call and arrange for repairs, pay for something."  This way you can save someone's family.

In conclusion, I would like to say that despite the diagnosis and the accompanying unusual features, all this did not prevent me from building a career, starting a family and communicating with people.  Even write a book on learning to draw and an autobiographical novel hidden in a futuristic thriller-melodrama.  All this did not prevent me from achieving certain heights in various types of activities - from drawing and journalism to photography and modding.  This will sound strange, but I can enthusiastically work in the 010 editor (which I learned to use on my own) and with no less enthusiasm search for quartz stones on the beach to replenish my collection.

Warframe became a home environment for my high-functioning autism from the first minutes of the game. The alternation of completely different types of activities in the game helps to organize the endless stream of thoughts in my head, and team play allows me to be part of society and feel the absence of an invisible barrier between me and neurotypical people. This is a place where they won’t say “go away, you’re ruining everything” or “you’re not like everyone else, that means you’re worse.” My gift for incredibly fast reaction and analysis of the current situation allows me to be both in the support team and as an attacker. This is the type of player who saves everyone, including all companions, while killing a crowd of enemies and asks with burning enthusiasm - one more round? Yes? Yes? Yes?

Autism is a huge iceberg, which is 80% hidden underwater from the eyes of others.  And if you have a bathyscaphe “desire for knowledge,” then a completely new world may open up before you.

I'm Irene Wolf, thank you for your attention.

[enchaentingly]

𖡼.𖤣𖥧  𝑒𝑛𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑙𝑦  , a  private  blog  for  valentine  "allie"  fleur,  an  original  character  set in city of ruin.  written  by  rora,  23,  she/her  pronouns.  

˗ˏˋ (wip) carrd with more allie info than one can ever need,         pinterest. ˎˊ˗

name.  valentine “allie” fleur. occupation.  part time employee at Tūmatarau Apothecary + 205 Drive-In. age.  21. sexuality.  biromantic, bisexual + polyamorous. species.  witch; half-ancestral, half-human. coven?  none (for now...). hometown.  clausste, oregon. relationship status.  single. personality traits.  kind, caring, affectionate, charismatic, gentle, hopeful, optimistic, enthusiastic, gullible, insecure, clingy, naive, dependent on others, lonely, bubbly, talkative, ditzy, people-pleasing, curious.

+ bonus things that are important to me: loves plants and nature and animals, is very sparkly (both metaphorically and physically (not in a twilight way she just loves glitter)), prey animal coded beyond belief, on her main blog is half fairy instead of witch (so that's why she gives that vibe), cottagecore princess, would die for anyone that held her the right way + more tba.

allie deals heavily and only in the land of the living. she has intentions to befriend and care for every living thing on this good green earth. she calls herself a "green witch", which does not mean anything officially or specifically, to her, it's just what she calls herself. she has never received any great training for being a witch, or any training beyond what her mother told her -which was purposefully limited and withholding most truth about allie's identity or power. as her mother came from a long line of well-trained and educated witches, allie has a lot of potential that has gone unpracticed.

allie's mother specialized in potions and plants- many of which were used against allie when she was very young, providing several physical long-term consequences -, so allie has much extensive knowledge about these things.

one of her specialities is the ability to make living things flourish. this ability is most practiced with plants, the easiest level, even when bringing them from the brink of death. less practiced and harder is animals, and then humans.

because of her limited ability in other areas of witchcraft, allie is especially sensitive to magical and supernatural sensations. she will never know exactly what species someone is, or what their magic is, but each supernatural individual carries their own feeling(most similar to an aura) and allie often calls this 'special' and why she feels magnetized to some individuals over others.

she may or may not be actually able to talk to animals and plants, but she does have a deep enough connection to them through magic that she can communicate with them on some level that they can understand.

short version/tdlr for some the potential triggers of child neglect, maltreatment, and mental abuse: allie is a witch focused on the natural world, raised by her mother with the same focus. her mother is very neglectful and manipulative, putting allie in dangerous and inappropriate situations for her young age as well as erasing negative memories with memory loss potions. (she also uses potions to erase fatigue, hunger, sickness, and sleeping potions on her young daughter since infancy. allie is not aware of this presently.) with no present parental figure to show her right from wrong, as well as an effect from trauma, allie is frequently manipulated and keeps an innocent naivety throughout all ages. after her mother permanently leaves when allie is 14, she uses risky and illegal behavior as a clutch to distract herself from the grief, and is hopeful (and delusional) that her mother will return to her even 6+ years later. after she graduates high school, she wanders from town to town in search of anything that can make her stay and eventually finds port leiry because of the strong supernatural energy that pulls her there. she is a newcomer of all of one or two days. / full carrd is linked for All the allie info. please disregard the fae mentions that is her default state, you can replace them with witch in your mind for me <3 also always feel free to ask questions!

born into a secluded cottage in the woods, allie had always known the art of green witchery. she'd lived amongst the trees and the world of all living things, breathing in the magic there, singing the song of the wind. she made friends with the plants and animals, played games in the forest, talking to the natural world like she might a playmate. it had always kept her safe, and she tended to what she could with her little hands. bad things don't happen here. not all the time. allie only fell down a well once, because she's clumsy, and it was her fault. three and she can't swim and she was so, so very scared but it's her fault. it's just how it is.

things are like that. it's just how it is. but she's a witch! how could she ever be sad? her mother- oh, her mother -furthered this growth with step stools up to the kitchen counter, watching her pour potions with names she couldn't say, smelling things so poignant it would send her spinning with dizziness. magic. she knew it. she couldn't wait to blossom into her own. her mother told her stories about witches, about the secret family allie was never allowed to see. but she knew the stories, embedded them deep into her mind. she just didn't understand. witches were supposed to have covens, have families, where was hers? it was just her and mom, forever and always. she was selfish for thinking otherwise. silly, stupid. why couldn't she just be happy here? it always made allie quiet and her mother ... mean wasn't right, mom said so. she wasn't being mean, but it hurt.

mom liked her better quiet. allie learned that fast. mom didn't like when she asked so many questions while she was working, so allie was quiet and nice and pretty. she could dress herself, and braid her own hair, and cook her own food, and hold up her whole age on one hand. be a big girl, allie means mom's going away for awhile. she does that a lot now. but it's okay! because allie has the woods, and she doesn't remember much of her alone time. she just waits for her mom, and tries so hard to remember to do the big girl things that moms do for little kids. but allie doesn't need it, because she's just fine on her own.

allie wanders too far away from home when mom's gone, and she finds kids. real ones, human ones, they're not as different as mom says. they like her. they smile at her. they talk about things like school and allie wants to go to school. so she goes, and nobody tells her no or asks questions. mom doesn't ask about school, not for years. allie tries to remember, even when she starts to give her potions that make her head goes all fuzzy, she tries to remember just in case, but she gets really, really bad at it. she tries to remember everything about mom because she's never home anymore. there's different kinds of school. elementary, and then middle, and then just before high school was when things changed. her mother left. bid her goodbye before allie's first day of high school with warning to not have children, they ruin your life. but she had to come back. all on her own, even with school friends who looked out for her, allie was fourteen and there was plenty of time to get into trouble. she just wanted someone to love her, and all her mother ever taught her to do was grow up.

boyfriend after boyfriend and words like he's taking advantage of you, and drugs and you're just hookup material, not girlfriend material, and drinking and then she was eighteen. grown up and graduated. her memory got worse and she missed her mother and she just had to go. just like mom did. being a witch didn't matter, because she was all alone. she just wandered, for years. wandering from town-to-town, anywhere that wanted her, setting up loosely placed roots just to abandon them when they fell flat. she just had to go, she couldn't stay. now, twenty one, nowhere to really go but home. yet all the wandering leads her port leiry, a strong pull reminiscent to the one she feels to her magic-ridden cottage in the woods. but this pull is times a thousand. there are gardens to tend and people to meet and adventures to be had, she just has to learn how to live, and how to stay.

flings - flirty friendships, lil situationships, anything. she’s a lover girl, but will absolutely settle just to keep someone in her life.

grumpy/sunshine dynamics - right off the bat i must declare how much of a sucker i am for this trope especially with allie. you can call her sunshine even if you are not grumpy.

witch friends - !!! never had a coven before!!!! never!!! and had always heard of them. she thinks she's defective she just needs to be taken under some wings :(

just in general come show her around. i write her as a newcomer, as in, Right Now came to port leiry. she's incredibly friendly, no biting at all, she'll be good, pinkie promise.

vampire bait - listen, she's just not immune. she will be your snack.

werewolf friends (???) - she's also not immune but like. listen to me. she wants to give you a little kiss on your snoot and give you a snack idk. come frolic with her.

party/adventure buddies!!! - what it says on the tin, she loves to party. she love to adventure. she's quite silly and quite charming and has had a tendency in the past to get people out of their shell and comfort zone because she's,,,, cute and has 🥺🥺 eyes

[ihopesocomic]

I feel a little bad for the MP creator. She worked really hard on the show, working every day to the point where it was bad for her own mental health. But that didn't change the fact that the series had bad writing and problematic characters. I want to make my own animated stories, but I never really stop to thought about it.

We should work as hard and put as much effort into the story writing as we work on other elements. Not just being in a "hurry" to get it over with so other people can see it.

Sometimes it's even scary to imagine someone reviewing my story like you did with MP. Not because I don't want to take criticism, but imagine seeing a video of more than an hour showing how bad your story turns out to be because you couldn't figure it out on your own lol

But I also doubt that the creator of MP didn't get even a single criticism or any warning of how Hover's relationship with Nothing was toxic and other things. It must have been the belief of "well, there's a lot of people in the comments saying they liked it, so I guess it's okay!". Because even today there are people defending Hover for what she did, and those kind of fans don't help much either.

Several things to take into account here about MP's creator:

She's a professional with experience in the industry. Apparently, her LinkedIn page backs this up.

She apparently majored in creative writing.

She both had beta writers and an editor helping her with MP's script writing.

She asked for critique several times during the show's production. In all areas. Whether that be disability representation, sound design or whatever. She asked, and she received. I know this because she sent a Google Doc to myself and about ten others to write in and tell her what we thought about Episode 1. I personally feel she took none of the criticism in that doc on board, as I remember critiquing the music being overused and ruining the mood of certain scenes and it remained very much the same.

The above is especially important to point out because we've had people insinuate once or twice that we're assholes for critiquing somebody's work "without their permission". All we did was take the critique given to the creator when she requested it and condensed it all into one singular video essay.

MP's creator had many, many opportunities to correct the wrongs that many pointed out in her handling of certain themes in the story, long before our analysis was a thing. The whole reason we made the analysis is because both she and her fans would just sweep any criticism under the rug and we felt it needed to be heard more.

I'm sorry that making this show was not the experience she thought it was going to be. However, that still does not excuse asking people for assistance, wasting their time and then doubling down on the more concerning aspects of your writing that has been pointed out. Such as Nothing's name, Hover's behaviour in Episode 5 or Lite's characterisation.

It's also worth noting that we tried to be as nice as possible with our analysis? We never aimed to tear this creator a new one. The goal of the analysis was and always has been to educate people on how NOT to handle the themes that we felt My Pride took on and mishandled. We tried to be constructive and educational as a result.

My Pride was also not what I would describe as an "indie" series. It was not only handled by someone with experience in the industry, it had a budget of around $100,000-$150,000 CAD (the exact number is unknown but that's the range) and it had an entire team handling it. It is NOT on the same level as other indie series on YT that we're all familiar with, which are generally only made by one or two individuals in their spare time and volunteer voice actors. This was a paid production and, with this budget, came many, many opportunities to do better that other creators on YT can only dream about.

So, with that said: we had different expectations for My Pride as opposed to other YT series. Not only was it made by a professional and a team of editors helping her, it was made by a professional who asked numerous times for help but - for whatever reason - chose not to take advantage of the assistance she gained. There's not being perfect and then there's just being aware of issues but ploughing on regardless.

The deal with Nothing's name will always make me angry. It just felt like a massive 'fuck you' to every disabled individual and their mother who consistently expressed concerns about it. Good for you if you're disabled and find no harm in it. For me, it'll always leave a bad taste in my mouth. It felt like the creator decided that socking it to "the Twitter crowd" or anyone who openly disliked the name was more important than giving Nothing the agency she deserved. Regardless of whether or not that was her plan to begin with (even though Hobblestep got a name change in My Pride's original story), I can't get behind that.

It is why we put a lot of importance on our audience critiquing our work and bringing up any concerns to us. Our goal is to deliver a story where both LGBT+ and disabled individuals can feel appreciated and seen. We do not want it to turn into a personal wet rag that reassures us that we are above critique when we're not.

If it is not purely about how 'boring' and 'safe unrealistic' our writing and characterisation is (because I'm not gonna bend my knee to people who think you need ableism in a pro-disability story for it to be entertaining), then we're willing to listen.

And that's the flip side of the coin, anon: we also encourage people to be constructive and kind when critiquing the work of others and only do it when permission has been granted.

We also expect folks to use discretion and sensitivity. Us critiquing My Pride is NOT on the same level as critiquing an amateur YT series made by a singular individual and unpaid voice actors.

If you're gonna come at our work or anybody's work out of pettiness and spite: you're also part of the problem. Simple. - RJ

[freakattack]

I know I have a phobia of bugs and spiders and I know (and greatly appreciate) that you started tagging bug posts for that very reason but I have not muted the tag or turned off notifications for your blog. Reasons being 1. The phobia of bugs isn't bad enough I cant handle a few seconds of exposure when scrolling past and the more... exotic? I guess??? the bug is the the less my phobia makes me feel the effects and I can appreciate a cool looking bug (There is no amount of spiders I can stand though, even the thought of them activates the phobia.) And 2. I really enjoy your info dumps about bugs and hearing what you have to say about them, your blog is just really endearing to me, like watching a cool exotic bug wearing a top hat playing wario ware on max difficulty perfectly on the bus. Also I love me a good obscure fact.

I am in a hell of my own creation.

Do not cry for me, for I am already stupid.

Top ten funnest messages to receive after sticking my arm into a tub of cockroaches

No but you're so real for this and I am so happy that I can offer a safe avenue to learn about bugs. I actually was talking to someone at my job today about the importance of invertebrate conservation education (contrary to popular belief i do have a job and it does have to do with bugs), and a big part of that is taking away the unfamiliarity of these animals and presenting them in a way that people can relate to and appreciate. Generally speaking things become less scary the less "unknown" they are, and if the things you know about them are endearing (like centipedes being good mamas, or bees making an "oop" sound when they bump into each other), it can take away some of that fear. And you're right that arthropods are INCREDIBLY important ecologically so that's another reason I'm passionate about this subject.

That being said I'm happy to tag spiders in addition to bugs because I'm not trying to jumpscare people! That'd be counterproductive! (However if you're up for it, I have heard that the Lucas the Spider animations on youtube have helped a lot of people with their fear; it's computer-animated semi-stylized depiction of a jumping spider but it's voiced by a cute little kid, and even though it's a little corny I do think it has done a lot for spider PR. Obviously not for everyone though!) And yeah I feel you on that last point, I would never compare not liking bugs to actual bigotry (especially with simply bugphobic people, whom I am chill with) nor would I ever compare the plight of bugs to that of actual marginalized people, BUT at the same time if someone steps over the line and is viciously hateful about any animal (e.g. commenting "KILL IT WITH FIRE" on someone's pet, adamantly insisting that an entire species needs to go extinct, unloading a whole bottle of raid on 1 ant, etc.) simply because it is different or inconveniencing them, I will be very suspicious of their ability to be normal about human beings who are different or inconveniencing them. If nothing else I will think they are a massive tool!

But ya I so deeply respect your ability to appreciate the value of these animals despite your phobia, cause so many people don't even without that obstacle. Every bug on earth salutes you (from a safe distance)

Here is a pic of me playing smooth moves

[goldenpinof]

what you said about youtube being a unique stressor made me realize that dan doesn't really have the personality for internet fame. he is (and i don't mean this unkindly i just couldn't think of a nicer phrase) an attention seeker. he can be extremely self-absorbed and bordering on vain, and has also been highly reactive/sensitive to criticism in the past (this is less true or at least less public now). which is fine and even expected from many entertainers EXCEPT online. because unlike a musician, an actor, or even most comedians (depending on the style of their comedy), his fame is not dependant on a particular talent but on the persona he projects as a whole. success on youtube, at least the niche he's found on youtube, is dependant on parasocial attachment. people need to connect and relate to him (or at least his public persona, which when he was younger he had a lot of trouble separating from "him"). and the attention-seeking, vaulted attitude doesn't naturally lend itself to relatability. i think he's quite self-aware of this, and it certainly didn't hold him back at the peak of the dnp brand, but i think it's part of why youtube feels less comfortable for him than other forms if entertainment that have traditionally more of a boundary between creator and creation. his comedy is very confessional, so obviously it is about him, but it's also about the general quality of it as a piece of comedy writing, and the quality of the other aspects put into it by others. the book is about him, but it's also about the information within it and the quality of the writing. as you said, something he's made vs something he is

don't forget that i don't know for sure. i'm just basing my thoughts on what he says/does if i even remember it correctly.

you can be right. i like what you said about "a bondary between creator and creation", that makes a lot of sense. (my take below, i guess)

throughout the years he was the main target for attention and criticism because his content was his personality (more or less). and he doesn't like to be criticised, he doesn't really know what to do with it. but if you criticise his work (shows, book, board game), you criticise an object rather than him. and yes, Dan can be hurt by it as well (boo, how could you not like what i created?), but it's less personal. also, he can always think/say that someone just doesn't get it, it's not for everyone. if his projects still make money, who cares about "them haters". it's harder if your face or personality are viewed as unlikeable. like, "how could you not get my videos aka me and the experiences i had?" especially when you grow up and mature on the internet (18 to 25 are probably the hardest years when you are finally free to do anything but don't know shit and don't have money, also you just lost all your school/childhood friends and have to either decide on education or job. basically, alone. your whole worldview is shifting, and of course it's incredibly hard if all your fuck ups are on the internet). i bet he was stressing so much trying to appear likable to as many people as he could and to simultaneously please the algorithm (when it became important). alas! it will never happen on the internet.

i hope he really gives 0 fucks about how the content they are making now is perceived on social media. and about comments some people make when he posts certain pictures. he likes personal attention as well, so i do think a part of him enjoys internet fame (the positive side of it). he can't get everything irl, it's easier to receive it online. and he receives it online more than irl.

we will see how it goes, because tours are one thing. a book was a completely separate business. Dan is not okay, if it's a series on a big platform that is not youtube, would be a whole new experience for Dan, and for us because of the outsiders. there could be criticism (it's in people's nature) and i'd love to see how Dan works with it. he didn't pay any attention to the negative reviews his book received. maybe because he wasn't present online, idk. but some sort of series is a bigger deal.

[hjellacott]

What trans women, feminists and Jews all have in common.

A/N: I originally wrote this as a response to a reblog, but then I realised it's perhaps the most important post I've ever written, and I know it's very long, but I hope that you, whoever you are, will read it. That's why I wanted to give it a voice of its own, shortening it a tad. This post discusses, in a kind, friendly and polite manner the whole fight between trans and feminists, the debate about Hogwarts Legacy and the problems of anti-semitism and transphobia. And it does so lovingly, and without an aim to brainwash, hurt or offend. So please, if you have ten minutes, please do read. Whoever you are. Thank you.

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1. FIRST LET ME TELL YOU WHO I AM, SO THAT YOU KNOW THE KIND OF PERSON YOU'RE READING FROM.

I am very much sick of the fights between people who at the bottom, all just want to feel safe, and I am very much sick of the lack of actual polite conversation between us. I come from a Jewish background, from Sephardic Jews (meaning ethnically Jews, which makes me ethnically a Jew both in my maternal and paternal lines), but I also come from a city that has historically been Roman, Iberian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Arabs, Visigoth, Phoenician, Tarshish and many more, which means I am aware that I am only alive because my ancestors mixed with people very different from them, and repeatedly survived persecution because their religion and/or civilization wasn't the "right one" to stay alive in depending on the historical time. My Jewish ancestors were likely prosecuted to such an extent, and not even that long ago, but during World War II, that they hid and pretended to be Catholics and kept quiet to save their lives. And then there's the fact that I'm bisexual, and whenever I've been in a same sex relationship (one of which lasted me several years) I had to hide, keep it quiet, and keep it a tight-lipped secret because I knew even on this day and age a lot of my loved-ones wouldn't understand, not because they're right-wingers (which they're not), but for other reasons. And I'm saying all of this because I want it to be understood that I know what it is like to be persecuted because of who you are and to never feel entirely safe. I never even felt I could hold my girlfriend's hand in public without receiving some kind of backlash. I never even dared to go into a LGBT march without wearing something to conceal my identity. And on top of things, I'm a woman, and I've never, ever in the decades I've been in this world, in no city I've ever visited, felt safe to be alone out in the street at night. I know I'm talking a lot, and I'm sorry, and I know you'all just want to shout terf, antisemitic and transphobe at me and stop reading, but I beg you to keep reading, even if it's long, because I'm hopeful that we can finally reach some kind of understanding.

Let's forget what divides us. What unites us is that we all feel unsafe. We all, women, gays, trans people, POC people, Jews, we all feel like just because there's something about us that we can't change, we're more likely to die than anyone else. To be raped, beaten-up, abducted and taken from the face of the Earth, just because of who we are.

So what I'm saying is, you're afraid? I understand. So am I. Too afraid to walk alone at night, too afraid to date anyone who isn't a friend of a friend (therefore pre-approved), too afraid to go around in my real life outside the internet telling people how multi-ethnicity I am, simply afraid. All of the time.

I am a fairly cultured person. I'm not the kind of person who simply goes online, believes whatever without evidence, and on and on. I am the kind of person with several higher education certificates, with studies both locally and abroad, the world-traveller, the ferocious reader, the one who reads all the news every day (Spanish, English and French) in several newspapers both right wing and left wing so that in the end I have all sides of the story, I come from a well-educated and very humble family, and I am not someone who blindly decided to support J. K. Rowling. I was horrified when I read the first people saying she was transphobic. But hey, I'm the kind of person who, if I disagree with someone, I read them to bits, because I want to know exactly what they think and why, and why I think differently, and I know that's not something a lot of the people you read do. And I'm in the arts, so half my friends are gay, another are trans, and a very small minority are straight and cisgender, so I promise you, that if I had any sincere belief that Rowling went against any minority, I would've been ferociously against her. I would've. And with that aim I set out to read her every tweet, and you know what I found?

She never actually says anything wrong about transgender people. Never. In fact she doesn't speak against them, she speaks in favour and defense of women and against sexist, violent men. Not against trans people. And I had this conversation with my transgender friends, asking them why they'd gotten offended exactly, and when they looked at Rowling's tweets, you know what they told me? That that wasn't what they'd been told she'd said. Because like many of you, they'd read some rumour in social media, some article in the press, and got so angry they never bothered to actually read what she'd really said, in their context (meaning, following the Twitter conversations and everything, not isolated tweets either). But when I showed them? They were baffled. And they understood she wasn't transphobic. It's been years, and I still don't have a friend who does not stand with J. K. Rowling. And that, listen, that includes Jews, trans, gays, lesbians, and so on, because like I said, I work in the Arts, which as you know is one of the most diverse collectives. And another thing that I noticed was how much had been lost in translation. English is not my first language, but as you can see I mostly manage all right. But when I read translations into Spanish and French, they missed so much about what Rowling had really said, and twisted so much. So let me give you a brief summary of what she actually believes:

2. LET'S DELVE DEEP INTO ROWLING'S ACTUAL WORDS.

Sex is real. If you're born with female or male sex that cannot change. We know this to be scientifically and medically true, which is why when you have surgery to transition, for which a friend of mine is preparing right now, you need to have lots of hormonal medications to try and keep your body behaving as the gender you identify with and against your sex, and the minute you stop, your body will naturally begin behaving like your sex again. And this doesn't change even if you have surgeries, this is for life. If you don't believe me, simply check medical websites, I promise you this is true.

It is dangerous to have transgender women who have not undergone a physical transition in the same private spaces as women. I know this point is very contentious, but before you get angry, hear me out. This is not because anyone thinks transgender people are dangerous. This is because men have proven to be dangerous. What's more common, for a man to rape a woman, or for a woman to rape a man? how often do you hear of women who were murdered by their male exes or even partners, or relatives? I mean, I've gone to several of those funerals and vigils for women and girls killed like that. So the idea behind not wanting trans women and women to share spaces where trans women might have it easier to rape women is that perhaps those trans women, if they haven't physically transitioned, still have the physical advantages of the male sex: more strength, bigger body, and a penis. Imagine my shock if I was getting naked in my prison cell and then I found a person physically stronger and bigger than me, with a dick, naked next to me, in a perfect opportunity to rape me. Would I call them a trans woman? No. But they would call themselves that, and use it to get into that space. That's why Scotland had to backpedal in their laws allowing people to identify themselves as trans women and go into female prisons, because they had several cases in which this resulted in women being raped by trans women, or by people who claimed to be. Because as we all know. plenty of men who are sexual predators will identify as women not just to have access to women, but to have access to transgender women as well, and rape them, and kill them. So it appears that in order to keep trans women and women safe from male predators, we need to make sure that no one with biological advantages of men can share private spaces with them. And if this means having a separate prison for people with the physical built, strength and sexual organs of men, so that they cannot predate on anyone, I vote we do it.

Women won't wheesht. This refers to the fact that achieving rights for someone shouldn't mean removing them for someone else. So in order to give transgender people rights, we cannot take them from another collective, in this case, women. If women are shouting they're terrified of being raped and killed, we need to listen. It is a disrespect, a sexist, female-erasing, cruel thing to do, to ignore them and force them to accept sharing spaces they don't want to share with anyone else. And the only thing that imposing transgender women in their spaces is going to cause is what's happening now: violence, harassment, and an imposibility to have peaceful conversations, not to mention an immediate dislike and fear of transgender women. So instead of achieving transgender rights by harassing someone else, we need to give them their own things. For example, say you have a sibling and you want their room, right? well, harassing them into letting them share it is not going to work. You'll never again get along with your sibling. But asking your parents to build you your own bedroom will keep both sides happy. That's what Rowling and people like me believe in. That fine, if you don't feel safe sharing spaces with people with a dick because you don't want to be raped and murdered, hey, neither do we. So why don't we respect each other's fears and safety wishes and each have our own spaces? And then we can all feel safe around people exactly like us.

Transgender CHILDREN shouldn't be able to go through life changing, irreversible surgeries to remove their sexual organs without plenty of check-ups with doctors and psychiatrists or psychologists who can make sure the child fully understands the risks. This is due to the avalanche of feedback we have from detransitioners who spoke up about having been brainwashed, having given "informed" consent that wasn't actually very well informed, and having deeply regretted surgeries they did without really knowing what was going to happen, and that have now caused them chronic pain that cannot be cured and irreversible physical, mental and emotional damage.

That's all Rowling has said. Nothing against transgender people. She's only worried about the safety of children and women. Period. And I can tell you that with my hand on my heart because I have read her every tweet, and I have also read her open letter against cancel culture, and plenty of articles on the matter.

3. LET'S TALK ABOUT JEWS.

Now about the Jewish thing. Rowling is NOT an anti-Semitic. The first person who called her anti-Semitic was a Jewish man called Jon Stewart, who did so jokingly, and who was immediatelly appalled by the harassment Rowling received from people that took him seriously, forcing not just him, but also multiple Jewish celebrities, Jewish organisations and Jewish charities, to speak up in support of J. K. Rowling and publicly state that they don't believe she's anti-Semitic.

I bet you've only been reading from people who think like you. Many of you, the second you've heard something you didn't like, shut the other person out, called them insults and names, labelled them as Terfs, transphones and anti-Semites, and refused to listen. And if you never hear the people you disagree with, you're never going to hear anything but validity, even if your ideas are insane. Like the flat-Earthers. And all you've been reading from Rowling have been things taken out of context, or told to you by someone else. Do your people ever encourage you to read extract from the source? no. Do they ever show you receipts? only if they've been carefully trimmed.

But people have agendas, you know? That's what happened with Nazism. So you get a collective of Trans Radical Activists, radicals who might not even be actually trans, but know that if they fight women, people like Rowling, and put enough pressure in the governments, they can make laws change so that men, not trans women, but men pretending to be trans women, have easy access to rape women and trans women. Think about it. Wouldn't it be incredibly smart for alt-right men to infiltrate the Transgender activism to start violent fights against women, calling them cunts, telling them to kill themselves, and telling them to suck dick, making women the bad guys, convincing trans people that women are out to get them and to kill them, and getting lawmakers to make laws that allow anyone to simply say they're women and go into female prisons or lockers? Hold on. That's exactly what's happened. I don't believe for a second that the TRAs are all transgender. I believe many of them are alt-right men. And you'll identify them easily by their sexist, violent behaviour and speech, and their whole discourse against women and claims that women like Rowling actively threaten trans people's rights, when none of it is true.

So now say the TRAs, who want women to have less rights and men to have more, and who want to easily be able, as men, to infiltrate spaces that were previously private to women, so that they can no longer have their own spaces, find something else that gets people furious towards their enemy. Rowling has stood against alt-right men her whole life. Naturally, when they saw someone call her anti-Semite, they jumped into that waggon. Another opportunity to get someone cancelled. To demonise a defender of women, until there's none left. So that's what they did. They called her anti-Semite, came up with the whole BS about the goblins, made lots of things up, took more stuff out of context. And because they were in the trans collective, aka, "the good guys", the perceived victims, people have been far more inclined to believe them, to listen to them, and to be compassionate to them. But let me tell you, if these men are allowed into female spaces, and actual trans women find themselves in those spaces with them, they'll be in as much danger as any other woman, if not more.

Now you probably think we're crazy and paranoid. Question. Is the transgender collective telling you that? and if so, isn't it a little suspicious that someone wants to convince you that someone else is being paranoid? that they're out to get you? Because that's what they're doing. Me? Rowling didn't convince me. Nobody had to. I just had to read the news, like I told you I do all the time, and see all of this coming true. See women being repeatedly harassed, sexually and physically, threatened, often by men, far-right men who are strangely, suddenly, very interested in trans rights (isn't that also suspicious?), and seeing all the news and personal stories around me of women being raped because a man was allowed to identify as a trans woman and put into their space, where they had freedom to rape and murder. This is out in the news. The real news. And it's happening all over the place, which tells you I'm not being paranoid or dellusional, I'm telling you what's going on.

This is how Nazism worked as well. It started with Nazis who wanted a kind of economical power that at the time was in the hands of Jews. Do you remember when people tell you immigrants take jobs! women are transphobic! black people are criminals! All that is classic far-right speech. And it's all studied in the Nazi propaganda techniques, which had been long studied and employed by all politicians across the globe. What you do is identify one minority you can blame for current problems, and turn the world against them, in such way that the public doesn't realise all you're doing, supposedly to erase the problem, that is actually just to make you more powerful. The Nazis decided Jews shouldn't be having so many businesses and thriving economy, so they demonised them, said they were greedy, thieves, the inferior race, less good than aryan people, criminals, that they didn't deserve to live. The Nazi was a legal party that was elected to remove the problem, much like Trump was elected to end the problem of the immigrants and the POC. And legally, Hitler got his people to vote for him to have more and more power, until he could rule the world, on the basis that he'd do it to rid them of the Jews. Only that then he didn't stop with the Jews. He went after "traitors", after gypsies, after LGBT, after POC, and so on. And they took or burned art and books along the way.

So now think again of who's supporting Hitler-like conducts. I'm not supporting anyone who's telling me not to listen to opposing opinions, who's telling me to spread a message of threats, harassment and sexual insults, nor who's telling me to burn books, culture, and cancel, silence, erase, eliminate anyone who has an opinion other than mine. You are. And that's what's Hitler-like. That's what's fucking dangerous, and a threat to freedom of speech, to democracy.

Going back to the bloody videogame. You know why they call it anti-Semitic or blood libel? first was with the goblins. Now that speech seems to have died down because we're pointing out that seeing goblins as Jews is more Nazi-like, than non-Nazi. That they're simply folklore. So now they shut up about that. Now they tell you that the Avalanche developers (that's the company behind Hogwarts Legacy) are anti-Semites. That's based on the fact that an alt-right, Troy Leavitt, was the lead designer of Hogwarts Legacy. Well, you've been pleased to know he's lost his job now, and also, that Avalanche is full of normal people just like us, and that the alt-right was a minority. This guy, perhaps one or two more we're yet to know about, which, given the amount of alt-right worldwide, it's safe to say that every big company has at least a small amount of alt-right employees or even bosses.

But it takes thousands of people to make a videogame as big as Hogwarts Legacy, and just because two or three are alt-right, it doesn't make the game anti-Semitic. We're taking the game from them. We're making it ours. And personally, I've been playing for a few days now, and there's nothing even remotely far-right or anti-Semitic. Any war game I've ever played is far more anti-Semitic and racist and sexist than this one will ever be.

And in any case, before you go like dumb sheep simply believing what people say, I encourage you to make your own informed opinions. Don't be lazy. Empty your brain from judgement and make your own research. Be like scientists. But believing whatever BS you hear from people who've never played the game about said game, from people who've never read Potter about Potter, and so on... That is such a stupid thing to do. Such a brainwashing. You don't believe someone can cure you if they don't show you a CV and reputation as great doctors, so why do you believe a word from people who haven't even researched the thing they criticise, on their own, not through other's comments and ideas?

But hold on! Don't just take my word for it. Don't just believe me. Please, do research. It's time-consuming, but you're going to want to read the news, who are TRAs, their links to the alt-right, Rowling's actual tweets, who Troy Leavitt is, what Avalanche Software is, and you're going to want to read the news about female violence, legal changes, and detransitioners, and a horrible thing called transmaxxing, which will really open your eyes. I won't tell you to burn books. I'll tell you to open books, newspapers, everything... And get really informed. Knowledge is power.