#daggertext

[valentinedagger]

wholesome representation will kill the patient. she needs to torture fictional characters to live

[valentinedagger]

it's specifically a myth because most folks use dishwasher pods instead of proper detergent, and not only are the pods noticeably worse at scrubbing the food off dishes, but because they're not using detergent, their dishwashers don't do a proper pre-rinse cycle.

if your dishwasher isn't cleaning your dishes properly, and you're using pods, you can easily troubleshoot this by buying a powder dish detergent and using this in your dishwasher. there should be a little uncovered compartment next to the compartment you pour detergent into; let a little bit of extra detergent fall into that slot and your dishwasher will use it to do an auto-pre-rinse as a part of its washing cycle. doing these two things fixes most issues with your dishwasher not working properly.

(if it doesn't, then either your dishwasher actually is broken or you have a really shitty one, and i'm afraid i can't help with either of those.)

If the right way is too hard, fuck it. Do it the wrong way.

Folding clothes keeps you from getting the laundry done? Stop folding clothes. Put a basket in your room and throw your unfolded clean stuff into it right out of the dryer, it's fine.

Rinsing dishes off keeps you from loading the dishwasher? Load them dirty and run it twice.

Chopping onions keeps you from making yourself dinner? Buy the freezer bags of chopped onions.

You forget to take your meds and don't want to get out of bed to get them? Start putting them next to the bed.

Can't keep up with the dishes? Get paper plates. Worried about environment impact? Order biodegradable ones online if your local store doesn't have one.

Make the task easier. Put things where you use them instead of where they "go." Eliminate the steps that keep you from finishing the task. Eliminate the task that is stressing you out.

Do it the "wrong" way. It's literally fine.

[valentinedagger]

when i was a child, once it had become obvious that spanking was considered gauche and extreme among their early-2000s drum-circle-attending hippie friends, my parents moved to a new default punishment: standing in the corner.

it was very simple. when told, i was to stand facing the corner, not moving, until i was told i could stop. in retrospect, the standard seemed to be to leave me until i had entirely stopped crying, then to start counting down some short, arbitrary block of time (maybe 5, 10 minutes) once i was silent and still. at the time, i didn't know this; the corner was a limbo state, it was a place i was suspended indefinitely til my parents considered me appropriate to deal with once again.

i wasn't to fidget, to sit down, make noises, sing or talk to myself. theoretically, i was supposed to "reflect on what i did wrong," although that never happened. i was, what, five? six?

frequently, i would get a cold, nauseating sensation that crept its way up my back. i would feel stiff and tense, the muscles in my neck and shoulders growing rigid, goosebumps prickling. i would feel as though i was being watched. i would sneak a peak over my shoulder at those times; when i saw i was alone, i would shift and stand on one foot for a bit, then the other, in order to take the weight off the other and ease some of my aches. sometimes i would start whispering to an imaginary friend, or lean against the wall. anything i knew i was not allowed to do, that i could immediately stop when i heard one of my parents approaching.

one specific time, i got that sensation. the creeping dread, the deep bonesickness of feeling watched. i snuck a peek over my shoulder.

my father had crept into my room, and was watching me silently.

"face the corner," he said.

i did.

almost as an afterthought, he told me i had earned myself more time.

the horror this evokes in me can't be described; it's a sheer, yawning precipice of paranoia, buttressed by the casual, uncaring authority of a parent-god, the architect of the childhood panopticon so utterly foreign, so removed from your world, that they not only do not, but cannot comprehend the pain and fear they're inflicting on you. my feet hurt. my legs hurt. my back ached. i was itchy and damp, utterly helpless, bound by rules i didn't understand and at the mercy of beings whose feelings and responses were utterly unpredictable and incomprehensible.

my father wanted to go play a video game.

i write a lot of horror that i don't think most people would automatically classify as "horror." most of it is an attempt to capture this feeling: the shaky, racing terror of survival without knowing the rules, the stakes, even the consequences. the understanding that anything could be a wrong move, that self-preservation can be punished. or it can be rewarded. or it can go entirely ignored. i want to capture that nauseating, paranoid dread and bottle it. every room is an escape room, the win conditions are up to the gamemaster, and he will change them. he always changes them.

maybe he's watching. maybe he went to the bathroom. maybe he forgot about you. you could always try looking over your shoulder to see.

[valentinedagger]

house md 2020 COVID season. princeton plainsborough is the epicenter for covid research for some contrived reason. cameron is extremely pro-mask. foreman isn't anti-mask but he thinks it's personal choice to wear one or not and if you decide not to wear one you deserve to die off anyway because something something natural selection. chase is just trying to clown around and start shit in the workplace. wilson has a very special episode dedicated to convincing his immunocompromised cancer patient to mask. early on in the season house gets hyperfixated on trying to find a cure for covid and starts to forgo his vicodin in favor of the best puzzle he's ever encountered. everyone tells him he can't do it and it can't be cured and to wait for the CDC to distribute vaccines but he keeps going with an insane obsession. towards the end of the season cameron gets irrationally attached to a covid patient who's on a ventilator. she tries to join house on his obsessive journey but he spurns her because she's doing it for sentimental reasons. her patient dies and gives her covid. in the season finale house is trying to save cameron but can't find the cure and starts to believe it's impossible. he enters her room without PPE in some insane patented gregory move to try to cure her that doesnt work. he catches covid as a result of this and passes out with a fever of 104. he hallucinates arguments with his coworkers and friends in an extended dream sequence that eventually culminates in the realization that he's been subconsciously blocking out the answer to curing covid this entire time because he doesn't want to give up the best puzzle he's ever encountered and go back to vicodin. he struggles with this moral conundrum and eventually decides to cure covid and also cameron. the season ends on a shot of him popping a handful of vicodin dramatically. covid is never brought up again.

[valentinedagger]

it's been long enough since the original online transmedicalist wars that i think we, as gender criminals and binary perverters, could reapproach the possibility of re-incorporating two depreciated pieces of vocabulary:

trans*, with the asterisk representing identities that aren't transgender, but share certain experiences of violating the gender and sex binaries (i.e. intersex folks, crossdressers who go on hormones, drag performers, etc), and

genderqueer, not as a specific identity, but as an umbrella term for any person, whether trans or cis or both or neither, who queers gender.

the depreciation of this vocabulary was pretty bad-faith and wrapped up in the aforementioned online transmedicalist wars -- hell, dropping "genderqueer" as an umbrella term was specifically pushed by radfems (both trans-exclusive and -inclusive) on the premise that "queer is a slur."

any subsequent attempts to create or use new vocabulary to mean similar concepts has been met with ridicule and bad faith. many mainstream media outlets use "nonbinary" to replace "genderqueer," but are met with rejection because nonbinary is a specific identity, not an umbrella term, and calling someone who does not identify as trans, or who does identify with one or both binary genders, "nonbinary" is considered misgendering to many.

but it's a new decade. we are currently, right now, struggling to articulate our shared struggles as gender-variant peoples under this new wave of worldwide fascism. as a medically transitioning person who fits the oldschool use of "genderqueer," and who doesn't fit into either "trans" or "cis" categories, i've been struggling to articulate my experiences using any of the current popular trans vocabulary. maybe it's time to revisit these words and assess their use through new eyes.

[valentinedagger]

when my phone broke earlier this year, i couldn't cancel my phone bill because it required 2-factor authentication, and there was no way to transfer my number to a new phone or close my account without receiving the 2-factor authentication text. i went into the phone store, with my photo ID, the broken phone, and my account information -- and i still couldn't, according to company policy!

i ended up paying for a whole new line at a whole new carrier and canceling my debit card so the old carrier would stop charging me.

i had to cancel my debit card just to stop using this carrier.

fuck The App.

theres bikes around the city you can rent but you have to use an app that needs your drivers license. theres buses that drive right to your destination, but if you dont have change you need the app. you can wash your car here if you sign into the app. you can go to the bathroom here you just have to unlock it with the app that needs your location on. you can order at this restaurant if you scan the code and download the app. im losing my freaking mind

[valentinedagger]

so, today i learned that the social security administration is going to be relying on twitter to communicate with the public from now on.

i guess make sure your 88-year-old grandmother knows that the next time she has a problem with her retirement check, she'll need to sign up for the nazis.com social media feed in order to check on relevant SSA policy updates. or something.

[valentinedagger]

i think we should not have let normies hear the term "eroticizing the grotesque." i saw someone on pinterest put that over a drawing of a pomegranate. a pomegranate.

[valentinedagger]

"erotic horror" is a redundant phrase, like "atm machine"

[valentinedagger]

if you're more of a prose fan, and you're bemoaning the lack of something in mainstream novels -- try out webnovels! you can find the most currently popular projects at topwebfiction.com, and i run a directory of recommendations with tags over at @fyeahwebnovels

'i want a story that has x in it, but mainstream media doesn't have it' Read webcomics

'I wish that i could have this niche thing in stories'

Read webcomics

'there's too many x things in shows now, i wish there was something different'

⭐️READ WEBCOMICS!⭐️

[valentinedagger]

in every violently marginalized demographic, eventually there rises an ideological group that purports to take a hard-line stance against the violence, dehumanization, and social punishments disproportionately wielded against that demographic -- only to turn around and wield those very same forms of violence against anyone inside their demographic that disagrees with them.

oh, this isn't a callout. this isn't a whisper campaign. this is just us talking about what a bad, dangerous person this person is. we're not unpersoning them, we're punching up! calling them slurs, discussing their body in graphic sexual terms, spreading rumors about them to strangers, describing detailed hypothetical violence against them -- these are all just us, as violently marginalized people, lashing out at an oppressor within our own community. don't tone police.

see how that rhetorical slight-of-hand obscures how this is a matter of disagreement -- perhaps not even ideological disagreement, i have seen it applied to matters of purely interpersonal or social disagreement -- within a marginalized group? you should watch out for that one.

[valentinedagger]

READ FROM BEGINNING | LATEST CHAPTER

this is your reminder that book 2 of Stardust, my sci-fi-horror web serial, has finally begun—with a stunning new cover by @saturnine-saturneight

⚠️ contains mature/triggering content ⚠️ uses color-coded text that may not be fully screenreader-accessible 🔗 full trigger warnings on the front page of readstardust.com

In a near-future, post-alien-invasion United States, July—a psychotic bisexual soldier—and Cas—a sardonic, pretentious tactician—have spent their youth underground, raised by a conservative paramilitary group in the barricaded ruins of NYC’s subway tunnels. When a spaceship crashes in Jersey, they cross paths with Aston and Sage—key players in the Dusty invasion—and join forces in a doomed attempt to assassinate President Remus Taner. Once the assassination fails, all four are plunged into a hellish nightmare where the line between reality and dreaming blurs to the point of no return, politics intertwine with what can only be described as magic, and the stardust that chokes their atmosphere seems to have more significance than they knew. At the center of it all is June—July’s twin sister, presumed dead, now reappearing under the guardianship of the Secretary of State. She wants her sister back. By any means necessary.

you might like Stardust if:

you like complex narratives, metafiction, and color-coding such as in Homestuck;

you liked Ender's Game and Battlestar Galactica, but feel weird about that because of how pro-military they are;

your brain chemistry was changed by the dream logic, emotional surrealism, and gendered anxieties that make up Revolutionary Girl Utena;

you really liked the first season of Arcane but are very mad about the second;

you are a trans person who's into the whole "sisterkissing" trend.

it's free. it's weird. it's extremely uncomfortable. there's an intense fixation on holes. everyone is trans. there's spaceships made of meat. a lesbian commits atrocities. multiple lesbians, to be honest, and multiple atrocities.

give it a try. what's the worst that could happen? :)

[valentinedagger]

i really am fascinated with doors. the things people name as doors, especially. i love doors that look nothing like a door whatsoever, that have no handle, no hinges, aren't made of lumber or plastic or glass. i love it when someone sees an opening in a stone and realizes it's a door. when trees grow in such a way that their branches intertwine and someone realizes they can step through the threshold. i love how humans will recognize a portal anywhere, made of anything. it doesn't even need to lead anywhere. the very act of recognizing a portal changes the landscape beyond into a destination. it wouldn't feel the same if you just walked around it instead of through.

[valentinedagger]

lately, i've been rewatching some of the major tumblr fandom classics -- you know, sherlock, supernatural, merlin, doctor who, that era of live-action TV with a heavy fandom presence mostly centralized on tumblr. and here's the thing... i completely understand why modern tumblr fandom -- and, as an extension as the phenomenon of fandom itself broke containment and reached the mainstream, modern online fandom in general -- is so utterly hostile to reparative readings.

i mean, really, it makes perfect sense. these shows seem practically designed to provoke paranoid readings from their audiences. this style of television regularly contorted itself into pretzels not only to be audience-hostile, but to be hostile to the basic building blocks of storytelling itself. this probably sounds exaggerated, but i'm being stone-cold serious. supernatural's stalwart dedication to resetting the status quo at the end of every story arc, never letting there be genuine stakes because every change to the status quo, ultimately, does not change the show whatsoever on more than a surface aesthetic level. merlin's even more stalwart inability to change the status quo whatsoever, constantly driving home a story where narrative is teased but always forcibly contorted back into the exact same shape at the last minute. sherlock's commitment to unexpected "twists" at the expense of the audience being able to participate in the mystery story.

i mean... is it really paranoia if they're actually out to get you? these shows taught the people watching them that they shouldn't expect coherence, or consistency, or even baseline respect as an audience. these shows taught their viewers that the experience of watching television is to be caught in eternal, active conflict with the art itself, which hates you and hates the fact that you enjoy it, and is working at all times to thwart your attempts to garner meaning from it.

i think this is a terrible way to view art, and ultimately shoots yourself in the foot and prevents you from ever engaging with anything authentically and joyfully. interacting with art is like a good kink scene or a LARP; it requires a certain amount of audience buy-in and trust in order to make the interaction work. but i also can't blame people whose formative fandom experiences were sherlock and the MCU for not having that trust -- this is going out of the bounds of serialized television a bit, but i mean. the MCU's constant pattern of "a new director comes along, retcons and/or makes fun of every single development made in the last movie, transplants entirely new personalities onto the characters, and throws in a couple of random plot twists halfway through because the fandom already guessed what the next big arc would be about" isn't exactly encouraging the audience to trust the art or approach it with curiosity and buy-in.

[valentinedagger]

i'm sure i am preaching to the choir, here, but we all know, yes, that the recent Texas bill introduced criminalizing all "obscene" depictions of minors, including non-realistic drawn and animated portrayals, applies to all obscenity, not just that which you, personally, consider sexually titillating, yes?

as in, this applies to depictions of minors doing drugs or drinking, violence against minors, minors engaging in criminal activity, and anything else considered contrary to conservative values and the valuation of law-and-order.

yes, this will criminalize depictions of CSA, including educational depictions meant to prevent CSA; yes, it will criminalize depictions of queer minors, even entirely nonsexual depictions. and please understand: this is because obscenity is not exclusively attributed to sexual content; obscenity refers to all topics and concepts that are considered unfit for polite society under conservative thought. nudity (entirely nonsexual and educational nudity), drugs and alcohol, violating the law, abuse, and more, are all considered obscene content.

[valentinedagger]

it is always very interesting to me when someone responds to something i've said with some variation of "holy shit can't you READ" and then proceeds to restate a completely unrelated argument that is not, in fact, responding to a single point i made at all, and seems to indicate that maybe they were the one who did not read what i said and are just responding to the stock image of "someone who disagrees with them" that pre-exists in their mind. i find this interesting because i can't imagine having a superiority complex over my reading comprehension and still purposefully choosing not to use it. i flaunt my above-average rhetorical skill with narcissistic glee at literally any opportunity.