kittenwriter - Tumblr blog

[kittenwriter]

Apparently people who don't have executive dysfunction think that actually working on something is the hardest part of doing something. And that's why they get mad that you call the rest of the project "easy" after you've finally worked through doing the plan and know what to do when you're working.

So when you're through with the epiphany of how to make it physically possible to make the thing you're making, and you're sharing the plan with excitement, because the hard part is over, and now you only have to get your hands moving and do it, they get mad at you like

"it's not that easy! It's a lot of hard work! >:C"

they mean it, because

to them, working is the hardest part.

They don't have to fight their brains to get started. They don't have to fight their way through making the choices, making the plan, making yourself make the thing. People who don't suffer from executive dysfunction think that the hardest part is actually doing the thing.

[kittenwriter]

the only thing stopping me from throwing myself fully into a canon compliant hc that jon had a really bad history with substance use that he stubbornly forced himself to fix on his own is that at no point in s4 did he turn on the tape recorder to say "dear diary: it's fucking happening again." man reacts so clearly like this is his first time coming to terms with this bullshit and it makes me sad every day.

[kittenwriter]

what if I said that jon and martin's trust in each other was inversely correlated to their trust in themselves. jon only relying on martin when he feels himself slipping and martin only putting faith in his own competence when he thinks jon is unstable. the universe: *makes a guy who thinks he is the only one responsible for the entire world and feels like letting others choose to share the load is an abject failure* *makes a guy who thinks that his only value comes from acting as a caretaker to others and that he's useless at everything else* *makes them fall in love.*

[kittenwriter]

introducing my partner to star wars for the first time is so fun because he's an officer in the military and keeps saying things like "is the imperial ranking system based on the navy or the air force" and "how did han solo enter the ranks as a general when he was functionally a contracter in the last movie" and it's like buddy george lucas literally mixed up units of distance and time while making these movies i promise he didn't even use a single braincell to think about this

[kittenwriter]

I mean, they kept it a secret from Aunt Harriet for three seasons and a movie.

Realistically, a household the size of Wayne Manor needs more than just a butler, and while Bruce might imagine he can keep his proclivities secret from his own domestic staff, Alfred certainly harbours no such illusions. I've gotta wonder what the orientation lecture he's worked out looks like. Like, of course they're going to be extensively vetted before they ever set foot on the premises, but at some point during the onboarding process the subject of the Batcave has gotta come up – I just wanna know how Alfred broaches that.

[kittenwriter]

Fanfic writers are like crows. If you give them treats (comments) they will bring you shiny things (fanfic)

[kittenwriter]

I feel like wanting things has been important to being happier for me

[kittenwriter]

I have sufficiently negative physical reactions that even trying it was never a considered option-- I couldn't even stand to be around cigarette smokers.

Most of the people I actually know who smoke are either weed smokers or pipe smokers, and a lot of the weed smokers are annoying because they very much do not have the same grasp on "other people might dislike this" that the cigarette smokers do and feel justified in doing it everywhere... but I've never had them try to shove it on me in any more serious form than refusing to grasp that they were giving me a headache.

The pipe smokers are doing it as a Lifestyle Thing and I've never known them to be interested in shoving it at me or indeed anyone around them. They'd probably have let me try if I'd been interested, but they certainly weren't going to push the point. (Although I have discovered through these people that clove cigarettes smell sufficiently nicer than normal cigarettes that I don't automatically move upwind of it and thus have come home from certain camping events with greatly aggravated asthma.)

[kittenwriter]

i wish birds brought ME presents

[kittenwriter]

unsung benefit i think a lot of ppl are sleeping on with using the public library is that i think its a great replacement for the dopamine hit some ppl get from online shopping. it kind of fills that niche of reserving something that you then get to anticipate the arrival of and enjoy when it arrives, but without like, the waste and the money.

[kittenwriter]

I’ll be honest, when one party’s aiding and abetting the genocide and the other’s outright gonna kill all my friends, I don’t really care if the fascists “win”. They’ve won already.

You know who would be delighted to hear that? Trump and Putin. The US far right and the Russian government have poured lots of time, effort, and money over the last decade+ into convincing US leftists and liberals that things are hopeless, there's no point in even trying to make things better, and the Democrats and Republicans are functionally interchangeable. They do this because one of the easiest ways for them to win is if the left gives up and stops trying. Every person on the left they can convince to give up in despair brings them closer to complete control. Defeatism on the left actively supports victory on the right.

I think your statement is wrong on a number of levels, both factual and emotional. It comes from not understanding what the actual options are for the US government and the President specifically, either at home or abroad. And it will allow actual fascism to flourish and make the world far worse than it is now.

On an emotional level, the way to address this is to stop doomscrolling. Stop focusing on the worst things happening in the world. Don't ignore them! but don't let them consume you. Start looking for the things that are going well. Find places in your community that you can get involved in making things better. Even if it's only on a small scale like volunteering in a soup kitchen or homeless shelter, it will help you realize that you aren't helpless, that there are things that can be done to make the world a better place. Stay informed about things on a local, national, and international level, but limit how much time and attention you give to things that depress you that you can't affect. Instead of sitting there thinking about all the ways the world sucks and how awful things are, look for things you can do that are productive, and then do them. You'll feel better and you will have made your corner of the world a little better. And you will be a lot less likely to unintentionally fall into the despair, nihilism, and passivity that the fascists want you to be consumed by.

Always remember that the worlds problems are not resting solely on your shoulders, or solely on America's shoulders, and neither is the hope of fixing them. Everyone has things that we can do to make the world a better place, but there are also things that are beyond our control. We can control what we do; we cannot control what others do. We can and should try to make the world a better place, but focusing on the things we can't change has no positive benefits. Focusing on things we can't change accomplishes two things: it makes you feel bad, and it stops you from doing the things you actually can do to make things better. Neither of these things is good for you or anyone else. Look for things you can do and do them. Keep informed on the things you can't change, but don't focus on them.

On a factual level, let's look at "aiding and abetting genocide," shall we?

First, it's important to remember that the US President is not the God-Emperor Of The World. The US government has limits to what it can and can't do in other countries, and both legally and practically. If the US wants to intervene in a problem in another country, there are a variety of things we can do that boil down to basically four categories. It's a lot more complex than this in practice, of course, but in general here are the categories of things we can do:

Send in the troops. Invade, either by ourselves or as part of a NATO or UN operation. (Or maybe just send in a CIA wetworks team to assassinate the head of state.) I hope you can see the moral problems with this option, and also, we've done this a shitton of times over the course of the 20th Century and pretty much every time we've done it, we've made an already awful situation worse. On a moral level, it's pretty bad, and on a practical level, it's worse. Sure, we could stop the immediate problem, but what then? Consider Afghanistan and Iraq. We got rid of Saddam Hussein and the Taliban, and everything went to shit, we spent twenty years occupying Afghanistan with pretty much nothing to show for it. (The Taliban is back in control of Afghanistan.) Things were worse when we left than when we arrived. So this option is pretty much off the table (or should be).

Diplomatic pressure. Now, the thing is, they're a sovereign nation, they don't have to listen to us if they don't want to. We have a lot of things we can leverage--including financial aid--but the only way to force them to do what we want is to invade and conquer, and that only works temporarily. Since we can't force, we have to persuade. This requires us to maintain our existing relationship with the country in question, and possibly strengthen it, because that relationship is what we're leveraging to try and influence them to do what we want them to do. If we do not maintain our relationship, they have no reason to listen to us.

Cut ties and go home. Break off any existing relationship and support, loudly proclaim that they're awful and doing awful things and we wash our hands of the whole situation. This keeps our own hands lily-white and pure, but it also means we have zero leverage to work on any kind of a diplomatic solution. They have no reason to listen to us or care about what we think. We can pat ourselves on the back for doing the right thing, but we destroy our own ability to influence anything. Not just now, but also in the future. Let's say the current crisis ends, and then ten years later there's another crisis. If we want to have any effect then, we would have to start from square one to start building a relationship. Cutting ties would be great for making Americans feel better about ourselves, and there are times when it's the only option, but it should be a last resort. If there is any hope of being able to influence things for the better this will destroy it at least temporarily.

Cut ties and impose sanctions. Break off any existing relationship and support, loudly proclaim that they're awful and doing awful things, but also use the might of the American economy to isolate and punish them. We've done this a lot over the 20th Century, too, and it has never actually resulted in the country in question buckling down and toeing the line we want them to. What happens is the sanctioned country has an economic shock (how long it lasts and how bad it gets depends on a lot of factors) and then pulls themselves back together economically, except this time they're more self-sufficient and less reliant on international trade and financial networks. They tell themselves that America is evil and the cause of all their problems, and so not only do they not listen to us, they actively hate us. And they have fewer international relationships, so fewer reasons to care about what the international community thinks about them. So they're most likely to double down on whatever it is they're doing that we don't like. This one is completely counterproductive and utterly stupid. It's great for making Americans feel better about ourselves, but if we actually care about being able to use our influence for good (or, at least, to mitigate evil) this option shoots us in the foot. It encourages other nations to do the very thing we're trying to stop them from doing.

So, with those four options in mind, both option one (invasion/assassination) and option four (sanctions) are off the table for being immoral and counterproductive. That leaves "breaking our relationship and going home" and "using diplomatic pressure" as our only two viable options.

Biden has chosen option two, diplomatic pressure. Yes, he and our government have continued financial support for Israel ... but with strings attached. They have put limits on it that have never been put on any US foreign aid before. They have taken legal steps to lay the groundwork to target Israeli settlers (i.e. Israeli citizens who confiscate Palestinian homes and businesses). We've been hearing reports for months that Benjamin Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister, and a far-right-wing demagogue) hates Biden's guts, because Biden is pressuring him to stop the genocide and work towards peace. Biden is maintaining the relationship, and he's using that relationship to try and influence things to curb the violence and pave the way for a just peace settlement of some sort. Biden has also mentioned the possibility of a two state solution where Palestine becomes its own completely separate country. That's huge, because up until this point the US position has always been that Israel is the only possible legitimate nation in that territory. If Biden stopped US support for Israel, it wouldn't force Israel to stop what it's doing ... but it would let them ignore us. It would remove any leverage or influence we might have.

Biden's hands aren't clean. But the only way for them to be clean would be to also give up any chance of influencing the situation or working to protect Palestinians now or in the future. Only time will tell if it works, but I personally would rather have someone who tried and failed than someone who didn't even try. You might disagree about whether this is the right course of action, and there's a lot of room for honest disagreement about the issue (there's a lot of nuances that I'm glossing over or ignoring). But please do acknowledge that Biden isn't supporting Israel because he supports genocide; he's doing it so that he can continue to maintain diplomatic pressure on Israel to stop the violence.

Which brings us back to "aiding and abetting genocide." Trump is not like Biden. Trump is good friends with Netanyahu and backs Israel to the hilt. Trump thinks that all Arabs are terrorists (and all Muslims are terrorists) and genuinely believes the world would be a better place with them dead. Biden is continuing to support Israel, but using that support as influence to get them to stop or slow down. Trump would be using that influence to encourage them.

And those are the two choices. Someone who is trying to curb the genocide, and someone who actively supports it.

I really hope you can see the significant and substantial difference between those two positions.

But let's say that you're right and Biden's policy towards Israel and Palestine is every bit as bad as Trump's would be. If there was nothing to choose between them on foreign policy grounds, there would still be a shitton to choose between them on domestic policy grounds. You admit that the right wants to kill your friends, and yet you don't seem to think that stopping them from killing your friends might be a good thing to do.

"We can't save Palestinians, so we might as well let Republicans destroy the rights, lives, and futures of LGBTQ+ people, women, people of color, people with disabilities, poor people, non-Christians, and anyone else they don't like." "We can't save Palestinians, so why bother to try to save the people we might actually be able to save." "We can't save Palestinians right now, so there's no point in trying to build up a longer-term political bloc that might drag US politics to the left over the long run."

Do you get why there's a problem with that line of thought?

[kittenwriter]

not to be insensitive but some of the salem witch trials were so funny bitches like “i saw her at the devils sacrament!!!” girl… what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament 👀

[kittenwriter]

god i am sick of pro pals erasing the history of israel

there is literally the ruins of a building OLDER THAN ISLAM (byzantine era) on a hill near my house and archeological sites are SO GODDAMN NORMAL IN JERUSALEM that while it started out fenced off they eventually gave up on keeping kids out of it and instead CLEANED IT UP, PUT A DECK ON IT, AND ADDED A LIL MULCH PATH OVER TO IT

like theres an irl running gag that every time they start a new major construction project in jerusalem it ends up getting postponed or cancelled because they found possibly important archeological artefacts. there is so much fucking history here and its absolutely insane that people would choose to pretend that it doesnt exist

[kittenwriter]

“Lord Byron gets up at two. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom … at 12. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six to eight we gallop through the pine forest which divide Ravenna from the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in the morning. I don’t suppose this will kill me in a week or fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.’s establishment consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these, except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the masters of it… . [P.S.] I find that my enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective … . I have just met on the grand staircase five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes.”

— Percy Bysshe Shelley on the lifestyle of Lord Byron (via timemarauder)

[kittenwriter]

The one bizarre thing to me about textiles is that warp-weighted weaving is at least 6500 years old, but our oldest knitted artifacts are only ~1000 years old, and crochet 200 years old. Even though you need less equipment to knit (two sticks) or crochet (one hook) compared to warp-weighted weaving (frame, loom weights, batting, heddles). Why the big gaps between these inventions? And why did each one appear and spread when it did?

[kittenwriter]

Still fucked up on that piece of TMA meta that finally made so many of use understand that Martin has trauma linked to alcohol.

Because like. Of course he understood that Jon could love both him and the thing that is withering away his humanity. Of course he could walk beside Jon as it was happening. Of course he would value Jon's promise to not doom the world as if it was a solemn vow to him, because he knows the powers that have Jon in its clutches are nothing in the face of a single person. In the face of love.

Except in this case, it was.

[kittenwriter]

“It’s the common lament of the ace to be infantilized, viewed as static, standing still, trapped in amber. Those close to us will outgrow us and leave us behind. We’ll end up alone because we will never be recognized as adults by society. […] When people look at me, they don’t see someone who has years of work and even managerial experience, who is financially stable and owns a home. They don’t see someone who has a partnership and two failed marriage proposals in their past and has outgrown them rather than been outgrown. They don’t see someone who has gray in their hair… although to be fair to them, it’s not usually visible.”

— Growing Up, Growing Into, Growing Out, Outgrowing