#without participating in systemic abuse

[offsidekineticist]

💎💎💎for agria if you're still taking these and it strikes your fancy lol!

I am still taking them! Sorry it took so long, took some time to decide who would be most interesting to answer this one. So here's Giliys's thoughts on Agria (whom he has nicknamed 'Threads' because Giliys can't just call people by their names like a normal person, I'm so sorry).

"Threads? Well. I think I'd have liked her better if we met before the fifth crusade. I know she's got rich family, but she doesn't really count as nobility. I mean, she coulda stayed in Brevoy and tried to blend in with with the fancy Lebedas, sucked up to them, tried to marry up, but she didn't. She went and said she was part of a people with no home scattered all over Avistan, and when she realized their culture had been stolen from them, she went and said she'd steal it back. That takes guts.

"But then Areelu fucking Vorlesh got ahold of her, and - " Giliys stops himself, face taut with rage. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "Look. I know most people think I don't have a conscience cuz it's calibrated different than most. But I do know this: the worst, most unforgivale things you can do to someone are the things that hurt the soul. And I know, I know, I done plenty of that in my time, but I also know it's fucked up. What Areelu Vorlesh did was un-fucking-forgivable. And Threads did her best to pick up the pieces and stitch herself back together, but...she decided not to fix what she did to her, didn't she? I don't know if she didn't think it was possible or if she actually thought she was better off for it, but either way - I mean - that's not something you choose if your soul is whole.

"So yeah. It's funny, I don't have a problem with her having magic powers from the Abyss. But the power she has as knight-commander...yeah, that's the kind of thing that twists you up inside, makes you into something else. Something that can't be fixed. And I hope Galfrey rots for pushing her into that when she was already torn up inside by Vorlesh."

[transmascutena]

the poor little meow meow-ifictation of saionji in this fandom has got to stop i can't take it any more

[five-thousand-loaves-of-bread]

autism awareness & autism acceptance not either or. not mutually exclusive. can coexist. need coexist.

“there enough awareness for autism already 🙄 we need acceptance”

ok. you aware of high support needs autism? aware what that even means? not “need reminder take meds need remind take shower” “high” support needs autism, but “need full physical help do bADLs lack danger awareness may accidentally hurt self or even kill self without support” high support needs autism? not just higher support needs people who can be independently online do advocacy, but those who need help from others even be online, or those who cannot be online at. all.?

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people? not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can write grammatically correct cannot tell apart base on writing. not just nonverbal nonspeaking people who can be online who can advocate online.

aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who cannot communicate in way that easily understood, either for now, or ever? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people without functional communication, aware of how without functional communication, how that drastically limit communication, even though behaviors are valid communication? aware of nonverbal nonspeaking people who may never use AAC fluently even with best support?

aware of technically verbal but very limited verbal autistics who may only able say wants & needs but not other things and certainly not online advocacy, “despite being verbal”?

aware of just how much our life depends on caregiver/carer/PCA/etc? aware how vulnerable that make us? aware of abuse from caregivers? aware of caregiver burnout from lack of support for caregivers, & how that impact our care we receive? have you even heard of term respite care? aware of those of us who cannot separate ourselves from caregiver? aware of those of us who cannot participate in autism community without caregiver?

aware of visibly autistic people? aware how we not automatically believed? aware how we often bear blunt of violence because we most easily identified target because we visible? aware visible =/= get support, aware that many those diagnosed severe who now adult so no longer qualify for services under 21 year old, languish in hospitals because nowhere to go? aware how long life saving necessary waitlists are? aware that even to this day parents have to fight school fight day service fight government fight insurance for them give their nonverbal nonspeaking child AAC & be properly taught how use it? actually, are you aware of how properly teach AAC to nonverbal nonspeaking, developmentally delayed child who may or may not have intellectual disability?

actually, aware of autistics with (correctly diagnosed) intellectual disability & how they make up big amount of autistic? aware of institutional systemic & legal impact of mental [r word] right & the human rights abuse justified using r word right? wait, you aware that r word come from old term for intellectual disability, that, actually, still in many laws because no one bothered updating, right? aware of what severe profound ID look like? and aware they real and they still human deserve education deserve life deserve care, yes?

aware of early diagnosis 20 30 or even 10 years ago, not same as now, even less resources & knowledge about autism now? aware that while gender race class 1000% impacted diagnoses, a lot of early diagnosed people early diagnosed because… they die without support unlocked by diagnosis, right? but also, aware that in old times, early diagnosis often did mean doom, not because autism bad or anything, but because severe lack of support & diagnosis can literally bar you from so many things including basic education?

aware that for many people in special education, which impact specific group of autistic people, they not get degree when graduate high school, they just get certificate, which limit their educational & employment opportunities & others?

aware of life saving importance and necessity of masking for autistic of color especially Black autistic people, despite stress inducing traumatic? aware that live in broken system be victim of hate crime & police brutality just as traumatic often even more traumatic than masking? aware that many Black & other parents of color forced to teach their child masking because of this?

are you aware of most marginalized autistic people? aware of leadership of most impacted?

aware you can and need to care about autistic experiences & form of autism you not experience? aware that you can and need to do that without try twist your experience into our experience into our words our community?

aware that advocacy goes beyond about you?

aware that you can’t speak for all autistic? aware that you shouldn’t speak for all autistic?

are you aware of when you need to stop talking & listen & amplify others? aware of when and how to decenter self?

aware that even this long post, barely scratch surface? still so much to say?

[better worded version of original post]

[yusiyomogi]

what i don't like about "mithrun represents elven violence in the story" interpretations that i've seen a lot lately is that they're kinda. um, i guess, trying to overshadow another much simpler and straightforward reading of his role in the story. which is that he's an abuse victim who's been dehumanized for years by extremely ableist society and now participates in the cycle of cruelty?

like, some of the elves in the story are fucking mean (we're dealing with criminals mostly i guess), but really, they're just super patronizing and dismissive to the lives of other races. like kabru said, their cruelty mostly comes from their refusal to understand importance of time in other people's lives. they don't execute criminals; they conveniently forget about their life spans. the canaries also are a military force of imperialistic country and a lot of their methods demonstrate a noticeable level of disregard to borders and autonomy of other countries and it's the whole thing.

mithrun kinda exists mostly outside of this narrative though? yes, at first, he seems to be an effective tool/weapon of the military force, but i don't believe his cruelty is "elven" cruelty, not really. he constantly goes against typical canaries' methods even, because he just doesn't care about the rules (and pattadol panics about it, showing that this is not the way she was trained). he's only particularly cruel and violent towards other dungeon lords, and to me it reads as something extremely personal.

he's self-destructive and self-critical and without fully realizing it he projects those feelings on people he relates the most to: other dungeon lords. and with that, i think, he recreates violence that was done to him. in some twisted irony he's often doing it by simply trying to prevent the worst: he treats marcille so roughly, because he's desperate to stop her from repeating his fate. and it does not absolve him from fault of traumatizing her, it's very obviously not framed as something "correct". but it's framed as something raw and complicated and uncomfortable. he would treat himself the same way, if he could go back.

i just can't get rid of the feeling that something about putting him as the main agent of elven violence kinda... misses the mark a little? even looking at his character's arc. like, when in other stories characters are meant to be agents of political regimes, their arcs are usually about deconstructing their beliefs or refusing to give up on them and going down with the system. meanwhile mithrun doesn't want to uphold his beliefs nor deconstructing them, we don't even know how he sees himself in the relation to political system, because his story is strikingly personal.

i think the scene in the end demonstrates it the best: while the rest of canaries are shocked or angry when laios takes marcille away from them, mithrun simply keeps eating in the background. he's a part of the system, but he's far from being a shining example of it. i think it could be seen as a narratively subversive move even, because possibly we were meant to expect his story to be something different, he's a military captain after all, and that's not how this type of story usually goes.

of course, every reading has right to exist! it's just my personal take, really.

[comicaurora]

Sorry to drop a hella irl-political question on your mostly webcomic blog, but have you/any of the OSP gang heard of/been participating in the week-long strike for palestine that's been (presumably) all over tumblr/the internet?

For some background info: Following the attack on Oct. 7th by the hamas militant group (a terrorist org. Or resistance group, depending who you ask), the state of israel (which is practically a mass colonial settlement on Palestinian land since '48) has taken the attack as an excuse to indiscriminately bomb the homes of thousands if not millions of homes while forcebly displacing almost all of the ~2.3 million people crammed in the gaza strip with no escape.

'Israel' has also tightened it's blockade on the strip of land such that a growing majority of people there are experiencing catastrophic starvation, disease from sewage-infested drinking water (as water aid is too scarce). Soon even deaths by preventable causes such as diabetes will occur since insulin pens for children have been blocked from entering by israel, who controls gaza's borders, water, power, food supplies, and shoreline. Civilians in Gaza are very frequently and indiscriminately killed often in places they were told were safe zones to evacuate to. It's agreed upon by both experts and laymen worldwide that what is happening (and has BEEN happening before Oct.7th) is nothing short of genocide.

In the occupied Palestinian west bank, where there is no hamas whatsoever to use as an excuse, Palestinians are still arrested without a fair trial for years, abused, prevented from using certain roads, shot, and often straight-up have their houses stolen by armed or military-backed israeli settlers (many of whom have no ancestral connection to the land at all) in a system often compared to or outright stated to be apartheid.

Very recently, a journalist in Gaza by the name of Bisan Owda called for a strike from January 21st to January 28th. The conditions of the strike can be paraphrased as:

Cease all unnecessary purchases or payments, avoid generating ad revenue when possible

Do not go to work or school if you can possibly avoid it

Pay for things only in cash if you must

Use social media exclusively to flood the internet with palestinian voices and resources about the ongoing genocide against the palestinian people

Attend protests if you can

Be visible.

It's the 26th now, but joining late would be far better than to not join at all and stay silent.

I figured I'd ask since since OSP has covered various topics about history and/or politics and we're kinda watching some awful history unfolding, the kind of history where neutrality doesn't really work and a side needs to be taken.

Opinions? (Sorry if I'm coming across as condescending! I just really want my favorite blogs to be aware and take a stance rather than being silent hhhghf)

Okay, here's my answer.

OSP has been supporting calls for a ceasefire for months, and we were fundraising in direct support of it via Doctors Without Borders all through November and December. Total, we raised over $30,000. If we include the UNICEF fundraiser we ran on the Spider-Man streams, the total is over $40,000.

During our charity livestreams, we have made our positions clear – we support a ceasefire, Israel is perpetuating settler-colonialist violence and has been for decades, Hamas is a terrorist organization that endangers Israelis and Palestinians alike, the innocent people of both Palestine and Israel deserve safety and peace. We concluded that the best thing we could do under the circumstances was empower those who are in a real position to actually help by providing funding for their work. We believe this is significantly more beneficial than adding Another Angry Internet Post to the pile of insular outrage on Internet Land. Fundraising for the organizations with boots on the ground feels like it does a lot more good than being loud online for the benefit of other online people.

This is not the first time I've heard reference to the strike, but it is the first time I've seen the parameters of the strike laid out, which to me indicates that it wasn't spread as widely or effectively as it could've been.

I understand and appreciate why you sent this ask, but your premise worries me. I know this may surprise and startle us denizens of the internet, but being extremely loud on the internet is not the only or the most effective form of activism, and people not being extremely loud on the internet with every account they have is not the same thing as silent complicity in war crimes, and people acting like those two things are the same thing has been unbelievably frustrating to watch.

If we act like everything is a binary moral choice between "scream your loudest, most angry opinions online every time you feel angry about them" and "not doing that is literally the same thing as participating in genocide", we are creating a very strong pressure to flood the internet with our angriest, most unformed thoughts, lest we be branded as complicit in war crimes. Social media sites live and die on engagement, hence why twitter has rapidly trended towards doomscrolling and encouraging inflammatory clickbait - angry shouty people are traffic and traffic is money. The cynical part of me is utterly unsurprised that social media encourages the idea that the only true form of activism is being loud on social media.

It sounds like you had the feeling that sending me this ask was weird and a boundary overstep, and you were correct. My platform is not world-changing or in any way politically powerful beyond our ability to create charity fundraisers for causes we believe in, and we are doing what we can to help in the tiny ways that we can from halfway across the world, from a position of absolutely zero political weight beyond emailing our representatives. You are just asking me to also shout about it online loudly enough that I measure up to an artificial loudness metric, because my existing shouting was not already loud or omnipresent enough.

You are not entitled to know every thought in my head or every action I take in my life. I am not online to perform outrage and live up to an arbitrary moral standard of Shouting Enough. I am especially not online on my fantasy webcomic blog to do those things. Please understand that what you see of me is what I choose to share, and I am under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to share more.

[ghostboneswrites2]

I really resonated with Daryl x abused reader could you maybe do one where the reader doesn’t let their past define them and shows little signs of abuse like they’re super cheery and happy and doesn’t let their past get them down and but maybe reader has a ptsd attack by Daryl after he confronts her about being so happy especially in an apocalypse and they just realize they relate to each other even if they’re personalities are so drastically and Daryl just comforts reader 🫂

The Painted Bunting

Era: Greene Farm

Summary: Daryl is paired with you on the search for Sophia and snaps at you after growing tiresome of your seemingly endless kindness.

Note: No more laptop for now since the cord broke so I hope you’ll all forgive the lack of my usual post formatting :(

Warnings: profanity, mentions of past abuse, grumpy sassy asshole Daryl (the man we originally fell in love with)

Banner credits on this post

        Shining hair in the rays of the sun, an infectious laugh, a beaming grin that never seemed to dissipate. A glowing beacon in the dark. That was what you were. And, admittedly, it got under his skin a little, so Daryl tended to avoid you. You weren’t oblivious to it, but you accepted it for what it was. After all, you couldn’t win them all, right? 

        You had always been that way; soft, gentle, graceful, kind. If you had never let the past change that for you, you certainly wouldn’t let present day events change it, either. Maybe the world had become a nightmare, but that didn’t mean you had to be one too. 

        Daryl thought that what really gritted his teeth about you was that through everything that had happened, you never changed a single bit. Not like the others had; not like he had. 

        After the world fell, after the camp by the quarry was overrun, after the CDC, after Sophia had gone missing, you remained exactly the same. For all of the afore mentioned, Daryl found you to be one of the most vexing people he ever had the displeasure of interacting with, second only to Shane, who could have easily been traded off for his own brother, Merle.

        Needless to say, he was peeved at the idea that you were sent on search duty with him after he hurt himself in the ravine. Rick decided a buddy system would be beneficial to all of the search party participants, and you volunteered to tag along, because of course you did.

        You weren’t so much looking forward to spending so much one on one time with the man, yourself. You didn’t necessarily have an issue with him, but you were all too aware of the issue he seemed to have with you. Really, you couldn’t relate to him at all. Not everyone around camp was perky and sweet, and rightfully so, but Daryl was such a brooding presence and you just couldn’t put yourself in that frame of mind.

        The two of you had set out just after dawn and the hours ticked by as you made friendly conversation and Daryl occasionally offered you a measly grunt in response. 

        “Do you think we’ll find anyone out here?” You asked. “I mean, aside from Sophia. I know we’ll find her.”

        “Pro’ly better if we don’t find nobody else.” Was his first verbal response all day. You shrugged. 

        “I don’t know. Could be good. I’m sure there are people who could really use some help.”

        “Ain’t our problem.” He argued. “Gotta look out for our own. The hell you worried about helpin’ strangers for when we ain’t even found the little girl we’re after?” 

        “Oh, no.” You chuckled nervously. “It’s not that I was just —“ You cut yourself off, sensing an oncoming ramble. “I didn’t mean it like that.” 

        “Mm.” He hummed, pausing his footsteps to take a breath and scan his surroundings. After a moment, he continued forward, and you followed without question . Admittedly, you had no clue how to track, so if anything you were there in case he got hurt.

        “So, if someone needed your help… You wouldn’t help?” You asked innocently.

        He whipped around to face you, the aggression behind his motion drawing you to a dead stop.

        “The hell’s your problem, huh?” He snapped. You blinked. “It’s the end of the goddamn world and you’re askin’ me about some hypothetical moral dilemma? Let me tell you somethin’, girl; ain’t no damn morals in the apocalypse. Ain’t no more law and order! It’s just us,” he paused, sending an arrow through the skull of a walker that had crept up behind you. You flinched and turned to watch its carcass thud on the forest floor. “And them.” He concluded. 

        “I—I was just making conversation.” You mumbled timidly. 

        “Why? It’s not a social call! We’re out here to find that little girl. This is why I didn’t need no damn babysitter.” He complained.

        “I was just trying to be nice.” You defended.

        “Nice?” He scoffed. That simple word seemed to trigger something in him as his eyes lit up with aggravation. “Don’t you get it? It ain’t about bein’ nice anymore. It’s about survival. Got dead people standin’ up and eatin’ people and you’re worried about bein’ nice. Walkin’ around passin’ out water and food and gigglin’ with everybody like we ain’t got a bunch o’ dead bodies stumblin’ around us just waitin’ to take a bite out.” 

        Maybe it was the way he raised his voice, or the way his eyes shot flaming daggers of fury right through your chest, or the way he threw his arms down and spat words at you like you were some puny, wretched little thing. You didn’t know what it was, but somewhere in the whirlwind of heated exchange, his voice slowly blended together with the other voice — the one that still lived in the back of your mind and ate away at you every day.

        The voice that belonged to your own father, the one person who struck true, genuine fear in you. Before you knew it, that old sensation of real terror, the one you’d buried somewhere deep inside you and covered with cement, was breaking free and engulfing you. 

        You were frozen, like a fawn under the scrutinizing gaze of a predator. The humid air felt like a thick paste as you struggled to gulp it down and catch a breath. At first, Daryl felt inclined to criticize your tears as a show of weakness, fragility, inability to handle a little raise of the voice. He quickly noticed, however, that this was no simple burst of reactionary emotions. No, this was something much deeper and it was rattling you to the core. There was a distant look in your wide eyes, one that he came to recognize, even if it took him a minute. 

       He shifted on his feet, scanning you, unsure how to intervene. 

        “Hey.” He eventually called out, but it was clear his voice wasn’t reaching you. This was the final piece of confirmation he needed. You were having an episode, the kind he experienced a few times when he first got out of his father’s abusive home. 

        He sighed and grabbed your trembling shoulders. You jumped but you didn’t flee or strike out. His touch seemed to dry you out and shrivel you up like a raisin. You shrank into yourself, hyperventilating. 

        “C’mon.” He said softly, ushering you done to your knees. “Hey. Ya gotta breathe.” 

        Your breathe only became more shallow and forced. Tears poured down your cheeks as your chest got tighter. 

        “Just breathe. That’s the only way it’s gonna stop.” He urged. He went to grab your wrists but you panicked, snatching your arms away and falling down on your back. 

        “No! Get away! You can’t do this anymore! I’m not a little kid!” You cried out.

        You were making quite a bit of noise by this point, between the gasps for air and the sobs. He crouched over you and grabbed your shoulders. 

        “(Y/N), ya ain’t there anymore. Wherever it is, it’s gone. In the past. It’s just you and me right now, and we ain’t there. We’re here.” He soothed, hoping his voice could find you somewhere in the abyss. “Just listen. Ya hear that? It’s a Painted Bunting. Look,” he pointed up into a tree at a bright multicolored bird, similar in its beauty to a parrot, only much smaller. “It’s right up there. Ya see it?” 

        Your breathing had started to slow down now, those shallow inhales finally reaching a little deeper within. Your eyes lazily followed his finger to the bright little bird singing a flute-like melody. 

        “Ya see it?” He asked again. You managed to nod once, still holding your arms tightly to your chest as you laid flat on the bed of leaves and twigs. He took a moment to see you, to really take you in, and he realized you were beautiful. Not just in the way a pretty girl with a nice personality was beautiful, but in a way that left so much of who you really were unsaid.

        “Just watch it.” He whispered, glancing back up at the feathered creature, hoping it would stick around long enough to bring you back down to earth. “They take two years to look that pretty. Did ya know that?” He asked, glancing back down at you. Your eyes were still on the bird, but you shook your head no. “Yeah. Only the males, too.” He added. “Otherwise, they’re just kinda greenish and yellowish.” 

        Once your chest was rising and falling with a steady rhythm, you finally looked over at him. Humiliation began to set in. You quickly sat yourself up and brushed the dead foliage away from your clothes and hair. 

        “I’m sorry.” You mumbled. “That hasn’t happened in a long time.” 

        “‘S okay.” He shrugged, standing himself back up as well. “Happens.”

        “Yeah, we’ll, it shouldn’t. Not nowadays.” 

        “Can’t help it when it does.” He assured you. “I get it.”

        “Maybe I should head back.” You suggested.

        “We both can. If ya wanna. It’ll be dark soon anyways.”  

        “I don’t wanna make you lose your trail or.. Ya know.” You fidgeted with the hem of your shirt.

        “Nah. Ain’t no use after dark, anyways. We’d just be stumbling in circles and bumpin’ into each other.” He insisted, contrastingly soft in comparison to before your episode. 

        “Oh. Right.” You nodded. Just as you got ready to turn back toward the farm, he cleared his throat.

        “Ya wanna talk about it?”

        “About what?” You turned back to him. He shifted his weight anxiously, chewing at the inside of his cheek. Offering an ear to listen was at least ten yards outside the perimeter of his comfort zone. “About that?” You asked. “That was nothing. Just something stupid that happens sometimes. That’s all.”

        While his tone was much kinder and warmer than before, yours was cold, dull, and tired. Those episodes could take a lot out of a person, and he was no stranger to that fact. 

        “Sometimes it helps.” He said. “Talkin’ about it. Makes it a little less…” He trailed off, searching for the word he wanted. “Less, uh… Consuming.”

        “It never gets less consuming.” You argued.

        “It does.” He insisted. 

         “And how would you know?” You asked, impatience lacing your words.

        “I used to get ‘em too.” He admitted. “Been awhile but… I just get it. That’s all.”

        You studied him. In all the weeks you’d spent around the man, you’d never seen him so genuine, or really so open. He never seemed to look at you like another person. You were always just another load on his shoulders. 

        “My dad.” You finally spoke. He nodded.

        “Me too.” 

        “I’m sorry.” You sympathized.

        “Me too.” He agreed. 

        “We should go.” You sighed, turning away again. 

        This time you didn’t wait for him, you just started walking, until he called out behind you; “‘M sorry.” You stood still, but you didn’t look back. He knew he had your attention, though, and he knew he had to say something else. “I know I did it this time. I shouldn’t’ve yelled at ya like that.”

        “It’s okay. Maybe you were right.” 

        “Nah.” He shook his head, taking slow steps to catch up to you. “I wasn’t. It’s good. Ya didn’t let none of that shit make ya bitter. Keep it that way. Else you’ll end up a grumpy redneck.” He joked. You suppressed the small smile that tugged at the corner of your lips.

        “Maybe the grumpy rednecks of the world got it figured out.” You said, walking again once you felt him catch up. 

        “Nah. I don’t know shit about shit.” He admitted, eliciting a small laugh from you. You shook your head.

        “I don’t think anyone does.” You reasoned.

        On the hike back to the Greene farm, you two shared some light banter, some stories of the past, some laughs and extended looks. He grew finder of you that day. The critical glares he’d send you from a distance were replaced with admiration and respectful nods. You’d often catch him looking and flash him a big smile, waving at him before you attention was drawn elsewhere. 

       You both learned that maybe the two of you were differently colored fruit, but you grew from the same tree, and you weren’t so different after all. And, that sentiment was never lost or forgotten. It carried with you for as long as you two knew each other. 

Taglist || Masterlist

tags: @kissmeunicornbaobei @thesadcatt0 @clairealeehelsing @duckybird101 @tmntfixationxreader @ryoujoking @blackvelveteen1339 @yondus-girl @ladylincoln @sunshinebug9 @saylum559 @yoowhatthefuck @duffmckagansbandana @celtic-crossbow @virginsexgod69 @dazzling-roaring-20s @l0kilaufeys0n7 @uhnanix

[lafemmemacabre]

People seem to always need to attribute evil to something immutably wrong with a person or at least to some powerful force within said person that can't be just a choice (no matter how influenced by the coercive forces of society and one's own history, it's still a choice).

The widely spread Christian notion that people act in what society at the time thought of as evil, was that people were sinners or possessed by an evil spirit.

Now that spiritual explanations for evil are mostly not socially sanctioned outside of circles of people that accept such explanations, we've gone from attributing evil to spiritual pollution, to attributing evil to psychiatric pollution.

19th and most of the 20th century's hysteria, the psychopath of the later 20th century, the sociopath of the 00s, and now it's the narcissist.

Have you considered that, sometimes, people choose to do fucked up shit just because it's easier, or the results satisfy them better? They're not Possessed by the indomitable spirit of a disorder. Sometimes people choose to cause harm with the same levity anyone would choose between flavors of a drink, due to no pathology and nothing INTRINSICALLY wrong with them.

Sometimes, people are just assholes, and when you see millions of people claiming their ex was afflicted with a pathology, it starts to seem like, rather than being the hosts of a pathology, those exes are participating in harmful but socially permitted and even socially encouraged behaviors, especially if they play right into the rulebooks of patriarchal relations. That's not pathology, that's normalized evil, systemic evil.

Men lowering the self-esteem of their girlfriends when they feel emasculated and treating them like shit behind closed doors, even with tangible violence, is awful and deeply traumatizing, I know by experience from the two relationships with men I got to have before accepting my lesbianism. But that's not a disorder, that's just... What our misogynistic, patriarchal culture teaches men and tells men is ok to do in order to reaffirm their control over their women and their own masculinity. It's what the people around those men have historically allowed them to get away with and even celebrated or demanded of them.

Same with abusive parents with their children; much like women under patriarchy, children are seen as possessions belonging to their parents and extensions of their parents, even into adulthood. A parent doesn't need to meet the clinical criteria of NPD in order to horrendously traumatize their child and then feel that they were in their right to do so.

Society already tells parents all the time that they're allowed to horrendously abuse and traumatize their children without consequences, including no expected consequences in their relationships with those children, so of course abusive parents still expect loyalty, affection, service and deference from their children no matter what they've done to them. It's not because they're "narcissists", it's because those are the cultural expectations around parenthood that have only very recently become somewhat challenged at a larger scale.

I'm antipsych but I'm not here to discuss the validity of personality disorder diagnoses. I'm actually ceding ground here and for the sake of this conversation just briefly accepting that framework of understanding of trauma survivors.

Ceding that ground; please stop calling every horrible person a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath, and so on. Evil doesn't lie in some intrinsic Brain Wired Wrong condition, that's such an apocalyptic and stigmatizing view of humanity, one that absolves many of the people who cause the kind of harm being addressed here. Evil and harm are choices.

[nkjemisin]

To the person who asked about the immorality of my fiction --

I'm replying publicly so other folks can see my answer, but doing it this way to keep your name out of it. You asked, "Hey, is it true you write incest and child rape and fucked up sex? Why, my dude? You're a good writer, you don't have to do that immoral stuff!"

Yep, it's true, I do write about lots of uncomfy-making stuff in my fiction! I tend to write about topics like systemic oppression, identity, sexuality, generational trauma, abuse, power dynamics, and more, just because those are the directions my writer-brain takes me. Exploring those topics in a way that does them justice sometimes requires that I actually depict the "immoral"* things happening, explicitly or implicitly, and sometimes in harrowing ways. If I do my job right, then readers will empathize with the character(s) experiencing this bad thing, and maybe think more about the topic. If I screw it up, and I do sometimes, then people who've actually been through this in real life will feel like I've trivialized something important and intrinsic to their lived experience. So when it becomes necessary for me to write about these topics, I try to do them justice and not tapdance around the gory details, because I'm a good writer and that's what being a good writer means, to me.

That said, you're asking about morality**, which has nothing to do with being a good writer. There are lots of excellent writers in the world who aren't good people, as you've probably noticed. Maybe you've decided that I'm not a good person either; okay, if so. But writer or not, you cannot become a good person by pretending evil doesn't exist. Evil looooves silence. If you want to fix that evil, you have to talk about it, honestly and uncomfortably, and you have to make sure that everyone gets to participate in that conversation -- especially the people who are most harmed by that evil. Even bad fiction about these topics creates more space for those people to participate in the conversation. Without that space, the people controlling the conversation will inevitably be those with the most social power. That's going to be the rapists, the racists, the rich people who hate poor people, and so on, because the most immoral acts in our society pretty much boil down to abuse of power.

For me, it's simple: I think it's far more immoral to avoid Topic X and thus allow it to flourish, than it is to address the topic in a way that hopefully facilitates justice. So the latter is what I do.

*Scare quotes here because I don't know what "fucked up sex" is supposed to mean. If it's between consenting adults, it's not fucked up. If there's no consent or adults involved, it's rape.

**I do consider some speech immoral -- namely that which facilitates abuses of power, like hate speech and copaganda. But I could write a whole essay on this, and I got stuff to do today.

[muchanmocha]

According to the information released about the segyein, Guardian Shine respects Mizi's choice in whether or not she wants to participate in Alien Stage. Looking at this tidbit again, new questions popped up for me. More specifically — one question.

Why didn't Sua convince Mizi not to participate?

Alright let's back up a bit.

What do we know about Alien Stage and its relationship with the Anakt Garden kids?

From the magazine interview and old stream commentary, we know they've been brainwashed from childhood to believe participation in Alien Stage is an honor. They're fully aware that losing means death, but that itself is taught to be yet another privilege.

Mizi vs Sua, Ivan, and Till

It's generally accepted that among our cast, Mizi is the most sheltered one — the one shielded the most from the horrific side of the post-alien apocalypse world, whereas due to the abuse from their respective guardians, Sua, Ivan, and Till do not have such a rosy outlook.

Sua and Ivan in particular appear to be jaded and much more in tune with their place in this system. So if they didn't buy into the propaganda, if they were fully aware of the implications of death and the worthlessness of receiving such an "honor" on stage, why didn't they convince Mizi to step out of it?

Ivan's reason is easy — simply, why would he?

But Sua? Why... wouldn't she? Surely she would want Mizi to avoid Alien Stage at all costs, when she is not as naive as to believe they'd be able to tie all the way to the finals?

Let's take another look at Sua's interview responses.

Sua and Mizi both share a dream, and in a world as small and enclosed as theirs, that dream is enough to be their everything.

Mizi may have had a chance to opt out of AS, but Sua doesn't. Her guardian, Nigeh, has always intended for her to participate, going as far as to build up her fanbase before Season 50 even started to tip the odds in favor of her victory. Sua has been prepared her whole life for Alien Stage, whether it ends in her victory, or her death.

She goes in knowing her life will likely end there.

Perhaps it was to indulge in the one selfishness of her short life — in the dream she and Mizi cherished above all.

Perhaps it was because she has absolute, unshakable confidence in Mizi taking the throne of Season 50 for herself.

Perhaps it was because a small part of her believed in Mizi's optimism — that they really can make it to the top together.

I think all of these possibilities are valid interpretations of what may have gone on inside Sua.

But here's a thought —

Sua, like Mizi, was unfamiliar with the true nature of death.

Sua's loss was Mizi's first, intimate encounter with death. Death was supposed to be a glorious thing, a blessed thing on Alien Stage.

It is not.

It's gruesome, and ugly, and she can still feel the hot blood splatter on her.

Anakt Garden is toted as a kindergarten that can provide your pet-humans with the perfect environment to thrive, looking after your pet-human's health not only physically, but psychologically!

Sua, like Mizi, has been raised in such a curated environment. Even under Nigeh's care, she was simply one of many dolled up pet-humans. Whether she was taking lessons in Anakt Garden, or left to sit in the corner in her ill-fitting doll outfit, we have not seen any opportunities for Sua to come in contact with "death." (Ivan, on the other hand, came from the slums. He may be the only one of the four who was intimately acquainted with death.)

Hence, I propose — Mizi was not the only one who went in without actually grasping the concept. Perhaps Sua too, while having an inkling of what's to come, did not truly understand what death entails either.

(But yeah possibility number 1263 why Sua didn't tell Mizi not to do the murder survival show)

[wheelie-sick]

so, just spouting some anti psychiatry thoughts

a good psychiatrist does not negate that psychiatry as an industry and a system is inherently abusive

I would say I have a good psychiatrist- I have never been institutionalized against my will (even when standards would suggest it) I have never been forced on medications I did not want to take and I have not had my mental illnesses or the effects of the medicalized (my psychiatrist recognizes that these exist in a societal context and only manages what I want managed and what I see as a problem)

I would say that all of these things make my psychiatrist one of the better psychiatrists

and yet the system forces him to be a bad psychiatrist. the system forces his hand on things like institutionalization, refusing to participate in the abusive system could get his license revoked. there is no denying that despite the fact that he has avoided institutionalizing me in situations where other people would he has without a doubt institutionalized other people because his job requires him to do so. he has fallen victim to the pharmaceutical industry and its abuses against mentally ill people (and no, I'm not anti-medication, I am on 6 to manage my mental illnesses. I just recognize that the pharmaceutical industry is rife with abuse) because he has no power to exist outside of a system that seeks to profit off of and control the lives of mentally ill people. he is forced to give into the therapy system as well, referring people to providers that proceed to abuse (and rarely help) their patients whether he knows this or not.

and that makes him a bad psychiatrist. because the system is bad, all people within that system are bad. you either give into the system and become a bad psychiatrist through harming your patients or you defy the system and become a bad psychiatrist by breaking the rules. either way the result is the same- bad psychiatrist. I'd also argue that to some extent if someone truly was a psychiatrist without harm they wouldn't be a psychiatrist at all because the abuse is present in all aspects of the job.

and while I do not believe my psychiatrist ever meant to do me harm the system he exists within has undeniably harmed me. I have been shuffled through 4 different therapists who all failed to help me and, for 3 of them, made me worse. I will never forget my last therapist who held institutionalization over my head to force me to share information I was uncomfortable sharing. I was referred to these therapists by my psychiatrist. my psychiatrist might have no interest in institutionalizing me but if that therapist had reported that I was imminently suicidal or vaguely "a danger to myself" (regardless of whether it was true or not) it would have forced my psychiatrist's hand in the matter.

and I want to make it clear that the damage of psychiatry as an institution goes so much deeper than this, this post is a surface level view of it and surface level examples.

there are no good psychiatrists in a bad system

[radradmarivy]

Women cannot trust any men, never. Not even the ones who they are married to nor the father of their children. I just saw an article of an elderly french man, Dominique Pelicot, who drugged his wife into a state of coma for 10 years and offered her to almost 80 men so she would be repeatedly raped by them over and over while he filmed it all.

This woman was his wife, the Mother of his three children and he did not gave a shit before offering her to other men on a special app for men who especifically were searching to have sex with non consenting partners. He gave her more than 400 sleeping pills, he could've killed her and did not give a fuck.

He just admitted it outright as soon as he was caught and he was only caught because he was seen taking upskirt pictures in the mall which led to an investigation. Not only that, he is now accused of the rape and murder of a female state agent and the attack of another state agent that could escape and the dna seems to match to his.

Almost 80 men were contacted for ten years. 80. From ages 23 to 73, nurses, a local councillor, a prison guard, journalists, a soldier, a firefighter, a civil servant and only 50 were identified. They all knew what was happening, they had a system to make sure the poor woman couldn't tell what was going on and now they claim that Dominique "tricked" them.

From all the men Dominique contacted only Three refused to participate but still didn't do anything even though they knew about the crime.

We can't trust no men, none of them. Look at all the "nice normal men" That participated in such an abhorrent act that now pretend to have been tricked into despite the apps/forums being proof they KNEW what was going on. These men used their upstanding profiles in the community to commit a crime constantly for ten years without being suspected and will probably try to use it to escape punishment.

We have to send all our strength to Giselle, the victim, who not only is taking all of them to justice but who also doesn't want the trial to be on closed Doors. She wants everybody to know what happened to her to create consciense, to make sure the perpetrator's faces are known. She is so strong and her and her children deserve the world.

[jewishvitya]

Tal Mitnick, an 18 years old Israeli that refused to serve in the military:

It's not just a couple of soldiers that are bad soldiers or that enact violent occupation on Palestinians, it's actually a whole system of violence. Of pulling people into the army and making them work for the occupation and for oppressing Palestinians.

Militarism in Israel is very entrenched in society. And the military is some golden goose that you're not allowed to touch. You're allowed to criticize the government, you're allowed to go out for gay rights, for women's rights. But when it comes to criticizing military action against Palestinians or other oppressed communities, this is totally out of the norm. You cannot speak against the military because it's so entrenched in society.

A lot of conversations start with the military, and because most people did serve, it's seen as this kind of thing that everyone needs to pass in order to become an Israeli.

So. Yeah. When you're older you don't feel ostracized as much because after a while it's less relevant to daily life. At least in my experience, I didn't serve and it's not really talked about much at this point.

In Jewish Israeli society, the military is trusted more than most other institutions. Tbh, more than any other institution I can think of. And it's seen as a right of passage. Some people will be okay with you if you volunteer for a social service instead - work at hospitals, schools, etc. Others think you shouldn't get the choice, and unless there's a medical issue you should be going to the military.

The narrative of self defense is absolutely believed, so by refusing to serve, those kids are seen as saying "I will enjoy the sacrifice made by others, but I will not contribute myself." It's seen as ungrateful. But that's if you don't express a moral objection to the military.

If you challenge the military itself, you're challenging Israeli society. And that's how it's taken. "I refuse to participate in the occupation" - "So you're saying I did something bad by serving. You're saying I'm a bad person." And when most of Israelis served in the military, and those that didn't serve often still support it or have loved ones that did or still do, this is challenging the moral character of pretty much all of us. Which, it should.

The military nurtures a mindset of dehumanization to a scary degree. I listened to a few interviews with stories from Breaking the Silence, an organization meant to bring to light the way the military abuses Palestinians, and there's something described by Yehuda Shaul.

He tells the story of serving in Hebron, in the West Bank, and he describes the daily stated mission of soldiers there.

While on patrol at night, they pick a random Palestinian house - explicitly one that they have no intelligence against, a civilian family - and they get in, wake the family up, separate men from women, search or something, get on the roof, jump to the next roof, get into that house, wake that family up, treat them the same way.

Again, at random. And he described two goals for this:

One, to create the feeling of being persecuted, and two, to make our presence felt.

They want Palestinians to feel beaten down and powerless, and they want them to feel that the military is everywhere, so they're too scared to resist.

This isn't random rogue soldiers, this is what the military does there on a normal day. And he said it's impossible to treat a population this way without seeing them as less human than we are.

I don't know if I can just say that the military is another tool for indoctrination in addition to everything else it does. But as a kid, I had a left-leaning friend from the Tel Aviv area, and we'd argue a lot. Because you don't need to be a full on leftist to disagree very strongly with a teenage settler. And as I was going through the process of changing my mind, I saw him going through the same process in the opposite direction - he became way more right wing during his military service. He told me the stories of why, and all those stories did was make me feel like I don't even know this person. I wonder sometimes how many young people go through the same.

[violetasteracademic]

On Disrupting the Status Quo: The Archeron Sisters

First of all, I want to thank everyone so much for the love on my previous post! I genuinely thought I was sending a Vassien Hero's Journey dissertation out into the void and not a soul alive would read it. I am thrilled and delighted to have been met with such welcome in this space!

I'll keep this next one short and sweet, (retcon- I did not keep it short and sweet) but one of my additional favorite topics to break down regarding the structure of the Archeron sister's and their journey's is a disruption of the status quo to the world at large. Through their stories of healing, love, and coming into their power, both Feyre and Nesta have tackled a system of patriarchy within Prythian/Illirya and improved conditions for females in a way no one has been able to do before the arrival of the Made Sisters. I truly hope Elain gets her chance to do the same!

Feyre at the beginning of her Hero's Journey: There are no High Ladies. Only males have the power to oversee a court. Feyre, not only through her relationship with Rhys but through her own healing journey and establishing her power, takes his side as an equal. She is High Lady. Feyre showed that females can be more. They do not simply have to sit by the side with no titles or agency and let males fight over who gets to keep them as Lady of their court. They can be equal in power. Even Tarquin, who has his own plans to disrupt power imbalances, was surprised.

And of course, my hope is we got some foreshadowing for more High Ladies to step up with Viviane. She single handedly held the Winter Court together during those harrowing years Under the Mountain, both as a warrior and a leader.

Moving on to Nesta, her Hero's Journey led her to solve a problem that her mate and the High Lord of the Night Court hadn't been able to solve for HUNDREDS of years- getting females training.

More than that, she and Gwyn and Emerie became not only the first females to ever participate in the Blood Rite, but they also won.

By coming into her power and going down her path to accept her life as Fae and heal, The Valkyrie's have been restored and females of any heritage now have a safe space to train without the leering contempt of Devlon and the Illyrians. I certainly hope Illyria continues to progress, but this is a huge start. And it is all because of Nesta and her choice to lean into who she would be in this new life now that she had chosen to face it.

Aaaaand I'm crying. Please hold.

Now we move onto Elain. And this is my question- if Elain is *not* going to disrupt the status quo by challenging the mating bond, by pushing against the expectations of her court to satisfy political conflicts and taking away her agency in who she wants to love, then who is going to do it? And what is going to be done for the females of Prythian who are unhappily mated? What is going to be done for Lady Autumn, for females like Rhy's mother, for all who *tried* to make it work because females have little to no choice in who they are paired with?

*Someone* is going to tell this story. And in doing so, they will not only be making the best choice for themselves, but they are going to challenge the very foundation of another way females are kept in submission like Feyre and Nesta did. They are going to demand that no one else goes through what Feyre did-giving Tamlin the right to wage a war simply by putting a ring on her finger then deciding not to go through with the wedding and leaving him by choice. Someone is going to ask why anyone had the right to sell Lady Autumn into a lifetime of abuse. Why Morrigan was allowed to be sold as a commodity. Someone is going to remember what it felt like to lose their fiancé because the mating bond meant they "belonged" to someone they didn't even know.

Someone is going to say no more. No more of females being political pawns, being objects to be sold and traded, to having their choices stripped and lives controlled over a system that is widely accepted as deeply flawed and not entirely understood.

This story will be told. And if it is not told by Elain Archeron, then I simply ask, who will?

The Archeron sisters are not maintaners.

They are disruptors.

[xjulixred45x]

Do you know something that honestly bothers me? that when they want to make retellings of Greek stories, they almost always go for the figures that really do not deserve their own story.

I KNOW IT SOUNDS BAD, BUT LISTEN.

Circe, for example, from this woman (who turned out to be quite controversial) Madeline, they try to sell you Circe's story as a "feminist" retelling and normally there would be nothing wrong with that.

The issue is that Circe (in the myths and from what I understand in the book) is not at all feminist.

I mean, she is a morally gray woman, I respect that, but is it really a good idea to use as an example of a "feminist" a woman who 1- killed a man who did not want to be unfaithful to his wife with her, 2- converted an innocent nymph in a MONSTER (Scylla) only for an unrequited love (again) and 3- in Telogony, after Odysseus dies (her supposed "lover" who in some versión she ENCHANTED, at the hands of the son they had together) she marries HIS ANOTHER SON.

Since when did a woman who tramples on men or hurts other women for her own benefit become a "feminist" or "girlboss"??

WITH SO MANY OTHER POSSIBLE SCENARIOS TO MAKE RETELINGS OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND THEY DECIDE TO GO FOR CIRCE?

"BUT JUlIx WHAT ANOTHER EXAMPLE DO YOU WANT THEM TO USE?? Circe is SUPER KNOWN, OBVIOUSLY it's easier to go for her"

other examples? let's see:

MEDUSA (old classic, a great allegory that still works today about how SA victims are re-victimized and blamed by the people who should be protecting them/they don't get justice because their attacker is more "relevant" and powerful than them). (Even if it's the Roman versión, You can't Say that a myth that reflects the reality of THOUSANDS of women and give streng to the víctims its not "feminist")

PENTHESILEA(Amazon queen who fought in the Trojan War, which she attended because she was depressed after having accidentally killed her sisters, but she did not leave without killing dozens of Trojans and fighting with Achilles himself. IMAGINE A BOOK ABOUT HER) .

THE AMAZONS IN GENERAL (Tribes of warlike women, daughters of Ares, whom he loved very much, who had a matriarchal system that existed without men, without competition, with a great sense of sisterhood and who participated in many velic encounters in mythology) .

HERMIONE OF SPARTA AND ANDROMACHA (the daughter of Helen of Troy and Menelaus and the wife of Hector of Troy respectively. Both were married against their wills to Neoptolemus, the son of Achilles, who was abusive (quite graphically) and they hated him. Imagine a story where the two become friends and team up to kill Neo, Hermione takes control of Sparta and Andromache is her second in command).

ATALANTA (The only woman of the Argonauts who, when the magical boar of Calidon appeared, was the one who managed to hurt him first and kept the home trophy (but FOR SOME REASON later there are myths that kill her in the stupidest way possible, thanks Aphrodite) )

In conclusion, let's give the spotlight to Greek women who genuinely deserve to be known about them❤️ (without trowing Hate to Circe, she DESERVES TO BE KNOWN, but not as a feminist story).

________

(ESPAÑOL)

¿saben algo que sinceramente me molesta? que cuando se quieren jacer retelings de las historias griegas, casi siempre van por las figuras que realmente no se merecen una historia propia.

SE QUE SUENA MAL, PERO ESCUCHEN.

Circe, por ejemplo, de esta mujer(que resulto ser bastante polemica) Madeline, tratan de venderte la historia de Circe como un reteling "feminista" y eso normalmente no tendria nada de malo.

el tema es que Circe(en los mitos y por lo que tengo entendido en el libro) no tiene nada de feminista.

digo, es una mujer moralmente gris, eso lo respeto, pero ¿realmente es buena idea usar de ejemplo de "feminista" a una mujer que 1- mato a un hombre que no queria serle infiel a su esposa con ella, 2- convirtio a una ninfa inocente en un MONSTRUO(escilla) solo por un amor no correspondido (otra vez) y 3- en Telogony, después de que Odiseo muere(su supuesto "enamorado", a manos del hijo que tuvieron juntos) ella se casa CON SU OTRO HIJO.

¿¿desde cuando una mujer que pisotea a los hombres o hace daño a otras mujeres por beneficio propio paso a ser "feminista" o "girlboss"??

CON TANTOS OTROS POSIBLES ESCENARIOS PARA HACER RETELINGS DE LA MITOLOGÍA GRIEGA Y DECIDEN IR POR CIRCE?

"PeRo jUlIx ¿¿QuE oTrO eJeMpLo QuIeReS qUe UsEn?? Circe Es sUpEr cOnOcIdA, OBVIamente es mas facil ir por ella"

¿otros ejemplos? veamos:

MEDUSA(viejo clasico, una gran alegoria que sigue funcionando hasta hoy sobre como las victimas de SA son re-victimizadas y culpadas por la gente que deberia protegerlas/no obtienen justicia porque su agresor es mas "relevante" y poderoso que ellas).

PENTESILEA (Reina amazona que peleo en la guerra de Troya, a la cual asistio por estar deprimida al haber matado accidentalmente a sus hermanas, pero no se fue sin matar a decenas de troyanos y pelear con el propio Aquiles. IMAGÍNENSE UN LIBRO SOBRE ELLA).

LAS AMAZONAS EN GENERAL (Tribus de mujeres guerraras hijas de Ares, a las cuales el amaba mucho, que tenian un sistema matriarcal que existia sin hombres, sin competencia, con un gran sentido de hermandad y que participaron en muchos encuentros velicos en la mitología).

HERMÍONE DE ESPARTA Y ANDROMACA(la hija de Helena de Troya y Menelao y la esposa ee Hector de troya respectivamente. ambas se casaron en contra de sus voluntades con Neoptolemo, el hijo de Aquiles, que era abusivo(bastante gráficamente) y lo odiaban. imaginense una historia donde ambas se hacen amigas y se alian para matar a Neo, Hermíone toma el control de Esparta y Andromaca es su segunda al mando).

ATALANTA(La unica mujer de los argonautas que cuando aparecio el jabali magico de calidon fue quien logro lastimarlo primero y se quedo con el trofeo de casa(pero POR ALGUNA RAZON después hay mitos que la matan de la forma mas estupida posible, gracias Afrodita))

en conclusión, demosle el reflector a mujeres griegas que genuinamente merecen que se sepa de ellas❤️(sin titarle Hate a Circe, MERECE SER CONOCIDA, pero no como historia feminista).

[fernstream]

"By 1980 we felt as feminists that it was important to look at our specific oppressions and articulate them. But our attempts to recognise different oppressions very quickly developed into a hierarchy of oppression. We moved away from looking at the complexity of women's lives to a points-count system, where the oppressions were added up. She with the greatest or most oppression was right - about whatever topic was being discussed. It happened first in London. A friend wrote to me about a meeting she had attended where one discussion was settled when a woman said 'Speaking as an Irish woman I think X'. Her opponent in this discussion had replied 'speaking as an incest survivor, I think Y* Naturally, Y was the course of action decided upon. My friend commented, 'The sad thing is that the Irish woman is also an incest survivor, but she is not ready to acknowledge that in public - if she had, she would have won the argument.? The points-count system developed further after a conference on Child Sexual Abuse in 1985. Numbers were limited, the conference was full, and some (white) women were turned away. Then a group of black women arrived and insisted white women leave so they could participate. From then on places were left at conferences for black or other additionally oppressed women. The reservation of places later extended to social events. [...] Then there was the other side of the coin. At the Lesbian Summer School in 1988, I disagreed with a black woman and a white woman in a debate on pornography. A socialist-feminist journal reporting on the conference mentioned me by name, and accused me of racism as I had argued with a black woman and an Irish woman. This was what was liable to happen if a woman did not at once concede she was wrong, and the woman with more oppression was right. This pressure resulted in a great deal of silencing. How then to articulate your views in this climate? Clearly, you had to have an identity to speak from. You had to be able to say 'Speaking as a ..? to even enter a debate. What had been part of your oppression became your identity. [...] The effect of Identity Politics has been to stifle debate. Debate still goes on in academia -- there the name of the game is debate. For these of us outside, debate has more or less ceased. Identity Politics finished off most of our newsletters. Identity Politics inhibited discussion at conferences until many of us ceased going to them, and finally no one was willing to organize any. Without debate the [Women's Liberation Movement] cannot function."

-- Sandra McNeill, "Identity Politics," in All the Rage: Reasserting Radical Lesbian Feminism, 1996

[thrashkink-coven]

someone asked if I live with my parents, in regards to how I have such a large altar, and how they might feel ab it. I was working on a long post ab it but then it vanished into the stratosphere so idk what that was ab or where it went.

But to answer the question, making an incredibly long story short, I do not live with my parents, I live with my partner and a couple roommates.

Tea time :) ☕️ Hot piping tea time besties!!! 🤩

My mom used to be somewhat accepting of my transition and identity. She helped me in the medical care system and even got me testosterone (although she always seemed a bit iffy). However after she met her current partner that all fell apart. He is extremely, and I mean EXTREMELY Christian and extremely controlling. This man burned my bfs hoodie because it had a sigil on it. He red faced SCREAMED (and I mean SCREAMED) in my face that I was going to hell for being trans, that I was disgusting and that he didn’t want me anywhere near his kids. After which, my ✨mother✨ blamed me for pushing his buttons too much (by being trans) and told me she would no longer support my transition. She told me that she would rather burry me in the ground in the event that I lost my life to suicide than deal with having a trans kid. I will never forget that.

That was during the first lockdown at the height of the pandemic, so I was trapped in that house and it was torture. When I say that man is extremely Christian and conservative, I mean it. He forced me and his kids to watch religious videos every Saturday, which were basically just dudes screaming at you that you’ll go to hell if you sin over stock footage of clouds. He would try to guilt trip me for not wanting to participate. (Not to mention he contributed very heavily to my eating disorder by trying to force us all to be vegan and taking away all of my safe foods, despite cooking steaks for himself every night. If I could use one word to describe that man it would be “Hypocrite”. I was constantly anxious and starving, holy shit I could write an entire book about how terrible living in that house with that man was and how betrayed I felt by my mom for putting me through that)

The last straw for my mom was when I expressed to my gender therapists that I really want and need top surgery. She acted like I was springing it on her out of nowhere despite us having conversations about it since I was 14. She told me that I would not be recovering from that surgery under her roof and that it would upset her partner too much. Soon she started making little comments about how disgusted she was in the changes testosterone was giving me, how my voice was getting deeper and how I was gaining muscle, and I became terrified that she would try to force me to detransition.

For me, the final straw was after me and my mom had an argument about money (she took it from my bank account without asking and got mad when I asked for it back) as punishment she decided that I would start having to pay rent for my room in the house. I told her that I would not be paying to live somewhere where I cannot feel safe being myself or bringing my partner around. She told me to either get over it or pay up.

As soon as I turned 18 I started looking into programs in my school that help young queer people who are facing potential homelessness find housing. My mother never explicitly kicked me out (she’ll still say that to this day) but she made it impossible for me to stay. I do believe that her partner was actively trying to systematically get me and my older brother out of the house so he could further isolate my mom. He was the one that told my mom that I was manipulating her into “letting me be trans” by pretending to be suicidal. Yeah. Seriously. And to be honest, it’s fucked up and sad but I also see my mom as a victim due to some other things I won’t mention here (when I say controlling I mean CONTROLLING) But the abuse she went through does not justify her role as my abuser. As much empathy and understanding I have as to why she acted the way she did, I still don’t accept that behaviour. Constantly hearing about how you’re an abomination and how God will surely destroy you starts to take a toll after a while, especially when you’re not allowed to leave the house.

Through my efforts I landed a job but I still didn’t have enough money for even the smallest bachelor pads.

One night after having an extreme meltdown I just… ran away. I went to my bfs house because I didn’t know where else to go, but I was fully prepared to walk to a homeless shelter. I am so incredibly lucky that he and his mother are amazing and understanding people because they embraced me with open arms. They gave me a place to stay and never pressed me about money. I have never gone back to my mother’s house since. If it wasn’t for them I would not be alive right now. They genuinely saved my life and I am forever grateful to them for that.

After my bf and I finally got our own place after living with his parents for nearly 2 years , my mom decided that time passed is equivalent to an apology, and wanted to rekindle our relationship. However, after she tried to visit my place and was met by my roommates who are also all trans, things didn’t go her way. She kept asking for my dead name and misgendering me. My roommates stood up for me and told her that she should stop misgendering me and have some respect, that they didn’t know anyone by that name, and that it’s not cool for her to still be calling me that.

My mom gave me a very angry phone call, telling me that my friends are disrespectful and that they should know that she’s the only person allowed to disrespect me because she gave birth to me. Unfortunately for her that is not the case.

My response to that was this:

and her response was this:

So it was what it was. She tried to withhold my phone plan from me as punishment because it was the only thing left that I relied on her for anymore. I said fuck it, got a new phone plan and continued on with my life.

I’ve tried to have conversations with her to reach an understanding hundreds of times in the past, countless letters and one sided conversations, she was never interested. It is what it is. We haven’t really spoken since then and I’m content with that. Believe me, I have said all I could possibly say.

In terms of my paganism, my whole family subscribed to a certain genre of black conservative Christianity that sees all indigenous forms of spirituality as evil. I don’t know how much they know about my craft but I know they hate it, and that’s fine. My mom hates my dark art and wanted me to use my ✨talents✨ to make Christian art. The only person in my family who even somewhat understands me is my older brother and we have a good relationship. I am no longer concerned with trying to please people who don’t see me as a person. Those who are real will stick around, and those who won’t, wont.

I know that they probably think I’m lost and broken and using demons to fill the void, and they can think that. One thing I want to make incredibly clear is that I do not harbour resentment towards the Christian God, Christianity or Jesus Christ for the terrible actions of his followers. I came to peace with and forgave him long ago. I love him. My being a Luciferian is not revenge against my mom or God. That God has always been there for me and supported me for who I am through all of this, and he still does.

Since I was a child I’ve always been told that I don’t know who I am, that I can’t think or speak for myself, and since I was a child I have always remained 10 toes down on who I am. They won’t believe that I’m really trans until the day I die, they won’t believe that I lived a beautiful and fulfilling life as a devotee of Lucifer because they cannot fathom that I know and love myself. Oh well, they say success is the best revenge.

I love my family and I always will, but for their comfort and my safety I keep my distance from them. I’m pretty damn sure they wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me anyways with all their paranoia about the devil.

Funnily enough Lucifer has been excellent bigot repellent for me. He’s always protecting me from people who would hate me anyways. If my paganism is such an abomination that it prevents my past abusers from hurting me more, then that’s a bonus in my eyes. Stay the fuck away from me if it bothers you so much, we don’t have enough in common to have a productive conversation anyways. If ever my mother came to me honestly and sought true redemption, I would certainly forgive her, I don’t enjoy being estranged. But that would take effort and care on her part, and that simply does not seem to be her biggest priority right now, it never was and I never was. It izz what it izz 🤷‍♂️

So yeah, tldr, I definitely don’t live with my parents lol.