This is going to fucking suck but I will not do my enemies’ work for them. I will not just roll over and fucking die.

We’re going into an era that demands intelligence and courage and compassion. Bring all three to the table when you engage with your community, and DO engage with your community. It’s past time to take off the kid gloves when it comes to protecting our most vulnerable members, and people on here tend to be the sort that are willing to do that. Be tactical and safe in your efforts going forward, and stand with imperfect allies even when you’d rather not. If someone isn’t as far left as you’d like, still watch their back and buy time for them to do the same for you — leftist infighting has cost us so goddamn much already.

Intelligence. Courage. Compassion.

If you aren't sure you can bring enough intelligence or enough courage to the table, then focus on bringing compassion; it's the least intimidating of the three skills to build up, and EVERYONE benefits from expressions of it.

And while you're contemplating compassion: there's no harm in being earnest or sincere, either. I know we're all Very Online and super into being Cool™ and ironic and whatnot, but—fuck it. The older I get, the more I realize that doesn't matter a damn bit. It's okay to be kind to people and mean it. It's okay to be compassionate and not worry that other people will think you're too much.

Care radically. Care wildly. We're going to need so much compassion, and the compassion you can give to the world is different than the compassion anyone else can.

(And if that sounds scary? Care a tiny little bit. Care on tiptoe. Because compassion isn't something you're born with—as @lynati said upthread, it's a skill you can build.)

I'm wondering if, as a society who cares about vulnerable people, we could stop saying "traumatize" when we truly mean "upset"?

I am sick of hearing sad books or movies "traumatize" their readers. I simply do not believe that happens. A traumatic experience might be adjacent to books (I have vivid memories of books I was reading around certain experiences and even how the contents of those books affected my processing of the experiences). But it's not caused by the book. And, y'know. The weather is Christofascist Censorship Attempts outside.

Meanwhile from the other side I continue to be surprised at just how badly people fail to understand trauma and traumatic experiences in general. Watering down the term isn't helping. Find other hyperbole to express that The Bridge to Terebithia gutted you, chewed on your heartstrings, and made you cry your first pair of contact lenses right out of your preteen eyes.

#meanwhile actual trauma is not always experienced as consciously upsetting! #people may act extremely chill while being traumatized! #only to then be judged by a peanut gallery on how they handled things

I added those tags as an afterthought but upon reflection I want them in the main body of the post too.

This post is taking off and I'm wondering if it may have been because of my tone, which was harsher than I truly like to be. Still,

mid-october walk in the park

ily, menswear guy

disabled people are worth whatever cost or resources is needed to keep them alive. disabled people are worth it even if they don't live long. they're worth it even if they will need extra support and resources for every day of their life. they're worth it even if they spend all they life indoors. none of it is wasted. none of it is in vain. time, effort, money, resources spent on a life are not wasted. these things have served their purpose. the joy of someone's existence is not undermined by not lasting forever. there's no meaningful point, some threshold where you can say "okay this is enough. after that it's not worth it." it's always worth it.

I'm taking a break from doing calendars this year - sorry about that! I've had a lot on and just ran out of time

[Paris] Monday [November 14, 1904] Sir I arrived last night and already would like to flee from all this telephoning, all this gossip, all these people pleased with themselves, all this smoke and nothingness. All of it contracts the Universe and the soul. We are not made to live with people we haven't wholeheartedly chosen. I isolate myself and engage with you while the fools [...]

— Excerpt from the correspondence of Anna de Noailles

#rip madame de noailles you wouldve hated the internet (x)

we have GOT to kill tiktok/twitter self-censorship i just witnessed a grown adult say the word “smex” out loud to our professor

my poor professor was SO confused that she asked them to repeat themselves and they went “you know, like, blank . . .” and kept just vaguely gesturing until she somehow connected the dots. i fucking hate art school

god i wish i was making the shit i witness at this place up. my life would be so much easier if i didn’t have to deal with my classmates seriously arguing about fandom discourse in the group project chat

the price you think you're paying by going to art school: tuition, supply costs, etc

the price you're actually paying by going to art school: having to put up with the most brain-rotting terminally online discourse imaginable in real life

I had someone argue with me that it was problematic for me to have watched Frozen with my niece because I was encouraging her to become an emotionally abuse codependent sibling. I'm a senior and I've had someone else doing their senior thesis ask, genuinely, if she was problematic for doing her thesis on domestic abuse, because sometimes domestic abuse effects rich white women and they're privileged, so therefore her doing it on that is racism apologism. I've had to sit there and watch people say "unalive", "SA", "PDF file", and my favorite, "marital relations" (it only happened once but it's really funny) to professors who look at them in total despair.

Hamlet didn't unalive himself, he killed himself. Our Crime Prevention class is discussing sexual assault and pedophiles. The implication of this paper we're reading in Intro To Africana Studies is not about white settlers marrying and having gentle loving monogamous funtimes with slaves, it's about rape.

I genuinely do not see how I'm supposed to take the people around me seriously. How am I supposed to believe you have incredible insights into something you can't bring yourself to say? How am I supposed to look over your rough draft and not cross out the euphemisms and write grown-up words?

And I DO NOT go to art school! I go to Montana State! I'm in redneck country - remember when redneck meant tough enough to at least say words?! Not anymore!

Do you know how stupid I feel that I couldn't figure out that "PDF File" was supposed to be censorship slang for "paedophile"

I should chime in and say that if this sort of thing pisses you off you *need* to be vocal about it. Because, short term and short-sighted, this is just people being overly sensitive about plain language and carrying online habits to real life which is “cringe” and “annoying” or whatever.

But long term, this type of shit is what contributes to erasure and historic inaccuracy in the first place. And its the same mentality that allows people to think that censorship, thought policing and book-banning is okay.

Please don’t let corporations and social media companies’ affinity for ad revenue and web sanitation condition you into thinking that plain honesty, communication and reality is something that can be sugar-coated and dressed up into something easier to swallow. This shit is much more dangerous than you think. If you are talking to someone in real life and you catch them talking like this, you NEED to remind them, “Hey this isnt TikTok. You can say exactly what you mean. What are you afraid of?”

Continue Reading.

This is why it is so incredibly important to look up credibility of scholarly authors (and writers of things in general). Not just what else they've written but their credentials—can you find what positions they've held, what universities or organizations they've worked in, etc.

Laura Irene

I was thinking earlier that I find autumn gardening a lot more soothing than spring or summer gardening. Fewer things happen, there's no urgency, you're no longer pressed by strict tomato schedules. In the spring I plant vegetables (daily maintenance, many opportunities for mistakes), in autumn I get rid of broom (there's no wrong way to kill broom) and plant trees (a finite task.) Trees have independent spirits, you plant them and do your best to put them in good conditions and then you're free; but carrots have needs. Vegetables need sisyphean amounts of weeding and watering—not too much but not too little—, I’ve got to check leaf colour to see if I'm doing something wrong (with tomatoes the answer is yes), they get mildewy, they get attacked by insects, they need protection from chickens (it's easier to protect a tree from deer than a courgette plant from hens) and frequent tiny haircuts and sponge baths like royal wives. Things can go wrong with baby trees too but they don't expect you to worry about them every day, they're doing their thing, you're doing your thing.

Also planting trees & the large-scale weeding I do in autumn can be done cleanly if I'm careful, but even with gloves I find it impossible to plant & weed a vegetable garden without getting my hands dirty. At some point or other you just have to touch dirt. When you choose to live a rural life everyone assumes you must enjoy touching dirt with your hands but I do not. It's not a texture thing or a germ thing, it’s just that having dirty hands places an obstacle between me and my books. I didn’t like to make sandcastles on the beach as a kid for this reason, I’ve always been reluctant to touch things that might cling to my skin, like soil or wet sand, because now there’s a wall of glass called rinse your hands between me and the book I carry on my person. This creates a nagging psychological discomfort.

I read a book by a woman gardener last spring in which she says she wouldn't even mind getting no harvest because she feels soothed by the very act of gardening, and I felt bad for gardening in a utilitarian, result-oriented way and not having attained her higher stage of soul development, but in autumn I get it. It's nice to clear an area of brambles and plant a tree and then sit down to read for a bit next to this quiet and friendly entity you planted that doesn't need anything from you in the immediate future. I could do this with no expectations. I have a very different relationship with my spring carrots but that's okay, I've decided I'm an autumn gardener and now that I'm in a category I feel secure.

How could you NOT fall in love with the glow of the moon and stars, the warmth of the sun, the ancient life within the trees, and the sweet melodies of the winds?

mutuals can always dm me but be warned i talk like your coworker who is trying too hard to get to know you and my response times are akin to the response times you might get if we were communicating by letter

Normalize this response

astonishing how good it can feel to get some chores done sometimes. you’ll be sitting there like damn i am some type of horrid little smeagol like creature who should be crushed to death. but then you do some laundry and you’re like wrow. im actually gods most fuckable soldier.