what you need to understand about recommending a show to me is that no matter how much we both know I'll like it, I can't watch it until the Neurodivergence Department in my brain approves it. I don't know when that will be, and I don't have any more control over it than you do.

enchanted-moura

I’ll represent you in court :)

supersavagephil

Isn’t it consensual when she gave him the photos when they were together 🔚

wheresmywig

From a lawyer: “The photos were consensual. But she did not consent to distribution “

ifuckwiththerainbows

He really thought he did something with that comment and his lil stank emoji at the end lol

brownbitchacho

Reblog to save a LIFE dat shit is not ok

diazeddies

for the ladies, and even gentlemen, who follow me and find themselves in this situation.

brokentoast420

Same goes for you Men. If your ex leaks photos of your dick or any videos you sent her, you can sue too. Yea, giving the photos with consent is Aight, but spreading them around and “exposing” Ain’t it chief

pussystigmata

im pro children having privacy but if you think parents should give kids unrestricted internet access...its not 1999. in 2022 thats legitimately neglectful. do you know how many kids are out here like. watching gore and porn. its not normal or healthy. its traumatic.

cyan-opinions

Using parental controls to block sites and seeing what websites your 13yo goes to- legit.

Using apps that monitor every text conversation your 17yo has with their friends- fucking invasive and creepy

bigdipperofthesea

Exactly what I tried to explain when my parents did that when I was 15. The spyware stuff they put on my computer kept note of my keystrokes and could screen record literally whenever without me knowing. They could also virtually take over my computer, without my consent, at any point, essentially doing surprise checks.

They never even told me they'd installed anything on my computer, I found it myself because I was a tech kid and my computer was acting slower than I'd expected it too. I deleted it ofc, but to this day I am told I was in the wrong for doing so.

Seriously, kids deserve to have privacy too, parents should not mini-traumatize their kids in the name of keeping them safe on the internet.

bossbot97

Parents should want to garner the trust and respect of the child such that the child wants to come to them with things that they are curious about or disturbed by, not forcefeed them fear and mistrust by finding anything they want to keep secret.

thesaltofcarthage

and honestly, explain why these things are off-limits.

“I don’t want you to watch pornography, because it shows adults doing adult things which you are too young to process. You don’t have the life experience for porn to make sense for you. Porn can also give you very unrealistic standards for how naked bodies should look and how people should treat each other, and behave, during sex. Porn is not inherently bad, but it’s for adults.”

“I don’t want you to watch extremely violent things because they will upset you. You don’t need to see those images. They are fake, nobody was really hurt, but if you surround yourself with violence, you will get used to violence, and that’s not good. You should be horrified by violence, not blow it off. And why would you want to entertain yourself by watching someone else suffer and die?” 

You know, treat your kids like they have the capacity to understand the rules, tell them that the rules are there to keep them from encountering and engaging with material that’s not appropriate for them because of their age, and they’ll be more likely to follow the rules. 

Be respectful. Kids are people too.

beaft

i hate job hunting more than anything else in the world

beaft

me: i'd like a job, please

the person who gives out the jobs (actually an oversized march hare sitting behind a desk, dictating to a crow that taps out the letters with its beak):

“If Employmente ye do seek, Attend this interview next week;

Four tasks you must perform for me, And once that's done, a further three.

Pass the test, and twelve days hence, You may receive your recompense.

But heed my warning: if you fail, We'll send you naught but a stock email.”

beaft

if you think about it, much of the advice for job interviews is very similar to the advice for dealing with the Fair Folk:

normal-horoscopes

I keep seeing people talk about the "oncoming cult boom" like we haven't been here for like three years.

normal-horoscopes

Here's a fun game:

Go onto incognito mode and start a fresh account ok the social media website of your choice. When it asks you about your interests, pick "health and wellness" and/or the religion of your choice and fill the rest in with whatever you like. See how long it takes the algorithm to give you straight up cult recruitment videos.

When I tried this on TikTok I got some in under 30 seconds.

owlet

this is important information but i also feel like a lot of people aren’t really able to identify cult-produced media on their own. here is a (non comprehensive) list of red flags for this:

mooonbride

It’s sad that toxic game culture is so prevalent cuz like. As someone who has ended up in random matches with kids before, I can attest to how fucking easy it is to reverse and un-teach shitty attitudes in kids.

Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.

I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.

The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:

A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.

B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.

tl;dr: The kids are alright. Adults are shit heads.

rain-wander

I cant agree with this post more

socialmediapeasant

I witnessed something similar with my younger brother (this was when he was In fifth grade so bear with me here) and his friends. The teacher assigned for them to build a somewhat accurate spanish mission in Minecraft because their school had gotten some iPads and she needed to assign them something other than a PowerPoint.

Now here’s the thing. Most of these boys, my brother included, have ADD/ADHD. About a week into the project all they had in their shared world was chaos. Somebody filled the place with tnt and lit it up. Holes everywhere. Whenever one would attempt to try and build something (mostly wood huts and not the actual project) it would be destroyed within minutes as the boys began to insult each other heavily and complain that the design was ugly.

I brought my own ipad with me and decided to sit with the boys while they continued their reign of terror. I joined the world and built a hallway out of brick at the very center of this war zone. Immediately one of them tried to destroy it under the impression that “it looks bad”.

“Well, what should I make it out of?”

“Diamond.”

The ten year old mind is a mystery to me…

Anyway, then I showed him some pictures similar to these:

I reasoned that it would be easier to sway this kid toward another pretty block than trying to get him to stick to the materials of the time, so I asked him if he would like to help me replace my brick design with quartz (eh, it’s white).

Bam! One of the ten year old anarchists is dutifully building me a glittering gem hallway for our insanely rich monks.

The other three are off somewhere still yelling at each other and setting off explosives, but we have something built. Much to my surprise the kid asked if he could build the church next because he “wanted to build the most important part”.

Here’s where I learned something important. I don’t have ADD or ADHD but as I said before my brother does. When he gets fixated on something, he’s really gets into it. Once a few minutes had passed and this kid already had four walls up I decided to grid up the entire mission. One gets the church, one gets the farm, etc.

After playing the game with them for an hour, I had a pretty good idea of where each kid should go.

Church kid, I found, was very particular about materials and shape(hence his hangup over the brick). I gave him free reign over the outer walls of the mission and showed him the reference pictures to get him started.

My brother liked the farms most (he was building dirt domes over the cows don’t ask me how I made this connection it just worked, okay), so he was in charge of building pens for the animals.

Another kid was, at first glance, very loud and bossy when it came to decorating (constantly said we were making chairs wrong). Turns out he likes interior design, like putting benches and beds in the little rooms, so his bossiness was just frustration with my brother’s artistic sense I guess.

Another was very good with placing trees and plants around the exterior (I guessed this because he covered the place in a ridiculous amount of trees and I asked him if he would like to know where they are supposed to go). He got to make a vineyard for us and organized how the crops should go.

So how did it turn out?

Actually very nice!!

So what did we learn? Kids actually like to play games and be praised for their creativity and intuition. If I had just told them to stop messing around rather than direct their attention to areas within their interests, they never would have gotten anything done.

After an hour of gaming they:

On the plus side, since we moved the game file to my device for safekeeping, I now have a cute little souvenir of the time I played Minecraft with four ten year olds.

cyberlesbiab

This is a really long post, but it’s super important. In games like Fortnite where you’ll find lots of kids, it’s important (if you can) to steer them away from toxicity. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve run into kids who talk like toxic adults and the act of just being nice to them completely turns them around.

dragon-in-a-fez

consider: teenagers aren’t apathetic about everything they’re just used to you shitting all over whatever they show excitement about

lunarcanine

Teen: *gets a job*

“I GOT THE JOB!”

Parents: Well, when I was your age, I already had 5 jobs and was supporting my family

opalescentdragon

Teen: *gets all A’s*

“I worked really hard!”

Parents: Well, of course you did, this is the expectation, not a celebration.

silver-tongues-blog

probably why so many teens take to social media where they can enthusiastically share their interests and achievements and get positive feedback that their parents never gave

moonlighteduniverse

A LITTLE LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

bisexual-boredom

This hit hard

rowark

I remember once, when I was in my early 20s, I was an afternoon supervisor at my job, and I worked with mostly teenagers, and the one day this one kid, who was like 15, was bored so I suggested he could clean out the fridge. He did and when he was done I said he did a good job.

After that, this kid was cleaning out the fridge at least once a week, and I was like, “why are you always cleaning the fridge?” Like, I didn’t mind, but it seemed odd. And he said, “one time I cleaned the fridge and you said I did a good job. I wanted to make you proud of me again.”

Literally, I changed the entire way I interacted with teenagers after that. I actually got a package of glitter stars and I would stick them on their nametags when they did a good job, and they loved it.

My manager had commented on how hard these kids work and I said, “they’re starved for positive feedback. They go to school all day then come to work all evening and no one appreciates it because it’s expected of them, but they’re still kids. They need positive feedback from adults in their lives.”

Like, everyone likes feeling appreciated. Everyone likes being complimented and having their efforts be noticed. Another coworker (who was a mother of teenage children), hated that I did this, and said they were too old to be rewarded with stickers, but like… it wasn’t about the stickers. The stickers were just a symbol that their effort was noticed and appreciated. I was just lucky that I learned this at a time when I was still young enough to remember what it was like to be a teenager. I was only 2 years out of highschool at that point and highschool is fucking hard. People forget this as they get older, but ask anyone and almost no one would ever want to go back and do it again, but they expect kids to suck it up because they’re young so they should be able to do school full time, plus homework, and work, and maintain a healthy social life, and sleep, and spend time with family, and do chores and help out at home, and worry about college and relationships and everything else, and then just get shit on all the time and treated like they’re lazy and entitled. And then they wonder why teenagers are apathetic.

zediina

For a german exam I had to argue against an article that was essentially „kids these days, they don’t care about anything and are constantly on their phones“ and really it was the easiest essay I‘ve ever written.

Teens don’t talk to adults bc adults only ask „so, how‘s school“ to then interrupt them two sentences in. And because they can’t engage in a conversation about buying houses and working in a bank. I would’ve loved to talk about philosophy and politics and history with family the way I did with friends and in class but because I was young no one took what I had to say seriously.

And no, teens aren’t always on their phone. They’re on their phone when they’re bored. You think I‘m on social media when I‘m with my friends? When I‘m talking about something I‘m interested in?

Maybe the reason kids are so distant and always on their phone during family parties and the like is because you‘re failing to engage and include them.

aromantic-goldfish

Whoop there it is

midwesternlikeope

When you respect kids, they really respond and learn from you. But if you treat kids like “theyre just a kid, what do they know??” then you’ll never find out.

imagitory

As a Disneyland Cast Member, I’ll add my own experience onto this –

Very frequently, when I first speak to a child while I’m at work, they’ll kind of withdraw and act uncomfortable and shy. Their parents will then rather frequently tell them to not be shy and try to coax them to talk to me – whenever that happens, I always, without fail, politely dissuade the parents from pressuring them.

“I’m a stranger,” I’ll tell the kid’s parents. “I don’t blame them for not talking to me – if they were anywhere else, they’d have the right idea, to not immediately trust me.”

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen that same kid – simply after hearing their initial reaction being validated, instead of reproached – immediately open up to me after that. I also cannot tell you how many times that child and I would go on to start a friggin’ marathon conversation, and I got to hear all about how great their day was or what their favorite Disney movies were or what rides they liked and didn’t like or how much they like a certain Disney character or song…all from me validating that initial feeling and showing genuine interest in what they had to say.

This isn’t just young children, either. I will always remember being positioned outside the Animation Academy one day and starting up a conversation with a young lady, perhaps 12 or 13, who joined the line with her father a full 25 minutes before the class was supposed to start. Now keep in mind, we do a drawing class every 30 minutes: there was no one else in line at that point, and no one else joined the girl and her father in line for a full fifteen minutes. So I could tell pretty quickly that this girl was very emotionally invested in getting a good spot for the drawing class: a conclusion all the more bolstered by the fact that she had a notebook under her arm. I asked her if she was an artist – she said yes, but seemed uncomfortable at the question, so I skipped even asking her if I could see her work, instead admitting that I myself wasn’t very good at art, but that I’m trying to get better and that I love the history of Disney animation. On the screens around us was video footage of different Disney concept art and animation reels, so I pointed one of them out (for Snow White) and asked if she knew the story behind the making of the movie. Upon confirming that she didn’t, I proceeded to get down on the floor so I could sit next to her and her father and dramatically tell the whole story of how “Uncle Walt” created the first full-length animated motion picture, even though everyone and their mother thought he was an idiot for even trying, and how the film ended up becoming the first Hollywood blockbuster. After the story was over, the girl’s father said that his daughter really wanted to be an animator when she grew up, and she finally felt comfortable enough to open her notebook and show me some of her artwork. It was wonderful! Every sketch had such character and you could tell how much work she put into it! And I could tell how much telling her that – and sharing that moment with her, where we got to connect over something we both really enjoyed – had meant. And after the class was over, she sought me out to show me what she and her father had drawn – and sure enough, hers was great! (Her father’s was too, really. XD)

People, kids and teens included, love sharing what they love and how they feel with others. You just have to give them the chance to show it.

moony-moons-world

A LITTLE LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK!

-~-

I feel like I am obliged to add one more thing: don’t ever think that the kids won���t feel your unspoken judgements cause they do!

I felt always like a ‘problem’ in my family, until I was about sixteen, I got this teacher who was litterally the first to tell I was worthy. He changed my life up till this day.

Also how do grown ups imagine how ‘we’ will ever learn to engage in conversations with adults properly if you don’t teach us?

manifestingdestiel

This post is

Everything

branchesofyggdrasil

I told one of my new coworkers (who is 26) that he was doing really well and that I was proud of him and his progress. I thought he was going to start crying for how quietly he said “really?”. 

Positive feedback makes the biggest difference to everything.

zarekarstudio

i’m extremely lucky that i’ve always gotten positive feedback and proper attention + engagement from my parents.

i can count on one hand the times i’ve gotten it from anyone else.

teenagers are so attached to their phones at school because it’s one of the only things we have all day that makes us feel vaguely alright

lazulimav

Zare why would you hide this nugget of glorious truth in the tags this is literally everything I want to say but couldn’t figure out words for it

alucardfucker

lego castle dragon

god i miss you so fucking much

astroknight

Her name is ogwen!

tha--snazzle

i’m in love with this post

goblinbutler

I’m in love with ogwen

penny-anna

if somebody is like, ‘excessively’ picky about food (and it’s not a deliberate dietary restriction like being vegan or paleo) then it’s almost certainly related to a disability or health condition. in fact I’d go as far as to say it’s 100% down to a disability or a health condition, even if they don’t know it themselves! 

Nobody is going to choose to be extra picky about what they eat just like, for shits & giggles bcos it’s 1) extraordinarily inconvenient and 2) very anxiety-inducing

penny-anna

self reblog to add: the reason some picky eaters gravitate towards processed food as their ‘safe’ foods isn’t because they just want to eat junk food all the time. it’s because processed foods are predictable - you go into a mcdonalds and order chicken nuggets, they will be the same as every other mcdonalds chicken nuggets you’ve ever had.

if you have sensory processing disorder or ARFID (or both!) even tiny variations in what you’re eating can be a Big Deal. the natural variety you get with homecooked and fresh foods that most people enjoy is stressful and unpleasant. even eating a different brand of processed food than you usually would is :S when it’s not a given they’ll be truly identical.

I see people act like someone who’s ‘safe’ food is e.g. bread and butter must have a legitimate issue whereas someone who’ll only eat mcdonalds chicken nuggets is clearly being obnoxious but that’s just… not true? what makes it a legitimate problem is how restricted the person’s diet is, not what foods they eat.

some-stars

sorry for the deep fried nature of this pic, i had a hard time finding a good copy (or a source). but this has stuck with me since i first saw it

1morey

Higher resolution image in case the other one is two small.

timemachineyeah

Imagine if we took the cop budget and turned it into a free ride service budget

timemachineyeah

Bringing this post back because I wanna talk about it more.

Read an article in the local paper submitted anonymously by a woman who got a DUI two years ago.

My first instinct was to hate her. Because I hate drinking and driving. Viscerally. Anyone who knows me knows how intense I can be about impaired driving of all kinds (drunk, high, tired). It’s not worth it. It gets people killed. I lost a good friend to a drunk driver. Don’t ever. I’ve gotten in fights with people! I have stolen keys!

“Don’t ever” was, in fact, the point of her writing it. But not because of the danger posed to others. Because of how much a single DUI had ruined her life for two straight years. This also didn’t garner much sympathy from me, because obviously the REAL reason not to drink and drive is because you could kill someone. What do I care if someone irresponsible is inconvenienced?

Anyway, this woman was pulled over after leaving a bar where she had two beers to drive a few blocks to her friend’s place. This didn’t really make me more sympathetic because I’m a hardass when it comes to drinking and driving, but she wasn’t pulled over for any kind of impaired driving. She was driving perfectly. It was clearly the kind of stop that happens late at night when the cops are just fishing. The cop made up something about her stickers being placed wrong or a faulty light, before making her take the normal physical impairment tests (as someone with dyspraxia these scare the shit out of me, but that’s neither here nor there) which she passed just fine. In fact, her driving was perfect, her reactions were perfect. But then came the breathalyzer. And her blood alcohol was just too high.

She got arrested.

And the rest of article was her detailing her attempts since to try to get her license back.

The for profit companies she had to take classes from, the for profit companies who make you pay to install the breathalyzer in your car, how if you are able to plead poverty to get aid for that installation you also have to commit to going once a month to a for profit company that will calibrate your discounted breathalyzer and how if you don’t go your car will get remotely bricked and how the pandemic interrupted the hours of these places without notice meaning her car needed to be towed when she missed an appointment after the place was closed when she expected it to be open, how this added to her sentence, how she lost her insurance.

As I read this, I thought, sure, about how much I hate drunk driving. About my knee-jerk, visceral lack of sympathy. And I asked myself:

Does any of this actually make me feel safer?

And it doesn’t. It doesn’t make me feel any safer at all. This woman was writing this article to say “Don’t drink and drive. Not even once. It’s not worth it.” But what I got from it was, these punitive measures aren’t preventing people from drinking and driving. They’re just… giving cops and for-profits fun new ways to mistreat and exploit normal people. People we, people I personally, can feel disinclined to protect because of judgments we have about them.

Meanwhile, people are still going to drink and drive.

And I thought about what would work. What would make me feel safer. And you know what would make me feel safer? If people who hadn’t planned ahead could still get a ride home. I’d much rather someone call the police (or a service that’s one of the many we institute to replace them) and go “I drove here but I don’t think I’m safe to drive home” and have the reply be “someone will be right there”. Then a pair of public servants show up, one to drive you home and one to drive your car home, and you get home safe.

I would love for traffic safety to be, like, the actual goal of how we manage traffic laws.

But more than that, punitive attempts to control people, blatant disproven behaviorism, doesn’t work. If your political philosophy is about finding the “bad” or “undeserving” and ensuring they struggle, I can’t identify with it. It’s hard to come up with a type of “common crime” that I have more disdain for than drinking and driving, but disapproving of the way this woman has been treated is not the same as justifying her actions. I don’t care! I don’t care if she learns her lesson! I don’t care if I like her! Everything you’re doing to her for a single breathalyzer failure is not keeping the roads safer!

The moment she failed the breathalyzer, you should’ve just given her a ride. That’s all I need.

cryoverkiltmilk

Don’t laugh at this because “Oh those silly monster f*ckers.” This is a giant freaking RED FLAG just like with Only Fans.

toskarin

the sheer amount of control ad agencies and payment providers hold over culture is actually horrifying. if a site gets blacklisted by both, it’s just fucking gone unless it’s willing to take the risk of using crypto for payments (actually one of the only practical uses for crypto)

if someone so much as sends you a note in something like cashapp or paypal with something remotely sexual in it, you can get your account frozen with the money still inside. it doesn’t matter if it was perfectly legal and above-board stuff like hentai or erotica, because the corporations don’t like those and that’s all that matters

similarly this is why sites are extremely touchy about wording and tags when it comes to anything remotely adjacent to sex. if you use the wrong word and don’t change it, years of work or even your entire livelihood can effectively be deleted in seconds

nobody ever talks about this because it’s career poison to do it, but porn is basically already “illegal” in the vast majority of cases because if your money touches it, you’re operating outside of terms of service and risking some corporate asshole deciding your smut is wretched enough to necessitate the destruction of your finances, and by proxy, your life

saltydorkling

we’re seeing more and more of this sort of online monitoring, even beyond fandom and sexual stuff. people have to dance around what they mean — saying things like “unalive” because the word “dead” is banned. this is especially apparent on tiktok, but it’s spreading around and pretty much everyone should be alarmed by this. how sanitary is sanitary enough? spoiler: it never is.

Teachers can also be bullies and show toxic behaviors!!!

I posted this a long while ago when I was on Reddit and I was thinking that since we are all out of school and have time to reflect on the school year it would be a good time to bring this back.

I had a teacher in middle school whose main goal seemed to be tormenting me and I never did anything about it because a) I never knew it was so wrong because I didn’t think teachers could be wrong b) He only singled me out and was a highly praised teacher to everyone else so I thought I was crazy since no one else noticed c) I just didn’t know how because I was afraid to try. I don’t want any of you youngsters to go through this so here is my advice for getting out. I love y’all, stay safe<3

Post:

Yo y’all, because I’m in college now, I thought I would tell y’all how to get out of a situation where you have a toxic teacher.

First, signs you’re being bullied by a teacher:

Now how do you get out of this situation because it sucks and you don’t deserve to be treated like this:

I hope this helps some of y’all I know I wish I had something like this to help me out when I had a teacher like this. Just remember, YOU DESERVE TO BE TREATED WITH RESPECT FROM ADULTS AND PEERS so stand up for yourselves guys:) Good luck<3<3<3

shanzsway

WARNING!!!!

People, please be careful. There are also people tracking children and people and putting bids on them based on their profile pictures on whatsapp, tracking and kidnapping them. Especially young children, so please be cautious, especially parents who have their children as their profile pictures.

Please pass this on to everyone so that they are aware of the danger. I don’t how it is all around the world but I know it can’t just be here so please please spread the word. Thank you.

magicdreamsandmusic

oh my god

tollhousecookiedough

I HAVE BEEN GETTING THIS TEXT REGULARLY FOR WEEKS

HOLY SHIT THANK GOD I DIDN’T

imagine-that-one-thing

I’ve gotten a few of these. Never ever click a link from an unknown number!!!

icoree

oh yeahhhh, I saw that on snapchat. it’s been freakin’ EVERYWHERE lately. i haven’t been getting the text, luckily, but im still extremely cautious about it. shit’s scary.

not just girls, but boys and other genders have to be careful as well. this could happen to anyone. please be safe, my friends <3

insanelycoolish

FOR ALL THE YOUNGER PEOPLE THAT FOLLOW. YOU GUYS ARE SMART. YOU KNOW THIS. BUT JUST IN CASE THERE ARE SOME WHO MIGHT NOT. THAT DOESN’T MAKE YOU NOT SMART, PERHAPS JUST LESS INFORMED. 

DO NOT CLICK LINKS IN TEXTS EVER. GO TO ACTUAL WEBSITES FOR ONES YOU RECOGNIZE AND TYPE IN THE URL. OR A BOOKMARK IF YOU HAVE ONE. DON’T CLICK LINKS IN TEXTS AND SOCIAL MEDIA MESSAGES/DMS AND EMAILS. EVEN IF YOU KNOW THE PERSON. TAKE EXTREME CAUTION. 

IF YOU’RE GUTS SAYS EH WOULDN’T DO THAT BUDDY. LISTEN. 

ALSO SIGNAL BOOST THE HELL OUT OF THIS

67-chevy-baby

I DON’T CARE WHAT YOUR BLOG THEME IS!! REPOST THIS TO SAVE A LIFE!!

naranchuu

!!!!!!!!!

xxreysoloxx

PLEASE REBLOG! THIS IS VERY SERIOUS!!

deredere-kun77

uh no im not allowing sex trafficking imma just reblog thisss- 

mushroom-writes

!!!! Reblog !!!!

makotonaegikinnie

Reblog, this is serious!

lizluvscupcakes

You’re smart. You’re clever. You know better. I know you do.

this-machine-k1lls-fascists-dea

Really happy to see this at my local library

oracleanne

OOOOH. *happy YA librarian dance*

thessalian

I want this in every library, everywhere. After all, some kids won’t even google this stuff because they don’t want parents/siblings checking their browser history.

kungfucarrie

This is really awesome. And if you’re not familiar with how the Dewey Decimal system works - the numbers subject-based, which means these numbers are applicable in EVERY library. So if you see something you want to research on this list - look for those same numbers in any of your local libraries.

lafemmedemon

This is wonderful.

the-woman-of-belgravia

Reblogging to possibly save a life

One thing I see a lot in discussions of cults and radicalization and high demand groups is people saying things like “Yeah, be careful, and remember, if it feels wrong, trust your gut!”

And like, I know they mean well, and it’s not always bad advice, but like,

No.

Don’t rely on your gut.

Your gut is gonna think these people are safety and your gut is gonna tell you that leaving is scary.

Sure, you might be picking up on something suspicious. Or! You might be experiencing cognitive dissonance when confronted with the truth, in which case you actually need to lean into and examine the bad feelings to see if they make sense.

The whole way cults operate is by making themselves the primary source of your good feelings and sense of security and correctness. By making everything else feel unsafe and scary.

Yes, you need to be aware of your emotional reactions to things, but not in a trust your gut way.

When TERFs are transphobic, they are trusting their instincts. Their instincts, whether born of trauma related to sexual violence or just born of living in a cisnormative society, tells them men are scary, men are inherently predatory, and women and men are different on a fundamental incompatible level. Their gut is a fucking liar. Having that initial reaction when learning about new people or new ideas is normal, but you have to push back against it - instead TERFs tell people something that feels good, that they want to hear. Their first feeling was right. They should never be asked to question it. They are special for knowing the truth about men and trans people. When TERFs spread the shit that reinforces their world view? It feels good. It feels right. When people present meaningful evidence that they are causing harm, and don’t know what they’re talking about? That feels bad.

If they trust their gut, they’ll keep doing what they’re doing forever.

Being Mormon felt good. Hearing things that made being Mormon feel special and seem right? Felt good! Leaving Mormonism? Felt bad! Felt confusing and disorienting! There was grief in what I was losing, and uncertainty about who I even was or what world I lived in. When I was Mormon coffee was frightening to me, and normal happy people outside the church living normal moral lives while not following its rules was upsetting to examine, and being at a youth service felt good and safe and right.

One of the most important ways to avoid cults, conspiracies, high demand groups, radicalization, and even just spreading false political memes online, is to question your gut. These things live and breathe on manipulating your initial instinctive reaction to them - to feel validation, righteous anger, superiority, safety, certainty.

Question your initial reaction. If something immediately gives you a hit of “so true”, or “a perfect example” or “see???” or makes you feel self satisfied or vindicated? Step back and ask if it was specifically designed to get you to feel that way - and if it was, was it actually right?

If something makes you feel accepted, safe, a sanctuary- what is it keeping you safe from? Is it actually a threat? Do you have other places or people elsewhere that also make you feel safe?

If something makes you feel scared, isolated, misunderstood, threatened, angry, uncomfortable, ashamed - Step back and ask if it actually should, if the feeling is based in fact, if it’s actually proportional to the threat, how common or trivial the trigger is. This makes you scared or uncomfortable, but should it? Are you making enemies out of the benign? Are you vilifying normality? Even if it’s genuinely something bad, is your reaction proportional? This made you so angry you wanted to share it immediately- was it designed to make you angry? Is it a fair representation? Does it have an agenda?

Every single religion in the world, regular or cult, makes people feel good. That’s why the people are there. Every single conspiracy manipulates people’s fears, making normalcy and reason feel bad. Every single high demand group and radicalized group and predatory group does what it does specifically by targeting your feelings.

Don’t listen to your gut unexamined. This applies to cults, but honestly? Also to forming opinions, forging relationships, and more. Abusers know how to play with your emotions, while simultaneously your trauma can lie to you. You have been raised in a bigoted society that might poison you against kind people and allies. Politicians play on your fears and your insecurities to get votes.

You need to develop the emotional intelligence to recognize when your emotions are being manipulated specifically to influence and control you. Since that’s the primary method of spreading misinformation, you actually should constantly be questioning your instincts. Follow the data, the primary sources, the science, and real logical argumentation. Understand how people control you. Understand you are biased and probably wrong about some things. Learn not to be scared of being wrong. Don’t ever tie your identity inextricably to something other people control the definition of. And find peace in uncertainty and nuance. It takes practice, and that means messing up on the way. It’s okay to mess up. You’ve got this.

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Trans🚨irl

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This is my state, this affects me. Here is a link to information about how to contact Governor Hutchinson to urge him to veto the bill. Please signal boost; our biggest hope right now is drumming up a national outcry

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Thank you Chris Mosier for elevating the fight in Arkansas! HB1570 is at Governor Asa Hutchinson desk. We need to ensure he vetoes the bi

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