Be Free!!

tumblr staff finding out their site has crowdsourced a viral song, only to discover it is 100% unusable in any corporate marketing scenario

mythologizing abuse as this horrible thing that only evil, malicious Abusers do to Innocent Victims is a really, really dangerous way of thinking. You have to recognize that anyone is capable of causing harm, and that it is possible to address it and improve as a person after hurting someone.

This idea that harm is an Evil Act that comes from Bad People, or makes someone a Bad Person is a black and white framing that makes it incredibly difficult to actually address harm, and actually winds up protecting abusers.

Because that's just not how it works. It's not an accurate model of reality. So subscribing to it gives you some dangerous blind spots; you won't be looking for signs of abuse or harm from someone you believe to be a Good Person, and the people around you are very likely to be afraid to actually communicate with you when a line is crossed for fear of being made out to be a Bad Person.

Abuse is something you do, not something you are. It has nothing to do with who the individuals are, it's a description of the impact certain kinds of actions have on someone else. The idea that believing something bad or doing something hurtful defines something intrinsic to the person in question creates an environment where it is impossible to grow or change into someone who no longer does those things or believes those ideas; you've condemned that person as someone Inherently Bad, what's the point of trying to improve if nobody will give them the benefit of the doubt?

And, more to the point of what I want to get across here, thinking like this is unbelievably stressful. It puts you on constant eggshells forever - cross the wrong line, and you mark yourself as A Bad Person, someone deserving of punishment, vitriol, rejection, every and any hostility one might see fit to throw at you. It's fucking terrifying, you wind up believing that any mistake could be your undoing, that you have to do no wrong, have to convince others that you've done no wrong, that you're a Good Person, not someone who hurts others.

But that's the thing. Nobody's perfect, it's impossible to be. You can't know everything before it happens, you'll never have all the context for something before having to make a decision. Inevitably, you will cross a line, violate a boundary, realize something you were taught about the world is actually bigotry, and that you never questioned it until now. And you will have to reconcile with that. You need to be prepared to face that reality, again and again, at any moment, for the rest of your life.

Far more often than anyone wants to admit, abuse isn't a product of malice or hatred, it's a byproduct of someone well-intentioned who for one reason or another has a mental block keeping them from prioritizing someone else's needs and wellbeing as necessary. They behave in ways that hurt and shut down their victim because they can't wrap their head around the fact that that's what's going on, that they're hurting someone. Or if they do, they don't believe that there's a way to avoid it, or fix it, or change.

The mythologized model of the Evil Abuser who hurts the Innocent Victim because they're a Bad Person is more likely to create that exact kind of mental block than it is to protect anyone from harm. It makes every mistake the end, a personal apocalypse that collapses the situation around your feelings rather than addressing the harm done. It's dangerous.

Let go of the idea of Good People and Bad People. We're all just people, and we're gonna hurt each other sometimes. It doesn't need to be anything more than that. You can apologize, and try to change. You can be imperfect and still worth loving. If someone asserts otherwise, that says more about them than it does about you.

shit man tomorrow is christmas eve i swear yesterday was June 2010

quiet kid powers deactivate

Back at it gin

In case you aren’t familiar, Michael Scott Moore and David Rohde are both journalists. Moore was held by Somali pirates for 977 days. Rohde was held captive by the Taliban for 7 months after being abducted in Afghanistan.

feeling targeted.

Rose here,first of all i like to apologise for my bad English it’s not my first language,

now for the stuff I’m about to talk of I seen other people talking about it too and I’m glad it has began to be more spoken about. the infantilisation off Giyuu tomioka, it has been bothering me for a while,

1. Giyuu is not a uwu depressed baby how needs to be taken care of HES A GROWN ADULT no sanemi and obanai aren’t “evil bullies” Giyuu can protect himself, he is not defenceless stop acting like hes a baby in need of protection.

2.giyuu being “autistic coded” since I’m autistic myself I’m gonna talk about it,people for some reason like to infantilize characters that the fandom see as “autistic coded” it’s a big problem and we need to talk about it.i myself have been multiple times been infantalized for being autistic, since they see autistic people as “slow” or “kid like” they like to act like we can’t take care of ourselves. another character victim of this is papyrus from undertale, even do he’s a strong character and can take care of himself still gets infantilised, like Giyuu for somtimes not getting “social stuff”stop infantilising “autistic coded characters” pls.

3.stop making female characters “mother figures” to male characters. What I mean by that is have seen people make Shinubo a motherly figure to Giyuu, do I even have to explain myself why this is shit? First stop making Shinubo either be a mean bitch to Giyuu or a mother to him it’s annoying and out ofcharacter.Giyuu doesn’t need a *mommy to take care of him” and stop making all female characters “mommies” just because their a girl doesn’t mean you need to make them a motherly figure to all the male characters.

Well I’m done now hope this wasn’t too long

rose out,