Guy Did You Know That If You Make The Phone Call Then The Phone Call Is Made And It's Actually Quite

in my dream world that i live in sometimes we stop saying things like “NOBODY is gross or dirty!!!” And start saying things like “being gross or dirty isn’t a moral flaw or failing”

Advice I gave someone today was: 'do it stupid.'

She wants to learn photography. Do it stupid. Take a million photos. Don't think about why they're not good. Enjoy the process of taking photos.

Pick out tge ones you like the most and figure out why you like them. Is it because the subject is centered? Is it because you caught them doing something cool? Is it because the light made cool shadows?

Do it stupid. If you try to do it smart, youll get stuck. If you think too much you'll never get to doing. Do it stupid.

Write Your Story

I just showed my 11-year-old son how many coffee shop AUs there are on AO3.

Why?

He sat down the other day to write a Minecraft story about three kids who go through a portal in their back yard and end up in the world of Minecraft where they have to battle all the big bosses (I didn’t even realize there WERE big bosses in Minecraft but that’s beside the point). He wrote three chapters with a little input from me – his first beta – and y'all?

He was fucking excited. To be writing a story.

Today he came home from school and seemed a little down, so I asked him about it only to find out that some little asshole at his school told him, “There is already a Minecraft story.”

Me: Okay? So what?

Lucifer: If there’s already a story, no one will read mine.

Immediately, I dragged him in and pulled up my AO3 account. My boys know I write fanfiction, so I showed him my account and how many subscribers I have. Then I showed him how many Teen Wolf stories there are. And then, because it seemed like the perfect analogy, I said, “What if I wrote a story where two characters meet in a coffee shop and fall in love? No werewolves, nothing at all to do with the actual Teen Wolf universe. Just Stiles and Derek meet in a coffeeshop and fall in love.”

He laughed.

I showed him Mornings Aren’t For Everyone. Showed him how many hits it had, how many kudos, how many lovely comments.

Then I said, “So do you think, if anyone else wrote a story about those exact same characters meeting in a coffee shop and falling in love… would anyone read it?”

He laughed and said, “No because you already did.”

So I clicked on the Sterek tag and refined to coffee shop AU. His mind was blown to see that they ALL had thousands of hits and kudos and comments. Then I clicked on JUST the coffee shop AU tag and showed him all the fics across all the fandoms written by countless different people.

I’m going to tell you all now what I told him because it applies to everyone.

Write your story. It doesn’t matter that someone else has written a story about that subject. They didn’t write YOUR story. Only you can do that.

And I want to read your story.

So I taught my students during the first few weeks of class that for their paper, they needed to cite profusely. They needed to cite more than they thought they should cite. They needed to cite multiple times per paragraph. I told them that it was literally impossible for them to over-cite. I showed them an example of my own published papers. It was in the rubric.

At the end of the term, I graded their papers. Most of them did ok. Some of them only cited 2-3 sources even though their References section had 6 sources. And some of them... some of them didn't cite a single time in their entire paper. They had their citations in the References section, but didn't cite them in the paper even once.

Some people just do not follow directions. It's baffling.

And that doesn't even get into all of the APA style errors. Those I can forgive because citation styles are confusing. Citing enough and citing correctly are two separate parts on my rubric to account for this fact, actually.

BUT - it just gives me data for how to teach this even better next semester. I don't have any way to require them to use a citation manager, but the students who used one did MUCH better than those who didn't.

How do I politely tell people that they need hobbies that don't involve the internet or activism?

Start a garden. Get into birdwatching. Join a diamond painting group. Join a book club. Learn how to embroider. Take a pottery class.

Just. Anything that doesn't involve constant arguments about theory and praxis. Interact with people who are outside of your immediate friend group. Shove your hands into some dirt. Create something just for yourself.

Intrafamilial Parent/Child SA

An informational post on what it is, and advice on how to leave

CW: Incest, paedophilia, childhood sexual abuse, rape, manipulation, gaslighting,

Being a parental incest survivor is incredibly isolating, so I wrote this.

I wrote this with the intention that people currently experiencing this abuse will be able to read it. I took pains to keep the material factual to the ways we are/were manipulated and controlled. I don't discuss specific acts of sexual abuse because these are immaterial to this discussion and individual to the survivor.

Intrafamilial Sexual Assault is the most common form of CSA, Parents are the most common perpetrators of intrafamilial sexual abuse and also the most common perpetrators of childhood sexual abuse, and the next most common being an older sibling. Discretion advised in reading linked criminology paper.

Educational material below the cut.... Please reblog, lack of discussion/knowledge is both isolating and dangerous.

I can't believe I have to say this but I didn't write this for your fandom discourse, I'm not interested in being involved

Parental Incest is an unsettlingly common form of child abuse

Cases of parental incest are far more common than people generally believe. At least 15% of people have experienced a sexual contact of some kind by a parent during their life time, with a significant portion of us being subjected to sexual penetration or attempted penetration. This isn't something you need to feel isolated in as a survivor, don't be silent.

Tell People! Don't keep secrets... But make sure you prepared your safe exit.

Preferably the person you disclose to first is someone who is not connected to your parent/abuser, and is also a person who can help you to leave the abusive situation permanently. If you are a minor you can also make contact with child services (which I encourage if you are below the legal age of independence or there are other children in the house).

Abusers groom their character witnesses as deeply as they groom you. Whatever chips in the wall led you to question your parent/abuser, the people close to them haven't experienced and they have likely groomed the people around you to see you as a "story teller", "attention seeking", or "trouble".

You are likely to be accused of many things, and called many unpleasant names by members of your family and people close to you that you expected to treat you better or protect you, it will hurt.... But you are likely not the only person your parent/abuser has hurt/is hurting.

The reason for telling a person outside of your abusers influence first is that they can reassure you that you are right to act against your abuser if the people you love try to convince you that you're doing the wrong thing.

Why do survivors of parental incest feel obligated to protect our abusers?

Adult perpetrators of Incest act with predictable and repeated behaviours to instill a sense of complicity in their victims/children.

Introducing sexual ideas and behaviours through play.

"Love bombing" making the child feel especially important above other relationships in the parents life.

The parent makes great pains to reinforce to the child how "mature" and "trustworthy" they are.

The parent initiates sexual behaviours, typically followed by emotional reinforcement and statements of the child's responsibility for secrecy.

The narrative of the story is often changed to say that the child initiated the sexual relationship, "you were precocious" or "this was never meant to happen, but I'm glad it did".

If the child questions the relationship the parent explains it away, saying that the world doesn't understand relationships like theirs.

The experience doesn't need to match exactly, but it is likely to follow this closely.

We also feel conflict because beyond the grooming, the experience is paradoxical. You still experience sexual responses, arousal, pleasure and orgasm being subjected to intrafamilial sexual assault. It's traumatic and deeply confusing all on its own.

Abuse usually continues into adulthood.

The continuing abuse isn't necessarily sexual, though it often is, exiting any association with the parent/abuser is important because Incest is a particularly insidious vector of control.

The parent/abuser can leverage both the years of grooming, and also the embarrassment of an adult victim with their associated anxiety (with their generally undiagnosed c-PTSD) to exert control over the survivor/victim. Maintaining their silence, subservience and obedience. Allowing the parent/abuser to extract labour, financial support, and near anything else.

There are no excuses anybody can give for protecting your abuser!!!

There are no excuses, and you should not give any credence to anybody's argument in defence of them... You should not protect them but also you are not required to pursue prosecution of your parent/abuser. We survivors often struggle with significant trauma and have limited support networks. Your safety is paramount and always comes first.

When confronted perpetrators and those close to them will often obfuscate the abuses and their severity.

"it was a lapse in judgement", "I made a mistake", "it won't happen again"...

Or reasons why they can't be reported, such as they are too important to the family's finances, or if they go to prison they will be in danger....

Keep records, if you can do so safely.

This is the hardest part of it all.

If you have records (text messages, emails, letters, photos) keep them. You may not want to pursue prosecution now, but you may one day.

If you have soiled fabrics, put them in a PAPER bag somewhere dry and later seal them in zip lock bags with those silica gel packets if you can. DRY IS GOOD.

If you have not yet been able to leave your situation, diarise events (date/time, brief description). If it is safe to do so.

This will aid any future legal proceedings... Whether you are seeking prosecution or not.

----

(Note: statistically intrafamilial sexual abusers are exclusively intrafamilial abusers, and generally do not have an inclination to abuse children that share no familial ties and may not clinically be paedophiles despite engaging in sexual abuse of children).

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This post does not discuss sibling incest perpetrators and survivors for these reasons.

Primarily my reason is that Intrafamilial Sexual Assault by a Sibling isn't within my experience

My second reason is that perpetrators behave differently at different ages and if I am going to write about Intrafamilial Sexual Assault by Siblings I will dedicate a post to it.

Third, parents are more common as perpetrators than siblings, while siblings are more likely to be prosecuted and less likely to successfully appeal (despite the overall rate of prosecution being low across the board) discussion bridging the two would need to address the failures in justice and the complexity of this is beyond the scope of this post.

ANTI-CAPITALIST AFFIRMATIONS

i am allowed to spend my time creating things, even if they are not beautiful.

there is no such thing as a "real job." all forms of work are real and valid.

there is nothing that i need to accomplish to be worthy. i am already worthy.

doing nothing is good for my soul.

i am not defined by what i produce.

my worth cannot be measured by my paycheck, my job title, or a list of professional or academic achievements.

i do not need to monetize my hobbies, it is enough to spend time doing something i love.

i will not let society decide what success looks like. i can define what successful life looks like for me.

I think one of the things that has brought me the most peace in my life was the decision to stop responding to anything not clearly stated to me.

Anxiety: Oh no your friend hates you!

Me: Well they didn't say that. So either they need to fortify and tell me themselves, or I will continue to be their friend exactly as I am.

Not just that though. When people hint drop that they want a thing from you, I act as if I have not noticed at all. Either you directly ask me for that thing, or you are not getting that thing from me.

I actually decided to start doing this because I got diagnosed as autistic and I realised how much stress and unhappiness I put on myself trying to figure out everyone's motives and wants and needs all the time. So I decided I'd just... Stop.

And I tell people that. I tell people "I don't notice or respond to hints or passive aggressive behaviour. Either you need to be straight with me or I will continue as I am." And you know the only person that has had a problem with it?

My former abuser (who I am vvvvv low contact with). Because they relied on me feeling obligated to respond to their unspoken moods and wants to keep me in line.

Everyone else has been immediately on board and my relationships have gotten SO much stronger. Because I am asked directly for things, and I will give a direct reason for my response, regardless of what that response is. (e.g. "Hey, can you call me, I want company on the drive home!" "No, sorry, I'm in the middle of [task], but I will be done in twenty minutes so if you still want my company then, I'll be happy to.")

So I put this out as a suggestion for all people, ND and NT.

Stop responding to hints, passive aggression and other 'unspoken' things. Use, model and encourage clear communication with everyone, you'd be surprised how much easier it makes EVERYTHING!

People with low spoons, someone just recommended this cookbook to me, so I thought I’d pass it on.

I always look at cookbooks for people who have no energy/time to do elaborate meal preparations, and roll my eyes. Like, you want me to stay on my feet for long enough to prepare 15 different ingredients from scratch, and use 5 different pots and pans, when I have chronic fatigue and no dishwasher?

These people seem to get it, though. It’s very simple in places. It’s basically the cookbook for people who think, ‘I’m really bored of those same five low-spoons meals I eat, but I can’t think of anything else to cook that won’t exhaust me’. And it’s free!

itch.io

The Sad Bastard Cookbook by tRaum Books

by Rachel A. Rosen and Zilla Novikov || Food you can make so you don't die.