It’s important to me that everyone understands that if you’ve got an autistic friend who periodically sends you pictures/videos/whatever of your Thing, because they know you’re into it… They love you.
Now don’t get me wrong, It may not necessarily be romantic love, they might not want to run off to a little farm in Montana where you’ll be married forever and raise little sheeps…
But they definitely love you. And they’re so happy when they spot a post about X and go “ooh, my friend likes X! I’ll send it to them!”.
Because they love you and want you to be happy.
Happiness is stored in the 3am discord DM of a link to a Tumblr post of a cute raccoon
Neurotypical people might do this too for the same reason, but I can’t speak for them. I don’t understand how they work.
Something I feel should be part of Lex Luthor’s characterization that I don’t think is ever explored enough:
He has no interest in discovering Superman’s secret identity.
He does not believe that Superman HAS a secret identity.
Why would he? Superman gives lengthy, tell-all interviews to the Daily Planet in which he makes it clear that his name is Kal-El, that he is an alien from the planet Krypton, and that he stays in a crystal fortress in the Antarctic.
Lex has no reason to suspect that Superman might even desire a normal human life, with a wife and son and office job in a dying medium. He’s an alien from another planet with immeasurable abilities and strength. All that wholesome aw-shucks posturing is just an act; obviously Superman would never want to live among humans, he wants to dominate them.
After all, if Lex had Superman’s power, that’s exactly what he would do with it.
Lex is a narcissist! He can barely see beyond his own nose, and he would never, ever, for one moment suspect that Superman would actually be Clark Kent, that straightlaced, soft-spoken journalist who still wears double-breasted suits. Everyone knows his wife wears the pants in that relationship.
Even the fact that Superman is mostly seen in Metropolis wouldn’t seem suspicious to Lex. After all, in his mind, he’s the only person who has Superman’s number, the single biggest threat to his unchallenged superiority over mankind - and he lives in Metropolis too.
Sharecropping.
FYI if your employer does this, if they have done it for a long time especially, you and your coworkers could be owed huge amounts of unpaid wages and it would be an easy suit if there is a paper trail like this and your employer is placing strict requirements on your behavior while not at work. Employment lawyers generally work on contingency. Just food for thought.
one of the more valuable things I’ve learned in life as a survivor of a mentally unstable parent is that it is likely that no one has thought through it as much as you have.
no, your friend probably has not noticed they cut you off four times in this conversation.
no, your brother didn’t realize his music was that loud while you were studying.
no, your bff or S.O. doesn’t remember that you’re on a tight deadline right now.
no, no one else is paying attention to the four power dynamics at play in your friend group right now.
a habit of abused kids, especially kids with unstable parents, is the tendency to notice every little detail. We magnify small nuances into major things, largely because small nuances quickly became breaking points for parents. Managing moods, reading the room, perceiving danger in the order of words, the shift of body weight….it’s all a natural outgrowth of trying to manage unstable parents from a young age.
Here’s the thing: most people don’t do that. I’m not saying everyone else is oblivious, I’m saying the over analysis of minor nuances is a habit of abuse.
I have a rule: I do not respond to subtext. This includes guilt tripping, silent treatments, passive aggressive behavior, etc. I see it. I notice it. I even sometimes have to analyze it and take a deep breath and CHOOSE not to respond. Because whether it’s really there or just me over-reading things that actually don’t mean anything, the habit of lending credence to the part of me that sees danger in the wrong shift of body weight…that’s toxic for me. And dangerous to my relationships.
The best thing I ever did for myself and my relationships was insist upon frank communication and a categorical denial of subtext. For some people this is a moral stance. For survivors of mentally unstable parents this is a requirement of recovery.
“When you’re a trans woman you are made to walk this very fine line, where if you act feminine you are accused of being a parody and if you act masculine, it is seen as a sign of your true male identity. And if you act sweet and demure, you’re accused of reinforcing patriarchal ideas of female passivity, but if you stand up for your own rights and make your voice heard, then you are dismissed as wielding male privilege and entitlement. We trans women are made to teeter on this tightrope, not because we are transsexuals, but because we are women. This is the same double bind that forces teenage girls to negotiate their way between virgin and whore, that forces female politicians and business women to be aggressive without being seen as a bitch, and to be feminine enough not to emasculate their alpha male colleagues, without being so girly as to undermine their own authority.”— Julia Serano, Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive, p 28-9 (via lugardepiedras)
This is approximate since calculations vary, but somewhere in the neighborhood of 20% of carbon emissions since the Industrial Revolution have come from destruction of terrestrial ecosystems—wetland destruction, deforestation, degradation of grasslands and so on
Soil, soil communities, root systems, carbonate rock, wood, living plants, and peat in wetlands—all holds carbon
Now consider what plants do for you
The mere sight of plants and trees improves mental and physical health. I won’t elaborate much more upon this, the positive effects are incredible and overwhelming.
Trees and vines that shade your home and outdoor areas: reduce the cost of cooling, meaning less electricity is used. Shade reduces the risk of death in extreme heat events.
(Trees also reduce light and noise pollution)
Edible plants (many wild plants and many plants you can grow): provide you with food reducing your dependence on industrial agriculture and cars to reach supermarkets
Community gardens and orchards: creates resilience and interdependence among small local communities, reducing the power of capitalism and increasing the ability of individuals to organize and create change. Makes more sustainable and plant based diets accessible to people for whom they would ordinarily be inaccessible
Compost piles for gardening: less greenhouse gas emissions than result from waste breaking down anaerobically in landfills
No more traditional lawns: much less use of gas powered lawn mowers, weed whackers etc. which are, by themselves, significant contributions to carbon emissions and urban pollution
Crafting and creating using plants: Locally available wild plant species can be used by local crafters and creators for baskets and containers, yarn, fabrics, dyes, and the like, resulting in less dependence on unsustainable and unethical global industries
More people growing and gathering edible and useful plants and using them = larger body of practical, scientific and technological insights to draw from in order to solve future problems
In conclusion: Plants
Articles and websites focus much on feedback loops with bad consequences (such as the Amazon rainforest degradation potentially accelerating climate change).
We need to focus more on feedback loops with good consequences (such as the restoration of a keystone species increasing the resilience of the ecosystem)
One of the most powerful of these cascade effects is this one: anything that increases the stability and safety of a community of people, will increase the ability of those people to act in a positive way and fight against the forces that oppress them
Isolated, scared, constantly threatened people who depend on Buying Product for all their needs = Unable to easily change, most energy goes to survival, cannot advocate for things bigger than themselves
Community of people caring for the ecosystem that surrounds them = Buffered against the threats imposed by capitalism, stronger sense of efficacy, Sharing of knowledge and wisdom instead of individuals struggling to learn from the hostile and dishonest internet, growing some food and other useful plants creates a slight safety net, can organize and therefore harder to defeat
^^^Everything about the ideal of life under capitalism…is made to STOP you from doing this
Whenever you learn something, teach someone else. Especially plant identification. And grow something you can give as a gift to a neighbor.
Since ppl seem to keep spreading misinformation & using the wrong terms on here, here’s a chart:
[Image description: photo of a venn diagram drawn on lined paper. There are 3 circles. The largest is labeled “Algonquian” & highlighted in orange marker, with the following languages written inside of it but not inside the other circles: “Arapaho, Blackfoot, Menominee, Kickapoo, Shawnee, Cheyenne, Powhatan, Abenaki, Maliseet, Mi'kmaq”. The second, medium sized circle sits within the largest circle & is labeled “Anishnaabe” & highlighted in bright yellow, with the languages “Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississaugas, Salteaux, Nippising, & Ojibwe” written inside the second circle". The language “Oji-Cree” is labeled inside its own small circle intersecting with the Algonquian & Anishnaabe circle. Finally, the smallest circle is at the bottom & is inside the se one largest circle which is also inside the Algonquian circle. The smallest circle is labeled “Algonquin” & highlighted in pink. End description]
“Algonquian”, ending with an “-uian”, is a language family, with multiple languages & tribes that fall under it. The languages listed here is not exhaustive, & there are more Algonquian languages than listed here.
“Anishnaabe” is a group of culturally related tribes that lived near the Great Lakes region & were allied with each other, and all happen to fall under the Algonquian language family. Anishnaabe does not only exclusively refer to the Ojibwe tribe or language, though they often use this to refer to themselves. Not all Algonquian tribes fall under the “Anishnaabe” group, such as the Cree (except in the case of Oji-Crees), or Blackfoot.
“Algonquin”, ending with just “-uin”, is a singular tribe and language that is both in the Algonquian language family, as well as a part of the Anishnaabe language group.
also im growing to hate the phrase “hold accountable” in discourse because its always so…. empty? like you see people saying “sure this person apologized, but we need to hold them accountable!” like cool. what does that mean. how can you get any more accountable than a public apology. do you want them to apologize… again? more? get a tattoo explaining their crimes so everyone they meet is informed? do you want accountability or are you repeating buzzwords because you cant find a nice way to say you just want them to disappear.