The name's Jessie! Village witch and user of too many exclamation points. Interests include anthropology, wildlife, cryptids, and horror. For now I work in a museum and after this, we'll just see where life takes me!
the novelty of having pets really does never wear off i’ve had my cat for ten years and i still look at him strolling around like can you believe this. a cat. is everyone seeing this. he’s alive he has bones and all. unbelievable
I think somewhere people got confused and now think that “privileged” equals “oppressor” and “having privilege” equals “has the power to oppress”.
It doesn’t.
Would love to hear more about this, because I understand the first part, that privileged doesn’t automatically equal oppressor, but I don’t think I know enough to understand how having privilege doesn’t equal having the power to oppress.
Having privilege does not automatically grant you power.
I have working legs. This does not mean I am systemically oppressing people who need mobility aids, and it doesn’t mean I have the power to do it, either. If I got elected to government and passed legislation that removed elevators and ramps on the basis of “Well I don’t need them”, then I’d be systemically oppressing people based on walking privilege.
It’s exactly what I was saying on the other post; existing doesn’t mean oppression.
You do not have mobility problems with your legs at the time of this posting. I do, but I can still walk with relatively little assistance as long as my pain is low and the terrain is not actively working against me. That doesn’t mean the stairs in your house or apartment are oppressing me, or that your ability to climb them with no negative effects is oppressing me. You have the privilege of not needing to worry if you can actually make that climb and thus more avenues are open to you- you don’t have to worry about the expense of buying a house with no stairs, you don’t secondguess if you can actually take the flight, entire venues and employment/schooling oppurtunies and city streets and businesses aren’t completely inaccessible to you because they exist on the third floor with no fucking elevator, you don’t suffer sleepless at night when you were forced to take stairs you shouldn’t have climbed. But unless *you*, specifically YOU, designed these stairways in these places with no other way to access the upper floors… it’s not like you not needing to worry about that is directly oppressing me.
You CAN contribute to it- “why should stairs need to be accessible” “who even needs ramps and elevators” “I mean if you can walk you should be able to take a couple steps” “why do I need to make room for you on the elevator or wait for you to catch up” and my favorite “wow the world’s youngest senior citizen” usually said when walking with my cane. But until that line is crossed, you existing as someone who can walk without pain unassisted is not directly oppressing me.
And that’s the thing. Actions are oppression. Existing as someone with privilege does not mean you automatically oppress people.
“Having privilege” is morally neutral. Society is what bestows you privilege. That is completely out of your control.
“Oppression” is morally repugnant. Actions that contribute to the harm of others are terrible and bad and you should not do them.
Ursula K. Le Guin’s 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness was a big deal in feminist science fiction for being one of the first widely popular and critically acclaimed works to do cool shit with sex and gender (which was certainly nothing new, but previous such works had rarely “taken off” the way LHoD did). It was criticized for referring to the genderfluid characters with the indefinite “he,” which was a la mode in style guides at the time, instead of using alternating or gender-neutral pronouns. In time Le Guin came to agree with this criticism; she considered her decision not to take things further one of her biggest literary regrets, stating that “I am haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns.”
I tell you this only because the phrase “I am haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns” is one I think about a lot.
[ID] Jason Mendoza from the good place says Oh Ursula/ I’m also haunted and bedeviled by the matter of the pronouns [end ID]
queer is such a good word. im queer as in fuck you. queer as in odd. queer as in fucked-in-the-head. queer as in i hope you choke on it. queer as in a slur i laugh at. queer as in not like you. queer as in none of your business. queer as in a line in the fucking dirt. queer as in we’re here. get used to it. queer as in this is who i am and what i am. queer as in im different and i dont fucking care. queer as in with or without you i exist and ill keep doing it. queer as in queer
edit: because people keep deleting my addition, ill say it here. this post is inherently anti “q slur”. queer as in spiteful doesnt leave room for queerphobic fuckery
Something I think that is more normal then people like to admit because they think it makes them strange is full on daydreaming. Like brain fantasy world with characters, plots, story arcs, conversations, etc.
I know that maladaptive daydreaming is a real thing, but I think doing this on some level is not pathological. It’s a normal form of thinking we shouldn’t be ashamed about doing, a part of having a thinking and creative brain.
Some people express this by drawing, journaling, or writing, while others keep it in their own head. It might help us process something in our lives, relieve boredom, or simply our imagination running around.
i cannot emphasize enough how much elon musk is very much not killing twitter on purpose. he is not that smart. you are giving him too much credit. he makes cars that melt. a few weeks ago a billionaire imploded several other billionaires and himself in the ocean because of this same brand of born-rich brainworms. destroying a social media site because of a petty, long held grudge over his paypal co-founders not letting him rename that to “X” is not a stretch.
you can enter the most hyper-specific search terms into this website and it will literally always return kpop gif sets, sims mods, and second person imagine fan fiction about a piece of media you’ve never heard of in your fucking life
