Im not sure the new IT guy knows what he is doing…
Monthly Archives: May 2014
Feeding this poor neglected blog with my piece (based on Sailor Moon R) for the Magical Girl Heroines: Sailor Moon and Sailor Senshi show at Qpop, happening this Saturday. I’ve already seen tons of gorgeous pieces by amazing artists posted online, and I can’t wait to view the rest. Hope to see everyone there!
Marker & Gouache, 5×7
“Even if they had,” she snapped, “You /killed/ /Coulson/. Death isn’t /casual/ here, trickster god. And as far as I can tell, you don’t even have any regret for what you did then.”
“I killed him because he stood in my way. If he didn’t he’d still be alive. I did what I had to do. There are always casualties in everything! You’re forgetting that I come from a place were deaths in battle are not cared for at all. Even if it is done in an act of war,” he retorted back. “I don’t regret my actions and I have learnt from my mistakes. I do not plan to bring harm to Midgard for a while.
“I do not forget,” she said stiffly. “But you had no right. To come here and expect our customs to align with yours, no right at all. I do not forget your history, and I do not forget your actions.”
so depression is like the rewards system in your brain pretty much shuts down. normally, there are things you do that you know make you feel good. the thing is so easy for you to do that you don’t even have to think about it too much.
when the rewards system starts to weaken, it gets more complicated. sometimes doing the thing doesn’t feel as good. you start to question why you do the thing, if you’re even good at the thing, if you even deserve the thing—because now when you do it, that rewarding feeling is weak or absent.
and, gradually, you stop doing the thing at all, or only manage to do it with great effort and a lot of pep talks or tough love before and during.
that’s depression. things stop feeling good. little things, from cleaning up a mess or eating well or getting up early—they don’t seem worth it. and the big things, like getting a job or following what used to be your passions or studying for exams—why bother? your brain can’t respond to it properly anyway.
most people with depression also have anxiety. anxiety is when your brain amps up the risk factor. maybe it’s just a few specific things that set off the alarms, or maybe there are too many to handle. things that made you nervous before now paralyze and consume you. combined with depression, too many things feel like they’re high risk and low reward.
depression and anxiety aren’t just feelings. the feelings are the symptoms, like a phlegmy cough or severe joint pain. the cause is as invisible to the eye as a cold virus, but it still causes damage.
You know, if I was a parent, it would be at this point that I’d rip the game from his hands, stash it in my backpack, and force him to enjoy history goddamnit. This vacation cost a lot and the game is only for the hotel and travel time.
imagine trying to force someone to think that stonehenge is fun
“look kid we’re a ridiculous distance from a bunch of broken rocks how could you possibly be bored this is totally an appropriate vacation spot for someone this age.”
Ah, fuck. Shit like this always gets to me, the tired old technophobe spiel and maybe it’s because it’s so rampant in my field (I work in outdoor education), but it just starts feeling so goddamn derivative after a while, nouveau hipsters who think the world is ending because kids play too many video games.
But what we’re missing is that this kid’s parents bought him his SP and a copy of Leaf Green (the employee at the game store said it would be perfect for him) so that he would shut up on the plane ride over and not bother them in the hotel, imagining that as soon as they touched down the kid would put the thing down and appreciate all the castles and grass and cafes and operas and rocks and ~*~culture~*~, because that’s what culture and history are, right? A bunch of old rocks.
What they missed is this kid staying up way past his bedtime the night before their plane flew out on message boards and chat rooms trying to find out which is the best starter, finally settled on a Squirtle and named it Rocky, and right now while his parents are appreciating rocks he and Rocky have got to save the whole world from Team Rocket because he’s a hero and that’s what heroes do and he’s so invested in this story and this world, he thinks he might have found the place where Machops live, why should he care about a guide droning on about Romans and a bunch of old people taking pictures?
But please, go ahead and take the Gameboy from him, break it in half and remind him that you spent A LOT on this vacation, and HOW DARE HE. You will FORCE him to ENJOY his GODDAMN VACATION because it’s REAL LIFE. Wonder why he’s so upset, you’re the one who spent money on the thing? All he invested in it was time and emotion, and those things are definitely less important than money, when you’re eight. Wonder why he’s so disconnected from education, when you’ve managed to turn it into a punishment, a deprivation, a source of misery? Go on and repeat the tired old technophobe line until you’re red in the face, share it on Facebook and reblog it on Tumblr and retweet it on Twitter: nobody but you knows how to live ~*~REAL LIFE~*~ because we’re so busy exploring imaginary worlds.
Kids don’t just need to be taught when to use devices, we as their parents and guardians also need to be taught why they use devices. If a kid is more invested in Kanto than Stonehenge, why? How can we change our approach so kids ~*~appreciate real history~*~? And if not, can’t we just accept and appreciate that this kid will go back to the third grade, say “Yeah, I saw Stonehenge, it was neat, but who wants to trade a Haunter for my Machoke?”
the commentary!
Yes, the commentary!
There’s also the possibility that this kid is waiting in line and has been for a while, and is doing what many bored people do while in line: entertaining himself. I mean, above commentary is really spot on. Would there be this level of OMG OUTRAEG if he were reading a book?
Let’s be honest, Stonehenge today is a SHITTY place to bring a little kid if you want them to be interested. Maybe back when you could still actually walk up to the stones and see how big they are and the shaping marks and the rest of it, but these days unless you already know about it and you’re into the ~mystery~ or whatever it’s like: oh. Rocks. Aight.
And you can’t get too close to them either, right? Just look at them from a distance. I, personally, would LOVE to see Stonehenge (or any henge! There’s so many amazing ones!) but a little kid PROBABLY won’t care. Heck, most ADULTS would not care. Wow, ancient rocks. Whoop.
Honestly, I am interested in Stonehenge and even I have no interest in standing in line for ages to sort of see it from a distance.
You know how Elliot Rodger felt so much societal pressure to have his first kiss and lose his virginity? Guess what! That’s the patriarchy that’s putting pressure on kids/young adults/adults to lose their virginity and “BECOME A MAN” or whatever. Patriarchy hurts everyone.
That’s the same patriarchy that puts pressure on girls / young women to “wait until marriage” because your virginity is the greatest thing you have to offer a man. That if you “give it up” and have sex for fun you’re a slut. That if you’re raped it must be because you led him on. That it’s your job to deny sex like a hockey player defending the goal, but when you do that it’s your fault when horny entitled man-children react with anger and violence. And if THAT doesn’t tell you how incredibly fucked up the patriarchy is, I don’t know what will.
Can we talk, just for a second, about how many neurotypical people commit violent crime? Or, you know, people who don’t have a mental illness who do the same?
How about how many people who live with autism or who are otherwise non-neurotyical are not, in fact, psychopaths, sociopaths, or otherwise violent? And how all of those things are different things?
And can we maybe acknowledge that while Elliott Rodger clearly does have some things going on with his brain, that does not change the fact that he made his motives abundantly clear, or that there are entire communities of men who believe that punishing women for being autonomous is an acceptable mode of behavior.
Autism and mental illness are not the problem here.
Stop treating people with autism and mental illness like they are dangerous or less-than or somehow incapable of being humane and decent.
Stop ignoring rape culture and misogyny and giving fucking murderers the benefit of the doubt because those things happened to occur in the same space as autism or mental illness.
just a side note, there are a fuck ton of people out there in the world who are sociopathic and still manage to NOT KILL PEOPLE.
People who are homicidal commit homicide. They may or may not have other issues going on, but homicidal is definitely the big key.
Autistic people are no more likely to kill people than schizophrenic people OR COMPLETELY NORMAL HEALTHY PEOPLE.
In this instance it was a dude-bro with serious entitlement issues thinking that rejection was a legitimate reason for homicide, and having an entire community of supporters telling him that he is right.
Personally, all of those people supporting this guy on his youtube video are suspect in my book. Not for what this guy did today, but for what they are capable of doing tomorrow, or the next day. My ability to extend them a modicum of TRUST to NOT KILL WOMEN is really lacking right this minute.
“Not all men are like that.”
That’s fine. What are you doing about the ones that are?
Okay, let’s say he has an actual mental illness (other than Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which seems pretty likely). Mental Illness does not exist in a vacuum. There’s a reason that people reported hearing voices in the 1500s heard God and saints but people in the 1960s heard aliens and the CIA. If this guy hadn’t been raised in a culture that taught him he was owed a woman and sex, this is not how things would have gone down.
Also, again, even if he has an actual mental illness, he was mentally competent – he made manifestos and plans, and IANAL but I’m pretty sure he’d be ruled competent to stand trial were he alive.
I’m not letting the cops off the hook on this though; they were told about this guy and did nothing.
Copypasted from my facebook:
So yeah, elephant in the room time. Let’s talk about the misogynistic asswaffle that killed the 6 people and wounded 7 more in San Bernadino.
Dude was a Men’s Rights Activist, and he was also a regular on PUAHate, which is “Pick Up Artist Hate” — a message board for men that had spent lots of money on Pick Up Artist seminars and books and shit to “coerce” women into having sex with them, failed, and wanted to vent about what bitches women are and how the expensive magic tickets to pussy they spent so much time and money on didn’t work for them. PUA stuff is repulsive; it often includes stuff like “negging” which means insulting and treating women like shit and expecting them to think that the man is “Alpha-male as fuck” and dropping everything to have sex with him. The murderer often used the term alpha-male in his videos and manifesto.
If you’re ever wanting to get nauseated from reading stuff on the internet, check out the Men’s Rights subreddit, it’s truly a cesspool. (And I’m not going to link it here.)
Anyway, shithead was fully immersed in a culture of absolute, seething hatred of women for their being autonomous. He was convinced of the existence of the “Friendzone” — the imaginary “zone” that women put men that like them into to deny them sex and still keep them around. The thing is, a) just because you’re hanging out with a woman and being nice to them doesn’t entitle you to sex, and b) if you’re hanging out with a woman and being nice to her solely for the purpose of getting your dick wet, you’re an awful friend.
Assmaster here was an entitlement bitch. He felt entitled to lose his virginity because he thought he was a “supreme nice guy” and deserved women throwing their vaginae at him for basically existing. The societal pressure on him, and on men, to lose their virginity and “BECOME A MAN!” or whatever, is a product of patriarchy — the same patriarchy that puts societal pressure on women to stay precious virgins AT ALL COSTS so that they can give their virginity as a gift to their deserving husband on their wedding night. It’s the same patriarchy that calls women sluts and whores for having sex, and high-fives men for doing the same. It makes Dads over-protective, shotgun-wielding threats to their daughter’s dates, and makes them give their sons pep-talks to get out there and bang some chicks.
This is a ridiculous double-standard, and that, and dickwads like loser here, are why the world needs feminism.
There’s a hashtag on twitter that started yesterday,https://twitter.com/search?q=%23yesallwomen&src=typd — #YesAllWomen— and it’s hard to read, and difficult to swallow, but it’s necessary to get the point across: “Not ALL men do stuff like this guy” is not helping. “Yes ALL women” feel menaced by men, “Yes ALL women” get harassed on the street, “Yes ALL women” are victims of the ridiculous double-standards of sexism and misogyny. If you’re a man, I suggest reading it, not defending, and just soaking it all in. If you’re a woman, I suggest reading it, and commiserating or adding in your experiences.
Misogyny and sexism are rampant in this world, and, to quote patrickat, “Think of where the human race could be right now if we hadn’t spent the better part of history refusing half the population a contribution.”