I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back
working out your brain is a must!!
• hydrate it by drinking lots of water
• eat dark chocolate and blueberries and walnuts and salmon and other foods high in antioxidants!!
• play little brain games on your phone; I like wordconenct! anything that makes you think!
• read books. It’s simple but necessary. Even better - join a book club, or read with a friend, so you can have discussions after. This will improve your reading comprehension.
• do puzzles - it doesnt have to be sudoku, I love playing Beat Saber on the Oculus Rift because it makes my brain have to match colorful patterns to physical movements very quickly!
• learn a new dance - even a tik tok trendy dance. Learning new dance moves are proven to strengthen synapses!!
• go bird watching, or foraging, or anything outdoors that requires you to explore pattern recognition and visual searching
• watch a movie with the intent of analysis - this is best done with a cinephile friend!! talk about tropes and symbolism and character growth
• cross stitch, or sew, or do anything that requires matching nimble hand movements to patterns
• play or learn an instrument!
• develop a consistent sleep schedule (or as close to consistent as you can get!)
• when eating, try to identify the ingredients and flavors you’re perceiving!
I hope this helps :)
I like how this went from me feeling like “hm why is this attacking me 🤨” at first, but feeling grateful seeing an added guide on a genuine expansion on a “ how to” work out the brain. This genuinely helps a bunch. People find solace in doing activities that get them through life by doing said activities of phone/tv or if that’s all they’ve ever known in their life to get them through things + etc tho. However, this was very impt to point out. Slowly beginning incorporating things to work the brain in ones own time.
I got a membership to the botanical gardens and I go every weekend to look at beautiful plants and learn their names
what’s a total and absolutely legit site where i can watch that strange new world/lower decks crossover episode?
For the “Critical enjoying” anon, you’ll have to wait a bit, as I finally put in the effort to actually make a Twitter account so I can specifically reach out directly to Martha Wells and ask her some questions about her works, and point of the previously -posted about transphobia and biological essentialism present in the works, and how to change it.
Because it boils down to this:
1) is a work bigoted because the author is deliberately baking that bigotry into their work to send a specific message, like Jkr’s Antisemitism, transphobia, racism, etc?
Or is it because the author just genuinely didn’t know about/ realize those elements were in their work and had already taken steps to correct their portrayal in later installments after learning more about the topic and becoming aware of more societal issues they never considered before?
Is there bigotry in a work because this is a belief the author strongly believes in and wants the audience to feel the same, like Miraculous Ladybug being written by 45 year old white men who have already shown themselves to be predators– Winny drew and publicly posted porn of the main child characters to his Twitter with no repercussions and is still a party of this show as of August 2022,
,the entire point of Adrien’s character is to brainwash young girls into thinking being the target of sexual harassment is romantic, the racism and objectification of Asian women in the show, etc,
Or is it because the creator simply didn’t know that these problems and concepts even existed until someone brought it to their attention?
Like. Cis people do not go around thinking about gender, at all. Gender and sex to them are literally one and the same with zero distinction
They just accept it as a fact that Physical sex characteristics = gender, and it’s not until they meet or have discussions with trans people or become aware of their struggles that they even realize they’ve had these preconceived biases to begin with.
I know this because I’ve had multiple conversations about being queer with older, cis, straight coworkers who were genuinely supportive of queer rights, they just have zero grasp on any of the basic concepts. And I mean zero. Zilch. Nada.
They support their trans cousins but use the wrong pronouns and say “identify as” until it’s explained that “no, they don’t identify as a male, they are a boy, and you should be showing your love and respect for him by referring to him as such even when you’re not directly talking to him– especially when you’re not even directly talking to him, because that’s the only way you’re going to actually change your perception of him and actually use the correct pronouns and name for him when you’re face to face, you have to practice and study pronouns, it’s not supposed to be a pop quiz every time you see him so you end up fumbling your words and misgendering him and deadnaming him, all completely by accident because you don’t think about it until you’re face to face”.
And then they realize “oh hey you’re right, I never thought of it like that before. All of this is so new to me! I’ll try to do better next time I see him.”
Like. Most of the other trans people in the Murderbot fandom haven’t even noticed the issue @rjalker first pointed out until it’s… Pointed out.
Most people are literally not even thinking about the fact that all bots and constructs use it/its pronouns, because they’re too caught up in the fact that characters are using neopronouns at all, so if the widely-trans fanbase hasn’t noticed the issue, how do you expect the author to even realize its an issue?
Plus there’s the fact that if you scroll through her Twitter account…She’s literally reblogging All these news articles and posts celebrating queer Identities, encouraging people to vote the whole ballot to make sure anti-LGBT laws are not unanimously passed by republicans, encouraging everyone to help stop anti abortion laws being passed, raising up Native and Black and Asian voices in the right against racism, the most recent being that people are predicably being super racist, specifically anti-Native about the new Predator movie that came out August 5th 2022, aka literally just four days ago as of me typing this post.
Oh, and actively signal boosting queer authors whose books are actively trans and queer (which is why I am now going to see if my library’s ebook section has “The Jasmine Throne” by Tasha Suri!)
TL;DR:
There is a world of difference between enjoying the works of Martha Wells, who has had some problematic elements in her work that have been course-corrected over the years as she learns, just like literally any random person off the street is not an immediate expert on oppression,
versus
people like the ML creators and JKR who are actively targeting their audience with bigotry to normalize it and show it as correct AND further profiting off their bigotry to go on and continue pushing their incredibly dangerous and harmful agendas.
I want to add that the neopronouns people were getting excited over weren’t even it/its. Human characters use neopronouns in the books as well. Nearly every human has been queer. At least any human we learn more about. Usually due to said humans being in poly relationships.
The irksome issue used as the example above is that bots/constructs all use it/its as a default and none have corrected or stated identifying with anything else.
Yep, it would literally be as simple as “hey look at all these bots who use a variety of pronouns and gender identities that isn’t just the Robot Biological Essentialism of "I Am A Robot, Therefore I have No Gender”– Murderbot is aware of other pronouns, but Murderbot still wants to be referred to as It/Its because those are its pronouns".
It would also be as simple as saying “yeah as part of the propaganda from the companies, lots of SecUnits are assigned a variety of pronouns and genders, but when Murderbot hacked its governor module it also hacked its biography info to erase its assigned pronouns and replace them with it/its and marked its gender as Null.”
Also for anyone wondering. The human who uses neopronouns in question (Rami) could have *effortlessly* been the Main Human Character Of The Book, but instead te was shoved off screen for 90% of the book when it would have been just as easy for te to be the main human character, and would have been revolutionary representation, introducing and normalizing neopronouns throughout the book.
Instead….. Rami is promptly dismissed off screen, and ter use of neopronouns is more of an afterthought. And even ter use of neopronouns is part of a set Gender Trinary in this universe, and we have not met any humans who are non-binary – or rather, non-trinary .
I did think of a potential fix/assumptions that could be used in a future book to correct at least the “bots default to it/its”
Murderbot is 1) not necessarily a reliable narrator! It has opinions and lies. It was educated on cheap modules and pop culture. This doesn’t really help MUCH since I do believe murderbot uses everyone’s correct pronouns. But humans have them listed in feed profiles (which murderbot looks up when meeting humans). Bots and constructs don’t have those and murderbot referred to them all in its logs at it/its. (Murderbot isn’t a perfect person. I’m framing this assumption as a character flaw!)
Bringing me to my second point and potential fix in world
2) murderbot has on a few occasions made a blanket statement that all bots/constructs have less than 0 interest in human sexuality/sex. But how does it know? Has it asked any other bots/constructs? I highly doubt it.
I can see a scene where a bot or even uhhh 3 expresses interest in it and it going something like this
Bot/construct: expreses desire for pronouns other than it/its or expresses interest in sex
Murderbot’s internal log: I was disgusted for 0.2 seconds before I realized this had nothing to do with me.
Murderbot realizing it’s experiences and desires aren’t universal and having a very very minor crisis (yes I chose the word disgusted on purpose! Re: character flaw) before moving on and accepting this shift in its reality feels realistic to me
Basic rules for analysing fiction, an incomprehensive list jotted down in a hurry:
The protagonist isn’t always right
The protagonist isn’t always good
The protagonist isn’t always written to be relatable or likeable
The narrator isn’t always right
The narrator isn’t always good
The narrator isn’t always telling the truth
The narrator isn’t always the author
The protagonist’s moral compass, the narrator’s moral compass and the author’s moral compass are three entirely different things that only occasionally overlap
Pay attention to what characters do and not just what they say
Pay special attention when what the characters do is at odds with what they say
A lot of the time the curtains are blue for a reason. If they aren’t, you should read better books
One more:
12. The antagonist isn’t always telling the truth
So many times I have seen people apparently just … forget that it’s possible for fictional characters to be (a) mistaken or (b) lying, and say things like “we know this to be true because [character] said so here” (or, worse, “this fact is canon because [character] said it”).
The antagonist isn’t always telling the truth, the protagonist isn’t always telling the truth, the secondary and minor characters aren’t always telling the truth, the narrator may be telling the truth but if the narrator is also a character in the story then don’t count on it.
I think it comes from internet discourse only ever being able to see things in “Gotchas” and act like hypocrisy is worse than murder. Its a way of acting smart or like you noticed something without actually doing any work or thinking about anything.
I was white blood cell at comic con this year. I only went for one day. I had fun!!! A little girl was dressed as a platelet so we had to take a photo together
Matilda (movie) remake where Trunchbull looks like one of those hyper feminine bleach blonde Republican women you see on talk shows as the token girl/eye candy. And then Miss Honey is a soft-hearted, handy, tie-wearing Butch.
It is so so important that Miss Honey is also fat.
I came back last night and said hi. Noticed I left food in there that I’d left like 4 days prior… bad on me I’m supposed to remove it after 24 hours if it’s uneaten
Anyways I took out the food. And like 10 minutes later she was on her back MOLTING. Girl you decided to molt THEN
Anyways she successfully molted. I put a new sticky note on the enclosure reminding me the date of the molt and the date I should attempt to offer food again.
Love having a pet I can leave for an entire week or more and not worry about anything
I came back last night and said hi. Noticed I left food in there that I’d left like 4 days prior… bad on me I’m supposed to remove it after 24 hours if it’s uneaten
Anyways I took out the food. And like 10 minutes later she was on her back MOLTING. Girl you decided to molt THEN
Anyways she successfully molted. I put a new sticky note on the enclosure reminding me the date of the molt and the date I should attempt to offer food again.
Hi! Iām TuiteyFruity (b. 1995). Call me Tuitey for short. Pronounce it like the jellybean flavor Tutti Frutti! I am known for writing the Let it Go parody "Let Them Burn". This blog is safe for work! [They/Them]. Jewish (duh). Religious but not spiritual. Homeschmuck. Icon drawn by spadefish on commission!
