I didn’t think anything would be enough to justify logging in to tumblr again. I guess I was wrong.

So, just a followup, since people probably wonder:

Yeah, I saw the Zak thing, in which Mandy Morbid, his erstwhile girlfriend, accuses him of long-term abuse. Yes, I believe it. Ironically, I was told repeatedly during the drama that Mandy was a bad person and I shouldn’t believe her accusations, but you know what? Fuck those people. The accusations are credible.

During the whole thing, and thereafter, I talked to Zak a fair bit in email. My conclusion was that he was an arrogant asshole, who was pretty much straight up abusive towards people in publically observable ways, but I didn’t have any immediate reason to believe that it went much beyond the obvious public abuse. Obviously, I was wrong on that. In the years since then, I’ve gotten to be a lot more suspicious of people who say “oh, yes, I’m being cruel, but I have to be cruel, it’s the only way I can oppose this evil.” Because you know what? Every fucking time, it turns out that actually they just like being cruel.

I was called out on this by a person I used to think of as sort of a friend, whose rant included the phrase “sanctimonious, autistic, SHITSTAIN.” Which I think sort of summarizes how I got tricked – I fell into the same goddamn trap I always warn people about, assuming that if you can identify a clear abuser in a fight, you’re probably done. Some of the people attacking Zak were pretty clearly abusive. Some of them told falsehoods about things where I could claim real knowledge as to whether or not they were true. So I assumed that, probably, they were lying abusers, and he was their target. And sometimes that’s probably true. (Spoiler: Abusive narcissists do not usually bond over their shared experience.) But also, as other people have noticed, he actually does some really, really, fucking awful things. Which is not especially surprising.

If you missed it:

A link to Mandy Morbid’s post on Facebook (Let’s just go with “all the trigger warnings”.)

Another reaction to it from another person who used to defend Zak

Do I have regrets? Hell yeah. Do I think that this means that every allegation is true, even the ones which are chronologically impossible or contradict other allegations? No. Will I continue to be really distrustful when I see badly-written or badly-sourced claims, and the people pushing them refuse to engage with criticism or questions? Yes. Do you have to like this trait about me? No.

Thing that concerns me: Even if we grant that the death threats and rape threats were actually all overflow rage from Zak’s awful behavior online… It seems to me like more people should think it’s still a problem that Mandy got death threats and rape threats. They people sending those were also abusers. Maybe not so prolific, but they’re also still out there, and probably still doing it. Abusers switch targets a lot more often than they stop being abusers. And you could say “blah blah both sides”, or you could say “well, yeah, that is abuse” and fight abuse even when it targeted someone you didn’t like at the time when it happened. Up to you, really.

Logged back in to post a thing, got two flagged posts to review. One was a line art drawing of a guy with nipple rings, one was a picture of a baby from a story about a womb transplant.

A+ work there.

It was fun. I’ve backed up everything but the last couple of days of my posts, and will eventually probably have them up elsewhere in some vaguely searchable form. Am not deleting, but am done updating. You can probably find me elsewhere if you need to, and I’m stunningly easy to get in touch with if you have need to.

imjustgonnabesusenfromnowon:

thejokersoldlady:

fabulousthanos:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - Learning the Dance clip

#always reblog

the thing where he tosses his knife from his right hand… to his right hand again… is something i never saw before because it was too fast.

bpd-anon:

Anybody know of a good tool for backing up (thousands of) likes and drafts?

Haven’t seen any. I don’t know whether tumblr makes this possible or easy.

four-of-thousands:

the-real-seebs:

miome-decompression:

the-real-seebs:

Before you do a thing to your child whom you love dearly, please consider this question:

Would it be a literal war crime if you did it to someone you had captured while they were literally trying to kill you?

If it would, please consider alternatives. Honoring the Geneva Conventions will not make you a great parent, but if you find that respecting them cramps your style, something is probably very wrong.

wow if someone could go back in time and tell this to my parents it would help a lot thanks

yeah i wrote it after realizing that i knew over a dozen people whose issues would have been measurably improved by this advice.

Parents, cops, politicians, teachers, healthcare providers.. a lot of people should really just have this in mind. 

i had forgotten this post

vastderp:

bluepeets:

https://twitter.com/jnthnwwlsn/status/1066854113500192769

buzzwords are hella noxious, but people who sneer at the conversation that includes those terms because they don’t connect to any of the pain and human emotion behind them are wayyyy worse.

I have absolutely seen occasional people trying to coopt this stuff and weaponize it to gain control, but it’s a lot more common, in my experience, for people to be pretty cool about it and only requesting accommodations for stuff that’s really actually that bad.

this was actually going to be a thing, but it caused confusion because it was hard to tell which places were the edges of the observable universe, and which were the galaxies full of little krakens.

messiestobjects:

for my own reference, and for anyone who is interested, here is the first part of the conversation with the fascist happening now:

me: jep. my stance is firm, still the same idea that you can do better and you deserve better than what fascism offers you. what i’ve heard from you, i understand a lot of your principles and i even agree about some problems in society as well as in individuals. but i really think you’re handling them in the wrong way, you’re goin about it all wrong, man. it’s a consistent topic for me like this because you are still an important person to me, and i remember how lovely you were to me then, and bottom line, i know you can always be exactly that sweet, open person to all people. but up to now i have seen other sides of you which prevent that, so that’s why i want to talk to you about these things and see if it helps any. 

fascist: yeah, would you become a fascist more easily than i would become a commie

i’m nice to everyone

no matter what colour they are and no matter what they think

give respect, get respect

but big picture i also know that it doesn’t help anyone to for example fill this place up with everyone from africa

the only ones who benefit are market liberal globalists

who can also be a wasp-dickhead, not just a follower of moses :p

(end text message translation)

i have several questions here. one is how he thinks a so-called market liberal globalist benefits from immigration. that’s hard to ask because his idea of immigration is so warped - he thinks it’s all brown people mass immigration, and doesn’t understand the complicated individual reasons to move country. still that’s also an interesting framing for the question, why on earth does he think that benefits them? i think that by asking that, i will get a better idea of what he thinks market liberal globalism is. 

i think that’s the important thing, because i still plan to say directly that i harbour no delusions of making him an anarchist, and that this is not about making him think like me or converting or something like that. the ONLY thing that this is about is quashing the racism and fascism, because he is so close to class consciousness here that i don’t really care what goes in the holes. he’s completely disillusioned by capitalism, but he refuses to accept that fascism NEEDS capitalism, and capitalism’s only possible endgame is fascism. so i don’t really care what he does afterwards, my business is controlled burning so that he can regrow his own self, independently, healthily. he can’t just jump from one thing to another like that, that would be a fucking mess.

i am going to reblog this in a minute tagging people who said they were interested. please feel free to chime in for now too.

Wow, that’s really confused.

Immigration is incredibly beneficial to the countries immigrants come to – they’re highly motivated, they’re above average likely to be younger, and they tend to be very loyal to their new homes and super glad to have homes.

That said, I don’t think I’d buy that “capitalism’s only possible endgame is fascism”, and would recommend against including that line of thought, it seems likely to have the opposite of the desired effect. (I’m also not at all convinced that fascism actually needs capitalism; I think you could pretty easily get a completely state-driven fascist society.)

invertprivilege:

proteus-no:

nunyabizni:

platypus-protection-syndicate:

Kotex tampons recalled due to reports of unraveling, pieces left in body

U by Kotex Sleek Tampons have been recalled due to an unraveling defect.

13 WTHR Indianapolis

Heads up recall…

boosting keep your bits safe people

the one brand of tampons I use…. are you fucking kidding me?

PUBLISHED: DEC 12TH, 2018 - 10:34AM (EST)UPDATED: DEC 12TH, 2018 - 4:00PM (EST)

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) — The company that owns Kotex is recalling its U by Kotex Sleek Tampons due to a quality-related defect.

According to the company, the tampons are unraveling or coming apart upon removal. In some cases, users have had to seek medical attention to remove tampon pieces left in the body.

We announced today a voluntary recall of U by Kotex® Sleek® Tampons, Regular Absorbency sold in the U.S. & Canada for a quality-related defect that could impact the product performance. For info, please read our FAQs: http://bit.ly/2B7yMjr or contact us: http://bit.ly/2EiLhMe

The recall affects tampons manufactured between October 7, 2016 and October 16, 2018. They were distributed from October 17, 2016 to October 23, 2018, according to Kimberly-Clark.com.

Symptoms of the defect include pain, swelling, infections, nausea or vomiting. There have been a small number of reports of infections and injury, according to the company.

Anyone with the affected products are urged to stop using the product immediately and contact Kimberly-Clark’s Consumer Service team at 1-888-255-3499.

To see the full list of recalled products, click here.

okay, probably worth linking product recalls

ceescedasticity:

elodieunderglass:

skeletonmug:

duckbunny:

duckbunny:

duckbunny:

duckbunny:

I need Ameritumblr to understand that we’re all freaking out about some Cabinet resignations because the British system has a thing with no confidence votes having a direct and immediate effect and, well, in summary, we may literally not have a government this time tomorrow. no prime minister, no line of succession, nothing.

it wouldn’t be healthy to care about it as much as we do but a little freaking out in solidarity would be comforting. we do the same for you.

so in fact what I’ve learned from this is that in America, “the government” means “the whole civil service”, and in Britain, “the Government” means “the Government”.

Good news! The Government has been found in contempt of Parliament! That should clear up any remaining confusion!

HE MOVED THE MACE

THEY RECEIVED 48 LETTERS

The Government has reached its Post Limit of drama for the day

It sounds like “government” gets used about the same as “[current] administration” does in the U.S.?

In any case best of luck.

yes, “government” is the specific coalition currently agreed to be in charge. this sounds really weird if you’re used to “government” to refer to “the institution as a whole”.

ceescedasticity:

the-real-seebs:

astrond:

Gosh, I miss Leverage.

That’s a Terry Pratchett quote, so it’s totally possible that Parker was quoting Pratchett.

Source is incorrect-leverage, so I think it’s just a Pratchett quote that sounds plausible for Parker.

that would explain why i didn’t remember it from the show

but it does seem plausible

astrond:

Gosh, I miss Leverage.

That’s a Terry Pratchett quote, so it’s totally possible that Parker was quoting Pratchett.

the-grey-tribe:

“The irony is that people are totally capable of seeing how the system fails to provide sufficient procedural fairness when it comes to certain crimes, most notably murder when someone is subsequently exonerated on DNA evidence after they’ve been identified with “100 percent certainty.” People also see it with false confessions, as with the Central Park Five. And yet, they can’t see it at all when it comes to other crimes with more robust rationalizations for significant failures of proof.”

— Scott Greenfield: America’s Criminal-Justice System Is Broken - The Atlantic

This is a fascinating article. I do not agree with some of the guy’s specific examples or opinions, but he’s right on the nature of the principle.

mister-boss:

there’s not really much discussion of child neglect on here so i guess i have to do it

p l e a s e don’t shame neglect survivors for not knowing “basic” things like how to eat a balanced diet, when to go to the doctor, how to drive, etc. you know these things (usually) because a caring adult taught them to you. we didn’t have that. we often enter adulthood knowing jack shit about how to take care of ourselves. we know we’re missing information, and we feel so fucking lost.

it’s okay to, if you have a friend who’s experienced neglect, try and help them learn how to take care of themselves. saying things like “hey, do you think you could try to eat at least one vegetable per day?” or “that infection looks pretty bad, do you want to go to a doctor?” is genuinely helpful. but belittling us for not already knowing these things is completely unproductive and unnecessarily cruel.

don’t be a dick to survivors.

Yeah, seriously, just explain the thing. “Here is how to heat this until it is edible” is not a super hard thing to explain, but it’s a super hard thing to guess, especially if you’re terrified of Wasting Food or have other food insecurity issues.