startledoctopus

In creepy Reddit megathread, thousands of women recount the first time they were perved on by a grown man

Originally posted on we hunted the mammoth:
So there’s a giant, growing, and extremely creepy megathread up on Reddit at the moment, and for once, the creepiness isn’t coming from inside the Reddit. Well, less of the creepiness is coming from Reddit than you might expect. Yesterday, you see, a Redditor known as BA_Baracus posted a couple of…

(Mal)Adaptive Behavior

Take a child. Take a lonely child. Take a lonely child with a sharp mind. Take a lonely child with a sharp mind and perhaps a predisposition towards learning through imitation. I pick up accents, speech habits, abbreviations, bodily postures, hand gestures and passions from the people around me. Lack of a center, maybe, but … Continue reading →

Safety Measures

Fellow white folks, we need to talk. Most of you would probably think I was going overboard if I went into a space that had a majority of people of color carefully dressed according to dominant community norms, rather than my usual clothes. You’d think it was weird or pathetic if I code-switched to address … Continue reading →

Delight

Most of the time, my depressive episodes are just a hard, tragic slog, trying to keep my life rolling along at a reasonable level of responsible, healthy, and safe until the shift in my brain chemistry. Very occasionally, though, they can turn into deep reflective calls for growth and change. When I am depressed, I … Continue reading →

To All Of The Girls Accused Of Just Wanting Attention

Originally posted on The Belle Jar:
TW for talk of suicide Also a note to mention that I recognize that it’s not only women who are accused of being attention-seeking – however, it does seem to be a highly gendered thing The first thing I need you to know is that there is nothing wrong with wanting attention. Asking people…

the dfab trans* privilege checklist: a community project

Guest Post: Life As A Mountain Hike

Originally posted on The Belle Jar:
My husband Matt wrote the following post about how challenging it can be to have a partner who is depressed. If you are at all technically inclined, you can check out his own blog, Quoth The Runtime, “Segmentation Fault”. He mostly writes about programming, but he also posts some…

Stargate (movie)

There’s this excellent post about Stargate that you should check out. It articulates really well many of the reasons I love Stargate.  I just wanted to add: it doesn’t go all Disney’s Pocahontas, like many colonial love narratives, and have Shauri go back to Earth with Daniel Jackson – he stays with her. I feel … Continue reading →

Night Vale Fans, Would You Write A Letter?

I love Welcome to Night Vale. I want to make a quilt out of blocks with the proverbs printed on them. I want to have dozens of t-shirts with different quotes. I want to force friends and family to love it too. I want a plush glow cloud to cuddle at night.  Why do I … Continue reading →

How “Cool!”

Stop posting links to tiny victories in social justice news with the comment “how cool is this!” Like Germany allowing parents to not assign a child to a binary gender on a birth certificate is some new radical concept out of nowhere. Like a marriage equality bill passing after so long and hard a fight … Continue reading →