Dr. Wizard

Problem #2 is that even when people understand, even if in an abstract way, that parents can be abusive they just... don't seem to actually register that as something that can apply to real life. It's just hypothetical to them and doesn't actually guide their ideas of how to prevent child abuse.

Problem #3 is that even after overcoming the above biases a lot of people have a very narrow image of what abusive parenting is where they imagine like... people doing violent things basically out of sadism and without provocation. They don't seem to think it's "real" abuse if the victim did something that "justifies" punitive violence, like disobeying the parents.

but it's an entirely new level of tragic when somebody you've actually spoken to gets turned into a bot account. it's like peeking at a zombie apocalypse through the window and realizing one of the shambling corpses was your friend.

and then the zombie catches sight of you, lurches up to your window, and shouts through the glass that they accidentally reported your account to tumblr and you'll be deactivated unless you click this link.

if you get something like this ↑ they're gonna follow up by instructing you to contact tumblr support on discord and give you contact info; or they're gonna link a website that looks sort of like tumblr support and say you have to email them; or any variety of "you must now contact tumblr, here is how you contact tumblr."

whatever they send you, it Does Not lead to tumblr. it leads to the master zombie that bit them and inducted them into the ranks of the undead, and will bite you the second they have your email and password. i might be confusing zombies and vampires. anyway,

it's easier to fall for these messages because the blog doesn't LOOK like a bot blog, because it ISN'T a bot blog. it's a normal person's blog that got accessed by a bot, meaning the blog's content CLEARLY looks like a real active user when you click on it. and yes—it might even be a blog you already know. sometimes bots like this go down a blog's DMs or reblogs and message people they've previously interacted with.

This is why it is not assimilationist for gay/queer people to want to enshrine marriage rights in their country/region

Similarly, this is why polyamorous people are fighting for the right to have their relationships recognised by their states through marriage and/or similar agreements

Oh, and because on top of those aforementioned financial and medical protections, these laws also help you maintain connection to any kids you have and/or raise together!

Every older queer you know who is in a longterm relationship will have similar stories of how we planned our whole lives to protect what would have been granted nigh automatically if we were heterosexual.

Her husband’s job

Her child-care arrangements

How she nurtures her underlings

How she was taken aback by the competitiveness in her field

How she’s such a role model for other women

Still, the virtue of some rules in Aschwanden’s test is difficult to see at first. Take the rule of “no firsts.” In the comments section below her post for Last Word on Nothing, Finkbeiner explained that no sooner had she taken the vow to ignore gender, than she caught herself writing that the astronomer she was profiling was the first to win a certain award. After a reader urged her to stick to her pledge, she removed it.

“The fact that she’s the first woman to do that says a lot more about the prize-giving committee than it does about her,” Finkbeiner explained in our interview. “So if I were going to put that into a story, it would be a story about prejudice in that prize committee.”

Like, you look at rates of serial killers by country and no one else is even fucking close. If you look at American movies and television that are considered "high culture", it's all stuff like Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Godfather, etc. I actually happen to like a lot of those shows, but they are about men who kill other people. You can make the case that "if you idolize [Homelander / Scarface / Patrick Bateman] then you're missing the point" and you wouldn't even be wrong, but my god are there ever a lot of people who do idolize those guys, and that seems worth interrogating.

And it's not recent American culture either. Think of every famous gangster and bank-robber and Old West outlaw that you've ever heard of. Other countries...really don't do that, at least not to the same extent.

This even goes for good people who are generally anti-violence! I would have described myself that way a couple of years back; but last year, totally on accident, I stumbled on a piece of media that made me reevaluate all of my thoughts and feelings about violence and I realized that I too, despite being against violence in general, still saw it as kind of cool, in some weird and twisted way. Like I'd watch action movies and be like "woah, cool move." You know? And I don't think those kinds of feelings are unique to USAmericans, but I would say that USAmericans seem to somehow be bathing in the "violence is cool" kool-aid that other folks are maybe just drinking from time to time. IDK.

Pointing at things and explaining what they are and how the ship works, lots of awed and appreciative noises are made.

Until one of the visiting Eridians points out a specific item. “And that?”

It’s a strange, circular thing, a xenonite disk mounted upright on some sort of pivot so it can spin freely, but around the edges it has… spokes? Pegs? Sticking out of it, that hit against a stiff flap that would slow down the spinning.

It is also separated into sections decorated with crude etchings of a human and an Eridian.

“Ah,” Grace says.

“That,” Rocky says.

“That’s. Um.” Grace seems somewhat embarrassed. “That’s the sacrifice wheel.”

#security androids using their being mosly bulletproof to bravely seek peaceful resolutions 

#engineer droids who refuse to work with faulty tech or supar metals for fear of the vehicle not keeping its humans safe 

The robot is programmed to keep the crew safe. Normally this is patching up leaks in the hull and doing the dangerous job of refueling the reactor, but it was programmed for medical tasks as well. Once you’ve had to resolder a surface mount IC in zero-G, doing surgery is easy mode.

The robot’s been with them long enough, it was never designed to be sentient, but the self-learning systems plus being treated as a member of the crew means it’s getting closer.

But one day all the input stops. It doesn’t know what exactly happened, maybe a freak gamma ray event or some kind of virus the med-filters didn’t detect? But all the crew have stopped moving. It runs through its medical routines, trying the options in the encyclopedia. CPR doesn’t seem to help, asking them loudly to “wake up” does nothing, it even tries building a makeshift defibrillator out of the secondary plasma coupling. Nothing.

It finally comes to the page on Death in the encyclopedia, and reads it, with dawning sadness (or the closest thing a robot that was never programmed for emotions can feel). They won’t move again. They are permanently deactivated. The robot is alone, and it has failed them.

Unless… The robot notices a link at the bottom of the page.

See also:

* Necromancy

It’s eyes glow in the reflected light of a screen as it quickly reads the page. So there’s a chance after all? Cancel sending the mission update, there more important things to do with the deep space radio. Send all information on “necromancy” immediately.

The robot hums to itself as it reprograms the biosynthesizer for Goat, and looks into how it can create candles with the limited materials on hand. The deck 4 cargo bay would be best for making alchemical circles on the floor, but it will need to move the self-sealing stembolts to another location first. Perhaps Mx. Jormand’s quarters? They won’t be using them until this is complete, after all.

Annoyingly long story of a robot summoning a demon to get necromancy powers under the readmore:

Poseable Miniature Birds, by Katie Doka on Etsy