welcome :]

Things getting generally noisier, more screens/devices, more polyester in clothing. I'm not personally affected very much by lights, but maybe lights are different???

but like, kids generally spending more time in institutional settings (daycares/schools/extracurriculars) would also do it.

I was homeschooled K-12 (for disability reasons) and I really wonder sometimes how being in a "traditional" school environment would have affected me, like, developmentally. The number one thing that I absolutely Need to function and to Want To Be Alive is the ability to separate myself from other people and take downtime when I need it.

Situations where I have back-to-back activities all day are... I don't think I've ever been truly suicidal, but I've had times when the state of being alive felt so incredibly painful that I would cry for hours multiple days a week from the sheer crushing despair of having to live and be conscious through my life.

Sensory overload isn't the exact same thing as pain, but the "hurt" or suffering of pain is itself something that is not inherent to pain and only happens with pain above a certain threshold of tolerance and processing ability. So I think it's accurate to say: in the same way that an intolerable amount of pain hurts, sensory overload HURTS.

But every kid is expected to spend more than 40 hours a week in the same room as dozens or hundreds of other kids, and basically everyone thinks of this as the bare minimum for normal social development and literally cannot imagine anything else.

That is kind of an existentially dark thought to me

Why is it that the unbelievably dangerous scenario always ends with the characters scratched up, but relatively alright? Every time? Every single time? Why is it that the worst thing that might happen to a protagonist is scarring (but in a tragic and badass sexy way, and nothing that isn’t appealing), and maaaaybe some PTSD.

“It’s for storytelling purposes,” yeah okay and maybe I’m absolutely exhausted of it being for storytelling purposes, for the drama, for whatever. Think for me on why consequences are not allowed to exist in your story. Why is it that the protagonist always manages to heal from devastating wounds perfectly in record time? Why are they just okay after having all the bones in their fingers broken? Why do you pride yourself on your realism, but get cold feet when a character has a severe concussion for the thousandth time?

note: I (the owner of this blog and maker of wheels) am not into warrior cats! I just thought this would be fun to make

Self-sacrificing

Self-loathing

Insufferable

It/its pronouns

Homosexuality

Aromanticism

Gender (the more the better)

A superiority complex

Dead eyed stare

Inability to process own emotions

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.