This is All Your Fault, Jafar

i HATE self-censorship for a lot of reasons, but being in crisis work makes it even more frustrating. who are you censoring for? like i am being so fr, WHO are you censoring for? have you even thought it through? people who have been raped know that they have been raped. if someone attempts suicide or is grieving someone who did, saying "sewer slide" isn't going to protect them from any of the feelings. a murder victim's family isn't going to feel better bc you said "unalived" instead of murdered. if anything, it's just extremely invalidating and othering. it's saying "what happened to you is so bad that i won't even say the word," which is NOT trauma-informed care. you are not protecting survivors/victims when you self-censor. the ONLY things you protect when you self-censor are the puritanical ideologies that are being encouraged by rich fascists who want your money and obedience

someone on reddit explained 😭

There’s no stated reason. They just pretend to not be alive. We usually can suspend our suspension of disbelief here because when it’s something like a video game or an emoji because any odd occurrences is perceived as a glitch or something similar but the actual reason why they aren’t too hung up on this kinda shitty lot in life isn’t said

They get something out of their current relationship with humans (like in toy story)

They have some specific reason to hide that they’re alive, like they die if they’re seen (like in the christmas toy)

They perceive themselves as sentient, talking creatures, but humans can’t understand them. They just see a squeaking mouse or an inanimate hot dog or whatever. 

and the last one is what most animal movies do, and it’s like, not devoid of weird implications but you can see where it mostly works.

but barnyard is the outlier here: it goes with tier one: the animals can talk and walk on two legs but just pretend that they can’t for unstated reasons. 

in the history of the barnyard world non human animals, at some point, decided to just pretend to be unable to speak. a “cow” or a “coyote” or a “hen” do not exist as we know it in the barnyard universe. the baa of the sheep is false; the ewe doesn’t understand it either. they only made up that noise to hide the fact that they speak human languages. a dog barking and running on all fours is a facade. animals naturally walk on their hind legs and made up whole postures just to appear non sentient.

and for what? what do they gain from this? they have no rights and no voice by their own choice. at one point a donkey claims the farmer is a good person because he’s vegan and a pig mentions bacon - this is not a fantasy universe devoid of death and misery and meat. do animals, in hushed whispers, remind their children not to sob in their real voice as they’re taken away? do the dogs not beg for kindness when they’re tied up and hit? do cows and chickens not cry for their life in the slaughterhouses? does a rat not scream a human scream when the trap misses their neck and only breaks their spine? Why? what is the point? They loose so much and have everything to gain.

anyways does everyone remember this really awful cat. it only appears in one scene but i can just sense the porn of it that would pop up if i googled it’s name

me, outside at night, the moment our headphones die