Meandering Muse

And it's that thing where you mentally place yourself as the second, auxiliary party to someone else that you consider to be "In Charge" of whatever space or occupation or responsibility you are assigned to

And when you are IN that mindset, it *feels* like you're being responsible. It *feels* like you're being respectful, and helpful, and contributing to the load.

But what you don't SEE- because it *feels* like deference- is that the other person who you're seeing as The Authority you report to- by being assigned that role, has also been assigned the invisible load of BEING YOUR MANAGER.

This is by FAR most commonly seen in husband-and-wife relationships, where the man says, "just tell me what I can do to HELP- you don't have to do it all by yourself, but it's like you won't even tell me when you NEED help. You just do everything and then get mad at me for not doing it first. I can help clean. I can help with the kids. I can help"

But I also see it- and am guilty myself of doing it- at work, at school, in public- that mental, "this is THEIR space, and i will be respectful and helpful to THEM"- without realizing that subservience in this manner isn't actually a good thing. That it actually shifts the burden of responsibility to the other person. That aspect was totally invisible to me.

I didn't understand that when I was told, "if you see something that needs to be done, just DO it", or, "take the initiative", what they ACTUALLY meant was, "I am not above you", or "you have equal say in what kind of environment you want to live or work in", or "I do not want full control over what happens here, I do not want to order you around, I do not want to be in charge, what I WANT is to co-command WITH you"

Being in The Assigned Authority position NOW, that is all so much clearer.

I am the senior member of my team at work, and now, every time I train a newbie, every time I finish catching them up to speed and giving them a list of everything that needs to be done, my next big hurdle seems to always be, "now take pride in the space when I'm not around". "Now don't assume I'll tell you when something is due or what orders to plan things in".

Now, having been on both sides of the struggle, I can appreciate the sticking points here

TO THE PERSON "IN CHARGE": The person deferring to you doesn't understand the invisible labor you're doing. They genuinely believe you know more, you WANT more, you see things they don't, and that they are being respectful and good by staying out of your way and waiting on your orders. THAT is the bit that's not clicking.

TO THE PERSON "WANTING TO HELP": "Help" implies that you are providing assistance to a problem that belongs to somebody else. Stop thinking like that. Understand that the problem belongs to BOTH of you equally, and consider what kind of shared space you BOTH want. What is your SHARED GOAL? Not THEIR goal, but a goal that belongs to you too. Own your space.

This is not a Commander-Lieutenant problem. This is a Partnership problem.

tumblr is full of dimwitted reactionaries but ive also read a lot of things that have fundamentally changed how i think about justice, mental health, etc.

despite the best efforts of the site's staff and its manbaby ceo, there continues to be a contingent of people here who are committed to understanding things better, to doing better, and to changing the world for the better.

—

PBS: Language as Prejudice - Myth #6: Women Talk Too Much (via misandry-mermaid)

Every EVERY women’s studies class I’ve been in has had this problem and failed to address it. 

Your wrong

It’s just a fact, that your wrong

The KIDS act didn’t pass with flying colors, it barley passed with a whole lot of NO’s

It’s NOT hopeless, it’s NOT useless, thinking there’s no point is the real reason why they have a chance of passing these laws

Spreading the idea of giving up will allow them to win, they want you to give up

Don’t allow others to give up, remind them that there is still hope, call your representatives and tell everyone that this can be stopped

So don’t allow these hopeless thoughts consume you

Fight well

Fight!

generative ai is objectively bad and causes widespread harm. it has a terrible impact on the environment and on humanity. it is regularly used as a tool of fascism and i hope it dies

much of the joy of fanfiction is that it’s written by a fellow human being who likes the same media as you and has put effort and time and their lived experience into their work

ai tells absolutely exist but ultimately some fics are going to look like they’re ai generated because ai was trained on human writing. this will only become more of a problem as ai writing becomes more ‘humanlike’ and human writing is inevitably influenced by the vast amounts of ai writing we’re exposed to

statements such as ‘this fic was obviously ai because of how shit and badly written this section is’ and ‘you can tell when a fic doesn’t use ai because it’s actually good’ are distasteful and will discourage real human writers from sharing their work

there are people who enjoy yelling at others and hunting people down for whom ai has become a convenient justification for their bullying

while you can think any ai use at all is unacceptable, there is a difference between e.g. a fully ai generated fic and one where ai has been used to correct the grammar of one paragraph