stxrms

We all want to be fully seen and understood, but it's not shallow or meaningless to just have a pal you talk about TV shows with who isn't also, like, your platonic soulmate. That's still your friend! You still enhance each other's lives with your company. Not everything that matters is profound.

I think a lot of you are lonely because you're waiting around for someone who sees into your soul instead of just plain old lookin' at the people in your life, finding common ground, and planting a little garden there. Even if that garden only grows Star Trek fan theories and memes, it's still good.

“Mom has been texting me for the last twenty minutes. She wants me to come home. It’s a four hour drive, when the roads are clear, and from what I hear everybody is trying to get somewhere right now. There’s no telling if I’d even-”

“Everybody else has left. All the other kids were picked up, the other staff left. They gave me all the keys. I promised to stay and wait for as long as- well. Even if some of the parents show up, I guess some of them won’t, so I’m just waiting. Until.”

[Clears throat.]

“A couple of people came after everybody left. Peter, one of Aidan’s fathers, gave me three hundred dollars for staying. What am I going to do with money? It’s- anyway. I kind of get it. He wanted to give me something.”

[Audio ends]

[Audio starts]

“They’re all between 2 and 4.” Sniff. “They’re so little. Too little to really- maybe if they were older, I’d have to tell them something. But um. I’m just- trying to stay calm and keep them happy and occupied. I think that’s the best thing, right now.”

[Heaving breaths.]

“I normally use this recorder to help me remember stuff. It’s just, uh, habit to talk to it. I don’t know. They’re napping, right now. I’ve got the baby monitor, they know that if they talk into it, I’ll come, so-”

[Sobbing.]

[Audio ends]

[Audio starts]

“Mom keeps texting, so I blocked her. I sent her a text telling her goodbye, first, but. I do. But these kids need me.”

[Sniff.]

“I tried calling their parents again, but I can’t get anybody. It’s just busy signals. I called the firefighter station, 911. I can’t get through to anybody.”

[Shaky breath.]

“I went out into the yard. Um, I think they can play. It’s nice out, and you can’t really see it yet. Little bit of a glimmer, if they ask I’ll just tell them it’s a plane, but it’s nice out and we’ve got hours before-”

[Murmuring child’s voice, indistinguishable.]

[Audio ends]

So I was running a pathfinder game with some friends. Night falls, they make a camp and guard by pair. At a moment, the Barbarian Half-Orc (Wrex) and the young 12 yo Half-Elf I use as a NPC(Kimi) take their turn when, suddendly, a monster attacks them. I described the monster as very frightning and dangerous.

Me(DM): The monster jump on Kimi but she manages to dodge it. Your turn Wrex. The rest of the group start waking up because of the noise.

Wrex(OOC): Alright I attack with my double claws attacks ! *roll nat20 and one-shot the monster*

Me: …..

Party: *hysterical laugh*

Pedro(gnome): What’s happening ?

Wrex: Oh nothing, just showing some moves to Kimi.

Pedro: okay ! *falls asleep*

Image Description:

Screen cap of a Facebook post, reading:

Something ironic that I’ve noticed from being in both autistic mom groups and NT mom groups. Let’s pretend a child cries every time they have to be buckled in the car seat..

NT mom group: “tell them to deal with it, it’s for their safety” “ignore the outbursts, they’ll get used to it” “maybe the straps are too tight? If not, and nothing seems to be wrong with the seat, let them cry it out, safety is most important.” “Sometimes, you just gotta deal with it, hugs mama, sorry this is happening.”

Autistic mom group: “is your child verbal enough to express or show why they’re in distress?” “is the fabric of the car seat scratchy?” “Are the windows tinted? If not the sun may hurt.” “Maybe he wants someone to hold his hand, can you reach back and hold it maybe? anxiety is a real bitch” “transitions can be hard, especially on little humans, maybe give advance notice that you will be leaving in the car at x time?” “Obviously something has him distressed, does he have a toy he’s attached too and can hold?”

- Report produced by the U.S Strategic Bombing Group (employed by Truman) to survey the air attacks on Japan concluded that: 

“Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945 and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated.” - page 52-56 

- Dwight Eisenhower future president and then Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces also said:

“I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to [the then Secretary of War] my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.” - page 380

- Admiral William Leahy, one of the highest ranking officials in the US army during WW2 wrote of the usage of the bombs:

“It is my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. […] My own feeling was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.” - page 441

- General Douglas McArthur, another high ranking US official in the war:

“[When asked about his opinion on bombing Japan] He replied that he saw no military justification for the dropping of the bomb. The war might have ended weeks earlier, he said, if the United States had agreed, as it later did anyway, to the retention of the institution of the emperor.” - page 70-71

- On September 9, 1945 Admiral William F. Halsey commander of the Third Fleet publicly quoted as saying:

“The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment… . It was a mistake to ever drop it… . [the scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it… . It killed a lot of Japs.” - online source

- The US secretary of war, Henry Stimson, speaking to President Truman:

“I was a little fearful that before we could get ready the Air Force might have Japan so thoroughly bombed out that the new weapon [the atomic bomb] would not have a fair background to show its strength.” - diary of Henry Stimson which can be found online here 

- Even those deploying the bombs questioned the decision to drop them on civilian cities:

“I thought that if we were going to drop the atomic bomb, drop it on the outskirts–say in Tokyo Bay–so that the effects would not be as devastating to the city and the people. I made this suggestion over the phone between the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and I was told to go ahead with our targets.” - online source

- Lewis Strauss Assistant to the Navy Secretary James Forrestal on the locations of the bombings:

“I remember suggesting […] a large forest of cryptomeria trees not far from Tokyo. The cryptomeria tree is the Japanese version of our redwood… I anticipated that a bomb detonated at a suitable height above such a forest… would lay the trees out in windrows from the center of the explosion in all directions as though they were matchsticks, and, of course, set them afire in the center. […] Secretary Forrestal agreed wholeheartedly with the recommendation.” - page 145

So to recap: 

A lot of American generals were against using the bomb as they felt it served an empty purpose.

Those who agreed with its usage completely disagreed with dropping them on cities.

Truman went ahead and had them detonated in two highly populated civilian cities anyway. Two cities that had remained mostly untouched by regular bombings throughout the war precisely bc of their lack of value to the Japanese war effort.  

Shit was cheap because that’s what we had access to. Cheap n dirty and now. 

You picked up jeans second third or even fourth hand and yea they had tears in them. Don’t know how to sew, that’s fine, use safety pins! We used waxed floss to sew on our patches because we knew it was stronger than thread but ALSO we had access to a random needle left lying around and the floss in the cabinet. 

It didn’t used to be High Fashion. It was us, in our basements and our friend’s rooms, doing things we saw other kids doing…. but ALSO, it was just… part of the lifestyle. We didn’t know leather care like we do now, but we know it NOW because of Gay Leatherfolk for the most part. We used red and black hair dye, yes, because we didn’t need to bleach it. We also used really dangerous methods to bleach our hair…. don’t do that.