She/Her/They/Them, 27 years old. Reconstructionist-pilled to the max. The content of this blog has not been approved by the Vatican: contains RWBY, Kill la Kill, Ghost in the Shell, Re:CREATORS, Vivy: Fluorite Eye's Song, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Little Witch Academia, Flip Flappers, Star Wars, Godzilla, Red vs Blue, Ghost, B.C., pro wrestling, and a whole bunch of other mildly connected fandoms.
NO KINGS. NO SLAVES. NO NAZIS.
Pinning the Serenity Prayer to help keep me, the moots and whoever comes strolling by sane in these interesting times:
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
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[id. A twitter post by @/Bennieeexyz
Jury duty letter came addressed to my cat.
Not a mistake. "Felix Martinez" - that's his full name according to his vet records.
My last name. His first name. Somehow he's a registered voter now.
Called the county clerk.
Me: My cat got summoned for jury duty.
Clerk: Is the name correct on the summons?
Me: Yes, but he's a cat.
Clerk: Is Felix Martinez a legal resident of this county?
Me: He's a legal cat.
Clerk: Sir, if the name matches our records, he needs to appear or file an exemption.
Me: He can't file anything. He has paws.
Clerk: You can file on his behalf.
Me: Under what exemption? There's no box for "is a cat."
Clerk: (pause) Check "unable to serve due to medical reasons."
Me: What's the medical reason?
Clerk: He's a cat.
Me: That's not a medical condition.
Clerk: It is if it prevents him from serving.
Sent in the form. Got rejected two weeks later.
"Insufficient documentation. Please provide medical professional's statement."
Took the letter to my vet.
Me: I need you to write that my cat can't do jury duty.
Vet: Why is your cat summoned for jury duty?
Me: Excellent question. No good answer.
Vet: This is the weirdest request I've gotten.
Me: Can you just write that he's medically unfit to serve?
Vet: On what grounds?
Me: He's a cat.
Vet: (started typing) "Patient is unable to serve due to species-related limitations including inability to speak, read, or comprehend legal proceedings."
Me: Perfect.
Sent it in. Got another rejection.
"Summons is mandatory. Failure to appear will result in contempt of court."
My roommate thought this was hilarious.
Roommate: Felix is going to jail.
Me: This is serious.
Roommate: Bring him to court. See what happens.
Decided that was actually the only option left.
Day of jury duty, put Felix in his carrier. Brought the entire paper trail of rejection letters.
Checked in at the courthouse.
Clerk: Name?
Me: Felix Martinez.
Clerk: (looked at the cat carrier) Is that Felix?
Me: Yes.
Clerk: (long stare) He's a cat.
Me: I've been saying that for six weeks.
Clerk: Why didn't you file an exemption?
Me: I filed three. All rejected.
Showed her the letters. She read through them, expression shifting from confusion to disbelief.
Clerk: Someone rejected the veterinary documentation?
Me: Twice.
Clerk: (called her supervisor over) You need to see this.
Supervisor read everything. Looked at Felix. Looked at me.
Supervisor: How did a cat get registered to vote?
Me: You tell me.
Supervisor: This is a data error.
Me: Took you six weeks to figure that out.
They dismissed Felix immediately. Apologized for the inconvenience.
Supervisor: We'll remove him from the voter registry.
Me: Appreciate it.
Supervisor: (pause) Out of curiosity, how would he have voted?
Me: Probably whatever party supports universal treats.
Got a formal apology letter a week later and a voter registration card.
For me this time. Apparently I wasn't registered, but my cat was.
Roommate: Felix committed voter fraud.
Me: Felix committed nothing. He's innocent.
Roommate: That's what they all say.
Felix is sleeping on the jury summons now.
Fitting end to his legal career.
end id]
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dude I LOVE the idea of Blake being the Infamous Criminal of Team RWBY
like, they're in Atlas and getting arrested, right? Weiss was sheltered as shit and never got arrested for the events of the show, Ruby maybe did a small misdemeanor but nothing super major, Yang definitely has a few charges for club fights or petty crimes, but Blake? MILE LONG CRIMINAL RECORD. Breaking and entering, theft, grand larceny, assault, destruction of property, trespassing, and that's just the first HALF.
I like to imagine that Blake has been arrested quite a few times in the past (and has a HUGE distrust of the authorities and Ironwood, but that's a different post), and we know the White Fang didn't really give a shit about their identities (Blake not wearing a mask, Adam's name being known on the news), so imagine the cops looking at their previous crimes. They expect a lot from the bombshell blonde, and definitely a few crimes from the redhead who is literally biting her handcuffs, but what they DONT expect is a PARAGRAPH from the black haired quiet one. And THEN they see her name, and they go "OH SHIT" because they just arrested THE DAUGHTER OF THE CHIEFTAIN OF MENAGERIE and ADAM TAURUS' RIGHT HAND.
okay now I know this wouldn't be really plausible, but for the funnies, imagine if the cop guys read their criminal records out.
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Consider following political and social justice tumblrs under a different login than the one you use to find cool art / cat pictures / fandom stuff / kink stuff / etc
Or like just in general, if you're getting most of your political news in the same apps where you do most of your fun / sexy shit,
pls give some thought to where and when those streams get crossed, esp if you haven't really thought about it before
For some people it doesn't matter much, but for some people it does.
There's a concept in psychology called "overcoupling," which is basically when a person's trauma is super cross-wired, so to speak, with the present or with a certain topic
Overcoupling can both cause and worsen intrusive thoughts and depression, especially for people with a history of trauma
Or, more simply: If you're mentally whipping back and forth between cute animal, funny joke, porn, genocide psa, and hate crime footage at the speed of scrolling, that can really mess with your head, and sometimes it takes people quite a while to pin it down
Or, if the place you go to relax and look at fandom shit is also where you get all your news about ongoing global crises, that's gonna seriously mess with your ability to actually relax and rest
That sort of thing, if that makes sense. It's not "Don't do this or else!!" It's just kind of a "hey make sure you didn't accidentally frogboil your stress responses or something"
#craaaaaaap. #fuck. #fuuuuuuuck. #i gotta do smth about that. # thank you twin # but WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH #CHANGING ACCOUNTS IS SUPER HAAARD WAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH #how do I know if this shit is even messing with me anyway #how did YOU know this shit was messing with people #what book did you get your strange eldritch knowledge from???
Oh! So funny story but I actually edit psychology books for a living lol
So, many books, but the knowledge isn't eldritch - it's evidence-based!
Also, before I go into it:
This isn't something anyone needs to stress over or especially panic over, especially if you don't really feel like it's affecting you personally.
I simply was having a thoughtful night and wanted to share a nudge/tip/data point to help people be more intentional
Best of luck!
But yes, further explanation!:
The concept of overcoupling specifically comes from Somatic Experiencing, which is a type of therapy and bodywork. It was invented by a psychologist and trauma survivor, Dr. Peter Levine, in the 1990s. The idea behind Somatic Experiencing, as well as other somatic ("body-based") healing practices, is that, as we know, trauma is stored not just in the mind, but also in the body - and therefore SE says, in order to heal after trauma, we must work with the body too. They have some really cool articles and theses on the org's Research page here
But the reason I know isn't specific to somatic experiencing itself, I just know a lot about trauma, psychology books, and "mind, body, spirit" publishing (kind of a genre tag for a lot of these books, especially for alternative and non-Western healing practices).
Sooooooo,
If you want specific book recs for the eldritch-evidence-based knowledge, I highly recommend:
What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
by Stephanie Foo
and
In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness
by Peter Levine
Also, for the book recs, since I've been asked before: This is in no way an ad or an affiliate link. I have never used either of those on reasonsforhope/directactionforhope, and I never plan to bc I believe in eliminating perverse incentives in my activism, etc.
--
On a different type of note, in terms of how I figured it out:
I figured it out because it messed with me a lot when I was in college. And I was in college during the start of the Black Lives Matter movement and the first Trump presidency - there were a LOT of horrifying things on social media.
I'd go on tumblr, or facebook, to relax and see some cute animal pictures - and then I'd end up seeing them sandwiched between genocide PSAs, and every new #MeToo announcement, and videos of unarmed Black people being murdered
It did, indeed, lowkey frogboiled my stress responses, which I noticed bc every time I ended up going on tumblr, I ended up feeling way worse than I started. And it was specifically messing with my sleep a lot bc I'd be scrolling before bed, as we all do, and then - BOOM ! DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS HORRIFIC WAR CRIME?
like every 3 posts
and I was actually in a city with that was targeted by a lot of right-wing extremists, so there wasn't like, a lot of space between "horrifying news shit" and "my life" and things like "is it safe to walk to the store right now?"
It wasn't great for me!! I ended up quitting tumblr for like 6 years, until the COVID pandemic started and I was hella bored in lockdown, and in all that time I continued to be glad I left tumblr. Honestly, if I didn't run reasonsforhope on here, I would've deleted my account on here again a couple years ago lol
I will say tumblr is actually in many ways far MORE chill about politics and social justice than it used to be. But that's because the bar was subterranean!!!!
But yeah, at the time, what I did was start by filtering things a lot better and blocking tags and using social media less.
It helped, but ultimately I decided I just didn't want to deal with any of that shit anymore. So I quit tumblr for years, and I deleted Facebook off my phone and just kept Messenger (this was like 2016; young ppl still used facebook), and it helped my mental health a lot
So I went "Great, awesome, clearly that worked, keep it up." And now I periodically just reassess to make sure that I engage with politics and triggering shit in a more intentional way
So, if you want to check if it's messing with you, you could try things like:
making a new account for a few days, and curating a new dashboard, and see how using that feels / start there
take a break from tumblr or switch to like exclusively social media playlists of cat videos for a few days, and see how that feels
filter a bunch of tags or unfollow a couple blogs for a week or two, and see if that makes a difference
take a few days to make a conscious effort to use different social media for fun than you do for serious shit / news / triggering shit. see if that feels like it's worth exploring more
And, psa just in general. Not because I think people can't take care of themselves or can't make their own decisions, but because sometimes these things really can frogboil you before you realize:
If you see a post that makes you spiral or triggers you, please take at least one step to make sure you won't see the post again
e.g., block the tag, filter a term, unfollow the blog that posted it, click "no interest in this post" on the dropdown. you can also go to tumblr settings and tell it to show you fewer posts from people you don't follow and communities you're not in, which can help a lot, esp since posts with a lot of engagement are often more controversial or upsetting
Anyway, yeah - this isn't something to panic over, especially if you don't think it's affecting you just a data point to help people be more intentional
If you're interested in further psychology books, here are two major publishers in psychology and healing that I really like and respect:
New Harbinger Publications (huge leader and force in evidence-based psychology publishing)
North Atlantic Books (Peter Levine's publisher, they have a lot of really awesome and innovative books, and are the main publisher for somatic experiencing) (Ironically, they're on the Mid-Pacific Coast tho lol)
(Note the second: I do trust both those publishers bc I've personally worked with them, but they're in no way paying me to say this (or paying me rn in general; I'm on medical leave / sabbatical); I chose to work with them because I really like and respect them and their books.)
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"X did nothing wrong" actually no, X did a lot of things wrong. X fucked up. But I also know that people like X live their lives under a microscope, and that accusations against them tend to get magnified by bias both conscious and unconscious alike, and frankly it scares the crap out of me that you have not only chosen not to question what you've heard, but that you are seeking such drastically disproportionate vengeance on a total stranger. that's not normal.
this post has generated a staggering number of comments/replies/asks all saying some version of "Nice try laundering your argument, but we all know you're talking about [specific person], and i hate you for defending them." and literally none of them have correctly identified who i was thinking about when I wrote this, but all of them have named a trans woman as said specific person.
Calling, calling in the depths of longing... @zweizilla98 - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook