CUT MY LEAF INTO PIECES

AND THEN WE DRAG AND SORT

FERMENTATION

AND SEEDING

CAN’T EAT A FUNGUS IF I’M NOT FUNGUS BREEDING

I mean….

i don't know what autistic person needs to hear this but they are not watching you. the entire world is not constantly waiting for you to do something weird and laugh at you behind your back. you do not need to constantly self-police whenever there's the slightest chance another person might see you. you have a right to be your autistic self in public spaces. stop fighting yourself for their sake.

say it louder

somehow this post made it to terfs and transphobes who think this means “men who think they’re women are a harmful to women” or “identifying as nonbinary is harmful to [binary] trans people” etc. which is NOT WHAT IT MEANS. the poster of the tweet is nonbinary and trans, and i am nonbinary and trans (and trans women are women, trans men are men, nonbinary identities are valid, etc). 

This tweet means that trans identities and pronouns are valid and should be talked about as such. Language matters. I don’t “identify as nonbinary,” I AM nonbinary. I don’t “prefer they/them pronouns,” they/them ARE my pronouns. “Identify as” and “prefer” leave room for doubt and debate, and trans identities are not up for debate.

To reiterate: “Identify as” and “prefer” leave room for doubt and debate, and trans identities are not up for debate.

i think this speaks for itself

listen to Loki, people.

Yes, listen to me

To my international friends: If you ever wonder why Americans are the way they are, just remember that 1/3rd of all US citizens are in a cult that teaches them to suppress the activity of their prefrontal cortex, particularly when it comes to doubt, critical thinking, and differentiating emotional responses from personal values.

1/3rd of Americans are Evangelical, and Evangelical Protestantism is a cult. We just don’t think of it as one because it’s so normalized. However, it follows the B.I.T.E. model of cult dynamics.

Evangelism teaches its followers to always maintain states of bliss and ecstasy for Jesus. What this does is condition the brain to always operate out of less-evolved parts; areas that are responsible for more primal emotions like euphoria, anger, and fear. Because of how we’ve evolved to survive, the brain will actually shut down our higher functioning—including critical thinking skills—in favor of these primal emotions, when they’re active.

Always feeling bliss = never questioning or feeling doubt. Evangelicals may actually fear the thoughts that do originate from their higher brain-parts because they think it’s the devil tempting them away from their religion. They’ll engage in self-indoctrination techniques to make this stop.

This creates a cognitive dissonance so great that many Americans have no separation between how they feel and what they believe. This is really bad because their minds have literally no defense against undue influence. They’ll vote for the dude who hyped them up enough. They’ll buy into the conspiracy theory that excites them the most. They’ll side with whatever gets the best reaction out of them, and getting a rise out of people is super easy to do.

Things like financial insecurity and low employment make this worse, too.

And just to be clear, this kind of conditioning can happen to anyone, regardless of their intellectual capacity.

Cult conditioning has nothing to do with how smart or dumb people are. You can condition literally any brain with the right time and environment.

Counteracting undue influence is a skill, and like any skill, it needs to be taught.

Cult experts frequently point out that the smarter people are, the more susceptible they are to this once the initial hooks are in, and the harder they are to deprogram. This is because while this kind of conditioning does not rely on intelligence, the ability to rationalise does -- the smarter someone is, the better they can rationalise what they already believe, so if they’re committed to following their feelings, a smart person is much better at making it seem (to themselves as well as others) that they’re actually using logic and reason rather than making ad-hoc justifications after the fact.

Also, people who know (or believe) that they’re smarter than average tend to assume that this makes them harder to fool, conditon, or lie to. Which makes somebody much easier to fool, condition, or lie to.

So I am from the US but now live in Argentina, and as The American(tm) I often get reasonably asked the question, "Why are Americans, you know, like that?"

The best and most immediate answer I could come up with, and the one I've stuck to, is telling people that America is a country defined by being a haven for cults and religious extremists since its inception. And people are always like "god that makes so much sense."

But you know, the wildest thing is if I tried to tell any given American this (which I have) chances are they'd be like, "No way, that's absurd." And I think the thing is, if you're an American and have lived most or all of your life in America, this is just your normal. But when you live somewhere that is less saturated with religious dogma, cults and anti-intellectualism, it's readily apparent.

when they prescribe you adderall they should give you twice as much as you need for the month so you can share wkth a friend or if you ever need to take extra and so on

No one "calls" someone cis. No one approaches someone and says "hello, cisgender ma'am". You're making up something to be mad about.

Cisgender just means not transgender. If you're really that offended by it, you could just ask for a different word to be used. It happens all the time. Those who are offended by "wheelchair bound person" prefer "wheelchair user". Those who are offended by "illegal immigrant" prefer "undocumented immigrant". Those who are offended by "homeless person" prefer "unhoused person".

So if the word "cis" bothers you that much, you could instead ask for "non-trans" to be used. But that never happens. Those who are offended by "cis" never seem to have an alternative for what they'd prefer to be called. And that's because what they're offended by is transgender people existing.

they are performing an experiment

Valuable science is being done

Unmute, ffs

* * * News Interruption * * *

they are performing an experiment

Valuable science is being done

Honestly? My main piece of advice for writing well-rounded characters is to make them a little bit lame. No real living person is 100% cool and suave 100% of the time. Everyone's a little awkward sometimes, or gets too excited about something goofy, or has a silly fear, or laughs about stupid things. Being a bit of a loser is an incurable part of the human condition. Utilize that in your writing.