👶🏻💉👶🏼

having long ago made the executive decision to sublimate MUCH more of my rage over all the ways my body identity and personhood have been violated over the course of my life on levels both mental physical domestic and systemic into my writing by the way

warning this is an "i've lost my temper" post

people leaving comments on my vaccine post about how they """""can't""""" get vaccines because of needle phobias like what kind of ridiculous backwards-ass mental-gymnastics dumb fucking able-bodied nonsense are you on. you shortsighted twat. you circlejerking fucking asshole. you know what'll make you have to contend with needles???? getting an IV in the hospital because you came down with COVID. and now every single time you move you feel the straw wiggle uncomfortably inside your veins and you can't get it out ever you're trapped helpless on your back forever getting stuck by needles CONSTANTLY.

so. unless you're ready to lay at home and die while refusing all medical care, which would be good because at least you'd be putting your money where your fucking mouth is, i think you Do In Fact want to take the shot. you Fucking Moron??

I am so pissed off someone needs to just grip me and tell me yes they believe me and my health and what's happening to me is real. and that it IS unfair that a vaccine did it and it IS shitty how medicine did not take it seriously and rarely still does and just ignores the harm because it was too rare (ignorable) to count and even if vaccination against covid was the best utilitarian thing to do it still MATTERS that I had severe issues from that mirror severe severe long covid.

lying on the floor having an existential crisis as a puddle

I've decided to make my own post because I am not an idiot, but full disclosure that this post is 50% based on thoughts I was having while I was driving home from the auto repair shop yesterday and 50% a response to a post I saw just now that conflated "redemption arcs" (things fictional characters go through in fictional stories) with "community support" (things real life people offer to other real life people in real life) and how this relates to "fixing people" (making someone who mistreats or abuses themself or others not mistreat or abuse themself or others anymore).

Read my words very carefully.

In fiction, it is more than okay to like whatever type of toxic or fantastical relationship you want. If you like to read stories about toxic, codependent people who are absolutely horrible to one another and will never, ever change, you read those stories. If you like to read stories about a tortured man who just needs The Right Person to teach him to be better, and then he is, sometimes exclusively only to them though, then you read those stories. Sometimes you want to read stories where the main character says "I can fix him" and fails spectacularly, and sometimes you want to read stories where the main character says "I can fix him" and succeeds spectacularly, and either way, you read whatever stories you want, whatever makes you happy, I'm sure it's somewhere in this vast Archive that we call Our Own.

However, in real life?

First of all, "arcs" aren't things real life people have. An arc is something that has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Real life people don't have those, because our stories don't end until we die. Unlike a character, whose life presumably continues even after their story ends (except in circumstances where they die at the end but you know what I mean), we have to keep living day by day, with all the rises and falls that come with it. Now, this does not mean that a person cannot change, or that a person can't get better and learn from their mistakes; but it DOES mean that we can't have a "redemption arc" where we complete a checklist of story beats and then suddenly we're a better person who has experienced the necessary growth to be forgiven. First off, no amount of growth or change ever requires any victims to forgive. And second, that's just not how life works. That's not how change works. Change and growth are baby steps taken each day, and sometimes you go backwards, and you get angry with yourself, but then you pick yourself up and you try again the next day, and the next, and the next. It's an ongoing journey that does not end until you die. That's life.

But second and more importantly, the real idea that I think the original post was trying to get at, but missing the mark on was . . . okay.

So, the original OP of the post (and the person who replied to OP) got angry at the idea that the strawman they had invented (the person who had theoretically said "you can't fix him!") would deny support to someone who needs that help to grow and change as a person. The person who had replied in support of OP added that the strawman clearly believed in punitive justice over rehabilitative justice as well. On the surface, I can see where they are coming from. After all, on the whole humans are a social species and do need support networks in order to not only thrive, but survive. People such as drug addicts need support and assistance in order to get into better places in their lives, and the prison system has been proven to be far less effective at preventing repeated offenses than rehabilitative programs. This is all true.

However.

The reason why "you can't fix them" is still true, and needs to be said and understood particularly by those who are susceptible to falling into abusive relationships (e.g. people who have been abused before, particularly in childhood or adolescence) is because of free will. Specifically, the free will that each of us has, but specifically the other person. Person A can want so, so, so badly to "fix" Person B so that they stop being an abusive alcoholic 75% of the time. But if Person B doesn't actually want to stop being an abusive alcoholic (even if they say they do during the 25% of the time they aren't smacking Person A around), and refuses to put in the work that it takes to become sober and be a better person, then guess what? Nothing Person A does will ever make them be a sober, non-abusive partner. They will be unable to fix Person B. It doesn't matter how much time, energy, money, or commitment they pour into that person. It doesn't matter how much they genuinely, honestly, earnestly love them. Because unless Person B wants to change, and will put the work into doing so, then they will not change, and Person A, for their own health, safety, and sanity, needs to exit that relationship.

Now, does that mean that if, ten years down the line, Person B decides they are ready to put in the work to get their alcoholism under control, no one should help them? Of course not! They should absolutely be put in touch with sober counselors, support groups, medical professionals, friends and family who can help them. Person A could potentially forgive them, if Person A chooses. But that willingness to change and put in the work has to come from within Person B first.

I've been in the position where I've seen people in awful situations just tanking their lives, people I loved and cared about, people I begged to just listen to me and get help, only for them to not . . . and ultimately I had to accept that I couldn't fix them. I could be there to offer support when they were ready to fix themselves, but the core work that needed to be done had to come from within themselves. I couldn't provide that. Not because I was inadequate, not because I didn't love them, but because I couldn't force them to do anything they didn't want, or weren't ready, to do.

So at the end of the day, "you can't fix them" isn't about not giving support. It's about recognizing your limitations as a human being. It's about knowing that:

You cannot force someone to do something they do not want to do.

You cannot force someone to do something they are not ready to do.

Not being able to help or save someone is not a moral failing of yours.

Not being able to help or save someone does not mean you do not love or care about them.

Providing support should never come at risk of your own health and safety, physical or otherwise.

When you love someone, it can be really hard to accept this. You think, "I know I can make them want to try. I know I can inspire them to want to change. I know they love me, so if I just love them a little harder, they will want to change." Nine times out of ten, though, that is just not true. And if someone is abusing you, it is not worth the literal risk to your life to keep trying. You are worth more than that. You are more than just someone else's band-aid.

Keep yourselves safe in 2024.

As much as i hate having to self isolate over christmas i know i'm doing the right thing. Like i want to see my family more than anything (we had our xmas gift exchange evening planned for today) but i dont want to run the risk of infecting them. And the idea that so many people rn have covid, know they have covid, and are continuing life as usual is so insane to me. Like did we forget everything from the past few years??

Don’t want a shot? They’ll find you.

You should get a pet cone or something for Tommy. He probably has rabies.

now THAT is a fantastic idea

💊💊💊

I don’t watch the news often but when I catch bits and pieces I’m dumbfounded

In NY they want to rehire health care workers fired for refusing to get the covid vaccine back in 2021….we’re still in one of the biggest surges since the start of the pandemic….

The whole reason is because there’s a shortage of HCW…..maybe there’s a shortage because they keep dying or getting disabled from covid like the rest of the US workforce

Hi! I know you got the anon ask, but in your answer you seemed to know what anon was talking, so I gotta ask you.

"Like one gets back with their partner as soon as the other does? Single at the same time and then not? What went on on that driveway 🤔!"

What does it all mean???? Was Ryan single recently? Is he back with his wife? Is Oliver back with his ex? What driveway? What is going on? 🤣

I ask as a good chismosa who likes all the tea, and then never speak of it again. I come in peace. 🥰😘

Hi, no worries, welcome to the inbox! 😄

So short answer first: no, neither Oliver nor Ryan has been single for many years, as far as anyone knows.

Last spring (and some whispers already on the fall 2021 side) fans started speculating that Oliver and his partner had broken up since she never showed up in his ig-posts anymore, he posted a lot of stories that'd fit in the genre I'd call "late night sad girl posting" and he seemed to attend Aisha's wedding alone. But he made a reference to his long-term partner on the recent morning tv appearance he made, so it's quite possible they just decided to take their relationship very private and off social media (more power to them, if so).

Now, when it comes to Ryan it ventures much more into fan speculation (and conspiracy theorizing?) so I just want to reiterate that that's what it is and none of us know the people involved or what their intentions behind any picture were. Ryan has always had an... interesting prescence on instagram and writes some truly wild and weird captions on both his posts and his stories, bless him. Some months ago most of the things he posted started having this really melancholy and resigned tone to them that made a lot of people go 👀, and around the same time his wife started writing posts about finding your true self and growing into who you're meant to be and restarting your life and so on (and following a podcast about breakups which. Fksjhdg). Perhaps the most "damning" was a story Ryan posted with the caption "attention is not love" that he then deleted within 30mins. Both of them have also deleted pics of each other off their instagrams. They did have similar vibes drama some years ago (before I was in the fandom and/or cared about the actors) and then it seemed to resolve when uh. Well, around the time she got pregnant again. 🫥 So while all of this can mean absolutely nothing, you can also see why people would kind of side-eye it.

The driveway thing stems from one of these ~dramatically captioned pics~ Ryan posted. It was of stonework that some people thought looked suspiciously like Oliver's driveway, that we recently got to see in the Men's Health interview he did.

So! Those are the broad strokes. Feel free to message me if you have more questions, but be aware that I'm just a person on the other side of the world from LA. 😂

suddenly very certain that jake, roxy and dirk all didnt know how to cook until they met jane. i think they all ate cold canned food, random plants and seaweed, pumpkins, and raw meat from fish and birds and creatures. i think the closest they got to cooked food was dirk catching a bird in an electrical trap but not finishing it bc it tasted too sharp and metallic in a bad way, and when roxy accidentally irradiated a fish but didnt eat it bc the cats stole it before she could.

also imagining them sitting around the bench skinning once of the few sburb creatures that were around and debating whether it was edible. roxy slices off a chunk of meat and goes 'well well find out soon ;)' and eats it.

🚨🚨🚨🇨🇦 Canadian Live Blood Analyst, Kelly Bacher speaks about the difference in people’s blood, before and after Covid Vaccination :

“I’ve been looking at people’s blood since 2017 - I kinda know what’s suppose to be there and what it’s suppose to look like and what I’m seeing now is NOT NORMAL….there is more things in the blood than there should be!!” 😳

“We recently had an influx of people because they knew that something was WRONG, even though they were being told that nothing was wrong😕

When I make my findings, my patients usually ask me ‘what can we do about this?’ And I just don’t know the answer and that’s why I’m reaching out”❤️

“I’ve sent pictures of these things that I’m finding and they are :

(1) ILLUMINATED

(2) GLOWING GREEN

(3) SELF ASSEMBLING

And when they morph/combine in the human body into whatever ORGANISM I’m looking at, it looks like a CRAB or a SQUID or SEGMENTED TENTACLES, kind of like a SPIDER!! I NEVER saw those things before!!”😳😳

“Then there is the METALLIC looking pieces that will eventually degrade, BUT

turn into a living ORGANISM when they’re in the body!!”

“When I shut my microscope off, they almost go DORMANT - And then, when I turn everything back on, including the lights, ever so slightly, they’ll start moving again……and before you know it, it’s a full out BUZZ again!!!! That’s not normal, when blood DIES, it DIES!!!!”😳😳😳

I honestly can NOT believe what I’m hearing👇