Hello, I like your art..., could you do where Cinder and Kai are in the elevator where they almost kiss?

Sorry for taking so long, I had to redraw it a few times and then delayed it more after I experienced the feminine urge to sculpt an axe for my parrots. I technically did this two years ago, but here’s a new one because I don’t want to look at it.

Proper(ly)

Four months passed since the 'break-up'. Shizuo and Izaya have been going at each others' throats as if nothing had ever happened between them. This was the root of all confusion for the residents of Ikebukuro. Not to mention a certain chat room's current topic. ... Setton: Huh? Weren't they dating? Saika: It wasn't really a secret. Tanaka Taro: I heard rumors that it was because of an affair. Bakyura: Who would have the guts to date Shizuo or Izaya while they are in a relationship themselves? Whoever she is, I'd be glad to meet the lovely girl! Tanaka Taro: Girls are always on your mind, huh? Izaya just happens to log in on the wrong time and read the whole thing. Frustrated, he turned off his phone and ignored it for the day. "You bastard!" heavy footsteps accompanied by harsh pants treaded the hallways. The door to Izaya's apartment went flying. With a loud crash, it fell to pieces, bringing with it shards of broken glass to oncoming traffic. "Give it back louse!" came the roar shortly after. Izaya jumped to his feet and felt for his flickblade, only to grasp at air. Realizing he had no other way to defend himself, he relied on his mouth to get him out of the situation. "Give what back, Shizu-chan?" he bit back with a smirk that rivaled the blond's furious expression. "You know what I mean, damn flea!" Without a warning, he charged at the man, swung the light pole and brought it down with such force, a hole formed on the floor. The crafty raven leaped out of the way, effectively dodging the pole. "As a matter of fact, I do not, Shizu-chan," he landed swiftly on his feet, made a turn to grab at his jacket lying on his couch and produced his knife. The man faced his enemy with an air of confidence and brandished his flickblade. "Care to enlighten me? Or just let me assume that you want me to give you back your virginity?" The couch flew, intending to hit the man square in the face who managed to dodge it once again. Shizuo was even angrier than when he first came with the sudden reminder. Although he would never admit it out loud, Izaya felt a pang in his chest when he had thought he'd already moved on. Steeling his nerves, trying not to let the slip of his mask seem too obvious, he added: "Why don't you head over to China? I'm sure by now they've invented a way to do as you wanted." He knew he was threading on thin ice. At any moment the blond could snap, leave him dead or worse: dying, slowly rotting away in his apartment with no one around to help. Words that came running from his mouth just couldn't be stopped. He'd gotten himself tangled deeper into the mess of wires he himself have created. He was at the complete mercy of the monster standing before him. By now, Izaya should have known that the brute never acted accordingly. Never acted how he wanted, and expected him to. And this, was no exception. Shizuo palmed his face with a grunt, not remembering when he had taken off his sunglasses as it wasn't there to block his hand. He smoothed his hair out, only to mess it up again, then proceeded to run his fingers through it in an obvious display of frustration. "Listen," he started. Voice low, barely above a whisper with his eyes downcast and shoulders slumped, his whole demeanor confused Izaya. "I know you want to move on. Me too," he sighed. "And it won't work unless you give it back." "Give what back?" It was a question, but the tone of his voice suggested otherwise. He was demanding an answer. Eyes narrowed and posture stiff, losing his patience and temper bit by bit. The blond male was in a similar state. "Damnit! The ring!" He yelled out in frustration. "I know you have it, sneaky bastard!" "What makes you so sure? Do you even have any proof or does your tiny brain just make assumptions based on practically nothing?" Shizuo was silent. Angry, but willing himself to calm down even for a bit. It won't do them any good if they were both seething with rage. Arms extended forward, he stepped towards the raven, immediately using his hand to block the knife aimed at his face. The strong man twisted his hand to remove the weapon from the other. Afterwards he intertwined their fingers, wrapping an arm around the informant's waist to pull him closer. "Wha-" Izaya, confused and annoyed, was cut off by his face being buried in the taller man's shoulder. His hold was surprisingly gentle. Voice low as he whispered sweet nothings in his ear to calm him down. And it worked. He almost forgot how he missed these display of affections. How he missed Shizuo. Izaya slowly snaked his arms around the other, returning the embrace. Previous fight forgotten, the hug served as an apology. After what felt like an eternity, they separated. Producing the ring from his pocket, Izaya grinned misheviously. It was relatively simple-looking, silver coloring with three gems, the one in the middle being the largest. The two complete each other. They knew what the other wanted and more importantly, needed. And what they needed most, was to be in each other's arms again. Shizuo opened his mouth to speak, only to be rudely interrupted by his once again lover. "Now, now, Shizu~chan~" he smirked, cupping the blond's hand and placing the ring on his palm. "I haven't given my answer yet, ne?" "Well-" "Uh-uh-uh," Izaya tutted him, wagging a finger. Shizuo -figuring out that the more he spoke the less they would progress- decided to keep his mouth shut and let the man voice out his thoughts. "First of all, did you really expect me to answer with a proposal like that?" Raising a brow, he looked at him expectantly. Not realizing he was supposed to answer, the blond stood, staring at the man before him. "Shizu-chan?" Snapping out of his daze, Shizuo's eyes refocused and captured those russet orbs in a staring contest. "That wasn't rethorical?" he snorted. "Of course not, now get down on your knees, and either propose properly or beg for my hand in marriage." _____________________________________ A/n: Part two of the "Proper" two-shot

are you still taking prompts? if yes then Merlahad (slight au): Merlin has been on a long undercover mission (right hand of a gangster boss) ever since before Eggsy was recruited for Kingsman, though through Dean and his own activities on the wrong side of the law Eggsy did have some encounters with this version of Merlin. Mission finished, Merlin returns home to Harry while Egssy is over for a visit. Eggsy being shocked that his mentor is dating a notorious criminal before harry explains.

I absolutely am! I adore these two, and it turns out I also rather like writing them. More prompts are welcome, if I haven’t scared y’all off xD

Remember that deleted scene from TSS that made an appearance in TGC? Yep, that one. That’s where this begins.

These things keep getting longer! Continue beneath the cut, or on AO3.

When the dining table and kitchen had beentidied to Harry’s satisfaction, Eggsy mentally prepared himself for the nextlesson, whatever it might be. Hopefully something involving less fuckingcutlery.

As awesome as this was, learning to be agentleman spy and all, nobody could seriously ever need that many knivesfor one meal.

But before Harry could launch intoinstruction for another ridiculously posh custom, he became momentarilydistracted by his glasses, smiled to himself, and promptly seemed to forgetEggsy was even there.

Eggsy followed as he strode from thekitchen, paced the circumference of the living room, and began needlesslystraightening some of his random knick-knacks with a sort of restless energy.Eggsy had thought he’d gotten a pretty good handle on the man’s eccentricities,but this was new.

After watching him check his watch threetimes in as many minutes, Eggsy caved in to his curiosity.

“We waitin’ for something?”

“Hmm?” Harry blinked at him, seemed torecall his existence, and then the dopey smile was back. “Oh, yes. We’reexpecting a visitor, any moment now.”

That was…intriguing. Eggsy was under theimpression Harry didn’t receive many visitors here at his mews house. Madesense, him being a spy and that. Before he could enquire further, however, theywere interrupted by the sound of the door opening and Harry dashed from theroom.

That was even more intriguing. Thisvisitor didn’t need to knock or ring the doorbell, nor fear the securitysystem.

Eggsy could hear voices—Harry and anotherman—but too indistinct to make out the words. What really caught his attentionwas the silence that fell moments later. It was a heavy, charged silence thatspoke volumes, and Eggsy smirked to himself as he imagined what might havecaused the lull in conversation.

Harry hadn’t explicitly told him to stayput, so Eggsy stuck his head out into the hall, grinning at the sight that methim. He wasn’t really all that surprised to be proven correct in hisassumption, but it was still quite a picture: Harry pressed bodily to the otherman, clinging to him in a tight embrace, kissing him like his life depended onit.

Not being a complete and utter bastard,Eggsy ducked back into the living room, allowing them their privacy. See, hewas learning.

Several long minutes later, footstepsapproached, and now he could hear what was being said.

“Christ, it’s good to be home.” This wasthe newcomer, and Eggsy could hear the smile behind the Scottish accent.

“And I’m very glad to finally have youback.” That was an understatement, judging from what Eggsy had witnessed. “It’sbeen dreadfully dull without you. Oh, except…there’s someone I’d like you tomeet.”

Eggsy could forgive Harry for almostforgetting him again; he was obviously rather preoccupied with his reunion.Still, he was eager to meet this mysterious bloke Harry was clearly soenamoured with. There had, until now, been no indication he was in a relationship.Quite the opposite, in fact.

Harry appeared in the doorway with aflourish and a smile. “Allow me to introduce—”

“The fuck?”

Eggsy’s smile vanished immediately theother man came into view. Decorum be damned, he jabbed an accusatory finger atthe new arrival. “What the fuck’s he doing ’ere?”

Nonplussed, Harry faltered, looking fromthe thunderous Eggsy to his bemused guest. “Do you know each other?”

“No, I don’t think so,” the bloke said,and Eggsy wondered if this was all some kind of test. Or a weird, elaboratejoke.

“Nah, but I know who he is. He works forMad Micky!”

The Scot had the nerve to chuckle at that.“It’s lucky he never heard you call him that. He hated that name with apassion.”

“Ah, Eggsy, I think you’ve got your wires crossed.Merlin isn’t actually—”

“No, bruv, I know what I saw. Me and memates, we was watching the night youse lot trashed Kev Anderson’s pub. An’Dean, he told me what you did to the Mitchell brothers.”

All traces of humour abruptly vanishedfrom the man’s face. His shoulders sagged and he squeezed his eyes closed for asecond. Harry noticed, slid a hand into his and grasped his fingers tightly.

“Why don’t you go and sit down, love,”Harry suggested, his voice soft. “Eggsy and I will make some tea.”

A grateful nod, and the man moved pastEggsy to sink onto the sofa. Eggsy just stared at Harry, dumbfounded.

“But—”

“Now, Eggsy.”

There were times one just didn’t ignoreHarry Hart, and this was one such time. Eggsy threw one more suspicious glanceat the man on the sofa, then trailed off after Harry into the kitchen.

“Harry, what the fuck—”

“Stop!”

Eggsy blinked, shocked into silence by thesteel in Harry’s voice. His gaze, boring into Eggsy, was just as sharp.

“Merlin is one of us. He’s a Kingsman.He doesn’t often undertake fieldwork, but has been undercover for the past ninemonths, gaining Michael Thompson’s trust in order to gather information andcrack his networks so we can finally break the hold he has on the trade ofillegal weapons and drugs and put a stop to his reign of terror. He’s fucking exhaustedand what he really does not need right now is you reminding him ofeverything he’s had to witness and do in order to keep the rest of us safe.”

“Shit.” Eggsy deflated, feeling like aproper prat and more than a little guilty for jumping to conclusions. “I’msorry, I had no idea.”

Harry softened at Eggsy’s obvious remorse.“Of course not. Though I’d have hoped that by now you’d have a little morefaith in me.”

Eggsy grimaced. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“I can hardly fault your instinct. I amtraining you to be spy, after all.” He smiled then, and Eggsy knew he wasforgiven. “But there’s someone else to whom you owe an apology.”

“Oh, yeah, ’course.”

Eggsy left Harry making the tea andreturned to the living room with his tail between his legs. Merlin eyed himwith wary amusement.

“Do I need to put my guard back up?”

“Nah, bruv.” Eggsy sat in an armchair,leaning forward, elbows on knees, in earnest appeal. “I’m really sorry forgoin’ off at you like that. I honestly thought you were one of them.” 

“Don’t worry about it.” The corner ofMerlin’s mouth ticked up in a smile. “It means my cover was a success, eh?”

“Yeah, I guess it was.” Eggsy relaxed. Forall the man looked the image of a gangster boss’s right-hand man, now thatEggsy really looked, he could see that a gentle soul resided beneath the fierceexterior. “So it was a success then, the mission?”

“Aye. We’ve gathered enough evidence tosend the bastard and most of his associates down for life, and his trade linkshave been severed.”

“Good work, bruv.” Eggsy smiled, trulygrateful that one more crook was off the streets. He sat forward and offeredhis hand. “I’m Eggsy. Harry’s sponsoring me for a position in Kingsman.”

“Oh? Then I’m very glad you weren’t armedback there.” He reached forward to shake Eggsy’s hand. “I’m Merlin.”

Harry appeared then carrying a tray of teathings and smiling at the two of them, probably relieved they weren’t at eachother’s throats. He poured and stirred, clearly not needing to ask how Merlintook his, and handed out the cups before sitting down beside Merlin. Closeenough that when he shifted, his knee bumped up against Merlin’s, and Eggsydidn’t think that was an accident.

“So,” he said, recalling that passionatesnog in the hallway. “You two, you’re an item, yeah?”

Merlin regarded him, one eyebrow arched.“Is that a problem?”

“Nah, it’s cool.” He smirked at them both,almost a leer. “I’ve never seen Harry smile like that before.”

Merlin laughed and Harry actually blushed.Unimpressed, he cleared his throat and levelled a stern glare at Eggsy, althoughit was lacking the heat from before.

“I believe we’ve covered enough groundtoday, Eggsy. I’ll continue your instruction tomorrow.”

Eggsy could take a hint. “Yeah. I’ll letyouse get back to your…reunion.”

“If you would be so kind.”

And Eggsy was once again forgotten,Harry’s attention firmly on his newly returned partner.

Not offended in the slightest, Eggsy madea swift exit.

Perverse Normalcy: Weird Biases, Weirder Prejudices

This one's been a long time coming, I think.

This is a topic I've been thinking on... all my life, really. Why are humans so invested in tribalism, and so binary? Why are there so many, and such deep-rooted prejudices?

Have a read of my piece on fantasy racism before you get into this, if you haven't. It's recommended reading.

I wonder if this is a difficult headspace for anyoen to get into. All of my life, as a neurodiverse pserson, I've always had neurotypicals tell me that I lack empathy, perspective, Theory of Mind, and worse. That's fascinating, beacause from my perspective, I've never lacked any of these.

In the case of empathy, I had to withdraw from society because of how much it hurts when I get close to somone. The pain I feel when I accidentally hurt someone goes beyond anything a neurotypical can imagine. I know, I've asked. For them, it seems to be that they put their hand over their mouth, apologise, then it's forgotten.

For me, it's a lasting pain that might last years. It'll often recur when I'm being introspective, reminding me of each of my failures. I'll be racked with guilt, shame, and I'll suffer. This is the pathos of the neurodiverse person. Still, I'm told that I don't experience empathy. Isn't that odd?

And what I've found is that neurotypical researchers are incredibly invested in their own beliefs, these 'clever little ideas' of theirs that they cherish so much. Their mind babies, in a way. And if you were to dare challenge their perspective, it's a sleight against their babies, their creations. It's a little perverse, isn't it?

And it gets much more perverse from here, I promise you. This is going to go to some of the weirdest places... that up till now I hadn't dared to explore here, on the Internet. It nags at me, though. It gnaws. It's a knowing, an awareness, and this realisation? It wants to be shared. It wants to be known. So here I am.

I'm just the recepticle for this, really. I don't really have awareness, you see? Especially not self-awareness. I didn't arrive at this, it all sort of popped into my head one day. None of that's true, it's just a little bitter, sardonic humour regarding these interesting biases. Can you imagine what it's like to be told, to your face, that you lack self-awareness? Try.

My problem... I turned this back against my aggressors. That's on me, I feel like I'm more lucid now than ever and I recognise what I've been doing. In my hurt, my pain, and how much of my identity and character have been sacrificed to suit the unchecked egotism of stuffed shirts who think they know neurodiverse people better than they'd know themselves?

I turned it right back on them.

I found plenty of evidence to justify that neurotypical people could be every bit as shallow, as lacking in Theory of Mind, empathy, and worse. I found concerning connections between extraversion and sociopathy, that there was a lot of crossover there. And I wasn't saying this, I was just following the paper trail... So to speak.

I was reading all of these journals, these theses, and I had this cache of evidence that said that everything anyone could attribute to neurodiversity was also equally represented in neurotypicality. If not more so.

And I found evidence to refute the findings regarding neurodiverse people having a lack of empathy, of Theory of Mind, and I got caught up in this. I fell prey to the same tribalism. I believed in the hubris of people who believed they knew more about humanity than anyone else.

There is so, so much hubris.

I read a headline today that said that it was logically, mathematically impossible to stop aging, that aging was inevitable. Well, golly gee whillackers, I suppose we'd best pack our bags and stop trying to extend the human lifespan as these chaps have it all figured out. Except they don't. These findings will be refuted in a few months, and those again in another few months, this is the cycle.

The problem is hubris. That anyone believes absolutely in anything, that they stand by their cognitive biases and dissonance without faltering.

"If I think I discovered it, it's 100 per cent absolutely fact, true, and cannot be refuted."

I think this is a cancer that plagues science right now. I believe that this is why we're seeing so much 'bad science,' because there's this arrogance, this hubris, and this utter lack of humility. And worse, consider the process involved in getting a PhD... It encourages cut-throat sociopathy in much the same way as a corporate environment.

The PhD system in acadaemia is actively courting this attitude of arrogance and hubris. If you can bullshit hard enough to have someone believe you've discovered something entirely new, and you're charismatic enough to con them into believing it? Here's your PhD! Isn't that a deeply flawed system?

So, anyway, I had to pull back. I had to zoom out, I had to draw myself away from it all. I stopped reading the news, I put away the science journals that prided themselves on reporting hubris and misrepresented papers, and I simply withdrew. I encased myself in my shell so that I could process this.

I needed to parse it all without the influence of the Internet, of the rest of the world at large. I needed to find out where I was going wrong. What I wasn't understanding. I had to pull back. I didn't like what I found. I found that, as I've already mentioned, I had fallen prey to the same kinds of tribalism that I'd accused others of. I did this out of how hurt I'd felt, how much pain, and how much I'd had to suffer because of these people.

You see... It's as I said. I'm an invalid; I'm stupid; I have no empathy; I'm shallow; I lack Theory of Mind; I'm unstable; I have nothing to contribute to society. This is what the findings of people with so much hubris had to say about me, as a neurodiverse person. The immediate realisation is that by not investigating the people these claims were made of it, it showed the researchers lacked all the qualities that we were accused of lacking.

It just hits you, eventually. It's professional mocking.

This prejudice, you see, is so ingrained and so deeply set that even people who think of themselves as professionals are just bullies. They're mocking those who they see as beneath and below them. I see this in all walks of life, in day to day life. An example? I went for an eye test just yesterday, which involved retina photography.

As usual, I had trouble focusing on where the pinprick of light was, exactly. This is due to my astigmatism mixed with my underdeveloped optic nerves (neuro-optic dysplasia). When I told the optician this, he said that he could 'see my eyes moving, but I still was clearly not looking at the point of light.'

He'd assumed I'd said 'nystagmus' and didn't bother to verify. I could assume that he doesn't know the difference between astigmatism and nystagmus, but there's a far more likely reason for this to have happened. I exhibit the body language and appearance of a neurodiverse person. I'll wear shades in the winter due to photosensitivity, I habitually rock back and forth in seats, et cetera.

"If it quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it's a duck."

"If it acts like a retard, and looks like a retard, it's a retard."

The problem is? This doesn't pan out at all. It really doesn't. I actually really despise that visual expression because it never actually applies to day to day life. Often, we base assumptions on how something should look and act, we then have false equivalencies between these. So if any aspect is wrong, anything built upon that is too.

The problem is is that the human mind isn't built to recognise that. It's built to find patterns, to be tribal, to like certain patterns and innately dislike others. Which means that over the course of human evolution, we've become exceptionally good at hurting one another. It's our special gift. In fact, we're so self-absorbed with how much we desire to hurt others that we don't realise that...

Hey, we're actually hurting others.

That something has hurt doesn't mean that it's right to spread the pathos around, right? This is interesting as it has so many layers. I see biases and prejudices everywhere, I wish I hadn't come to this level of awareness because it's Pandora's Box. Once the lid is open, you can't close it again, and you're going to see things laid bare that you'll really wish you hadn't.

And it all seems to stem from a certain point. A flaw. An innate flaw. Perfection. Normalcy. It's really perverse when you think about it, isn't this the most depraved aspect of our species? It all goes back, here.

It all flows from and to perfection.

Do you have an ideal of perfection? And do you denigrate that which is further away from it as lesser, as less real, and worse, less sapient than yourself for being closer to it? Well, here's the truth: That's every human alive. This is just so hard-wired into us that we can't stop it, and it's this cancer that's rotting us.

It's the rotten core of everything wrong with us.

Just consider it.

Why is it important to be white, straight, healthy, thin, beautiful, middle- to upper-class, to have a family, to be monogamous, to be the definition of neurotypical?

You could give a lot of reasons and I'm sure you wouldn't stop to examine even one of them. The truth is? They're all bullshit. We keep telling ourselves that diversity is so very important, but deep down we're rotting away because we're all inflicted with this sickness of normalcy, of some ideal of perfection. Of superiority. Of the ideal.

It's easy to look at the biggest group, because they're the biggest group. That's why their sickness is so prominent. If the largest group is white, straight, healthy, moderately good looking, middle- to upper-class? Or if they're the people with the power to turn their opinions into a very unfortunate reality for other people? Then they'll be noticed. That's the way it is.

The biggest ripples you make, the more lives you ruin.

Can I take this to a really fucking weird place? I like furry hypnosis porn. Shrug. Okay, now that I've said that, I want to talk about why it's relevant. In almost every piece of it I look at that deals with an anthro (closer to the human form), and a feral? In almost every case, nine times out of ten, the bipedal and human-like anthro will be shown dominating the feral.

It can't be about the fun side of hypnosis, of course. There is, I feel, a lot of potential there. Altered mind states, aiding with the opening of one's mind to new perspectives, and yes, perhaps even sometimes allowing someone else to take the reins. It doesn't need to be taken though with this huge shown of dominant force, does it? Still, that part is less important.

The part that's more important? So important? Those who like anthro characters perceive that choice as being closer to an ideal, so feral characters are innately inferior. The more feral a character is, the more inferior they must naturally be. And if a type of feral dares to challenge this perception by being seen as powerful (see: Dragons), then those ferals will be one of the primary targets.

The stranger you get, the more you'll notice these things. The more odd, the more weird, the more peculiar you are the more it all stands out. And as this happens, as your perspective broadens, your mind opens, and it all just sort of widens out before you? It just starts to twig. This is everywhere. This sickness.

This ideal state of 'perfection.' This depraved normality.

How often are you influenced by what you view as ideal? You should keep a tally, and once you start doing so it will scare you. I'm sorry. Awareness doesn't ever come easy. I don't like that I have this burden to bear, frankly. I don't enjoy it. I wish I could be blissfully ignorant and blame my problems all on one person or group. I can't. I know now that I can't do that any more. I can't.

I want to. I want to lash out at neurotypicals for having so much hatred of my neurodiversity. I want to lash out at trans people for having so much hatred of my non-gender related bodily dysmorphia. I want to lash out at so many people for being pricks for judging, denigrating, belittling, and dehumanising myself and others for not fitting a perverted, depraved ideal of normalcy.

And everyone is trying to be more normal. It's like a black hole that everyone gravitates toward. As I said, the biggest and the most powerful group? They have the most draw, so they corrupt the most with their hatred of anything which exists outside of their status quo. So gays try to be straight gays, feminists become TERFs, trans people turn against those who have non-gender related dysmorphic disorders and it goes on and on and on...

Why?

I guess it really is because we're hard-wired to be this way. I worry it's going to be a few centuries before we even begin to educate children about this natural bias toward one's own ideal 'perfection' and how that's toxic to all others. How that can hurt. I don't know if we're ever going to be teaching them that the reason that Nazi Germany even happened is because they had their own ideal -- the Aryan ideology of the perfect human being -- which corrupted them so much that they commited some of the most atrocious acts in human history.

If a son has an ideal of perfection and his father is far enough away from that, would he chase down his father and beat him to death? Yes. I read a news article just the other day about how an Alt-Right person did just that. All his father did was have a dissenting opinion, but that discounted his right to be seen as a sapient, thinking, feeling person by his own son. How awful is that?

I just want to know: Why do we have to be this way?

Why?

What purpose does it serve our species to actually continue in this manner? This binary tribalism, it has to stop, it really needs to end. I think we have to fight it, we have to resist this urge to move forward and become something more than we are today.

As it is, right now? I feel like we're still in a dark age. A different kind of dark age than the one most are familiar with, but one that's going to be seen historically as a dark age nonetheless. This is the dark age of perfection, of hatred, of bias, of dissonance, and prejudice.

I don't know that we can stop this that easily. I think we need to try educating our children about this, with every new generation. We have to show them how this hurts people, how badly it affects them. If a person commits suicide over gender dysmorphia, and the Internet makes fun of them, what makes that okay?

Why can't we stop being monsters? Why is there so, so much hatred? Why is there so little awareness of this as a problem? Why do I feel that I'm one of the few people alive who even sees and recognises this as an issue that we, as a species, need to confront? I don't want to bear the burden of knowing this, but also knowing that there's nothing I'm able to do about it. That I'm powerless to stop it.

I'd also like to apologise. In chasing perfection, I've likely hurt a lot of people. The ideal of perfection I had was, in a way, my shield against the forms of perfection that others had. I can't continue to exist that way any more. It isn't right. It isn't just. I think my biggest problem is is that now I'm kind of lost, I really don't know where to go next.

I feel I've hit a plateau. This is the top. I get it, now. What now? What do I do? I got here, but I have no power to affect any change to stop this from happening.

What do I do now?

I can be accused of many, many things, but hubris hasn't ever been one that'd stick. I doubt myself too much for that to ever be true. I even doubt myself now, that perhaps this is just another gate of bias that I can't see past. If that's true then nothing makes sense any more. I don't think it is, though. I don't think it is.

The reason this is different than anywhere else I've been throughout the course of my life? This isn't binary. This isn't me saying that extraverts are responsible, that I blame the neurotypicals. This is me saying that this is a problem that we, collectively, as a species suffer with. That includes myself and everyone else. We all do this. All of us.

We all have our ideal, our status quo, our beloved Zeitgeist, and it's hard to look past that. Anything which deviates from that too much is monstrous, evil, inhuman...

I don't want to be a fence-sitter, but we all do this. Yes, some are worse than others because they're more violent. I just think this, though, is nothing more than toxic ideals being weaponised by certain charismatic individuals to an end, to reach a goal. They encourage this violence, this hatred. They foster and groom it.

I think that some kinds of minds are just more open to being groomed than others. What kinds of minds? I don't know! I really don't. They might be any kind. Extraverted, or introverted. Intellectual, or poorly educated. Neurotypical, or autistic. I guess this can come from anywhere. If I can believe that neurodiverse Alt-Right people exist... I've certainly no choice but to accept this.

I don't know that Alt-Right people are evil, just that they're being harvested because they're harvestable. I think that some kinds of minds are just innately more harvestable for horrible, heinous acts than others. I read a study that says that morals are turned off for people who act in groups or mobs, I kind of believe that. I just don't know what kinds of minds are responsible for this, any more.

All I can do is track it back.

And when I track it back, it all goes back to normalcy, to perfection, to ideals. And then the opposite of normalcy, of perfection, and of ideals. What happens then? What happens when you expose a mind that has a heightened obsession with an ideal of normalistic perfection, and a person which is the exact opposite of that?

I hate to Godwin too much but... Nazi Germany is one example, isn't it? Is that unfair? I don't think it is.

When we're talking about the Alt-Right, after all, I often hear people saying 'well, if you see a Nazi, say Nazi' when referring to them. It isn't because they have the culture, necessarily, but because they're showing the same kinds of behavioural patterns. A peoples who believe they've got some ideal of perfection all their own, exposed to that which is the exact opposite of that perfection.

This sparks hatred.

I think the most telling example of this really is Laci Green. My mind keeps coming back to her, you know? In her earlier days she was more inclusionary, she believed in greater equality, and so on. And yet, eventually, her own ideals of perfection got the best of her. She couldn't hide the repugnance she felt for those who embodied the antithesis of her perfection any more.

So Laci goes on to spout opinions which fit in with TERFs. Then she jumps ship to the Alt-Right. The Alt-Right is a very inviting environment for this kind of attitude where one can have a toxic ideal of perfection, of normalcy, and they can be encouraged and groomed to feel hatred toward anything which is opposed to that.

I think this is what always gets us in the end. Our own ideal of perfection, that denigrates other human beings as less. And some minds... some just fit that bill more easily. I'd say they have less self-awareness, less empathy, and less introspection, as those qualities tend to eventually serve as a counter to these ideals of perfection. No matter how thick-headed and stubborn a person is (i.e., me).

I can't say what kinds of brains lack those qualities any more, though. If I were to say that it's neurotypicals, or any other kind of person? I'd be no different than the smug, mocking 'professionals' who, through their toxic ideals of perfection and hubris, belittle neurodiverse people.

So this is where I'm at right now. This is where I'm at.

Fuck perfection, and fuck normalcy. We can all have ideals but those ideals don't need to belittle or lesser any other person.

I want to learn about your ideals and value them.

I hope you all can one day feel the same way.

For those that do, or are starting to? Thank you.

Nah. This doesn't mean I'm better. Haha. I lack too much self-esteem for that. I'm a useless sack of shit. If I were actually smart, I'd have figured this all out already.