My Aquarian Confessional

I'm an oldish, queerish, womanish kind of creature. This is a new blog, but I'm not new to Tumblr. Unfortunately this will probably be mostly reblogs, but, I read, I write (mostly fiction), I sew, (mostly doll clothes now but I used to be a dressmaker), I draw (badly), I love photography, I read tarot and barely dabble in astrology (despite the name), once in a while I paint, I play ttrpgs (mostly old school WOD) My family thinks i'm extremely weird, but I'm apparently too vanilla for many corners of the internet. Discussions on religion, philosophy, sociology and politics draw me in like a moth to a flame, no matter how bad it is for my mental well-being. My kids are all grown and now I'm trying to remember who I used to be and decide who I am, now that I don't feel so obligated to care what the world thinks of me.

[biglawbear]

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

[biglawbear]

You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.

Holy shit.

[biglawbear]

Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

I'm not okay. Holy fuck you guys.

[biglawbear]

It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?

[three--rings]

Certainly there are many messages within Lord of the Rings, but you have to think that Tolkien would have been happy that this message in particular was still being conveyed all these years later.

[sonpat-rides-again]

[ihavenocluewhatiwanttobecalled]

Can someone who understands psychology explain why this makes someone "rude"?

[alex51324]

Phatic discourse, a subset of affiliative signaling.

When Co-workers do things like ask about weekend plans, chat about non-work topics, eat lunch in the same room, they are--subconsciously--reaffirming that they are part of a cooperative (or, minimally, non-antagonistic) social group.

The other primates cement social bonds by grooming each other; we do it by making small talk.

If they solicit your participation in these rituals, and you repeatedly refuse those bids, you are marking yourself out as, at best, an outsider to the group, and thus potentially antagonistic.

This is all happening on the monkey-brain level; they have no idea what they're doing or how they are interpreting your response, so there's no way to clear up the misunderstanding.

To the ape sleeping in your co-worker's DNA, either you are part of the grooming circle, or you are an outsider who, for all it knows, may be coming to steal all the bananas.

Even if you would prefer not to socialize with your co-workers, it's generally worth it to set aside 5 minutes a couple times a week for phatic communication. You don't have to answer your co-workers' affiliative signals every time, but it's less trouble in the long run if you respond to a few of them.

[punkrorschach]

if you are the type of person who really just wants to be left alone to do their work in quiet: it is actually easier to achieve this as part of the in-group. when you enter a new space, in this case, a job, make it your GOAL to make everyone Know Who You Are. introduce yourself to everyone you meet. literally everyone. "hi I'm Jack I'm New." this helps burst the awkward bubble. you are now one of the monkeys.

at some point, either in response to an invitation, or just in the natural course of conversation, you can add in that you are a "quiet type" who "needs their silence" or what have you. customize to your personal needs. i find it helpful to imagine a well dressed elderly woman describing the sort of peace she needs to manifest.

roughly once a week if you see a group of people chatting, engage with them. keep it pleasant. it can be superficial. word will travel that you are Nice and Quiet and Not The Chatty Type protecting you from group lunches etc. if you have an office with a door that you keep closed a lot, putting up any kind of decor will also send positive signals.

humans are monkeys! for better or worse!

[tlbodine]

Pro tip: try to make a note (write it down if you have to) about some inconsequential thing that your coworker mentions so you can ask about it later. Kids and pets are great for This. As are hobbies. One guy in my office zoom called in from his house and I saw he had an arcade game in his office so I asked him about it later and he lit up like a Christmas tree. Another coworker has a pet pig and I ask every couple months how the pig is doing. This is a great strategy for pivoting conversation away from you and will make them think you are the friendliest monkey in the pod.

[mariacallous]

[rabbitindisguise]

This is the same kind of thinking of folks who are upset with the Democrats not "doing anything"

They did stuff people take for granted because "they're obviously smart ideas, so they probably already existed a long time ago." That's all it is.

Also, I want to add to the list:

Birth control (1936)

Abortion (1973)

Domestic violence becoming a crime (yes, really)

The suffragettes (1903) were decades ahead of social work (late 1900s), so women weren't doing that either

The first woman was elected to the house of representatives in 1916 (Jeanette Rankin)

In 1922 Florence Ellinwood Allen is the first woman elected to a state supreme court

Women are granted the right to serve on juries (1947)

The use of contraceptives is completely legal for married couples (1965)

No fault divorce (1969)

Sex segregated "help wanted" signs banned (1973)

Housing and credit discrimination based on sex outlawed (1974)

Public schools are no longer allowed to discriminate based on sex without justification (1982)

[clockworkcanary]

We take some of these so completely for granted that we have trouble really believing that some people are currently trying to roll things back.

Abortion is under attack, with birth control the next admitted target.

Some people really do want to get rid of no-fault divorce. (Murder rates went down when we got no-fault divorce because someone’s death was no longer the only way out.)

Our current administration wants to eliminate DEI, which is just diversity, equity and inclusion. What they want is to push out anyone who disagrees with them, or is not a white man. It’s re-segregation, but they don’t want to call it that…yet.

They want the Gilded Age back, with the hugely unequal and stratified society, the lack of worker and environmental protection, and women dependent on the men in their family again. The wrecking ball they are taking to our government is supposed to return us to a better time, and people assume the fifties, but, no. They want to be robber barons and tycoons.

[romanceyourdemons]

i bet belle and hua mulan would love each other. the filial piety brothers 💪

[romanceyourdemons]

belle: i respect my father so much

hua mulan: hey i respect MY father so much, and also yours

belle: i would lay down my life for him in an instant, so of course when his life was on the line i didn’t hesitate to set aside whatever identity and thoughts of the future i had had to defend him

hua mulan: that’s crazy i also did that

belle: i didn’t expect that i would end up with more grandeur and authority than i ever could have accessed otherwise, but of course i didn’t forget who i was doing this for or let the power tempt me

hua mulan: 100% with you sister

belle: also the giant bloodthirsty cat creature gives insane dick like you wouldn’t even believe

hua mulan: the what

[firawren]

Not letting @dumpster-fire-rats leave that in the tags

[helenvaughans]

[ralfmaximus]

It's gonna take decades to rebuild what those arrogant DOGE children broke. I honestly want them prosecuted for sabotage.

[azuremist]

Anyone else noticing how all of this is happening at once.

Age verification for Wikipedia and Spotify. YouTube banning accounts for under-16s, and rolling out AI to detect if someone is actually 18 based on their viewing history (100% guaranteed to falsely mark autistic adults as children at an irregularly high rate, btw). Banning porn off Steam and itch. Attempts to ban and IP range-block VPNs. Age verification for not just porn, but anywhere you could maybe possibly see porn, including basic social media features like DMs.

What the fuck is happening. At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, what the fuck are they preparing for

[myaquarianconfessional]

100% I would have passed as an adult online at like, age 8. (i mean, we didn't have the internet back then, but knowing my interests, I know.)

[nigelgraz]

Y'all fw 6'3" evil vampire girlfailures around here❓️🤨

[animentality]

[homunculus-argument]

Getting blacklisted from trading with local fae because you've been paying for their favours with stuff like childhood dreams and the memory of your mother's smile, trading their goods for what would have otherwise been absurdly highball prices, but then they found out that the things you've given them in return are worthless because they mean nothing to you. After going no-contact with your family you just wanted to get fucking rid of all of the things that are attached to them, and if you could, you'd give your memories of them away for free on craiglist.

[animentality]

[liberalsarecool]

Republicans are burning the Constitution to help install a Russian money-launderer.

[fongus-the-ninth]

This stuff is insane. when will conservatives realize that there is no such thing as 'ethnically American' - that the USA is not like other countries that have ethnicities nearly directly tied to them. (We killed all the people who were ethnically tied here.) The entire point of the USA is that you can be an American and chase the American dream no matter where you came from.

Funny how this list doesn't include actual ethnic native Americans 😉

Funny how it would also... demote Donald Trump himself to a 4th class, D class citizen? (I don't think they thought that out while making this)

(And i might be a little performatively woke here 🤪 but calling your heritage 'stock' like you're a breed of cattle is fucking disgusting and reeks of eugenics 🤮 (not to mention this kind of graph may be used in the very near future to deport real, legal, born in the US Americans in every sense of the word, anytime after 1945 with both parents and grandparents born here, just because their families didnt get here "early enough" for this administration (fearmongering, i know, but how can you rule that out at this point)))

[beardedmrbean]

what does she have against fun and comfort

[owa-tagoo-siam]

[lizardsfromspace]

Tens of thousands of notes on a post claiming a bill introduced by the Republicans will make credit card companies support NSFW content, and only a handful going "hey maybe don't support this".

Let's look into how the bill is being reported elsewhere - in fact, from the Senator who introduced the Senate version of the Fair Access to Banking Act

"In recent years, prominent American banks have engaged in a discriminatory practice, referred to as debanking. Banks and financial institutions use their economic standing to categorically exclude law-abiding, legal industries by refusing to lend or provide services to them."

Hmm. What industries could he mean?

"This includes industries such as firearms, ammunition, crypto, federal prison contractors, as well as energy producers."

Wow. Who could've guessed that's what he meant

“When progressives failed at banning these entire industries, what they did instead is they turned to weaponizing banks as sort of a backdoor to carry out their activist goals..."

So it is, in fact, a bill around trying to stop left-wing activists from, say, going after oil and gas companies or private prisons or the arms industry

But - surely it would include NSFW bans too, right? It would overturn them, right? If you read the text of the bill, which is deliberately vague as you'd expect, it explicitly allows banks to deny payment based on "quantitative, impartial risk-based standards" - it only bans it for "political" or "reputational risk" considerations. And claims that the adult media industry is "high risk" is why payment processors drop it

But let's see who supports it!

"The Fair Access to Banking Act is endorsed by several organizations, including the National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Rifle Association, North Dakota Petroleum Council, National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, The Digital Chamber, Blockchain Association, Independent Petroleum Association of America, Online Lenders Alliance, Day 1 Alliance, GEO Group, Lignite Energy Council, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, National Mining Association, CoreCivic, and the National ATM Council."

Private prison companies, fossil fuel companies, blockchain companies, and the NRA. But surely...? SURELY a bill we're explicitly told again and again is about preventing left-wing activism against private industry, that's co-sponsored by fucking Lindsey Graham, and that certainly seems to include a carve-out specifically to let payment processors continue to deny adult content, but not deny conservative political causes...would secretly be pro-NSFW content?

This bill is all over the internet now, with viral pleas to GET IT PASSED and shutdowns of any criticism of a bill whose real intent is extremely overt. All of this is a simple search away and straight from the horse's mouth, and nobody wants to do even that modicum of research because they would prefer to take someone's word for it that a magic panacea is just a few phone calls away. If you make phone calls asking for this to pass, you're being played: tricked into supporting a bill crafted by the people leading the moral panic that harassed Itch into oblivion that would do nothing to help that, but that would ban any activism against payments for destructive fossil fuel extraction or gun lobbying. The guy who made it just told everyone that's what it's for! Does no one care to look? To read the bill? You can be the one to read it and say it's bad (being the only person to actually read an odious bill is called "Russ Feingold-ing")

Looking up the talk about this bill one theme I saw a lot was people dismissing anyone pointing out a Republican introduced it by saying "I don't care who introduced it! AS LONG AS SOMEBODY DOES SOMETHING!!!!" But you know what? If you saw that a Republican introduced the bill, and your reaction was to go "wow, so a Republican introduced a bill to protect adult content?" without even a pang of skepticism...I have no words tbh

[thegaymertrainer]

Ya Zhou Pottery

[boyswillbeboxes]

[socialjusticeinamerica]

[myaquarianconfessional]

I do think wages are too high, but before you come for me...

It IS hard for a small business to pay living wages and keep their business open. This isn't their fault at all., it isn't them that raised rent so damn high no one can afford to live. it's not them that raised food prices so damn high no one can afford to live. They aren't greedy and they aren't trying to fleece everyone by paying wages that are too low. They're also trying to scrape by.

Paying rent on a small business space is insanely high. We have so many empty commercial properties here, and no one is willing to lower their rents to get new businesses in.

If we want SMALL businesses to thrive we need to lower residential and commercial rents by a LOT. Because the way things are isn't working for anyone but the owners and ceo's of big corporations. I know there are a lot of things contributing to the problem of living today, but insanely high rent is by far one of the biggest factors.