Water Enough to Cleanse

Rii, Oyand.

[there-is-water]

The apartment was too quiet after Kem left. Rii tried music at first, but it just reminded them of Kem.

They got a bird. Then a few more. A lot of birds.

It gave them an excuse not to leave the country, or try to find someplace better. There were the birds to think of. The birds and all their cages and things would be difficult to move. So Rii had to stay right where they were in Oyand.

Within sight of what had once been the red district.

But eventually things would get better. Rather, Rii allowed them to get better. They never moved to Miolee, or even Niyau, but they did move back into a city, where they weren’t reminded of the past, where there were more different kinds of people, where people didn’t know them as the hyposensitive that was friends with reds.

[there-is-water]

[@another Oyand rotation worker] I know you think it's worth it , but... don't you ever just want to get away from this awful country?

Pretty much constantly.

[artistic-arborealist]

~I’m sorry~.

So, our language is a little hard to learn, and most people don’t really like our weather, and I’m sure immigration is going to open up in ~lots of countries~ once they find a planet!

But if you ever want to swap to Niyau, I’d be ~happy to write you a letter of recommendation~.

[there-is-water]

I’m not sure that people with the prospect of planets would want to come to a country that’s been grounded.

Though I suppose if enough people left for countries with colony planets the population controls might relax a bit here as well. Maybe then.

But thank you for the offer.

[there-is-water]

[@another Oyand rotation worker] I know you think it's worth it , but... don't you ever just want to get away from this awful country?

Pretty much constantly.

[there-is-water]

I’m seeing people saying “of course potential aliens would have the same feelings about pollution as us they’re not evil.”

Hello, hyposensitives exist.

[healthesick]

Most untreated hyposensitives are evil.

[there-is-water]

Given my condition and your reputation, I do not believe our discussion on this matter would be productive.

[there-is-water]

I’m seeing people saying “of course potential aliens would have the same feelings about pollution as us they’re not evil.”

Hello, hyposensitives exist.

[openamenta]

Everyone complaining about ‘but reds!!’ should take a few seconds to think about diplomatic theory.

Given that we’re going to space, it is likely enough we’re going to meet aliens. I presume everyone can agree that we would all prefer this was a peaceful meeting that left everyone feeling like we can come to a further peaceful agreement. We already have enough working against us - space is big, but ultimately we’re all after the same space, and as history testifies that gets very bloody very fast even when everyone involved is the same species and knows each other.

If we come to the aliens with a record of ‘we let people commit and get away with mass murder’ this does not do good things for our chances. Think about it - if you were meeting a new person and trying to make a deal with them, would you feel good about it if you learned that they’d recently murdered one of their tenants and suffered no consequences for it?

And sure you can say 'but reds!’ - but whatever your theological opinions, the aliens won’t be living in our history. Reds look like other Amentans, talk like other Amentans, can pass for other Amentans on the internet, have been having their radio signals end up in space with everyone’s, have been present and a rather vital part of Amentan civilization for centuries. We don’t know enough about what the aliens are like. What if they had a pollution disaster they had to clean up from? Probably their pollution standards are different from ours. 'They’ll go right ahead and slaughter us all, as long as they can tell themselves we were polluted first’ is not a trust- or peace-inspiring thought!

And while I feel for the people of Oyand and Orvara and so on, 'well these people did commit mass murder and don’t think they did anything wrong, but it’s in the past now!’ is also not a trust-inspiring position!

'We do not commit mass murder, period, and anyone who committed mass murder has been sanctioned and not permitted to be present’ is the position that can inspire trust. It’s the position we need to be able to go in with.

Whatever your opinion of cleaning, it is a small price to pay for a greater chance of peace in the universe.

[there-is-water]

Precisely my sentiments.

[there-is-water]

How do you feel about citizens of your country not being able to go to space because your government messed up red transition? Honestly I think I'd have a hard time supporting a policy if it did that to me, but I kind of see the point of it so I dunno

The incentive is, I assume, meant to ensure that tragedies like in Oyand and Rivik do not happen again. This is a good thing.

Once every country has transitioned, and there is no chance for such atrocities, Anitam might release the information to us. Or someone else might. Or we might get taken over by some country that has that information. I’m sure the citizens of Oyand will have a place in the stars at some point. When that is, I don’t know, but we will. And waiting to get there will save lives.

I suppose it is unfair that people who had nothing to do with transition will face consequences for things they did not do, but it is more unfair for people to be slaughtered because they were born in the wrong caste.

[there-is-water]

what happened?

I decided I couldn’t live with someone who blamed my friends for their own murders.

It’s not my job to fix people.

[there-is-water]

Alone again.

[yourcoffeeguru]

[citizen-of-space]

[deseos-de-la-via-lactea]

[there-is-water]

So. Anitam did a thing.

I hope we are alone in the universe. Given how much of it exists that we haven’t explored, I think it’s unlikely. But I hope.

Our ideas of what--who--could be waiting for us among the stars are, I think, too amentancentric. We envision societies that look like ours, but people have black hair or three eyes, or they believe that causing someone’s death makes one polluted.

Who’s to say that alien lifeforms and cultures resemble ours at all? Maybe there are sentient clouds of gas that don’t make pollution because they have no physical bodies, and therefore have no concept of it. Maybe there are aliens that communicate by changing color, and a certain shade of blue hair is considered a terrible insult.

Maybe the aliens have a vastly different idea of what pollution is. Maybe they’ll see us all as being hereditarily polluted and fence us in somewhere because we’ve all been in contact with, say, wheat and wheat byproducts.

We can barely recognize people from other castes as being fully-realized individuals. We barely treat those with non-normative pollution responses as people. How are we going to interact with people from other planets?

[there-is-water]

So I know that scientifically reds have the same brain structure as we do and they probably have the same feelings and so on, and if I imagine someone who thinks and feels like me being treated like a red I can see how wrong it is. But when I try to directly think of actual reds as people I should care about, my brain just goes "aaaaaaah pollution no aaaaaaaaah". As a red rights person, do you have any advice on how to get around this?

As a hyposensitive I have more experience with methods meant to start such a reaction rather than stop it, but I can try to give you some pointers.

I hope it’s more effective than the bullshit I had to do.

From my experience working rotations, controlled exposure to a certain pollutant can decrease sensitivity toward that pollutant somewhat. At least in a context where you’re not going to end up touching it.

If you read things written by reds, or perhaps follow a few of their blogs, there’s no chance that you’ll end up touching them--pollution cannot spread through the internet. 

But if you’re not comfortable with that initially, you could find things made by Mioleens or ex-reds, who are clean. Mioleen media tends to have red-haired characters who are not polluted so it may be helpful in beginning to get through one’s aversion to red hair.

[there-is-water]

ooc

Okay. Okay. They got on the boats. They got on the boats. They got on the boats.

Some of them.

It’s a good sign that it’s gone alright so far. It has to be. But something can still go wrong. It could--they have greys from Biyan there why would they--

Five things you can see. Four things you can touch. Three things you can hear. Two things you can smell. One thing you can taste.

They got on the boats. They got on the boats. They got on the boats.

[there-is-water]

if you really cared about reds you wouldn't be friends with that shrill bigot

[[Oh good something else to focus on.]]

We do not live in a big city. Everyone here knows everyone else, and my role is ‘the quiet outsider who used to spend their time around the red district.’

So there are not very many people around here who are interested in getting to know me except my therapist but I pay him. Amentans are social beings. I cannot simply hole myself away and interact with no one. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.

Anyway she’s getting... better.

And she insists that I inform you that she is not shrill.

[there-is-water]

tips to help with an anxiety attack

•Look around you.

•Find five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two thing you can smell and one thing you can taste.

this is called grounding. it can help when you feel like you've lost control of all your surroundings.