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wolven91 · 9 months

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A Heated Bed - Chapter 3

Matt was perched on the end of his bed sitting mostly still. It was an odd fact that he'd yet to actually use the furniture for a full night's rest and he was already starting his second day on board the felinoid craft. He was currently resting his chin against one his fists whilst leaning his elbow on his knee and biting his nails on the other hand absently. All the while he maintained an impressive thousand-yard stare at the far wall.

The human was considering the situation he had put himself into, contemplating it properly and turning it over in his mind. Matt had come to the conclusion that he could no longer allow himself to simply wash down the river in the currents that he was being subjected to. He had to enforce his own will, or he'd be drowned by the creatures he was sharing a craft with.

As Ruby, the felinoid who had started all this off, put it; he was experiencing 'True Freedom' for the first time. The way she said it though. The emphasis she used sounded differently than the words he knew them as and the implications he had learned for them didn't seem to fit properly. He suspected that something was being lost in the translation between her language and his own. The way she had described it, 'True Freedom' was intimidating to those who hadn't actually experienced it before.

And the more that Matt now considered it, the more he realised it was true. Back home; 'home', home, he was told what was right, not in just not being a general dick, but what was 'normal' or expected.

Then everything went wrong, the human suppressed a flinch as the fearful memories that he had no intention of confronting any time soon bubbled back up. He unconsciously licked at the scar that marred the side of his mouth, a 'gift' from those times. After Earth wasn't his or anyone else's problem anymore, he was thrown into the hands of a government that apparently barely knew anything about humans. This government then told him what they had decided was 'right' and 'correct'. In their opinion, his objective was now to work, but he 'didn't have to'. All the while they flaunted the hellish grey world that awaited him if Matt didn't earn his way. Oh sure, you won't starve, they said, you won't be homeless either, but you will only have a bare minimum with nowhere to call your own.

So if you want a home; get on the treadmill and start running.

Was it the choice that was freedom? The choice; work or don't. Conform or don't. If he aligned himself to the power's desire, then he could make a life for himself in the free time he scraped together between working. Was it the reward for working that was freedom? He wasn't so sure now that he'd been dumped into the deep end of a society that toted 'True Freedom'.

The felinoids showed up and exposed Matt to something. different. The hand he had been biting the nails of stopped and gently touched at his bottom lip. It still tingled at the fresh memory; it was barely a handful of hours past since he had been kissed by Onyx. More passionately than anything he'd had experienced before, albeit his personal experience list on the matter was short to say the least. He hadn't hated it either, quite the contrary, but now, on his own; the heavily ingrained guilt was creeping out from the depth of his skull.

He was human, they weren't. This was the first aspect which his mind taunted him with. His mind played that concept over and over, happily reminding the man that humanity was a dying, critically endangered race and had been for a quarter of a year with no change. But it was the fact that the creature wasn't the opposite sex to him that seemed to play on his mind more. Matt's upbringing had more to say on that matter than the former concept any way. If or when he encountered another human, messing around with another species was excusable, but if they were the opposite... god this felt like the wrong mental track to take! It felt morally wrong to the man, like he was becoming someone he'd hate just by thinking like this. But... all his conditioning from his upbringing was struggling to fit in this new world and this? This was the thing his mind was sticking on because it was something that Earth had or did have. Matt's subconscious mind understood this concept of 'correct' genders so clung to it like a lifeline despite its horrid nature.

The man stood and breathed in to swear, but stopped himself as his mind flashed to the past. Like a burst balloon he exhaled and instead tried to shake himself from the thought. Onyx was lovely, he, no, 'they' were lovely. They had taken him by surprise, sure, but he wasn't into... Matt didn't... If he wanted Onyx to kiss him again, was it gay? What about those twins, would that be...? The punk? Ruby?

Matt suppressed the urge to shout in frustration. He had no clue what was right, or wrong or... or... what was he supposed to be worrying about!? His mind told him to feel shame without an explanation, but his maddening loneliness was screeching at him to grab onto at least one of them and never let go. Whilst his brain couldn't explain why he should feel shame, it knew exactly why he should avoid being alone. Three damned months he'd been alone. Three months day in, day out, with an utter absence of another. He had wanted to die towards the end of that hell.

Even when Matt had not just stepped out of, but truly left his comfort zone, and tried to engage in conversation with others; it hadn't gone well. The man had researched what they were talking about the day before with a plan to offer an opinion or agree with someone else. In answer to him joining in, they'd dispersed almost immediately. Back in the present, Matt clapped his hands over his face at the memory of the embarrassment, his body physically tightening in shame, his toes curling into the plush carpet. The shame of social suicide as he cemented his place as an outcast on the station replayed in his head. He didn't want to think about this!

'But these creatures haven't shunned you...' His mind offered him, like a pusher offering an addict what they desired despite them barely keeping it together. 'They've accepted you unlike anyone before...' His body stopped tensing in response to the lifeline. 'You could take and take and take.'

No, he wouldn't... abuse their kindness. He wasn't a bastard, he didn't want to hurt anyone. He had to take control. He had to control himself and school his thoughts too.

Ruby and Onyx, they took him by surprise. He... he enjoyed everything that happened, but it was a heat of the moment thing. Yeah... yeah! That was it! He had gone from utter loneliness to being doted on. Of course! Of course, he would go along with that. Like being drunk and going along with the group, one could end up doing stuff one wouldn't do normally. His body relaxed more and more as this train of thought gathered speed and solidified as a reasonable excuse and mental out.

Matt nodded into the empty room as his mind latched onto this conceptualisation of what he'd experienced. Everything that had happened last night, and this morning was a one off. He was still who he was a few days ago and all that had changed was that he had made new friends. They weren't what he was used to, true, but he'd accept them regardless, and the rest of them for who they were as well.

Matt decided that he'd pass no judgments, he would hold himself to his standards, not them. To ensure he did this right, he spoke to himself, verbally making an agreement and setting ground rules for himself.

"Okay, first goal; no snogging anyone else. Simple. I've been doing that the majority of my life so far; this will be the easiest one. Second, tonight, I will sleep in my own bed. Whether I fall asleep or not, I will not climb into someone else's bed."

The man nodded with his fists against his hips, these were good, reasonable goals. Left things nice and open for discovering whatever new concepts the felinoids wanted to reveal today.

As for today, maybe he wasn't planning on becoming a teacher when he left, but even if the idea of standing in front of a class petrified him, it was better than staring at a computer typing in people's names from one spreadsheet to another. He'd dedicate himself to educating the felinoids as they had asked him to.

He'd never seen the other races of aliens express themselves in such a manner as the felinoids did. Perhaps the station he'd been on was particularly uptight, and there were other touchy-feely aliens out there? He didn't know, but either way, he'd give the felinoids a fair understanding of what was polite and what wasn't when interacting with humans. He'd avoid the subjects he wasn't sure on; it wasn't his place to speak on matters he knew little about. It should be easy enough to ignore or redirect those questions.

His door chirped, having the man flinch and look round at the still securely locked door. The console light pulsed; someone was asking to see him.

"Come in." He called out, blinking and coming back to the 'real world' and disregarding his almost mad rant to himself.

The door revealed Ruby, who gracefully tiptoed into his quarters. Matt noted that it seemed all the felinoids walked on their toes, giving the impression of a runway model regardless of who it was. It was as if when they walked, if Matt was standing in the way, they'd either walk through him or over him without breaking stride. She stopped a few steps in and waved her hand at the door controls, effortlessly ordering it to close and give them privacy. Matt had yet to work out the intricacies of the device, he'd been too busy trapped in his own head.

The human stood and brushed his worn jeans down and smoothing the wrinkles out of his flannel shirt as best he could. He didn't own an iron and the only other clothes he had were jumpsuits or plain white tops that he had bought at the station for cheap. The clothes he wore were his 'best' despite the singes to the hems. He looked up at the smiling alien and breathed in to recite his practised speech.

"Hey Ruby, listen, last night, I. I wanted to thank you for helping me. I really got some good sleep, and I'm sorry if I imposed or snored or-" A thickly furred paw gently closed over his mouth.

"Are we about to assume what I find offensive?" Asked the towering alien, crooking a single eye ridge. Matt could have sworn he heard the click of a gun's hammer being cocked.

Matt reached up to grasp her paw, but it didn't budge. She did, however, gain a smirk. The human shook his head in answer to her and the hand immediately left him in response. Her crooked finger, however, was placed against the underside of his chin and she forced him to look up and meet her gaze.

"My Matt, you are not a burden. I invited you into my home, just as I did Onyx. I did that with the knowledge that for all I knew, when you slept you would screech at the top of your lungs like a Farfellel beetle. If that was so, I may have retracted my invitation for future nights, but I would not have blamed you even then. Please... for me? Stop saying 'sorry' for things you have not done wrong."

The alien stood there, holding his chin, other hand on her hip and staring the human down. He grimaced and understood he was pushing it now. Still, he had caused her negative emotions and like two plus two equals what one would expect, he couldn't stop himself as his programming demanded the correct response to forcing her into saying that.

"I apologise. Wait! I didn't say sorry- Oof!"

His words were cut off as the felinoid stepped forward, and with one paw, gripped the front of Matt's shirt, lifted him up and launched him backwards onto the bed where he bounced once, rolling head over shoulders, into a collapsed mess. It seemed he had finally found the limits to her patience. Matt was unharmed, but he had a new understanding of just the kind of strength Ruby had, saying that the long fur did little to hide the bodybuilder's physique she controlled.

"Now I forgive you. You are not allowed to reference it again." Ruby declared with a resolute nod before clapping her paws together loudly. "Now! You have a bit of an issue that should hold your attention."

Matt disengaged himself from the bed, and stepped back around to the foot of it, closing the distance with the alien, straightening himself again, but giving her his full attention.

"Okay, right, what's that then?"

"Your... etiquette lessons, if that's what we're calling them? When I explained to the crew before we left the station that humans required a different approach if we wanted to give a good first impression, some interest was raised." The alien grimaced and continued. "Since you joined the ship however, most if not all the crew have made it clear they want to be part of the lessons."

She stalked around him and sat on the bed, becoming just under his eye line in height, it felt odd to be near eye to eye with her.

"I attempted to mitigate this without your input by claiming we were only doing small groups. This has caused its own issues as now many of the crew are calling in favours, or buying and selling their place on the possibility they get a place and... well... you're new, you're cute and everyone wants to meet you. How would you like to handle this?" She asked, finishing up her explanation. Matt blinked as he processed the information, he skimmed past the compliment hidden in there and considered his task. Explaining etiquette is fairly easy, but talking to too many of them would be too much for him personally.

"Maybe... I can do several lessons, but with smaller groups? It might take longer, but that way everyone gets a go. How long is our current trip?" As he spoke the man scratched at his chin, thinking carefully how best to handle them all. Whilst Matt was unsure of how to handle the social norms of aliens, if given a task, his mind could grasp it and work it out as best it could. It was the first time in a long while that the man was able to really utilise his intellect for a task more complicated than data input and he relished it.

"Oh we have at least a week of travel between systems alone. Then we'll swing by the station in the same system, figure out if there's humans on board and go from there." Ruby explained, leaning back on the bed on her outstretched hands.

"Okay, the lessons should be fairly easy. For the most part it's just some core 'rules' and everything else is just your judgement as to whether it's appropriate." The man chuntered to himself as he figured out what he was going to do.

Ruby frowned as he verbalised his work, then her features softened again as she looked up at Matt and caught his eye with a warm smile.

"It sounds complicated, but you will do brilliantly, and I will sit in on the first few so I shall learn as well. You will not be alone."

=== 0 ===

Matt stood outside the room that had been designated his 'classroom'.

He had hoped that there would be more time to prepare. To create some sort of lesson plan or something. He'd heard someone who was a teacher once say something about a 'lesson plan' and it sounded like a good concept now he was about to begin a class without a clue what he was going to say. He took a deep breath and let it out. He did it again and entered the room before his bravery left him.

The human had been unconsciously expecting a classroom. Desks in rows or an auditorium. Maybe a desk or podium at the front for him to sit at or more likely hide behind? He'd later consider the idea and be forced to ask why the hell aliens would have school desks like Earth? But this didn't occur to the man until the early hours of the following morning.

Instead, it was a relatively small, cosy room. The walls were a deep sunset orange and realistically, there wasn't much floor space to walk about in. The centre of the room was dominated by a huge, raised piece of furniture. It was circular with a single 'segment' removed, where one could walk into the centre and sit on the thick looking cushions. Matt gauged that it came up to his chest in height, but the backrests were taller than him. It looked like a fancy sofa or settee suite and it certainly looked comfortable with how the group of aliens were lounging about on it.

The group were chatting amongst themselves and seemed to consist mostly of familiar faces. Ruby was present, she was very much aware of Matt's arrival and was the only one facing the door. She said nothing though, lounging back, sitting cross legged and resting her head against a raised finger. She had a smirk on her muzzle as she watched him and let the group live in ignorance as they continued debating something.

Matt chose the wall closest to the door and facing the missing segment. He went and stood by it before clearing his throat. Like a ripple, the conversation stopped, the various swivelling ears atop of the various alien's heads turned to face him, followed by the faces of all present.

He knew all four present, well... 'knew' was perhaps too strong of a word. Ruby was present and he had known her roughly two days at this point. Onyx was missing, but he recognised the garish colours and stark white mohawk of the punk felinoid hair from this morning. Furthermore, were the two golden pelts of the twin lions, they were draped over one another. Mercifully, they were wearing what looked like oversized towels, connected around their hips that stopped just short of their knees instead of being stark naked.

"Umm, hello, everyone." Matt started, unsure as to what to say. All of a sudden, his mouth was dry and his mind empty of thoughts. The aliens' faces were impassive and watched him carefully.

"Ah, we're... That is Ruby... Well, I've been asked to talk about our... I mean, my, ah, human manners, or-or-or..." Matt stopped himself, sighing through his nose in defeat. He was panicking and tripping over his words. It had gone wrong already so he closed his eyes. He kept them closed as he spoke next.

"I'm sorry, I'm- I'm not great at speaking in front of a group." They'd bet on the wrong horse here and now they were going to realise-

"I have a question." Asked a voice, dropping the bottom out of Matt's stomach. The room reappeared as Matt opened his eyes and the punk gave him a wave. She grinned briefly before speaking again. "Why are you standing there?"

"Yeah, aren't you tired?" Asked one of the lions, laying on his front, taking up the most space on the large round 'sofa'.

"Oh... Should I be...? Where do you want me to stand?" Matt asked, mildly concerned that he'd just picked wrong and there was a correct place to stand.

"You have to stand?" Asked the other lion, whose legs the first lion was draped over, briefly copying the punk by raising a hand. The golden fur and red mane rippled as he glanced at the punk before back to the human.

"Well... I... I thought I did? My teachers always stood at the front, I was just copying them, you know?" Matt extended his hands out to the side, palms exposed. "It's my first day."

"Do they have to? You don't unless that is part of politeness?" Asked the other lion, his voice rumbling. This one seemed to constantly be purring and extended the end of his sentences peculiarly.

"I don't think so? It's just so you all can see and hear me. I think?"

"So, if we can't hear you standing up there, you'd have to sit with us?" Pointed out the prone lion, but before Matt could reply, the twin chipped in.

"I can't actually hear you, I'm really struggling."

"Me too, plus I can't see you." Added the punk, who had admitted being forced to turn herself to see him, now turning back to the centre of the sofa with a flick of her ears.

"I could also do with hearing you better." Confirmed Ruby, briefly raising a clawed paw to have her vote added. Ruby's smirk had developed into a full grin by now. Why did Matt have a feeling that she knew it would go this way?

"That's decided then. Come on, sit down then." The punk commanded, patting the sofa with a toothy grin. Matt blinked, glanced at Ruby who shrugged with an unreadable smile, before Matt straightened his shoulders and attempted to govern his thoughts. 'They were just energetic, give them this and then regain control. You're in control of your destiny.'

The human strode over to the sofa, standing in the missing segment. If Matt was standing at the six o'clock of the sofa, going around the circle from his left, the punk was sitting closest to him at eight, Ruby at eleven o'clock and the twin lions on Matt's immediate right at four or five o'clock.

It was intimidating to be stared at by what had previously been predators in Matt's youth. To be fair though, he'd only seen TV shows for most of them present. Matt perched on the edge of the sofa.

"So." He began before being cut off as two thick arms looped around his middle and dragged him backwards into the sofa until his legs were flat and he found himself being propped up against the raised back of the furniture, placed neatly next to the punk felinoid.

"Look, you were going to be sat there all stiff and that was going to annoy me." The punk explained, waving her hand dismissively as he looked round at her. "This way you can relax and so can we." she tilted her head and smiled with her eyes closed, her various piercings through her ears gleamed and glittered.

Matt wanted to protest, but each of the aliens sitting around him nodded sagely in agreement with her. Matt decided not to push it; it was fine, regain control, it's fine.

"Is it true humans don't like other species?" Asked the punk who leaned forwards, quirking an eye ridge, Matt mentally retreated, but quickly recovered to dissuade that idea.

"What? No! I mean, there will be some, sure, but no that's not true as a general rule." He retorted, briefly glancing around the group to ensure they understood that he didn't not like them or anything.

"Is it true you shed?" Asked the prone lion, now propping his head up in his hands supported on his elbows and lazily kicking his legs. Had he gotten closer?

"Not... Like I don't have fur or scales, but..."

Matt felt another wave of questions coming, but just before they started flying.

"Enough!" Ruby interjected, stalling the next question before it began. "I believe if we do not focus, we will not actually take part in what we've intended to do with this lesson."

"But he's new!" Pointed out the dramatic lion. "We have to know stuff!"

"There will be time to ask questions, we are here to learn and are lucky to be doing so." Replied the punk, nodding before making eye contact with the human. Her different coloured eyes were glinted.

The lion huffed, going limp and letting his face hit the sofa.

"Well... what would be the best place to start I suppose?" Matt asked himself.

"What about a good introduction?" Ruby asked, going back to her fully relaxed pose and draping her arms over the back of the round sofa.

"Honestly, it's just introducing yourself and going from there." Matt supplied, smiling at his lifeline.

"I want to try then!" Said the prone lion, only now he pushed himself up right and had a wide and open grin. Matt was glad of the towel, with how he was kneeling the human would have got another good eyeful. The back of Matt's neck tingled with the idea of seeing the lion in all his 'glory' again. He stamped on the idea; It was rude, it was crude, and it was fun. No! Bad thoughts!

"S-sure, let's pretend you've just seen me and you're introducing yourself." The lion's face lit up and with incredible dexterity, pushed his hands into the sofa, lifted himself off the cushions and swung his legs beneath him so he landed his feet against the floor of the missing section and scooted closer. Matt, wanting to be polite and meet him halfway, leant forward and scooted towards him.

"Hello! Hi! I am Yilen!" Announced the friendly creature, beaming from ear to ear.

"Hello Yilen, I'm-Oof!" Matt's reply was cut off as the giant lion launched himself forwards and pancaked the human against the sofa. Thankfully it deformed around the larger creature, preventing Matt from being crushed, that didn't stop the alien from pushing his face into the human's, wiping his cheeks and mane against him as if a cat marking its territory. The only problem was this cat was significantly bigger and capable of holding the man down. All the while a rumble on par with a muscle car's engine was vibrating the pair of them.

His mind also made note that it was most of the alien's front that was pressed against him, his legs were pinned and aside from some limited movement in his arms, there was not much he could do to resist.

"W-wait, hold on! Y-yilen?"

The lion paused, raising up and beamed down at him.

"How'd I do?!"

Matt wasn't sure how to respond, staring up at the creature, he was aware he was meant to be in control here, but couldn't bring himself to admonish the overenthusiastic felinoid.

"Ah, you're... it was a good first try, but you can't... not everyone will appreciate it being pounced on and pinned? I think?"

Yilen's ears lowered flat against his skull.

"I did wrong?" He asked, backing up and off of the human, who grunted as he tried to sit back up. The punk's toes pushed his shoulders from behind helping him. He noted that while they were removed from his shoulders, he could feel the toes touching the base of his spine.

"It was a first try, I'm not expecting you to just magically know how all this goes. But a safe way of saying hello is introducing yourself like you did, but instead of jumping on top of them, offer them your hand. Like this..." Matt extended his hand as if to shake the lion's paw. Only instead Yilen grabbed the hand, lowered himself, whilst pulling Matt forwards and manually ran Matt's hand over and through the fur and mane that was on top of the lion's skull.

It took a few minutes of trying and coaxing before the alien started to get it. Matt taught him slowly on how to shake hands as a greeting, explained that it was a common action as a mark of respect or agreement amongst humans, but not used widely with aliens. This was particularly interesting to the group as they all wanted some sort of advantage over the other races while dealing with humans.

They made no attempt to hide their intentions to Matt, when he asked why they were so interested in humans they explained that they had experimented with sensations and experiences amongst themselves and with the other races too and, realistically, were now bored. There was nothing new to their race for several hundreds of years.

Then humans appeared. A whole race of creatures that had no intention of working beyond what they had to and put value into the new, the unique or experiences of something new and unique. Humans were all those things so naturally the felinoids were being drawn to them like moths to a flame.

The next time Matt honestly took any notice of his surroundings, he surprisingly found himself propped up against the backrest of the sofa, between the lions, Yilen and Kiki, and the punk, who he had discovered was called Esk. Esk had her arm draped over and around his shoulders. He only actually noticed as the conversation had naturally led to a lull and Esk’s claws were gently scratching circles into his shoulder through his shirt.

"Why do you have so many rules?" Asked Kiki, the slightly more reserved of the twins.

Matt leant his head back and looked to the ceiling for answers. He wasn't some social or culture specialist! How was he supposed to know the answer to such a broad question?

"Well..." He began before stopping. It occurred to him that a bunch of rules came up thanks to religion and the many things that had to say about various matters. Was it his place to discuss that? Amongst the topics of gender and choice he didn't know enough about religion either. Oh sure, his childhood was filled with 'be good or burn forever' threats that went away after was old enough to not be involved but there was a whole history behind that subject too, beyond just punishment. Religion wasn't some inherent 'evil' thing, its problem was that it could be used in certain ways for the personal gain of others just like any other belief.

But like anything with belief involved, it was a touchy subject. If he said the wrong thing, would he sour the relationship between humanity and felinoids? He opted for vague.

"...it just developed with our culture. We've... we've had a couple thousand years to develop this stuff and it just sort of... builds up over time."

"Do you enjoy all the rules?" Ruby asked.

"Not especially, but I guess they help me take the path with the least chance of upsetting someone?"

"Because if you don’t follow the rules you’ll upset someone, so you like the rules?"

“I suppose if we didn’t have all the various do’s and don’ts you couldn’t trip over the do’s and don’ts, would you?” Matt admitted with a forced chuckle and a half grin.

“Do you need them?” Probed Yilen, basically laying on Matt’s legs. Matt gave a flat smile, no, it wasn’t needed. To him; it was a choice. Memories rose up from the tar-like depths.

“On Earth, to ‘navigate’ everything? Yeah. My family, my parents felt it was important to be polite. Up here though… I… Well… I suppose now that’s Earth is gone and we’re not allowed to group up… A bunch of things aren’t going to be relevant anymore? Y-you know?” Matt’s voice wobbled and cracked out of nowhere. He blinked in surprise and tried to clear his throat, but a lump had appeared and refused to budge. The man blinked again and the group of aliens became blurry.

His mother taught him grace.

Frowning, Matt put a polite hand over his mouth and tried to clear his throat more forcefully, but the pain there was building and causing his eyes to water. Instead, his cough caused his chest to quake, which caused something to fall from his eye onto his cheek. Matt brought his hand up and wiped his face, his fingers came away wet.

His father taught him humility.

“I’m sorry, I’m…” He started, trying to apologise but unsure as to what was happening, so blind sided by these unneeded reactions as he was. The man moved to shuffle away from the group, to extract himself from the room and get himself under control. What was wrong with him?!

He tried to say something, but his voice was threatening to close up and his damned eyes kept leaking!

His sister taught him patience.

Matt had barely moved before a paw landed on his shoulder, stopping him. A blurred glance; Esk’s hand.

“Why are you sorry?” Asked Yilen, his paw now reaching out and resting on Matt’s shin, not holding him there, but Matt would need to snatch his limb away to be released.

They never made it.

“B-because, I’m-“ Matt had to clear his throat to continue, but he couldn’t. "Ah… I'm…"

His family’s faces became harder to see over time, but the day itself was as clear as day. He was in the city, buying wrapping paper of all things. He'd been lucky enough to have been there when the crafts landed and collected people in huge groups, with or without their consent. They had used weapons, Matt flinched at the memory of his muscles spasming with alien lightning running through them. The scar that marked his lip was from when he had been grabbed; it wasn’t deliberate, they had been rushed.

The aliens in the room that Matt’s body, but not mind occupied sat up and reached out for him.

Matt never had a chance to go home. No heirlooms, no memories of his family had made it. That all was gone now, not even ashes remained.

The felinoids were watching him carefully, but he was frozen in place, merely staring back at them without seeing. Someone pressed a hand to his cheek, a thumb wiped at the steady stream of tears.

There was no proof that they’d live or died. The man had tried everything to locate them. Their names, descriptions, he'd begged and pleaded with any of the aliens who were organising the giant mess for even a crumb of hope. He begged other humans but there was no record of his family or anyone matching their description being rescued. Everyone was looking for someone. They were so few, yet so many. Apparently it was only the bare minimum that still had ‘extended’ families.

Matt screwed up his eyes and pushed his hands into his face. Rage bloomed within his chest, rage and fear and frustration. He furiously wiped the tears from his eyes, but they welled back up within a moment.

To hell with Earth and its rules! Back home, he hadn't really cared much about manners, aside from the basics to get him through life!

But now?

It had been a regular topic of contention for his parents and him. They wanted him to be more like them, to be polite, to know how to navigate social graces. Matt had always found it ridiculous and difficult. He’d been obtuse, deliberately going against the grain because it got a rise out of them. He'd been an awful son, for the sake of just being…

Not wearing a hat at the table would have made her smile…

God why didn't he just…

"Matt?"

Reality slammed back into the young man. He thought of himself as a man, but in moments like this he was reminded that he was barely an adult, but an adult all the same. The human was just trying his best, like they would have wanted. Realising he was having a bit of a meltdown and it wasn’t fair to the aliens surrounding him, Matt came back to his senses.

"I'm fine." He croaked, but his face was pressed into Yilen's furred chest and a large hand gripped the back of his head, holding him there. The chest rumbled.

“Please our Matt, please do not lie to us. You are not ‘fine’ and are harming yourself by pretending otherwise…”

Matt was staring into the golden fur of an alien he had known less than a full day.

“You have lost almost everything… You can be sad… You can cry with us, our Matt…”

A sob tore itself from his mouth, finally given permission. The pair of them fall backward, Yilen pulling the human with him as they collapsed. Matt clung to the stranger as a lifeline.

A second and a third choking sob obliterated the human as he finally began to cry for everything he had lost, no longer able to speak.

Three months had passed since the ‘Sol-3 Incident’, the aliens not even wanting to call his home planet by its real name. Three months where he had suppressed everything just so he could fit in. The other felinoids present crowded the pair as they lay there. Matt felt clawed hands grip him from behind before a warm furred body spooned him. Through the tears, he saw the familiar pelt of Ruby crouch over his head and protect him from above, her paws gently stroking his hair. Finally, Kiki’s golden paw appeared from behind Yilen and rested against Matt’s hip.

Finally given permission and truly embraced by the aliens, a beleaguered floodgate finally broke within the human’s mind.

Matt, for the first time, began to mourn his loss in the arms of his new allies.

Discord / Ao3 / Tip Jar / G Drive

#conservationverse #cuddleverse #human #haso #hfy #humans are space orcs #human x furry #furry #felinoid #cat

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intersexbookclub · 3 months

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Summary: Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex

For many of us, Chapter 4 of Critical Intersex (2009) turned out to be a particularly rich source of information about intersex history. So I (Elizabeth) have decided to give a fairly detailed summary of the chapter because I think it’s important to get that info out there. I’m gonna give a little bit of commentary as I go, and then a summary of our book club discussion of the chapter.

The chapter is titled “(Un)Queering identity: the biosocial production of intersex/DSD” by Alyson K. Spurgas. It is a history of ISNA, the Intersex Society of North America, and how it went from being a force for intersex liberation to selling out the movement in favour of medicalization. (See here for summary of the other chapters we read of the book!)

Our high level reactions:

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): Until I read chapter 4, I didn't really realise how reactionary “DSD” was. It hadn't been clear to me how much it was a response to the beginning of an organized intersex advocacy movement in the United States.

Michelle (@scifimagpie): I could feel the fury in the writer's tone. It was a real barn burner.

Also Michelle: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

Introducing the chapter

The introduction sets the tone by talking about how in the Victorian era there was a historical shift from intersex being a religious/juridical issue to a pathology, and how this was intensified in the 1950s with John Money’s invention of the optimal gender rearing model.

Spurgas briefly discusses how the OGR model is harmful to intersex people, and how it iatrogenically produces sexual dysfunction and gender dysphoria. “Iatrogenic” means caused by medicine; iatrogenesis is the production of disease or other side-effects as a result of medical intervention.

This sets scene for why in the early 1990s, Cheryl Chase and other intersex activists founded the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). It had started as a support group, and morphed significantly over its lifetime. ISNA closed up shop in 2008.

Initially, ISNA was what we’d now call interliberationist. They were anti-pathologization. Their stance was that intersexuality is not itself pathological and the wellbeing of intersex people is endangered by medical intervention. They organized around the abolition of surgical intervention. They also created fora like Hermaphrodites With Attitude for the deconstruction of bodies/sexes/genders and development of an intersex identity that was inherently queer.

The early ISNA activists explicitly aligned intersexuality in solidarity with LGB and transgender organizing. There was a belief that similar to LGBT organizing, once intersex people got enough visibility and consciousness-raising, people would “come out” in greater numbers (p100).

By the end of the 90s, however, many intersex people were actively rejecting being seen as queer and as political subjects/actors. The organization had become instead aligned with surgeons and clinicians, had replaced “intersex” with “DSD” in their language.

By the time ISNA disbanded in 2008 they had leaned in hard on a so-called “pragmatic” / “harm reduction” model / “children’s rights perspective”. The view was that since infants in Western countries are “born medical subjects as it is” (p100)

Where did DSD come from?

In 2005, the term “disorders of sexual differentiation” had been recently coined in an article by Alice Dreger, Cheryl Chase, “and three other clinicians associated with the ISNA… [so as] to ‘label the condition rather than the person’” (p101). Dreger et al thought that intersex was “not medically accurate” (p101) and that the goal should be effective nomenclature to “sort patients into diagnostically meaningful groups” (p101).

Dreger et al argued that the term intersex “attracts the interest of a large number of people whose interest is based on a sexual fetish and people who suffer from delusions about their own medical histories” (Dreger et al quoted on p101)

Per Spurgas, Dreger et al had an explicit agenda of “distancing intersex activism from queer and transgressive sex/gender politics and instead in supporting Western medical productions of intersexuality” (p102). In other words: they were intermedicalists.

According to Dreger et al, an alignment with medicine is strategically important because intersex people often require medical attention, and hence need to be legible to clinicians. “For those in favor of the transition to DSD, intersex is first and foremost a disorder requiring medical treatment” (p102)

Later in 2005 there was a “Intersex Consensus Meeting” organized by a society of paediatricians and endocrinologists. Fifty “experts” were assembled from ten countries (p101)... with a grand total of two actually intersex people in attendance (Cheryl Chase and Barbara Thomas, from XY-Frauen).

At the meeting, they agreed to adopt the term DSD along with a “‘patient-centred’ and ‘evidence-based’ treatment protocol” to replace the OGR treatment model (p101)

In 2006, a consortium of American clinicians and bioethicists was formed and created clinical guidelines for treating DSDs. They defined DSD quite narrowly: if your gonads or genitals don’t match your gender, or you have a sex chromosome anomaly. So no hormonal variations like hyperandrogenism allowed.

The pro-DSD movement: it was mostly doctors

Spurgas quotes the consortium: “note that the term ‘intersex’ is avoided here because of its imprecision” (p102) - our highlight. There’s a lot of doctors hating on intersex for being a category of political organizing that gets encoded as the category is “imprecise” 👀

Spurgas gets into how the doctors dressed up their re-pathologization of intersex as “patient centred” (p103) - remember this is being led by doctors, not patients, and any intersex inclusion was tokenistic. (Elizabeth: it was amazing how much bs this was.)

As Spurgas puts it, the pro-DSD movement “represents an abandonment of the desire for a pan-intersexual/queer identity and an embrace of the complete medicalization of intersex… the intersex individual is now to be understood fundamentally as a patient” (p103)

Around the same time some paediatricians almost came close to publicly advocating against infant genital mutilation by denouoncing some infant surgeries. Spurgas notes they recommended “that intersex individuals be subjected (or self-subject) to extensive psychological/psychiatric, hormonal, steroidal and other medical” interventions for the rest of their lives (p103).

This call to instead focus on non-surgical medical interventions then got amplified by other clinicians and intermedicalist intersex advocacy organizations.

The push for non-surgical pathologization hence wound up as a sort of “compromise” path - it satisfied the intermedicalists and anti-queer intersex activists, and had the allure of collaborating with doctors to end infant surgeries. (Note: It is 2024 and infant surgeries are still a thing 😡.)

The pro-DSD camp within the intersex community

Spurgas then goes on to get into the discursive politics of DSD. There’s some definite transphobia in the push for “people with DSDs are simply men and women who happen to have congenital birth conditions” (p104). (Summarizer’s note: this language is still employed by anti-trans activists.)

The pro-DSD camp claimed that it was “a logical step in the ‘evolution in thinking’” 💩 and that it would be a more “humane” treatment model (p105) 💩

Also that “parents and doctors are not going to want to give a child a label with a politicized meaning” (p104) which really gives the game away doesn’t it? Intersex people have started raising consciousness, demanding their rights, and asserting they are not broken, so now the poor doctors can’t use the label as a diagnosis. 🤮

Spurgas quotes Emi Koyama, an intermedicalist who emphasized how “most intersex people identify as ‘perfectly ordinary, heterosexual, non-trans men and women’” (p104) along with a whole bunch of other quotes that are obviously queerphobic. Note from Elizabeth: I’m not gonna repeat it all because it’s gross. In my kindest reading of this section, it reads like gender dysphoria for being mistaken as genderqueer, but instead of that being a source of solidarity with genderqueers it is used as a form of dual closure (when a minority group goes out of its way to oppress a more marginalized group in order to try and get acceptance with the majority group).

Koyama and Dreger were explicitly anti-trans, and viewed intergender type stuff as “a ‘trans co-optation’ of intersex identity” (p105) 🤮

Most intersex people resisted “DSD” from its creation

On page 106, Spurgas shifts to talking about how a lot intersex people were resistant to the DSD shift. Organization Intersex International (OII) and Bodies Like Ours (BLO) were highly critical of the shift! 💛 BLO in particular noted that 80-90% of their website users were against the DSD term. Note from Elizabeth: indeed, every survey I’ve seen on the subject has been overwhelmingly against DSD - a 2015 IHRA survey found only 3% of intersex Australians favoured the DSD term.

Proponents of “intersex” over “DSD” testified to it being depathologizing. They called out the medicalization as such: that it serves to reinforce that “intersex people don’t exist” (David Cameron, p107), that it is damaging to be “told they have a disorder” (Esther Leidolf, p107), that there is “a purposeful conflation of treatment for ‘health reasons’ and ‘cosmetic reasons’ (Curtis Hinkle, p107), and that it’s being pushed mainly by perisex people as a reactionary, assimilationist endeavour (ibid).

Interliberationism never went away - intersex people kept pushing for 🌈 queer solidarity 🌈 and depathologization - even though ISNA, the largest intersex advocacy organization, had abandoned this position.

Spurgas describes how a lot of criticism of DSD came from non-Anglophone intersex groups, that the term is even worse in a lot of languages - it connotes “disturbed” in German and has an ambiguity with pedophilia and fetishism in French (p111).

The DSD push was basically entirely USA-based, with little international consultation (p111). Spurgas briefly addresses the imperialism inherent in the “DSD” term on pages 118/119.

Other noteworthy positions in the DSD debate

Spurgas gives a well-deserved shout out to the doctors who opposed the push to DSD, who mostly came from psychiatry and opposed it on the grounds that the pathologization would be psychologically damaging and that intersex patients “have taken comfort (and in many cases, pride) in their (pan-)intersex identity” (p108) 🌈 - Elizabeth: yay, psychiatrists doing their job!

Interestingly, both sides of the DSD issue apparently have invoked disability studies/rights for their side: Koyama claimed DSD would herald the beginning of a disability rights based era of intersex activism (p109) while anti-DSDers noted the importance in disability rights in moving away from pathologization (p109).

Those who didn’t like DSD but who saw a strategic purpose for it argued it would “preser[ve] the psychic comfort of parents”, that there is basically a necessity to coddle the parents of intersex children in order to protect the children from their parents. (p110)

Some proposed less pathologizing alternatives like “variations of sex development” and “divergence of sex development” (p110)

The DSD treatment model and the intersex treadmill

Remember all intersex groups were united that sex assignment surgery on infants needs to be abolished. The DSD framework that was sold as a shift away from surgical intervention, but it never actually eradicated it as an option (p112). Indeed, it keeps ambiguous the difference between medically necessary surgical intervention and culturally desired cosmetic surgery (p112). (Note from Elizabeth: funny how *this* ambiguity is acceptable to doctors.)

What DSD really changed was a shift from “fixing” the child with surgery to instead providing “lifelong ‘management’ to continue passing” (p112), resulting in more medical intervention, such as through hormonal and behavioural therapies to “[keep] it in remission” (p113).

Cheryl Chase coined the “intersex treadmill’: the never-ending drive to fit within a normative sex category (p113), which Spurgas deploys to talk about the proliferation of “lifelong treatments” and how it creates the need for constant surveillance of intersex bodies (p114). Medical specialization adds to the proliferation, as one needs increasingly more specialists who have increasingly narrow specialties.

There’s a cruel irony in how the DSD model pushes for lifelong psychiatric and psychological care of intersex patients so as to attend to the PTSD that is caused by medical intervention. (p115) It pushes a capitalistic model where as much money can be milked as possible out of intersex patients (p116).

The DSD treatment model, if it encourages patients to find community at all, hence pushes condition-specific medical support groups rather than pan-intersex advocacy groups (p115)

Other stuff in the chapter

Spurgas does more Foucault-ing at the end of the chapter. Highlight: “The intersex/DSD body is a site of biosocial contestation over which ways of knowing not only truth of sex, but the truth of the self, are fought. Both intelligibility and tangible resources are the prizes accorded to the winner(s) of the battle over truth of sex” (p117)

There’s some stuff on the patient-as-consumer that didn’t really land with anybody at the book club meeting - we’re mostly Canadians and the idea of patient-as-consumer isn’t relatable. Ei noted it isn’t even that relatable from their position as an American.

***

Having now summarized the chapter, here's a summary of our discussion at book club...

Opening reactions

Michelle (M): the way the main lady involved became medicalized really made my heart sink, reading that.

Elizabeth (E): I do remember some discussion of intersex people in the 90s, and it never really grew in the way that other queer identities did! This has kind of helped for me to understand what the fuck happened here.

E: It was definitely a very insightful reading on that part, while being absolutely outraging. I didn't know, but I guess I wasn't surprised at how pivotal US-centrism was. The author was talking about "North American centric" though but always meant the United States!!! Canada was just not part of this! They even make mention of Quebec as separate and one of the opposing regions. I was like, What are you doing here, America? You are not the entirety of our continent!!!

E: The feedback from non-Anglophone intersex advocates that DSD does not translate was something that I was like, "Yes!" For me, when I read the French term - that sounded like something that would include vaginismus, erectile dysfunction - it sounds far more general and negative.

M: the fuckin' respectability politics of DSD really got under my skin, as a term! I know the importance, as a queer person, of not forcing people to ID as queer, but this was a lot.

E: it was very assimilationist in a way that was very upsetting. I knew intellectually that this was going on. There was such a distinct advocacy push for that. The coddling of parents and doctors at the expense of intersex people was such a theme of this chapter, in a way that was very upsetting. They started out with this goal of intersex liberation, and instead, wound up coddling parents and doctors.

Solidarities

M: I feel like there's a real ableist parallel to the autism movement here… It dovetails with how the autism movement was like, "Aww, we're sorry about your emotionless monster baby! This must be so hard for you [parents]!" And it felt like "aw, it's okay, we'll fix your baby so they can interface with heterosexuality!" [Note: both of us are neurodivergent]

E: A lot of intersexism is a fear that you're going to have a queer child, both in terms of orientation and gender.

E: You cannot have intersex liberation without putting an end to homophobia and transphobia.

M: We're such natural allies there!

E: I understand that there are these very dysphoric ipsogender or cisgender people, who don't want to be mistaken as trans, but like it or not, their rights are linked to trans people! When I encounter these people, I don't know how to convey, "whether you like it or not, you're not going to get more rights by doing everything you can to be as distant as possible."

M: it reminds me of the movements by some younger queers to adhere to respectability politics.

E: Oh no. There are younger queers who want respectability politics????

M: well, some younger queers are very reactionary about neopronouns and kink at pride. they don't always know the difference between representation and "imposing" kinks on others. In a way, it reminds me of the more intentional rejection of queer weirdos, or queerdos, if you will, by republican gays.

E: I feel like a lot of anti-queerdom that comes out of the ipso and cisgender intersex community reads as very dysphoric to me. That needs to be acknowledged as gender dysphoria.

M: That resonates to me. When I heard about my own androgen imbalance, I was like, "does that mean I'm not a real woman?" And now I would happily say "fuck that question," but we do need an empathy and sensitivity for that experience. Though not tolerance for people who invalidate others, to be honest.

E: The term "iatrogensis" was new to me. The term refers to a disease caused or aggravated by medical intervention.

M: So like a surgical complication, or gender dysphoria caused by improper medical counselling!

The DSD debate

ei: i think the "disorder" discussion is really interesting. in my opinion, if someone feels their intersex condition is a disorder they have every right to label it that way, but if someone does not feel the same they have every right to reject the disorder label. personally i use the label "condition". i don't agree with forcing labels on anyone or stripping them away from anyone either.

M: for me, it felt like a cautionary tale about which labels to accept.

ei: i'm all around very tired of people label policing others and making blanket statements such as "all people who are this have to use this label”... i also use variation sometimes, i tend to go back and forth between variation and condition. I think it's a delicate balance between being sensitive to people's label preferences vs making space for other definitions/communities.

We then spoke about language for a bunch of communities (Black people, non-binary people) for a while

E: one thing that was very harrowing for me about this chapter is that while there was this push to end coercive infant surgery, they basically ceded all of the ground on "interventions" happening from puberty onward. And as someone who has had to fight off coercive medical interventions in puberty, I have a lot of trauma about violent enforcement of femininity and the medical establishment.

ei: i completely agree that it's psychologically harmful tbh…. i was assigned male at birth and my doctors want me to start testosterone to make me more like a perisex male. which is extremely counterproductive because i'm literally transfem and have expressed this many times

Doctors Doing Harm

M: for me, the validation of how doctors can be harmful in this chapter meant a lot.

E: something that surprised me and made me happy was that there were some psychiatrists who spoke out against the DSD label. As someone who routinely hears a lot of anti-psychiatry stuff - because there's a lot of good reason to be skeptical of psychiatry, as a discipline - it was just nice to see some psychiatrists on the right side of things, doing right by their patients. Psychiatrists were making the argument that DSD would be psychologically harmful to a lot of intersex people.

ei: like. being told that something so inherently you, so inherently linked to your identity and sense of self, is a disorder of sexual development, something to be fixed and corrected. that has to be so harmful

ei: like i won't lie i do have a lot of severe trauma surrounding the way i've been treated due to being intersex. but so much of my negative experiences are repetitive smaller things. Like the way people treat me like my only purpose is to teach them about intersex people …. either that or they get really creepy and gross. I’m lucky in that i'm not visibly intersex, so i do have the privilege of choosing who knows. but there's a reason why i usually don't tell people irl.

M: intersex and autism have overlap again about how like, minor presentation can be? As opposed to the sort of monstrous presentation [Carnival barker impression] "Come see the sensational half-man, half-woman! Behold the h-------dite!" And like - the way nonverbal people are also treated feels relevant to that, because that's how autism is often treated, like a freakshow and a pity party for the parents? And it's so dehumanizing. And as someone who might potentially have a nonverbal child, because my wife is expecting and my husband and she both have ADHD - I'm just very fed up with ableism and the perception of monstrosity.

Overall, this was a chapter that had a lot to talk about! See here for our discussion of Chapters 5-7 from the same volume.

#intersex #intersex studies #queer theory #gender studies #actually intersex #intersex rights #intersex activism #intersex books #book reviews #book summaries #paper summaries #lit review #critical intersex #intersex history

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why-am-i-not-fictional · 9 days

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Things to script - nature or status of realities

This is something I recently started inputting into my DRs to make them better and safe. I got much help from ChatGPT too to categorize all these things. I wanted to share it with you guys too :) feel free to use anything for your scripts. Happy Shifting!!!

All of the below discriminations does not exist in any of my DRs

Misogyny

Racism

Homophobia

Transphobia

Classism

Ableism

Ageism

Xenophobia

Islamophobia

Anti-Semitism

Colorism

Nationalism

Casteism

Environmental injustice

Sexism

Sizeism

Religious discrimination

Ethnic discrimination

Discrimination based on immigration status

Discrimination based on language

Discrimination based on nationality

Discrimination based on indigenous status

Discrimination based on political beliefs

Discrimination based on marital status

Discrimination based on parental status

Discrimination based on veteran status

Discrimination based on HIV/AIDS status

Discrimination based on neurodiversity

Discrimination based on mental health status

Discrimination based on physical appearance

Discrimination based on cultural practices

Discrimination based on regional or geographical origin

Discrimination based on caste or social status

Discrimination based on educational background

Discrimination based on housing status

Discrimination based on criminal record

Discrimination based on economic status

Discrimination based on access to healthcare

Discrimination based on access to education

Discrimination based on access to employment opportunities

All of the below issues have been solved many years ago and they do not exist in the times of any of my DRs

Poverty

Economic inequality

Environmental degradation

Climate change

Pollution

Deforestation

Political instability

Armed conflicts

Civil wars

Humanitarian crises

Global health challenges

Infectious diseases

Pandemics

Inadequate healthcare systems

Lack of access to essential medicines

Educational disparities

Limited access to quality education

Illiteracy

Child labor

Child marriage

Gender inequality

Women's rights violations

Child labor

Human trafficking

Forced labor

Modern slavery

Corruption

Lack of transparency

Ineffective governance

Authoritarian regimes

Suppression of free speech

Violations of human rights

Arbitrary detention

Torture

Persecution

Indigenous rights violations

Land grabs

Cultural appropriation

Technological and digital divides

Ethical dilemmas in technology

Privacy concerns

Data breaches

Cybersecurity threats

Food insecurity

Malnutrition

Water scarcity

Access to clean water

Sanitation issues

Homelessness

Housing affordability

Urbanization challenges

Aging population

Elder abuse

Mental health stigma

Lack of access to mental health services

Substance abuse

Addiction

Disability rights violations

Accessibility barriers

Stigmatization of disabilities

LGBTQ+ rights violations

Discrimination based on sexual orientation

Discrimination based on gender identity

Family rejection

Reproductive rights violations

Access to reproductive healthcare

Maternal mortality

Child mortality

Access to clean energy

Energy poverty

Fossil fuel dependence

Renewable energy transition challenges

Wildlife conservation

Endangered species protection

Animal rights violations

All the DRs I shift to are abundant of the following things

Compassion

Empathy

Cooperation

Collaboration

Sustainability

Environmental stewardship

Peacebuilding

Conflict resolution

Dialogue

Reconciliation

Education

Knowledge-sharing

Critical thinking

Cultural diversity

Cultural respect

Inclusivity

Equality

Justice

Ethical leadership

Integrity

Accountability

Service to others

Health promotion

Well-being

Healthcare access

Mental health support

Social support systems

Innovation

Creativity

Social justice

Fairness

Equity

Human rights

Freedom of expression

Freedom of assembly

Democratic governance

Rule of law

Transparency

Accountability mechanisms

Community empowerment

Grassroots activism

Civic engagement

Volunteerism

Philanthropy

Sustainable development

Responsible consumption

Renewable energy adoption

Conservation

Biodiversity protection

Animal welfare

Gender equality

Women's empowerment

LGBTQ+ rights

Disability rights

Indigenous rights

Racial equity

Anti-discrimination policies

Social welfare programs

Poverty alleviation

Economic empowerment

Access to education

Access to clean water

Sanitation infrastructure

Housing rights

Food security

Global cooperation

International aid and development

Humanitarian assistance

Conflict prevention

Diplomacy

Multilateralism

Solidarity

Tolerance

Forgiveness

Resilience

All of the DRs I shift into are currently successfully overcoming the following challenges as they rise

Sustaining Progress: Maintaining the momentum of positive change and preventing regression into previous discriminatory attitudes and practices.

Ensuring Equity: Addressing lingering disparities and ensuring that the benefits of progress are equitably distributed across all communities.

Adapting to Changing Circumstances: Remaining flexible and responsive to evolving societal needs, dynamics, and challenges over time.

Balancing Interests: Navigating competing interests, values, and priorities among diverse stakeholders in society.

Preventing Backlash: Mitigating potential backlash from individuals or groups who may resist or oppose efforts to eliminate discrimination and promote positive change.

Addressing Unforeseen Consequences: Anticipating and addressing unintended consequences or side effects of interventions aimed at addressing societal issues.

Managing Complexity: Dealing with the complexity of interconnected social, economic, political, and environmental systems, which may require interdisciplinary approaches and collaboration.

Maintaining Engagement: Sustaining public engagement, participation, and support for ongoing efforts to promote equality, justice, and well-being.

Ensuring Accountability: Holding individuals, institutions, and governments accountable for upholding principles of fairness, transparency, and ethical conduct.

Resisting Entrenched Power Structures: Challenging and dismantling entrenched power structures, systems of privilege, and institutionalized forms of discrimination.

Addressing Global Challenges: Collaborating internationally to address global challenges such as climate change, inequality, and conflict, which require coordinated action across borders.

Cultural Sensitivity: Respecting and accommodating diverse cultural norms, values, and perspectives while promoting universal principles of human rights and equality.

Managing Resources: Efficiently allocating resources and managing competing demands to sustain progress and address ongoing needs in society.

Promoting Inclusivity: Ensuring that marginalized or vulnerable groups are included in decision-making processes and benefit from positive changes in society.

Building Trust: Fostering trust, cooperation, and solidarity among individuals, communities, and institutions to sustain positive social transformation.

Addressing New Challenges: Remaining vigilant and adaptive to emerging challenges and threats to equality, justice, and well-being in an ever-changing world.

#reality shifting #desired reality #reality shift #shifting community #shifting motivation #shiftblr #shifting consciousness #shifters #shifting script #scripting

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polyglot-thought · 9 months

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Critically Endangered Language Introduction:

Chulym

Ӧс тили

Some information about the Chulym language:

It’s critically endangered, meaning there are very few native speakers left, who are also elderly, and young people are not picking up the language. In writing, Chulym seems to use Cyrillic and or IPA and Latin script. You can read more about the Chulym language and people on Wikipedia, here and here; and on Living Tongues here.

Example Words & Phrases ↓

Provided by Living Tongues at this link, Cyrillic transliteration by me (which may be inaccurate)

по могалак тур-убул

po moɣalak tur-ubul

this bear is standing (there)

мӕн ал-лик-им палик

män al-lɨk-ɨm palɨk

I will take (some) fish

иштен-ник-им

iʃten-nik-im

I will work

көр-бык-тер

kør-byk-ter

they won’t see

Please correct me if I made a mistake

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thelingodingo · 11 days

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Seventeen's Dialects

For a very tiny country, South Korea has many distinct dialects (6 major ones to be exact). And so I wanted to share with yall the different dialects used by Seventeen members! (especially seungkwan cuz its so cool)

Gyeongsang Dialect: this dialect is by far the most popularized and well-known Korean dialect. it's mainly characterized by its aggressive, fast-paced, and strongly emphasized sounds. it's also pitch-accented, meaning you can hear the different intonations and stresses on syllables. there are also subtle differences between different gyeongsang-do cities that native speakers of the dialect can easily hear and tell apart.

Woozi - Woozi is from Busan, where the accent falls on the back syllable and the "g" (ㄱ) is used more. his accent doesn't really jump out often but every now and then you can hear a slightttt tinge of the dialect. in BTS Suga's Suchwita episode 10 with Woozi theres a part where Suga (as a fellow gyeongsang-do born) is able to immediately tell that Woozi is from gyeongsang by his intonation.

S.Coups - on the other hand, S.coups is from Daegu, where the accent falls on the front syllable and the "k" (ㅋ) sound is used more. as you can see, even though s.coups and woozi are both from gyeongsang, their different cities means their accents are a bit different. in fact, the busan dialect evolved in order for people to be able to hear what is being said over water better whereas the daegu dialect evolved to be able to travel through the air better. s.coups' accent jumps out quite often in varying degrees. sometimes its very obvious and other times it's more subtle, but overall you can definitely notice it if you listen close enough.

Wonwoo - unlike the other two, wonwoo is from Changwon, so neither Busan or Daegu (the 2 most prominent gyeongsang-do cities). i don't have enough experience to know anything in particular about the changwon dialect but i assume that it's basically the same as the busan dialect since it's pretty close to there. from what I personally hear, I think wonwoo's dialect is definitely the most recognizable and frequent out of the 3 gyeongsang members. i feel like every other sentence he says has a bit of the accent thrown in naturally.

Jeolla Dialect: the jeolla dialect also has many different pitches and intonations used and is mainly characterized by its warm and kind sounding tone. vowels are the emphasis and are dragged out/lengthened, giving speakers of this dialect a very affectionate, smooth, and melodic voice.

Dino - dino likes to whip out his dialect here and there, especially when joking around and having fun with the other members. dino's accent comes out the most by far whenever he turns into his boomer character, Pi Cheolin! so basically any Pi Cheolin clip is just dino speaking in jeolla dialect.

Jeju Dialect (language): this dialect of Korean is so vastly different from the rest of the dialects that it's basically completely unintelligible to other Koreans. because of this, many people even say that the Jeju dialect is actually a language of its own. really, the jeju dialect seems to be officially classified as a "language dialect". to add on, this dialect is also classified as a critically endangered language by UNESCO which is definitely very worrying.

Seungkwan - even though he is from Jeju Island, there has never really been a time where he ever spoke in the Jeju dialect in front of the camera. so unfortunately there's no examples I can give regarding Seungkwan....atleast thats what I thought. after some more digging on the korean side of the internet it turns out there are a few clips of him speaking in the jeju language! heres one of them:

youtube

The rest of the members speak in just the Standard Korean dialect (Gyeonggi) btw

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jue-jack · 1 year

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okay this is my re-design of Hexo, gave him a longer nose and turned out palms he’s a mole ogre after all.

i evolved the lore more. the flower gliders (dominate more numerous peoples of the world) think the star nose’s are of lesser intelligence because of pure ignorance and fear but stars are on par to moles just more reclusive and critically endangered. also stars are born swimmers and diggers and prefer to live in swamps and mud. while moles (also diggers) are nomads from the deserts preferring the constantly shifting sands. the mole/star language is similar, star speech being more archaic. they are both nocturnal. male and females look similar, the females being bigger. both people are matriarchal.

#moles #mole-ogre #ogre #star-nosed mole #star nosed mole #oc #original character #mole #art #artists on tumblr #concept art #digital art

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izooks · 1 month

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Trump’s previous efforts to shift blame by warping criticisms of himself are legend.

Fake news, which once referred to untrue articles online that fooled readers, became a retort to media critical of Trump. Not paying taxes makes him “smart”. Efforts to hold him accountable are “witch-hunts” or a “hoax”. After being called out for racist words and actions, he claimed to be “the least racist person anywhere in the world” – this, despite a track record of dehumanizing language aimed at immigrants. “Believe me,” a man whose political career runs on a stack of falsehoods often tells his audiences.

#gop #democrats #vote blue #republicans #vote biden #democracy #fuck trump #maga 🧠 = 🐶 💩#fake news #traitor trump

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jewishvitya · 1 year

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CW - talking about antisemitic depictions and about the house elves and the depiction of slavery in the books.

I'm having a frustrating day with a lot of physical pain, so I'm not the best at judging currently if I should be posting all of these thoughts. It's a response to multiple arguments by rude anons that I blocked (not for being rude, for being transphobic), but the arguments themselves stay on my mind and I just. Need this out. Ignore this, it will be all over the place, I'm basically venting. Hoping it'll be the last bit of HP criticism I post.

I'll tag it for you to block, as usual.

I've been asked what I expect of Rowling, since my criticism of the goblins included the books. She already wrote the books, they're printed and they're out there. She can't just change them, criticism does nothing because she has no path to correct her mistake.

First of all, with her transphobia - as far as I'm concerned she has blood on her hands at this point. The way she emboldens transphobia endangers lives and erodes queer rights. Anyone who contributes to the current push against trans people is complicit in trans genocide - and she made herself a symbol of that movement. Even if she did a 180 on her issues with Jewish stereotypes, she wouldn't redeem herself.

But she isn't the only one who wrote a story and then realized that her story has deep issues. What does it look like, if an author doesn't want to perpetuate those?

From what I know of Tolkien (and I know nothing LOTR or anything, just heard this from other Jewish creators who discussed this issue, treat this paragraph like I'm repeating a rumor) - Tolkien did stumble on an antisemitic depiction while writing his dwarves. Then he course-corrected by creating a more complex and nuanced picture of the society in his future works. Basically, he leaned into the idea of his dwarves as a Jewish allegory and made it a better and more respectful allegory. They have wonderful cultural details, like having foreign-language names used outside of their community - and names in their own native language that they call each other. Half of my family comes from France, and my mom was born there. She had a Hebrew name and a legal French name. That's extremely common among Jews in some areas of the world.

This response is what I would have expected if an author cares about being respectful of Jewish people. Acknowledge the issue, and try to do better.

But what if the issue was brought to your attention after you completely finished your story? In that case: "Yes, I'm sorry, I didn't realize I was writing an antisemitic narrative with my depiction of this fantasy race." Support the voices criticizing your work, and apologize. Let it be an example of tropes to avoid, and encourage others to be careful of the same pitfalls.

What you don't do, is act horrified and say "Oh, how could you, I never intended to make the goblins an antisemitic allegory! Surely if I don't mean it, it can't be hurtful!"

Also, if you truly care, you don't then abuse the memory of the holocaust when you write spin-offs of your original story, including its imagery to support a bigoted villain's argument.

Marginalized people understand that not everyone knows what we do. The stereotypes and the harmful ideas that weaved themselves into popular culture are about us. We know that it's invisible to people who aren't the target, and as a result aren't forced to learn these things. To many people, it's just a trope they're used to seeing. Like villains have hooked noses - it's practically a shorthand for an evil character.

All the stories we tell are based in some measure on stories we heard. Narratives and tropes feed off each other between different pieces of media. It's easy to pull together a harmful narrative without realizing, when the tropes that make it up usually go together, and are so common they're everywhere. So we know a person who means no harm can create something really hurtful, without knowing it.

That's why we criticize media: we want you to see and be aware.

In addition to this, I've been accused multiple times of ignoring the fact that these books discuss bigotry and condemn it. I'm not ignoring it, I know they do - or they try to. But Rowling wrote a story against racism without understanding it and without interrogating it in herself. She only knew to condemn it when it's rude and violent and outright hateful. Not the foundations of it.

So, sure, say she didn't mean to write something harmful. What does she do when she learns she did? Nothing. And not just about the issue of the goblins - about everything. I detailed the problems with her depiction of lycanthropy, but she did the same thing with the house elves.

There's lore about creatures called brownies. They'll perform chores for you, but they'd rather not be seen while they do. If you try to pay them, they'll get offended. If you give them clothes, they'll leave. This is a very partial description, but you can see the inspiration here.

And then she turned them into a slave race. They're bound to their enslavers, possessing powerful magic but using it in their service, forced to punish themselves for disobedience and endure extreme abuse. Kreacher actively wishes to have his head put on display when he's too old and weak to be of use.

To show the reader the horrors of freedom for an elf, JKR turned poor Winky into a depressed drunk with no purpose in her life. Winky's story is horrifying.

Only Dobby takes care of Winky for that whole year. She never recovers during it. Then she's made to witness the interrogation of Barty Crouch Jr., which upsets her and causes her distress. As a result, she hears about Crouch's death through a toneless forced confession - and the interrogation continues around her. That same day, she watches the last member of the household she loved have his soul taken by a dementor, and then she's left alone with the body while Dumbledore argues with Fudge. Only after, he sends Madam Pomfrey to do what she can for Winky, and take her to the kitchens where Dobby will take care of her again.

And Rowling wrote all of this. Did she think this is an example that even compliant house elves suffer and get neglected, even by the sympathetic wizards? Was this a lesson that even those who don't seek freedom suffer and lack agency in this system?

No. Rowling turned it into a cautionary tale against freeing slaves. Unless they're "weird" like Dobby.

Maybe she didn't try to be racist, but this fits disturbingly well with the arguments against ending slavery in reality. That enslaved people will turn into aimless drunks. That they need to be enslaved to have purpose. That those who want freedom have something wrong with them.

And I know this was criticized. What was the response to the criticism? Nothing direct as far as I know, but after all of this - there was an article published on Pottermore to argue that Winky's story is a warning against freeing the elves. It was taken down fortunately, but after this article the arguments against freedom are no longer the opinion of characters within the world - it's a message given to us by real people.

She doubles down. Every time. People keep yelling that she had nothing to do with Hogwarts Legacy, she's not responsible for the way it builds on her original canon. Well, she seems to approve of it. It continues painting the same line with the same brush - just bolder.

She doesn't care about the racism, she doesn't care about antisemitism - she just wanted to use the nazis as her easy villains. She doesn't have the imagination for any other kind.

#hogwarts legacy #riki babbles #HP #JKR #I'm not Black so I hope I'm not overstepping #the only history my community has with slavery as far as I know is from Nazi labor camps #which are very a different thing to chattel slavery #and the latter is more similar to the situation the house elves are in

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