u/Educational-Dig-4235

CW: grooming, obviously

Even years after reading it, I'm still really moved by Remedios Moscote's story line in the book. Gabo doesn't reach for essentialism or individual responsibility. Colonel Aureliano Buendia is not some monster lurking in alleyways who snatches up young girls in Stranger Danger PSAs. He's a regular man (in the general sense I mean none of the Buendias are normal) who has the power and authority to take advantage of a young girl. Furthermore, he has an entire support network that will help him. Both the Moscotes and Buendias "train" Remedios to be a wife. They keep her confined in the house, isolated to the point where seemingly her only friend is Jose Arcadio Buendia. They briefly acknowledge how young she is before quickly waving it away for their own gain/comfort. The whole thing is written in a very matter of fact and mundane way. The grooming and death of Remedios Moscote is one that bares collective responsibility--it couldn't have happened without the support of both families and Gabo stresses that. As a grooming survivor and someone who has a family that has been rife with sexual abuse for generations now, it's really relatable to me. I see myself and so many of my female relatives reflected in Remedios. The storyline is honestly decades ahead of its time, its still really groundbreaking now. Its why I was honestly disappointed by the way it was adapted for screen. What I appreciated still definitely exists in some sense, but there is a toning down of the most horrible elements to keep Aureliano and the Buendias more likable.

Only a little bit ago, I learned about the death of Muhammad Bahr. His murder and the circumstances surrounding it were so horrific, and on top of the fact that I and many of my loved ones are autistic, I was completely overcome with despair. I started sobbing and then under the post with the article about his death attached I saw so many comments from Israelis just brushing it off. “These are just the casualties of war” “This article is too emotionally driven” What the fuck??? You’re complaining that an article about the gruesome murder of a disabled civilian acknowledges the horror of that??? It reminds me of that James Baldwin quote about being horrified at the apathy of the world. It’s exactly how I feel when speaking to and seeing Zionist Israelis speak. And the most insane part—while acting like this, they don’t understand why the rest of the world hates them so much. They are so used to living in a society where the most violent active atrocities imaginable directly benefit them. So this is just literally another Tuesday for the. It’s like they’ve been raised to slowly smother their empathy out. It’s so horrifying.

I’m a lesbian and I was talking to another queer woman about how I didn’t understand why straight women so often wrote fantasies about men being horrible to them in romance novel. But then I was struck by a sense of self awareness that I and many other lesbians find the female version of that very attractive. And then I realized men both straight and queer also have versions of this. Why are people so attracted to cruelty?

i'm an 18 year old nonbinary teen, and have been in the slow process of being open about it since i was 15. i realized about two years ago that i do want to go on testosterone and take on a very overtly gender nonconforming presentation, but i'm really scared of the potential backlash i'm going to get from it. i'm afraid of being harassed/hurt, of being seen as ugly by all but a small group of people, being treated like a pariah in public, my loved ones changing how they act towards me, etc. i'm miserable in the body i'm in, dysphoria is keeping me from really living atp, but i don't know if i'm strong enough to put up with that level of bs. how did you get over this fear if you are GNC or maybe even just don't pass? how do you go about day to day life to avoid these things?

I’m an autistic introvert so I’m really flat-out terrible with social skills. Especially with interacting with people for more than a few hours, I get easily exhausted and it seems like I have negative social batter. But I really want to become more involved in my community. I’ve always wanted to be way more extroverted than I am! Any advice to get over this specific hurdle?

I've had a lot of online friendships with Latin Americans, and a certain level of solidarity between Latin Americans in general is something I'm told about a lot. I don't doubt it, but I also know most of the people I'm interacting with are younger and left-leaning (like me) so solidarity might be something that's just important for them to foster because of their own personal beliefs. I also end up reading a lot of literature about Latin America that states this, but again it's mostly from a left wing perspective. I'm curious to get a bit more insight to whether this is more of a political thing on one side of the aisle and that these are just broad generalizations, or if it is actually true, or even if its more grey than that and differs from person to person (probably the third to some extent but I'd like to hear from you guys directly about it.)

Whenever guys in my class are disruptive, to the point of yelling and banging on desks during work time, the teachers just laugh, brush it off, at most give a half-hearted "warning". But when the girls do something half as annoying, like talk to each other during lectures, they get scolded in front of the whole class. Neither of these things are good but one is enabled while the other is punished, and the only difference is the gender of the students. I don't know if anyone else has had this experience, but it's always been like this at my specific school district since I was in elementary school. It's a huge problem and it's like no one wants to do anything about it. Also for context, I live in a pretty small rural town so that might have a huge effect on this.

By the time I was ten, I was reading horror novels and YA books with borderline on-page sex scenes. By the time I was in middle school I was already reading on-page sex scenes. In high school, I was reading WAY more extreme shit. My peers were passing around and recommending books chockfull of sex and violence. And most of us remain untraumatized from the experience, at most we’re kind of embarrassed about it like “wow why was I reading that at that age?” and laugh it off. Like, we’re fine. I am by no means advocating for Penelope Douglas books to be freely handed out to twelve year olds OBVIOUSLY thats extreme, out of line, and predatory. But what most kids go through, stumbling upon it accidentally? It’s fine. Like it’s uncomfortable, but significantly healthier for them to first hear about these things on their own through fiction instead of through the internet where they can be taken advantage of. And is this not just apart of growing up? Kids stumbling upon things they’re not supposed to and learning about these adult concepts for the first time? That‘s a common experience most people have gone through and I doubt many would call it seriously traumatizing.

Again, I am not at all advocating for porn to be targeted towards children or the sexualization of minor character. I am never, ever advocating for that. It’s only when I see things like Blink publishing which markets itself as ”clean teen literature“ I think about how teenage me would’ve rolled my eyes and thought of it as a dumb parent thing. How is this not more alienating to teenagers? rather than YA that addresses these sensitive subjects in a respectful, careful, and nuanced way that doesn’t objectify it’s teen audience

For starters: I AM A LEFTIST!!! I’ve been an out Marxist for years. I’m also well aware that the right wing engages in just as much if not more online harassment, they’re just more honest about it. But I’ve become very disheartened and frustrated by the way fellow left leaning individuals conduct themselves online. I believe we should hold ourselves to higher standards than this.

When asking what “accountability“ means to people who engage in these left leaning harassment campaign, you get a lot of vague answers. There’s not a general consensus on it. It also becomes pretty obvious in a lot of cases that its just a buzzword for people to justify publicly crucifying someone. In the case of being upset about bigotry, I understand. I’m trans, I get how much it sucks to live in a world that disrespects you so much. The internet is one of the few places most oppressed people can have any voice or power. Even so, I don’t really get what lashing some random ignorant person is actually doing except releasing frustration. It doesn’t change anything, and doesn’t actually inspire people to do self reflection about their own biases beyond “oh so i won’t do that” without understanding why. At worst, the bigotry can just be used as an excuse for people to unleash their pettier, long held resentment/grievances. That seems to be what actually happens now most often (ie “i finally have a valid excuse to hate them”)

worse, online harassment campaigns usually hurt the most marginalized worst. All of the worst ”leftist” harassment I’ve ever seen has targeted women and trans people. Men who do some of the most disgusting shit usually get the lesser version of it—they get a lot of shit for a few weeks, if it’s acknowledged at all. Like what is this version of accountability where a woman can get cyberstalker for seven years for being rude or a trans person for being annoying while a male rapist/abuser gets his crimes ignored. A lot of these harassment campaigns have a right wing tilt to it, but the vast majority of ppl participating are supposed progressives. It feels like an oxymoron to claim that while also using any excuse you can (at times fabricated excuses) to ruin a trans person’s life.

I don’t want wrongdoing or bigotry to just run rampant unacknowledged. That’s horrifying. And i also know how often the right wing uses “left wing cancellations“ as a dogwhistle and I don’t want to cede ground to that (esp considering how well funded and organized THEIR harassment is). But I’m extremely worried about the state of supposed online leftist justice we’ve arrived at. It feels like we’ve abandoned all principle. why are we using gamergate tactics as the left?? I’m interested in hearing what you’re personal opinion of what accountability is, what you think it looks like, potential alternatives to this type of justice, or even just compelling arguments to why im wrong!! ik this issue is important to a lot of ppl 

I’m from Texas, currently living in Southern California. Grew up in a pretty small town, house was in the middle of nowhere, and my family owned livestock. I’m in one of the few conservative counties in the region and GOOD LORD the Republicans here are so annoying. Just a ridiculous amount of overcompensating. Living here was the first time I saw someone wave a straight pride flag. I know two conservative guys—one who wears a cowboy hat and boots literally everywhere everyday and another who dresses in camo nearly everyday. Both speak in this fake folksy cadence they clearly do not naturally have. That’s not even mentioning how INSANELY racist they are. As someone who actually was raised in and grew up around the “country” culture they’re trying to emulate it makes me cringe so bad. Cowboy larp guy even said he’s planning to transfer to a university in Montana and I just know the locals are going to despise him so bad. What really funny is how much these ppl lack awareness that the ppl theyre trying to pander to absolutely despise them (for some reasons more valid than other but yknow).

It’s just so embarassing to see how hard they’re trying and how insecure they are about being Californian. Why the hell do you have Texas signs in your home when you were born and raised in California?? Saying this as someone who was once insecure about my home state for political reasons: get over it god. You’re making a fool of yourself. And its so sad because Southern California (and the american southwest in general) does have a really beautiful and unique rural culture in comparison to the rest of the country. But bc that was largely cultivated by the native and mexican population they’d rather larp being from somewhere they’ve never even stepped foot in.

Like the reason people go on Wattpad is to read and publish free stories. Why would someone pay for the content on there if they could just buy an actual book? Especially considering how many get picked up as Wattpad Originals and the few people who are willing to pay can just get print publishing. Plus, the userbase tends to trend pretty young (obv there are adults on Wattpad) but the most active users are usually 13-18. A 13 year old is not going to have the access to money to pay for a story and even if they did AGAIN, why would they spend it on Wattpad? Neither the author Wattpad can be making much money off of this, it's literally the anti-thesis of the site.

It's like this one giant elephant in the room. All of these stories with AI covers, stilted very obviously generated prose, and like seven of them will all be published with 70+ parts in a month or less. And so many of them are getting 1m+ views. Like, are we just not acknowledging that the vast majority of the userbase is reading ChatGPT now? Is Wattpad as a company not acknowledging it? I'm less personally offended more than I am embarrassed at the fact that standards of quality on Wattpad have sunk so low we're making obvious AI slop this popular. Like good lord I know we have a reputation for tastelessness on the Internet but do we not have dignity?

By "here" I mean Wattpad generally, not this specific subreddit

For most of my life, I really looked up to my mother. She's incredibly smart, accomplished, and has been able to overcome so many horrific circumstances that I can't even imagine. Recently though, over the past few years, I've started to notice the way she treats other people is downright awful. She's incredibly judgemental, to the point that she will insult literal strangers two seconds after talking to them (i.e calling a cashier an ugly drug addict while we're walking out of the gas station for literally no fucking reason like genuinely none). My mom is also probably the most two-faced person I've ever met in my life--I've heard her talk shit about basically anyone she's had any sort of relationship with, including me. I don't think I ever really noticed it before recently bc my mom is pretty good at framing herself as just being "honest". But I really do struggle with it now, like I really am actively upset when she says something awful and she doesn't understand why. Even tho she's not like rabidly and openly abusive, I struggle to feel comfortable around her more and more.

My mom works in healthcare, and I've heard of compassion fatigue, so maybe that's why she's so callous and unempathetic?? Idk

TL;DR: My mom kind of sucks and I love her so I don't want to abandon our relationship, but I'm struggling.

Prefacing this by saying I’m autistic.

I was horrifically bullied for most of my childhood up until about the 7th grade. Before that, I didn’t know how to mask, and I was very obviously not neurotypical. I struggled to understand classroom rules, I stimmed in class regularly, I was abysmal at social interactions, I had meltdowns regularly, etc. I really shouldn’t have been slotted into mainstream classes and teachers with 0 special ed experience, but I was. It was horrible. I was beat up regularly by my peers and teachers very rarely did anything about it despite knowing what was happening. It got to the point I had to switch schoosl. Even then it wasn’t great. I still got bullied + severely excluded by my peers. I basically spent the first 13 years of my life having no friends. It wasn’t until I learned to mask that my social life (and life in genera) got significantly easier.

I still see this happening all the time at my high school tho. Where kids who dont have the privilege to mask but are forced into “mainstream” classes anyways are mistreated by their peers. Kids will literally forcefully ignore them and act like theyre air until they go away. I’m basically one of the few people who actually talks to them.

I think people underestimate how psychologically devastating growing up around very little to no autistic people when you’re autistic. People already dont treat children well and that multiplies by 50 if you don’t “fit in.“ And I especially don’t know why you’d stick them with authority figures who likely have never interacted with an autistic child and either don’t know what to do with them or worse, resent them for making their job more difficult. I’m still dealing with the trauma of my early school years.

Instead of forcing autistic kids to be around people who hate them, we should invest in a special education system that can support autistic kids that are at various different levels and/or experiences. That or we restructure society to be less ableist. But i don’t see that happening anytime soon. Interested in hearing alternatives tho!