Tyson??? Why is there a screw in my chicken???
I think the topic of consent is very important, and I think as an intellectually disabled person, it’s even more important to talk about what I was taught, and what my mom did.
My mom, who was a single woman at the time, explicitly taught me about consent. Why? Because she knew that I, as an intellectually disabled person and autistic person, needed to know it. And it needed to be drilled into my head the importance of consent. Not only did she teach me this, but she taught me how to communicate to trusted people if something happened. She knew that if she didn’t, the chances of me not knowing, or not understanding certain aspects of consent and sex in general, would be profoundly higher than my peers.
She noticed, she did the research, she taught and did what she could. And I am forever grateful for that. Intellectually disabled people, who have a higher rate of things happening to them and being abused, NEED to be taught about sex education, consent, and how to communicate if something were to happen. We are at a much higher rate of being sexually abused than our peers. And it is so so important that these things are taught to us so we are aware and able to protect ourselves and know when it’s time to contact a trusted adult.
a bottom-tier autistic experience is being told throughout your entire childhood that you are just an overthinker when it comes to social situations and later finding out that your friends did, in fact, hate being around you and tried to communicate that through weird little hints
Being autistic is weird because I think I'd be entirely entirely immune to the maddening effects of witnessing an Elder God but learning that barnacles are arthropods rather than molluscs nearly gave me an existential crisis
5 GOLD AN HOUR?????
Owning a black cat is awesome because you’ll leave the bathroom and The Shape will be waiting for you
String identified:
g a ac cat a ca ’ a t at a T a a t g
Closest match: Raphanus sativus genome assembly, chromosome: 4
Common name: Radish
Did you hear that buddy?
You’re a radish.
on the topic of humans being the intergalactic “hold my beer” species: imagine an alien stepping onto a human starship and seeing a space roomba™ with a knife duct taped onto it, just wandering around the ship
it doesn’t have any special intelligence. it’s just a normal space roomba. there are other space roombas on the ship and they don’t have knives. it’s just this one. knife space roomba has full clearance to every room in the ship. occasionally crew members will be talking and then suddenly swear and clutch their ankle. knife space roomba putters off, leaving them to their mild stab wounds.
“what is the point?” asks the alien as another crew member casually steps over the knife-wielding robot. “is it to test your speed and agility?”
“no it doesn’t really go that fast,” replies the captain.
“does it teach you to stay ever-vigilant?”
“I mean I guess so but that’s more of a side effect.”
“does it weed out the weak? does it protect you from invaders? do repeated stabbings let your species heal more quickly in the future?”
“it doesn’t stab very hard, it gets us more than it gets our enemies, and no, but that sounds cool — someone write that down.”
“but then what is its purpose?”
“I don’t know,” the captain says, leaning down to give the space roomba an affectionate pat. “it just seemed cool”
this is the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard but I thought about it for five seconds and realized that if I were, say, a random communications officer onboard this ship and someone taped a knife to a roomba it would take maybe three weeks before even I was inordinately fond of Stabby. I would be proud of Stabby when I met up with my other spacefleet friends for space coffee, I would tell them about the time Stabby got the second mate in the ankle five seconds before the fleet admiral beamed on board and she swore in seven different languages in front of high command.
also by the fourth day Stabby would be in the ship’s log, he’d have little painted-on insignia, people would salute him as he went by, and someone would hook up a twitter account to tweet maniacal laughter and/or a truly terrible knock-knock joke every time he managed to nick someone.
Omg so the ting I typed up might actually happen this is gold
How did it get clearance to every room? The gruff security commander is watching the footage from the ‘admiral incident.’ Some obscure camera angle finally catches Stabby in the act. “Someone get me the number of that space roomba™.”
“But sir, the crew, they… we… sorta have a soft spot for the little thing…”
“I know. I’m going to give it full access to the whole ship. Should be a riot when those Zendarians visit again.”
I meant to add this several thousand notes ago but better late than never, right?
Rithlen was not having a good galactic-standard week.
First, xe got stationed on a human starship as an ambassador for xyr race. Xyr supervisor had always had it out for xem, but this was a new sort of psychological torture. Everyone in the galaxy knew humans were a strange, illogical species. Now Rithlen had to put up with their strange customs, including the small robot with a weapon. The humans didn’t even seem phased by it. They just stepped over the robot. They actually seemed fond of the thing! They named it Stabby.
‘Humans are very strange,’ Rithlen often thought to xemself, ‘in the way they hold affection for a nonsentient piece of machinery designed to hurt them.’ The threat would be neutralized if they would just remove the tape holding the knife, but when xe mentioned the idea to some of the humans, they seemed horrified and offended by the idea.
Rithlen quickly learned to keep one of xyr feelers near the ground, scanning for the vibrations of the small machine.