Here’s a different take on the alien invasion trope:
The world is going to shit: overpopulation, deforestation, pollution, global warming, everything. The only question is if we’ll kill ourselves off before we kill the planet out from under us. Then one day ships appear in the skies all over the world- not just America and countries with trendy landmarks, but EVERYWHERE. Efforts are made to stop the “attackers” but humanity is still rounded up and carted off to some strange alien facility.
Food (of a sort) and shelter are provided, but no answers are forthcoming because humanity’s captors don’t bother talking to us. Maybe select individuals are taken off for testing, but they all come back in more or less the same condition they were found, except maybe with immuno-boosters or a few troubling terminal diseases cleared up. There’s massive speculation about what’s going on and probably religions are formed based on various beliefs about what the aliens are doing with us, but no one knows for sure.
This goes on for years (or longer) and then one day everyone is rounded up again and taken back to Earth. Everything is exactly how we left it (except maybe dustier and overgrown) except now there’s no pollution, the ice caps have been repaired, global temps stabilized, ozone holes patched, everything. There are more forests, more crops, and maybe a few critical species (like bees) have been given a population boost. There probably isn’t a lot of thought to where people get dumped so a lot of folks end up in the wrong countries and whatnot, but eventually we sort ourselves back out and either make our way back home or settle down where we are. In a world that’s a little better than the one we left.
And that’s how humanity finds out they’re just an alien terrarium and the owners have stopped by to clean the tank.
I believe that most people on this thread are upset at the doctors, not at other people on the thread (apart from the one exchange at the top). I hope that I don’t have to explain why it matters for doctors to believe patients about their symptoms?
Also, this isn’t about doctors giving patients the diagnosis that they “want”. This is about doctors giving patients an accurate diagnosis of what they actually have.
Finally, I know ally-falls-downstairs in real life and I can vouch for their credibility.
being a female means needing to see 10 different doctors to get a proper diagnosis because they always think you’re exaggerating and/or lying
People are either completely shocked or say that everything about me makes so much more sense.
To other autistic people, have other people ever been able to realise you’re autistic without you telling them before?
Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”
I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.
I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”
Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.
Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.
It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.
It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.
Yes, of course. Not letting boys wear skirts is still a form of sexism.
How much support we got out there?
Remus Lupin: Sirius you did what.
Inspired by this post and others by lotstradamus
(Am I doing this right?)
Whether it be when you feel you don’t belong, when you feel upset, when you’re angry, when you’re going through a hard time or when you’re feeling empty. (Social Experiment: I want to see how many people do this)
My editor keeps telling me no one will
I would totally attend a Utopian service.
HUMANISTS:
Expectation- Grow! Strive! Excel!
Reality- Government of, by, and for the most insufferable shitheads you knew in high school
BRILLISTS:
Expectation- Unlock the mysteries of the human psyche!
Reality- Your president is a smug sack of shit who’s also computer-racist
EUROPEANS:
Expectation- Unbreakable bonds of cultural tradition
Reality- “You seized my borderlands, you executed my hero, you conquered me a thousand years ago, and I remember.”
COUSINS:
Expectation- Altruism, community, common good
Reality- Some rando’s crashing on your couch six out of seven nights and it’d be too awkward to say anything at this point
UTOPIANS:
Expectation- Join our constellations and build the future! Also, Fursona-Pokémon are real and you can have one!
Reality- I Fucking Love Science + ENDLESS SCRUPULOSITY HELL
MASONS:
Expectation- Power. Order. Eternal tradition.
Reality- Facebook feed is endless unironic “when did THIS [modern architecture] become hotter than THIS [Byzantine spires]”
MITSUBISHI:
Expectation- Noble stewards of our terrestrial inheritance
Reality- Everyone’s least-favorite rent-seeker, and you don’t even have close to enough property to have a say in anything
WHITELAWS:
Expectation: Morally upright, clean living, stable communities
Reality: Mormonism but without the pretense of spiritual development
GRAYLAWS:
Expectation- Join the one group that isn’t directly run by lunatics
Reality- Somehow even more milquetoast than just becoming a Cousin because your ba'pas are
BLACKLAWS:
Expectation- Proud, honorable libertines, shining example of voluntary self-governance
Reality- The worst possible overlap in the Venn diagram of ancaps and LARPers
If you do not reblog this, you are in fact lying.