i'm sorry to preach when I've been silent. sorry to have been silent at all. I just can't be silent anymore, and there is no pretending it doesn't exist.

with love and kindness and hope when it's hard to find it

ari

but there won't be safe spaces left if we don't get up, get organized, and help each other

I know I'm just a writer. who fears being locked up for what I've written. and I've wanted to keep this, tumblr, and ao3 as safe spaces, for respite from it all. because we DO need respite to keep going

our generations face something we have never been asked to face before. I fear we will have to cultivate bravery in ourselves beyond what we would ever choose to face. we are tired and feel defeated, and that is exactly how they want us to feel.

now we can see it all being built in plain sight, literally alligator alcatraz, and still no one seems alarmed enough to do anything about it.

I started worrying about it several years ago when I drove by a small town WWII reenactment, in which teenage boys wore German uniforms, showing a total lack of awareness of the lowest form of dishonor embedded in that uniform.

anyone who thinks we aren't here is deluding themselves. to see smiles even on democratic representatives' faces in the chamber today as they listened proudly to speaker Jeffries' speech tells me we aren't prepared for this at all.

and the thought of my joyful mom, who has a neurodegenerative disease that has robbed her memory and mobility but nevertheless left her infeciously sweet spirit intact, being taken away - well it kills my soul

ah, yay. is it the fact that he's literate, kind toward animals, or clean that's potentially offensive?

thanks very much!

i should note, as an extreme introvert and creative whose aspirations have all but died, that this is absolutely the last thing I want to do, and i'm all in. like +14 rage to get to this point

(finished version)