Yes, I know some people have phobias they can’t help, but a phobia doesn’t force you to hate spiders or snakes or deep sea fish. I am completely baffled by people who just insist certain animals are horrible and wish they would all die rather than just wishing they weren’t scared of them.
And then there’s people with no “phobia” at all who still scream “KILL IT WITH FIRE” and the clickbait articles or even previously reputable science blogs feeding into that with “THIS NEWLY DISCOVERED TURTLE IS A NIGHTMARE FROM HELL!!!”
This is one thing I try very hard to nip in the bud with my students and one thing I’ll really be focusing on this season. I had a big wakeup call last fall during our pond class – I’d let the kids run around catching bugs in nets and putting them in buckets to examine and identity.
I thought it was all going really well… the kids had found tons of neat shit and were asking all kinds of questions about it. We even found a giant water beetle the size of my palm, which I couldn’t resist whipping out my phone to take a video of. As we were about to end class and return our finds to the water, this kid just… upturned the bucket onto the grass and stomped on the beetle, killing it.
I was stunned. I had no idea what to do or say. I barely managed to contain my fury and a number of expletives. Why the fuck had he done that? “It was gross,” was all he had to say.
So what? “Gross” is subjective. “Gross” isn’t a threat to you. “Gross” is not hurting you. If you are afraid of it, I understand. But your fear of it does not mean it has lost the right to exist, especially in a place where it is meant to be, where you are fully capable of avoiding it.
Working with and around phobias, I can do. Most people I know with insect or spider phobias, even children, recognize that they have a right to exist and that their fear is disproportionate. But the fact that “kill it with fire” is a normalized reaction to the strange or ugly upsets me greatly.
HENNYWAYS I’m arachnophobic and I hate spiders and they should all die
Hi @haml3t! As someone who used to have a severe phobia of dogs after being attacked twice as a child, I don’t appreciate your implication that I “have no clue” what it’s like. I very much do. However, we live in a world where hurting or killing dogs on sight is not encouraged or remotely socially acceptable, even if you hate and fear them intensely. If I were to say “HENNYWAYS I’m cynophobic and I hate dogs and they should all die”, nine out of ten people on the goddamn planet would be absolutely horrified, if not asking for my head on a platter.
No one is saying that you should feel ashamed for your phobia or just need to “get over it”. It’s rarely that easy – I spent years working through my panic reaction to dogs and am fortunate enough to have conquered it. I now really like dogs and am comfortable in my ability to discern between an active threat and a sweet pupper.
“I think it’s gross and scary because of the way that it is” is not an acceptable excuse to kill something that you can easily avoid and which is not posing a threat to you. If you think it is, then beating a dog I pass on the street would not be much different. After all, they’ve harmed me in the past, and might do harm to me again – and unlike spiders, they tend to run towards you seeking physical contact.
This dog recently showed up on my Facebook newsfeed. It looks very much like one that attacked me when I was a kid. It would be tasteless and offensive of me to comment something like “OMG KILL IT WITH FIRE!” and tell the owner how much I wish I could kill it, even if that’s how I felt. When I feared dogs, I avoided them, and did not feel the need to tell everyone who owned one how I thought the world would be better if they were all dead.
It sucks to have a phobia. It really does. I know this, and I know that it can impede your ability to enjoy and function in your everyday world. But while killing a spider in your bedroom or in your car is understandable, going out of your way to destroy them when they could easily be avoided, and telling everyone who likes them that they should all die is not an excusable expression of a phobia. It’s just being an asshole.
Ill second this. I have a bit of a phobia with dogs because Ive been attacked several times, but you dont see me going around saying I’m going to kill dogs. I just try to stay away from them and leave them alone. (Its annoying how many people are like, personally insulted, when you swerve around their dog on the street. Like, no, Sharon, I dont have a problem with your dog personally. I am afraid of all dogs unless I know and trust the dog well enough to know they aren’t aggressive. Why is it ok for people to say they hate cats, but not ok for people to be afraid of dogs?)
I also have arachnophobia (or maybe a kind of general ‘bug creature’ phobia?), but actually killing a spider(or bug) is my last resort. If I have a friend nearby, I try to get them to remove it first. I used to have a neighbor who would do so… but he moved unfortunately lol. But if its not in my space, (my house, my office, my car, etc) I ignore it. I dont go out of my way to kill any bug or spider I come across on the street… If the spider/bug is in my space, and I cant get it out of my space easily without a chance of it touching me, Ill probably kill it. But not really out of hate or anything, I just dont want it to creep up on me later and touch me… TBH its the touching I’m most afraid of. I cant even touch dead ones. I have to use tissues or something to pick up dead spiders/bugs. Ive actually had panic attacks from spiders dropping down on me before, or bugs landing on me lol (I also have a weird immune system thing and my body can have extreme reactions to bug bites, especially spider bites, so that doesn’t help.)
A third on this. I was attacked by chihuahuas several times and now that entire breed as well as other very small dogs makes me uneasy. Some mid sized dogs too, but to be honest I don’t really like dogs too much in general. It’s not the fact it’s ‘they’re dogs and I’m afraid of all dogs’ it’s more of a sensory thing about dogs that’s hard to tolerate with all dogs, and it’s only certain dogs that scare me.
I’ve never really had entomophobia or aracnaphobia. Sure if a bug lands on me I’ll panic and swipe it off but that’s because I’m a giant ball of nerves and the little thing would have surprised me. I would never go out of my way to kill a bug I wouldn’t even try and kill anything in my house unless it were an fly or mosquito. Ants I’m on the fence about, since I would try and exterminate a colony in my house but if it’s just one or two then I wouldn’t care. The only bug that legitimately gives me panic is roaches. Cause if there’s one…there’s more.
Roaches are a colony bug and don’t stray as far from the nest as one would think. Now they aren’t like ants and bees where there’s a queen, but they have a community of different families. But I will never try and kill them without poison. This is mostly because of audio trauma from back when I was in high school. Have you ever heard a roach being stepped on!? It’s terrifying.
Tiny dogs are the worst for my phobia. Especially the bald/short haired breed ones like chihuahuas (I dont know breed names well lol)… Why are they always so angry? Are they trying to make up for size with aggression? I dont think I have ever met a calm tiny dog. Like, the tiny curly haired breeds seem more hyper than aggressive but still, they are too loud and move around too much for me to feel safe around.
There are very few dogs Ive ever gotten to know well enough to feel safe around, and they were all larger breeds, and relatively quiet and calm. Service dogs I tend to feel ok around though, since those are usually well trained and are working and dont act out. And they stay near their owner so I dont have to go by them lol. (I hate people who bring non trained dogs into stores and stuff and claim they’re ‘service dogs’ though. Like no, an emotional support animal is not the same as a service animal, get that thing out of here.)
I agree on your point of killing bug infestations too… Those pose a health hazard. But that’s still not really a killing out of hatred, more out of necessity. I lived in a house infested with roaches when I was a child, and they got into like, everything. And the house I live in currently gets an ant infestation almost every spring that I end up having to deal with (because no one else there bothers to, even though it affects them too?)
I think the main problem the OP has is people who are killing unnecessarily, out of hatred of the creature.
This is an account for the Zine dedicated to “the Crows” of D. Gray Man. The Crows consists of Howard Link, Tokusa, Madarao, Kiredori, Goushi, and Tewaku.
As an entry-level DnD player can someone explain to me in the simplest possible way how to differentiate wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers from each other?
wizards is imbued with magic, you just need to prepare mentally your spells.
sorcerer studied magic, you need to physically prepare your spells and often need materials.
warlock has magic because of demon, you have access to mainly dark magic as well as eldritch blast as a free unlimited cantrip.
to be honest, play-wise wizards & sorcerers are very similar as they tend to have a lot of shared spells. sorcerers get to specialize in a school of magic more than wizards though. and warlock its pretty much just dark magic.
this, except reverse wizards and sorcerers.
sorcerers innately have their magic (usually because someone fucked a magic being. often a dragon)
wizards studied magic and learned accordingly. they also tend to be older, but not always.
warlocks get their magic from pacts with magic beings (which i don’t think necessarily have to be demons).
Piedmont will have absolutely no clue how to handle Post-Weirdmaggedon Dipper and Mabel.
The neighborhood kids play hide and seek and they’re hanging out on some random roof. You can’t beat them if you can’t reach them, suckas.
They’re outside every hour of the day. Literally. If you happen to be outside at two in the morning you might find them mid-magic hunt. Why not? Ford always said to take advantage of your insomnia for science.
Once some teenagers performing some weird Halloween hazing the Pines kids absolutely wrecked them. They literally have no chill.
For that matter, if you look Mabel in the eye, rumors say, you immediately have to play a game of cards with her. Never take pocket change anywhere near their street.
The pig goes with them. That’s final.
They say Dipper Pines has a six pack. They say he’s shredded. They saw he’s got a scar across the belly from fighting off a pack of wolves with his fists.
All the doors in the world are open if you know how to pick locks… Not that they’re saying they can. That’s implementing themselves in multiple unsolved crimes, and that would be stupid.
Feel free to add your own!
Mabel starts leaving handmade jewelry around their school, their neighborhood, the local grocery store. People who know her are afraid to touch them but strangers pick up these little wire and yarn doodads and find themselves having some very good luck.
There’s a rumor that that kid who always falls asleep in class couldn’t sleep at night because a ghost was haunting him. One night they find out that Dipper got in trouble for breaking into his house in the dead of night. That kid stops falling asleep in class.
On all their homework and tests, they leave behind red ink eyes crossed out with an X. One of Mabel’s classmates asked her why and she looked up front, at their Trigonometry teacher and said, just in case.
Dipper listens to a death metal band called Robbie V and the Tombstones. No one can find their songs anywhere, but if you ask he’s happy to lend you his CDs.
Mabel remembers everything, about everyone. She’s the only one who remembers the birthdays of the kids with no friends and she shares happy memories when her peers are upset about a grade or family stuff. She writes down little details in a pink glittery notebook, so that no one will ever forget.
Dipper and a group of his classmates went on a field trip in the woods. When Dipper disappeared for several hours, the teachers panicked, but he appeared at their bus a few hours later, having collected all the data he needed for his bio lab and toting a jar filled with multicolored moths. He’s banged up, but he doesn’t seem to notice. When someone asks where he got them, he says “Mothman” and doesn’t answer any more questions.
Mabel makes a tidy profit off of Mabel Juice during final exam season. Half their graduating class will swear by it all through high school even if it does taste terrible. (The arrest rate for stimulant drug use drops close to zero.)
Piedmont will have absolutely no clue how to handle Post-Weirdmaggedon Dipper and Mabel.
The neighborhood kids play hide and seek and they’re hanging out on some random roof. You can’t beat them if you can’t reach them, suckas.
They’re outside every hour of the day. Literally. If you happen to be outside at two in the morning you might find them mid-magic hunt. Why not? Ford always said to take advantage of your insomnia for science.
Once some teenagers performing some weird Halloween hazing the Pines kids absolutely wrecked them. They literally have no chill.
For that matter, if you look Mabel in the eye, rumors say, you immediately have to play a game of cards with her. Never take pocket change anywhere near their street.
The pig goes with them. That’s final.
They say Dipper Pines has a six pack. They say he’s shredded. They saw he’s got a scar across the belly from fighting off a pack of wolves with his fists.
All the doors in the world are open if you know how to pick locks… Not that they’re saying they can. That’s implementing themselves in multiple unsolved crimes, and that would be stupid.
You see this. You see this and you probably think “wow that’s a beat up team, he probably just got through a really difficult fight, maybe a gym leader or something” or something to that effect.
But that’s not what happened.
This was not the result of some epic Pokemon battle for the history books.
This was the result of A SINGLE FUCKING LEVEL 35 CLEFAIRY.
Let me tell you all a story.
The fight began like any other. I was making my way up Celestial Tower when I encountered a trainer, a Pokefan no less. When he sent out his only Pokemon, a level 35 Clefairy, I laughed at the thought of easily crushing this trainer. Sending out my Krokorok, Gordan, I started the battle.
I first used Crunch. Taking out a good 2/3 of the Clefairy’s health, I thought for sure that the fight would soon be over.
I was wrong.
Crunch seemed like a good move at first, but it set off a chain of events that could not be stopped.
Due to the Clefairy’s Cute Charm, Gordan fell in love with it. Not only this, but the Clefairy’s first move was none other than Minimize. On the next term, despite these circumstance, I figured I’d just try to get a quick Crunch in and finish the job done.
Gordan, however, was paralyzed by love. The Clefairy proceeded to use Metronome, which ended up being Ingrain. The Clefairy then began to restore some of its health thanks to this.
Not wanting to take any more chances, I switched to my trusty Arcanine, Admiral. Admiral had never failed me before, always being there in the nick of time to save the day in a blaze of glory.
On the turn used to switch Pokemon, the Clefairy had used Minimize once again.
Attempting to finish the enemy off quickly, I had Admiral use Flamethrower. This, however, missed. The Clefairy used Minimize.
And this continued. Admiral just could not seem to hit the enemy, and each time the enemy kept getting harder to hit, while all the time also slowly regaining what damage I had managed to do.
After capping out evasiveness, the Clefairy proceeded to begin using Cosmic Power to get its Defense/Special Defense. As Admiral struggled to defeat this enemy, the enemy just kept getting stronger and healthier.
Soon the Clefairy’s Defense/Special Defense were capped. It was then that it unleashed Stored Power, a move powered up through the user raising its stats. With the Clefairy having raised its defensive stats so much, this attack ended up one shotting Admiral.
It then proceeded to one shot Jacque the Axew, Baabaalaza the Ampharos, and Frank the Dewott, all trying in vain to do some damage.
Eventually, it was back to just Gordan left. Gordan, being a dark type, was not affected by Stored Power, a Psychic move.
Here was where the real fun began.
Not being able to actually hit Gordan, the Clefairy continued to attempt to use Stored Power until it ran out of PP. It then moved on to Metronome, which failed to do any real damage before this, too, ran out of PP.
As this was happening, Gordan was trying desperately to actually hurt the enemy. Using a Dire Hit and single X Accuracy/Attack that I had on me and spamming any attack he had, he struggled and struggled to hurt it. But between Gordan falling in love with it again due to Cute Charm when a Crunch somehow managing to land and it using Minimize so much, Gordan simply could not do enough damage to outweigh the effect of Ingrain.
And so came at least five minutes of just Gordan attempting to attack and being immobilized by love, missing, or doing too little damage, as the Clefairy continued to use Minimize and Cosmic Power that no longer actually had any effect.
Eventually, blessedly, the Clefairy ran out of moves, and begin to hurt itself with Struggle. Slowly but steadily the Clefairy begins to die, with the Struggle damage being more than Ingrain could heal.
After some time, the Clefairy was a single Struggle away from fainting. With much pleasure, I told Gordan to just use some random attack, and I waited for the Clefairy to faint.
THE MOTHERFUCKER USED A GOD DAMN HYPER POTION AND BROUGHT IT BACK TO FULL FUCKING HEALTH.
Gordan stared open mouthed at the enemy as I just silently stared at the scene for a full minute. The level of rage I was experiencing had never been felt since people in second grade used to make fun of me and call me a girl.
Then, however, I kind of just spent a bit more time just letting the Clefairy use Struggle again.
And finally, blessedly, the Clefairy ended up causing its own end due to Struggle. Seeing that tiny sliver of HP on it tick away and hearing its death cries made me happier than I’ve ever been since eighth grade when I punched this one really annoying guy in the face.
Gordan stood triumphantly over the corpse of its enemy, awash in his great victory as he proceeded to gain a level from the exp earned.
Together, we spat in the Clefairy owner’s face, and then slowly turned away and walked toward the Pokemon Center. We must have been TM87 (or 34 for you old schoolers) then, because we were SWAGGERING.
…
The moral of the story is, make sure to save more than once every three hours so you can just restart the game when things like this happen so you don’t waste 20+ minutes of your life just to defeat a fucking Clefairy
Yes, I know some people have phobias they can’t help, but a phobia doesn’t force you to hate spiders or snakes or deep sea fish. I am completely baffled by people who just insist certain animals are horrible and wish they would all die rather than just wishing they weren’t scared of them.
And then there’s people with no “phobia” at all who still scream “KILL IT WITH FIRE” and the clickbait articles or even previously reputable science blogs feeding into that with “THIS NEWLY DISCOVERED TURTLE IS A NIGHTMARE FROM HELL!!!”
This is one thing I try very hard to nip in the bud with my students and one thing I’ll really be focusing on this season. I had a big wakeup call last fall during our pond class – I’d let the kids run around catching bugs in nets and putting them in buckets to examine and identity.
I thought it was all going really well… the kids had found tons of neat shit and were asking all kinds of questions about it. We even found a giant water beetle the size of my palm, which I couldn’t resist whipping out my phone to take a video of. As we were about to end class and return our finds to the water, this kid just… upturned the bucket onto the grass and stomped on the beetle, killing it.
I was stunned. I had no idea what to do or say. I barely managed to contain my fury and a number of expletives. Why the fuck had he done that? “It was gross,” was all he had to say.
So what? “Gross” is subjective. “Gross” isn’t a threat to you. “Gross” is not hurting you. If you are afraid of it, I understand. But your fear of it does not mean it has lost the right to exist, especially in a place where it is meant to be, where you are fully capable of avoiding it.
Working with and around phobias, I can do. Most people I know with insect or spider phobias, even children, recognize that they have a right to exist and that their fear is disproportionate. But the fact that “kill it with fire” is a normalized reaction to the strange or ugly upsets me greatly.
HENNYWAYS I’m arachnophobic and I hate spiders and they should all die
Hi @haml3t! As someone who used to have a severe phobia of dogs after being attacked twice as a child, I don’t appreciate your implication that I “have no clue” what it’s like. I very much do. However, we live in a world where hurting or killing dogs on sight is not encouraged or remotely socially acceptable, even if you hate and fear them intensely. If I were to say “HENNYWAYS I’m cynophobic and I hate dogs and they should all die”, nine out of ten people on the goddamn planet would be absolutely horrified, if not asking for my head on a platter.
No one is saying that you should feel ashamed for your phobia or just need to “get over it”. It’s rarely that easy – I spent years working through my panic reaction to dogs and am fortunate enough to have conquered it. I now really like dogs and am comfortable in my ability to discern between an active threat and a sweet pupper.
“I think it’s gross and scary because of the way that it is” is not an acceptable excuse to kill something that you can easily avoid and which is not posing a threat to you. If you think it is, then beating a dog I pass on the street would not be much different. After all, they’ve harmed me in the past, and might do harm to me again – and unlike spiders, they tend to run towards you seeking physical contact.
This dog recently showed up on my Facebook newsfeed. It looks very much like one that attacked me when I was a kid. It would be tasteless and offensive of me to comment something like “OMG KILL IT WITH FIRE!” and tell the owner how much I wish I could kill it, even if that’s how I felt. When I feared dogs, I avoided them, and did not feel the need to tell everyone who owned one how I thought the world would be better if they were all dead.
It sucks to have a phobia. It really does. I know this, and I know that it can impede your ability to enjoy and function in your everyday world. But while killing a spider in your bedroom or in your car is understandable, going out of your way to destroy them when they could easily be avoided, and telling everyone who likes them that they should all die is not an excusable expression of a phobia. It’s just being an asshole.
Ill second this. I have a bit of a phobia with dogs because Ive been attacked several times, but you dont see me going around saying I’m going to kill dogs. I just try to stay away from them and leave them alone. (Its annoying how many people are like, personally insulted, when you swerve around their dog on the street. Like, no, Sharon, I dont have a problem with your dog personally. I am afraid of all dogs unless I know and trust the dog well enough to know they aren’t aggressive. Why is it ok for people to say they hate cats, but not ok for people to be afraid of dogs?)
I also have arachnophobia (or maybe a kind of general ‘bug creature’ phobia?), but actually killing a spider(or bug) is my last resort. If I have a friend nearby, I try to get them to remove it first. I used to have a neighbor who would do so… but he moved unfortunately lol. But if its not in my space, (my house, my office, my car, etc) I ignore it. I dont go out of my way to kill any bug or spider I come across on the street… If the spider/bug is in my space, and I cant get it out of my space easily without a chance of it touching me, Ill probably kill it. But not really out of hate or anything, I just dont want it to creep up on me later and touch me… TBH its the touching I’m most afraid of. I cant even touch dead ones. I have to use tissues or something to pick up dead spiders/bugs. Ive actually had panic attacks from spiders dropping down on me before, or bugs landing on me lol (I also have a weird immune system thing and my body can have extreme reactions to bug bites, especially spider bites, so that doesn’t help.)
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