Sharks are cool and comfortable!


Elden Thing | Back & Body Hurts Platinugggggh Rewards Member


Profile pic and banner credits: sharkaeopteryx art by @superkiak! eggbug by eggbug! Mash-up by me!
[Alt-text for pfp: a cute sharkaeopteryx sat on the ground with legs out, wings down, jaw ajar, and hed empty, looking at eggbug and eggbug's enigmatic smile.]
[Alt-text for banner: a Spirit Halloween banner with eggbug and the sharkaeopteryx that Superkiak drew for me looking at it with inscrutable expressions]


I'm a Vietnamese cis woman born and currently living in the U.S. You may know me from Sandwich, from Twitter or Mastodon (same username), or on Twitch as Sharkaeopteryx. I do not have a Discord or Bluesky account.

Ask me about language learning/teaching, cooking/eating food, late diagnosis ADHD, and volunteer small business mentoring. Or don't, I'm not the boss of you.


I think people deserve to be young, make mistakes, and grow without being held to standards they don't know about yet and are still learning. So, if you are under 22, please don't try to strike up a friendship or get involved in discussions on my posts.


Please don't automatically assume I follow/know/co-sign someone just because I reposted something from them—sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Also, if you think being removed as a follower when we're not mutuals is a cardinal sin, please do not follow me.


🐘Mastodon
search for @sharksonaplane@mastodon.sandwich.net and hit follow if you want
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kukkurovaca
@kukkurovaca

Breaking out a reply to a comment in more detail:

People do not have an inalienable right to be comfortable. Being made to feel discomfort is not, in itself, justification for attacking someone.

This is something that white folks in particular, and (in some ways especially) including white folks who belong to marginalized groups really need to wrap their head around, especially in the context of creating safe and healthy communities online.

There is a difference between safe spaces, which you do have a right to, and comfortable spaces, which you do not. You do not have a right to be insulated from anything that could make you feel doubt or anxiety. You do not have a right to be free of all gazes which you perceive as judging you. You do not have a right not to be asked to do better. You do not have a right not to be exposed to the experiences of others.

This is especially true when what's at issue is someone else's actual rights.

There's a real strong pattern of folks carving out what they consider to be safe spaces for themselves and then reacting with sometimes shocking vitriol to anyone in those spaces who doesn't make them feel good about themselves.

That pattern is what underpins the toxic whiteness of places like Mastodon, and it's definitely here too, which is a real bummer.

I don't expect everyone to be a perfectly virtuous paragon of social justice. You don't have to be free of sin. I'm certainly not. But when something makes you feel bad you should stop and think for a second before trying to purge it like an immune system on overdrive.


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in reply to @kukkurovaca's post:

Extremely White tendencies all of us White people need to key in on. If you aren't seeing this in yourself, look again.

It's this way of reacting to social phenomena in this hyper-selfish way that typify White spaces. When we behave like this, regardless of our justifications, it's an outgrowth of the White supremacy we ostensibly want to dismantle. Even if we don't see it, the other people around us do. It's why a social space stops being safe and inclusive of others. And why so many leftist spaces are just White people yelling at each other.

There's a marked difference between discomfort and danger. You can be uncomfortable and still be safe.

Great post. It's really frustrating to see reactionary behavior like this! And in my experience, difficult to get people to recognize it in themselves bc it turns into a feedback loop of the person defending their idea of themself as right or "good"...