#‘oh it’s just xyz’ no go deeper. what are you going to do with this information. yknow

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Master manipulator vs Master manipulator

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[sosuigeneris]

Going by your post about daughters in high society being all-rounders, are they expected to learn certain languages, follow literary canons or maybe know specific geopolitical happenings? Is it a specific set of skills & information or is it more on a general knowledge basis?

you should definitely know your country’s language and English. Most competent girls I’ve noticed fall in two categories - either they’re extremely strong in arts (classic literature, art, music, food, essentially creative stuff) or STEM and finance.

as an overall, one normally has a general range of soft skills - the ability to converse with ease, socially confident, “respectful”, poised etc.

There are certain cheat codes to achieve this ^ and make it seem like you’re really an all rounder in the short term. Obviously in the long term you’ll have to work on your skills if you haven’t, but here’s what you can do. 1. Study the most common socially asked questions

How are you?

Where did you go for college/ uni?

What do you do?

Where have you travelled lately?

do you know about ….. ?

do you know XYZ person?

What are your hobbies?

and practice, practice these answers. Here’s your objective : to come across as knowledgeable, friendly and rational. don’t for instance, speak negatively about anyone or any experience. Instead of saying “oh my god this experience was absolutely ghastly” say “this is what I really liked and this is what I felt could be better.” You are seen as a refined woman then, not a bitchy teen. Use a wide range of vocabulary- CORRECTLY. Practice it so that it seems natural to you. Even fairly common words like “apt, apprehensive, sentient, derelict” - can make you seem a lot more polished than “so true, unsure, alive, run down”.

2. Be aware of three of the biggest news stories before any social event. Be it a dinner, party, a baby’s christening, anything. and here’s what will make you stand out - know those 2-3 stories in detail. In the age of people simply skimming over news and not making the effort to dig deeper, knowing something very well is an instant giveaway of being well read. For instance, Trump and the birthright citizenship situation. Something that an average person (especially if they are not American) may not know is that lots of non- American pregnant women - mostly Indian - in the US have begun approaching doctors to have their babies premature before the Feb 20 deadline. Now, when I mentioned that at an event recently in India, people were surprised. I was able to bring value, information to the table that no one else really knew about.

So when you speak, you want to drop a nugget of value. What you don’t want to do is get very high and mighty - you have to drop this information nonchalantly, as if you know everything. Nonchalance will give you bonus points.

3. Listen more than you speak… ATTENTIVELY. You cannot break eye contact, don’t lose focus. Nod slowly, tilt your head slightly, back straight, shoulders and hips turned towards the person who is speaking. Don’t rush and don’t rush them.

practice these small things even with your friends, school, teachers, workplace - to make something a habit, you need to practice it anywhere and everywhere. You can’t just be polished to one group of people, you must be polished to all.

4. Always approach the women/ aunties / mothers first. Compliment them genuinely. And then greet the man. The only times I break this rule is if the man is decades older, is someone I know very well, is a friend of my parents’, or if I know him better than his wife.

5. you won’t be expected to cook and clean and all that, these days it’s not really an expectation. And also, unless you want to attract men like that and you want to be that person too, it doesn’t make sense.

[koiifiishy]

sydney rambles bc this is my blog and mom said its my turn with the communal barbie doll (obligatory disclaimer of this pertaining to my syd & doesnt have to affect how u view ur own games version! also will be referring to syd with he/him)

circle glasses for max moe points. eris buys him contacts after the 3rd time his glasses get broken. still sometimes wears glasses, mostly for aesthetic appeal or when hes too tired to pop contacts in. has absolutely fallen asleep with them in before. ouch.

wears hair loose now adays but will occasionally switch it up depending on the outfit and event. ties his hair with eris' teal ribbon that he was gifted after they started dating. (kylar has probably stolen that ribbon before, but eris just have sydney a new one lmao)

idc if it is or isnt confirmed, ive been thinking of DID sydney well before i saw the tumblr dollies talking about it (those posts only fueled me lmao) and i 100% hc sysney. at least 3 bad boys are in that noggin; pure syd, corrupt syd, third secret spicy option syd that hes not aware of & is the cause for the "huh? what do u mean i just did xyz thing i dont remember that :-)???" scenes.

in my heart of hearts i do believe sydney is capable of knocking sb the fuck out & he would if push came to shove. the warnings he gives arent just for show! would he feel bad after? nngghh.... maybe. more like hed feel guilty for letting it get that far & have a mini spiral about how hes out of control & oh god plz forgive him,,,

only time hes getting to that level is if his partner is in active danger right in front of him. this is secret spicy 3rd sydney's moment to shine. (fyi eris thinks this is Hot AF & reassures sydney he did nothing wrong. ---purity loss interaction lol)

looks a LOT like sirris (dad in my game) but gets sheepish when compared to him. eye & hair color from mom.

this bitch is packing bc i think its so thematically funny for pure syd to go thru the stages of horny grief while ImprisionedTM & during his descent to corrupt sydney. fallen sydney is a lot more confident with his size! if i were to put a numbered range on what in game "huge" is id probably say were talkin pornstar level 9-11in and OUCH but also ykno what. size queenkings geddit. sydney personally? 10. maybe he was locked up for the good of all of doltown lmaaaoo

as ive seen others put it: sydneys got big "sleeper build" body type. you dont expect this nerd behind the library counter to be ripped but when he flexes u see the muscle and its a big slap in the face to ur arousal meter. Q&A's have also stated sydney to be strong but lack stamina. thats fiiine its just something to work on :^)

idr if its been stated in any Q&A's (sighing again that most lore is locked away in fucking discord Q&A's...) but Personally! i think sydney has a beginning low, to medium awareness after corrupting but! his psyche is fucked and he is ACTIVELY denying any supernatural stuff bc he just. cant handle it.

or, at least, most of the alters cant; i do believe on a deeper level once you get past the trauma fueled denial, he does know and acknowledge shit isnt right. faithful alter will always deny it, fallen alter is a 50/50 leaning towards willful denial, and its probably the other more volatile alter that pops up from time to time that fully acknowledges the supernatural aspects of the time.

i have my game set to not really acknowledge genitalia in regards to pc pronouns bc fuck u. HOWEVER realistically i do think sydney learning that eris was trans literally during the rite of promise would be a very pika gasp moment and hes rolling with it bc he loves him but afterwards he Does ask questions bc he doesnt fully get it but he wants to and eris is patient about it but also mildly on the defense bc he doesnt want to be seen any different than before,,, but sydney's respectful! and after a few months of contemplation he confesses that he never really put too much thought in gender outside of "it just is what it is", but that he himself sometimes feels like an ambiguous question mark.

he still uses he/him, but having his eyes opened to the world outside of cishet normatives definitely puts some things into perspective. he DOES have to learn not to be pushy about certain things, like how ur well meaning friend who's still learning will immediately jump to correct somebody even when you urself dont wana cause a fuss lol. but its all in good faith!

no. he will not ask his dad outside of what is absolutely necessary to ask, bc he knows he's just going to leave that conversation embarrassed. he makes the mistake of offhandedly mentioning queer gender theory like Once and sirris is going on a spiel about how its normal in the animal kingdom for blahblahblah humans are the only species to have so many societal rules and blahblahblah. (sirris is very encouraging and tries not to push but he also makes a big "if theres anything u need to tell me syd, u know i love u no matter what" scene that has sydney running away at top speeds bc AAAAA NO NO U MISUNDERSTOOD AAA;;; )

probs the oldest student LI. once read a post saying something along the lines of "sydney needed to stay in school longer bc of the thing with his mom/hospitalization afterwards" and i think that fits. closer to 19 going on 20, taking remedial classes and kind of in this weird grey space of student & teachers (librarians?) aide bc of his age. +being sirris' kid. it makes for a weird reputation amongst the student body, further alienating him from others who see him as "a teachers pet, teachers kid, & a weirdo whos too old to still be in school". (theyre all over 18, but if i had to place them id say: pc/whitney -> robin -> kylar -> sydney. dont ask for my source this all vibes baybeeee).

i refuse to believe sydney would listen to dad rock. idc if it was a joke by the devs or if it was serious my disdain for dad rock forbids this LMAAAO honestly he probably isnt a very big music listener and just passively lets the radio do whatever or lets sirris choose when they drive together. non lyrical instrumental music is probably his preferred go to music, but i can for sure see him getting catchy top 20s pop songs in his head and humming them under his breath b4 catching himself and grimacing bc its not even a good song its just stupidly repetitive,,, eris' music taste is pretty broad and sharing his tunes is a love language in itself so syd gets a good dosing of different genres over time! he gravitates towards whatever eris likes in true sydney-can-never-choose-for-himself fashion buuut i could see him genuinely enjoying hard rock as a kind of cathartic stress reliever.

big baby. we already know this, but i just wana reiterate it LOL. no matter how much fallen sydney tries to be tough and seductive, hes crumpling whenever eris holds him. they are so disgustingly codependent post-rite lol

however, and maybe im delusional!!, i still think sydney leans on the caretaker/submissive top side. yes he likes to be babied to a degree but we've seen in game how he can and does take initiative once hes comfortable enough. what he lacks in skill he makes up for in eagerness to please. faithful syd may be more pillow princess but i think theres enough instances in the game to show that theres also a side of him thats actively willing to lead and will take initiative! (again, didney hc - the differences lie in the altars but we must remember theyre all still aspects of sydney as a whole!)

its loosely talked about in game, that he likes the ocean but hasnt done many beach activities since the mom incidentTM — but i like to think he has beach mementos in his otherwise very standard bedroom. post romance routing him and going on more beach dates, that collection slowly begins to grow again. its a kinda bittersweet thing, and he probably separates the mom-collection from the eris-collection.

i stated it before but again: i think hed be capable of handling a polyship (a 3 person poly relationship only, including himself) but itd have to be corrupt sydney and hed be a bit reluctant - more or less so depending on who it is youre trying to bring into the relationship.

eris canonically has sydney and kylar set as his LIs, which i feel would be the easiest to accept for sydney given their shared history. (kylar is a different story but this post isnt about him lol). hed still need to warm up to it tho, being the king of dol slowburn, but eventually hed be fine with and even include kylar in things.

now how much of this is his "i need to please pc & tailor myself to their preferences" thing mmm. depends on the third person! maybe a little something like this from most to least easily accepted: kylar -> robin -> whitney -> alex -> avery/eden -> BW/GH simply bc ur fucking with his perception of supernatural shit if theyre beastpeople & hes 100% skeeved out if theyre not.

anyways thats all for now :] ! if u hate my opinions eat my shorts its ok bc they dont have to affect ur game's worldstate or how u view ur own version of sydney!!! if u like it, woohoo! questions about anything i didnt mention? feel free to ask! *im not in the discord, im not a dev or contributor, nothing i say is canon, these are just my hcs, etc etc disclaimers.

[luv-again]

What are some pet names Shadow would use for Amy? I just cannot get the scene of Wreck It Ralph out of my head where he calls her a “dynamite girl”.

firstly, oops, sorry it took a little while to get around to this ! i have such a bad habit around leaving responses in my drafts for forever and a day </3 secondly, hi, yay, i love asks ! but oh NO you've just enabled me to yap and i am SO sorry in advance for the length of this response ;-; i'll put it in a dropdown so i'm not assaulting everyone's dashes

buckle in, it's blabbing time

i'm of the firm belief that if you can convince me shadow would say [ xyz pet name ] within a certain context, then i can believe it. my bud, @sadgirlz-lovemoney, does this brilliantly in her fic, ballads for the gallows, where shadow is insistent on calling amy "troublemaker", based on the fic's proceedings and their attitudes/personalities. to me, that's the perfect way to implement terms of endearment !! you gotta set the stage before hitting the audience with it — it's all contextual and more importantly, it rides on how natural it comes off

"dynamite girl" is so fun 😭 i think i vaguely remember this scene ?? and i think shadow would absolutely call amy something within the same vein ! something pertaining to her abilities or overall nature ? i'm a sucker for shadow admiring the qualities about her that no one else will openly recognise (so much so, i wrote a whole piece on him doting on her like this. i am both guilty and biased)

as much as i have learned to accept the charming, almost honorific-like term of endearment that shadow applies by regarding to amy as 'rose' (i actually used to abhor it, but i adore it when it's applied in the right way. i love the use of her given name more - but that's a whole other thing for a WHOLE different discussion lmao), i always like to resort to referring to her differently in my pieces. out of exploration, mostly, but it never seems to be a pet name of sorts ??

when i don't write shadow referring to amy by her given name — you know what ? i'm going to be honest, i normally don't. just because all my interpretations of him so far have been either pre-relationship and/or unsettled with the idea of giving pet names at the time. BUT. if i were to, here's what i reckon :

'my love'. simple, timeless. shadow doesn't muck about and if he's comfortable with announcing to amy or anyone else that she's the subject of his adoration, that'd have to be one in his repertoire. it's boring, i know, but to me, shadow is a little boring. in an endearing way

^^ by extension, 'beloved'

going through a search of my pieces, i did in fact find one where he does apply the former pet name ! as a tease, but it still made an appearance !

— dusk, or eventide

as for an extensive list, i am so so garbage with churning my brain for further ideas, they normally crop up on a whim. but in a basic sense, those are best fit. at least to me, in good faith to my interpretation of shadow, anyway. i know others in the community have far more clever ones out there; i just rely on one failing brain cell to do all the heavy lifting for me lmao (and it does me no justice, i'm afraid)

furthermore, on the point of not using pet names too often, i come to my next (unnecessary) point of discussion : how i do represent amy through shadow's eyes

a lot of how i perceive shadow's view of amy comes down to my previous statement of admiration. he admires and respects amy for all that she can do and all that she is. i like her actions and her bearing to speak for her more than superficial things like the pigment of her fur or the colour of her eyes. and if i DO mention that (most likely the latter because i am an 'eyes are the window to the soul' believer), there's something attached, whether that be a feeling evoked by them or a deeper concept they play testament to

let me nab some extracts from some of my pieces :

— the kiss...?

— three words, three syllables

it'd take me a ton more time to pick out more features/metaphors i've used in regards to amy (especially in three words, three syllables, since that's all the piece is full of), but i can be sure to say i love — not quite the sun/moon dynamic trope — to liken amy to the sun because i think it's a beautiful way to encompass all her attributes. she is warm, but she can burn. she can glow, but she can blind. amy is unapologetic in both her love and her malice, and that's what i love about her character. so by extension, so does shadow. he wouldn't change her for anything. if you can draw a handful of pet names from that one, be my guest hehe

i think i personally prefer to remain poetic, vague, or unspoken when i write for shadow, hence the severe drought that is the pet name scene in my neck of the woods lmao

this post went off on such a wild tangent, i'm so sorry. i'm as verbose as they come once you get me started on something </3

nevertheless, thank you for the ask !! i really enjoy prompted shadamy yaps hehe

[cinnbar-bun]

I hope this isn’t a weird question and I’m asking like,,, very nicely because I’m just curious because you often discuss novels but why do you like American Psycho? Like just cuz it’s a horror or smth? Your other recommendations were interesting so I was wondering what your thoughts are

Not weird at all, but sorry the English major in me is gonna pop the hell out and sorry this will be boring and long because I have so many feelings on the book and the movie and the other Ellis novels in general and I think some literary theory being applied to it really takes it beyond its shallow surface viewing of “guy who kills people”.

I will try to keep this short somewhat and I will try to avoid getting graphic and spoilery but beyond that, I do wanna start off with as a WOC in America I’ve always loved stories that tackle the American condition and ideology. It’s easy to write it off sometimes- what’s the difference if X story is in England for example and while yes that can be true, I feel most of the novels I hold important to me (Ellis, Toni Morrison, etc.) is a uniquely American thing. It’s so rooted in American culture and societal values it just personally touches me as a woc who has immigrant parents.

Now tying it back into the last paragraph, American Psycho is at its core a satire, and the novel is especially important for its place during Reagan’s presidency (and honestly a lot of the problems in the novel ARE traced back to Reagan’s policies and Reaganomics), presumably before Black Monday- so this is PEAK Reagan era American consumerist before what is going to be the worst economic crash in the world since the Great Depression.

Patrick is a symptom of the larger problem Ellis tackles- Yuppie culture and American consumption as well as identity politics. I’ve seen the theories of Patrick being a repressed gay man and I thought similarly along with coinciding with Ellis being a gay man who said that Patrick was something of Ellis’s own thoughts at the time. Patrick’s rage I kinda related to in a way (and not in Gahhhhhh I’m gonna murder and drug people!!) but as a warped sense of self and self hatred and repression for what you are.

And before you get the idea that means, Oh so Ellis is a fucking weirdo- I mean, maybe- but you have to read deeper into that and it’s that Patrick has no identity. Sure we read about him, but he effectively has no identity or connection to others. He is routinely mistaken for others, reality is a false construct, perhaps he did nothing or perhaps he did everything he said he did. The ways you can examine American Psycho over and over again is soooooo incredible. Whether it’s from a racial, sexual, or cultural lens I like to take a moment because yes the graphic violence is jarring but that is the point. It’s an over the top parody of what is the real issue- identity and culture. Ex: Patrick is a repressed gay man so he actively goes after women to lie/convince himself otherwise, Patrick is a white man with a rich dad so he gets away with it, Patrick is so empty inside he has to turn to substance abuse and cruelty to get any feeling, Patrick is so lost on who he is he is mistaken for XYZ.

The movie does make the satirical aspects more clear because Christian Bale is performing as Patrick in such an exaggerated way that it’s comical and emphasizes how ridiculous this shit is. I also think as time goes on the novel becomes more ‘important’ and very reflective of the world we live in (considering Patrick is such a fan of Trump to the point of idol worship and needing to be consoled by Trumpisms and this was New York in the late 1880s so like even then that was ridiculous) especially with our current situation now it’s a bit of something to reflect on imo.

So yeah! Just a condensed form of what I feel but honestly I feel and think and have thought waayyyyy more about the film and novel and every progressive viewing or reading as I get older always highlights something new to me. Ellis also is an interesting writer to me, can’t say if he’ll be good for you but in American Psycho specifically as an example because they all spend so much time describing outfits and brands, Ellis knew that people would just skip ahead whenever they did so he just started describing wackier shit and the details about for example Patrick taking his clothes to the laundromat it’s so much more thoughtful than you think.

[softantlers]

What made you think of Nat as tmasc? /gen

yeah, interesting question because my first thought is "vibe" so hmmmm i'll try to bring out what comes up for me.

maybe there's a bit of me personally relating to nat. while i fall into more of a genderfluid space that comes closer to butch than strictly tmasc (most of the time), i just see some genderfuckery going on with the character. it's especially apparent in nat's style in the second season, like there's something boyish happening, which doesn't HAVE to be a tmasc thing (more on that later), but which is satisfying (to me) to view in that light.

it gets tricky talking about this because you invariably get into scarcity discourse with other people-- us bitches lose it and go off on "why can't you let xyz gender be BIG and BROAD and HAVE NUANCE-- the character doesn't have to be xyz gender because of xyz gender transgression" and it's like, yeah, absolutely that's true. but also if it's fulfilling for me (& plenty of others) to imagine this possibility for the character when there's so little other representation, then who does it hurt? i've written nat as cis and i've written nat as tmasc and i like exploring both worlds. so one headcanon doesn't have to be in competition with the other.

but yeah, i guess getting back to the question at hand, all the characters in yellowjackets are coming to these revelations about themselves in the wilderness. what's rich to me about nat in sort of a tmasc trajectory is that (i'm gonna start using he/him pronouns because fuck yeah) he's taking these symbols of archetypical masculinity and carving them into something else for himself.

so like if you think about nat's experience with his father and the abuse there and what a gun means to him in terms of masculine violence and then you square that with his efforts to reclaim the gun and use it for something good, something to provide for his team... there's such rich possibilities there if you bring in a tmasc headcanon because that sort of reclamation is an essential part of the realization that you're masc...

like the vibe is-- how can i be this? this thing that isn't inherently bad but that has certainly been associated with people who have hurt me and others? it's so fucking layered and complicated, especially, especially, if you have a fuckshit relationship with your dad. and so, there's something powerful in visualizing nat making the effort to carve out his own masculinity in the wilderness and to channel it into something that's caregiving and good against the backdrop of what he grew up with.

(and AGAIN, because disclaimers will abound in this meta, i never want to minimize the diversity of genders among cis people. like cis people, idk if you realize it but y'all do have different genders from each other kdsjfkfdjlaflk--because you could absolutely have a similar satisfaction in reading nat as a woman and manipulating these symbols too. BUT-- why not do both? why not let people get fucky with either or both i say???)

also in terms of tmasc fluidity, which oh my fucking goddd is such a battleground, i think headcanoning nat as tmasc gives representation to people in a way that's valuable! like my personal hc of nat's style in a transition sense is like... he's basically the same. deeper voice, a bit of scruff, but he's still wearing his fuckass headband and maybe even bleaching his hair. i think the stylistic aspect of the character is fulfilling to explore because there's so much bullshit about how trans people have to look and tbh a lot of infighting about it too, and what we end up with in terms of media representation are these perfectly binary heteronormative representations that appeal to cis people.

sooooooo the option to have fun with this character who can be seen as just as riot girl and unapologetically bisexual as he is still fundamentally a dude is very fun. (because tbh idk if we'll ever get purposeful representation of someone like tmasc nat on television-- even though we're out here!!)

at least considering all this is fun for me. and again, i'll always come back to nat just feeling so appealingly genderfucked. personally, i see it as a value good that people of so many different genders/sexualities relate to the character!

-mic drop-

[splatoonpolls]

I can't really take "media literacy is dead" that 100% seriously ever since it became like a "pop psychology" term. It just sounds like everyone one day woke up for forgot the most basic of basic things. “Media literacy is dead” and they don’t add a because or due to. They show an example and sometimes refuses to expand on why it is dead. It shows the consequences but not the cause or the action.

Because like. It is already dead. It has been dead for a long time for a certain group of people. People always had shitty opinions on media. As long as it has existed. The thing was, they didn't just have access to express their opinion you know. Before it was mainly professional critics and academia. Now with social media, everyone can say shit. And that includes people who have shitty takes. It is no different than a nonartist trying to insert themselves in an artist centric situation. Most people will never be an expert unless they have spent hours upon hours learning about something. And that is where i think the problem comes from. Beginnner hobby artists saying "Klein's blue" is nothing special and they can do it. People have always joked about people viewing themselves as Scott Pilgrim or Patrick Bateman, and do not forget about how every year, a myriad of young inexperienced authors go "i don't like reading but I am creating a next Harry Potter" while storming writing forums.

I think the problem isn't inherently "media literacy is dying". But rather it has become increasingly harder for people, especially those new to a certain field to properly differentiate between a "good" and a "bad" analysis. It is the exact same reason youtube has put literal banners saying "hey, this news station is a public broadcasting company beloning to XZY" and "this is a registered medical professional from XYZ". Why you can look up to see if someone has a masters or PhD in something. Humans are gullible creatures and they like to just think the best of things. Why do you think so many beginner artists fall for Kooleen's art "tutorials" (oh yeah, Kooleen is a troll everyone)? Because sometimes, we are just too quick to trust anyone.

The problem isn't that media literacy is just died one day. But rather that media literacy is a zombie apocalypse and many are listening to the zombies instead of the doctors when it comes to opinions about media. And that the antidote (actually looking deeper into things in an academic level) is seen as "boring" or "not needed because i have youtube/tiktok/instagram" or whatever. And if people trust the zombies, they are going to become zombies. Media literacy is still alive, the problem is just amatures, beginners, whatever you may call it acting like professionals and trying to act like they have the same agency as everyone else.

So yeah, before you see like a take by a random person called "childesfangirl" or whatever using a random anime clip in the bakgrund while having text to speech read up their bad take. Remember that they don't have an essay in english, art history, film, and biomed. They are probably a 14 year old who will think about this take in about 4 years and just cringe.

What should worry us is how people are turning away from actual experts in a field. People becoming lazy and rather taking a cheaper option to affirm their thoughts rather than listen to someone who has the credentials to prove it. People would rather watch 4 youtube videos on something before checking in on what a professional has sad. Social media has allowed people to be lazy when seeking stuff. And that is the scary part.

TLDR: people have always had shitty opinions. But in a field of experts and a sea of inexperienced idiots. In a dopamin chasing landscape like social media. People will seek the quicker and faster option. The one that fulfills their biases. One that pits them against them vs us. Which is a problem that has existed even before social media, think the satanic panic where people would read a novel by a random paster on how DnD made your son worship satan than actually see how the game is played. The problem is, SHITTY OPINIONS ARE MUCH MUCH MORE AVAILABLE. And some people do in fact believe that YouTube is a replacement for school (I could make a whole rant about how children's entertainment has been ruined by youtube but that is for another day). Which it isn't please give some love for for teachers and librarians in these trying times okay.

[utilitycaster]

Whoaaaa holy shit something just snapped into place reading you mention the concept of creating a shape of negative space bc i've been thinking so long abt the "unspoken things/quiet part" of characters. I've often had this feeling that fandom will go a million and nine yards to red string board an ocean of depth for their favorite blorbo over.... what comes down to what's technically extrapolating based off of xyz canon, but said canon will be like "this character fidgets once, half his dialogue is quoting an in-universe play he tries to recreate (by ruining ppl's lives), and he doesn't understand why someone wouldn't want to be called a monster, therefore he is AUTISTIC and that drives his logic," or "this character has xyz vague background and is TRAUMATIZED because of WAR" inventing an entire character and it's like. Oh boy. This might be a matter of not being invested enough in these characters to TRY and delve so "deep" but I keep thinking that none of this is actually. written or feels purposeful in the context of How Storytelling Works/the Narrative to MAKE me invest or think that it's worth doing so. I always wonder how many people are trying so hard to project a better story onto something without understanding that the story actually needs to BE THERE and ADDRESSED, even subtly, and token moments aren't enough. But then that gets me thinking about how Thereness needs to exist for something to be subtle but written as opposed to Conspiracy off loose projection.

I was kinda thinking abt Laudna and how to use her as an example, because she's one of those characters for whom like, yeah I as a person totally understand the cycle of being upbeat and normal and everything and then having a random spiral of Bad Upstairs before being normal again, but narratively how do you portray that and why does everyone do it so much better than her. With equal screentime, everyone feels like they have so much more meat to their motivations and psychology despite some being significantly less fraught backstory wise. What's happening here because things just feel like they come out of nowhere with her with "oh so that matters all of a sudden?"

Hi anon,

Yes to all of this! With regards to your first paragraph - I feel that a lot too. It's a tricky situation because I think it's completely valid to project things onto characters and imagine them to have specific qualities that either you have or simply that you wish to see in fiction. It only becomes difficult in a fandom sphere when people insist that this is a fully evidence-based endeavor and not a personal interpretation (especially because a lot of that evidence is, as you say, either very much open to interpretation, or else totally spurious. The number of times I've had to shoo people off my posts for talking extensively about how an immensely self-absorbed character who never thinks about others unless forced to clearly has ADHD...but I digress). And as for the conspiracy element, especially when works aren't as good - absolutely. If you haven't read this, which I reblogged a few weeks ago (has Good Omens 2 spoilers) I highly recommend you do because what you're saying resonates a lot with OP's post, both in terms of our need as fans to project or find similarities with characters, and the fact that when people are disappointed by a work sometimes they try to create a better one, but instead of just writing fanfiction and calling it fanfiction they go full conspiracy theorist and assume there's some secret twist, and fall so hard into that all-crumbs-no-schnitzel (to borrow a metaphor from that post) fanon echo chamber they forget it is, in fact, only fanon.

Which brings us to Laudna. Before I go deeper I want to cover three things. First: for me at least, this criticism comes because I know Marisha is capable of doing this negative space work. It didn't come up much with Keyleth since we kind of knew her whole deal very early (which, to be clear, is valid; not every character needs this), but it's present with both Beau (her relationship to her father is masterfully done; the hallmark of good negative space work is that when the reveal comes you say oh of course) and to a lesser extent Patia, who, like all the Calamity characters, conveys a story much greater than the one that unfolds over a single night. Second: I think part of why a number of us in the fandom are so frustrated is that we have been doing that work of generously interpreting Laudna since the beginning, but nothing ever sticks, so it's becoming less and less worth the effort.

I'd have to go back through my archives pretty extensively, but early on, the going expectation for Laudna was that she would explore the idea of being one of the bystanders in a larger story as someone killed simply because of a passing resemblance to someone the Briarwoods wished to send a message to; that we'd get insight into Whitestone during the occupation from someone who wasn't freed by Vox Machina but rather killed, indirectly, because of them. However, not only have we not gotten that, but she also was chosen for being special: Delilah chose her as a vessel because of her inherent sorcery. So then it was perhaps about that tension between finding power in her sorcery vs. warlock levels - Pâté seemed like a clear setup for Pact of the Chain, after all - but then Marisha admitted she had no intention of taking that third warlock level, and always just planned to play Laudna as exclusively leveling in sorcerer, until FCG attacked. And meanwhile, there's no exploration of those sorcery powers, either.

Speaking only for myself, I've been interrogating "hey, why is her backstory that she was chased out of everywhere but for the most part everyone is mostly fine with her?" and "in 30 years she did nothing about Delilah? Really?" for quite some time. There's a number of questions that are not just unanswered, but lack the hints that this negative space work would provide. And to be clear there are ways to explain those things! This meta does a good job of talking through why she may have been chased out, and I've floated, in the past, that even Delilah's unwelcome presence was better than the absolute silence of being truly alone. But the work to support these fandom theories, again, is not really being done at the table, and moreover, even if it starts being done...it's episode 70. It should have come up in some capacity.

Marisha said (to be clear, somewhat jokingly) in the 2022 ComicCon panel that "Yeah. I don't want to think anymore. I'm tired," re: Laudna but the thing is...honestly, in my opinion? A character with Laudna's premise requires far more work than Beau or Keyleth to do well. Not only is she tied into one of the most famous events and entwined with one of the most famous villains of Campaign 1, but she's got 50 years of backstory! Beau and Keyleth are in their early 20s! (I could make a whole other post about this but character intelligence does not equal how hard they are to play; Imogen is an immensely tough concept that Laura's doing a good job with and she's lower INT than Laudna. I'd rather play a wizard than a character like Grog any day of the week because I genuinely believe that the acting burden for making a character like Grog sympathetic and believable without going into cheap mockery and parody is immense).

Going back to that statement, it really does feel as though every 4-Sided Dive episode or panel, when Marisha talks about Laudna, it's always just that she was envisioned as being over her trauma, and the premise was always just "make that creepy girl from her nightmare". And even then: it's fine if she'd done that - simply made a creepy character who was here to be creepy and cheerfully macabre - but through gameplay it's become clear that Laudna is not over that trauma (her arrested development being one of many options), and has acquired new traumas to boot, and for that matter never was really over it given that she displays intensely but they come up so inconsistently that there's never any follow-through. I agree with you completely that the idea of her often seeming fine and happy and then having spirals is believable and true to life, but one does need to actually follow through on the spirals - I think a lot of us finally threw up our hands when Laudna's believable, well-played, and justifiable anger and resentment after being thrown across the world away from half the party, essentially pushed into a fight that isn't her own, being betrayed by Bor'Dor, and feeling Delilah's return melted away without resolution. If you want to make a character who's over their trauma and go-with-the-flow, I feel as though step 1 is to not have an eternal reminder of one's trauma permanently stuck in one's head. "Warlock who dislikes their patron" is actually a premise that requires quite a lot of thinking and effort, and we are consistently not seeing it.

I think what's most telling is that the defense of Laudna for the weird freakout this past episode is both vehement, and in conflict with itself. Is Marisha just making a joke (that didn't really land with anyone at the table nor much of the fandom, and was taken at least semi-seriously by both)? Or is it actually great and good that Laudna is incredibly traumatized and clingy and we should all hope she becomes even more clingy and codependent? When even the people who are shielding Laudna from even a whisper of criticism can't agree what Marisha's doing, it's pretty dire, especially when that criticism is "this character feels directionless and incoherent."

So getting back to negative space: It's my hunch that there just...wasn't a lot of clarity to Laudna's motivations, and the questions in her backstory weren't answered. She's creepy and she's kooky, Sun Tree corpse, Delilah in her head, met Imogen two years ago, was friends with a little girl at some point (which we only know from 4-Sided Dive, which is, to be clear, bad that it's never come up in-game). We don't know how she feels about her sorcery powers other than a vague enjoyment of their creepiness...but she also sees them as a way out from Delilah...but she also barely engages with Delilah and hasn't done anything to get rid of her. We have no sense of how she got to "the worst thing that's happened to me already happened" because while it's completely fair to play her as feeling that way 30 years later, I highly doubt she felt that way as she cut herself down from the Sun Tree. So as a result, it's hard to pick a direction because that foundation is lacking.

The thing about that negative space is that to do it well, you really need to know what you're trying to convey. Which is also why, as you say, characters with much simpler backstories are fine; Fearne was basically hanging out at her grandmother's place until EXU and her parents left when she was very young; she is curious about her parents and loves her grandmother and is a chaotic fey entity who was sent into the Material Plane with the Weave Lens, and mostly she just wants to explore and have fun and hang out with her friends. Ashley just needs to...play Fearne like that, which she does with aplomb. The complex setup for Laudna demands a huge number of answers in the backstory, and my guess is that Marisha does not have them. I think the problem isn't with the acting (in fact, I'm fairly confident it isn't, because, again, I know from past characters Marisha can do this); it's that Laudna's concept prioritized the aesthetic, mechanics, and facts of the backstory, and didn't adequately fill in her beliefs and motivations, so she's just flailing. I also suspect from the most recent 4-Sided Dive and the most recent SDCC panel that Marisha is specifically looking for interparty conflict, and to be clear that's valid...but again, to do that believably and well, Laudna's philosophy and motivations and characterization need to be much more clearly established than they are.

[system-of-a-feather]

You know, I honestly do think people would greatly benefit from taking some time to deeply reflect on the known idea that "one of the key point ways to radicalize into a dangerous, harmful, bigotted, and sometimes fascist (NOT CLAIMING THAT IT IS INHERENTLY, JUST THAT WE KNOW IT PLAYS A ROLE IN RADICALIZING FASCISM I DO NOT PISS ON THE POOR) is to create an 'us' vs 'them' way of thinking." Like this is tumblr dot com, yeah there are some people who don't know that and/or disagree with that, but I'd like to think the sensible majority of us who are on the trans gaysex website have heard that be said and have at least mostly agreed with it.

And yet, even then, we have some of the most pointless discourse that is fundamentally built on this "us vs them" ideology. The same "they are ACTUALLY [emotionally and morally charged claim] and are DANGEROUS to live and let be". "[Insert Group] is ACTUALLY a [insert claim that generates fear] because [semi plausible claim and/or over generalization of a few people]." "[Insert Group] wants us dead / gone / silenced and will not stop until this or that and can not be trusted when they say otherwise"

Like, I'm pretty sure this is in queercourse / LGBT discourse, proship related stuff, and all that general way too online internet discourse, but the one I'm most familiar with is syscourse so I'm going to use that as a reference and talk specifically to that audience.

If you are reading this and go "Oh you are vagueing XYZ of [this group] because they literally say those things", I'm sorry to tell you this literally had at least half of the regular syscourser names in my mind - from BOTH sides.

Honestly, I feel if we just really stopped using labels to put OURSELVES into us-vs-them categories that people can immediately box us one place or another, it'd do everyone a lot better in having productive conversations cause you'd actually kind of need to, ya know, talk to a person before you inherently decide that they are the "enemy who wants to take things away from you and silence you."

Nine out of ten times, people just want to live, want to be able to exist and have human decency, and are just generally scared. I'm sure there are some bad apples out there that explicitly do want to actively cause harm to other people for no good reason other than its funny, cause yeah, they obviously exist - but I've come to find most people, even the most aggressive and vocal people, are scared and often isolated and thus trapped in this cycle of discourse.

There is a lot of benefit to be found by taking time to sit, pull off all the assumptions you've made about a person, and just genuinely give space and time to have a genuine, best faith, private discussion about what matters and drives them. If there are people who you think you know their opinions, thoughts, and reasons for doing and saying what they do from just their online public presence, you are honestly probably humorously wrong.

And that isn't to say I'm exempt from it, cause I liberally block at the slightest annoyance which - while minimizing negativity on my dash also happens to shut down any room for any deeper understanding of a person - is good because no one is entitled to you going out of the way to understand them and their perspective, especially when they are actively putting things out that make you feel stressed, annoyed, and/or concerned.

It also isn't to say there is any reason or internal dialogue that fully excuses toxic behavior on it's own. No one is entitled to your forgiveness either, especially if they don't make amends on their own effort.

It's all just to say that I think people would benefit a lot from sitting down and spending some time thinking to themselves what it means, why it is, and how it appears chronically in social communities the "us vs them" mentality and how that ends up causing unhealthy and toxic behavior.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

arrrghhh and having a moment just now b/c earlier i was rewatching this clip and appreciating how ofc not only is it a stellar little expression saga of jeremy's there but it's so Relevant to how we're being shown like [yeah clearly this is a bad idea but we are led to understand why he'd do it anyways] when like yeah jeremy's hurt & miserable as this new computer enemy immediately beating him up insulting him like you're the worst die Admit You're The Worst & Die. but also like jeremy was already There & already getting that message from others / life, which is why he's in this situation already, and why even though this obvious antagonism & hurtful treatment Does dig that hole a little deeper it's like, still more of the same from jeremy's perspective / a supposed further confirmation of what he was already sufficiently believing was true anyways. but what's so different & new to him is this like invented & temporary Vision Of How Things Could Be where suddenly he's getting attention that is so positive & everyone is sooo hyped about him we love everything about you....and That's what's so much more motivating to jeremy than the previous shit that he of course experienced as Unpleasant

and then just now was looking at this gifset again with christine being surprised by how as she's increasingly exiting the defensive mode of trying to stay out of the way / rein herself in, jeremy's just interested and encouraging and giving Thee clearest most positive feedback as earnestly and spontaneously as she's being rn....the way that she's having a parallel experience to jeremy's Mall Visions Of Possibility like here's this random person suddenly who is responding so positively to whatever tends to be reacted to negatively as [weird/wrong/overmuch]....their earnest spontaneous little parallel threads that keep weaving together throughout the story like. christine and this ever surprising new person who first crops up super nervous but then really openly enthused about Her enthusiasm; freaking out at a mall food court; doing great at play rehearsal even though he's new to this; then a whole moment where at first he's maybe being confusingly standoffish compared to that enthusiasm at their first meeting but then the whole [i guess a part of me xyz] section of a guy that i'd kinda be into like waaaaauugh oh lord and now i'm thinking of the agtikbi reprise like i am sweeping the bmc obcr up into my arms for so many reasons & including that track is a hell of one....being presumably a bit further bemused by jeremy's whole deal but during this period where christine's presumably a bit preoccupied w/the play and with trying to try new things and dating jake, there goes jeremy suddenly dating brooke apparently & eventually evidently christine is like okay i guess he's in this popular kids group more cohesively than i am & [whatever interpretations in how christine thinks that jeremy is also hooking up far & wide w/ppl in that group lol] but here he is also feeling in over his head & overwhelmed & out of place after trying to play the part & Act Correctly & indeed managing to end up here & yet....And Yet they can have another earnest vulnerable spontenaous enthused encouraging moment on the couch, despite that then of course christine's like okay look in general What is going on around here, and that's even before anyone's burned down a house & so forth, all before we he she they get Proof of what jeremy wants & feels & chooses, and have that reunion finally with finale jeremy where it's like, yeah he's got more confidence in Himself, ofc he still likes her and her as herself, and he's still nervous but okay with that, she's more comfortable likewise being out of her comfort zone lol not trying to maximally stay either in the one arena she can be herself Or otherwise out of everyone's way, ugh their vimh moment like that willingness to be vulnerable with this person b/c as in any interactions you're not guaranteed "safe" but the stakes of that and effort of navigating are made lower by having this trust and understanding and knowing this person genuinely cares....the fact that they can misunderstand each other And That's Fine because they can and do just go "no, i mean xyz" which in turn isn't to chastise but an earnest effort to connect & let this other person understand & know you better & believing that They want to exert the effort to Try To Get It, to Genuinely Care....waah

tl;dr that the way jeremy is (theoretically) looked at in the mall while simply existing when everything is going to be wonderful and so alive & is so moved by is the way christine experiences jeremy looking at her For Real when they're first properly meeting in the i love play rehearsal scene, and furthermore: ;ww;

[rafescherie]

I’m not arguing with you in the slightest I just find this conversation interesting. I agree to an extent but when your only compensation is notes and not cash or a school grade I feel it truly is what it is. Content creators are doing this on their free-time. I usually just block them myself. If they were a watt-pad writer and getting compensated that’s where I’d see major issues.

And yes there’s the argument that this work could one day get published but it wouldn’t make it past the desk of a publishing house or it wouldn’t get ripped apart online which happens on booktok.

I don’t feel that plagiarism is in the same category as ai if used properly. If a content creator copies and pastes their request and gets a plot then asks openai to write a story for them, I think that’s plagiarism. I do think it’s different you use it as a tool for writing. someone asks for assistance with sentence development (like you’d get with a betareader), word choice (like you would with a thesaurus), or spelling and grammar changes (like you’d get with a classic spell check which is also AI). I think it’s all about how you use it.

I think that using characterai for your stories is plagiarism because the plot for the bot was created by another writer

oh, 100% agree. having discussions like this is extremely important, especially about complicated topics like this. i like getting multiple points of view as well, it’s interesting.

i understand as well the discussion about not receiving compensation — but i believe it stems from somewhere deeper, rather than actually getting something out of it. people write because they love it — they like creating stories and sharing them, they like brain storming meticulous characters and watching the idea in their heads play out, and using ai to do that defeats the purpose, in my opinion.

ai uses other people’s stories to write their responses. if you ask ai to write a story about ‘xyz’, it’s going to steal structures and sentences from other published writing, which in my opinion, is stealing. sure, being inpsired by others work isn’t bad, and it happens very often, but when the entire story is generated at the tip of your fingers, taken from bits and piece of work on the internet, then it becomes harmful. ai is extremely harmful towards the environment — it takes a lot of freshwater to cool itself down, not mentioning the amount of energy it draws. it’s also harmful to actual artists — nobody wants their work stolen, especially after you spend so much time writing, and planning. you’re essentially using someone else’s hard work, and claiming it as your own.

using apps that aid with writing isn’t so bad in my opinion, still not good for the environment — it’s aiding development. admittedly, i use grammarly, and that helps with sentence functions, but posting content written from ai, stolen from others creations? i find that extremely disheartening, and disappointing. i would personally feel better supporting actual writers, rather than people who have stories generated through ai, and publishing them. it’s just not the same in my opinion.

character ai, or any chat bots, is different, in my opinion. it starts off with a base — usually the roleplay greeting, and goes from there. this doesn’t get published, and you get absolutely nothing out of it other than having fun writing your own personal story, for your eyes only. characters on there can stem from actual written characters, like rafe cameron, or originals, however fanfiction is based on the same basis.

[peachtalia]

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

I’m Peach, I’m 23 and I go by they/them, my main is Peach+Fruit+Cake (remove the +’s, I just don’t want it found through keyword searching lol I don’t wanna get judged). I’m an artist and I have a deep interest in occult topics, different cultures and linguistics! Please take note that due to irl health/neurological issues, I may mix things up often so do keep this in mind

More info below the cut

This is my blog for my Hetalia hyperfixation that keeps periodically returning even after a whole decade, I tend to treat the characters more as ocs though. I'm open to making friends who share the same interests as long as you’re being mindful, so feel free to dm me even if I ever take a while!

I don't post nsfw. If whatever I mention does involve nsfw in it such as fics, movies ets I'll mention it as a heads up.

If there’s any issues to discuss or you have any questions or things to clarify with me/correct me on even, feel free to message! I’m always open to talk and I’m not one to snap or be rude unless spoken to rudely first. As long as you come in good faith, we’re cool :•3

While I love hetalia’s characters and the series does entertain me, please note that I’m still very critical of the source material and acknowledge a load of its fuckups loll. This series brings me a load of comfort and nostalgia otherwise. I also have the personal preference of often referring to the characters by their human names most of the time and I like depicting them as people with strong backgrounds in their culture’s traditions, kind of like a human au. I guess u could say a lot of this blog is for my own personal thoughts, ideas, indulgences etc.

example: I like to see Herakles having had a mother who was very involved in curating artifacts and artwork, teaching Greek history and tradition and took a huge part in cultivating Greek ruins. Maybe even some restoration work. And helped in arranging heritage festivals and exhibits. Perhaps she was a university professor

For a lot of the languages and cultures that I post about, please keep in mind that I’m still learning more and more about them and are by no means an expert on any of these topics! This page in a way is moreso for me to document the journey of learning about these things I love so much. I try my best to verify things, but of course I am still prone to mistakes here and there especially with how forgetful and spacey I can sometimes be, so please kindly let me know if I goof anything up!

Oh also you’re not welcome here if you contribute to racism in any way around here. No I don’t give a fuck if you don’t personally consider yourself a racist or “don’t see how xyz is racist/don’t see racism around here” when poc speak up about it. Especially if you’re a white person saying that, take a long hard look at yourself and what it is you’re thinking and saying and either stfu and improve as a person or go jump off a highway bridge thanks. Idgaf if it’s ironic that I’m saying this when talking about hetalia trust me I am Full aware but that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna still rightfully shoot at others over it

My fav characters are Yao, Feli, Kiku and Heracles!

Oh also heads up, when it comes to characters I’m more emotionally attached to, I can be super picky and rigid when it comes to ships and I’m not the multishipper type. It’s not like I’m rabid about ships or whatever, it’s just something more personal for me. A form of deeper personal expression ig you could call it as corny asf as that sounds. I only hold these preferences toward the ones I’m emotionally attached to, other than that idgaf. I keep the preference to myself. Be sure to avoid mentally grouping me with negative fans of any of the things I like thanks 👍🏻

Besides that here’s ships that I like lol I’ve been obsessed with these as a child and still really like to this day!

- Kiku Honda x Herakles Karpouzi

(Heracles Karpusi is the popular spelling around here ik but I like to keep it accurate to the actual Greek romanization.) This one is my main fav atm! I’m not personally comfy seeing either of them with other characters romantically due to my strong preference so I hope you can respect that ( ¨̮ ) and yeah lol I went insanely hard for them back in the day

- Yao Wang x Ivan Braginsky

I love this one a lot and always have and sometimes re enter a period of obsessing over it lololol

- Feliciano Vargas x Ludwig Beilschmidt

Basic lol ik they’re cute, it was my first love like with every other guy here haha I don’t focus on them as much as I did as a kid though

[obstinaterixatrix]

see the fundamental assumption my perspective is based on is that every thought and feeling has an explanation. however I mostly care about it in terms of the narrative and metanarrative of romance media.

[technicolorxsn]

wow i sure do wish i could understand metaphors

[salty-dracon]

And like, this goes back to a deeper issue about looking poor my entire goddamn life because GOD FORBID my parents spend more than $10 on a single shirt, or GOD FORBID they buy electronics new. Oh, and GOD FORBID I wear anything that's "too revealing" or "too sexy" when everyone else is allowed to and it's FINE if it's my 10 years older cousin. And that's not even bringing into the forefront the fact that so many of my clothes were just hand-me-downs from that same cousin.

And then when I get made fun of for it, here's 100 reasons why it's actually MY fault for not having thicker skin.

It's not like we were poor either. My sister had every little thing she wanted.

Like when my dad says "I'll do xyz because I feel sad that your sister got so many nice things and you didn't", I feel like shouting in his face- no you fucking don't. Throwing $300 at me now is not going to undo years of trauma over this. That's, like, what, three monthly medical bills for me now?

i hate it when i'm out in the cold because it's dark, wearing my green jacket and my jeans, and everyone assumes i'm an Evil Homeless PersonTM. i'm not homeless it's just already dark by the time i get to do my mental health walk and i also have dark skin and my parents gave me this hand-me-down jacket from the 90s and got very upset at me when i told them that this jacket made me look like an Evil Homeless PersonTM

[sydmarch]

ok this is all ancient history considering i haven’t talked to my ex in like a year bcus fuck that guy but something reminded me of this one incident and got me pissed all over again on behalf of my past self so excuse me while i go off a bit

literally he just never respected anything about any of my identities like it’s been months since i uninstalled tinder but seeing his profile back then got me SO fucking annoyed that his cishet ass has the gall to put “lgbtq” as one of his primary interests when he deadnamed me regularly for MONTHS after i told him what i wanted to be called. & i was totally all like oh well he’s forgetful & it takes getting used to and we don’t see each other irl often bcus of the pandemic so i get it, until he was showing me something in our thread of texts on his phone & i saw that he after MONTHS he had never updated my name so i was like wtf!? you never edited that? we text every day you look at this shit all the time no wonder you can’t fucking remember. & he was like oh you want me to change it? like YES i want you to change it you fucking stupid brain dead moron are you joking?? not too long after that i had a dream where he called me my deadname & i knocked him to the ground and started kicking the shit out of him while yelling that’s not my name you’re so fucking stupid. why did i not just dump him after having a dream like that lmfao!!! but that’s not even the worst of it man what REALLY got to me.. so it took me literal YEARS of being like “hm mayhaps you have autism based on xyz, you should do some research” but being in too much denial to face it before i finally decided to do some digging, realized everything made sense & then had like an emotional breakdown over it bcus i had internalized so much ableism. and then ages after that before i felt like i could even consider telling anyone about it bcus i was convinced no one would love me if they knew something was ‘wrong’ with me lol but eventually i decided i needed to tell him bcus we would both do harmless but annoying shit due to being nd sometimes yknow, but where i would try to be understanding bcus i knew he had a really hard time w his adhd a lot of the time he just wouldn’t take me seriously or would joke abt things i did that i’d told him i didn’t appreciate him joking abt etc so i was like well maybe if he knew then the understanding would go both ways but even tho he KNEW how much being vulnerable doesn’t come easily to me when i told him the only vibe he gave off was that he didn’t really believe me & kept trying to talk me into getting professionally diagnosed even tho i listed off a dozen reasons why i absolutely am not interested in that. but that’s not even the part that pissed me off more than anything!!! bcus a few months after that we were hanging out at my place & he started telling me about the horribly annoying producer he’d had to work with the day before & said he was “autistic i guess or like definitely had something wrong w him socially” & went on to rant abt how this guy was so annoying & incompetent including lines like “i’m here to do my job, not to teach special ed” & all this shit i literally didn’t know what to say i couldn’t believe what i was hearing i just sat there quietly like hmm ok then & came on here to vagueblog abt seething with rage so all night the vibe was off & a few hours later i finally felt like i could bring it up so i was like hey, what you were saying before about the producer really wasn’t cool. & this dude just dug his own grave even deeper w an apology worse than any youtuber the first thing he says is “yeah i realized as soon as i was done talking that i messed up & i could tell you’ve been mad all night” HELLO?? ok then why didn’t you apologize immediately?? & THEN after we’ve been arguing for a bit he says “yknow i don’t even know if he has autism i just used that as a dig at him” & i’m like you used THAT as a DIG while talking to ME??? most brain dead man on earth. & that still isn’t even why we broke up i thought “maybe he’ll learn from this” lmao it took finding out he had been keeping a major secret & lying to me for A YEAR for me to finally cut him loose!! jesus christ i know i was in my depressed and suicidal era back then but why did i put up with any of this shit. anyway! glad to be rid of him