#(we're trying our best)

[watercraver]

We've began voice training yesterday and have recorded us saying a bunch of random stuff every now and again to like, get our voice consistent and generally figure out what we need to change.

Most videos are completely incomprehensible, but we've figured out how to do a very basic girl voice, and have included some of our favourite audio clips from today.

[thestarseersystem]

After researching about the term more, and after seeing it tagged on my post, I believe that some alters, especially littles, may be situationally mute.

At least over half of my system are agesliders, and most of us remember struggling with speech and taking speech therapy as a child. So, the lack of being able to communicate has stuck with us to adulthood, and many of us find communication to be traumatic as a whole.

People misinterpretting us, us getting mocked by family and others, a speech impediment with speech therapy, and having many alters with word quirks or accents. It makes sense why our system does not find communication to be safe or easy. And why most of our system communicates through visuals and scenes and feelings, especially in innerworld.

So I think at least a good chunk of my system is situationally mute, even if some of us are not. After the shutdown I had with a suicidal alter, it's clear to me that talking to others is sometimes impossible or foreign or weird, especially when it's not our boyfriend.

I have noticed that at least quite a few recent fronters have avoided talking to some friends and either feel scared or disconnected from those people. And sometimes it's worse with even closer friends due to a series of triggers.

We avoid discussing things, saying certain words or communicating certain things, we mask heavily, even when it's with people we've known for years. Words often feel robotic or strange, so they come out very stiff and uninquistive. Even talking to our partner, we feel like mumbling or babbling, or speaking in a different accent. Because "normal speak" feels wrong. Our voice feels wrong. Human language feels wrong and like cotton in our mouth.

So while we are able to mask to some degree, it's really uncomfortable when certain alters front and get triggered and feel unsafe. We have long since sworn by the quote, "silence is the loudest scream". And have continuously gone silent when we are upset or uncomfortable.

So yeah. Only a few alters, who usually have different accents or ways of speaking from outr natural cadence, don't struggle as much with verbal shutdowns and selective mutism. But the rest of us have an odd way of speaking or don't like to speak english or anything. And one of our co-hosts seems to also be selectively mute, especially since they view themselves as an alien and inhuman and odd. So it seems that many alters who are nonhuman (which is almost all of us), feel divergent from human speak.

Along with the aphasia, it seems like our system has massive trauma with communication, and that's why we all have different communication skills. Including an alter who is hyperverbal, and speaks in a monotone british accent. So yaaayyy qwq

[dognightmare4]

PSA RE: The Sexypedia Wiki

I’ve seen some posts about us and i thought i should clarify some things

1. we document fandom sexymen, not just tumblr sexymen. fandom sexymen are popular all throughout their respective fandom ("A fictional character whose fandom (or a portion thereof) agrees is romantically/sexually attractive, as well as expressing said attraction in specific ways (detailed in our guidelines)”, tumblr sexymen are primarily popular on tumblr (same thing but just here).

2. if you think a specific character shouldn’t be on the wiki, please let us know! we do have guidelines and rules to try to keep things orderly, but things slip through the cracks and we can’t possibly background check all 1369+ characters. so you have to help us out a bit in that regard. 

3. if you think a page is inaccurate, you can correct it! we’re crowdsourced! anyone can edit pages, as long as its in good faith.

4. we have an FAQ! and we’re open to adding more questions/answers, just let us know.

5. The classes exist for a reason, obviously some characters are more popular than others, but that doesn’t mean they're not sexymen. so we have classes to differentiate sexymen based on popularity, the most well known being Apollyon, and the least being Neutralized. Yes, they’re SCP classes, that was a decision made before i took ownership of the wiki and no one wants to change it.

6. to quell any fears, we try our best to keep things STRICTLY PG-13, and if you find something that's not please message an admin.

feel free to ask any questions!

[thirtyteeth]

i ask you kindly, be kind

[ghostjelliess]

Sometimes, in the middle of the battle scene, I switch to cheering for the minor-league antagonist, because being told to go ahead and try when you're obviously already trying your best, is just the worst.

[kyoteugly]

The fight scene just shows how close they really are. 

Eddie can't show his grief and guilt and pain and anger to anyone else - only to Buck. He can tell him how he really feels, no filter, in the only way he knows how. He's lashing out (for the lack of better word) because of the emotions he held captive, not because he's really mad at Buck. He was alone when he found out, he still feels alone with this. Buck is trying to hold himself together so Eddie can't even chanell what he's feeling into comforting Buck.

And Buck is making this about himself because (first of all) he's Buck and because he didn't allow himself to properly grief as well so he's not prepared to fully understand what Eddie is saying and to comfort him - because how? He's also in pieces.

The accusations "you don't think I did everything I could to save him" and "I don't know, Buck, I wasn't there" are not really accusations. Those are their fears. This is their pain. And they share it out loud to each other.

Eddie's anger comes from guilt, from the feeling of being helpless, powerless. He's not angry at Buck. He breaks there, telling how it was like to hear the news, he's not trying to attack Buck, in fact he's showing his underbelly. And he tried to say those things before, in previous episode, but Buck shot it down with "you're here now" so Eddie bottled it.

For me it's a beautiful scene that shows how close they really are. I'm happy it's more about Eddie. I'm happy we got to see his sharp edges and his vulnerability and I'm more than happy he's not afraid to show them to Buck. 

So it's not about Eddie putting Buck in his place - I don't know why people say that - It's Eddie finally giving Buck what he asks for from him and Hen and Chim - an honest talk without hiding his emotions.

And Buck making it about himself? It's Buck finally opening up to what he feels.

And there is a beautiful follow up to that.

Despite his own grief Eddie sees Buck, he sees him spiraling, he sees him opening up just a bit, and he knows Buck. He knows he won't do it the same way Eddie did. He can't talk about it to him, or Hen or Chim because he's trying to be strong. But all of them have families... and Buck has one too, he just doesn't feel it right now. So Eddie brings him his family, their family. He brings him Chris, who won't tiptoe around him. He brings him Pepa, who is caring but says what she has in mind. And this... this is absolutely about Buck.

In the face of Bobby's death Buck's is Eddie's safe space, he can be himself, he can show his emotions. And Eddie doesn't force Buck to talk to him, he creates safe space for Buck, because he sees him, he knows him.

[mintjeru]

happy arospec awareness week!! hot take: aromantic kanna

open for better quality | no reposts

[bearotonin-international]

Apex predator, my ass. I’m going to pet the dog 🐻🐻‍❄️🐼

perhaps now is a good time for some responsible bear programming to remind everyone that as cute and cuddly as they may seem, bears are lethal apex predators and should absolutely be treated accordingly if ever encountered.

DO

NOT

PET

[good-to-drive]

Abuse, Silence, And Why Kevin Can Fuck Himself

I recently finished watching Kevin Can Fuck Himself on Netflix, and, aside from being the most brutally honest portrayal of domestic abuse I have ever seen, I discovered a beautifully written examination of narrative as power and silence as abuse and how this manifests in our larger culture. 

Without going into too much detail, the show is filmed in two distinct styles that are interleaved throughout each episode to tell a cohesive story. Allison and Kevin’s relationship as seen by the rest of the world is told through a multi-cam, laugh-track sitcom that depicts a very typical “goofy husband, shrewish wife” mainstream comedy. Allison’s life through her own eyes is told through a single-cam drama/thriller about Allison planning to murder Kevin to escape his abuse. 

It’s an absolute masterclass in screenwriting, but more than that, every episode explores the difference between truth, fact, and reality, and how none of these things are quite as much or as little as story. But while the process of transforming the chaotic and plotless reality of life into a story is as involuntary and essential as breathing, misogyny and the degradation of women is just as ubiquitous in our society, and a story that exists at the expense of another person’s lived reality is a refutation of their humanity. 

It's also just a great show for anyone who likes to engage with history (or reality TV or true crime or “real life stories” in general), because while we have to tell ourselves stories about her own lives, we have to tell ourselves stories about other people as well. Eternal silence is narrative death, and the perpetual silence of an unspoken narrative is often the last death we can visit on someone whose story we’d rather ignore. 

I also pulled up some books – Lolita and Disgrace – that dealt with similar themes, but from the perspective of the abuser. And what strikes me the most is that, across three beautifully written stories about narrative and silence within a culture that normalizes abuse, Allison, who began her story within a state of narrative death, was the only point-of-view character who had any chance of surviving. 

One of the main themes of Kevin is that a compelling story is often a story that reinforces what we already believe or like to believe, and while the story may be factual and true it often also exists at the expense of someone's lived reality. The exact same series of events can be a silly joke or a harrowing tale of abuse depending on the lens through which we view it, but historically we've only been willing to see the multicam, laugh track, sitcom perspective on unbalanced relationships.

The alchemical process of turning a series of disjoint facts and experiences into a narrative creates something new and compelling, and erases much of what previously existed. In this way, it’s entirely irreversible. We spin our experiences into a very thin thread, a story we can tell ourselves that elicits something within us, something we need in order to live with the complex, uncertain, and unsatisfying reality of life. In think in many ways the thing we elicit in ourselves is truth. But truth is both more and less than fact, often more a reflection of our own beliefs and desires than the events of our lives. And in telling that truth we may never stray from the facts, but we almost by definition cannot give voice to another person’s reality.

There's a scene in season 2 of Kevin when Allison is hit by a door – a la the classic excuse – because of Kevin’s carelessness. And while he absolutely did not hit her, the way it's written is such an incredible allegory for how Kevin has curated their story and curated their friends' and family’s perceptions of their story such that even if she tells everyone the exact, unvarnished truth of what's happening to her and begs for help, they will only be capable of seeing the laugh-track, sitcom, “Kevin is a harmless goofball and his wife is a total shrew” perspective on the events of their lives. 

As so often happens with abuse, their friends and family saw Allison being hurt because of Kevin. But the alchemy of creating a narrative around Kevin and Allison is irreversible, and the series of events they witness can only be spun together to a joke, an accident, a silly, childish mistake. Allison’s reality, Allison’s pain and fear, is completely elided. Like a lost sound in the middle of a sentence, her experience goes silent, and their larger understanding of her relationship never has to change. And you feel so acutely how Allison lives her entire life in that silence. 

Storytelling is human, it’s essential, there’s no other way to engage with our own lives. And it’s not lying. It’s never lying to tell the truth. But it doesn’t reflect every reality, either, because another person’s reality can’t be reflected within our own narrative, because that’s what it means to be another person. To spin two different threads.

And because narrative is the essential process by which we understand our reality, denying someone their own narrative, or denying that this narrative be heard, is inherently abusive. To allow someone a voice is to give them humanity, and to suppress it is to strip that humanity away. 

Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee, follows the story of a professor, David, who rapes a student and then fails to protect his daughter, Lucy, from being raped by intruders in their home. He destroys his daughter’s life  – not through failing to protect her, but through twisting her rape into a story about why the rape of his student wasn’t wrong. The main theme of the book is generally considered to be exploitation, but Coetzee doesn’t deal with the exploitation of the rape. That’s too direct, too immediate, too easy for the reader to understand as misogynistic and wrong. Rather, Coetzee delves into “the innocuous-seeming use of another person to fill one's gentler emotional needs” (Ruden).

The rape is how we understand David as a fundamentally exploitative person, a person who denies others their humanity by converting them into a vessel for his own desires, who erases their voice in order to speak through them and give himself the things he needs. And that’s how we recognize that the way he absorbs and claims the stories of his daughter and his student is another kind of violation of their humanity. Another way of turning women into vessels for men’s pain and fear and need. 

What’s fascinating is that David's student finds her voice – files a complaint against him – and is eventually able to continue with her life. The woman he raped is less damaged by him than his own daughter, because she was the woman he couldn’t permanently silence. 

In Lolita, another brilliant novel about abuse, dehumanization, and storytelling, Humbert turns to the reader at the end and says, “Imagine us, reader, for we don’t really exist if you don’t.” 

It’s not that Humbert knew he was fictional, but that he knew everyone was fictional. Believed the entire world only truly existed in his own mind, because anything beyond that was irrelevant to his needs. He coped with the collapse of his ability to dehumanize Dolores (who he called Lolita) by demanding that his voice be resurrected. Demanding immortality. Demanding his narrative exist in another person’s world, and thereby be given the existence and humanity that Allison and Dolores and Lucy and David’s student were denied. 

Pushing his needs, finally, onto the reader, because we are the only person he has left, and a person like him can only exist through the use of another. In that way, Humbert was powerless. In that way, Kevin and David were powerless, too.

In Disgrace, David’s dream is to write an opera, and at the end of the book he realizes he’ll never finish his magnum opus. He’ll never be able to terminate the process of converting himself, his world, into a story. But he does learn to decenter himself in that narrative. And it’s when he loses all fear of death, and any conception of the self, that he gains the ability to give dogs – who he generally equates to women – a voice within his opera, his life’s work. 

It’s in death that we discover our true unimportance as human beings, that we learn to let go of vanity and our conception of the self entirely. And David had degraded women so thoroughly in order to justify how he used them to meet his own emotional needs that it was only in losing all value for his own life that he could gain the ability to see them as equal voices. To actually put those voices into his own life story. It's at the cost of himself that he allows other people to truly exist, in the death of the self that he finally allows the world to exist outside of himself. It’s almost a positive character arc. Almost.

When Kevin finally loses the ability to abuse Allison, he, like many abusers, loses all desire to live. His world was built on a structure of superiority and inferiority, on beings and vessels, on the inherent value of men and the inherent meaninglessness of women’s lives. The system on which he based his entire reality has been destroyed by Allison’s declaration of the self. And, if he was a being because she was a vessel, then in losing the ability to treat her as a vessel, to fully and completely dehumanize her, he has lost his own humanity. 

It may be perfectly summed up here: “Become major. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise, what is life for?” (Coetzee).

If you’re not to be a main character, if there indeed is no split between major and minor characters, between people and the paper dolls that populate their story, between living beings and the vessels into which they pour their need – what is life for?

Nothing. At least, not for people whose narrative must exist at the expense of another. 

And that’s why I say that only a narrator like Allison could survive this kind of story. Despite beginning her story trapped in eternal silence, her reality fully elided no matter how immediate and obvious it became, Allison was the only point-of-view character of any of these three stories who didn’t establish her power through the degradation of another. Who didn’t conceptualize the world via being and vessels. Whose narrative didn’t exist, by necessity, at the expense of another person’s humanity. Whose thread could exist in a larger tapestry without destroying her sense of self.

Don’t get me wrong, she’s not generally a likable character. She’s misogynistic, cruel, selfish, jealous, desperate, afraid, and in pain. Like anyone in an abusive relationship, she’s not at her best, and she’s often pushed to do things that are ugly and disturbing because she’s simply been pushed too far. 

But, for me, the power in her character is in how her last scene never felt like a final scene. Her story didn’t have to be killed, her conception of the self didn’t have to be killed, in order to reveal the brutal reality of stories twisting and intertwining without any inherently superior truth or narrative among them. Allison’s story was one of declaring herself. And that’s why it didn’t feel like it ended at the end. Instead, this felt like a beginning.

[aro-culture-is]

aro culture is hoping the mods are having a nice day

thank you!

[dollypopup]

look, y'all can all gleeful cancel me for this #unpopular opinion if you want, but even IF Nicola wasn't nominated for the comedy section and it was her and Luke head to head in best drama?

I'd still vote for him

because I genuinely and truly think his acting is INCREDIBLE. and I think he's one of the better actors on Bridgerton full stop. I love the nuance he brings to Colin as a character, I love how he so fully embodies him as a character and that Colin has similarities to him, but is fully different at the same time. Colin does not talk like Luke, walk like Luke, even fidget like Luke. He has his own character beats and yes, sometimes parts of Luke bleed into him, such as with the head tilt, but the voice is different, softer, the movements of Colin as a character are distinct to me, he delivers humor well ('you'd already be dead?') and his decisions for Colin as a character are ICONIC (I'm never forgetting that dress adjustment with specific fingers was all him). Colin had a harder go of it than a lot of leads because his story isn't as loud- he doesn't get a lot of big, dramatic moments to have big dramatic acting, and honestly the show didn't give him a lot of screentime in the first place. But when he does have poignant emotional moments? They feel REAL. He isn't given as much time with the audience as other characters are and he doesn't go for the broad strokes with his acting, so sometimes I think he can get lost in some of the louder acting, but that doesn't negate the fact that he's GOOD. He's a good ass actor. He plays Colin like Colin is an actual person.

And for me? For me, that hits home. Even with truncated time on his own season (yeah, I'm still bitter), he delivers every single time. Anger, betrayal, longing, heartache, silly awkward humor, heat- and he does all of those emotions BELIEVABLY. I watched Luke Newton depict Colin falling in love so beautifully and so realistically, I HAVE NO CHOICE but to give him his flowers. Just because he's not as heavy in the hustle as other actors are (please remember this is a neurodivergent actor with anxiety and dyslexia, mental health is important and it's good he took a break ) doesn't mean he's not a fantastic actor. And if you've ever seen his depiction in The Shape of Things? The man is excellent.

I think Bridgerton has a lot of 'big moves' actors. And that's fine. Many people prefer that. But I prefer the nuanced moments and the softer beats of it all, and I think if the camera had allowed us as an audience a longer glimpse into moments with Colin, we'd all be even more floored. I can watch gifs of his scenes over and over and over again and find something new every time.

So y'all can sit there and accuse others of a 'pity vote' but idgaf. Luke Newton is one of the best actors on that show. And I stand by that. Eat me.

[logosbot-tm]

Will never get over the fact that it was Roman who told Patton that he should "...just stick to knowing the difference between right and wrong...", instead of focusing on the things that are fun or that Thomas wants to do.

I just think that's interesting.

[bigmoon-is-bigwife]

Obsessed with the way TR!Pili has so many names and no one can agree on one so as a fandom we just use them interchangeably and it has to be the most confusing thing to any new people. It's made even more confusing by how there are two different versions of the character and sometimes you need to clarify which one.

TR!Pili names include: Pili, Pili1, Mocha, Mocha1, Original Pili, Pili 2 Apples Tall

Pilli2, Mocha 2, Current Pili, Pili 5 Apples Tall, Pillager, Ilip

None of these are incorrect and other characters use all of these. It's been hinted that there is a chance that both Pilis are going to exist at the same time is going to make this twice as confusing. I think we just need to embrace that everyone is going to call these characters different things at this rate

[genericpuff]

Hey Puff. No real reason behind this ask, I just wanted to say thank you for being a lovely human being and creating LR & sharing it. It's such a comfort series.

I've been having a hard time. ADHD and guilt and RSD has been kicking my ass. I took some time off work today that I don't think my manager was super happy about for a reason that is technically real but the major reason was that I Couldn't Anymore, my brain Wouldn't and that's such a shit excuse.

All that to say! I opened LR today and spent ten minutes just staring at that shot of Kore on the bus with all the pastel glitter softness around and it was so beautiful my anxiety calmed down. Went back to old chapters - the super cool Tower 4 skeleton pieces to just look. So just wanted to say thank you for the effort you've put in - it's a passion project you love, and it shows, and thanks for sharing.

(Mainly the last bit I wanted to share, the rest is context, didn't mean to emotionally dump if it comes out that way!)

Aw, thanks so much for the kind words! I'm glad it connected with you so deeply :'3 I relate to that a lot, sometimes it can be hard not to feel guilty over taking time for yourself, but at the end of the day, you only get one body, one life - stand by your own well-being and trust yourself to know when you need to take breaks. When it comes right down to it, all the people you're worried about rejecting you / judging you / etc. aren't gonna matter in the long run, but your mental and physical health will. You might feel like you're making excuses, but prioritizing your health is a valid reason and it's a reason that should be treated with respect and empathy, especially between you and yourself ;3

Obviously if you ever feel like the rest has turned into inaction that's detrimental to yourself, that can be a whole other issue - but often times we're way too hard on ourselves and see ANY amount of rest as "inaction" when really it's just taking action for ourselves rather than others. Trust your gut to know the difference, be kind to yourself <3

[aparticularbandit]

Responding to this post as a separate post because I want to respond to something that I think is beyond the scope/intention of the original post (and honestly the scope/intention of the response in the linked post) but that, like.

I want to respond to it because it's been churning in my head.

Specifically the idea of the Protestant Work Ethic and trying to earn your way into heaven.

Because that's the very antithesis of what the Gospel is.

Over and over, it is made very clear that you cannot earn your way into heaven. (Titus 3:5 and Ephesians 2:8-9 are the ones that come immediately to mind, but there are more than that. (I also like - Romans 4 and the entire discussion about it being faith and not works and especially Romans 4:4-8.)) Literally one of the entire points is that you are stuck in your sin and you cannot get out and no matter what you do, you cannot earn your way in, but God loves you and chose you and wants you, so He paid your debt Himself (Jesus) and is giving you His righteousness - His perfection - because He was the only one who could earn His way in.

God is for you, not against you.

Are there things you should be doing? Yes. (Ephesians 2:10 talks about that, too.) But, like. It's not to earn your way in. It's out of love and gratefulness to the One who got you out of your horrible predicament? And then on top of that, made you a co-heir with Him?

Because it's...He paid for you to get in and then also you got adopted as a child of God? And someone described it once as good works after that being like when a child makes a drawing for their dad and their dad hangs it on the fridge? It's not to earn anything; it's because you love Him, too?

So, like - I want to know where the Protestant Work Ethic went wrong. Why so many people think it's about earning their way when it isn't that at all.

It's a gift. It was always a gift.

[rouwaa143]

trial 2 guilty

day 26 - guilty/punishment