#I AM NOT IN A PARASOCIAL RELATIONSHIP

[sixteenthtry]

Top 10 pictures that made me cry this month

[inkskinned]

you know, you know. no gods, no masters, no kings on pedestals. everyone is fallible. death of the author. you know! you are balanced about your intake of media - you allow the wiggle room, the grace, the gratitude, the skepticism. nobody above criticism.

but still. a weird gut-punch feeling, something akin to betrayal. you read the article. surprise! an author you love is actually: a serial fucking predator.

well, shit. what now. no, you knew he was a person (all people are), but now you're wondering - what have i overlooked by accident? what messages have i internalized that are strange and cruel? and also, like, what the fuck?

his actions lay a thick glaze on top of everything. like each place is now ruined, opaque in a new way. but okay, fine, you've done this before. you knew better, right? you've been betrayed by many a cherished childhood author.

still, this stickiness. fuck. can you pick up that book again. will you read it to your children. you've recommended it to others - will you ever do that again? and of course, of course, no parasocial relationships. you were theoretically above this kind of sentiment. but the artist informs the art, right.

so it's not something as clear-cut as feeling he owed you, specifically (a stranger) better behavior - just that you kind of, in a distant and odd way... sort of trusted him to do better. it's not like a real trust or something speakable, just the faint hope that the product (good books) was a thin representation of the soul. now it feels like the product (good? books?) was a mask. in some small or insignificant way, your previous support of this person lent them power. your money and your time and your laughter.

and the thing is - you have this terrible, echoing sensation. how many times will this happen? over and over. you find out that the singer you love is actually a predator. you learn over drinks that your favorite high school english teacher is in jail for what he did to her. you listen to the news idly and suddenly discover that a woman you used to idolize has been abusing her kids for an actual eon.

what can you touch without the static melting off. you can't even really complain about it too much (you were supposed to know better, and besides, you don't want the same re-split "it's not your fault, love what you love" basic advice), but now it's here. somehow, it feels like - you let him into your life.

it's not that things need to be pure or an artist has to be like, endlessly perfect, mindful. demure. it's more just this terrible truth that has been replayed through your veins so often it feels criminally vain. power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. did you want any one person to be worth that power?

it's just that he wrote books where he seemed to understand that. he seemed to know about hierarchies and unfair systems and bigotry and privilege. you thought they were books about what it means to struggle. you thought they were about having power and still using it for good rather than for control. he spooned you a narrative of being a good guy, a kind soul. you fucking bought what that fucking monster sold.

maybe that's why they were fantasies, after all.

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

Hate (affectionate) how it's made so clear from the very beginning of part 1 just how loved Paul is by his family and household. Both his parents, Duncan, Gurney, Thufir, even Dr Yueh all clearly care so deeply for this kid, and we're shown that time and time again.

Cut to the end of part two, and almost every one of those people is gone. The only ones who remain are a weird, came-back-wrong version of Jessica, and Gurney who has gone from mentor to worshipper. Paul goes from someone deeply loved and valued for who he is by a small but caring group of people - to someone followed and worshipped and feared by thousands. They're obsessed with him in a way, as a leader and "messiah", but nobody loves him.

The only one remaining who loves him for who he is is Chani, who leaves him because in the end that love isn't enough to bring who he is back.

[beebfreeb]

*shaking a little* unposted Akizets

[butchharts]

pretty boy alert 🚨

[fyeaheddiemunson]

This is Eddie Munson:

This is Joseph Quinn:

This is Eddie Munson:

This is Joseph Quinn:

This is Eddie Munson:

This is Joseph Quinn:

This is Eddie Munson:

This is Joseph Quinn:

This is Eddie Munson:

This is Joseph Quinn:

If at any point you were unable to distinguish the difference between the actor and the character they portrayed in a fictional tv show, I would like to congratulate you on being the actual problematic one and not the actor. Joseph is not Eddie Munson IRL. It's sad that I actually had to type that. Stop complaining and whining about things that aren't actually problematic and don't affect you or your existence. If your feelings are hurt or you feel "betrayed" I'm embarrassed for you. Grow up. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

[crooked-wasteland]

Any criticisms of the first post is hardly in bad faith when it is phrased like an advertisement. If Medrano simply wanted to voice her human support for individuals who feel hopeless as a person, of course there would be some bad faith pushback. But this post isn't a call of solidarity, it's advertising. Specifically an advertisement for closeted young people who don't have support.

Don't bring up your professional work if you are seeking to make a personal statement. Don't advertise your works in this way if you're seeking to make a human connection. Especially when your show blatantly ignores power dynamics and fails to actually confront those themes. You telling us what your show is about is you trying to sell it on unsuspecting viewers who don't actually know what your show is.

This is just false advertising.

[aq2003]

to the people using the whole "david tennant getting attacked by govt officials for supporting trans ppl" thing to shield neil gaiman from real allegations of sexual assault I Am Killing You With My Mind. like what the hell how did we get here. yes there are a bunch of terfs using this as "proof" to say all people that support trans rights are secretly horrible people. yes the paywalled conservative podcast is unethical. no this does not dismiss the validity of the allegations and no this does not mean this is all a conspiracy made by the transphobes to target your favorite lgbt allies (??) or influence the election (??!). EVEN IF WE TAKE NEIL AT HIS WORD those are still two relationships w SEVERE power imbalances and u should not be defending him. Lord

[adaycalledx]

[manic-sapphic]

i know this is a running joke fr but i think there's a good reason for it.

lol like, only sw could find a way to make a sacrifice a selfish move.

literally, only decent thing she ever did was this moment - incinerating herself and the whole room. thanks for finally getting tf outta the way of these girls annnd uhh thanks for.. hmmm.. literally nothing else.

and like, i don't even mean that as getting outta the way of their love. though obvi she actively worked to keep that shit in shambles. i just mean - get out of the way of them living a healthy happy fucking life you old pos :)

but side note, i have had people tell me they think what sw said to catra before the room bursts into flames - was an intentional validation she "knew" would offer her & adora success w the failsafe that sw realized she wouldn't have.

and yeah i sincerely do hope that stupid bitch at least was emotionally aware enough to know that yeah - if she was the one to take adora to the heart, it wasn't gonna work. but even still, if that were true, that wouldn't mean taking the hit from the monster so adora & catra could continue on together somehow awards sw any credit for their success. a chance is never a guarantee.

adora and catra made every stride that had to be made on their own (literally and figuratively). everything shadow weaver tried to brainwash them w in the horde - every awful fucking instinct she worked to ingrain in them - they had to find the power in themselves to reach past all of it. to conquer the divide sw fucking created herself, and meet in the middle.

so no lol. sw gets no cred or love from me. (sorry if this post seems extra aggro tho, it's late where i am and i can't sleep, it gets me kinda irked sometimes lol)

bonus tho here's a 3 second edit i found on yt celebrating catradora's freedom from sw ~

[skijumpingf1]

Poor Lovro 🫠 someone hug him (i volunteer)

[thelaurenshippen]

the onion bought infowars. I repeat, the onion bought infowars

[darlinguistics]

'its just IMPOSSIBLE to not be addicted to your phone nowadays its UNREALISTIC-'

heres some advice to being less chronically online. for gen z (and younger??) who dont even know how to start thinking about it and have only heard shitty advice from older adults who just genuinely do not get it, from a fellow gen z and my experiences so far.

*these are personal and may not all 100% resonate but its still good prompting to start thinking about things! PLEASE feel free to add your own stories/advice in the notes! support your fellow humans, dont gatekeep what youve learned, lets have these conversations! and no negativity/pessimism please <3

first thing is to make it a less scary thought, a more concrete idea and not a hypothetical. it doesnt have to be all-or-nothing, cold turkey, a huge announcement and a fundamental shift in your personality. the internet will be in your life for the rest of your life, this is an ongoing relationship you are trying to make healthier thats all! and it takes one step at a time and some self-compassion, but a true effort nonetheless. 'dont you think thats a bit too serious-' if youre my age you quite literally grew up and developed online, it is literally part of your psyche the way your childhood is, it IS serious, you deserve to treat it seriously.

dont save your login info/dont stay logged in for social media accounts, having to manually log in when you want to go on like youre on some elementary school chrome book is a really healthy and clear boundary to have between being logged off and logged on.

-> bigger challenge - uninstall it on your phone in general, only log on on your laptop/pc if applicable for you!

if youre motivated to, try to work on your posture too. i only say that because most of our bad posture is at least partially related to being on our phones a lot, and when i started wanting to fix my posture, completely separately and unrelated from trying to break my phone addiction, it made it easier to lose interest in my phone since i didnt want to ruin my progress with my posture. it made me start to have a mindset like 'well if you cant do this on your phone with good posture then dont do it' and 'if youre on your phone so long your posture starts to cave in, youve probably spent too long on your phone anyway'

listen to music more. its easier for me to kinda write off my phone and do other things if i just open music or a podcast or long youtube video on it. i know we all love long video essays, but i recommend music more specifically for me at least because im less inclined to pause music or scroll while listening to it for some reason? whereas using a show or video or podcast for white noise, im way more likely to also be scrolling on my phone and that is my activity lol. music for some reason i dont want to interrupt and instead of being on my phone i can clean or do something productive on my computer etc

this one is sooo hard but try to fall asleep with some distance between you and your phone, even just a couple feet. mine stays on the desk next to my bed which isnt that far but its better than on bed like it used to be. when you wake up you probably wont feel like reaching for it right away if its far and even better if you have to get up for it because then at least you stand and move your body first thing instead of looking at your phone first thing. and try to get more and more of your morning routine done before touching your phone over time.

-> for me, i started by just trying to at least wake up a bit in bed before touching it, then stand up before touching it, then stand and stretch, then going to the bathroom first, making coffee first, feeding the cat first, etc. its surprisingly helpful to have a specific chore/task in mind that is The requirement so that everytime you do it you get a lil dopamine rush for unlocking your phone from yourself lmao. when the weather was nice i used to make my Requirement being outside first before going on it and i LOVED that. esp as it got easier and i started doing more and more before going on it and finally walking outside with coffee and my phone felt like such a pleasant little reward.

find a hobby that uses your hands. example: i really need to get back into knitting because when i did it regularly so much time that wouldve been on my phone was spent knitting with music/podcasts/shows/(even online lectures! when i felt productive lol) playing. its the same amount of physical relaxing - barely moving lol - but uses a longer attention span and a much better dopamine hit than scrolling, i literally MADE things.

-> you might be thinking, 'but mindless knitting isnt better than mindless scrolling is it?' but that mindless feeling on your phone is just that, mindless. the mindless feeling you get when doing something like knitting is actually closer to a flow state, which is actually incredibly good for you, like a fulfilling nutritious meal as opposed to 'empty calories' or whatever

get a widget for your homescreen that shows your screen time. i have one and of course it doesnt always stop me but seeing that time go up all day the more i use it and the pride of keeping it low is really helpful

practice grounding. in general.

spend more time on anonymous activities and have more privacy and less attachment with your 'persona' - what i mean by that is, i consider things like scrolling through tumblr (for me personally!) to be relatively harmless because i dont try to like,, brand myself here. if youre a tumblr regular you know the jokes - 0 follows, 0 notes, screaming to the void, moots you dont talk to, blorbo pfp and urls, fake names everywhere, and we're having fun! basically targeting the 'everyone is famous now' thing with this one - embrace being a nobody with no personal stakes here

-> personally ive never kept up with having social media accounts that are actually just, me irl - like a facebook or main instagram, like a locals account yknow? but i think it goes for that too - stop spending so much time trying to further personalize your online presence in the hopes of it representing you perfectly - because it never will, and it shouldnt, and you shouldnt aspire for that. your social media presence is lighthearted and incredibly surface-level, treat it like that! thats not me bashing social media either, having that mindset will make it more enjoyable bc youll be using it as it should be used!

do following/followers or camera roll/files or app purges. this is also a soft launch type of way to practice easing into a better mindset. aside from just literally getting rid of junk, the process of trying to judge whether or not you need something is good practice in mindfulness! even if you dont delete everything you feel like you maybe should, thats fine, youll do other purges in the future too. eventually youll get better at parting with things and realizing when things that feel good in a moment are actually bad for you. and it forces you to regularly check in on your more long-lasting parasocial relationships online and how theyre serving you or not

speaking of parasocial - for actual friends, if theyre irl, think about how much you interact with them online vs in person and why you think that is and how it affects you. maybe youll wanna see them more irl if possible (i promise its better for your friendship), maybe youll realize you dont need to keep tabs on them anymore (old high school acquaintances lookin at you). for celebrities and fandom things - try to think about the bare minimum content from them you could do with. you dont have to unstan all your faves and stop enjoying things - but do you need their notifications on? if you have designated fan accounts, are they still a source of joy or of stress? do you need them on all the platforms or just one or two? do you need to have all that saved content of them? are there aspects of this that you love that could be found elsewhere, maybe even offline? (again you dont have to stay one way forever, just encouraging checking in with yourself!)

if youre of the genre of online where you just cant help yourself from getting involved in big discussions or discourse and arguments - i recommend journaling when you get upset by something online, articulating your feelings without the idea of someone ever reading it and without the goal of 'winning' or being the most correct and logical or even the most sympathetic and morally good. take away every audience aspect of it. what is this really about for you, and why would strangers online deserve to hear your personal well-thought out opinions? why would your thoughts deserve to be simplified and misconstrued and underappreciated the way they would be in this discussion? is there even an outcome to this where you feel truly satisfied? are their people who are more worthy of hearing your thoughts who arent part of this audience? is this a conversation that is best held online where so much communicative nuance is inevitably sacrificed?

in the end these are all just practices in remembering how in control you are. and that goes for if any of these are scary or too difficult sounding too! these all become less scary if you remember that as soon as anything becomes too uncomfortable or painful, you have all the power to stop doing it, make a change, and try again later. so much of advice for quitting bad habits can be intimidating because the pressure and the shame that would come from failing scares you out of the possible benefits of trying - just go ahead and kill that shame from the jump. of course youre going to fail! you are going to have setbacks! thats part of it! you have agency in this, always. the internet is not inherently or completely evil nor good. build trust in yourself to make the calls on when it is serving you and when it isnt on a case-by-case basis, and then give yourself permission to learn through trial and error.

and remember you are worth all of this effort. i believe in us <3

[cannibalsurprise]

people using the trans card to defend neil gaiman is fucking hilarious to me (in the worst possible way). he is a white, cis man who is also rich and powerful.

yes, a rapist can also support trans rights! and he can still be a rapist!

“b-but but the journalist is a terf!!1!!1 and she hates BDSM!!1!” that literally doesn’t take away the fact that he manipulated the victim saying he would KILL HIMSELF when she told him how awful she felt. that doesn’t take away the fact that it was non-consensual digital penetration.

also, he was decades older than his EMPLOYEE when he started the relationship with her. that’s the facts.

[wickjump]

ok seriously though whoever the hell that anon is like seriously stop. i did not think? i had to say this?? but maybe don’t bring up my sexual trauma in my inbox and use that to psychoanalyze me??? because of the genre i write???? i promise you the skeleton does not care. i promise you this so hard. nobody is being traumatized or offended by this. especially not the character. i promise you cross is not offended or hurt or upset and neither is jakei. i am writing horror because it is a genre i enjoy. you have no need to pry into my personal life to ‘figure me out’ and convince me to stop writing in a very popular genre because it is weird to you or makes you uncomfortable. what makes me uncomfortable is when you try to insert yourself and act holier than thou. you are not better than me because you view the very popular genre i like as morally wrong you’re just a dick

[comeback-from-the-dead]

I feel like the Scarlet Witch fandom is dying; it's not the same anymore. Please, I want to go back to 2020 to early 2023. I need more people talking about Wanda. I need more Wanda edits. I need more of us talking about Wanda like she's our wild pet hamster. I miss when normal posts about Wanda get more than 100 notes, not just smut fics. I want to see different content every time I look at the Scarlet Witch tags. I wish everyone in this fandom acted like every other fandom. Please put her in a jar and shake her...Put her in a microwave and watch her spin. God, I miss her so much. I feel like a child whose mother never returns home. I miss my angry, pathetic woman. She's such a wet cat. She's so horrible. I love her so much. She has so much potential. I hate you, Kevin Feige and Michael Waldron. All of you can disagree with me all you want, but she's literally the most interesting M*rv*l character. I am literally so scared of being completely obsessed with something new because I am afraid I am going to forget about her. I am so dramatic... I am scared of falling out of love...