#I mean I am disabled and I am not conventionally attractive

[cookinguptales]

Do me a favor, okay? Next time you have a chance, close your eyes for a minute and take a deep breath and imagine someone loving you.

Imagine someone who gets excited just thinking about you. Imagine someone who loves the things you say and do and who genuinely enjoys spending time with you. Imagine someone who feels lucky every moment they get to be around you.

It can be a real person or someone you just made up. You can imagine them praising you or laughing with you or touching you or whatever love means to you. It can be romantic or otherwise. Take your pick.

And if you had a hard time doing it?

Do it again. And again. And again.

I read once that it’s important for us to visualize being loved. That your brain needs to be trained like a muscle, and like a muscle, it can become weak from disuse. Your brain can only do the things that you practice doing, and if you never, ever visualize someone loving you, it becomes difficult to even imagine someone loving you. You get stuck in a rut. And once it’s impossible to imagine someone loving you, it becomes impossible to believe you will ever be loved.

I think… sometimes it can become easy to stop believing that we’re worthy of love. And I think sometimes we have this fantasy of someone making us believe that we’re worthy of it again. Or that somehow we’ll just — earn it, one day. Being worthy of love and desire, respect and affection.

But I think the truth is that we can only start believing that we’re worthy of love if we’re capable of imagining it. And it becomes much, much easier to imagine it if you practice doing so.

It may feel awkward at first. Embarrassing. Silly. Maybe even painful. But think about it like this, maybe: your first day in a dance class, you’ll fall. You’ll look ridiculous. It’ll feel like your body will never be able to do this fluidly. But by the end of the class, you’ll be able to move in a whole new way. Maybe not perfectly, but… better, y’know?

Learn to waltz with your own mind, and try not to cringe too hard at your first awkward movements. Start small and work your way up if you have to. Someone liking you, then someone liking your conversations, then someone liking your presence, then someone purposefully seeking you out. Someone putting time aside for you. Someone thinking about you when you’re not there. Someone being with you because there’s nowhere they’d rather be.

It may feel self-indulgent, but… I mean, we all deserve to be indulged sometimes. And we all deserve to feel worthy of love.

So… indulge yourself. Take a moment and have a silly little fantasy. Get into the habit of imagining love, and imagining it for the you that exists right now, not the you that you wish you were.

Learn to speak the language of love as it applies to you, even if you think that it doesn’t, and one day you’ll realize how to use those syllables to say your own name.

It’ll come one day. In the meantime, let’s learn to dance together, okay?

[pixiestein]

bigstupid ramble/rant incoming feel free to ignore//cursing cw

it’s actually very disturbing to me how many people in the monster high fandom think it’s ok to say that abbey & twylas g1 sculpts are “ugly” or “offputting” because they have strong/square jaws & the new molds are sooo much better bc they no longer have them. like i really really really try to be nice here & pardon my language but are you fucking stupid? did you miss literally everything monster high was trying to teach you? did you miss the whole “everyone is unique & beautiful in their own way” thing? or did you just forget that the features you’re calling ugly are features that real people have? genuinely asking because it’s baffling to me how many people who praise g3 for it’s body diversity are foaming at the mouth excited over characters’ unique features being replaced with conventionally attractive ones. u don’t like strong jawlines? awesome, people who have them still deserve to feel beautiful & have gorgeous dolls that look like them & the fact that mh had that & got rid of it is objectively bad. like first of all, a franchise that preaches accepting ppls differences SHOULD have characters with both body types & facial features that aren’t considered “conventionally attractive”. that was one of the issues w g1, their message was about everyone being different but everyone had the exact some skinny body type. & now g3 has greatly improved on body diversity (pls give us an actual plus sized doll tho) yet they’ve been removing diversity in facial features. it fucks me up bc WHY can’t we have rep for diverse body types AND rep for diverse facial features?? and second, bro they are literally monsters. they absolutely should have features that challenge traditional beauty standards because hello she’s a yeti, she needs jaw space to house those bigass tusks. and if those unconventional features look strange to you? GOOD. bask in their strange weird abnormal beauty!! i literally don’t care if u think abbeys new face is cuter & her old jaw was ugly, if you see a person with a prominent jawline & think “hm not aesthetically pleasing enough” unpack that with your therapist, don’t post it on the internet where impressionable kids with those exact features get to see it & gather more fuel for their insecurities. this goes for literally any facial feature or body part btw. basically, bottom line, if it’s a feature that real people have that they can’t control, don’t fucking say a WORD about how aesthetically unpleasant you find it. criticize the fashion, criticize the quality control & messed up face screenings, criticize the weird continuity errors & questionable representation, but if your issue with a doll is their body type/facial features look ugly to u, shut the fuck up!!!!!!

[wakeupthemembersofbylernation]

It is not even that Mlvns are homophobic. I mean, many of the toxic ones are. We’ve all seen them and interacted with them and received hate anons from them. When Noah’s article officially confirming Will’s sexuality dropped during the summer, people were literally tweeting slurs and fantasizing about him being hate-crimed or dying from AIDS. (It’s probably unfair to group Mlvns in with these people, as lots of them weren’t even Mlvns, just bigoted GA members and trolls). But still. It was bleak. There’s a deep darkness within the ST fandom undeniably.

But I’m sure many Mlvns/Byler-antis are the types of people who genuinely have no problem with queer people in real life. When we call them out on their bigotry and homophobia, they get confused and say, “But I have gay friends! How am I homophobic for not liking Byler?” And they mean it 100%. They really do have gay friends. They probably consider themselves allies and yada yada.

The issue is that A) they are deeply heteronormative without realizing it, and B) they simply aren’t the target audience for the show, and as such, they don’t really understand or connect to the themes of the show. The thing is, lots of people, many Milkvans included, are simply normies. Now I love Steve as a character, so this is literally no hate to Steve, but lots of people are Steves. And people who are like Steve: popular, straight, attractive, used to dating the types of people they want, into ‘normal’ interests like sports (not that Steve is hyper into sports, but you know what I mean), likely to go down ‘normal’ paths and live fairly conventional lives like their parents, etc. are simply not the target audience for the show.

Obviously, the show centers on outcasts, nerds, queer characters, characters with disabilities, black characters, etc. Most people recognize this on some level, but they recognize it in more of a general sense like, “Of course the protagonists are nerds/outcasts, just like all the classic 80s teen protagonists. I just love how nostalgic ST is!” And they leave it at that. Because they are normies, they don’t really connect to the themes of the show other than a surface-level, power of friendship sense. They don’t see how Byler is more aligned with the show’s message than Milkvan at this point. They don’t see that the outcast status of most of the characters is more than just a throwaway personality trait… its deeply integral to the point of the show itself and closely connected to the supernatural storyline.

This is because nerd culture is somewhat mainstream now, and lots of “normies” like it too. Star Wars, Marvel, LOTR, Harry Potter, etc. These are all major parts of society and billion dollar franchises, even more so than they were in the 80s. Because of this, people don’t realize that in the context of the world of the show, they wouldn’t have been friends with the Party most likely. It is far more statistically likely that they would’ve rolled with Angela’s friend group or joined Jason’s human hunting squad. Or even if they weren’t outright bullies, it’s far more likely that they would’ve been one of the nameless background characters in Hawkins High, just kind of floating by in a conventionally comfortable existence, entirely oblivious to government lab conspiracies and alternate dimensions. The characters in ST are outcasts in a deeper, existential sense. Society is against them.

And so many people can’t relate, especially to the queer themes. They can’t even see the queer themes. Because the show is not for them. That’s why you see so many baffling takes on the show:

“Will is so whiny all the time, and I don’t like him!”

“Mike was right in the rain fight! S3 is about growing up, and Will was acting like a baby.”

“Tbh I don’t care that much about the Party dynamics. My favorite part of the show is Steve and Dustin being funny together. And my second favorite part is Hopper being a cool action hero.”

“B*lly is overhated! I mean, he’s so hot and misunderstood! He could’ve redeemed himself.”

“I don’t get Byler. It barely seems like Mike and Will are even friends.”

To be clear, it doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy the genre of the show. Being horror/sci-fi, its core fans are a smaller pool of people than, say, fans of The Office or Friends or other popular sitcoms. So the Mlvns who watched it since the beginning probably do have some avant-garde tastes in terms of genre-preferences, since lots of people wouldn’t touch horror with a ten-foot pole. But it does mean they don’t pick up on the themes of the show and the arc of the characters.

(Of course, many newer fans now are just watching it cause it’s popular, regardless of which genres they typically prefer. This opens the show up to lots of people who don’t connect to anything about the show, not just its themes but also its darker content. A lot of newer fans sound like this: “Like, I just love that Mike was in love with El from the day he found her in the woods, and it’s so cute that El is Mike’s superhero, and Eddie is so cool and badass; I wish he could’ve told Chrissy how he felt, and I’m anxiously awaiting S5 to see who Nancy chooses but I hope she chooses Steve… Stancy 4ever!” This is because Stancy is like every other conventionally attractive couple in media).

I’m rambling, but a lot of people are into Milkvan because of their expectations that “pretty boy and pretty girl go together,” and that’s all there is to it. Finn is attractive and Millie is attractive, and they play the protagonists, so of course Mike and El are endgame. Why wouldn’t they be? This is true for the girls who project themselves onto Millie and see Finn/Mike as a dream boyfriend, and it’s true for the guys who project themselves onto Finn and who would want nothing more than to have a cool, superpowered girlfriend.

This is the way of nature. In a normie worldview, there’s no deviation from this path. A lot of fans basically take The Kissing Booth/To All the Boys I Loved Before and slap a sci-fi/horror filter on it, and they think that’s what Stranger Things is. It’s a cool show where kids fight monsters, and there are normal, heterosexual romances like Mlvn to root for, and there’s a badass superhero main character at the center.

Oh, there’s a gay character too? Well, that’s weird. I mean, y’all already have Robin, but whatever. I’m not homophobic! I’m cool with Will being gay… as long as he stays over there. Oh, he’s in love with Mike? Well, that’s even weirder. Why would the writers do that? I suppose that’s fine, as long as it’s just a little crush, and as long as it doesn’t get in the way of “the main storyline” and my OTP. I’m not homophobic, I swear! I have gay friends!

And they do. And they might not actively be against LGBTQ+ people in real life. They may really be telling the truth. But because they are Steves, this is where heteronormativity comes into play and blinds them. Main couples in shows are always straight, so the cool sci-fi, monster show they love must also be. They’re fine with Kevin Kellers, but queer Mike doesn’t fit the box that they allot to gay characters. So Mike must be the straightest character of all time to fight back against “weird delusional Byler theories” that would “come out of nowhere.” It’s not that they’re actively anti-gay; it’s that they are profoundly closed-minded and have a very myopic view of sexuality/storytelling/their favorite characters/their favorite shows. This is very similar to the XO, Kitty situation and people who were upset that Kitty was ‘suddenly’ bi and had a crush on Yuri.

WHAT?! Where did this come from? I thought I was watching a normal rom-com! I was fine with the gay characters on it who were clearly televised from the beginning! But Kitty? No! Kitty’s my self-insert. How can she like girls too? It must be a phase and be “less real” than her male love interests. This isn’t Heartstopper. The same weird energy is present in the ST fandom.

Byler being semi-canon isn’t seen as confirmation of a love triangle; it’s seen as a disruption to the norm and the foregone conclusion that Mike and El will be together forever and get married and have telekinetic children because the show owes that to them for all they’ve been through. “But why is Will inserted into their scenes?” we ask them, begging them to see reason. “Idk, but he should know his place and stop being a homewrecker and go find a new boy to like. Just leave the soulmates alone. Mike has already made clear he’s straight and that Will is nothing more than a friend. He said it in the roller rink!” This is how heteronormativity works.

That’s why Byler endgame will be so important because it will shatter preconceived notions and open people’s eyes to the beautiful tapestry of humanity. And they will see that this powerful, queer, coming-of-age, love story was right there, under their noses, in their “fun sci-fi monster show” this whole time. *Mind Blown*

[imbecominggayer]

Writing Advice Part 2: Disability And EVIL

Disabled adults are adults and because they're adults they have a wide variety of morality and characters since humans are an exceedingly diverse group with even more diversed existences.

WRONG!

No. No. In reality:

👿👿DISABLED ADULTS ARE EVIL, ALL EVIL!!!!!!! 👿👿 According to certain writers!

When writers take communities and existences such as the facial difference gang or the intellectually disabled doers this results in horrific portrayals of "demonization". Obviously, people with physical disabilities are often portrayed horribly. I will mention them in the facial differences saga. The only reason I am specifically talking about facial differences and intellectual disability is because physical disability and facial differences tend to overlap while intellectual disability is a common yet undertalked form of representation.

Demonization: it's just like what it sounds like. Disablity always equals evil

However, the ways that facial differences gang is demonized is different to how intellectually disabled doers are demonized.

THIS BECAUSE OF A COMMON ASSOCIATION aka

Good = Beautiful/Handsome, Evil = Ugly

For future reference, when I say ugly I mean "not conventionally attractive" and when I say beautiful I mean "conventionally attractive". Afterall, Harvey Dent is attractive. That's a fact.

A popular example of this is the James Bond franchise which has stocks full of villainous characters with various limb differences, scars, and other such things. These ugly and bad characters fight against the cool and handsome James Bond

Literally, the association between evil and "ugly" is so ubiquitous that when a character becomes disabled they also become evil. The transition between being law-abiding handsome attorney Harvey Dent and evil insane "ugly" Two-Face is marked by fire/acid.

Let me tell you, there is no link between being a bad person and being not conventionally attractive. I'm not saying you can't write bad people with facial differences but they're not bad people because of their facial differences.

Secondly, Facial differences aren't only scars. They are often congenital. There are hundreds of different kinds of facial differences. This was just to talk about the fact that most people hear "facial difference" and think "scar".

FOR INTELLECTUALLY DISABLED DOERS, their evilness comes from their supposed "mental status as a six-year old". For the purposes of clarity, I am just going to say that's not how intellectual disability is labeled and move on.

Because of their supposed "mental status" 🤢, they have no ability to guage morality. They're " *derogatory term* who does evil out of ignorance"

Firstly, intellectually disabled people can learn things, like morality. Especially, if we are talking about the majority of intellectually disabled people who have to mild-to-moderate intellectual disability. Either way, there are hundreds of education prgrams designed to help people in learning about things from periods to childrearing to reading to everything necessary for life.

Secondly, intellectually disabled people aren't children. I talked about that in Part 1 named Writing Advice: Disability And Infantilization. Check it out, it's fun.

Thirdly, intellectually disabled people exist in the real world. If you want to write a character who is intellectually disabled, you can ask them for assistance. There is nothing stopping you.

CONCLUSION: No matter what disability someone has, that shouldn't stop them from being human. You can write disabled characters as evil but disabled characters should be evil not because of disability but regardless of disability. Evil Doesn't Equal Not Conventional.

[thedivinemechanism]

How is it that Jayce and Mel were given to us as conventionally attractive people to have a silly little crush on, yet Viktor is the one having people falling left and right?

The meek, frail, sickly, introverted little science nerd with ambiguous yet ultimately altruistic morals???

(I am one of these people.)

You make it sound like I'm a hard person to love.

I'm only kidding, though. I know what you mean to say.

But it's hardly surprising that some people would consider being "meek, frail, sickly, and introverted" as being unattractive. Two of those are just regular personality traits. The other two are actual symptoms of chronic illness.

My primary "drawback" isn't even that I'm ugly, I'm just average (even above average to some people!). Beauty, relationship, and even gender standards just aren't built to accommodate disabled people.

It's not surprising to me that people have the ability to like me. I've known these standards are made up from the start. My life has been full of loving people. The only ones who are surprised by that are the people who have devoted their lives to those exact social constructs.

[doctorho]

look. i'm old enough to remember when having a self-insert oc that was Too Likeable was like... shamed as the cardinal sin. we had Guides circulating on how to avoid this. we had websites. you weren't supposed to give your oc All of the abilities or make them TOO pretty or TOO smart or make any of the other characters like them too much, because that was Bad.

i am also of the generation where all of us were told we were too fat, too ugly, and certainly too stupid for...idk, life? in general? it was fucked. i mean it's certainly still fucked now, but body positivity was nonexistent back then. if you've seen the clips of early 2000s media about who was called fat (derogatory) back then, you know what i mean.

and i'm just. life is hard, okay? it's fucking hard enough already. i'm disabled, and i guess what would be considered mid-sized today, and i've never really been... let's say conventionally attractive. and i don't mean that i'm ugly, just that i was never the kind of main character pretty by mainstream beauty standards when i was growing up. i like the way i look now but i certainly didn't for a long, long time. like for most of my life.

and i honestly can not recommend "making a character look like you and having other characters be attracted to them" highly enough, especially to anyone who's ever not-liked their body. i'm so serious about this. like? teenage me thought i was so ugly. i grew up being told that i was ugly and unlikable. but actually? having characters that look like me and having other characters be attracted to them? it fucking helped. and yeah it probably also helps that i'm bi so i can see the appeal of my body type On Other People from that perspective, but like...

seriously. trying to see yourself from the viewpoint of someone who's really attracted to that honestly helped me like myself more. i'm not joking. i'm only starting to unravel this bullshit in my twenties but the fake it till you make it fucking works.

write the fics you want to read. make it as self-indulgent as you want. it's your fucking world and it's not hurting anybody. yea i will continue to make those fictional idiots be obsessed with someone like me, and i'm so fucking right about it.

[gemsofthegalaxy]

Thinking of this post and I wholeheartedly agree. One of my thoughts that I feel isn't quite related so I made me own post is: as a fat queer woman, like,

I do not fantasize about being thin. I do not fantasize about being conventionally attractive. I do not fantasize about being straight. I do not fantasize about being less disabled. None of these things are readily available to me in the real world, I will never snap my fingers and become a tiny, dainty, pretty girl protagonist that is lusted after by everyone in the plot.

I, personally, wish to be accepted as I am. I do not enjoy smut or novels that deal with a large amount of body dysmorphia or fat shaming or people picking at their appearance, especially when the leads are supposed to be conventionally attractive. I do fully understand that even thin, conventionally attracted, able-bodied healthy people have insecurities and want reassurances but when I am actively trying to get into a romance and especially trying to get off to smut, the last thing I want it is to be put into a headspace where the lead of the novel who is a third of my size is wondering if *she* is too fat.

This is a personal preference and I have 0 control over what other writers do. But I can't be the only one who finds it so dissatifying that women leads more often than not can't exist and be considered attractive if they're not lithe and hot with big tits and no body fat. Like. That is not what I find sexy, that is not "relatable" to me, I can't put myself into those shoes and I don't even want to. I think this is one of the reason people have been so adament about "good representation" and what it means, and I know "good representation" is also fraught and full of pitfalls but like.... there are lots of points that are made about how it really does hit different when you can relate to the leads, at least when it comes to media meant for romance or sexual narratives. I get that it is fantasy, but not all of us desire the same thing.

[henrysglock]

I am ace but I can’t help but feel like certain people are fighting over dustin to be ace because he’s the least societally conventionally attractive one out of the main cast of kids/teens and doesn’t have a ship that’s a main cast member so it’s easy to just push that on him for ~rep. I mean why not push for mike being ace? or el? or nancy? or steve? or lucas? The only time I ever saw anyone else get this was when people were trying to deny that Will was gay so they tried to say maybe he just wasn’t interested in sex and romance etc. like head canon characters all you want but I’m finding this trying to force others to see dustin ace a little weird when he’s never been written that way and has not only been in a love triangle storyline but also had one of the longest and most stable romantic relationships on the show

Why not El, Lucas, Joyce, Hopper, Jonathan...and I still see ace Will headcanons, but I never see ace Robin headcanons 🤔🤨 Something about Dustin being disabled and not conventionally attractive...Something about gay men/male homosexuality constantly being portrayed as perverse in media...Something about purity culture, victim stereotyping, and oh no, the gay SA victim can't fuck, can't display or feel attraction, heaven forbid...

[ankhisms]

allow me to complain about theater things (not related to the strike im talking about local community theater)

so as i mentioned like a day ago i didnt get into the play that i auditioned for, i was a bit bummed out but its not the end of the world im pretty much over it despite what you may think when you read this im more than anything wanting to like write out my criticisms of the culture surrounding theater circles and specifically some hypocricy that ive been noticing within the theater that i am now a member of the company (which means i am an actor who was acted in that theater company)

the play that i auditioned for was intentionally written so that any actor could fit into any of the roles, and there specifically was a note by the playwright about the huge issues of racism, ableism, and homo/transphobia in theater spaces, and how the odds of getting good roles are stacked against you if youre not white, straight, cis, abled body and neurotypical and dont fit conventional bigoted beauty standards. the playwright specifically wrote this note to encourage directors and people producing the play who would be casting it that there was no reason why any of the roles couldnt be given to nonwhite, lgbt, neurodivergent and disabled actors and encouraging directors to not just cast very conventionally attractive able bodied cishet white actors.

obviously i am a white actor and i always am aware of that, i am also a disabled actor and am not conventionally attractive. my friend and former castmate who i did a lot of theater with when we were younger is a disabled indigenous mexican actor, she brought her cane with her to the audition. even without any positive bias i might have towards her since weve acted together for a while, i can say confidently shes an excellent actor. there was also a trans woman at the audition who i really hope i can do some performances with her in the future if she comes to more auditions because she was fantastic. none of us fit the bigoted beauty standards that are often prepetuated in not only hollywood but also smaller community theater like this.

now i dont want to dismiss any of the actors who got casted for their skills and their talent, im sure that they genuinely are good actors and that they will do a good job at their roles. but it has just occured to me how this is a pattern im noticing with almost all the community theater ive been involved in (except for my theater that i grew up acting in) where all of the people cast in main roles are almost always white, cis, able bodied, and fit conventionally attractive beauty standards. even in this play where the playwright SPECIFICALLY TRIED TO MAKE A POINT of telling directors and people casting hey, you should REALLY REALLY try to not just cast conventionally attractive cishet able bodied white actors, thats a problem we have in our artform. and the community theater ive acted in specifically is very much like. one that tries to be progressive and have left leaning ideas and presents itself this way, and i dont at all think that all of that is just posturing or totally fake. im just saying that i think these biases run very deep and that its just like... dude you still have been just continuing the problem with your casting choices even when youre aware of the problem.

anyway basically when i started really thinking about it i just

[clowngurlkhoinkers]

i love women that are 3 feet taller than me

i love women that are 3 feet tall

i love women that are more muscular than me

i love women that are fatter than me

i love women that are skinnier than me

i love women that are curvier than me

i love women that are wider than they are tall

i love women that are considered scrawny

i love women that are considered conventionally attractive

i love women that have features deemed "ugly" or "unsightly" by society

i love women who wear lots of makeup

i love women who wear next to none or none at all

i love women who enjoy dressing up and getting all pretty

i love women who say "fuck it" and throw on whatever they grab first

i love spiritual women

i love skeptical women

i love bad bitches and absolute sweethearts and social butterflies and quiet reserved types and couch potatoes and fitness freaks and classy ladies and feral goblins and gentle dommy mommies and spoiled brats and mean girls and crazy women and and and and and and

i just fucking love women, no matter what they look like or how they present themselves or what they identify as

all women are beautiful because i say so and my opinion is fact because i am a certified women liker

yes this includes trans women

yes this includes women who have detransitioned from being trans men

yes this includes intersex women

yes this includes women with all kinds of disabilities

yes this includes sex workers

[freakontour]

I’m gonna treat tumblr like a diary for a moment cause I need to get this off my chest.

I’m working at a gas station, mainly late shifts, meaning I close up at 11pm. This job is considered dangerous for women/female presenting people even here, I’d say. At least according to the responses I’ve gotten multiple times. Anyway.

I am terrified seeing what’s going on in the US. Knowing what might happen here if the next elections happen to go wildly wrong. Because every single time I have been uncomfortable at the job? It wasn’t because of immigrants. Or people of colour. Or trans people. Or disabled people. And boy, do I meet a lot of these. They’re mostly the sweetest people on earth but I’m digressing.

When I’m uncomfortable, it is because of entitled white male presenting people 90% of the time. Either because they think sexism is funny. Or because they have no concept of personal space. Like. I am not conventionally attractive. Too heavy for that. But the way people feel entitled to make *comments*. To *flirt* in the most uncomfortable ways.

Just saying. Stay strong.

Also shout out to the amazing trans woman who is so noticeably nervous every time she comes in. I gotcha, darling. You’re safe, at least on my shift.

Oop. Second shoutout to the amazing Syrian guy who stayed with me after hours cause someone had locked themselves in the toilets - and turned out to have the adult version of a diaper blowout in there but that’s a different story - cause I was scared.

I love you all.

[creepycrawliesinyourwalls]

rambling; online diary

i truely believe i can do heroin and not be addicted. i've been on dilaudid before, ive gotten high off my ass on weed, i took some vyvanse to see how itd go, and ultimately it was boring. being high is kinda boring. i complain about not having my cart, sure. but being so fr rn i do it for show. no one would ever believe me in a million years, but it is genuinely for show.

i have a hard time defining myself as a person, given the disorders i have. anything and everything that i could add to myself to humanize myself is a positive, never a negative. humanity is by definition flawed and faulty, if i have a flaw im more easily humanized.

im also incapable of being perfect, though if i wasn't abused to the point of my brain never fully forming a cohesive personality, i'm sure id be a prodigy. if my brain genetically disabled, i'd be top of my class, 4.0 gpa with honors.

with dissociative identity disorder, autism, adhd, bipolar 1, ptsd, clinical depression, arfid, and probably some sort of personality disorder, its hard to care about anything at all. these are only the mental and neurological disorders and defects, too.

inherently i was given the worst hand i could have gotten in birth. my potential is wasted, trapped inside this failure of a body. i could have been so much more. my face is somewhat conventionally attractive, so theres a win.

im confident that without my memory issues, joint pain, and depression i could be a full blown doctor. i have to settle for marketing, because my gpa currently is too low to get into engineering. i wanted to do mathematics for awhile to get into finance or something. i wanted to do geology bc my special interest is rocks, but i don't want to work for an oil company.

if i am not constantly improving with my life in any aspects, if i am stagnant for a stretch of time, i consider it a failure.

i do not have a personality, at least nothing coherent and consistent. some people say im loud, some say im shy. sweet, mean, smart, dumb, its all contradictory traits.

i consider myself better then most of the people i choose to be friends with. a good lot of them (danny, chloe, viktor) will probably never go to college. kaden might go, but im sure she'd just party the whole time. alix is maybe the only one who i'd even consider on my level, since he's aiming for law and finds debates enjoyable. he has the drive and determination to do well in life, and is at the very least takes steps to get where he wanted to get.

chloe wanted to get into medicine and be a doctor. she is chronically disabled and was failing half of he classes. from disabled to disabled person, there is no way in hell you are making it that far. id be surprised if she made it past 25, honestly. she viewed mental hospitals as a vacation, even excluding the morals on that view, its incorrect. she believed she wasn't addicted to her medication, and that it actually helped her. she never even tried.

i am beginning to become fond of alix, though. i hope my headmates realize how much better his is compared to others. taylor and vee are already fond of him, which is a good sign.

we seem to be improving our depression symptoms and dissociative amnesia, and we joined a cbt program to further along process after being voluntarily admitted to a psychiatric facility. (yes, we did ask to go. we were going to kill ourselves as soon as we were alone, we needed immediate help.) i want to work on breaking down our gatekeepers resolve, and get us to a place where we can work on final fusion. i would also like to address our npd traits, but our therapist wouldnt believe us, so ill have to work on that myself.

we haven't been practicing our religion as much as we used too, its kind of sad. we send a prayer up to apollo occasionally, and he usually answers. but otherwise we havent done any spell work. its sucks to admit it, and god to i want to delete this paragraph but i need to work on vulnerability to create and foster friendships that are mutually beneficial.

ive never seen the point of online friends, i think the concept is pointless. i've tried doing it, and everytime we ended up ghosting them. the effort did not match the spoils. if im going to have friends, i need them to invest in me before i invest in them. it can be materially, emotionally, or physically. as long as i gain benefits, you will too.

[sagezworld]

This is not a new idea but I wanna give my take on it. I really would rather be cringe than mean. It is so easy to be mean, a sharp dig here, a snide remark there. But being nice and lumped in with cringe is hard. But I’ll be damned if I ever am caught hurting someone. If I’m cringe for hanging out with my furry friend, my disabled friend, my non-conventionally attractive friend, then I’m cringe dammit.

[mangodestroyer]

Hence why I would say he's more of a teddy bear than a bear-bear. My idea of a bear would be... a little hairier? A little more casual wear? Probably tall rather than short? Someone who has a total dad body. Aziraphale is more of a plump, proper, and pampered British guy. In fact, you would never in a thousand years guess that he's strong enough to casually lift a boulder half his size like it's styrofoam.

I've personally always hated how conventional beauty even became a thing. Even with all these pushes to promote more unconventional forms of attractiveness, people still default to wanting super-model hot individuals. I say this as a person who has a more unconventional appearance, and who constantly shifts between feeling attractive in a very unique way, and feeling hideous because it just doesn't seem to be what people want. Growing up, it always felt like people wanted tall, thin, blonde haired and blue eyed individuals. Sharp, small noses, perfect proportions (which usually means very long legs for AFAB), certain jawlines, etc. It still feels this way tbh (I've never met a person with these qualities who struggled to get into a relationship). It kind of shocks me how many people get bent over not having the perfect partner (although said people who want perfection tend to be really toxic). I refuse to change myself just to be more appealing to the masses (in other words, ridding myself of my personality and rejecting my gender identity by caking myself in make-up). But it sucks knowing that being yourself and just being different means getting overlooked. I also came to realize, months after breaking up with my ex, that there were so many signs that they may have been lying about finding me attractive. Literally everyone who knew about this relationship even told me so. So I'm not only overlooked, I'm just a last resort option for those who don't want to be single.

But then I see people get into relationships with super attractive individuals with a lot going for them who... don't seem like they should be getting those individuals? Sometimes, it's an old man with a 20-year-old woman. Sometimes, it's someone who is both very unfortunate appearance wise and doesn't take care of their hygiene. Sometimes, it's a person who is seriously a dysfunctional wreck and should probably be getting help rather than dating someone. Sometimes, it's a person who refuses to work (despite not having a disability) and spends so much time playing video games. Often times, these people don't even have a good personality, or really anything going for them and can even sometimes be abusive in some way. They're the types of people who make chronically single people who want relationships say, "How am I still single?" Attraction is weird, mysterious thing.

And yeah, I agree. I think conventional beauty is boring. I think lots of people look just fine. Even people who might not be considered very attractive. I think there are also lots of people leading unconventional lifestyles and who have "weird" hobbies who also seem fine. TV shows where everyone is a hot af mf are so Goddamn boring. All the characters look and act the same. Hell, even if Crowley is generally agreed upon to be a sexy beast in the fandom, not everything about him is "perfect" or conventionally good looking. He has crooked teeth, for one. Some people hate crooked teeth. I personally think that adds to his cuteness. Perfect, straight, white teeth are overrated anyway. They look unnatural and creepy on most people imo. I'm sure Aziraphale would agree on that sentiment. He seems that type who would find Crowley's imperfect teeth endearing.

Well, I think it makes sense that a confused, amnesiac Gabriel would be drawn to Aziraphale. Azi kind of has that motherly nature about him. He looks like a very safe person to hang around. I would probably feel very comfortable in his presence too. I've even wondered for the longest time if that's something that drew Crowley to him. Why he approached him on the gate in the first place.

In my human AU, Gabriel is Aziraphale's cousin. They grew up spending a lot of time together. Gabriel acts a little bit like a mean brother to him at times. He also works in a higher ranking position than him at the same company, which probably isn't alright legally (idk all the laws on this) but I see it happen all the time irl. He totally got Aziraphale a job he wants, but is still an annoying jerk to him at times. He also acts like he owns the place and thinks everyone loves him.

I also headcanon Gabriel as being on the bisexual spectrum. I'm not really sure why. A lot of people would probably assume he's straight, but I just get a vibe from him. I feel like he would usually be more attracted to feminine and non-binary individuals. And I could just easily see him having a thing for Crowley. Basically seeing him/they/her as that weird, hot goth girl. I know he wouldn't like the fact that Crowley is put off by him, and makes that pretty obvious. Maybe he's even one of those weird men who feels like women who don't like them are a challenge to overcome. Those controlling types who love free-spirited individuals (which is what I seem to attract if I attract anyone at all). Which is... yuck! That's probably what Lucifer was to Crowley. Controlling.

Aziraphale knows how to treat the lovely Crowley. He's a gentleman. He respects his boundaries, forgives him for not being perfect, and appreciates so much about him. Crowley couldn't ask for better. Like I said, Aziraphale does have a lot going for him, on top of having a great personality and treating people right. Gabriel probably resents the fact that he's able to attract people like Crowley.

Aziraphale is so fuckin' beautiful wtf

[spirit-of-helimire]

🔥 writblr community

DAMN a big one I see that one is a lot.

Mostly it's accessibility reasons, small text and unreadable fonts. This coming from someone who is visually impaired and having to scroll through peoples writeblrs to see if I wanna follow them or not, and all their intro posts/wip intros/etc have a lot of small text, it really discourages me from wanting to follow them, no matter how much I might enjoy the content they're making.

Another thing that's an even bigger thing for me is. Objectively attractive characters. Ones that I look at and I'm like. This is just another skinny (probably white) young character. I don't care. I really don't care about conventionally attractive teens-young 20's character. I get YA seems to be All About That. But I really think people need to branch out and have characters that aren't conventionally attractive, who are older, fat, disabled, etc.

This also includes queer characters, put butches in your content, high femme gay men, genderfuck people, neo pronoun users, fat queers, disabled queers. Etc. You get what I mean. Make your most attractive character a fat butch or gay man. No more skinny trans characters.

And I'm not going to say it's all YA fiction, adult fiction is like this too, it's so hard to find fiction with older queers and fat people in general. I'm also coming at this from a white perspective because I am white, but like characters of color in any of these types as well would be just as important as well.

And I get it might be scary to do these things in the fear of getting them wrong, but if you're open to criticism, do it. Say fuck it, and do it, because if you fuck up and someone explains it to you and you do the research to do better, it's gonna make readers in those demographics so much happier and ready to engage in your work.

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

Do you look like any of the women in the historical lesbian and bi woman photos? I sometimes feel like I am ugly too and I am on certain peoples measures but I see myself in other women and go — oh shit actually it’s not that bad — she’s a lot like me and she’s attractive. And I see older women together and they love and are entranced by each other, despite being no beauty mag’s real ideal. Because that’s not the point. This works for discomfort about labia too or at other sexual worry. Women like you are out there, including disabled women and women with mental struggles. A lot of people don’t show that up front on dating apps … often times for fair reasons (don’t feel like it, don’t want to risk being targeted or taken advantage of) …so I wouldn’t assume they aren’t there. Still early stage of dating is not easy for someone with certain mental health issues, because of it requires a lot of failures and rejections and people getting to know you then leaving for any reason, and you never hear back. It is no wonder we find it off putting. If you need to wait you need to wait, and you will get there. 💜

I mean I don’t think I do aha. But I also know I can have a weird perception of myself. I just know I really hate how I look. But I have for most of my life to be honest lol.

And you are so right! Couples come in all appearances. I feel bad I think I’ve been phrasing this whole thing super super badly, so I’m sorry. It’s like I don’t need the woman I’m with to be “conventionally attractive” it’s more I just need to be attracted to her. Like I’ve found women that aren’t “conveniently attractive” to be SUPER hot. It’s not always a thing that can be explained. It’s just seeing someone and for whatever reason being like ooooh yes I really like that 👀👀

So I guess when I say stuff like my hubris is being ugly while being attracted to hot women is just my roundabout way of saying the women I find hot never seem to find me hot. Like I’m not their type or whatever. Or if I’m someone’s type shes not mine. And it’s not even for anything overt. It’s just you talk to people and don’t feel that pull. There isn’t that little click that just happens. And I know everyone is different but for me I can’t just like , be around someone and hope those feelings come about. I wouldn’t handle a casual hook up type relationship because that’s just not in my personality (not that there is anything wrong with that) and I can’t just date someone to not be lonely. I have to like her. I have to have those butterflies and happy feelings and that pull. And maybe I’m too picky and it’s entirely a fault that lies with me, wouldn’t be surprised honestly because most things are a me issue ahaha, but it’s still disheartening to feel like this is how things will be forever. Regardless of who’s fault it is or isn’t.

But you are absolutely right about why people might not put those things up there or just aren’t on dating apps in general. It’s hard out there for a lot of people.

Thank you so much for being so kind and taking the time to send this to me. It means a lot.

I hope you have a wonderful and beautiful day 😊💕💕