#I think I need to stop downplaying my accomplishments

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

I think it’s SO fucked up that my coworker told me “don’t tell people how old you are or that you just graduated because they just won’t take you seriously”

[princess-of-the-corner]

So, in regards to your "Missing school" stuff, I don't mind the trop for super heroes in concept even if I see your point regarding it feeling unfair.

Cos to me that's part of the drama, the hero is choosing to do this, choosing to hide it from people and so people thinking they are a flake or lazy is a consequence of that decision they need to grapple with.

The issue in my eyes is how its often poorly thought out.

Like, the amount of street crime Spiderman or Batman are liable to stop while swinging on rooftops every night is frankly rather small compared to what dedicated investigations would accomplish. Plus, said heroes are meant to be detectives/investigators anyway which suggests stake outs, spying, intel gathering, time consuming shit.

So one thing they are doing is impractical and makes little sense and pisses away time. The other thing they should be doing, that would be useful and also eat away at time is something they are rarely shown doing for longer than "Introduce problem, investigate, problem solved, back to patrol."

As to Miraculous, the issue there is these things don't apply at all.

Like yeah Marinette & Adrien run around the rooftops at night & sometimes do stuff other than battle Akum. But there's no indication they aren't squeezing this into their respective schedules.

What's more, unlike say, Shocker robbing a bank and then going into hiding, Akuma are not subtle. They are here to break shit to cope with their personal issues & fight the heroes, their mere presence disrupts everyone's lives in a way Two Face's ongoing tax fraud does not.

This means there's minimal investigation time, time spent tracking, or anything like that which could be used to justify them missing scheduled events or falling behind on study or work.

That Akum behave like this also means that they have good excuses to be missing classes or events anyway.

"Sorry I had to leave the shoot an Akuma was nearby and I wanted to get out of dodge."

"I am late to class cos there was an Akuma this morning and I had to go the long way to school."

These are entirely reasonable and believable things probably happening to a lot of people anyway.

So unless they are both constantly skipping classes/event to fight Mr Pigeon every couple of hours, it doesn't work that they deal with this problems.

& even Gabriel can only Akumatize so many people in a day before it would start becoming either obvious who the heroes are, or obvious who the villain is. Or otherwise demand a larger team to better address the issue of a never ending parade of Akuma.

So yeah, conceptually it just doesn't work well for ML, especially as I don't even think we actually see Marinette's grades slip or classes skipped like we do wen Peter is say, super late for dates. So again its not being shown, and it wouldn't be well justified if it were given context.

Yeah as I said I have mixed feelings on the trope!

I think it needs to come up because ofc it's going to happen occsasionally.

But outside of one or two /really bad/ incidents for bigger drama, I think it can be downplayed

[himedanshicult]

I'm going to try and explain to you, as a trans woman myself, why you're wrong about transandrophobia advocates. I've never once seen a single one of them, and I've interacted with many over a long period of time nearly every day now, claim that transmascs cannot be transmisogynyistic, and I feel you're very deliberately conflating that with "transmascs don't have structural power over transfems", which IS true. They don't have power over us. They can be transmisogynistic but that doesn't mean it's systemic on their part. If anything, we have power over them, because transmascs are constantly shut out of queer spaces, taunted, told they should all die, have jokes made about them being forcibly impregnated, and harassed in attempts to force them back into the closet because everyone thinks transitioning to "man" is a morally bankrupt political choice. When they try to complain about these things, they're told to shut up and stop deprioritizing the real victims. They're told they have to consider themselves transmisogyny exempt - which is truly, I mean truly just a euphemism for hating on them regardless of if it's /supposed/ to include cis people - but when they try to come up with their own word, that's also wrong. And everyone is just...fine with "TMEs" who buy into that nonsense practically worshipping transfems to a degree I find skin-crawling. It's a bad situation.

if it seems like I'm conflating the two, well, that's because I am. i don't think it's a meaningful difference. simply saying that transmascs are capable of prejudice is an empty admission when you follow that with "but they can hold no meaningful power over trans women nor can they benefit from or weaponize systemic transmisogyny". not even getting into how these admissions often coexist with attempts to redefine transmisogyny into a "transphobia + misogyny" that can be experienced by trans men and women alike, emptying it further of credibility. the moment you start arguing that trans men have no power in the relation, you are downplaying the violence and exploitation that trans men exact upon trans women, particularly within transgender and queer spaces (which is funnily enough, what you are trying to do in this very ask!) and at that point, you might as well be denying trans mens capability of transmisogyny wholesale. at least, it would be more open and honest about what is being accomplished.

and like girl, im not even gonna touch the rest of this ask because I'd need to write a full essay just to drive home how wrong you are, like you are fucking conflating forced impregnation of trans men with tme/tma signifiers, like think abt that for a minute. there are cities whose entire lgbt scenes consist of large numbers of trans guys, but like 1 or 2 trans women- are those cities just barren of trannies, or is something else going on here? how does the average queer space or feminist org react to a rape accusation by a trans girl against a trans guy vs the other way around? for that matter, how does the legal system react to it? how did michfest treat trans guys and how did they trans lesbians? is every trans girl who talks about their local feminist or lgbt scene embracing trans guys while shunning them just lying out their ass? more to the point, why are these men you associate with hellbent on convincing you, a trans woman, that not only do they possess no systemic power over you but that you have systemic power over them? trying to ingrain into your mind that you are by default the aggressor? like, doesn't that strike you as a little akin to male/female socialization, especially since a lot of popular bloggers in this sphere openly espouse that concept?

for fear of getting my words twisted, let me be clear that i detest transphobia against trans men, and especially the proliferation of demonization towards testosterone hrt and phalloplasty thts spread like wildfire in lgbt spaces. trans men are subjected to a lot of horrific bullshit and there are trans girls who actively participate in that. im not opposed to that oppression being given a name. but none of that justifies this outright rejection of their capacity to perpetuate societal transmisogyny to their benefit that is championed in transandrophobia spaces. that only serves to allow trans men to turn a blindside on their own ability to hurt and oppress trans women and to obfuscate their actions when they do so. there are a ton of trans guys who hate transandrophobia bloggers for precisely that reason and feel deeply uncomfortable with their oppression being used to downplay and obfuscate transmisogyny

[lady-corrine]

I'm sick of Nettles fans. The cup is really full at this point. Let them stay in their fucking tag instead of coming to annoy Daemyra fans who didn't ask for anything. I will always admire their consistency. Daemon is a bad man according to their logic, but they are defending a ship where he is present and with a young girl the age of his own daughters, namely 17 years old. Not at all contradictory or weird.

This character's fans are strangely – but not at all surprisingly – obsessed with Rhaenyra. They talk about her far more than they do about their fav.

They constantly downplay Rhaenyra's accomplishments, constantly use degrading terms to reffer to her — words like, please pardon my language, whore or cow or cunt (so far with the feminism, I guess). They want to see Rhaenyra being abused, beaten or murdered, enduring as much pain and suffering as possible.

It is all reduced to who they ship Daemon with, although as far as I'm concerned I truly don't understand the need to act so vile towards Rhaenyra herself. If you want to ship your couple, do it. No one is stopping you. But the moment you obsess over the character you supposedly hate so much, mentioning her so often and attributing such vile words to her simply to prop your ship up, I don't know how that ship can stand on its own 🤷‍♀️

The thing with Daemon is a tale as old as time, ever since asoiaf was published. The headcanon that Daemon loved everyone but Rhaenyra was and still is extremely popular amongst Rhaenyra antis. It went from saying he could not have loved "such a fat and ugly woman" as her to pitying poor Daemon for "having to put up" with Rhaenyra as his wife for a decade.

So I would say I'm surprised, but truly I'm not. I'm honestly more astonished by how much one can loathe a fictional character to the point where you might think Rhaenyra killed their puppy and stole their house.

As for all those shippers, Daemon is not real, he won't fuck you. 🤷‍♀️

[scorpio-karma]

Do you have any Unpopular vampire diaries opinions ?

I would honestly argue that all of my opinions of TVD are unpopular but that's simply because I don't like the show and hate like half the characters. Also the part of Fandom I participate in, the Bonnie Fandom, has similar feelings so what is considered an unpopular opinion there is a very different metric. As I've pointed out in some responses, we have completely divorced ourselves from canon, so a lot of things put out narratively in canon that most of the Fandom follows even with their AU's is completely out the window. I, and a lot of my mutuals, basically only seek to improve on the small bots we liked as a way to heal the trauma the show left us with.

So with that as our basis this is what I'd consider my unpopular opinions.

Kol is irrelevant as far as Originals go and I don't ship Kennett. This is one I stay mostly silent about because a) it was always a crack ship and b) I genuinely think it wouldn't be as popular of a Bonnie ship had Plec not brought them into an argument unprompted, but most of all I can't find it in me to care about the character enough even read in fics. I did a rewatch of the show to see if there were just episodes I missed where he was more prevalent than I remembered and nope. I didn't watch TO, so the idea of having to go to a whole different show to get the characterization of a character for a ship doesn't appeal to me. Do I think Kennett fans were done dirt by Kolvina? Yes, but that's a pattern with all of her ships going all the way back to season 1 and Tonnie shippers, so it ends up low on my list of grievances.

Bamon could have been a good ship. Now this is more of something unpopular with my main Fandom, Bonkai as it is her most popular ship at least quantity-wise, but it's mainly unpopular because most of us can't stand Damon. I will say, he's not even in my top ten favorite characters but I do love the natural chemistry between them and if they had followed a more logical route in season one they would have been at the very least interacting more in season 1 since his entire plan hinged on Bonnie and he literally tried to accomplish that by not speaking to her once...

There are some staple tumblrs here that are kind of like an authority in the Fandom as in they've written a lot of metas that most Bonnie fans agree with. There's one that I started following when i first got here that I will not name (no need to actually bring them in and I honestly haven't checked their blog in years) that I disagree with most of their takes. While they are a fan of Bonnie and Bonkai, their metas rely a little too much on chemistry. While that's a big part of what attracts me and people to a ship I personally think there needs to be more because a lot of their examples involve a very subjective perspective. They mostly started following a whole different tvd ship that I don't like so I didn't read too much into their metas, but I realized I didn't care for the takes with the ship I liked so I stopped following them altogether.

The Bonkai Fandom isn't dead. While there's a significant decline in content, myself include, I don't think we can truly call it dead because there are still people making content and consuming that content. Fandoms need the source material to keep alive, at least in the sense where there's still events and regularly updated post, but to say something is dead just downplays the people still contributing and still consuming. We're now just in our quality-over-quantity phase because I guarantee other tvd ships churning our content everyday is going to be rough.

[annieqattheperipheral]

Could it really be this way though?! that McConnor woke up to the text, the same way everyone else did? how many times had it happened before so far? 🤔 cause i am seeing a pattern... People on tumblr love to downplay the agency of the players, saying that they are servants to the narrative, to the management, and to the whatever... But picture this: you are David McConnor, and hockey is the only thing that matters or ever mattered in your life, by wide margin. And you want to win. And still... you can't win by yourself. Hockey is a team sport. And you can't do everything. You are a forward, and you need to give it all to this one job, because no one else can. You are a captain, but how much is the title really worth? You see that the team is ran badly, poorly, and that it actively brings down your game... what do you do? And then you think... what if you were in charge? What if you had a say in how the team is ran? What if you stopped being a glorified paid laborer and instead were making decision on everything that happens? You are a generational talent and the owners of the team want to keep you at any cost. You have leverage and you can make things happen... if you so desire. Is it not exciting?!

Oh def exciting! The little man placing himself as de facto CEO of his little corner of the world

But i think from the outside we really don't get how much the hockeys, as compared to any other sport or profession, do not think of themselves as individual employees each on their own corporate ladders, but a team collective. (Like so much so that they should be better at the union side of things...)

And it extends to their mentality off the ice too. Don't make waves, don't stand out, let your playing speak for you, get a girl who looks like the standard of beauty in your circles, etc.

The bits of personality we get to see of davo, obviously he's a competitor and perfectionist in attaining his elite skills-- but he's clearly a worrier, actually kinda has a pretty negative outlook on what he can accomplish, like goes "oh no, i don't think i can do that" (that colby interview/skills challenge) but then drai or his mom and maybe even lauren (who comes off as an extremely confident individual/ringleader of every social circle she's been a part of) has to talk him down from the negative overwhelming self-talk and break it down for him or just go "no you can do it, let's go" (drai's 60+ goal challenge for him for 22-23 season)

So i don't feel that kind of a person is someone who sees himself as "oh this is MY team to run" and "i know what's right". He is still very much a hockey player who relies on his coaches and trainers to steer him and push him.

But y'know that's just my thoughts. Thanks for the ask!💕 Enjoyed thinking about this one.

[thejustknowing]

"I NEVER said That!!!

The Truth I couldn't see.

By: VAD

My Story

He tells you are being irrational, that you really need help. He tells you he's moving out and taking your little girl because he needs so badly to start a manipulative argument. He tells you to "Fuck Off" and calls you a victim and tells you it's all your fault. He makes false references about your own childhood to try to break you apart. He thinks he can still convince you of things about yourself that arent true, he wants to so bad. You can tell he truly misses those days. When he could gaslight you and play confusing mind games disguised as a conversation you 'think' you are having with your husband; about something real.

It's something wrong in your relationship that you actually want to fix so you tirelessly try and try because you want things to be OK again. Over time though, this constant cycle sucks all of your energy and everything that is good out of you, but you don't know that yet. You feel broken hopeless and destroyed and you dont understand why, but you eventually start to realize that something is very very wrong. You must have missed something somewhere, this no longer even resembles an argument you would have in healthy realtionsuip, probably not even in most unhealthy ones. It's irrational, it's confusing, it skips around from one thing to another, its fact twisting, it's blaming, it's accusing, it's getting another person's pain and problems thrown at you and piled up until you cant breathe at all. At it's worst, it's doubting your own perception of anything because of someone telling you that you're crazy over and over and over. He is starting to convince you that you remember things wrong, and saying that you make stuff up in your head. It's someone denying what they have said so many times that you can't be 100% sure of anything. Your trust in yourself is dwindling. You start to ask yourself "Who is this person in the mirror? It's being told that 'you' said what 'they' are denying having said, even though they said it to your face two minutes ago. It's being locked out of your house in the middle of January with shorts and a tank top on. It's being told you are a horrible person and nobody likes you. It's being told you cant be trusted to do anything right and then getting guilt tripped because they have to do everything and you do nothing. It's having your baby used against you, it's being threatened to have your baby taken to a hotel by someone who is drunk because, "What you deserve is to be in a dark house with the power out, alone." It's being told that the cops are coming and it's because YOU are the actually the abuser and you are scaring them. It's real FEAR. It's slamming doors, sighs, silent treatments, and dirty looks. It's lies aimed to control how other people view you. It's an argument about money, laundry, what time the kids should be in bed, work, who left the lights on, a dropped dish, spilled milk, the way you said something, a choice you made. It's everything you do is wrong, and it's not Real. It's dealing with it, and on some level knowing, and saying nothing because you know it will make things worse. It's walking on eggshells every single day. It's downplaying your sucessess, it's really jealousy and deep resentment of your accomplishments, but you don't know that yet. You just aren't good enough, and that even what you thought was good about yourself isn't. Your strengths, talents and most admirable traits were the first thing he targeted, but you don't know that yet. The constant and unending ridicule and forever reminders of even the tiniest mistakes. You are careful never to make a real error in judgment or a bad decision because he will never stop reminding you. He will say "The truth hurts, doesn't it" He will exploit and expose any weakness or vulnerability you show him, he does not have the capacity to genuinely love, he has no regard for the feelings of other's. He is a victim when when presented with any information suggesting he is at fault. He is a victim to control you and suck out your compassion even after he breaks you down for hours. He has a huge RED Flag, and it's one of many you don't know you missed yet. He is 100% incapable of admitting he did or said anything wrong. He cannot take responsibility, he only knowe how to blame, twist and project. He is not capable of a genuine apology because 'You' are the problem and he is the victim. His personality makes him capable of one of the worst and most dangerous forms of abuse. You don't know it yet but you never did anything wrong, you were never the problem. You didn't deserve this.

It's slow and intentional and you can't understand it yet. You think this person loves you and would never try to hurt you. You are so wrong though, and if you don't figure it out soon you might never recover. How can you be a mom to this beautiful baby if you don't figure out what has changed in you? How do you get up for work and do your job that "the old you" used to excel and thrive at? How will you and be able to function much longer if you can't find your confidence and strength, 'your edge'. You don't know how to survive without the one thing about you you've always counted on when everything else was gone. But it's no use, it's not inside you anymore. It's gone. You ask yourself how could this happen? How could you have let this happen and not see it coming so you could stop it. You start researching and searching for something, anything to fix this. You'll one day be an expert on this type of personality disorder and the pattern of behavior that goes with it, but not yet. You've always been able to fix anything, but you can't fix this. You hit bottom, and you do the only thing left to do when you are truly helpless. You beg and pray to God and angels to help you. You can't get through this on your own, you beg for help and look up at the sky while tears roll down your face, you cling to hope.

To your complete suprise the help does come, and it quickly, within days. The help sent to you is unfamiliar and strange, it's almost spiritual. It's an untravelled path of self realization of how you ended up where you are. But this is no quick fix. You don't understand for a long time that there is no quick fix for this, and why. Help is sent in all different forms you couldn't see before, you start a sort of awakening. You start to see signs, coincidences, information, people appear in your life that seem to have been strategiclaly placed there at just the right time. it's amazing. But the dark realizations keep coming. As you put all the pieces together and start to truly understand what happened, you really hit the fucking bottom. You'll see later that this is the only way to come back to life, but not yet. This is the lowest and darkest place there is. You could easily stay in that place forever because getting yourself back to where you were, and who you used to be seems more and more impossible the more you come to terms with the reality of it all. There is nothing of what was. You can't even muster up the courage to ask for help because you are so ashamed of yourself and you are constantly blaming yourself for being so blind and so naive.

The worst is over now, but you don't know it yet. You are still just trying to survive. One thing you come to realize at rock bottom is that you have two choices, and that one of them is giving up and believe me it will be the obvious choice. It seems like the only way out, but it means giving up on your chance to be the Mommy your baby was meant to have, before all this. It means giving up on the "YOU" that you remember being your whole life. I know for an absolute fact that God, the Universe (undoubtabley both) showed me the ONE tiny glimmer of "the old me" that was left, and for good reason. They knew that Giving Up is something "She" would NEVER choose. She would FIGHT and SEARCH and never stop until she found a way, just like she always had; with or without her edge.

So that's what she did, with no idea if it was even possible at all or if it would ever work. Two long painful years of exploration, awakening and trust in "the plan", and I started feel like me again; the NEW me. The old me was gone and I came mourn ans accept that over time. I hid this journey from every other person on the planet even those closest to me. I faked a smile, worked as hard as I could and hid the ugly, shameful truth. Out of the darkest place I began to emerge a new better version of myself, one I didn't know was inside of me. It turned out this whole experience was the start of a new phase of my soul's journey. I had a new purpose, and I understood the "Old Me" wasn't meant to travel with "Me" this far. So I left her behind and kept going. I understood the laws of attraction and the power to manifest strength where there is none. I now had faith, I realized my gifts, I came back. So much of 4 years of my life is still gone, my daughter is now 5. There are huge parts of these years l still can't remember. I see pictures of birthdays and special events that I don't recognize. I will continue to write In hopes of bringing back the precious memories of my little baby girl, memories still covered and buried by the painful ones that I unknowingly blocked. I am a survivor of a long encounter with a monster I could have never seen coming. They don't teach you about these kind of monsters, even though are the REAL ones. They don't live under your bed or in the dark scary attic at night. They don't wear scary masks that you can see or have horns or sharp teeth. They look like whatever you want them to, they look like love and infatuation and friendship, sometimes they look like your parent. They are all the same, they have the same cruel games and tricks up their sleeve to break you. And trust me if you think you are unbreakable or immune to this, think again. I was one of strongest, most confident and intelligent woman I knew at 30, this nightmare started before I turned 32. I hope to someday be ready to educate as many people as I can about narcissistic abuse and about the hundreds of subtle little tactics that people use to slowly destroy you. There ARE red flags and they can be stopped from harming you. If this sounds anything like your life, know you are not alone and know that this is a sign. You were meant to see this.

[sonickitty]

feeling really laid low by a complete return to my body being a disaster. We're talking vintage 2015 Stevie Whack-a-Mole of Illness.

Every time this happens I remember why my life has turned out the way it has. When I'm feeling well, I look at my life, and I'm like, "why am I here? Why is this my job? Why have i accomplished so little?" And then I get another cold. And then that cold becomes a sinus infection. And then I get put on a medication that makes me feel awful (prednisone of all things - that worked really well for me ten years ago), and then I stop taking that medication, and then I have tendon pain in my ankles so bad I can't walk.

Looking back over the last decade+, this is just how my health works. Small thing. Worse thing. Unexpected other thing. Then one more thing. And then three weeks pass. And when I'm fine, I'm really fine! I can go bouldering and hiking and stay up til 3am fucking and singing karaoke (not at the same time, of course). And when I'm bad I'm fucked.

I think I've tried to write the "fucked" out of my personal narrative in order to put a lot of my past behind me. I'd really like to believe that I'm better now, mentally and physically, which is true in so many ways - and an act of revisionism in so many others. I feel like I don't have space in my life to be a person who is sick, so I downplay those parts so I can keep myself healthy and capable at least as a fictional character. The reality is I've hardly been able to leave my apartment in the last month. Like yes, I got to go skiing for the firs time and it was terrifying great, but also I starting going bouldering and after two session in one week, my right wrist was fucked for two weeks.

I just don't know how to manage my self-image - or public image - as someone who is by turns really down for whatever and needing to skip work for a week.

[softnasty]

#wipwednesday again!! sneak peak of chapter 2 of my jyn/cassian politics au! you can already read chapter 1 here on ao3.

Senator Mothma comes back from taping Lando's show with Tay Kolma in tow. In typical Tay Kolma fashion, Kolma is wearing a light blue suit jacket over his white shirt. His pale gray slacks have the faintest checkered pattern on them if you look really closely, which Cassian is. 

In the middle of the bullpen, Cassian is front row to Mothma's chief of staff's motivational speech. It's 12pm on what should have just been a regular, no big fuss workday for all of them. Instead, Cassian has to stare at Kolma's eccentric — but impeccable — fashion choices as he dishes out commonplace after commonplace on chaos and how to keep going and thrive when everything is seemingly falling apart.

[more under the cut because i couldn't resist sharing my entire 1st scene for the chapter hehe]

The words falling apart are a bit too strong for Cassian's liking but what does he know, really. It'd probably be too presumptuous of him anyway to pretend that everything's fine when he's literally an emergency replacement expected to help clean up this mess and ensure a smooth transition like nothing ever happened. So, perhaps Cassian's downplaying things a little, at least to himself, if only to keep his sanity and avoid freaking the fuck out.

When Kolma finishes his speech, Cassian sets himself on a mission to find where Brasso must inevitably be hiding. He's barely turned on his heel when Kolma sidles up to him, clapping a hand to Cassian's shoulder.

"So. Campaign manager? Everything good so far?"

Cassian chuckles weakly.

"I guess. Haven't done much in the 3 hours since my appointment."

It's not even a lie. He's barely made a dent in the pile of folders and emails that have been handed over to him, his calendar has grown twofold in terms of volume of invitations, and his phone hasn't stopped buzzing. Nothing from Jyn. 

The only substantial thing he's accomplished is signing the amendment to his work contract, a task that happened under Kay's supervision because Cassian's day was, at this point, becoming a collection of all his worst fears and dislikes. Jyn is barely out of the door, Cassian's voicemail is unanswered, and Cassian has already signed his name to a two-pager instating him in her position. 

"Well, you need anything, you tell me, alright?" Kolma claps his shoulder again. 

Cassian nods and goes to find Brasso.

****

He doesn't even make it to the hallway.

This is quite literally the worst day of Cassian's life. He thinks of those old-school hidden camera shows, wonders for a delirious second if maybe this is an elaborate set-up to see how long it takes him to crack.

Cassian narrowly avoids crashing straight into Mothma's husband as he steps out of the bullpen, desperate to reach the archives where he knows Brasso will be hiding. Like he doesn't fucking know that Cassian knows all of his hiding spots in the office. Cassian glares at Mothma's husband and asks the stars above, not for the first time, why such a useless piece of a man is even allowed to exist. 

A note, for the blissfully ignorant souls of the galaxy: Tay Kolma, in addition to being a fantastic chief of staff, has been linked to Senator Mothma in numerous scandalous rumors, the most notable one claiming that they were engaged in their early twenties. Each time the rumor crops up, Mothma sends out the same statement on how Kolma has been a friend since childhood and she cherishes the bond they have. The press calls him her work husband. Cassian tries to also stay blissfully unaware, but it's near impossible when anyone remotely involved with galactic politics has such a high affection for gossip. Because Cassian tries his best to stay away from all the office gossip, no one's ever asked him for his opinion but if you did, he would tell you that Mothma deserves better than Perrin. 

"Ah! Cassian Andor, the man of the hour!"

Cassian gives Mothma's real, actual husband the phoniest smile he can muster.

"I really need to get going." Cassian lies as he tries to move past Perrin.

[presidentstalkeyes]

Norma Natividad is autistic.

Now, I know it might seem iffy that I'm headcanoning the academically-inclined jerk character as autistic, but hear me out. :V

Her investigative tendencies strike me as a special interest of hers, so when the mystery of the mole comes on the scene she pounces on it and remains focused for the entirety of the story, while all the other Interns are varying degrees of apathetic. She tells everyone it's for the extra credit points but Lizzie's post-game comment - "she's been 'helping' me all my life" suggest it's just a Thing Norma Does. She's also shown talking about her investigation to a less-than-interested Gisu, despite the fact that Raz is standing right there, suggesting that's her 'I'm gonna spill about my interests today because I have to tell someone' moment.

Playing into the above, she wants to make herself helpful and useful - hence the investigation and snitching on Raz to 'Truman' - but has a bit of trouble with impulse control and reading the room. Sometimes she 'helps' when it isn't really asked for and has difficulty leaving well enough alone. I do imagine this is rooted a lot in her past as a psychic, but there's also an element of internalized ableism - she wants to prove she can 'fit in' and contribute to neurotypical society.

While she wasn't unbiased towards Raz to start with because, you know, literal child getting into the Intern program on his first day and all - she came up with her theory because she 'saw what others couldn't' and took the events surrounding Raz's arrival at face value (kid she's never heard of before suddenly showing up out of nowhere, becomes an Intern immediately and is apparently best buddies with three Senior Agents) and came to the logical - but incorrect - conclusion that something didn't add up. This feels like a very autistic thing for me personally, to see something that should be obvious yet gets ignored for apparently arbitrary reasons.

She seems adept at, essentially, spycraft, which she accomplishes by putting on acts - again projecting here, but when you mask for long enough eventually you sorta understand how to mask and in what way to get a desired reaction. I personally don't do this because I can't stand being dishonest, but Norma has no such hangups... which is not to say she enjoys it. Masking for a long time can be exhausting. So when she doesn't need to, she speaks bluntly and honestly, and depending on her mood she either doesn't know or doesn't care if she comes off as rude in the process. It's her treat! (Her comment to Raz about his father, "I'm sorry, are you jealous? Did your father not spend much time with you growing up?" was half-honest question, half-low-blow jab to get a rise out of him because she still thinks he's a smug brat who's duping everyone and 'if only everyone else could see what I'm seeing!')

Kinda grasping at straws for this one, but she has a couple tics she repeats a lot - she's often seen with her hands clasped together in front of her and regularly pulls her glasses up her nose, which both feel like stims.

Finally, going by one of the cut Bottled Thoughts, she suffers from anxiety over if she's really a good person or not, showing she still has empathy for others buried beneath that prickly exterior. This is sort of made apparent in the final game - she apologizes to Raz for thinking he's the Mole and promises to make it up to him, and using Clairvoyance on her in the postgame reveals she at least begrudgingly warmed up to him after that. However, when Raz and her sister directly confront her over her wrongdoing, her knee-jerk response is to downplay it and be like 'well it all worked out in the end, what's the problem?'. I know based on my own experience and convos with other autistic folks that an unfortunate reality of being autistic is having strangers overreact towards something you did or said for seemingly no logical reason, so it's tempting to wish that everyone would just stop making such a huge deal over minor errors - pobody's nerfect, just accept mistakes happen and move on. Except in Norma's case it's more than just a simple mistake, but she's still in the denial phase of the incident and doesn't want that 'am I a good person?' anxiety to flare up again, and her difficulty at reading the room lead to her reaction.

Also note that this is the only time you can finally hand her the 'Mission-Critical Assets', whereupon she'll act like a jerk towards Raz again ("get over yourself, it's just a scavenger hunt!") - which, considering my earlier thoughts, strikes me as a 'well fine, if you wanna treat me like a jerk then I guess I'll act like one!' moment (showing she still struggles to regulate her emotions). Then she gets uncharacteristically flustered when Raz suddenly turns the tables on her, and let me tell you, I felt that. :V

Just to be clear, this is in no way meant to justify or excuse her dickish behaviour towards Raz, who I'm pretty sure is autistic himself (and I know I'm not the only one who thinks that). I'm autistic and I was a kind of a dick when I was Norma's age, and I make no excuses for that. She just has some growing up to do, really.

[letmetrythisagain]

I don't want to feel like this anymore. I just feel so fucking alone. I have so many people that I love and I know they love me but nobody really fucking knows me completely, I feel so trapped inside myself I'm crying for help so obviously but I don't know how to tell anybody what's wrong because they all have actual problems, real things that are happening, but for me it's just fucking everything. It's just me. As much as someone can listen and swear up and down they understand or at least that it's valid and I may believe it, it just never stops for me and I have to watch them move on and get better or at least have a partner to help or whatever and I'm just still here. I feel them getting sick of me and my mess and I'm going fucking insane I want to be happy but I just don't understand how other people can just... not feel like this. Everything is so overwhelming and I can try and celebrate little victories and accomplishments and not compare myself but that only gets me so far, and then it feels stupid and I feel stupid and regress even more than I was. But I know I'm not stupid, and I've been in therapy and treatment and on meds and all the shit for so so long while being there for everyone else, and even though everyone knows that I've been depressed and anxious or whatever I've still always been the one there for everyone else through, I've never been the one to outwardly break down like all of my friends so I'm not the one they worry about. But jesus fucking christ I am not okay!!!! And I've been saying I'm not okay but no one else is either and everyone close to me is going through horrible fucked up shit so I how am I supposed to begin to explain how deeply sad and tired and lonely I am when nothing is happening to me???? So I just don't because I'm scared if I try to actually put things into words and not downplay it I will never stop and I will fall apart completely. I think I've been holding in way more than I ever realized for maybe my whole life and now I just don't know how to push past that wall of "acceptable" fucked up. just fucking please I need someone to SEE

[altheterrible]

I would like some dopamine, please.

Today in therapy we talked about how I grew up with no source of external validation because my parents didn’t give a shit about me, so I learned to tackle goals without needing encouragement from others. This has been a good thing in some ways; I am very good at setting goals and achieving them whether or not I have someone patting me on the back, and that has allowed me to accomplish some really hard things even when I had to do it alone. My parents certainly framed this as a favor--they believed their no-love approach was more reflective of what I’d encounter in the real world and it was better for me to get used to it early.

But at the same time, they deliberately destroyed my ability to validate myself, too. If I was proud of myself for any reason, like learning a complicated piano piece or making it into the National Honor Society, they would tell me that my accomplishments were due to their effort, not mine. Or they would downplay how hard I worked. Or they would say I was “uppity” and “snobby” and thought I was better than them because I was smart/talented/whatever, but academic stuff isn’t what’s important in life, and you are a failure in other ways, blah blah blah.

Like, in 8th grade, I took Algebra 1 and neither of my parents could help me with my math homework at that point since they both dropped out in early high school. I’d get frustrated trying to figure things out on my own using just the textbook because the internet wasn’t really a thing yet. Once after hours of trying to solve an equation, I snapped at my mom because she told me that I was getting too worked up about “math that no one even uses.” I said “just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean other people don’t!” So she laid this guilt trip on me about how I clearly thought she was stupid, and she said I was ungrateful for all the sacrifices she’d made, and she finished off by suggesting that I needed to adjust my attitude and stop thinking I was special because I was smart, because maybe I was good at school but I didn’t support the household or do enough chores and I was inadequate in a million other ways.

Honestly I think that shit is what caused the fucked up reward system in my brain. Like, when I achieve a Goal, there’s no little jolt of dopamine to make me feel good about it. And that looks enough like ADHD that I’ve been officially diagnosed with it twice, but...I really think it’s just that trauma and abuse led me to uncouple feelings of pride, pleasure, and self-worth from the act of accomplishing goals. Pride goes before the fall. Pride gets you taken down a few notches, and there’s always a lower notch for you.

Even when I graduated with my doctorate, an endeavor I started in 11th grade and finished 14 years later, I didn’t feel proud of myself. Maybe for a day or two? But then, nothing. Yeah, I have a doctorate, but really, if I did it, how hard can it be? Yeah, I have a doctorate, but it took me until I was 32 to get it. Yeah, I have a doctorate, but I didn’t graduate with honors. Yeah, I have a doctorate, but but but but. I could have done more, done better, and done it faster.

I can’t feel proud of myself when I accomplish goals because there’s always more I could have done.

The goalposts move as fast as I get to them.

[astrologyandlife]

jupiter and saturn together in the natal chart

i have noticed that, in many of my readings, people have both jupiter and saturn sitting in the same house of their natal chart. this makes sense because a conjunction between the two occurs every 20 years. and to me, this signals an important theme: the need to overcome struggle to unlock the opportunities of that house.

first house - there's difficulty expressing yourself fully. it's like you want to be optimistic and have faith in yourself, but something is holding you back from that. you are almost afraid of being let down. as a result, you carry around this fear and caution about everything. you doubt yourself. when people first meet you, these struggles can be visible to them. the important thing here is that you are the cultivator of your experience, and when you can work through your feelings about yourself and your environment, you will notice that you attract good luck and opportunity. you have the power to consciously change how you approach the world around you through a smile, a little bit of faith, and a more positive attitude. second house - growing up, you lacked some form of security in your life. this could have been in the form of coming from a poorer background, or having a parent(s) that did not consistently care for you in some way. and because you were not valued by those in your early environment, you struggle to ascribe value to yourself. you may develop habits of holding onto things out of fear that you will never have them again. the lesson from this placement is to understand your own worth, and to know that you are entitled to a comfortable, happy, satisfying life. using this framework you will attract wealth and opportunity. third house - the hardest part about this placement is that you feel as though you are somehow "stupid" or your ideas aren't worthwhile. you could have struggled in your early school years for various reasons ranging from not understanding the material to being in an environment that refused to accommodate your needs. you rarely share your own ideas, and you fear being rejected, wrong, or made fun of by others. you must let go of this hesitation and remind yourself that you have valuable ideas to share with the world. you have the power to persuade, to motivate, and to invigorate. in fact, once you stop second-guessing yourself, you will notice that your genius shines proudly. fourth house - your early childhood experiences were, and still are, challenging for you. you could have experienced hardship as a result of being treated poorly by your parents or even going through some trauma in the home, especially if saturn makes aspects to mars or pluto. you have fears stemming from your childhood that hold you back. what is going to be important for you is building a home for yourself that is safe, secure, and stable. in doing so, your chosen family will grow and provide you with the support you need to flourish. fifth house - you have artistic and creative talents, but it is possible that when you were younger, you received heavy messaging that these talents were in some way invaluable or unimportant. As a result, relaxation and self-expression on a creative level is severely restricted. you feel like you always have to justify the things you love. however, you are allowed to simply exist and enjoy things for their sake. once you allow yourself to be creative to the extent you are capable, you will find that it will bring opportunity and happiness to you. sixth house - i definitely get the sense that you have had to be responsible from a very young age, taking care of the chores around the house, watching over yourself, etc. perhaps your parents were particularly strict with you and imposed a lot of restrictions on your daily life. these lessons instilled within you have lead you to desire routine and organization, because you fear chaos. you also tend to put too much on yourself, leading to burnout and extreme stress. here you must unlearn any negative habits or routines you have created for yourself, including overworking yourself. in doing so, you will feel much more calm and collected, which will help you physically and mentally. seventh house - there is a lot of stress and anxiety that comes from long-term relationships. the biggest fear here is the fear that you will never find someone who can fully love and commit to you. though you have a lot to offer, you feel completely

inexperienced or as though you are nothing special. there can be a tendency to downplay your own gifts and strengths. as a result, you feel very lonely in your early life and may be distrustful of love. you are afraid of opening yourself up to rejection and pain, so you avoid forming strong attachments or giving too much of yourself. having faith in yourself and what you have to offer, as well as being confident, will attract people who have an abundance of love and affection to give to you. eighth house - this placement can be heavily indicative of one or more life-changing, traumatic experiences, namely when pluto is involved. this experience has transformed you in some major way, likely inducing a fear of change or the unknown within you. you hold on to these memories and this pain in your heart, which stunts your growth as a person. the second half of the healing must be a conscious act by you, wherein you decide that you have what it takes to continue surviving. there is definitely a need for complete rebirth here. once you have come out on the other side, the magic of life itself will be revealed to yourself. you will become resilient in ways you could never imagine, and you will have the strength to overcome anything. ninth house - i have the feeling that your early life was extremely narrow and did not allow you to explore the world around you properly. perhaps your parents were extremely overprotective of you, or overbearing in sharing their opinions with you, and this was a very suffocating feeling. your own opinions and ideas were not welcome by the people in your life, and often they were even shut down. so you must start anew with your independence. remain open and take time to immerse yourself in anything you can, especially ideas radically different from your own. by opening your mind, jupiter will reward you with a wealth of knowledge and experience from which you can draw. tenth house - early on in your life, ideas of what it means to be successful, accomplished, and a productive member of society were heavily pushed on you by the people in your life. you almost feel as though you aren't meant to have agency in your own future, because you are trying to do what you are "supposed" to do. your parents could have been a bit overbearing in trying to prepare you for the future. trusting yourself and forming your own ideas of success and fulfillment will lead to you experiencing much more opportunity within your career. you must overcome a fear of failure here. eleventh house - on a deep level, you feel completely alone in the world. you feel as though it is impossible for anyone to truly understand you, or that they would even want to try. you are a deeply lonely person at times. i could see this placement as indicating that you were a social outcast or somehow distanced from others in your youth, leading to you believing there is something fundamentally wrong with you that prevents you from forming meaningful relationships. you doubt yourself, thinking, am i boring? am i too plain? am i unlikeable? here, you must cast these thoughts away and put forth effort anyways. twelfth house - the biggest struggle with this is that you feel unable to let go of the past and to forgive yourself. the biggest obstacle here is yourself. you have these feelings like you have done too much bad, or something you have done in the past is irredeemable. you may find that, in times of particular stress, you have nightmares or trouble sleeping. the twelfth house challenges you to let go of all of these things, to forgive yourself. you have to look at your pain and grief and allow yourself to feel it, then to let it go. in some way, you have to completely allow yourself to dissolve. after you do these things, you will find that your life as a whole improves, and you can handle anything much better.

some notes as well:

the closer to conjunction the two are, the more intensely this is felt by the native

if they aspect the sun, moon, or angles, these lessons will come up in the individual's day-to-day life

if jupiter is closer to the beginning of the house, it can lessen the impact of saturn

[briar-craft]

Quick au snippet

It had been almost two decades since Miles Edgeworth had defended Phoenix in the classroom. Since then his father had encouraged him to work hard to become an amazing defense attorney, as well as Ray, Larry, and most of all Phoenix. While they had went to different schools as they were pursuing different careers, Phoenix had been Mile’s biggest supporter. While Miles tries to downplay his accomplishments, he can’t help but preen himself a bit as his childhood friend fawned over him and his work. Some days, Miles even asked Phoenix if he wanted to be an attorney himself as he seemed to have a natural knack for pointing out flaws, but the other young man had his heart set on an art career. “Besides, you’re a lot more level headed than me when it comes to arguments,” he would point out some variation of this remark whenever he was asked. But that didn’t stop him from going with Miles to the courthouse every now and then just for a break from staring at color theory and such. Today was one of those days, though Phoenix had wandered off to give him some peace and quiet as he was a bit frustrated in a case study his father had put him up to and needed to figure it out. He hummed, coming up with a few ideas but decided to go and find his friend to get his opinion on the matter after putting away what he needed. Just as he was getting around the corner though, he could hear a sickly sweet feminine voice along with a nervous laughter. He peeked around the corner to see Phoenix awkwardly squirming a bit as a red haired young lady had basically cornered him, “... Do you really not want to go with me? We would make a great couple though,” he heard her say which made something inside of him freeze, his hackles raising at the insinuation. Phoenix was trying to talk but it was clear that he was flustered and so Miles decided to go over to them. He gently pushed her to the side but before she could retort he grabbed Phoenix by the collar and pulled him into a kiss, the other boy gasping into it, his eyes wide, as well as the girl just staring at them both. Miles pulled away, his cheeks hot as his face bloomed red though he looked at the girl, basically staring her down. Phoenix was sputtering a bit and the girl was trying to regain her composure when suddenly a hand clasped her shoulder, “And just where did you think you were going, little missy? You still have some questions to answer,” the gruff man said, several policemen behind him, ready to take her away. The two boys stared as after the girl glared almost demonically at them, she turned with a huff to follow them. Watching as they disappeared, a few others following after them. But now they were alone again. “Miles...?” “Don’t let it get to your head, Wright, I was just getting you out of the situation you seemed to be frozen in! Come on, it’s time to go!” Miles huffed, unable to look at Phoenix again as he pulled him off towards the exit, wanting to have Phoenix be dropped off as soon as possible. He hadn’t even come out to Phoenix yet about his orientation, but he knew that he had no chance of saying otherwise now and would rather not face the repercussions of it just yet. He didn’t want to lose their friendship. Phoenix stopped them both though as they got to the exit to the courthouse, “Miles, wait,” he said. Miles did stop, his grip on Phoenix’s one hand tightening just a bit as he prepared to be told off when he felt lips press a kiss to his cheek. He sputtered a bit, looking to Phoenix who had the softest and most genuine, if not shy, smile on his flushed face, “Thank you, for getting me out of that, I am bi, but I’ve had my eye on an up and coming defense attorney more than anyone else,” he admitted softly. Miles huffed softly, “... I’m sorry it was sudden... Would you allow me to make it up to you with dinner...?” he asked hopefully, looking to him. “Heh, dinner sounds wonderful.” Phoenix agreed, both of them clearly feeling like they were floating until the doors were flung open behind them. “Alright boys, are you ready to go back-” “Mr. Shields, you almost bashed me in the head with the door, be more careful!” “Sorry, sorry- Oh, uh, hey, why are your faces red-” “It’s none of your business, let’s go!”

[invalid-request]

You don't want me, can we stop pretending you do?

Every time I tell you what I'm feeling and you think it's cringe, that's rejection.

Every time I need your help and you search for an excuse, that's rejection.

Every time I excitedly tell you about something I've accomplished and you try to downplay it, that's rejection.

Every time I try to talk about something meaningful to me but you just ignore me and change the topic to your interests, that's rejection.

Every time you belittle or invalidate my experiences because they don't match your worldview, that's rejection.

What's the point anymore? I have to move on.

[iamanartichoke]

I'm creating my own post in order to avoid adding negativity to someone else's, but I will link the post that inspired this one for context. This post talks about the theory that King Loki is the one pulling the strings, and it's mostly a theory that I can get behind as laid out by OP, but I have a serious problem with the role Sylvie may play in it, which is what this post is about.

So, okay, I was with [OP] right until this part -

Except, King Loki never met Sylvie. King Loki is everything Show Loki could’ve become if he hadn’t met her. Who he still could be, because it’s possible for him now to kill King Loki and take his place. But he won’t do that, because meeting Sylvie set him on a different path. Because she taught him how to love himself, he can let go of his need to grasp at power to feel special and important and in control of his life.

I'm not saying this is wrong (and my criticism is no reflection whatsoever on OP's theory in general, which is pretty sound overall), but I am saying that if the show chooses to go this way, I'll probably rage quit. It's a lazy trope to fall back on - that the only thing that could prevent Loki from becoming an evil mastermind and/or supervillain is meeting "the one" (in this case, Sylvie) and falling in love with her. It's so over simplified.

For one thing, I don't see how Sylvie taught him anything, let alone how to love himself. They may have a bond even after knowing one another such a short period of time; I'll give them that, since they're variants of one another and that strips away some of the layers and allows them to connect more easily. But Sylvie's existence isn't a lesson and while Loki may admire her for what she's accomplished, it doesn't automatically mean he can see himself capable of the same things. Whether he is capable or not isn't the point. He clearly doesn't hold himself in as high regard as he holds Sylvie (which is super in-character for him, to downplay his own strengths and potential even while recognizing the value in someone else's). Maybe he can learn to view himself as favorably as he views her, but to me, that's not what "teaching someone to love themselves" means.

(It's worth mentioning - but I won't digress too much - that at this point in the show, Sylvie shows no indication that she returns Loki's feelings, nor has she gone out of her way to build him up or show him that he's worthy of love, so it really is just Loki's feelings for her that we're relying on, that this point, to carry the love story.)

To be honest, I don't think he even necessarily views Sylvie as a variant of himself, as much as he views her as a separate person. She may know what it feels like to be a Loki, but her experiences are so different from Loki's and her path is so far diverged that it's more akin to meeting someone who knows what it's like to struggle with depression (or mental health in general): their perspectives are similar, and their emotional cores may align, and meeting may make each of them feel like they're not so alone - but she is Sylvie and Loki is Loki and neither one of them can step into the other's shoes and know exactly what it's like to be them. The way that he interacts with her implies that Loki is aware of this - that is, he's aware that they are two separate people, even as Mobius insists that they're the same.

So my point is, even if Loki admires Sylvie or falls in love with her bc of reasons, I would still fail to see how that put him any closer to loving himself. But say it did, for arguments' sake, since that's what the writers are going for. I still feel like it would be lazy to say that this is the one thing that stops Loki from becoming the most evil version of himself. It undermines Loki's legitimate trauma and layers of issues, like his fear of abandonment, his crippling lack of self-esteem, his belief that his worth has never been equal to that of Thor's, his identity crisis and struggle with the idea that he is "a monster," figuratively and literally. By virtue of all of these things being major contributing factors to Loki's fall and his villainy and his need for power to feel in control - which I believe that they are - it would naturally follow that, unaddressed, these would be the major contributing factors to Loki becoming more and more evil until we have a King Loki masterminding the TVA (and, by extension, the timeline, the multiverse, and free will itself - like, that's some pretty significant evil, or at least power).

(Again, it's worth acknowledging that it didn't go that way for Prime!Loki, who proved more than once that he was a good person at heart, and he never met Sylvie either - but, that's beside the point right now.)

But Sylvie can't be the sole person who inspires Loki to address these things, nor would these things just go away or fail to hold the same weight once Loki meets and falls in love with her. Loving Sylvie doesn't change that Loki is a frost giant and has never come to terms with that. It doesn't mean he's suddenly not afraid of abandonment, or of being alone. It doesn't fix the complicated twist of emotions (understatement) Loki feels when it comes to Thor and the concept of worthiness and the truth of their parents' love for them.

At best, one could argue that Sylvie may act as a support system that Loki might not have otherwise had, which would allow him to then confront and untangle his way through these issues to ultimately suceed in becoming the best version of himself. This still renders her role in Loki's life a supporting one as opposed to the one thing that can stand between Loki as he is now and Loki as he has the potential to be (in this case, a full-fledged supervillain).

Loki's issues are issues that will not go away until Loki faces them head on and does the work. Which is a journey, admittedly, too long and complex to be accurately portrayed on-screen in a limited series, but the narrative can either imply that Loki's journey is one of self-love with his feelings for Sylvie acting as a catalyst to his working through the things standing in the way of that self-love - or, it can skip all of that and say that Loki's self-love journey begins and ends with his love for Sylvie, and not only does this "fix" him but it's also the one thing that prevents him from becoming a supervillain who presumably controls all of these things - the TVA, the timelines, etc - without remorse.

I, personally, would have no interest in the latter option, so if it does go that way, I think that'd be it for me. And I realize that a lot of my argument here is focusing on Loki ending up as King Loki, which is still speculation and it may not go that way at all. But I think that - since the show has confirmed it's going to explore self-love through a romance - my points about Sylvie's ultimate role in Loki's journey of self-acceptance are still worth mentioning, I think.