#I use to be so brave about this stuff

[care666bear]

sorry bitching again

Super annoyed that my tolerance to oxy has completely fucked with it being able to do shit for my cramps. I am now in a hot bath with a fan on me so I don’t pass out because it’s fucking 27 degrees outside & my body doesn’t regulate temp properly anymore, thank u anorexia

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine looking at a character whose entire premise is that in every stage of his life, he's made every version of himself into someone that inspires people to such a degree that EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF HIM has people wanting to literally follow in his footsteps in some way or another.....

And coming to the conclusion that like.....the most important things about him are the sum of all his trappings. His entirely homemade developed from scratch could not exist if not for what he already was and brought with him BEFORE crafting this newest version of himself trappings, with his greatest trait throughout all of it being his adaptability; his ability and willingness to roll with the punches and not try to simply weather any opposition or changes to his life but instead reshape himself as needed to better fit INTO whatever new shape his life and the world around him takes. All while managing to carry the most innate, fundamental and necessary aspects of himself from one version to the next. Thus every single version of himself is different but simultaneously every single version of himself is also undeniably the same person.

The strength of this character, to me, will always be that he can be so many versions of himself, he can become so many things, all without ever actually losing or discarding any of the aspects of himself he considers most essential, the things he's not willing to lose or give up just to keep going. Finding that road not taken by most, usually because most never even think to look for it as an option. But one that he's always able to find because the one trick he's mastered in his tumultuous life is threading that needle of not just digging in his heels in an unproductive way but rather being selective about when and where he makes a stand and decides "this is not a thing I'm willing to compromise about" but here are places and ways I can and will change and evolve and adapt in order to make it possible for me to hold onto these parts and keep them as they are.

And that's why its always so mind-boggling to me that so many writers can't seem to think of anything else to do with Dick Grayson other than invent some new reason for him to just....not be that person, or to like just take the character whose most basic fundamental trait he's NOT about to compromise on is willingly giving up his spot in the driver's seat of his own life.....and make him just a passenger in his own life and stories.

Dick Grayson at age nine....at age nineteen...at age twenty nine....the one core thread running through all versions of him is the only way he's standing back and letting you call the shots for him or putting him on the sidelines in some way is over his dead body.

HOW he goes about that, what that looks like, who he becomes and what aspects of himself he plays up at some times and what traits he lets fall by the wayside at other times when they offer less in service to his primary goal here....that changes constantly. He changes constantly.

But those changes are almost always (or at least they used to be/should be IN MY OPINION) made with the intention of keeping certain things about him or his life as consistent as possible.

That's the duality of Dick Grayson that I'm here for. The inherent contradiction of him that COULD allow for endless conflict and breaking new narrative ground in all sorts of ways if mined properly:

His eternal willingness to compromise....but only ever in pursuit of doubling down on the ways he's not willing to compromise.

Forever walking that tightrope in ways that only a kid born and raised in a circus could ever hope to.

[moeblob]

"It's lonely without Bernard..."

[sparky-is-spiders]

Y'know normally I don't feel especially strongly about soulmate aus one way or another but I think Jonsasha and Jonelias are the only times where I think it's genuinely interesting enough to consider or seek out.

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[moregraceful]

Tagged by @soyouwinagain to post 6 photos from my camera roll in the past week, thank you comrade, I was hoping someone would tag me 🫡🫡 except then I had to go back a couple weeks otherwise all six photos would have been my dog at a cocktail garden.

Ivan Fedotov and Erik Johnson at Flyers training camp, Fedotov in full Russian saint mode; a flower outside of an Indian restaurant; Yankees outfielders running away from each other and I'm so mad I only got them running back to position bc they were being SO cute while a reliever was warming up; Keats at the aforementioned cocktail garden, he was sweatin'; giant rotting boat outside of Ikea; boxes containing all of my earthly possessions.

[batsplat]

casey saw this as patronizing or whatever bc he grew up pretty isolated and physical affection was not something he was used to past a certain point in childhood…��

https://www.tumblr.com/batsplat/764372520458715136/qatar-2007-cheek-caress-arm-around-the-shoulder-as

(here, also here) I am always careful not to get TOO deep into making assumptions about the non-motogp relationships of these guys, especially when it's anything related to parental dynamics... have seen some interactions with his father on screen provide evidence for this thesis, but also don't want to read too much into those. but, well. in any case. there definitely is something to this idea that casey is just like... missing out on forms of socialisation that are basically second nature to valentino, to the extent valentino isn't even thinking about them that much. which probably gives us two rather contrasting experiences of that particular moment

we know for a fact that casey was a bit bewildered by how his competitors reacted after winning races... not that he necessarily has a PROBLEM with it but what's up with all these elaborate pre-planned celebrations when you haven't even won a title... and it's so telling that he frames it as a european thing. because it's not!! it's a valentino thing that then a bunch of other riders (including obviously jorge, one of casey's peers) adopted for themselves. but fundamentally casey has this tendency to interpret a lot of his general isolation and loneliness through the lens of cultural alienation, as a way of explaining to himself why he feels so separate from the rest of the paddock, and then he uses valentino as his primary frame of reference for what europeans are like, and there's just a lot of conflating going on here... and suddenly we're getting to the point where valentino becomes very relevant to casey's general feelings of isolation

and I do have like. a hot take about 2007. which I can't fully substantiate, but it's just where I'm at with the evidence and the vibes right now. and it's that valentino really isn't particularly hostile towards casey that year. casey does talk about valentino making some remarks about him in the press that he doesn't like - but it really isn't easy to find what those remarks actually were. like, actual substantial criticisms. if valentino made some remarks with nebulously bad vibes, sure, they might have gotten lost in the mists of time - but if he'd said anything more dramatic than some mildly snide remarks, surely there'd be some record of it. there's only really reporting of casey feeling that valentino's tone towards him in the press has gotten less friendly... which is probably true! but it's also worth pointing out that casey is... uh. a sensitive character. that season, he was reacting with rather a lot of hostility to any suggestion that the tyre difference between bridgestone and michelin might be helping casey out. which valentino did say! but he was consistently framing it not as casey winning because of the tyres, but the tyre different not allowing valentino to compete with him. and valentino does switch tyres at the end of the year, so crucially he does put his money where his mouth is - he's not just complaining for the hell of it, and it's also worth pointing out that subsequent events 100% vindicate that decision. it's completely understandable that casey will have been annoyed by that... and yes, plenty of fans will have gone further in suggesting casey really only was champion due to the bridgestones and some corners of the press were definitely very annoying... but like. in the grand scheme of things, this is still pretty restrained rhetoric on valentino's part, right? it's stuff you can take offence to, but you are setting the bar rather low there

which leads us to the next issue... valentino doesn't completely blank casey like he does some of his rivals at the height of those feuds, he's still willing to engage in small talk and all of that. yes, it's entirely plausible valentino cooled off a little interpersonally towards casey, but. well. they were title rivals. that's kind of... fine? controversial opinion alert, I suppose. it's at the very least expected, surely. obviously valentino had just gone through an unusually warm title fight with nicky hayden et al - but for the most part, consensus opinion is that you're not really going to be friends with the guy you're competing with for the highest prize in the sport. and you sort of wonder how many interactions they could possibly have had before 2007 for casey even to use as a baseline. like, sure, they'll have known each other a little bit... casey's spoken about how valentino would chat to him about stuff not related to motorcycle racing, which is very sweet and all. but presumably we're talking a few pressers and paddock run-ins, right? nothing all that substantial

and if you take those facts together, add in that casey had considered valentino one of his idols... you've got valentino not opting for open hostility in 2007. the lack of any valentino comments memorable enough to still be available today. casey's sensitivity towards criticism. valentino's tendency to cool off towards direct rivals. that they were still friendly enough towards each other at the end of 2007. how there probably weren't many significant pre-2007 interactions. casey repeatedly complaining about how valentino had cooled off towards him in 2007. and of course, casey's long-standing isolation... well, it does leave you with an interesting picture. at a certain point, I do feel like all of this raises an obvious question: if valentino isn't actively insulting casey and isn't just completely blanking him, then why does casey even care if things have gotten a little more interpersonally chillier between them? why does it bother casey that valentino isn't speaking as much to him as before?

and that leads us back to qatar 2007. because my best guess is that valentino wasn't deliberately buttering casey up as much as he just sort of overshot on his default charm and left a little bit too much of an impression on this lonely kid who was having things go his way at last. valentino wasn't being patronising... he just acts that way when he loses races, whether that's his personality or an awareness that charming your opponents can be a healthy approach or a combination of the two. and yes, whether you want to attribute that to his european inclinations or having had a healthy social life - valentino isn't a stranger to a caressed cheek here or there to show his appreciation. and... well, I reckon initially casey was just extremely charmed by the whole thing. by one of his heroes chatting to him as an equal, by the god of the sport warmly congratulating him for his victory - the full force of valentino's charisma crashing into this undersocialised kid who'd been written off as a surly crash-prone loner who was a bit of a handful to work with... all the while, the commentary is informing us that casey doesn't smile a lot. that he isn't known for his drinking prowess, even! we're being actively encouraged to read the moments in parc fermé in terms of how casey doesn't tend to be either particularly sociable or particularly happy. and, well, if you don't have any friends in the paddock, if you're not close to anyone, if you're kind of short on chemistry with other riders... it does take on added significance if the valentino rossi of all people turns on the charm in your direction. and it makes it all the more painful if valentino later creates a little bit of distance in response to your budding rivalry

there's an element of casey overthinking things because he can't quite reconcile the idea that valentino can be so vicious towards him with all the friendly interactions they've had, so he ends up retroactively assigning valentino ulterior motives for all the time valentino was perfectly pleasant towards him. but that's precisely BECAUSE these interactions held a little too much significance for him... more, certainly, than they did for valentino. what european hasn't caressed the cheek of a few of their future nemeses, right. valentino practically tackled toni elias in parc fermé two races earlier at estoril 2006, like he's all over the guy all the way to the podium. (elias is actually cradling his cheek on the podium, so valentino's certainly no stranger to the sensation.) valentino certainly can be a... tactile bloke, let's say. whereas there's a serious possibility that this is the first time casey has gotten his cheek stroked by one of his fellow riders in parc fermé

so yeah. my theory is that casey did take valentino's chilliness to him exceedingly poorly in part because of how those early interactions actually meant quite a lot to him. so to casey, valentino's behaviour towards him stood out in a positive sense... he wasn't necessarily suspicious of the qatar 2007 interaction while it was happening - but casey's a suspicious character, and he did quickly grow wary of valentino. and valentino was still charming towards him at times, and a little colder on other occasions... just playing the game, really, no complex or thorny emotions for valentino to deal with in this particular rivalry. and casey never quite managed to reconcile these different sides of valentino - and it made him revisit all of valentino's behaviour towards him in an attempt to try and establish some sort of consistency. it's easier to believe that valentino was only nice to casey because he didn't take casey seriously as a threat, rather than accept that valentino might still be able to warmly congratulate casey even while plotting to destroy him. if you caress casey's cheek, you'd better not be planning to be mean about him later

[spocksgotemotions]

so like to put kids down for nap I have one kid I read poems to and another kid I make up stories for. And lately the boy I read poems to has started like saying the lines along with me and the girl I make up stories for has started finishing my sentences (every story begins the same way and she knows it!!). And it’s like I tell my coworkers or people this and I’m super excited because not only are the kids being smart but it’s also like showing that I’m making an impact you know?

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

.

[twinknote]

auughhhhh i feel rly anxious and i need to get this somewhat out of my head. cw breast cancer screening

ok so i have an appt scheduled at planned parenthood tomorrow bc i found a lump under my armpit and there is history of breast cancer in both sides of my family. and first of all i need to call them tomorrow bc i forgot that when i scheduled the appt online it said they didn't accept my insurance even though i've literally been to planned parenthood before and my insurance website says they're covered? so i have to fucking call them and idek if i'm going to end up having the appt. which is stressful on its own

but also there is the factor of being TransgenderedTM and not really knowing if whatever doctor i might see will be trans-competent or if it will be a deadnaming + "girl power!!!" situation. plus just. yk. having anyone see and feel my fucking titties who i'm not fucking is like. strange and unnerving. and there is Also the factor of having sexual trauma so having anyone see and feel my fucking titties who i'm not fucking (and sometimes even who i Am fucking!!!!) is EXTRA strange and unnerving!!!! also idk if i would just be having some kind of exam or if i would be having a mammogram or if they even Have the ability to do a mammogram or if they would just be like Yup that's a lump [insert thumbs up emoji bc i'm typing this in an anxiety-fueled rage on my computer] have fun!

idk man i'm justreally really anxious abt this and it's making it worse not actually knowing if it's happening or not or if i'll have to make one billion calls around to find somewhere else to go or if i'll have to wait like 2 months to see someone back home in which case the cancer will have spread to my entire body and killed me and i also won't have insurance. basically i should just die anyway bc this all seems like way too much stress and way too complicated and maybe i should just not see a doctor about it and just simply keel over and die [insert another thumbs up emoji for good measure]

[anothermonikan]

wait hold up you're telling me I can just. edit what my name is on my uni systems by myself without having to scary convo or scary email someone. what. huh. this uni goes wild

[theflyingfeeling]

how dare stores not sell the exact kind of products I'm looking for

[bisexualmaedhros]

transfem furries hornyposting online about the relatively niche/"out there" things they're into have inadvertently helped me accept myself more than the body positivity movement of the 2010s ever did

[famewolf]

OH YA! Spirit Halloween opened up near where I work, so me and some friends went before our shift yesterday and I got a really cool shirt

there were seven or eight of us waiting outside in the parking lot for the store to open and when they did, the district manager happened to be there and was clapping her hands and welcoming us all in lmao ... vaguely embarrassing but the energy was sweet

[bforbetterthanyou]

If you don't like Natalie Dormer's portrayal of Anne Boleyn, how come you keep reblogging her? I hated portrayal (especially in s2). She is one of my least favorite Anne Boleyn's.

I mean, I don’t like The Other Boleyn Girl or Wolf Hall either…

If I only reblogged stuff from adaptations I actually like, then I would basically have…no content.

[nexus-nebulae]

found my ancient mp3 player recently. finally found a charger for it and plugged it in. and remembered i found a yt playlist of the whole httyd movie chopped up into like 20 videos and i downloaded the mp3s of all of them to listen to on the school bus. which is why i can effortlessly quote the whole first movie now