#Mental health isn't real and she is the only person in the world allowed to feel sad or anxious or bad about herself

[fragglerockopinions]

Probably going to give myself a mohawk (there has to be a better word for that) today even though I'm dreading my mom yelling at me every single day about it. I don't know how to tell you this but almost killing yourself makes you realize nothing matters and life is too short to not be able to cut your hair when you want and the way you want and life is too short for it to be as miserable as possible

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for telling my friends I want to use they/them pronouns for a bad reason?

I (19F) am 100% a cis girl, but never really felt like I was "allowed" to be girly or feminine because of a lot of internal and external sexism and misogyny in my house growing up. No one ever really acknowledged the fact that I was a girl, unless it was in a negative sense. I was also homeschooled, so that made things worse because limited social interaction and stuff.

Now that I'm older and have a lot more connection with people through the internet, I'm a lot more comfortable with my identity and genuinely love being perceived as a girl. I understand the gender euphoria trans people feel when someone uses she/her pronouns for me. I also feel a hint of disappointment when people I don't know use they/them for me online (e.g. "prev knows their stuff").

With context out of the way, what actually happened was a few weeks ago. I went through a depressive episode, which came with the usual feelings of not ever deserving good things in life or happiness of any kind, and that no one cared/should care about me. As part of that, I withdrew from my friends for a couple days, leaving our discord server and blocking all of them (I know I shouldn't have done that, we worked it out). When I finally returned, I told them in vague terms that things were rough, I was a mess, and I wanted to start using they/them. I'm the only cis person in the group of 8 people so no one batted an eye about my request and just went along with it.

Here's where I might be the ah: the only reason I asked that is because I thought I didn't deserve to feel good about myself in any way, including my gender. My friends don't know I was asking them for help in basically punishing myself. I know if they'd known they would never go along with it. I also feel like an ah for using my privilege of being cis and having accepting friends to punish myself when there's real people in the world suffering because people refuse to gender them correctly.

Additional details that might be relevant: my friends are great, we met online about two years ago in a bigger server and grew closer and made our own small server not too long after. They know about my mental health issues and have helped me a lot. Almost everyone I know irl is transphobic and homophobic, so my reference for what is offensive and what isn't is kinda off. I still live with my family and they're by no means bad people. I'm also in the process of finding a therapist.

What are these acronyms?

[funnycreatortimetravel]

So the Madoka Magica movie is coming out and there's a lot of speculation about how it's going to end (or rather, be the start of a new series of movies/a show? Idk, it was extremely vague.)

And while I love the idea of Homura and Madoka ending up together because they both deserve some happiness, I can't help but feel like the best ending for Homura at this point is letting Madoka go so she can become a healthy adult (which, let's be real, that's not possible in this world.)

And by "letting go," I don't mean cutting contact or abandoning her, I mean they can still be friends while Homura can become a person who sees herself worthy of living with or without Madoka. Because as much as I love my favorite tragic lesbians, Homura isn't her own person in the relationship with Madoka.

Like, Madoka has a loving family, loving friends, and people cheering her on. And even if she doesn't believe she's good enough to do anything, she still objectively has things going for her, a safety net if you will. And she still has a goal in mind that doesn't involve one specific person, but rather she wants to become someone that people can depend on/wants to help other people (regardless if this is at the cost of herself.) I'm not saying it's a good or even a healthy goal but with some tweaks, I could see the goal becoming something she could work toward as a means of personal growth and not just because she thinks she's useless.

Meanwhile, Homura doesn't even have parents as far as we're concerned.

The only ties she has that we're told about are the catholic school she attended and the hospital she pretty much lives in. No friends, no family, and no aspirations of her own. And because of her circumstances, she really wouldn't be able to. It's no fault of her own. I get why, then, she attaches herself to someone like Madoka. I'm sure ANYONE would attach themselves to Madoka if they were in the position Homura was in.

And then that starts the obsession. A long, tiring journey in which this poor girl sacrifices her mental health, her youth, countless years spent trying to save this doom girl and her doomed friends while she herself is also doomed. She's pretty much made herself Madoka's sole protector while also not allowing herself to even do or enjoy the one thing she wanted in the first place; being Madoka's friend.

It's all but confirmed that Homura hates everything about herself as seen in her backstory and rebellion when she was destroying her labyrinth. Her saving Madoka is the one good thing she thinks she's associated with, so much so that she's OK with dying either to protect Madoka or in a world without her.

Like, the concept of one person being the only reason you continue existing is so unhealthy (note that I'm not saying their relationship itself is, it's just her mindset.) I completely understand wanting to help your friend you know...not die a terrible death, but Homura doesn't think she has anything going for her outside of protecting someone else and that's such a sad thought to me. She thinks of all her past friends as enemies now, and she alienated herself from everyone. She thinks, now, that it's her versus Kyubey, the other magical girls, and Madoka herself. The girl is borderline, if not entirely, suicidal.

I'm hoping so badly that in the next movie, this is the start of healing for Homura (though it probably won't be because Mr. Uro loves his sad/bitter-sweet endings.) I hope this is the start where she's able to piece together who she is outside of wanting Madoka, who she could've been had Kyubey not manipulated her and the other girls into making contracts, had her parents not died, had her body not been as fragile as it was, had her confidence been strong, had she felt she was good enough to befriend and get close to other people without fearing her hurting them or them hurting her.

Sayaka was able to let the bitterness of not being with Kyosuke go, accepting that even though she wanted him, she couldn't be with him and even if she was, she never would've been happy. She was able to realize the flaws in her "ideal magical girl" concept and accept the fact that she's just one person and even though she's not perfect and didn't get the thing she wanted, she's still able to be a hero in her own right in the company of people who actually love and support her because she's Sayaka Miki, not because she's a heroic magical girl.

Mami was able to be honest with herself, similar to Sayaka, that she's not a perfect person, that the perfect magical girl illusion was never her. She's able to admit to herself that she was inherently selfish that all she wanted was friends and family, and that there's nothing wrong with that. She doesn't have to keep up the pressures of being perfect and mature and all-knowing because, at the end of the day, she is still that little girl who almost died in a car crash that claimed her parents' lives, and she has to live with the fact that she didn't and wasn't able to save them even when she had the chance to. And she's able to come to terms with the fact that though she was alone, she didn't have to be lonely. She's able to realize that it's not too late for her and she can make her own family that will stick around with her, flaws and all. And she can be a good role model for her little sister surrogate and also orphan Nagisa, but this time, she can be a realistic big sister rather than an idealistic one.

Kyoko can move past the pain of her family's demise, and unlike Mami, feels as though she is directly responsible for it. She was a naive kid who only wanted the best for her family and yet, by doing the "right thing" her father goes on a massive suicide-homicide rampage and she's left to think that her naivety, that her wanting to do the right thing, was what killed them. But no, it wasn't. It's ok to have hope and to have the desire to help others and do the right thing. While the actions of the wish were undesirable, it didn't change the fact that Kyoko's heart was in the right place and that she could continue to try to help others without fear of it coming back to haunt her. She can let the tense guard she's had up since her family's death and enjoy the little things in life she never got to when she was too poor; food, drink, comfort, and having others around that care about you. While she thought that it was her wish and her misunderstanding of what her father wanted that ultimately killed her family, it's the same desire and intentions that push her to save Sayaka and befriend her and the other girls later on.

Now Madoka is an interesting case because she, like Homura, is sort of trapped in being who they were before they gained powers.

Now that Madoka is essentially back to where she started (unlike everyone else who at least has something/someone in their lives now in Rebellion compared to the OG series where they were missing those intimate connections) again,

she's left to feel like she's missing a key part of herself (only in the OG series, she was missing the confidence she had the in OG timeline as a magical girl whereas, in Rebellion, she's literally the missing part of the Law of Cycles) and you're left to wonder if she'll be satisfied, or will she challenge this new world that seems too good to be true, a world that was made just for her and only her?

And Homura?

Poor Homura.

Being an orphan and having no one, not even doctors or nurses it looks like, be close to you? Being unable to live comfortably due to a physical condition you had no say in? Having to be behind because of said physical condition and then having an inferiority complex WHILE teachers belittle you for things out of your control? So then you consider yourself a burden and truly believe only death and loneliness await you? AND YOU’RE ONLY 14???

And then you think you've met this amazing person, this girl who thinks you're interesting and cool with no ulterior notices, a girl with amazing powers that are as wonderful as her only to have the rug pulled under you and realize that the cost of those powers and your protection is her's and others like her inevitable demise.

So then you attempt to right that wrong because even further than your want to save your friends, you know the system that they're in is objectively terrible and needs to be torn down.

But then you try to warn said friends about the system and all they do is belittle you and admit they're comfortable in something that's designed to kill them before they turn twenty, and when (or even if) they're finally aware of the system and the terrible reality of it, they STILL blame you for not telling them sooner even though you tried your damn hardest? Or even worse, try to KILL you after they find out for themselves?

And then top that off with an oppressive alien race trying to control you and pretty much end your life prematurely or turn you into an immortal Lovecraftian Paper mache creature that looks like it was created by five-year-olds should you fall into despair at the hands of this default depressive system and you'll have to remain like that, killing and trapping people while you have no memories of your life as a human and have to live as an animal of pure instinct and evilnesses until some unknowing other magical girl puts you out of your misery, and the cycle will rise and repeat eternally.

Then not to mention other magical girls who try to "game the system" (which only leads to them dying/witching out even earlier, indirectly harming the girl you're trying to protect) or even worse, the girls see you as competition because they're insecure/power hungry instead of joining you in taking down the system set up so where death is an inevitable thing regardless, indirectly siding with the species that are literally killing them slowly but surely (and yet you're somehow still the problem in their eyes.) And then to add the shit sprinkles to this shit show of life, you have to battle this biblically accurate German clown of a witch that's a bunch of witched-out magical girls mashed together like a Cthulu-esque Ren and Stimpy-type creation (that's also pretty much invincible to everything that you and all of the nukes and missiles you store in a tiny, rinky-dink space-time shield you were pretty much cursed with while everyone else gets a built-in weapon.)

Not to mention the PTSD of having everyone and everything around you die and crumple to bits for 12 years over and over again, failing at every turn to complete the only goal you have for yourself (which isn't even for you, it's just saving another person because you believe you're extensible at that point) and at every twist and turn, you're beaten, bruised, belittled, scared, tired, pushed to the brink and all alone with no one to depend on because you're the ONLY one who can and will remember anything once you have to go back in time.

And then you learn the more you go back in time, the more fate and karma you're attaching to this girl which makes the aliens target her even more because of the level of potential she has. And even worse, you find out that the girl you've been fighting so hard to protect is now an entirely different person, lacking the confidence and outgoingness that made you fall in love in the first place, her desire to become a confident magical girl being unfulfilled because of you.

But you have to play the smaller evil. You have to deter her from making a wish, even if it means inadvertently scaring her away from the idea, even if it means being cold and calculated and harsh because she won't listen otherwise.

You have to crush that confidence because that desire will only lead to her death, but she can't know that because well, you still want her to trust you.

But because you've been trying so hard to scare her away from the idea of becoming a magical girl, she ends up becoming scared anyway and distancing herself from you, meaning you don't even have the comfort of knowing you two are friends anymore.

And even still, all of the other magical girls, including her, always end up dead or turning into witches no matter what you do, leaving you to fight the final boss witch alone and failing every single time because it's just too powerful.

But you can't stop. No matter what, you can't stop. Because stopping means death for you, the girl you love, and the entire world, whether it be because of Walpurgis or Madoka's witch which is only so powerful because of you and your time-traveling shenanigans.

So you do another timeline, and things go wrong like they have for the past 100 timelines so you're just numb to it now, and while you're fighting the boss witch, you get critically injured. And now armed with the knowledge that you'd just be putting an even bigger target on your friend's back, you resolve that your efforts were all in vain and useless and decide to just let yourself witch out because you have no other choice.

Only, you're interrupted by your friend, who's finally ready to put her fears aside and make a wish.

Your biggest fear is coming true and you're powerless to stop it.

So she makes her wish and becomes a magical girl Jesus pretty much and restores hope to every magical girl.

Every magical girl except for you.

She says your efforts are the reason why she was able to make such a powerful wish and thanks you for your service, as if you're an old veteran about to retire, and then she ejects you to a remade world, a world without her.

And you're doomed to fight in this world, the world she gave her life to protect, a world in which only you remember her. You don't let yourself become too close to the other magical girls for fear of losing that connection once the Law of Cycles takes them away.

So you're doomed, essentially. The one thing you've fought to protect is gone forever and there's no one but you left to grieve for her, and you start an endless fight against the new evil creatures in place of witches until you're about to disappear yourself.

But you don't even have the comfort of peaceful passing on because AHA!, that evil alien race wants to you use as a sadistic experiment to inflict suffering on you and the other magical girls while controlling the one saving grace you all had, to restart the terrible system you were trying to run away from in the original world.

So they place you in this fake simulation of happiness and fun and magical girl transformations all for the sake of controlling you and the girl you fought for and thought was safe.

So you take matters into your own hands and resign to destroy the labyrinth, even if it means your death, hoping the other magical girls put you out of your misery once and for all.

But if you die, then who would be left to protect that girl you love so much?

So you take matters into your own hands and override her power, creating an idealized world in which everyone can be happy at the cost of making all of your past friends your enemies later.

Even the girl you love and gave your life for time and time again.

All for the sake of keeping her safe once more from not only herself since you pulled a piece of her from the Law of Cycles, but also those terrible aliens who can only think about themselves and their sick curiosity.

I so badly want a happy ending for Homura, and I'm so hoping that that happy ending is one without magic or Karmaic fate or the weight of 26 years of repeated time travel or having to save her girlfriend from a terrible demise or dooming herself to magical Jesus type limbo for eternity all while she's the only one who can remember.

Outside of Madoka, what does Homura enjoy now in Rebellion? What were her dreams, if she had any? Her aspirations? What was her childhood like (even though we know it was lonely) was there anything in her life that even remotely made her feel that living was worth it?

If and when she becomes an adult, what will she be like? What career what she want to pursue? What interests her? What does she want the most for herself? Power? Fame? Company? Comfort?

And will it even be possible for her to enjoy anything outside of Madoka so long as she attaches her self worth to this one, ordinary girl?

Will she succeed in protecting her at the cost of herself? At the cost of anyone else excluding the kyubey?

Will she give up ultimate control over the world, or will she double down; ok with challenging her friends-turned-enemies all for the sake of her love?

And if so, will she succeed as Madoka's sole, eternal protector forevermore, or she be dethroned and killed, left to rot in a labyrinth of her self-hatred and mistakes? (God, I hope not.)

Or...will she finally be saved and released from the shackles of fate, time, and space so she can live her life as a normal girl, a life she wasn't granted even before she made her wish?

My excitement for this movie is beyond real.

[poisonousquinzel]

"the only reason Harley's called Harley Quinn and not Harleen Quinzel or some other moniker is because the Joker manipulated her into thinking the similarity in her name and the name of a specific type of clown meant they were destined to be together and that means she's intrinsically tied to him forever and can't exist as a character on her own because her origin is tied to him" ass take has gotta be the worst one I've seen as of late,,, like really can't lie it's stuck in my head lol 😭

i wish i could go about life misunderstanding characters this much and thinking that one who's been a canonical domestic abuse victim since her og origin episode / comic, who is partly (story wise) inspired by a real life dv victim who survived

In the afterword, artist Bruce Timm shares that their Harley was based in part on a real-life friend who was stuck in an abusive relationship: “I’m happy to report that the ‘real-life Harley’ did finally break away from her ‘Joker’ and has been happily married to another man for several years now.”

[Source]

is a character who's "girlbossified" when she's allowed to grow past and outside of her abuser himself,, and that that means idk writing her without him dilutes her character and takes away everything interesting and flawed about her? that she should never be written without him / without her world revolving around him, due to him being the catalyst in her origin?

The Joker's part of her origin because he was the root cause of her fall, the villain, the bad guy, the abuser. that doesn't mean she's required to be forever tied to him?

This isn't even a problem in the actual comics or anything. It's just absolutely 100% not.

No one even pretends Joker isn't intrinsically tied to her story, or more specifically her trauma. No one in real life and no one in their universe.

Tim Drake literally mentioned The Joker in like the last chapter of her (2021 - ) comic ffs!!! 😭

"Did the Joker make you want to do that? Do you wanna unpack that, Harley? Do you wanna talk about The Joker?!"

Harley Quinn (2021-) #42

But it's almost like people grow and heal and evolve. Her codependency and shit are flaws that are not permanent and are things she (can) and is working on.

She's riddled with flaws and they've gone nowhere! she's just trying her best to stay afloat and better herself bit by bit because she isn't Dr. Harleen Quinzel anymore, she can never walk into a medical building and apply and expect them to not know who she is upon a singular search in the system.

She's just Harley Quinzel now, she still has the skills and experience and schooling, but she also has a long serious criminal record, severe mental health issues and is living in a city that rightfully does not trust her. She can't go back, she can't get her old life back, and she can't go back to being Her, The OG "New & Improved" Harley Quinn who's world revolved around 1 person and him alone, because she would die.

He'd kill her, maybe not immediately, but he would be the death of her.

And she knows that. It's a lose lose.

The only real option she has is to lay down and die or to survive. To float and swim bit by bit until she finds stable ground.

Until she finds a way to live with herself again.

Harley's "obliviousness" is a coping mechanism that we literally see her dealing with since BTAS.

A warped world view that does in fact make her actions more complex,, and makes the aftermath / come down all the harder for her as she has to grapple with the internal traumatic response to Everything with Joker while also dealing with the world she's waking up to and realizing the real reality of her actions and the actual pain it left behind. It's literally been in her character plain as day since her First Personal Comic from 2000!

It's something taken seriously and something she knows, regardless if she even remembers the crime, that she has a responsibility to take accountability for. She almost lets Clown Hunter execute her because she was involved in his parents death, even though she doesn't remember the night, she trusts Batman enough that if he says she was there, she was. And she's going to own up to being there. She starts a therapy group for ex clowns post Joker War, she's become a (court ordered) professor and during all of these arcs Joker and his influence on her and her life are mentioned and acknowledged and present.

He's not been removed as an intrinsic aspect of her story, but he is no longer the center of her world and that is a good thing.

It's almost like character growth after 30 goddamn years is something that happens.

And! you know who else is intrinsically tied to Harley Quinn's character just as much as The Joker?

Poison Ivy and Batman.

Her three primary connections since the Beginning, since the original series that everyone wants to pretend was so so different about her than it ever was, was Joker, Batman and Ivy.

And a primary goal (Harley wise) for 2/3 people she's been connected to since Batman The Animated Series has literally been to get her away from the 3rd. They've just successfully helped save her in most universes now, even when she's the one who pulls the trigger in the end.

It's been over 4 years since I made this blog and I still cannot wrap my head around this fandom's deep seeded hatred and disdain for actual character development.

"Sorry", but that's just such a disgusting take built on misinformed foundations and idk a personal rage for bad guy characters not being bland, predictable one note entertainment for the rest of their miserable existence in comics until they're shelved for being fucking boring one note d-list characters?

[joesalw]

Old swiftie here. I'm so over Taylor shading Joe. Like, I've always defended her because she, as an artist, is allowed to express herself and sing about her life, but she's literally just been taking cheap, coordinated shots against him for months now and it's just ugly. It's one thing for her to write about her feelings, another to shit talk him to her girlfriends, and a WHOLE OTHER THING to take every opportunity to blast him in front of the whole world. It's even worse to me that he really wanted to be private and now that they're over she's making everything public as a last laugh. He hasn't said anything, he's barely shown his face since the break up. All of this could have gone away by now, if she didn't keep bringing it back up. For someone who talked a whole lot about her accomplishments being diminished by the media in favor of her love life and how unfair that is, right now she's the only one to blame for it. She's really not missing any chances when it comes to talking about Travis and even worse comparing them being public to Joe. And I'm sorry, but some of the stuff she says is just hurtful no matter what unfolded. Wasted time? Really? I just don't get how someone can write such beautiful love songs, be so in love, talk for YEARS about how being private is the right thing and what she needed for their mental health, and then go "wow what a load of wasted time you were, and I gotta tell the whole world about it." She just flipped on him so hard and that's the kind of thing I always defended her from. I'm not finding her at all different from the likes of Kanye. That's not the kind of person I'd like to be around in real life and it definitely isn't the kind of person I want to be supporting. Idk I just really can't with the way she's rewriting history. It's like she forgot she disappeared for a reason and has now fully bought into the idea that he kept her locked in her basement or something. I always thought that if you really wanted to know someone's character you should put them on top of the world and see what they do with all that power and I'm sad to say nothing Taylor has done this year has made me think she's someone I should root for. Working with a rapist, dating a racist/misogynist/zionist then defending him, turning on someone she once implied save her life, the way she handled the Rio shows in Brazil (as a brazilian fan)... It's all just rotten. A real shame bc I've been with her since 06 but better late than never I guess.

A real shame indeed, because she's someone i used to defend a lot as well. But with everything that has happened this year have put such a bad taste in my mouth and also made me realize how her haters have always been so right. I used to think she has improved herself a lot both personally and professionally but to throw away all those character development as a wastage of time just because a relationship didn’t work out is so childish and embarrassing, like how can her fans not see through this?

[youngroyalsforever]

A Part of You is good.

It's emotional, it's impactful, it's realistic. It has a story to tell, and it tells it in an honest way, mostly avoiding melodrama. It has its flaws but they are easy to ignore once you start caring about the characters.

I really appreciated APOY for showing a family struggling with a loved one's depression. Their inability to communicate with each other and support each other felt too true at some points — I paused the film multiple times because it was that difficult to watch. It was different from the way too many media deal with subjects like addiction and mental health. In real life, those things aren't small obstacles on the path to happiness, they are life-long struggles. APOY felt true in this regard. Through a better part of the film Agnes is completely isolated in her grief, so is her mom. They cannot support one another even in the moment when they learn about Julia's death.

Felicia Maxime's character is the main focus of APOY, we see the story through Agnes' eyes. Felicia is good and completely believable in this role. There were a few moments when her acting seemed a bit melodramatic but they could have been the director's choices.

Edvin has a smaller role than the promo campaign had suggested so I get YR fans' disappointment. Even so, he is brilliant in every scene. I was pleasantly shocked by his ability to bring to life such different characters as Noel and Wilhelm. Not that we needed it after three seasons of Young Royals, but APOY is another confirmation that Edvin is an exceptionally talented actor who will make the absolute best out of any material he is given.

Someone who knows about filmmaking more than I do could write about APOY's visual language. I know nothing. I only can say that the film is really effective at making the viewer feeling the characters' emotions.

The one thing I have issue with APOY is its message. I am not a five-year-old, therefore I don't need a piece of media to be a How It Should Be Done manual. A Part of You is a film about recovering from grief but it sacrifices something to be it. Julia isn't given enough space to become a character the viewer could care about. Bluntly speaking, she is there to die so the other characters could complete their arcs. We only see Julia as her depression — she is a burden to her loved ones, her mom doesn't know how to deal with her, her boyfriend is exhausted and overwhelmed by his duties of a babysitter. Her friends are saddened by Julia's death but we don't know the reason for that, it can be a typical young people's reaction to a death of someone their age. Julia could have been a good person outside of depression she didn't know how to handle. APOY only allows her to be a plot device for other characters' growth.

It brings us to the message. The film leads us to believe that nothing could be done. Julia is dead, her loved ones have to understand her death wasn't their fault and move on. I don't disagree with that. What rubs me the wrong way is carelessness with which the film handles the subject of depression. Depression is difficult for anyone, but it's especially difficult for teenagers. They brains haven't finished developing, they biologically incapable of understanding how long life is. To them, any struggle seems like the end of the world.

I am not suggesting that APOY — a piece of media inspired by a real-life tragedy — should have had a different plot, the one that would teach the audience that depression is manageable and suicides are preventable. I think that any character with mental health struggles deserves to be portrayed as a multidimentional person and their death can't be reduced to a reason behind someone else's journey of self-discovery.

[pynkhues]

What do you think about it is about Kendall that’s it’s like, of course he’s the only one with a real friend?

It's lowkey one of my favourite choices on the show, anon, just because I think it's so revealing in more ways than one. Like, it makes sense, not just because of who Kendall is, but also who his siblings are, and the different ways they navigate their way through the world.

Interestingly, I think Connor and Shiv actually have the clearest boundary (or hurdle, depending on how you look at it) when it comes to fostering friendships, and while I think those things are different, I think they're both steeped in these factors of them as characters that shape their experiences of adulthood.

I think Connor's stems from an extremely disrupted childhood between his mother's mental health, her institutionalisation, his father's absence and reappearance, and then his being pushed into a parentified role to the golden trio at a formative age (canon explicitly tells us that too! Camping trips, fishing trips, fulfilling the father duties at Shiv's wedding before Logan decides to show up!) when he should've been away at college building his own relationships, in order to feel he had any sort of place in his family.

Similarly, I think Shiv has been soaked in hatred for her own gender since she's been born. Her relationship with her mother is strained and seems to have been weaponised by her father, she likely went to an all girls school (Spence, I imagine, which is basically the all girls equivalent of Buckley, the all boys school we know Kendall went to) and her own misogyny hampered any genuine friendship attempts. I think Shiv probably had frenemies, but nothing deeply meaningful, because vulnerability and emotional honesty is something she can't allow herself if she wants to survive in a male-dominated household festering in a male-dominated industry. I think male friendships were off the table in that sense too because Shiv seems to have always sought power in whatever way she could, and the two things she has to exert power are her name and her sexuality and at least her sexuality is hers.

I think Roman's a little harder to put a pin in in that sense, because I think he's a little bit of both of them, and a whole lot his own thing. I think he's experienced a part of Connor's disrupted childhood by having been shipped away to school and for his physical abuse, and I think he's experienced a part of Shiv's self-loathing for a part of his identity he can't face up to, but I also think Roman on paper should have friends. Roman's funny and insightful and (most of the time) the right sort of mean, and he's no more self-defensive than the rest of them, but I think the reason comes down to the biggest difference between him and Kendall:

Roman can be honest without being vulnerable, whereas Kendall can be vulnerable without being honest.

Roman as a character isn't actually particularly duplicitous. He can absolutely be an asshole, but he doesn't play to what people want in the way that both Kendall and Shiv (and even to an extent, Connor) do. His moments of vulnerability though are rare, often private, often, still, fleeting and guarded, while his moments of honesty are more frequent, yet often just ugly and naked and there. He fronts to it, and takes it, and usually tells the other person to take it too, which is what he did with Gerri and Tabitha and even Lawrence way back at the start of the series.

Kendall's not an honest person, but he is someone who's inherently vulnerable, and I think it pulls people to him, despite themselves. We've seen it in real time with Naomi and even Greg, and retrospectively with Rava, Stewy and Frank. He can break, he can curl in a lap or bury a head in a shoulder while still telling half truths or nothing at all. God, probably one of the best examples is in 2.04 when he pulls Shiv into a hug while talking around what she actually wants to hear.

Kendall lets people mop up the blood while he either tries to hide, ignore or justify the wound, and I think that vulnerability lets people feel a degree of intimacy with him and protectiveness of him that becomes muddied as they discover that Kendall is inherently a dishonest person and an addict, as it seems most characters in this show have learnt the hard way. After all, discovering that he's not told you a whole truth doesn't erase the memory of the weight of his head against your shoulder.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi, I'm a troubled INFJ asking on how to find an answer for a dilemma I'm having w my family members. I don't truly hate, but I lack affection for my father and sister; caring for them doesn't bring me comfort.

I grew up in a poor family. From a young age, I witnessed my father indulging in gambling and abusing my mother. Our conversations at home were often filled with yelling and swearing. My mother, despite her kindness and sacrifice, couldn't restrain my father's behavior (I believe my mom is ISFJ). We endured many nights of fear and tears as my father gambled away our livelihood. My father never cared about our education or well-being; his selfish pursuits always came first. He never provided for us financially, spending all his earnings on gambling and accumulating debt.

My sister dropped out of school early and never held a stable job. She is stubborn and refuses to listen to advice. Despite my mother's efforts to support her, my sister remains dependent and directionless. As for me, I finally completed university and secured a stable job despite tons of obstacles that could have made me give up halfway. I contribute financially to support my family, paying off debts and even purchasing land and building a house for my sister. However, the lack of love and warmth in my family has left me feeling lonely and disconnected.

I fear marrying someone like my father and becoming trapped in a cycle of misery. At home, I fulfill my responsibilities but keep my distance emotionally. I provide for my family's needs, but I find myself only caring for my mother, not my father or sister. I wonder if I'm selfish or afraid of responsibility for feeling this way. How do I find an answer to this question myself?

---------------------

Growing up in a poor family isn't the issue. The real issue is that you grew up in an abusive environment and thus haven't learned what healthy relationships should look like.

What exactly do you mean when you use the word "responsibility"? Okay, common sense dictates that you are responsible for yourself and the choices you make. But are you responsible for your father or sister and the choices they have made? Do you have a responsibility to fix their mistakes and compensate for their bad behavior? Are you solely responsible for keeping the family together when half of the members don't care?

Yes, it's important to be a responsible person if you want to feel like you have good moral character. However, taking on more responsibility than is reasonable for a single person to shoulder is a serious problem in several ways:

1) It is damaging to your well-being. Responsibility comes with stress, and stress has a deleterious effect on both physical and mental health. Taking on the responsibilities of others compounds stress dramatically. Your capacity to handle stress is finite, which means that you will eventually feel burn-out or experience a mental breakdown or lash out destructively (Se grip).

2) It makes you ripe for mistreatment. Lack of healthy boundaries is a common symptom of Fe overindulgence in INFJs, i.e., it is a problem that needs to be remedied as part of your type development. Taking responsibility for someone else's decisions means that their problems become your problems. If you allow this to happen again and again, you are broadcasting to the world that you are an easy target for manipulation and exploitation. All they have to do is activate your guilt and you'll take care of whatever they throw at you. You'll become a doormat at best and a victim at worst.

3) It rewards other people's bad behavior. Facing up to negative consequences is essential for human learning and improvement. When you take responsibility that should rightfully belong to someone else, you are essentially shielding them from the consequences of their behavior. When there is always someone else to clean up messes for them, what incentive do they have to clean it up themselves? If anything, they are incentivized to make even bigger messes. This makes you complicit in their bad behavior because you are enabling it. When you or your mother are excessively "supportive", you might actually be making this unhealthy family dynamic worse.

Your question implies that you have a duty to always be caring and loving to everyone in your family no matter what. Why do you hold this belief? Do you come from a culture that tells you family is everything and going against them is always a betrayal? There's nothing I can say to help if this is truly what you want to believe.

A healthy family should have a sense of equality and equity. Every member of the family should contribute a fair share. Every member of the family should care enough to only take what is needed (as opposed to take advantage of kindness). Every member of the family should get enough love and support.

When one member of the family behaves in a way that is harmful to the other members, they no longer deserve the privileges of membership. Social "responsibility" shouldn't be one-sided. A relationship is like a social contract where both parties agree to terms and conditions that aim to keep the relationship healthy and thriving. When one party intentionally breaks the contract over and over again, you no longer owe them the duty of carrying out your portion of the contract. Is it reasonable to force yourself to like/love someone who has repeatedly shown that they don't like/love you? Wouldn't this amount to torturing yourself?

Perhaps you think it makes you a bad person for turning on family. Nobody is saying that you have to do bad things to your father and sister or treat them cruelly. The point being made here is that you have a right to be treated with respect and you deserve care as well. And when people don't treat you with respect and care, you have a right to protect yourself from their harmful behavior by pulling away from them physically and emotionally. In other words, you have a right to your personal space, you have a right to set rules of social engagement, and you have a right to end any interaction/relationship that hurts you. Having healthy boundaries means being assertive in advocating for your own needs and well-being.

If you don't learn to set healthy boundaries in your family, this problem is very likely to carry over into your friendships and romantic relationships. Do you want this feeling of loneliness to come up again and again? If not, what you need to do is learn to seek love from the right sources. Family or not, do not hope or beg for a person to reciprocate your love when they have shown you that they are not capable of love. This is part of what it means to have self-respect.

[gynarchyboi]

MsReneeLane isn't available at this time day 9

For those of you who have gone through my training on Fetlife you know these 10 rules of male submission by heart. It's time to share them on Facebook. Submission is a 24/7 and 360 degree commitment that reaches deeply into how a man lives his life.

1.Exercise Daily: Be physically fit for general physical and mental health. A woman cannot train someone too weak to accept her discipline.

2.Eat Healthy: Deny yourself the empty calories of white sugar and starchy foods. Think of your female owner, when you deny yourself. Diet is part of your spiritual path.

3.Read good books. Talk about them: conversation and communication is a cornerstone of good relationships. By increasing your knowledge and expanding your horizons you make yourself a more interesting companion.

4.Volunteer: Be active in your community and give back to society. Join a service organization, pay the dues, volunteer your efforts. By becoming active, you increase the number of people you interact with and you make yourself a more well-rounded person.

5.Accept Discipline. Stay chaste most of the time.: Gain focus and determination by harnessing your sexual desires.. Remaining chaste for the woman in your life allows you to focus on serving her more diligently. If you are single, limit orgasms to the weekends. If you are partnered, surrender when and how you orgasm to your domme. Practice wearing a chastity device until it becomes a natural part of you. Submit to a weakly discipline session from your domme to help you on your path of submission. Never make mistakes to enhance this punishment. Instead, be slavishly devoted and thankful for any discipline a woman gives you. Always do your best.

6.Clean: Maintain a clean and organized living space. Dig in and do the boring drudgery of housework. Your efforts will give your woman enough energy to dominate you. If you are single, live as if a woman might inspect your quarters at anytime.

7.Promote and Support Women: Promote the practical and political needs of women. Doing this will give you a deeper understanding of women. Vote for women in whatever politics party you find yourself. See the promotion of books like mine as something practical you can contribute to hasten the coming matriarchy. Consider how much easier finding a domme could be if there was a movie you could direct a prospective woman to see. You could point at my sub in the movie that I hope to make and say, "I dream of living like that man for the right woman." She will see the love and devotion of this sub and become interested.

8.Respect All Women: Treat all women as if they were the key holders of your chastity belt. Especially treat women with respect who because of age or looks don't have a lot of sexual power. Other women will see this and they will be impressed by your sensitivity to women.

9.Disengage: Abstain from pornography and live in the real world. Limit yourself to 30 minutes a day of leisure activities online. Limit television. Spend your free time working, reading, playing, and loving others.

10.Recite Your Mantra: Intone it several times daily. Do this out loud. Recite it for your ears to hear, "I am only a slave; it is a privilege to serve." This simple act, overtime, will redirect your focus towards serving all women and especially the woman in your life. This mantra will empower you.

Do all 10 of theses. Don't leave one out. Women are always watching. Our eyes scan the herd, looking for the right man to cull and make our own. Make yourself the perfect prey.

Date Jun 24, 2019.

[bettsfic]

ooh, that sick thing reblog is making me remember it! i'm surprised there isn't a lot in the sick thing tag like there is your other fics... i remember, vaguely, you saying you weren't the proudest of it (which is totally fine, as writers, we've all been there. tho personally i loved sick thing!) do you mind sharing what was going through your head / your process writing that fic?

okay before i get into that i want to share this anecdote about Marilyn that is VERY related to sick thing.

context: i'm reading an 800 page biography of Marilyn Monroe as research for a story i'm working on, not *about* Marilyn, but. well, it's complicated.

anyway, Joe DiMaggio (the baseball player) was Marilyn's second husband, and he was an asshole to her because his star was falling as hers was rising so there was a lot of resentment. they divorced and she went on to marry (and then divorce) Arthur Miller.

shortly after she divorced Arthur Miller, she was involuntarily institutionalized by her psychiatrist. at this point in her life, everyone she knew had a personal stake in her fame and so she was just constantly manipulated and mistreated. her psychotherapist in particular, Ralph Greenson, destroyed all of her healthy personal relationships and was controlling every aspect of her life. this is about 500 pages into the book. it has taken me a while to get to this point, because it is exhausting reading 500 pages of an innocent person being taken advantage of and horribly mistreated.

allow me to set the scene: Marilyn Monroe is institutionalized in a godawful facility and completely helpless. no one will let her use a phone or have any contact with the outside world. to get somebody's attention she breaks a window with a chair, an idea she got from one of her first roles. a patient eventually sneaks her into an area with a phone. Marilyn calls everyone she knows but no one picks up.

she has no choice but to call ex-husband Joe DiMaggio, whom she hasn't spoken with since the divorce 6 years ago.

Joe immediately calls her psychiatrist and says that if Marilyn isn't discharged within a day he'll "take the hospital apart brick by brick."

and so Marilyn was then discharged and conceded to treatment at a different hospital, which she only entered on the condition that Joe could visit her every day. and he did.

even though they'd divorced on bad terms, he was basically destroyed by their breakup and spent their years apart working on himself and getting therapy so he could eventually ask for her back.

for years Marilyn endured emotional (and physical) abuse by Greenson. i can't emphasize enough that she was just his puppet. if he told her to stop seeing someone, she did. he planted a housekeeper to spy on her. but Marilyn's breaking point, the line Greenson finally crossed, was that he told her to stop seeing Joe. she finally had someone in her life with her best interests at heart, who had no personal stake in her fame or money (and who was in fact one of the few people in the world who had *more* fame and money than she did), and they fell in love again.

this is basically a full-blown Mrs. Kennedy & Me moment where i'm reading an actual real story of the tropes i write in fiction and going a little insane about it.

okay back to the ask!

for sick thing, i was working through a lot of personal fears about my own mental health, having finally gotten off a really bad med that turned me into a, i don't know, like a vacuum of a person. just empty. i wrote it in 8 very intense days, with a 5 bullet point outline scrawled on a piece of scrap paper and Hotel California on repeat.

my main criticism of it is that i resorted to very Stranger Things-y writing moves that feel cheap to me. flat antagonists with no nuance, love interests who don't have their own individual conflict or growth, over the top high school shenanigans like in a 90s teen movie, a glaringly obvious authorial self-insert with a personally cringeworthy level of wish fulfillment. i like to think that in most of the things i write, i'm pretty hard to find? or maybe not, but sick thing is just my id on a platter. was, rather. a lot has changed since then.

sick thing i think was the final work of a long held aesthetic, and dirtbag was the beginning of the era i'm in now, writing stuff far less driven by personal crises and explorations of self. i can't quite put my finger on what exactly is different other than the fact that i write much more slowly now and put more thought into my stories (at the cost of heart, potentially), and i also feel far less compelled to be read. it's been so long since anyone's read new work of mine that posting my bikeriders fic has been a real trip.

[destinyc1020]

What saddens me the most on this topic, is why are we putting everything constantly on Tom's shoulders?? So what he didn't repost. That young man is being pulled constantly in a thousand directions. His dog just died, he's trying to support Zendaya's movie, he's working, he's expected to help his family and friends with there dreams, he's not been allowed to grieve properly. He's even helping his moms charity by using his name solely to get donations. This is nuts.

Why are we expecting celebrities to say something regardless on there platform?. I just told someone earlier this is a test against not only him, but his relationship, a little bit. He and Zendaya may be deeply in love, but people will turn this around and come after her for being with him if this continues. People don't believe me, but it is true. Because it can affect her career and zendaya overthinks, and possible choices may need to be made. I can tell you right now, that young man would rather break off the relationship than to see her career suffer damage because he knows how hard she has worked for this that he would let it go. I see absolutely nothing wrong with being apolitical. I don't want celebrities speaking for me. I couldn't care less about what they have to say if we are dealing with real world issues. People have been hating on him since he was in school. Enough is enough. And Francesca is not a kid, speak the hell up and tell people that she is being supported as well. If she is. I mean what is he personally supposed to do. Get her a mental health counselor. People aren't going to listen to him. They hate him for being with Zendaya and just being alive, basically.

If I were him, leave the damn play, put a black Romeo in there and let them do it without him. Support everyone from the audience. Give the money back, and just finish off Spiderman with a huge contract. Yes, people want to see him but, no. Get the attention completely off him and put in Daniel Kaaluya and keep.it moving. People have been consistently cruel to this young man for zero good reasons for YEARS NOW since 2016 and before. NOT MONTHS, YEARS. Who cares if he supports zendaya by likes. He liked Francescas stuff as well.

People are going to cause him to remove himself sooner than later from public life. Anything that is positive in the world doesn't have a chance. Look how they jumped on Zendaya over a damn seat at a fashion show regarding Law and were just cruel as ever. She gets it in doses, he gets in every time. From his looks, height, hair, etc.

Fuck racist. But, people should be calling on Elon Musk more so than anything to make this shit stop.

I think I'm going the same way as the other anon. It's not fun anymore. Tooo much negativity towards one person. ALL THE TIME IS INSANE. No racists can remove me,but I will support Tom and Zendaya by going to the movies and watching my TV.

I realized recently...I can imagine Tom and Zendaya hate that their relationship is public. The constant beat downs take there toll. People will lift her on a pedestal and slam him daily or vice versa depending on the topic. They don't care about him. Only if he's a good boyfriend or not.

I always wonder where are his publicist, and why don't they get ahead of shit before it gets to this??? What is he paying for? They sure don't do much to keep him in a positive light I know that much, EVER.

Thanks for letting me rant.

Okay Girl.... I need you to take some deeeeep breaths in and out for me....

Maybe you're just ranting and letting off some steam, but nothing you mentioned is going to happen. This isn't going to affect Tom and Zendaya's relationship, they're not going to quit the play, and I don't think TZ regret anything about their relationship....not even being public. (If you ask me, hiding profusely was stifling and not conducive for a long-term relationship of two massive celebrities in the public eye imo)

I personally don't need for celebrities to speak out on political issues on social media either (especially if they haven't done their research and don't know what they're talking about), but to try and pretend that people aren't going to have ANY reactions/thoughts/feelings about what's going on in the world when they live in the same country, or earth that we live on is just naive imo.

Also, not ALL celebrities were born rich. In fact, MANY were just regular degular working-class citizens like you and me. So to say that some are "out of touch".... Like, how do you know that? How do you know what types of lives some people have had before they became famous? Just saying.... Some have had worse lives than I have even had before they got famous lol. Just saying lol.

Anyway.... I think it's good for you all to take a long break from Twitter (or maybe even all of social media) for a while. Either that, or just limit what you choose to look at. If you see that there's something negative on there, immediately click OUT of tweet, quickly scroll away, or go search something else.

[haleigh-sloth]

I'll take the bait. How is rei's hospitalization not supposed to be something that helped her? The reason she was put there was crazy sure (the one that needed some hospitalization was always endvr) but its not like her kids forgot about her in the end. Also I believe the long time she was there was just for narrative purposes because hrks wanted her to be away.

Sorry I was gonna get around to posting it, I was tired yesterday lol.

I understand it's shown that she got better there. But I don't think enough people understand that 10 years being locked up in an institution is very fucking abnormal.

There is NO type of psychotic break or mental health break down that should lock you up for a fucking decade, unless it resulted in something serious like someone's death. And there is a reason that there is a shift from hiding people away to shifting them back into their community as soon as possible in several countries (not just the US), OR keeping them out of the hospital in the first place with research based protocols. Rei shouldn't have been separated from Shouto for 10 years. That is insane. That literally will make any parent more ill. Every mental health model you read up on will have an emphasis on a support system which usually consists of friends and family.

Endeavor put Rei in a hospital to get her out of his way, not because he gave a shit about her wellbeing.

Idk if Caleb put a twist on this or not, but it doesn't matter because the obvious tone here is "Oh, I got rid of her, she was getting in my way." Not positive. Then:

This is not a happy picture. I mean hopeful yes, but Shouto saying "I'll save her" while she's sitting in this small ass room, alone, staring out a window? I mean this is not...good. TEN YEARS???? I just cannot fucking fathom anyone justifying keeping someone (especially with Rei's circumstances) there that damn long. Holy shit.

And I mean, this isn't even a cultural debate. This is straight up not good for a person's wellbeing, to be separated from the real world, including your damn children only to have to wait for your older kids to decide to come visit you--and only when the hospital will allow it-- for ten years. But if we're gonna talk cultural, look up Japan's average psych bed ratio in comparison to other countries. Their reputation is not great lol. And I've seen plenty of commentary saying Rei's character kinda represents Japan's poor mental health care. It's just commentary so it's not fact or anything, but it's interesting I'm not the only one who thinks this about Rei, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the intention.

BUT, anyway honestly the reason I said that is because I see a lot of "I hope the villains get what Rei got 🥺". And I hate it. Because...she was locked up. Away from her family, no freedom.

Like if the manga is going to go for a "I'll save them no matter what" ending, then why end it by putting them in a place where Shouto felt like he needed to save his mom from?

Also...I mean please. This is shonen, it's a fantasy. We don't have to stick to realistic irl answers to shit. Jail is just stupid, but the hospital ending is even dumber imo. Especially if we're talking ten years like Rei--who was put away by her husband for the purpose of keeping her away from his children.

I mean, let's say we stick as close to realistic as possible without going the jail route--hospitals aren't therapeutic, that's not a healing setting. Mental health care is a community action and the idea is to get people back home with their support systems as quickly as possible. AND! If that's the case then damn, at least show ALL of the UA kids getting their damn counseling sessions too since they've been in two wars? And seen dead bodies of their loved ones? I mean, go all the way with it. But! I have 0% expectations of that happening. So...it's STILL dumb.

Just, I'd rather Horikoshi just go balls to the wall with the fantastical power of love and friendship and acceptance ending. Personally I have no desire to see Tomura or Touya or Toga or anybody end their story in a freaking hospital bed. Just, why. Give them hugs, hold their hands, and send them on their merry, unrealistically sappy way.

[aelaer]

Pinned Intro Post!

I've been thinking about doing this for ages, and it came to mind again and I'm finally doing it. Hopefully this is helpful (especially since links in the summary don't work always on the mobile app).

Links I'd Like To Share With Others: #my-artwork tag | #my-writing tag | the prompt/bingo fills master post | MCU meta/headcanon master post | my AO3 page

How Often Do I Post: 1-4 times a day usually. This only increases when my blorbo (Stephen Strange) has a big media time period. That said, I never try to go over 8 a day. 95% of my posts are queued/scheduled.

What Type Of Things Do I Post: A not-insignificant amount of my posts are going to be featuring my blorbo. Other posts are going to be about the MCU, fanfic/writing tips/culture, fandom culture, LOTR, or something I find funny. A few other posts are going to be what I consider interesting and informational and crossing all sorts of topics, usually tagged #the more you know. On rare occasion I'll post about current politics, news, or disasters, which are tagged as #current events. Finally, if it's something about me or new personal news, it's, well, #about me and #personal. Haha. These are all listed so if you're following me for a specific topic, you can block tags and posts a bit more easily. I tag everything.

I Want To Follow You But Avoid All Your Discourse Posts And Just See The Fun Stuff: Block #current events, #discourse, #fandom wank, and #fandom discourse as I'll put opinions and news about wanky stuff there, and current events cover events that are, well, in the news.

If you want to avoid educational posts that may cover harder things in RL, like finding healthcare resources, tax issues, environmental issues and education, and anything that may touch on parts of the real world that isn't all fluffy, consider also blocking #the more you know as I can't guarantee that it's all positive.

#mental health and #personal are other tags to consider if you're sensitive to the topic. I am interested in the research and promotion of the topic - and I may cover my own harder times under this from time to time.

Do I Accept Fic Prompts: Yes, but you should be aware of what I currently write and the genres I write (i.e. my extreme lack of romance writing. Gen content FTW). The prompt shouldn't be longer than a few sentences too, as I don't go beyond a one-shot with fills and too much detail doesn't allow my own spin on the prompt. You should also be aware that it may take *years* for me to get to yours as I'm still working on the 2019/2020 batch, so if you fandom-hop frequently, you may want to find a faster writer for your prompt. :P (If you think of a prompt to help fill my terribly neglected Bad Things Happen bingo card, it may come a bit sooner? Maybe?)

Other Stuff About Me: I'm she/her though I've played enough online games in the 2000s to be immune to being called "he" so you won't offend me if you forget. I've been writing online for 20 years. I'm opinionated; I try not to be an ass about it, but this is my space so I'm not gonna hide my opinions, either. I think being open to constructive critique is the best thing any artist or writer can do for themselves, even if it's just a hobby for them, and I often reblog posts with the purpose of improving in one of those crafts. I'm pro-critique of any media, anti-hating on fans for differing opinions. I loathe absolute statements, especially with a negative connotation, in the fandom space. I love the willingness to deconstruct and debate in the fandom space. This is probably enough, eh?

[uncloseted]

What has Selena done that’s shady?

Shady isn't exactly the word I would use. I think what I said is that "[Selena's PR team has] patched over a lot of stuff that would have sunk a different artist’s career" and I do stand by that. I think Selena's team is very, very good, and that has allowed her to avoid some controversy that might otherwise have had an impact on her career.

For example, Selena Gomez has been a longtime member of the Hillsong Church, which many celebrities attend. Whenever Chris Pratt is mentioned online, I see someone bring up how he's a member of the "notoriously anti-LGBT Hillsong Church", but with Selena, the narrative is usually more like, "Selena's faith and connection to God is important to her."

The other one that comes to mind is the whole Francia Raisa kidney donation thing. She appears to have had a falling-out with her kidney donor, Francia Raisa, and the details around the donation are a bit sketchy.

At the time of the transplant, Selena said that, “[Francia] lived with me during this interesting time where my kidneys were just done. That was it, and I didn’t want to ask a single person in my life. The thought of asking someone to do that was really difficult for me. She volunteered and did it. And let alone someone wanting to volunteer, it is incredibly difficult to find a match. The fact that she was a match, I mean that’s unbelievable. That’s not real.” She also said that, "there aren't words to describe how I can possibly thank my beautiful friend Francia Raisa. She gave me the ultimate gift and sacrifice by donating her kidney to me. I am incredibly blessed. I love you so much sis."

For her part, Francia said that, "I am beyond grateful that God would trust me with something that not only saved a life, but changed mine in the process. This was part of our story, and we will share it soon, but what is important now is that this is not the only story." So the party line here is that Selena didn't want to ask anyone she knew to donate, that Francia offered, and that both of them feel "blessed" or "grateful" for what happened.

For a few years after the transplant, it seemed like they were on good terms. In 2017, Selena honored Francia at the Woman of the Year awards, 2019, they got matching tattoos, in 2021, she thanked Francia on World Kidney Day, and in 2022, they posted a TikTok together. It seems like they fell out after Selena said that, "my only friend in the industry really is Taylor [Swift]". Many people interpreted this as a slight towards Francia, who's also an actress, and Francia reacted to the article, writing: "Interesting" in a comment under it. Francia unfollowed Selena on Instagram soon after (but none of this makes a ton of sense to me, since I think Selena was talking about the music industry?). Francia may have also been upset that she wasn't mentioned in Selena's documentary, My Mind & Me, which largely focused on Selena's mental health journey.

The sketchy part to this is that Selena's doctors appear to have violated HIPAA by telling Selena that Francia was a match before they told Francia, which is a huge deal. Francia said that, "When I found out that I was a match, it wasn't the way I expected. One day, I got a phone call from Selena, and she's like, 'we're a match!' and I said, 'yaaaay...what? how do you know this?' I had a way that I wanted to tell her when I made that decision- I knew I was going to make that decision, I just needed that time. Like, it's a big thing! So I called my social worker and I was angry." If what Francia said is true, that's a huge violation of her rights. The potential donor is always informed of the match before the person who needs the donation and is given time to make their decision. The person who needs the donation is only told after the donor has agreed to donate. So there may have been some pressure on Francia to agree to donate that there wouldn't have otherwise been.

Getting into speculative territory, some (sketchy, tabloid) media outlets claim that Francia and Selena fell out over Selena's "unhealthy lifestyle choices" after the donation. Supposedly, an anonymous source claimed that, "Selena did the exact opposite of what she said she was going to do when she got well again. She said she was not going to drink anymore, but she did," and that Francia, "told her that she was just really making some unhealthy choices, and that she was concerned for her," which Selena took badly. (For context, it should be noted that people who have had kidney transplants are able to drink without any (additional) negative consequences- the NHS recommends that individuals who have had a kidney transplant "not drink more than 14 units of alcohol a week" and "spread their drinking over 3 or more days", which is the same advice that they give for everyone else.)

Anyway, my point about all of this is that whether it's true or not, whether Selena or Francia should have done anything differently, other actors would have totally had their careers ruined if it was suggested that they manipulated a friend into donating an organ to them and then ruined that organ with alcohol abuse. Selena's team did a really good job of crafting the narrative around her transplant and recovery, and making sure that any questions about how it happened never made it mainstream.

Then there's all the stuff we haven't heard about, but that you would probably expect. Selena has bipolar disorder with psychotic features and has been in mental health facilities four separate times. Given that, it's kind of surprising that there have never been any rumors about her with regard to her symptoms. There are no rumors of her being flighty, difficult to work with, arrogant, impulsive, rude, paranoid... even though symptoms of bipolar disorder must have been impacting her life significantly enough that she needed to be hospitalized. Again, I'm not trying to say that she is or isn't a certain way or that her symptoms do or don't impact her in a certain way- I'm just saying that I think her PR team is very good at what they do, and an actor in a similar situation with a worse PR team would probably have a much worse reputation than Selena does.

[kayleafeon]

What to do when:

depressed

no motivation

have test on wednesday, midterm on thursday, quiz on friday that haven't studied for

have philosophy paper due friday already got week extension for haven't started yet

have computer science assignment due friday haven't started yet

can't start computer science assignment until past 4 completed, only done one so far

been sick for a week and and an extra weekend

mental health is trashed

completely torpedoed personal life a month ago over something really stupid

too anxious about everything to make progress on anything

also too anxious to talk to profs about struggling

can't even tell the whole story of why personal life torpedoed because of sensitive topics involved

no therapist and waitlists are 6 months+

have to go home and deal with family from friday evening through to wednesday morning next week, knowing they'll poke about personal life but not being able to explain fully because sensitive topics again

only real community you have is in the university city but not at the university and very far away from hometown with family

so overwhelmed you just shut down

can't stop deflecting and avoiding responsibilities

probably going to fail out of program

can't even care though because everything is meaningless and i don't even want to be in this program anyway

only reason i'm still here is because i like the program's student society and the ring that i get if i graduate

been spending money on lottery tickets instead of anything useful because the scratching noise is the only thing that calms you anymore

know that in posting this your sister and your ex might see it but don't know where else to go

could go to advice reddit but post would probably be removed by mods and/or people wouldn't give helpful advice

everything feels pointless anyway with world as it is atm

feel bad for not feeling worse about that and just being numb to it

also feel bad for not trying hard enough to make it better or to do better myself

kinda just want to stop existing but only to the point of somewhat reckless carelessness not any actual ideas

just need to write everything out somewhere because otherwise going to scream

also have doctor's appt next week that will change nothing because the family doctor is retiring and can't be bothered to switch medications, just increase dosages

which we've already tried twice and isn't helping btw

and this is how i'm feeling while on the antidepressants and adhd medication

only thing i actually want to do is sleep and kinda strangely donate blood but i can't do the latter for another 2 months

sounding increasingly unhinged as post continues

oh i guess i also want to play league but i've managed to stick to my conviction of not allowing kernel level anticheats on my laptops for almost a year and it's kinda the only thing i've got going for me at this point

missed out on the one community i enjoy's events for two events in a row because sick

writing this all during a cs lecture because i can't even pretend that i am focused or understand what's going on

know that this is probably enough info to doxx me but can't bring myself to care

kinda hope one of my classmates or profs find this

feel bad about eating out a lot because of public speaking presentation from yesterday

likewise about not exercising because of my own group's public speaking presentation from last week

need to respond to people who were going to play pandemic legacy campaign with me to say it's cancelled because im too depressed

also need to read stuff for philosophy class in <1 hour but can't be bothered

might just talk to my philosophy prof about everything because she's pretty chill and it's a small class and it's not required for me to graduate so i can always drop the class if needed

also really don't want to fail the term though because it would fuck up scheduling with the few people that i actually know and i would just be even more alone

wish i could just start on things before they were due but can't even manage that after failing two courses last term

why can't i make my stupid brain learn

i want to just live at home and sleep and do nothing all day but living at home is even more stressful because my mom is always making me clean stuff if i'm "not doing anything important" and gets mad if i say that i'm too mentally exhausted from existing

could just leave and go sleep at the park nearby but then i'd be too out in the open

esp seeing as that park is very interlinked with my trauma

but also just don't want to have to deal with any people at all whatsoever

desk leaving angry red marks on my forearms while i type but can't be bothered to change my position

wanna go back to before i had awareness of the world around me and/or quarantine times when staying home doing nothing was normal

hate hate hate adult life i don't want it why can't i just be a child of a billionaire who is set for life in terms of money but doesn't have to talk to anyone including parents

why can't i just motivate myself like everyone else

realize i sound very much like an angsty 14 year old and hate myself even more for it

how does everyone else manage

actually found myself staring at the kitchen knives at a convenience store and thinking about how relieving it would be to run the edge of one over my skin and let myself bleed just a little bit before realizing how fucked up that is and forcing myself to walk away from the aisle

don't understand how my mental health has gotten this bad, it doesn't make any sense

why is it worse now than when i figured out what had actually happened was traumatic i thought i had processed most of it why now why now why now it doesn't make sense

i just want everything to stop, just for a moment, please

If you have any advice please share because idk what to do atp.

[lookatthativebeenimpailed]

Let me just spitball something... I am traveling in Croatia right now and we were talking about things that change you. Specifically studying abroad. It's been on my mind ever since my tour director mentioned it. I wasn't gone long. Maybe 5 months, it was only a semester. But she was talking about the reverse culture shock. The way that being alone abroad changes you. How people don't understand when you're changed or really why. And that it was really the beginning of the end in my relationship. Whats more is we were only together like a little over a year when this happened. But if I really think I came back different. I wasn't the confident girl who left. Being alone challenged me in a way that was beyond what I could handle. It set in motion the clear, slow and steady decline of my mental health over the next three years. I realized I wasn't as strong as I thought and it scared me. My boyfriend fell in love with the confident girl who had a sense of self. I lost myself. I didn't even realize it until this moment the impact it had on me. I morphed myself into a version who mirrored him and was only concerned with making sure he never left. It's a striking realization. And a rather tough pill to swallow. I still don't know who I am or what I want or what job I want despite having two degrees. Who am I? What do I want out of life? I cover up with humor and smiles but my eyes are still sad and dead. I'm not depressed and I'm managing okay. I'm just lost maybe. Like a ship without a sail or stars to guide it.

How does one go about finding themselves in the world. I have no sense of style I don't not know how to dress myself. But I also don't know how to dress myself. I want to throw everything I own away and start over. Obviously that's unrealistic. Or reinvent myself like literally become a different person. It's so stressful I could actually cry. I am so at a loss and so lost about where to go with my life. Please fucking help me. Of course who helps me will be me but I can dream that some magic fairy godmother will come out of the ether and fix me and make me all the things I want to be.

I've also somehow decided I'm ugly. Like seriously. I look at old pictures and I have to be ugly. I have a decent figure but I am fat and I am so uncomfortable in my body and I don't know how to tell anyone because no one sees this side of me. I am always the confident person around those I know and I'm so fucking tired. I'm tired of being strong. Tired of pretending im good and happy. I'm not depressed to be clear. I know what that feels like and I'm not showing signs of slipping but seriously wtf do I do? Even my best friend doesn't get it. I don't think anyone even knows the real me or is aware enough to know. Literally no one notices me. I'm invisible. Literally. Insignificant. People say I'm important and they love me but I'm always an after thought. People don't message me or check on me or text me or even notice. How long would it take for people to notice I wasn't sending messages and being around. Probably way longer than my ego would allow me to think.

So here I sit. Having alone time on vacation because I love my people but I feel so alone. I just want to be honest without someone judging me. I want to be open and struggle and have someone love me and hug me despite all of it. Not leave me. Love is conditional and it should be. But I want someone to know ME and decide that I'm enough. That isn't too much to ask.