#NO ONE CAN FUCKING UNDERSTAND??? GUYS IT WAS REALLY LIKE. “DO THIS BCS XYZ AND ADD THIS THING SO IT MAKES SENSE WITH ABC” ETC

[psychomusic]

me: i should better design my oc, tomorrow I'm gonna do it!

God: *sends me a vision that carefully explains how to create a cow-like animal from star wars that would make 100% sense with the lore of my oc's wife's village of origin*

[menlove]

last year i took a college course about the history of american ballet, and in one of our assigned readings, half of a chapter was dedicated to speculating about whether or not leonard berstein and jerome robbins ever banged while collaborating on fancy free (basically the ballet that was adapted into the musical on the town, it was their first collaboration). and the evidence was like 1) the ballet opens with a jazz number whose original lyrics are Unequivocally Gay (which isn't that notable in and of itself because A LOT of jazz/blues songs are very gay, but the speculation was that it was a coded torch song from lenny to jerry), 2) a cryptic diary entry in which robbins refers to incompatible sex with a mysterious "B," and 3) another diary entry in which jerry recounts that he stayed the night at lenny's place, working late and talking about the deep stuff until 5 AM. ...and that's it. and i remember thinking, wow, this is really weaksauce evidence in comparison to whatever the hell mclennon had going on. Mind you, it's widely accepted that both berstein and robbins were queer men who had multiple affairs with other men, so that kind of opens the door and grants more credibility to this type of discussion in the first place.

But that was like a big game changer for me in terms of rpf-trutherism because people often say that it's rude/invasive/disrespectful to speculate about real people's sexualities, and i was just sitting there like... okay then explain to me why it was okay for someone to publish all that in a biography that I was assigned to read in an academic context at an ivy league school, explain to me how that is somehow an unworthy topic of academic consideration. or is this speculation only a problem when the presence of queer artists disrupts myths of hegemonic masculinity in presumed hyper-hetero artistic spaces? Is it only a problem because it dispels the idea that queerness is somehow peculiar and peripheral?

I took a different class about gender and jazz music, and in that case, the answer is a resounding yes. For example, there was reactionary backlash to Duke Ellington's son Mercer suggesting that his father may have been involved with Billy Strayhorn, his openly gay collaborator of thirty years. In jazz music, the myth of the "macho"-hetero jazzman with an insatiable appetite for women has been utilized to deflect any inklings of homosexuality, and i would argue the same can be said of rock music. Again, not saying any of these things Definitively Happened, but people's unwillingness to consider the possibility or the notion that this kind of speculation is beneath serious consideration or irrelevant to discussion of creative collaborations is just so narrow-minded to me. sorry for the gay jazz lore infodump, but i just had to get that off my chest.

YES ALL OF THIS JESUS FUCK.....

"or is this speculation only a problem when the presence of queer artists disrupts myths of hegemonic masculinity in presumed hyper-hetero artistic spaces? Is it only a problem because it dispels the idea that queerness is somehow peculiar and peripheral?" this part especially!!!

and like. I get it okay I understand that in fandom spaces at first glance it seems very silly like. yeah okay we're talking about the fucking beatles here. the guys that did a song about a serial killer who killed people with hammers and an octopus with a garden. it seems fucking silly. and ofc people are going to think it's just like. wistful thinking bc many of us are out here writing fanfiction and drawing fanart

but the thing is, when you step into queer, historical academic settings you talk about this shit AAAAAALL THE TIIIIIIME. like I go back to my class w the section on reading the silences! it's literally exactly what queer historians do! because with how homophobic society has been for so fucking long, you're not Going to find it super easy to definitively say "yes xyz historical figure was queer and here's exactly how and here's a quote of them saying they fuck people of the same gender" like that's just not realistic. so instead you DO have to read between the lines. you have to gather up all these sources and put them together and look at the shadow they cast on the wall and go "okay, given what we know about this person, queer people, society at the time, and psychology, what do you think the person casting this shadow Looks Like?"

and yeah, it's not 100%. I can't DEFINITIVELY claim that paul mccartney fucked john lennon lmao. but it's just like. honestly insulting that it's treated as something silly and beneath serious consideration. and there's of Course a fucking aspect of misogyny to it, bc any time the theory is brought up in larger beatles fan spaces, ofc they go on and on about how it's "fangirls" suggesting it. and yet when popular male authors suggest it, they do Not get as much flack. it's ridiculous. and I get that it's different, I do, and again the fandom aspect is Not helping us out, but it's just...... idk

I've like honest to god seen more well researched posts on mclennon than I've seen on some queer historical academic topics that WERE taken seriously. and that's not universal, obviously, I have plenty of beef w how little this fandom likes to source & how we just pass around completely made up quotes/facts w out question but like. there's an overwhelming amount of fans who could quite literally and genuinely write biographies with insanely researched backgrounds on this. but it's not taken seriously bc it's a fan space, bc it's an overwhelmingly female space, and bc suggesting that two of the most famous rock musicians of all time were queer is just too much of a disruption to the status quo

bc even queer people themselves fall into this without realizing it. like yeah, okay, you hate the beatles. that's fine. you're edgy, you got your cool points, whatever. but WHY is it so bizarre and silly to you to think that they may have been queer? queer people can suck too. why isn't it that silly to call them straight? it just goes back to this idea of cisheterosexuality being the default and anything outside of that is so Abnormal and Rare that no one could possibly be queer and complex. no one could be queer if they haven't gone out to a parade with a gay flag and a shirt that says "I suck dick" and even then people would argue about it (hello "sword swallower" pin lol).

loooong way to say I agree and ur so fucking correct and as an academic who's also a fucking beatles rpf truther I'm Tired

[koiturine]

so 👏 in reference to this post...

one idea that i had that's kinda goofy:

the questline would be VERY heavily advertised w the cliche "you're cordially invited to the wedding of ave/n.tu-rine and koi on xyz date"

and it's like an in canon wedding invite that everyone got, they're going to a planet that the ip.c wants to acquire that in reality in its current state is super low value bc of the st/el!la.ron on it

like the leader knows it's there, doesn't know what to do about it, but is doing everything they can to keep everyone happy until the end bc they don't want everyone to freak out (the planet is in MASSIVE debt, but it definitely has the bones to make it back and then some it's kinda like space los angeles/las vegas) honestly it's kind of a mix of "dance until the world ends" and "you can literally pry my payments out of my cold dead hands" bc the leader secretly despises the i.pc so she's going scorched earth

literally everyone that knows avie will just be like "i have no idea who the fuck this guy is" when going to the wedding. there's a lot of ??? abt us aside from everyone genuinely not knowing me, but when they get to know me we appear so painfully incompatible no one could possibly understand what we see in each other

i don't invite any guests, bc the wedding is... actually a sham

like straight up he invited everyone and the as.tral express specifically to indirectly trick them into taking care of the stel.lar-on

a lot of purposefully playing up our affection, going on extremely public dates bc he knows none of y'all believe that we're really in love, and there's a lot of... smoke and mirrors, nothing ever feels quite right about it.

like everyone thinks that avie is seriously being mind controlled, but they manage to pull him aside at some point and realize that his love for me is very real. (but honestly they still think he's being hypnotized) so after that, they pull me aside and i just... it's abundantly clear that i'm not.

if i was mind controlling him, i'd probably be very confident and in high spirits but i have some seriously obvious doubts

express: wdym he loves you sooo much and we've seen you you obviously love him too

me: ...no, of course we love each other, i'm worried about the huge fucking ste\llar0n ruining everything

express: ...oh

since the st!ella.r0n was pretty obviously not bothering anyone, he figured you wouldn't do anything abt it without some kind of incentive and obviously "the i.pc wants it" is nowhere NEAR enough

it's revealed at the end when everything's taken care of that it was really a sham and we're not getting married

...but then after everyone leaves we sit quietly together at the place we had our first dinner date. the first dinner date you saw + the first actual date we had. there's actually a lot of sentimental value to the planet too, since it was where we first met. he went there a few years ago to try for debt collection, and managed to at least get a payment plan out of them.

he came here for a dinner break and saw me eating alone here, made some jokes, we laughed and ended up sharing a whole bottle of wine. neither of us really wanted the night to end.

and here we were again at the same table, quietly exchanging wedding rings with a kiss.

[canpandaspvp]

I forgot, your other thing, bro people who've been dteam from the start or for a while, they don't know the horrors. Idk about your experience, but for me, like, I had an old twt account and as a writer I mainly followed writers but also just some stan accounts

But I liked having dteam stuff show up on my dash, but they're also vicious over there and I didn't want to risk someone seeing "__liked a dteam tweet" so what I would do, is I would see a dteam tweet, and make sure to interact with it, click on it, read some replies maybe open up the qrts and then not like it, all to try and let the algorithm know, hey I like this keep giving it to me without leaving any actual marker that I was there

And having to just keep my mouth shut when I saw people trashing Dream. In discord servers I would only mention him if anyone brought him up first, all my dnf bookmarks were private on ao3. I was stealth supreme lmao

Kinda sad looking back on it, especially cause now I just liberally say, ooh look Tommy's doing this isn't it great, guys Tommy's so funny etc etc

Also, this might be a hot take, but low-key dnis are kinda useless. Like, people like us who duel-wield creators like tommy and dream, I can understand like dni if you dislike someone I like (which I've noticed is a way more common way to do dnis on this side which is an interesting trend)

But on the other side they're like, dni if you enjoy xyz

I followed so many accounts that said dni if you like Dream. So many. But they would've never found out that I liked Dream, none of my socials had it, not one mention of it in my fics

Just an interesting like note lmao

STOPPP I HATE THAT ITS SUCH A SHARED EXPERIENCE :(( i literally did the same "coaxing the algorithm w/o actually liking" thing bc i was so scared of ppl judging me and like. that should've been my sign to gtfo but it's hard when it used to be an otherwise (mostly) enjoyable community. and i also had to be a fake dranti for a hot sec (and in public i keep my mouth SHUT) bc it is terrifying out there 😭

it's srsly so nice to like a creator outside of a subfandom and not have to deal w extreme neg and vitriol !!!

and do not get me started on dni's cause i find them so hilariously stupid sometimes 💀 they work but not in the way that they're intended to work yk?? i tend to use them as more of a blocklist than anything. and ppl who have "dni if you like xyz" in their bios are so funny cause like. how the FUCK are you gonna know and police that if they just don't say it Out Loud???? it really serves as more of a denouncement than anything but then WHY USE THE TERM DNI??

i could keep going but i will refrain, partially because my thumbs hurt and also bc it's too late (early?? idk it's like 1:30) for me to get so heated over dni's

[mallowstep]

Hi, so I am a former pro shipper turned anti turned possible pro shipper again. Originally, I was a pro shipper bc I was shipping irl people (basically they were non famous adults I actually knew and I was publishing fanfic abt them without changing names and stuff). Then I kind of got a clue and stopped. I was getting made fun of a lot bc of that so I kind of became an anti (jumped on the RPF hate train, cancelled anyone people told me to, hated on ppl for problematic ships etc). 1/2

i'm gonna answer this all in one ask, but i'm going to respond part-by-part, to help my information-processing-challenged brain.

i do want to say: i'm sorry you got made fun of. i do think that publishing things about people you know irl without changing names is not okay, but i am sorry you got made fun of. that's not a helpful way to help someone understand that they're doing something wrong, and i'm sorry you went through that.

Anyways, I recently got into a fandom that a lot of people have tried to cancel/shame people for liking, and I’ve been re-examining a lot of my views. It’s tbh a little sad bc most of my friends (while not active in fandoms) have a super anti mindset and would definitely shamed me especially bc of my past if I mentioned this stuff. However, becoming a pro shipper again has been a long, tiring mental process of learning to accept people again and I really appreciate your account for being so 2/3

yeah, problematic fandoms. urgh. i don't want to get into discourse, because like. not trying to do that. but ever since steven universe got called a problematic fandom (what the FUCK guys), i haven't taken that sort of shit seriously. with like, two or three exceptions which i won't list here, because the whole point is to deplatform them so no one talks about them and listing them defeats the point (which is why problematic fandom arguments are so dumb and counterproductive holy shit i wouldn't have known XYZ even EXISTED if people weren't constantly trying to tell me it was bad), and even then it's more of a "i personally do not engage with that."

i try really hard not to judge other people on their interests. i'm a proud homestuck fan. i write warrior cats fanfiction, often about very adult topics. i get it.

when it comes to friends...i don't know if you want advice, so ignore this paragraph if you don't, but it might be worth putting feelers out. people can surprise you. it's up to you what you want to do about that, but frankly, i don't care what your ship opinions are. if you're against harassment, you can be my friend. (you might not want me to be your friend, but hey, that's your prerogative.)

anyway, yeah. i've gotten embroiled in online circles before and had to unpick beliefs from them. it's hard work, and my heart goes out to you. remember that the most important part is that you don't harass other people. i'm a firm believer in "i don't need you to accept me, i just need you to respect me." in other words, i'd rather deal with a homophobe who kept their mouth shut around gay people than an LGBT+ person who told me i couldn't call myself queer.

but i digress. it's hard work, and i hope it goes well for you.

Open to people who don’t label/people trying to become proshippers and stuff bc no matter how people irl treat me, I’ve always felt welcome here. Anyways, absolutely love your warriors stuff and thanks for having such a cool blog. 3/3

i'm glad you feel welcome here! i hope everyone does. i don't care what people call themselves. i'm here to have a good time, and anyone who wants to have a good time with me can.

this is my corner and i say ship discourse is dumb as hell. like sld;fksd;ajfk it's so dumb and not worth my time i've made an active choice to not bother arguing about it anymore. i was tempted to explain why it's dumb, but i'm not going to do that. it's not worth it.

wishing you the best.

<3

[annavysoul]

I can confirm, they introduced themselves as 3 readers and they made a post how Bee is leaving and starting their own channel. They even made a post to support it and linked the blog, that's how I knew of the Bee drama. But yknow whatever. But they shouldn't demonize those poor future apouses lmao, it's not gonna be them, or any of us.

Warning very long, I got carried away my bad lol

But the drama on tumblr is kinda mild conpared to Youtube "readers". At least the readers here on tumblr try to hide the fact, that they're describing themselves very well but yoooooooo.... Youtube readers are a different breed. Most of them are super young (12-13, but there are a handful of readers old enough to fucking know better) and just straight up describe themselves with no shame. I even found some who put pics of themselves lmao. Me and my friends like to go through readings and bet, who is describing themselves as a spouse. There is one reader who has over 30+ vids on Mrs. J, and most readings are like over 20 mins long. How much is there to know about a person, that doesn't exist yet??? But most YT readers are obssessed with the fact, that Mrs. J is from India, what a coincidence that the reader is also from India lmao. I'm not saying BTS wouldn't ever date someone from that country, I'm saying it's impossible to get a specific country, age, height, religion etc from tarot cards. The pics on the cards might give you clues and the cards can say that the person is different from you, but they go into way too much detail. And it's funny because they're always soooo specific for Jungkook and V, but for the other ones....crickets🦗 On one hand it's so sad bc you have these little girls, putting out their private info, looks and secrets for the whole world to see (these vids have thousands of views) and they don't really grasp the consequences of their actions bc yknow, their just children. The internet never forgets. But on the other hand, you have these grown women who, like I said, should know better than these little girls. Not only do they get so defensive if you don't 100% allign with what they said, they are borderline so obsessed of the idea of being a spouse. Like tf??? Bts aren't Gods. They're very attractive celebs, who's purpose is to entertain people with their contents and music (hence the word idol & entertainer), while they do feed into that perfect bf material scheme, it's up to the fan to not actually develop real romantic feelings (a celeb crush and being a stan is something very different). Most are actually fans for very superficial reasons, they just find them attractive, not the music. And if you take the glitz and glamour of fame and money away, Bts are regular human beings, with flaws and issues. Like. The. Rest. Of. Us. They only show you the best side of them, because it's part of the whole idol package. We truly do not know these people, no matter how sincere or authentic they appear on camera. Like so so many were suprised that they wanted to disband a few years ago, bc they couldn't handle the pressure. These readers always believe if they meet/marry them, their life is going to be better and they feel alive again or smth. Most of these readers actually need therapy, I don't mean that in a condescending way. They imagine that their spouse, a celeb they've never met, will be their sole reason for their happiness and only then they are able to fix their issues and unhappiness. That reeks of co-dependency. And even if they'd become couple and be public, then what? A really big big chunk of Armys are actually in love with Bts, no matter if they even know tarot or not (Armys usually claim that only 2% of the fandom are delulus but that's definetly not true🥴). You'd get send d*eath threats, be harrassed, get doxxed, be hated for all eternity, even if you'd decided to break up. Look what happend with Jk and the tattoo artist he only hugged. She lost her job bc Armys were reporting her, some were trashing her workplace, she got threats, her friends got harassed and doxxed and she lost a friend (Jk). Not only that, but people would legit stalk you and try to hurt you, if you were a romatic partner of Bts. Then you also have the tarot side, who'd try to curse youa nd paint you as the evil demon, who is toxic to member xyz. And I don't think you'd want to spend your entire life locked in your house. And I personally could never deal with like millions of haters, no matter how hot my partner is.

Yoooo! i search again in yt and watch a couple of videos... these are kids for go sake🥺🥺 where are their parents and why they let them public private infoooo?!? internet and children isnt the best combination...

and yess, theres also grown up women and thats really creepy, u can understand that children might do that cause they are young, BUT WHEN U ARE OLD ENOUGH, U SHOULD ACT BETTER!! and i insist, they just trying to prove to themselves and to the world that they are worth it to be with a celebrity, like yeah of course u are worthy, like any of us, but this is not the way u know? its weird, i dont think its sane at all, they just are using the cards to feel better, and thats bs. and if it is just a cope mecanism, plz work on yourself, get help, life its better when u are in a healthy place

also its interesting about mrs being from india and most of all the videos i watch where from indian armys, tarot doesnt work like that, yeah u can feel the energy that its different, perhaps different culture and think that maybe it could be a foreing, but the cards will never tell you something that specific, less if u dont even know in person the people you are reading for

we dont know them at all, and people put them in a such high pedestal just for being famous and hot, so i really have trouble to think that some tarot readers can pick their real energy, im a very intuitive person, but i need to be in the presence of the person to feel their real energy, so to be so specific in a reading they need to energise the cards with the energy of the person, they need to at least shuffle the cards and connect with the reader, sooo thats why i only see these reads as enterteiment, and its bad for the community to claim that we can see ALL of about them.

i'll never forgive the people who threaten the tattoo artist, poor girl, and thats why the guys cant have healthiest relationship, let them have a LIFE

[g3nosarchive]

ok i genuinely think a lot of other people have this problem but stop inserting yourself when xyz issue is mentioned. when someone is telling you that a person, a celebrity, some franchise is harming their identity or anyone’s identity as a minority, or part of a certain race or religion or anything shut the fuck up and accept it.

they do not need to know your emotional attachment to said thing, your disbelief, your horror, your personal experience - we didn’t ask for all that. we know just how bad it is, cus yk it harms us maybe? we’ve already gone through the cycle of being angry and indignant and now we’re here trying to get you to understand in the hopes that as a friend you do what you’re meant to do when you became friends with us. we are not your constant ball of anger to use whenever you find something that’s “crazy, unbelievably, shockingly” once again, a hate crime, when you decide you want to feel angry and care about it.

more under the cut bc i talk too much

by doing that, you’re making an issue that you didn’t even know about suddenly yours. ask yourself, what is the purpose for telling anyone all that? to get them to sympathize with you personally so you can get a pass because you didn’t know? of course you don’t know, of course you’re unaware, that’s the whole reason why you’re being told in the first place. do not water down the issue or even try to play the ‘everything has some issue like this so there’s no point in going this far’ card. especially as a white person. the reason why you don’t know primarily is because it doesn’t affect you and it doesn’t cross your mind.

when you watch a show with a black character, you don’t care about how off the character design is or how stereotypical and borderline racist the comedy gag surrounding said character is. when you listen to your favorite white music artists or watch your favorite movie with a majority white cast, white staff, white team, and white theme, you don’t care to analyze just how outdated and stereotypical the way that token asian character is portrayed. some of y’all don’t understand and will never understand the mental struggle and awareness forever plugged into the brain of lgbt and/or poc, especially black people when we consume anything, when we go anywhere, when we meet new people, to constantly catch those micro aggressions and know what to avoid.

so when someone tells you insert classic hot mess is racist and you should stop supporting it, one of the worst things you can do beside outright rejecting it is to defend it and insinuate that we don’t know what we’re talking about, that we need 30 different sources to prove it all, that you don’t think (for example taylor swifts dream colonized africa mv) is bad. you try to say the thing or person that is actively promoting all this homophobia, racism, transmisogyny etc needs to be kindly educated, is trying their best, will learn soon enough, just wasn’t educated, will do better in the future (esp looking at u kpop stans). does their apparent regret but refusal to properly apologize actually matter? the damage has already been done.

that in itself is a privilege i could never have. i don’t even try being a fan of any major white celebrity or any kpop group because i guarantee if i search up their name with ‘racist’, ‘sexist’, ‘homophobic’, ‘transphobic’, ‘cultural appropriation’ behind it something or some image is bound to show up. you will all say “oh they haven’t done anything yet” but when it comes out that they did, they have, and they do not care about who it affects, suddenly it’s a bombshell dropped on you out of nowhere.

it’s not that hard to spot these things actually. if your fav is constantly putting themselves against people of color, saying shady shit about non cishets while being a cishet themself, saying one thing and doing another, or has been silent when their voice was expected to speak up, shouldn’t you notice? y’all will reblog all these posts but in reality only 10% are actually reading and listening and actually digesting this information for future use.

and i think the thing that pisses me off is this is all from personal experience where i’m speaking from. over the past 2 days the amount of times if i’ve heard about the “tea that dropped w meghan markle” is ridiculous and annoying. a girl texted me and i sat there and i realized that she does this on a daily basis to fuel my anger and get me to validate her own useless anger. of course i knew about it and i wasn’t surprised at all - she’s still a black woman.

almost every black blog on here, when they get big enough, deals with some sort of weird shit surrounding their blackness. if you get big on speaking about issues you are now this emotionless token ‘smart black person i can actually trust’ to use as your replacement for google. this is not to say asking questions is bad, but it is so easy to pull up some of the shit you guys ask for. some people get called slurs directly, targeted for being too black or not black enough, attacked for their features and etc and someone mentioned this before but the only people that care in those situations are other black people themselves. white people will have blm in their bio but turn the other way the minute some anon starts acting up in their mutuals’ inbox, calling them a dark1e because they felt confident enough to post some selfies. and then you get sad when we dont go to you for any kind of support? 

i’ve stated sometimes that asking me questions on issues and things is okay, but one of the main reasons i say that is because whether i say it or not, i’ll be asked questions and expected to know everything and i am your personal walking encyclopedia and ofc it’s natural for me to have all this information in my head, as if i didn’t research it myself. but then i think about the numerous amounts of people that specifically say not to ask them this shit because it really does tire you out, that they don’t want to have to deal with this in any space but they still get them. 

and then the ones that don’t even know themself so people will use them as an example and say “well this person didn’t know and they’re ‘marginalized identity’ so it should be fine for me too”. good god just apologize, show that you really care, change your behavior and move on. do you think it was fun being asked the statistics for george floyd’s and other black peoples death in class? that you were being inclusive and giving me a chance to show off my intelligence, to prove to others that i really had something up here and you were my greatest star eyes white friend that gave me that chance? i cant close my posts like this properly but i want you to think about that shit and actually ask yourself if you’d do that. a lot of you will read this and think “i’m not that type of racist” “i don’t have those deep seated prejudices in me” yes you do. you just haven’t been called out on it.

for all the shit ive dealt with above, if i’ve ever talked to you about this before dont come to me to apologize i do not need it and you are not the only person i’ve received this from. i guarantee you that there’s about 20 other people i’ve thought about while writing this post considering i’m a black person in the real world, so keep your guilt to yourself an deal with it

white people don’t add on to this

[quinnfebrey]

Leah actually never annoyed me. I just felt sad for her... I don’t understand why people find her so frustrating ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

she was definitely frustrating to me, but i love her now, loved her arc, and almost love her more bc i didn’t used to

scrolling through the tag for the wilds, i see a lot of initial takes that are missing that these characters can’t just be looked at so black and white. it’s usually really easy for me to just be like “alright fuck that guy” and have someone i just can’t stand, but i don’t have a single character on the wilds i dislike even if as a character they’re being annoying at the moment. they’re so fleshed out that i can see where they’re coming from and appreciate them objectively

i think a lot of people miss the point when they’re just like “i hate xyz... now i like them... now i hate them again...” as they’re live blogging (which i’m guilty of for sure!), as it isn’t that simple. more importantly, i like also that the characters never get redemption arcs for what they do wrong, we merely get backstories into why they made those choices, which is usually even more powerful. none of them have ever made a bad decision without a reason for it, or without good intentions, and sometimes they just make bad choices and that’s that. no excuses, no justification, they just did or said something they shouldn’t have. and i think that what makes these characters so powerful is that they genuinely seem like real people. it is really difficult for me to predict what nora is going to do, for example, because she isn’t just one single archetype.

sorry what was the question? lol

[stvrdazed]

honestly your post is the reason i stopped rping on tumblr and only do 1x1 on discord. i get to just chill and have a good time with my friends without the anons and the stupid rpts. like they make jokes about how, "why haven't we bullied abc for xyz reason?" ik they think they're justified bc of the reason but joking about bullying and actually fucking doing it is not fucking funny.

this might not even be what you're talking about lmfao idk i'm just over it honestly. all the posts about how you have to do your research and do everything absolutely fucking perfect is tiring and i'm over it. like i rp instead of writing a novel bc i'm fucking lazy and don't want to spend 287 hours researching every detail of a plot i want to write. and having to play fcs to the exact specifications of who they are in real life to the point where i'm like, am i just rping as this person now??? yeah like 1x1 where i get to do whatever the fuck i want without rpts whining about about little damn thing people do was the best choice i ever made. sorry this rant makes no sense lmfao i just... hate the tumnlr rpc lol here's my advice guys. go to jcink. go to discord. go LITERALLY ANYWHERE ELSE.

exactly! i agree whole heartedly. i’ve been roleplaying with my small group of friends on discord for a while along with a bit of 1x1 here and there. though, its just upsetting to come back to a platform that shaped you into the writer you are and find these fucking awful people.  roleplaying in a group is not worth the mental fuckery that some of these admins and members put you through. its a group. it’s a roleplaying GAME. admins are not some sort of hierarchy who can judge other people based on if they “like them” or not. some admins act as if they’re bigger than the entire group. it gets down to the idea that you have to devote your entire life just to write this one character because god forbid if you have to be absent for a week.  hiatuses exist, yeah. but i still just dont understand what gives these people the right to be so fucking awful. and you know, i’ll be the first to say it. i’m not innocent. sometimes you do things to fit in places and sometimes you do mean things. the difference is that people who are actually sorry and want to grow from their mistakes ADMIT it and apologize.  thank you so much for sending me this ask. it helped me get some more thoughts off my chest. i really hope you’re doing well and taking care of yourself through this shitty time. you can always rant in my ask box, nonnie. i know sometimes we just need to rant together.

[rhydium]

Info dumbo about the StarFinite story?

aright u asked for it anon GET READY [cracks knuckles] this is gonna be long so obligatory cut in 3, 2........

...1!

so the uh, the au! the story!! w/e yall wanna call it! full disclaimer, i only began working on this whole thing a while ago, but it's totally taken over my fukn brain. like, we're talking big hyperfixation hrs. am i cringe for being this invested in my own content? yes? cool i do not Care >:3€

i should also throw it out there real quick that i am kin w/ infinite, n this is actually one of my two canons (both of which are my own aus lmfao wow). i didn't go into it expecting it to be but sfsfsgdfs here we are ig!! for that reason it's got extra importance to me n this definitely contributes to the euphoria i get from it!! it's a lil odd writing ur own canon,,? but i kinda just go w/ the flow!

the au n, the story that i will start Eventually, revolves around infinite n starline (obvi) n it's honestly just ... the tl;dr is big healing momence n, what's this? uh oh sisters !!! they are falling in love 😳😳😳

uhhhh so infinite is an android, made by eggman. that's like, the most notable canon divergence here! super important context to have. i've got a whole big theory on the possibility of sega originally intending infinite to be an artificial being (which i explored in the works for my Other canon too), stemming from not only the scene in forces wherein infinite comments on sonic's "data", but a line of dialogue from tails in one of the last stages of the game where he Literally Says "so this is where eggman built infinite". that ... i mean. that contrasts w/ episode shadow pretty hard don't it?? would explain why that dlc was so rushed, n the comic too. ANYWAY adsfsfs um that's a seperate ramblepost. yeah!!!

they are also agender n use they/them (primarily) as well as he/him!! so i'll be refering to them w/ those pronouns!

after the war, infinite is taken in by the resistance n, instead of being dismantled, they're basically given a chance to rehabilitate themselves. it's agreed that they won't be reprogrammed, as despite the potential risks, it feels wrong to do so; like a violation of their free will, individuality n thinking. if infinite is to be a good person, it's not gonna be bc other ppl recreated their entire personality, it's gonna be bc it's what they themselves truly want. robot ethics idk man!! u can't tell me that sonic n co wouldn't offer this to infinite if they offered it to metal in IDW,,,, i am Standing By This!!!

it's, yknow, a bit rocky, at first. infinite has to really fight the urge to return to eggman (something they already tried once, before the resistance found them; they were cast out). it's a struggle against what they were built to do, against giving into unhealthy familiarity over facing a, while healthier, unfamiliarity. new faces, a new life, turning their back on their mission n creator, it's like, a lot.

they work for/with the sonic crew, rebuilding the world they tore down as deemed fitting justice, being closely monitored for a bit as a natural precaution. as it becomes apparent infinite truly no longer has any ambition to harm others (they don't have much ambition for anything, really), they're then granted more freedom, n start taking on more important missions!! it at least gives them something to do, keeps them occupied. they have issues with dissociation, unreality, whether they're truly a real person bc, well, android. feeling purposeless, n a lack of worth, especially. a need to prove themselves. heavy stuff. i'll kinda go into that a bit more in a sec. their work grounds them, if only temporarily.

n soooooo... IDW comic stuff happens. metal virus time. starline gets kicked out of the empire.

now, as the comics are ongoing, n as this is already an au, there's gonna be divergence, n i must admit i haven't planned out all that yet. there's a lot i have to consider!! infinite being w the resistance/restoration is a big game changer ... tho i Do believe that they were absent, likely on a far out mission during most of the chaos. eggman doesn't know abt them, nor does starline or anyone else other than the sonic crew; n some civilians that recognise them.

i'm not 100% sure of Exactly when it happens, but i think it's just after bad guys, that infinite is sent to locate n bring in starline. it doesn't prove too difficult. there's a whole, starline realising "oh fuck it's you???", some bickering n, the two don't hit it off right away. they're both kinda like. not mentally stable ddgddgdds,,,

so uh. starline ends up essentially going thru the same sorta shit as infinite. careful watch, rebuilding, all that jazz, making sure he can be trusted. he's like... very very lost, quite like infinite is. the world has kinda calmed down, in the meanwhile.

it's at this point i'm gonna go ahead n drop a bit of a ramble i subjected my friends to a while ago, to articulate the way i see the two, n their dynamic together!! i was considering making this it's own post a while ago!

analysing their characters a bit... let's look at starline. Like. so we have this, in bad guys, which SENT ME tbfh;

i feel like it's the moment that triggers starline onto the path he is rn canonically,,, he's clearly like. rly mad n bitter. the core of this?? he wants his work n his efforts to be acknowledged.

he's big angry. still kind of in denial at this stage. he has himself obsessed w/ the idea of making eggman see him as Worthy, that if he just tries hard enough, that'll happen. he's dependent on eggman's validation, n i mean, it's no surprise; he's followed him a Long Time by the sounds of it.

then in the recent issue, hold the fuck up, bc we got, This;

god. my god it's all comin together now homies. this???? this right here??? it is the CLASSIC "i have to do this to prove i'm strong n powerful n smart n worthy n should be respected please Give Me Acknowledgement" ..... n who else is Like That? can u see where im going w/ this?

i think most ppl are aware of infinite's character being extremely indicative of self worth/esteem issues n the need to prove themself, right?? the extreme adversity, repulsion, perhaps even fear toward the idea of being weak. the compulsion to prove otherwise, to show their strength, to become powerful, to conquer to make a point. their theme exudes this same energy as their behaviour in-game; an aggressive attitude, trying to assert themself, while if u rly listen...? the lyrics are actually really sad in places. it reeks of cover up, although composition wise, a v interesting thing to note is a lot of the more telling lyrics are prominent while some of the affirming ones are in the background. indicative of a desire to have their true feelings be heard but caught in a vicious loop?

okay okay that's yet Another different analysis. AHEM.

not to get deep on main (oh who the hell am i kidding that's the point of this entire thing) but i think starline has issues w/ his worth in a similar way to infinite. they both seem to have this need to Prove something, whether it's to others or themselves, n get caught in a toxic spiral of doing worse n worse things for Some kind of validation or acknowledgement. they'll go to really big lengths chasing that, n both of them ultimately sought validation in the wrong place n wrong way.

this is a big part of my starfinite dynamic,, n so, what happens, as they get closer n open up??? we have them BOTH realising together that they don't have to do fuck all to prove anything to anyone. they don't need to do all this to show they're strong n smart n worth something, not to anyone else OR themselves. they're enough as they are. they bond over that shared feeling that they have to do xyz, to prove themselves, n that desire to just finally be acknowledged n appreciated n help each other thru it. to help each other understand that other ppls approval, or lack thereof, doesn't define them, their strength, intelligence, and worthiness.

i feel like they have an interesting parallel between them in like... the above could be taken as a general analysis, but to go more in depth on this au specifically?? ...

starline followed eggman for presumably a long time n it no doubt left him feeling a heavy and deep regret for all that time wasted n spent on an unhealthy path. infinite kinda teaches him that what matters is what he's doing Now n also reminds him that if none of it happened, starline wouldn't have learnt a lot of the serious skills he has. n while starline still feels bad, he also realises himself that, he likely never would have crossed infinite's path if none of it happened. for that reason, he wouldn't take it back.

infinite has only been recently made, on the other hand. they haven't really existed long, yet, but so far their experiences haven't been very positive n it can be .... discouraging. starline sorta, shows infinite their limited experiences w/ the world are a very tiny fraction of what's out there, n things can absolutely change, yes, including for the better; that's the essence of life, a neverending, constant flow of change.

it's a big tale of moving on n letting go, honestly; made easier as they're doing it together. n as they heal n grow, well... these bitches gay. sfshshdgds like, ig that's putting it p bluntly but!! they start to trust each other, understand each other more. as they get to truly know who the other is, they both start developing The Feelings. they're both pretty oblivious n the reveal is totally unknown so far!! yeah, i know, bummer. i suck. boo. adafsfsds however i can say there will be lots of content in the making!! if that soothes the soul! i've got of ideas i hope to bring to life.

ofc there's still a lot of more specific things i haven't covered here so! if y'all want more juice hmu w/ more focused questions but !! this is the overview n i hope it was a decent read now that gave some uhhh! Cool Insight! yea!!! ✌

[kimnjss]

Fuck it.

They're both idiots and both horrible. I take no argument on that. NONE.

Up first, Jimin. I appreciate that he told her that instead of just sleeping around or restraining himself for 2 years and thus possibly being annoyed with her because he felt she was a hindrance to him doing whatever. But he's a fucking dumbass. You don't tell someone you want to be able to see others and then end up plastered everywhere putting your dick in all these women. Especially since it was clearly a constant. More so because even if it wasn't on the internet they went to the same school and he's well known, so him sleeping with everyone was bound to work it's way back to her. It wss just a dumb fuck move, but I don't blame him or hate him for telling her what he wanted in an attempt to not end up doing it and hurting her more.

That leads me to my other issue with him though. Despite him being the type to focus on what he wants, he was good at gauging YN's shit too. Her feelings were something he was aware of. So him coming back after telling her that and sleeping around is fuck shit. Especially because he should at least realize that seeing him plastered everywhere after sleeping with this and that person would hurt. Especially if his dumbass didn't keep in contact. That part should be fucking obvious, which should lead to understanding of how telling her he wanted to see others as he worked hurt her. Even if she is the one who broke up with him.

I refuse to say he broke up with her because they were broken up and that was very much her decision, not his.

Now, on to dumd fuck YN. Her feelings are valid. Going through all that and then having him decide he wants to see others would hurt like a bitch. And since I don't know if he emphasized that his seeing others was temporary or not to her, I can't touch on that. Not that it takes away from her pain. But what is not valid is her deciding her fuck girl antics making her kinda shitty. I brought it up before and I just despise this rating game she's doing. It's trash. Even if the guys don't know, her friends do. And no one seems to he telling her shit. Like wtf JK! I expect better from him. To stop her from being that bad at least. And for Hoseok to not have to he the one to call her out on her shit. Like JK has dropped the ball and I don't care for him at the moment tbh.

But anyway, to go to the mention of her rating people. I could be wrong in this, but I'm going to say it as if I'm right. Because Jimin's sexual exploits were everywhere for her and anyone to see she wanted to do the same thing. Put her sex life on blast on the internet, but she doesn't have the balls to make that clear to others not in her friend group let alone Jimin. So she plays her little rating game and it's almost like she's on an even playing field with Jimin. As if they're both hurting each other with annoucing their conquests. Which just makes shit sad. Makes her kinda sad to think about.

Like I want to get that she lost her friend and then her boyfriend, but seeing as Jimin didn't make that choice until he was leaving to somewhere else from New York she should've been processing that shit. It takes a while, but that should have been in motion. Especially seeing the dumpster fire of a "friend" fles after he tried to hurt her one last time. So I can't truly accept that as part of the reason she's acting out. It's basically a nonfactor for me when it comes to it. And it isn't a necessary addition. Him hurting her is enough for her to make a change (even if part of that change makes her kinda trash).

I also feel the need to point out she can sleep around all she wants, but issues are with everyone else.

Oh and back to Jimin. Well not Jimin, his friends. I need those dumbasses to stop telling him to drop and actually fucking sit there and tell him he needs to fucking see past what he wants. Yes, they say it but intertwining it with leave her alone forever isn't helpful. Tell him he needs to sit and think about what he did. Or lead the dumb bitch to the answer. Fucking do something. Punk ass Yoongi still got shit to make up for and is bestie's with Hobi so he might as well be useful for once. AND YES I'M STILL MAD AT HIM!

Like everyone is failing at this point expect Hobi. I only trust him right now. It's fuck JK hours if that wasn't clear. Disappointing little shit. Also I get because he and Tae are being baby back bitches who refuse to address whatever the fuck happened he'd be less inclined to get YN to, but I expect better from him got damnit. I'm surrounded by idiots and Hobi.

Also to repeat YN is just as bad as Jimin. They are equals. Until he learns what the fuck he should already be seeing or she admits her feelings and talks to him they shall remain equally dumb bitches. Though I expect her to make things worse, ngl.

Sigh... I shall live in a world where I get to love and cuddle Hobi so I don't have to deal with Dumber and Dumber.

Also I apologize if that's all over the place, I lost focus during some parts.

righhttt! jimin telling her wasn't a bad thing, honestly. he thought he was doing the right thing instead of sleeping around behind her back. he knows himself nd the fact that sleeping around even crossed his mind, he figured breaking things off with her first would lessen the blow . buut what he failed to realize is that w his new fame and the fact that he's been with everybody – everything that he's been up to is like right there in her face.

him not seeing that how he acted would hurt yn simply comes from him not wanting to believe that he would ever hurt her. because he loves her. just how he didn't want miju to have feelings for him, so he just ignored all the signs. jimin hasn't changed in that sense that's the way he's been and it takes someone literally pointing it out like this is xyz for him to finally be like 'oh, maybe that could be true'.

yeah, she definitely broke up with him. but bc jimin wasn't technically onboard, him going back and saying 'we should definitely see other people' was like a double back on it. up until then they were just holding out for each other.

for jeongguk and hobi calling her out (gonna skip over jin bc that boy is in love and really doesn't have time to worry about all this pettiness) but hobi has (and will) on many occasions try to call yn on her bullshit, but she'd either brush him off or explain away her reasoning until he's backing off. jeongguk use to back hobi up, but since his break up with taehyung he's been siding with yn more and rooting for her outlandish behavior. so it's lowkey two against one nd they never listen to hobi, but he never hesitates to point out where they're wrong.

this. the rating theory, dude. this is why i love reading your asks so much bc that's exactly it! mixed with her not wanting to get attached so she thinks doing this would keep them at an arms length, but honestly – it comes w her having to see jimin doing his thing left and right and she's sort of like 'i can do that too'. but of course, they're still in college and people talk, so she doesn't want to be the point of gossip, so she does it secretly nd keeps it between her and her friends.

jimin's friends not speaking to him properly and only telling to leave yn alone is mainly bc they saw everything that yn had to go through with getting over jimin, but at the same time them being friends with jimin is kind of a blocker?? if that makes sense, they know how jimin is aand how he reacts in situations and how he can sometimes be overbearing, so if they were to tell him what's wrong he would do the most and might make things worse. also, they're all in their own lives (joon being newly married, taehyung dealing w his feeling for jeongguk) that it really leaves it to yoongi to fully step in and he's already feeling some type of way for ruining things the first time.

yn is definitely not in the clear though, they've both did their part in making the relationship the way that it is now. and it's going to take the both of them to fix how things are going to be in the future (if they have a future) but it's just jimin who's going to have to take the first step nnot only bc yn is stubborn, but bc he 'left' first.

hobi though, always listen to hobi. he's the only rich guy we can trust!!

[sunsetsover]

I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on Ben having BPD

ok WHEW you just opened a fucking can of worms this about to be the longest post i’ve ever made i hope you have your seatbelt on

let me just preface this by saying nearly everything i talk abt in this post will be based off of my personal experiences w bpd. some people experience it differently, some people might not agree w some of the things i say, but i can only talk abt my own pov. therefore, this just my own personal opinions on ben having bpd. so yh lmao

and disclaimer!! i’m not a doctor!! don’t take anything i say in this post as diagnostic criteria! i’m not an expert or mental health professional!! when it comes to your own mental health or the mental health of ppl in your life, do not consider me a source to reference like ‘oh well lauren sunsetsover said xyz’ like pls just don’t do that. do your own research. and most importantly consult a doctor!!!!!! i am not one!!!!!!!!!

also there are very few sources in this post bc most of this is just shit i’ve absorbed over the years from doctors and doing my own research lmao

now that’s out of the way let’s go! (this became part character study, part informational masterpost on bpd. also it got really fuckin long, hence the read more, so be warned lmao)

warning for potentially triggering content (abuse/mentions of suicide and self harm - nothin too bad but i do touch on ben’s behaviour and history, and this is a p serious mental health issue we’re talking abt here so! take care of yourselves!!)

ok so! some things to keep in mind before we even get to ben:

i believe (at least in the uk) borderline personality disorder is considered to be an outdated name, and one that essentially isn’t appropriate or fit for purpose anymore, so in my experience, a lot of the time now it’s referred to as eupd (emotionally unstable personality disorder) in medical settings. which is way more apt name imo, and tells you more abt what bpd actually is (but i still call it bpd bc it’s easier and ppl know what that is lmao). so like. emotionally unstable personality disorder. i bet that conjures up a way more vivid idea in ur head than borderline  personality disorder does.

no one 100% knows what causes bpd, though it’s thought to be a combination of genetic and environmental factors, like most things. but the general consensus is that bpd develops when something (usually traumatic, but not always in an extreme sense. ppl w bpd have often been victims of some type of abuse in their childhood, but that’s not necessarily always the case) happens in your childhood that impacts the development of your personality. kind of a bizarre metaphor but hopefully it will help u understand: u know how in finding nemo, the egg nemo was in got damaged by the shark? and even tho the damage looked minor, it actually meant that one of his fins was permanently damaged - it was malformed, it didn’t grow right, he couldn’t use it properly? well imagine the fin = the personality; that’s what happens to a person w bpd’s personality. smth happens to us in our childhood that permanently damages our personality, and so it doesn’t grow and develop properly as the rest of us does, making it less functional than an average person’s. u can imagine how that can lead to all sorts of problem (we’ll get to them later)

but bc it’s a mental disorder that affects the personality, you can’t be diagnosed w bpd until you’re 18, when your personality is basically developed fully (i believe it can be diagnosed slightly younger, but those are rare and extreme cases). however, symptoms can start to present themselves earlier, as ur personality begins to develop and mature. (mine started presenting in my early teens)

bpd doesn’t really go away, and treatment with medication generally isn’t effective for long periods of time. however symptoms can be treated with continued therapy, and symptoms sometimes can start to ease as you get older!!

bpd also gets misdiagnosed a lot bc a lot of the symptoms are similar to that of other mental health problems. the biggest one it gets misdiagnosed as seems to be bipolar disorder, which i get tbh. i’ve always considered bpd very similar to bipolar, just like… quicker cycles. there are even memes about it. also bpd has a tendency to coexist w other mental health issues, which makes it harder to recognise and diagnose.

so now lets look at this from a diagnostic perspective

in order to be diagnosed w bpd you basically have to deemed, by a medical professional, to be meet certain criteria, and to have been meeting these certain criteria for a significant amount of time. there are some variations to this criteria, and proposed subtypes and basically different flavours of borderlines but i’m not even gonna go there. i’m just gonna talk abt what i’m most familiar w and how i think that applies to ben.

i’m copying and pasting the diagnostic criteria part from here bc as far as i’m aware this is the criteria doctors use for diagnosis. there are 9 different ‘indicators’/’criteria’, and you have to display or meet at least 5 of them in order to be considered for a bpd diagnosis:

1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment

this is one of, if not the biggest part of bpd. that trauma i mentioned earlier? often stems from or is related to abandonment, or perceived abandonment, in childhood, be it physical or emotional. for example, a child that’s being abused by one parent might feel abandoned by the other parent if they don’t do anything about it, even if the second parent has no idea the abuse is going on. sound familiar? a similar thing happened to ben, with stella. phil not doing anything about the abuse ben was facing at the hands of stella - even though he didn’t know it was happening, even though phil did do something once he found out - was an abandonment to ben. and that’s just the tip of the abandonment iceberg for ben - kathy faking her death and leaving him was an abandonment (even when he thought she was actually dead), phil’s own abuse was an abandonment, as was his reaction when ben came out, and so on. and abandonment like that skews your thinking so you believe that everyone is going to abandon you, sooner or later, that they must be abandoning you for a reason, you must be a terrible person, you must be unworthy of people’s effort/time/love etc etc.

even when paul died, that was an abandonment to ben! like logically we know - and ben probably knows too - that paul didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to leave ben, he didn’t deliberately leave ben. but that doesn’t matter. mental illness is illogical, bpd is illogical, esp when it comes to abandonment. e.g. my therapist had to cancel a few of our appointments once bc she was ill, and it felt like an abandonment. like it was personal somehow, like she wasn’t coming into work bc of me, bc i was too much work, too hard to handle. ofc that wasn’t true, but that’s how it felt. it’s illogical. so ofc my solution was to just not go to my appointments even when she came back, bc like what other response is there lmao. it’s just that everything a person does feels personal, like it’s because of/about you, even when it isn’t. even when it has nothing to do w you. that’s probably why ben can come across at selfish at times, like he’s making everything about him. because it is all about him, in his mind. everything is because of him, is his doing, his fault etc. his way of thinking is skewed into thinking like that, bc shit keeps happening to him and ppl keep leaving him, so it must be his fault.

and!! ‘frantic efforts’ isn’t necessarily what u think it is!! it can be desperate begging ‘i’ll do anything to keep you in my life’ type actions, but it just as equally can be lashing out and abandoning someone in order to prevent them from abandoning u first - a ‘get them before they get me’ mentality  (the whole scene where phil was in the hospital comes to mind - the ‘why doesn’t he love me back?’ was the more desperate part of him, tho it wasn’t necessarily an ‘effort’ per se, but then him trying to kill his dad basically in order to have the abandonment be at least on his own terms? that’s lashing out, and def qualifies as a ‘frantic effort’ lmao). and how often do we see that in ben? lashing out at jay in the hospital because he knew he was mad at him, and he’d rather hurt jay physically before he could hurt him emotionally? ben trying to support callum and showing him kindness, only to turn around and threaten to out him when he finds out callum asked stuart to sort him out? everything that happened w his dad, trying to fuck him over before his dad can get there first, trying to get rid of keanu so he can’t be abandoned in favour of him (although that didn’t really work, but it rarely does work the way u want it to lmao). and the biggest one to me, though probably one that people have already forgotten, is him breaking up w that guy he was seeing in newcastle even tho they were into each other bc he ‘had to, otherwise [he] would have ruined his life’. even tho we don’t really get details, that says it all to me. it’s v much a pattern that’s present in ben.

2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by extremes between idealization and devaluation (also known as “splitting”)

i feel like this one doesn’t need much explaining lmao

here is a definition of splitting from here (which is a very good article on splitting imo if u wanna read more abt it): ‘Splitting is a term used in psychiatry to describe the inability to hold opposing thoughts, feelings, or beliefs. Some might say that a person who splits sees the world in terms of black or white, all or nothing. It’s a distorted way of thinking in which the positive or negative attributes of a person or event are neither weighed nor cohesive.’

a little explanation of it from me: ppl w bpd can sometimes have very simplistic, all or nothing views on things. and splitting is basically when ur opinion on something or someone changes very quickly (sometimes instantly), often to an extreme (e.g. going from loving and idolizing someone, to absolutely fucking hating them, or from having a neutral opinion on something to suddenly becoming extremely angry abt it) sometimes without even having an identifiable trigger. it links into black and white thinking, which u may have heard of before - u either love someone and they can do no wrong, or u hate them and they disgust you. either something is amazing or it’s terrible. there is no grey area, no in between. it goes back into the whole ‘not being able to regulate ur emotions properly’ thing lmao there’s rarely nuances to our emotions or feelings, we’re all or nothing a lot of the time. so splitting is when ur opinion rapidly changes to one of these extremes. sometimes u can even go back and forth, splitting over and over on the same person/thing which is super fun.

ben splits on his dad all the time. all the fucking time. he doesn’t care about phil at all and wants to ruin him, then he wants phil’s approval and to be welcomed back into the family fold and the business. then ben hates him and wants him dead, then 5 minutes later he wants his love, wants to be a good son again. that’s splitting. u can also see it w jay, too, but no where near as extreme as w his dad. and i’ve seen it a couple of times w callum too, but again, it’s way more subtle. u probably wouldn’t notice it if u weren’t looking for it, whereas w phil it’s obvious.

but like i don’t need to explain ‘unstable and intense interpersonal relationships’, do i? just look at the relationships w phil, w jay, w lola, w callum, even w paul - they were unstable back when they first got together, and were arguably kind of intense too. (he settled a bit w paul, but his death/perceived abandonment fucked him up a lot beyond the expected ways). he’s always arguing w the ppl he loves. he tried to get poor billy killed, and yet since then he’s had no problem w him!! none of his relationships - apart from maybe his mum and ian (i don’t include lexi bc she’s a child) - are stable. and i would definitely describe his relationships as intense lmao

3. Identity disturbance: Markedly or persistently unstable self-image or sense of self

u can see this most - as most things - in his relationship w his dad. he fluctuates between seeming to know his worth (and demanding other people know it too), knowing he deserves his dad’s love and approval (why else would he be so mad abt the fact hes not getting it, if not bc he knows he’s worthy of it? if he didn’t think so, he wouldn’t be so angry abt not getting it - he’d be accepting/understanding, wouldn’t he?) and being desperate to do anything to get his dad’s love/approval, even things that are below him, turning into a child, begging to know why his dad doesn’t love him, why he’s never been enough. that scene where phil had found out abt ben trying to frame keanu and leaving him for dead is the epitome of this. u can see ben fluctuate between a hurt, traumatized little boy, begging his dad for some answers, some explanation as to why he’s not enough, begging him not to start drinking again, and a man who is angry, angry at his dad, angry at himself for crumbling like this, bc he should be stronger than this. u see him change multiple times in that one single scene. go watch it again. you’ll see it too.

some more examples: his absolute certainty that he is better and more qualified than the likes of shirley and keanu for working with his dad, and then being like ‘my dad was right, i’m good for no one’ - they don’t line up. does he have self esteem and know his worth or not? also his entire relationship w callum is an example of this - all those changes in his attitude towards cal and their situation? he often treats callum like they’re equals who understand each other, yet sometimes it seems like he thinks he’s superior to callum (e.g. the scene outside the cafe), and others he behaves (keyword) as though he thinks he’s not good enough for callum (why else would he just take all that shit from whitney and not say anything in retaliation? why, if not because he deems it more important that callum has an easier time of it than he does; that he regards cal’s comfort more important than his own? and why would he do that, if he held himself in such high regards? i mean he certainly acts like it sometimes, so why not then?)

also like……. who is ben? is he the bastard who cares about no one but himself, who’s always causing trouble not only for himself but for the people he cares about? is he the guy who just completely folds when people he knows hurtle abuse at him, accepting it lying down, who thinks he’s no good for anyone? the guy who goes out all night and drinks himself silly and purposefully gets himself into fights? the guy who shows callum so much empathy even tho it brings him nothing but pain, who loves jay unconditionally, who tried so hard to help bobby when he came back from prison? which one is he? which one does he want to be? does he even know?

(and you could argue that people are just multi-dimensional, but there’s just such a vast gap between these different facets of ben’s character and he can flip through them so fast it’s jarring, which is why i think it’s more like he straight up doesn’t have a consistent sense of self. which is a big part of bpd)

4. Impulsive behavior in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating)

again, does this need explaining?

doing illegal shit, excessively drinking, becoming unnecessarily violent, fucking up his relationships, just generally doing reckless things regardless of the consequences - this has always been a part of ben’s character.

(his constant hook ups could be another one, but the jury’s still out on that one. if anything it’s less the sex that worries me and more the flippant attitude he has when meeting up w ppl - they could be anyone and do all sorts, at the end of the day)

it became most obvious recently around the anniversary of paul’s death - drinking himself sick, gambling all his money away, deliberately starting fights. but even before that and since then it’s been there.

it’s basically just a way to self sabotage.

i feel like this one isn’t a consistent part of ben’s behaviour like the others are, but it is undeniably there, so.

5. Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-harming behavior

although ben (to my knowledge) hasn’t displayed any suicidal behaviour, he has at times spoken in ways that could kind of sway that way. (i’m no good for anyone, i’m not worth it, why do you care etc)

also self harming!!! just because he doesn’t hurt himself in a direct way doesn’t mean he doesn’t deliberately put himself in situations where he’ll get hurt, and that is self harm!! letting stuart beat him at pride was self harm!! picking that fight w those homophobes at e20 was self harm!!! drinking to excess is a form of self harm!!! putting himself in harm’s way, even if he doesn’t get hurt, is self harm!!!! just bc he might not be self harming in the traditional sense doesn’t mean he’s not hurting himself!!! this one has been on my mind for so long!!!! oh my god!!!!! he absolutely has a pattern of self harming/self destructive behaviours, and just a general disregard for his own safety and well being!!!! the fact that it doesn’t worry more ppl in his life is so upsetting to me!!!!!!

6. Emotional instability in reaction to day-to-day events (e.g., intense episodic sadness, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days)

aka the biggest part of bpd: pt 2

i feel like this definition doesn’t really do justice to this aspect of bpd. this is basically you literally having no control of your emotions. ‘day-to-day events’ have fuck all to do with it half the time. u could be sitting there minding ur business and all of a sudden you wanna smash up the entire room, for seemingly no reason. one time i was crying - like uncontrollably sobbing, a complete mess - and had been for maybe half an hour? and then all of a sudden, literally mid sob, it stopped. like it just stopped. i was done, i wasn’t sad anymore. i went from inconsolably crying to perfectly fine in a split second. can you even imagine that? it’s fucking crazy. that’s what having bpd is like. it’s like mood swings x1000 (that’s why i describe it like bipolar on a smaller scale - their mood swings last days/weeks/months, ours last minutes/hours, sometimes days but not often). you can be fine, then all of a sudden you’re not. or you can be not fine, and then all of a sudden you are. you can be ecstatic, then all of a sudden all the joy gets sucked out of ur body n u wanna die. then 5 mins later ur fine again. u can cycle thru every single human emotion in the space of a few hours with no warning whatsoever. u can go from feeling so many emotions u don’t know which one to focus on to feeling none at all. it’s exhausting. so yes ‘day-to-day events’ (this can be as minor as the way someone speaks to you, or not enjoying ur food as much as u thought u would, and it can make u terrifyingly sad or spark uncontrollable rage in u) can trigger it, but it’s like… at least that’s kind of justifiable. most of the time u just cannot regulate, control or predict ur emotions whatsoever. and often the emotions u do feel are not appropriate for the situation at hand lmao

on top of that, ppl w bpd have massive problems processing their emotions. while most ppl have the capacity to identify what they’re feeling and why, ppl w bpd often can’t. and bc they can’t identify it properly, they don’t know how to process it. that’s why emotions and feelings are so often black and white - we might develop the ability to recognise Big Emotions, like love and hate, happiness and sadness etc, but we can’t figure out the smaller, nuanced emotions. it becomes or, not and.

this is also why our emotions feel so big and all encompassing!! we can’t ignore our emotions!! they are our focus in a lot of ways. when ur sad, it feels like the world is ending, every single time. when ur happy, ur euphoric and nothing else matters, and so on. every emotion has the volume turned up to 100. that’s why our emotions sometimes come out in extreme or unhealthy ways - our emotions often feel so big we have such a hard time handling them. so we go to drastic lengths, whatever they may be, to cope.

(also bc most ppl w bpd are victims of abuse, we’re often hyperaware of other people’s moods, which can impact ours. someone can be annoyed for some innocuous, innocent reason, and yet bc we can sense it, we become scared or defensive and may lash out.)

and ben… little old ben, have u ever seen him have a rational reaction to anything in his life? how often have we seen him have an appropriate response to smth? my dad is shit, so i have to destroy him. failing that, i have to kill him. oh, my brother isn’t gonna let kill him? time to punch him in the face. my daughter ate all my cereal? it’s Overreaction Time. (this one in particular is Very Me like yes lexi is a child and he was unfair but my 7 year old cousin once drank all my j2os and i almost had a breakdown so i Get It) i’m feeling like shit? time to antagonise these homophobes until they beat me in the middle of the street. i sleep with this man once? time to get overly involved. he shows me a little bit of love and kindness? time to develop feelings for him despite him insisting he’s straight, the fact that he’s with a woman and i have been harassed and beaten by his homophobic family multiple times. but it isn’t going the way i wanted it to? time to impulsively hit him for not knowing what he wants, then immediately regret it.

and like. he went from crying his eyes out in his dad’s kitchen to threatening kat slater within the span of what, 10 minutes? he went from trying to kill his dad, to falling tf apart w jay, to trying to manipulate his dad - who had just woken up from a coma - for his own gain again, in the span of maybe an hour. if that doesn’t say rapid cycling, inconsistent emotions idk what does.

like idk enough about the old bens to say if this is a consistent characteristic of his or not (although based on the fact he killed a woman bc he was angry w his dad, i’d say it’s fairly safe to assume lmao) but ever since he came back his reactions and emotions have been pretty much never once been rational, stable or consistent.

(and like i wanna say i am saying all of this from the perspective of the bad days. so if you’re thinking ‘well, ben isn’t like that all the time’ ur right. neither am i. some days i’m fine, some days it’s not that bad, sometimes i can cope. but i still have bpd, even on those days. and imo, so does ben.)

7. Chronic feelings of emptiness

this is one i don’t really see in ben. we maybe see moments of emptiness, but certainly not enough to call it ‘chronic’.

also a lot of the moments we do see emptiness in ben, i feel like it’s forced emptiness, more for his own benefit or for the benefit of others rather than actual genuine emptiness. it’s not that he’s not feeling anything, it’s that what he is feeling he’s not showing. that’s very different from actually feeling empty.

8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)

this! is! such! a! massive! part! of! having! bpd! and it’s a part that no one ever fucking talks about either!!!

and again, does this one need explaining?

ben is anger. he’s a ball of it, and he has been for a very, very long time. he’s angry at his dad, at the world, at himself. for all sorts of reasons, both complex and simple. if i sat here and tried to get into all of it this post would be twice as long as it already is. and i don’t think i really need to, anyway. it’s not as if any of us need to dig very deep to see it, is it?

‘frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights’ like i really don’t need to elaborate do i? bc what does ben do when he’s angry? his temper flairs up, he gets physical, lashes out, makes threats.

and he’s so often angry in response to emotional pain, which is the saddest (and for me, most relatable) part. just look at paul’s anniversary, how angry he was just in general, to everyone - even his mum, who is like the only exception to his anger since he’s been back - when he was just hurting and sad. how angry he got when he found out keanu had replaced him in phil’s will, when really he was just hurt. he gets angry and violent so people don’t see him as weak bc he’s hurting. he has been conditioned to get angry instead of getting sad. it’s not healthy at all.

there is so much more but i feel like it’s unnecessary for me to get into it. bc u know. ben’s not exactly subtle in his anger is he lmao

9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

this is the only other one that i don’t see in ben at all, and it’s one that i don’t really experience myself either so i don’t even have any insight to offer lmao

so!! more or less 7/9!! that’s a passing grade for diagnosis!!! welcome to the club, mr mitchell!!!!

all of this, of course, has been purely from a medical, diagnostic standpoint (w some of my personal experiences sprinkled in lmao). there’s so much more to say from like a ‘living w bpd day to day’ standpoint but like, this post is already way too fuckin long so i’m just gonna hit on a few that i feel are important in regards to ben, and ones i have’t spoken abt yet

most ppl w bpd have a ‘fp’ or ‘favourite person’ (tho it can be multiple people), which sounds nice but it’s kind of a really complicated and difficult thing tbqh. here’s the best definition i could find: ‘When someone with BPD uses the term “favorite person” to describe someone else, they are typically insinuating that this is a person they cannot survive without. For BPD sufferers, the favorite person is the person who is a source of emotional support and dependence. This individual has the ability to truly impact the BPD sufferer’s day in either a positive or negative manner. The favorite person to someone with BPD holds a critical role in their lives by holding the power to ‘make or break’ the successful navigation of daily tasks and struggles.’ it’s a difficult thing to explain/understand (so please feel free to google ‘favourite person bpd’ to get a better understanding), and is not always as dramatic as it sounds, but it’s like… even if they aren’t a source of ‘emotion support’, ur mental wellbeing can hang on this person’s every move. (which is not healthy, i know, but it’s just a thing that happens w bpd!) and phil is absolutely ben’s fp. ben hates phil, and yet is still so desperate to be in his good graces, in his life no matter what that costs him… and ben’s self esteem, his actions, his moods are so dependant on phil. it just?? makes so much sense to me. i realize it may not make much sense to someone who doesn’t have any understanding of what a fp is, but like if u do, i’m sure u see what i see.

i think maybe jay was another fp of ben for a while in the past. i don’t think he is as much since ben has come back, but in the past?? maybe. like less in the ‘my happiness is dependant on u’ way and more in like a ‘i’m very very attached to u and need u in my life and would maybe go crazy if anything or anyone got in the way of that’ way.

and i think callum might be sneaking into territory now too tbqh. it would explain why callum’s actions and words have such an impact on ben’s moods despite not much really happening between them. and like i wanna say: someone becoming ur fp is not a choice. it just happens. it’s not like ben is going ‘oh im going to get overly attached to u just for a laugh’, no. this would be completely out of his control. and when it happens, it fucking SUCKS. so if that is what’s happening, it’s going to have a massive impact on ben - and it seems like it already is.

and like taking the whole fp thing out of it (bc i know it’s complicated and hard to grasp) bpd would explain why ben seems to be so attached to callum even tho very little has actually happened between them!!! like bpd will have u falling in love w someone who just shows you basic human kindness and decency, and i mean that very literally!!! bc like i said when you have bpd, you struggle to navigate and handle basic emotions, so all the nuances of romance and love? jesus christ. it goes back into black and white thinking - i either love this person or i hate this person, there is no in between. so callum, showing ben kindness? showing him support with what’s going on w louise and what happened w phil? not hating him and thinking he’s despicable and evil and all those things people say about him? and ben, having bpd? he probably wouldn’t be able to comprehend that maybe cal’s just being friendly, esp not after they slept together. so ofc he would latch tf on to that. i would latch tf on to that. his behaviour towards callum just seems very on brand for having bpd to me, genuinely.

and !! all those things whitney said the other night !! people complained about him not arguing back, but like… she’s almost saying what ben wants to hear, when it comes to callum. bc i touched on it before but like the thing is when, you have bpd ur thought process is like ‘i care about this person, they are good, i don’t deserve them, i am bad, i am going to ruin them, i’m probably manipulating them into spending time with me and caring about me, but i can’t let them go, i need them, i bet they don’t even like me, i don’t deserve them, i don’t want them to get hurt, i don’t want to hurt them, i am going to hurt them, in the end.’ (and eventually it spirals into ‘actually they’re probably going to hurt me first bc everyone always does so let me completely destroy this relationship so it’s unrecoverable and hurt them now so they can’t hurt me later’ but that’s another story) and whitney more or less confirms that for him!!! in essence, what she says to him is ‘you’re bad, he didn’t want anything to do with you but you manipulated him into it. you don’t deserve him, you’ve hurt him, you’ve hurt me, how could you do this?’ so like… ofc he’s not gonna argue w her. he’s already had a shit day, all of the fight is gone from him, and he agrees w her!! i’m sure he was thinking that he deserved what whit was throwing at him - not necessarily for what he’d done to her, but because he is Bad and callum is Good and he needs to stay away from him, otherwise he’ll ruin him. bc that’s just what bpd brain tells u, even when u’ve got no basis to believe it. (unless ur splitting or experiencing a big emotional high, but again, that’s a different story)

and that kind of makes sense as to why he’d go to the wedding. going back to the anger instead of sadness thing - he’s hurting, so he’s going to get angry and vengeful. he has been hurt, so now he is going to hurt in return. esp considering both callum and whitney have seen him in such a vulnerable state. it’s probably a pride thing, too.

also just to expand a little more on the ‘unstable sense of self’ thing - ppl w bpd (and also victims of abuse, but sometimes that particular venn diagram is a circle) tend to change the personality based on who they’re with. which is what most people do, yes, but i mean the Extreme version. it’s a trauma response thing - u’ll reflect parts of a person’s personality back at them, or even take bits from personalities of ppl u know they like in the hopes that they’ll like u more like that, as opposed to ur real personality (if u even know what that is). and sometimes those parts stick (esp when you idolize the person u stole them from/they’re your fp), and it’s like u all of a sudden realize ur entire personality is built of parts of other ppls personalities that you’ve stolen. so it makes sense to me that ben seems to have so many differing personalities/sides to his personality, bc he’s learned which parts to show to who, and in what situations - in response to his abuse as a kid, if nothing else.

(and before anyone can even go there: that is not an act of manipulation. it’s a trauma response. it’s something that happens without us consciously having any say in it, as a way of self-preservation. it’s like if i make myself likeable and appealing to u, you’re less likely to hurt me, physically or emotionally. and yes ben has a habit of manipulation, but this is not a part of it. none of ben’s manipulation is directly bc of his hypothetical bpd, it’s bc that’s just who he is. i don’t ever want to see the two equated, or see anyone say any shit like ‘ben must have bpd bc he’s manipulative’, ever.)

just for the hell of it, here are some spicy bpd memes, bc that’s how we communicate on the internet. (here are two in particular seem quite relevant to ben rn lmao + bonus one for phil!!)

so! there we are!!! i’m sure there’s some important stuff i overlooked and that this is not what u expected when u sent me this question, but there are so many misconceptions and stigmas out there surrounding bpd that i wouldn’t have felt right half assing it. and i hope, if nothing else, u learned something abt bpd that u didn’t know before :-)

if u read this far ur a trooper lmao but if anyone has any questions, be they abt ben having bpd or bpd in general please feel free to ask!! i’ll do my best to answer them to the best of my ability 💖💖

[elftwink]

Advice on how to dm a party of level 3s that want to solve every problem by punching it in the face? Like I don't wanna be like "guys if u fight this mob boss then he will TPK, so maybe try talking first???" Like I don't wanna railroad them but also I created this world with a lot of twisting plot points and I want you guys to work it all out for yourselves but not by trying to kill every important NPC I throw your way...

hmmm.... i think one of the easier solutions is to have more things that are like, puzzles or object retrieval where there are no npcs to even potentially fight, so in the short term to give yourself a break and maybe coax them into strategy more that could work but i don’t think it gets to the root of the problem or allows you to have those twisting plot points

you could try having enemies who are 1) able to absolutely decimate them with the snap of a finger 2) willing to negotiate and 3) absolutely unwilling to let the party die. you can force a stalemate by making it clear through combat that fucked them over that they cannot win in a fight, and then not let them/have that npc not let them retreat or regroup without having like, a real conversation with the npc. if you’re already seeing them attack npcs who can tpk, just have those npcs ALMOST do it— take them to one hp. knock them unconscious. as long as the npc in question is still available to talk to after the fight has concluded (although probably in worse spirits), you never have to tell the players they’re in for a tpk if they keep trying because they just about had one, and only didn’t because the npc decided to let them live. you want npcs that can kill them, not that will kill them. if you can force a stalemate by having them find out for themselves that combat won’t work but somehow still leave non-combat options open, they might finally take the bait

failing that you can try to introduce more environmental obstacles that continue to be in the way even in a fight— an antimagic field around the building that must be located and disabled, a scenario in which the players had to give up their weapons and now have to go without, a silencing spell coupled with a task that has to be done by more than one person, a bounty in which they don’t get the money unless they return the creature/person alive (and unharmed). this won’t really solve the problem but it will force them into more roleplay over straight up and down combat which can transfer into regular npc interactions

in the same vein if you start introducing more non-death consequences for battling that might help; stuff like ‘in xyz town you’re wanted criminals’. magic items breaking, weapons being destroyed in combat (iirc the rust monster is a dnd 5e enemy that does that for you so your players don’t call foul), facing monsters that impose [sometimes permanent] statuses but won’t kill them, curses, diseases, levels of exhaustion. have them track resources more closely and don’t give them as many so they’re forced to conserve. provide less places for rests or time sensitive missions that cut rest times short or have consequences for resting— a player who only has 2 spell slots left is unlikely to burn one as haphazardly as one with 7 slots. you want to communicate to them ‘hey, you may not die from this combat, but death isn’t the only consequence of randomly fighting’. 

a lot of this might sound kind of railroad-y but the key to making it not railroading is: do not tell your players why you’re doing stuff like this and have an in-game explanation for if they ask. to a player, it’s railroading or unfair if they have resources taken away because they fight rust monsters. but it’s no longer unfair if there’s signs up in the town that say certain monsters are drawn to metal deposits in the area. having an antimagic field to prevent your caster from firing off an acid splash is unfair only if it’s out of the blue- but if you take 3 seconds 20 minutes earlier to describe the enemy warlock as paranoid and jealous and doing everything he can to prevent any magic influence but his own, then it makes total sense most of the building has antimagic fields. 

players will be annoyed at an almost TPK if they feel you fudged rolls or unfairly put them against a high level enemy they had no hope of defeating (because they feel you put them in a situation they had no solution to)— but if you’ve managed to tell them beforehand that they’re ultra-powerful and say, always try to recruit or imprison adventurers over killing them, then it makes total sense (and they understand that they’re here bc they decided to fight, but that other options WERE available). players are always more willing to accept dm bullshit that you think they will be, provided they can’t immediately identify it as dm bullshit, or that they feel like even if it is dm bullshit, there is an in-game logic that can be followed that led them here. like how you ask players “so you touch the object?” not because you actually don’t know if they did (because they literally always did), but because you want them to know they are the ones that are responsible for the consequences of touching the object, and to avoid them saying “but i never said i touched it” even though you both know that when you examine an object to try to take it or use it, you touch the object. you don’t actually always have to provide multiple options, just the sense that there were multiple options but they chose one already.

if all else fails and you feel like you’re doing everything you can and it’s not working, it might be worth it to sit down and talk to your players about the kind of game they want to play vs the one you’re trying to run. this depends on how bad it is and how opposed it is to your dm style and a bunch of other things but you should always feel like if you want to call another session 0 and discuss what everyone actually wants out of dnd, you can. you can in-game coax the players but you can’t actually force them to stop fighting npcs; the only way for that to happen is to just tell them what the problem is. likewise, if they want to play a hack and slash, they can’t force you to design sessions like that even if they kill every npc they come across; the only way to do that is to say to you directly that they care most about combat. and that may not be the problem and lots of players can be swayed away from derailing campaigns pretty easily, but if the problem is with what you all want out of the game being opposed, the only way to address that at all is out of character. 

[mieczyhale]

your tagssssss on that one post T_T what if luther tried to 'it made you stronger' to klaus and he was like u right i guess i deserved everything, and someone has to tell him no you didn't, no one deserves xyz. turns out luther didn't even KNOW about some of those things. also ia with your headcanon for dave. and i think he recognized the same in klaus right away and knew he had to be gentle with him

yeah yeah!! that would be another reason luther would pull the ‘it made you stronger’ card on klaus - bc he literally has NO idea what exactly life has been like for klaus. luther thinks klaus’s childhood was like his - the same way he kinda thinks everyone’s was: better, as he was the favorite - he always thought klaus was lazy, that he refused to use his powers and acted out for attention and just to be difficult. he thought the drugs and alcohol were for those same reasons - all of his perceptions being 100% swayed and formed by reggie of course. he’d support any negative thoughts on his biggest disappointment and luther grew up as number one - which he took v seriously. he took their whole shtick seriously. so someone, like klaus, not doing the same - would be frustrating and irritating and it would make it easy for him to believe his brother is at fault / being dramatic. and then for his opinions being formed as a child?? just all of that together i dont think it would’ve ever occurred to luther to really THINK about it or figure out the truth tbh. and that’s just shit IN THE HOUSE. and not counting literally everything about klaus’s powers okay, do not even get me started on how nobody understands shit there. so there’s no way he’d have any idea what life was like for klaus after he left the academy up until the funeral. and being stuck in the mansion, quickly finding himself alone, not really having access to the outside world.. luther isnt stupid! no! BUT he does have this innocence / naivety that would prevent him from considering the implications of what 13 years on the street would be like for klaus - how it would affect him. so no matter what the context is for how luther is pulling that card - be it their childhoods or post-academy or a combination of it all - just.. their whole lives: he wouldnt see how FUCKED what he’s saying is yknow?? SO ANYWAY. so he pulls that card and klaus has to face his brother and hear that he deserved EVERYTHING and that it was good that it all happened!! because he’s a better person for it right?? and yknow when you’ve been thru a lot of fucking shit hearing that ONCE is bad enough but klaus has probably heard some variation of that a lot in his life so now he’s just like “you know what? you’re right.” and maybe he’s just resigned about it?? but i prefer the idea that he just.. fucking snAPS. and is like “i did huh?? i deserved ____??” and luther learns the TRUTH of klaus’s childhood and training and the drugs and ghosts and what happened post-academy (which that 13 years you can really fill with whatever trauma you want. everyone has their own hcs including i) and then idk what happens after that - im not a fic writer for a reason lmfao - but it would be irrelevant anyway. POINT IS. luther says something dumb and gets his whole life and world view kicked in the goddamn ass ((and maybe its not just luther!!  im always a slut for as many siblings as possible being in on dramatic and angst conversations like this. the more the merrier really)) THAT WAS JUST A REALLY LONG WAY OF SAYING I AGREE LMAO and someone would DEFINITELY have to get klaus to believe he didnt deserve the trauma afterwards - bc even if klaus had gotten to a place where he was starting to think positively about himself every once in awhile, i feel like that conversation with luther or whoever would ABSOLUTELY undo that. and i, of course, nominate dave (and maybe ben) to be the ones to step in and get klaus to see that he has ALWAYS deserved better than the hand he was dealt. (im also a fan of diego stepping in on this.. and five.. what im saying is i stan brothers supporting brothers, guys showing love and support babey)AND THANK YOU FOR AGREEING WITH MY DAVE HC“i think he recognized the same in klaus right away and knew he had to be gentle with him” I COULD KISS YOU RN, ANON S2Gi mean okay listen.. i love me a dave katz that’s kind and gentle just because that’s the way he is, it’s not for any reason - he’s just a soft soul and so he treats klaus carefully. but i ALSO love me a dave katz that’s kind and gentle because he has experienced people who were not. like that one quote about ‘i am kind to others because people have not been kind to me’ or whatever like.. give me a dave katz that is soft to klaus because he sees the same hurt in klaus that he has in himself. he sees it, understands, and so he treats klaus the way he wishes someone would have treated him. it’s still fucking genuine either way i mean Klave Are Soulmates 2kAlways. and im ngl i do think baby!dave was a gentle boy, i dont think he’s ever been mean to anyone ever a day in his life, but i think things tried to change that gentleness and so he had to hide it but then he met klaus and he didnt have to anymore - he could just be his best most loving self to someone who deserved all of the love and sunshine in the world and- ;sdf;sflkslsd im sorry i feel like im not even on the right topic anymore?? was i ever??? and this isnt even doing my feelings justice but i keep getting distracted so im gonna stop now before i really yeet this post off the rails thank you for talking with me about this tho!!!!!!!

[panelshowsource]

of course! i love susie! here is the susie tag! i made a susie set last week!

all the submissions i’ve ever received in the past were just pictures alongside someone’s opinions/questions... i can’t privately respond to those like i can with an ask, and they never felt quite appropriate to post. what would you want to submit? you can always tag your own content with #panelshowsource and i will see it!

nope! we do have something called "comedians of the world" which features joel dommett, mae martin, nish kumar, ellie taylor, and quite a lot of standup specials like james acaster, jimmy carr, greg davies, daniel sloss, jack whitehall etc. but with a basic internet proxy, anyone can easily swap their country’s netflix account to british netflix to stream these (x) :)

hello! wow i watched that last year bc in the film miles jupp is married to james wilby (of maurice fame, you may well know), so of course i had to see it. miles is genuinely a talented actor, i recommend watching him in the new howards end and also journey’s end. as for chicklit, i just googled “watch chicklit” and it came right up for me x

where is the proof

sure! twink!john is ultimate john... the new special was a bit bleak though wasn’t it? and i can do that anon, i’m trying to make more drunk history gifs anyway :)

can u believe??

god made her incredible at street fighter to make up for her shit dancing. and good job, god, if i may say so

i certainly have — the new eps are always posted to /r/panelshow, so it’s easy to keep up. it’s a pleasant enough show if you’re liberal scum like me :)

hahahaha oh anon, how i wish i knew the exact reason. i live for frankie’s apparent disdain for james corden (which did not in fact end in 2014, because he did a joke about it in the first series of new world order)...

...which is apparently not reciprocated...

i’m sure there’s no real contempt on a personal level, and james, as a comedian, understands how and why he is a punchline to some people (and can take it). that said, i think his generally appearing “fake” in his personality and penchant for laughing a lot as well as not being a particularly clever or original comedic writer brings the groans from other comedians. after he started winning major awards is when it became particularly trendy not to like him *shrug*

yes, yes, and it depends...some comics are good presenters, some are good roasters, some are good at standup, some are good at podcasts. so ! i like john mulaney, maria bamford, bo burnham, robin williams, sam morril, and i love roast battles so a lot of the greats on jeff ross presents roast battle (mike lawrence, matthew broussard, etc). but apart from mulaney i can’t think of any i religiously keep up with!

hello everyone! yes i certainly watched it, i thought it was nice :) it was a good selection of guests and it was nice to see so many new gen panelists on one programme; i think it helped josh & james and tom & rob are such old friends, and obviously jess & james know each other at least mildly well. dynamics make panel shows. i think the format is decent but really dependent on the guests...i could tell so many of the answers were pre-planned with elaborate set ups (props) and i generally find the less obvious that is, the better, so i hope that improves as they move forward. james is also a little less weird and a little more talk show host-y, which is an odd look for him and i’m not sure how i feel about it, bc i assumed josh would be taking that role so james could fuck about a bit — but it certainly feels like the james acaster show 😂 i’ll be interested to see how it continues with different guests. i love the “how much money to do xyz” round, because i play that all the time irl and it’s hilarious making people explain themselves. but i’ll say this: like you guys i obviously really like james, but if we’re being real this is not the funniest panel show of all time aljskfhg or whatever. sometimes i think being consistently pleasant (looking at you, insert name here) can be even better than that. so that’s what i’m hoping for it!

i don’t i’m sorry to say anon. i can see select episodes are on dailymotion but it looks to me like you’ll have to go here and politely make a request. but in the meantime, never forget.........

is that a james acaster fan i detect? ;) x

haha i don’t know what kind of magical powers you think i have as a lil american with 400gb on google drive and no other materials other than the interwebz to watch panel shows, but let me introduce you to a well-known resource around these parts...

vlc is king queen! enjoy! x

right here boo! thank you for your patience!

of course not! imo you’re not asking enough! check out this tag, i’ve been working on it...;)

HMM LET’S CONSIDER...

im right here silly

f.a.q. // tags

ps. thanks to everyone for sending in your feedback on double-giffing, meeting celebs, and more! i got all of your messages and i really enjoyed reading all of your perspectives. to keep the blog (mostly) free of drama and debate, i won’t be publishing most of them, but you can always privately message me if you want to talk more :) and sorry i couldnt do original women weds this week; i had a quick surgery yesterday and i was really tired last night. next week will be really good, promise! x sarah

[smallblanketfort]

In school, getting feedback on papers I've written is a nightmare for me. I always avoid looking at the results for a few days until I've gained the courage to do so. I'm sure this has something to do with perfectionism but idk. I always feel like I'm my biggest critic. Do you have a fear of criticism? How do you handle criticism, even if it is constructive?

such a mood. i definitely fear criticism, but i’m slowly learning to value criticism within certain venues, by being intentional in how i receive it. it gets better.

🌱first, i try to reframe critique as “someone is literally telling me how to be better.” i love having an instruction manual. that being said, sometimes critiques aren’t helpful. and that’s that. it simply wasn’t helpful. and that’s not my fault. moving on.

🌱recognize that perfection is boring af. perfection allows for absolutely no movement, no growth. perfection = stagnancy, and we all hate not being productive.

🌱know what you’re pretty good at. is there something you rarely get critiqued on? what do you like about what you’ve done? also, know what hurdles you had in the first place, such as “i hated my topic.” hurdles are valid.

🌱i decide people are trying to help me, with good intentions. and if they clearly weren’t, then too the fuck bad, bc i can take any type of criticism and make myself better for it.i don’t have to agree with the criticism, bc that still teaches me something about the way i write /think/ eel / and/or want to express/feel/etc. i can make everything helpful, whether or not twas intended. i can always get better, and they are only enabling my growth, if i choose so.

🌱if a critique is a judgement, it’s not a critique worth my time, and the person who wrote it was using less brain power than i was in the first place. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ps: critiques have reasoning, and try to make the work better. judgement offers nothing productive.pps: ask questions. if you don’t understand the reasoning, go ask. g o a s k. it makes you look good, if you’re nice and pretend to be genuinely interested.

🌱i’ve learned to leave myself outside the door. the product i happened to make is being critiqued, not me. it’s really not about me, at this point.ps: this is really tricky when ppl are critiquing your trauma driven work. there have been moments i get angry, and sometimes i respond. the thing is, deep down, i know i’m right about how i feel and the type of media i want to read, the stories i want to hear. but i also have to recognize that some things are about taste.

🌱and if the older straight white cis guy standing at the front of the room disagrees with my story, then fuck that. take it or leave it, dude. sometimes i straight up disagree with a critique, and there i am, critiquing their critique. i’ve had 4 people i didn’t respect tell me they didn’t understand something, and 3 people i already respected tell me they did. those people got it. sometimes it’s simply a matter of audience. maybe i didn’t spill my guts for people who haven’t gone thru it. maybe i spilled my guts for those who got it. (i say this lightly, bc obviously if the majority doesn’t understand, then i need to improve)

🌱accept it with grace. my favorite part of dealing with shitty people is smiling at them and saying “thank you for xyz” your kind and generous honesty / patience / etc.” it’s telling them what grown up behavior i expect of them, and not giving them the upper hand. “i get mad at myself when i engage in argument, bc i let someone disrupt my peace”

🌱if you can, be intentional about who you get critique from. for example, i personally hate sharing my writing with people i care about. i got 0 confidence, so i just… don’t. it’s fine, bc i still value criticism from others… but not everyone. remember, you also don’t like everything you read, and that thing is someone else’s favorite thing. which is fine.

take it or leave it dude, it’s not the end of the world. jus someone’s opinion.

this is how i hear you:i was a creative writing major, so 2x+ a week my work  was discussed in front of me for 20+ minutes. listen. i’m a kid with anxiety. this was hell. it’d hang over me all week. i’d spend that class shaking and sometimes teary, just bc my anxiety manifests in my body :)))the weirdest thing? regularly, someone approached me to quietly ask how i’m so confident and relaxed. every single time, my mouth hung open. i literally stuttered “are you talking to me?” i felt so small and stupid, and somehow, no one could tell.by my senior year, i learned to slightly enjoy it. trust me tho, as i trusted people (and more “fuck it”), i got more personal, and my fear was more obvious. my hands shook, and someone would sometimes give me a tissue, bc i sniff when i get emotional. sometimes someone would hug me, and still more often someone would regularly ask how i was so comfortable and confident in my self and my work. it was obscene, and still blows my mind.

the thing is, i think i started to view criticism differently. same with all pain, i’m learning to just sit with it and wrap my mind around it. it gives me this sense of control over something i have no control over: i can control how i view everything. i can decide what helps me get better.