#Something something stigmatisation of anger

[skitskatstudios]

I love how the students of PK Academy (after the volcano) are like “Oh no, it’s former delinquent Kuboyasu. Better stay away from him.” But at this point, he’s gone through so much character growth that he’s literally just a guy that gets anger management therapy.

[katboykirby]

So I like to think that cigarettes exist in the Devildom, and that they have their own brands and everything. Smoking is also probably more common and less stigmatised/hated than it is in (many places of) the human world. Humans are actually the reason that demons learned about smoking in the first place, and Devildom cigarettes are functionally identical to human-world cigarettes (since demons have basically copied the production method 1:1 from humans)

Demons aren't negatively affected by tobacco, nicotine, and smoking in general like humans are. So it's a lot more socially acceptable - it's still not common, but without the horrible side effects like lung cancer, heart disease, etc, it's not seen or thought of as a "bad habit" like it is for many humans.

Lucifer smokes occasionally, mostly for stress relief when he's overworked. He'll usually only indulge when he's on his own, mostly whenever he needs to calm down and decompress. The only room in the HoL where he'll smoke is in his study. Even for something as small as a cigarette, he doesn't like to be seen "relying" on anything to help him, thanks to his Pride.

Mammon will sometimes smoke, and he mostly does it when he's out at the club or in the casino. He's a "social smoker" like someone might be a social drinker. He's unlikely to ever pick up a cigarette at home or at RAD, but if he's out in the city partying the night away or gambling with a bunch of the Devildom's high-rollers, then he's more likely to light one up. He's also been photographed with cigs for the odd magazine spread.

Satan used to smoke, and he used to be the heaviest smoker in the family. He has since "quit" however, and claims that he no longer indulges in the habit. This is because he mostly smoked when he was younger and still full of rage, struggling to handle his Wrath without losing control of himself. Smoking helped him calm down and reduced his anger, and he would smoke for similar reasons as Lucifer (stress relief)

Satan maintains that he's put this part of his life behind him, though, and that it's been a very long time since he needed a crutch like cigarettes to help him stay calm. This is mostly true, though when exam season rolls around at RAD (and when he's stressed out trying to tutor five of his brothers as well as study for his own finals) Satan will secretly smoke in his room.

Diavolo doesn't normally smoke, but he'll do so on the rare occasions he meets with the Devildom's House of Lords. Many of the sitting members of the House smoke cigars or pipes, and Diavolo is socially savvy enough to light up a smoke as well in order to make a good impression. He may also smoke with Lucifer, but only if the Avatar of Pride pulls out his cigarettes first.

Mephistopheles has tried, on many occasions, to smoke with Diavolo whenever the Prince has done so - but Mephisto just turns into a coughing, spluttering mess every time. He can't handle even the mildest of cigarettes, and since it embarrasses him that he always starts choking and wheezing, he usually pretends that he hates smoking and will shit talk the habit.

[rainbowninja00]

so I read the post by @/xpecially (they wrote the why cross isnt trans post) and I have some thoughts... I will put them under keep reading so if you dont want to read it you dont have to! remember you are all valid and we love you <3

Imma do this shit in order and NOT post the images they used in the post cause I do not wish to upset this person. REMINDER!!! DO NOT HARASS THIS PERSON THEY ARE LITERALLY A CHILD NO FUCKIN NOT

my first gripe is with the wording on the first image "why the trans coding of cross sucks" sucks???? wdym my gamer?

these head-canons are not farfetched, they aren't as farfetched as one in particular they mentioned later on which I will touch on. also this seems like a super bad faith take???

Here's a fun PSA for everone: DO NOT use an artists art without their permission! this person used @/dustcrumbs art without permission in their post and you can see in the replies that dustcrumbs asks for them to take their art out of the post.

also its not that he doesnt want to "admit" he's a sans, its that he doesnt feel like a sans anymore, he has become an outcode, an other, he has been cast out by his family and friends because of his actions, which is also something trans people can relate with when it comes to unaccepting family members and friends.

queer, and in particular, trans people are the ones making these headcanons in the first place, this is not people stereotyping cross, this is them finding familiarity in his story and assigning him a label that he at least somewhat fits in with. Also, anyone who has read anything UTMV related on AO3 knows that cross is often trans or trans coded in peoples works.

I SHALL NOT BE EXPLAINING MY THOUGHTS ON FLUTTERSHY BECAUSE I DONT WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW HOW CRINGEFAIL I AM ABOUT MLP:FIM

putting a little doodle that says KYS on a little essay about why cross isnt trans feels kinda icky but okay gamer. I agree that some labels can kind of deconstruct the history of characters and their stories, but it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things! cause people will tell them hey! this is kinda ooc, and usually people will make their own version of the character/au/etc or fix it up a bit to be more in character.

the next take quite literally justifies the trans cross headcanon but alr. just because it isnt directly gender related doesnt mean people cant draw from it and add that in, since we never see all of cross' formative years so we'll never know if he is actually trans... what if in his first timeline he was made as a girl hm? that seems pretty trans to me.

making cross trans doesn't DESTROY his current history or anything like that, if anything it provides greater context for his suffering and adds another thing for him to be traumatised by. (yippee angst authors rise up

I... only trans people have deadnames right??? im not crazy right??? I vividly remember discussions like this on tiktok about cis people changing their names and them asking if that is now their dead name and trans people responded saying it wasn't a dead name because it wasnt dead to them or stuff like that (it was a couple years ago i dont remember it exactly) but specifically, the term deadname is for trans people I THINK!

Time to get onto this persons own diagnosis on cross, SOMEONE TELL ME WHERE IT IS CANON THAT CROSS HAS DID??? I have never once seen that it is canon that he has DID, which makes this a headcanon if this person, and if you ask me DID headcanons can be FAR more harmful within their community than trans ones. DID is already so terribly stigmatised, and when you describe cross theyway they do with extreme agression, "going crazy about the past", no control over emotions expecially anger, and willing to do anything to get what he wants, these are all pretty HARMFUL STEREOTYPES buddy pal chum friendo. Cross being trans seems much less harmful and damaging of the integrity of the character/their story than this persons own personal diagnosis.

"jakei is doing weird and incomprehensible things again..." what like making a character trans/trans-coded? in the queer fandom??? how odd, how strange, how absolutely peculiar. Jakei did that because Jakei is based af and cares about their community. She cares about the people consuming underverse and supports the trans head-canons cause she knows they are just headcanons and arent going to ruin the story she is working on telling.

Once more I shall state DO NOT HARASS this person, especially because they are a minor.

overall, cross being trans is just a headcanon that the community likes a whole lot cause we are all gay af, at least most of us. this headcanon does not ruin the story, the character, or anything like that, its just for funsies like most headcanons and people need to get their heads outta their asses about it istg. you are in the gay fandom, what do you expect???

[tidesreach]

i think the issue with cql/mdzs fandom (specifically jiang cheng antis) is that it seems to have a very rigid view on a) what being a good person looks like and b) what trauma looks like, or significantly, what it should look like, and c) the meeting point of the two: what being a good person with trauma should look like. e.g. the way wei wuxian is held up as this sort of shining example of how to be traumatised the right way. so much of this fandom consistently frames wei wuxian as Good Traumatised rather than what he actually is, which is quite simply a person with various trauma responses and trauma-learnt behaviours that he did not choose and that have no actual bearing on his goodness. whereas jiang cheng is condemned as Bad Traumatised when actually he is just a person with different trauma responses and trauma-learnt behaviours that he also did not choose and that also have no actual bearing on his goodness. people categorising the way wei wuxian responds to his trauma as Good and the way jiang cheng responds to it as Bad (or even Evil) is a mindset that is deeply rooted in stigma whether you realise it or not.

like, i don't interact with jc antis if i can help it. which, yeah, is because i have no interest in reading endless hate posts. but i also steer clear predominantly because as someone with a heavily stigmatised mental illness a lot of the discussion around jiang cheng and the notion that trauma making you angry and hateful = Bad reads as "i support people with mental illness but only the people with symptoms that i personally find palatable" which is very reminiscent of frankly dehumanising real life debates around whether people who display certain symptoms (people like me) are worthy of help (or whether they even can be helped or whether they are just inherently terrible people etc.). and that is a horrible and damaging thing to read about yourself.

essentially, it all boils down to the wholly problematic idea that there are right and wrong ways to be traumatised—as if (in the absense of therapy and/or medication) you have any choice or control over your own symptoms/trauma responses—and that anything that doesn't fit into the "trauma made me kinder" mold is the wrong way to be traumatised. which is exactly what stigma is and why a lot of people have to fight so hard to get a modicum of help. so much of the language used around jiang cheng's trauma and his emotional responses to that trauma is rooted in real life stigmatising rhetoric that denies people the help they need and deserve because they're not the right type of mentally ill. this mindset that wei wuxian did trauma right and jiang cheng did trauma wrong is based on a made up concept designed to demonise certain mental illnesses.

it's like, there are so many takes which go something like, "well, wei wuxian has trauma too and he didn't do x, y, z." and sure, you're right, he didn't do x, y, z, but he did do a, b, c, if you see what i'm getting at. and arguing that a, b, c, are better responses than x, y, z shows a lack of understanding of the complexity of trauma and the way it can be informed by self-perception or perception other people have of you, i.e. it can become a bit (or a lot) of a self-fulfilling prophecy. because if anything the idea that trauma made wwx kinder oversimplifies the damaging effects it actually had on him. because it also made him reckless and (re)vengeful. it also gave him a messy saviour complex that repeatedly leads to ruin (like, man, when jiang cheng says to wei wuxian in anger, "wei wuxian, do you have a saviour complex?" he reads him very well. he knows him very well. in the same way wei wuxian knows that jiang cheng holds on to too much anger). wei wuxian's trauma is just as messy as jiang cheng's but it manifests in very different ways. different ways, not the right ways. wei wuxian's trauma responses hurt people too and you can acknowledge that. it doesn't make him Bad.

what seems to cause real issue though, is the differences in the way they respond to trauma. what causes real issue is that those differences are indisputably to do with certain symptoms jiang cheng displays being the more stigmatised ones. it's his anger and hatred and volatility. it's his very extreme fear of abandonment and equally extreme efforts to avoid it by furiously protecting what he has left because he cannot bear to lose anything or anyone else. it's his dichotomous thinking that can make him irrational. but those are not evil or wrong trauma responses. they're just trauma responses and they are actually fairly common trauma responses at that. certainly more common than "trauma made me kinder". i don't know who needs to hear this but a person's involuntary emotional responses to trauma are not an indication of whether they are a good person or not. you can struggle with anger and hatred and symptoms considered "less palatable" and still be a good person. trauma does not give "bad" symptoms to bad people and "good" symptoms to good people because there is no such thing as a morally good or a morally bad symptom.

people need to stop letting stigma inform their (mis)understandings of mental health and trauma and try to remember that there are real life people who suffer from the symptoms they are stigmatising and who face barriers every single day because of that stigma.

[overelegantstranger]

madpunk inflected mental health and hearing voices talk under the cut

i've been thinking about the hearing voices thing. For a little clarity I'm going to define my terms. by "hearing voices" I'm meaning three things:

the near constant thoughts of "you should die, you should kill yourself, everyone would be better off if you weren't around" that happen on my period, and which always feel like they're coming from, if not literally outside my head, outside "my space" in my head. At at least one point, they felt/sounded like they were coming from a female, mother-y person, whose voice was very specific and distinct

the similar, but not identical, thoughts that can happen when i'm, or possibly Tank is, struggling with feeling angry or resentful or upset. The last time he experienced it, he described it as an internal radio he couldn't get away from, to the point of trying to physically block his ears and drown it out. These often start as like, for example, "I can't believe they would do that" and might be Tank's or my thoughts, and escalate until they become a "radio", causing feelings of anger and resentment that are disproportionate to the thoughts that either of us would have laid claim to

The having of at least two other people in my head who seem able to project thoughts to me. This one is, in a way, the hardest to identify, because I thought it was normal for a long time, and I don't precisely know how much internal dialogue is "normal" and how much is potentially included in "hearing voices". So say I might be saying in my head "I'm just feeling x, y, z" and then I might "hear" "yeah, because a, b, c", such as you might have when telling a friend what you're feeling. and sometimes these dialogues would confuse me, like, why am i having these "yeah, and" thoughts? it's just rephrasing what i JUST said, or put words on what was vaguely in my mind. But overall I thought they were just normal and maybe they are.

I've been thinking about all these, but particularly the first two. Initially I was looking into menstrual psychosis, because psychosis is a "scary", stigmatised term and I wasn't sure if I had discounted it because of stigma (context: I maybe have PMDD but the timing is always on my period, never before. But menstrual psychosis, while timed correctly, doesn't seem to match my symptoms).

And I just kept thinking. There was something about being at therapy on Monday, and being openly plural and talking a little about my childhood, and having my pluralness accepted as fact, that made me kind of see it from outside and think that this isn't really super "normal", like, idk.

I guess, because my mum has depression, that me developing an intense anxiety issue and even OCD, is "normal". I realise for most people this is an Issue, but for me, while it's scary and awful and disabling, That's Just What Brains Do. I have at least four generations of mental health problems on that side, you know? I have just sort of absorbed the idea of being mentally ill without it shifting my mental perception of myself, because to me, it was as natural as being blue-eyed.

But now, I'm beginning to both clearly see that firstly, my anxiety and ocd was not a forgone conclusion and not an unfortunate genetic side effect but instead a response to how I was raised and how fucked up my childhood was, and see that what I'm experiencing now is something that someone outside of me might call insane (no stigma necessarily intended; we're a madpunk household).

Like, I was, while living with my parents, actively experiencing symptoms that are socially a shorthand for "insane". I still am now but the point is that that was so invisible I didn't even recognise it for the potentially worrying symptom it was. And maybe in a clinical sense what I'm talking about Isn't really hearing voices. I don't really know. But the point is I'm finally seeing myself as actively, actually, mentally ill, due to largely avoidable incidents and patterns of behaviour from my caregivers, and that those patterns of behaviour have, and i'm using this language for emphasis, actually driven me insane.

[iravaid]

I love your writing so much, your Simon Riley in Situations series is probably one of my favorite works in the entire fandom!!! The way you write tommy and simon’s relationship gives me so much emotions lol, like even though it only comes up a couple times in the entire series there’s just so much there! That flashback we get in in the desert was just a brief glimpse, and yet it was so much more powerful than how they were written in the entire canon comic (which might not be saying much because that comic left a lot to be desired, but still) It had me imagining their relationship as kids, and how tommy probably had a much easier time navigating their dad’s moods while simon struggled to pick up the social cues and unspoken meanings behind words and stuff like that, and how tommy, as a kid growing up in a pretty ableist society who had probably never even heard of autism until his teen years, would probably get frustrated with simon and not understand why he couldn’t just say the right things when he needed to, why he couldn’t just do what he needed to do to not make the situation worse (and simon feeling the same way and wondering why he couldn’t just know how to smile and say what people wanted to hear, like tommy) (This ended up being long and rambling but your fics just give me so many riley brothers feels lol XD)

Oh shit!! Thank you so much!!!! I'm so happy you enjoy this series, especially the relationship between Tommy and Simon!! It's genuinely so interesting to me and has a lot of potential to be built upon, considering how little there is for them in the comics (both a blessing and a curse let's be honest).

Augh, yeah, them as kids has a lot of emotional oomph, especially if taken the way I have, in all essentialities, taken the characters in my grubby mitts and gotten lint all over them. Tommy probably was the golden child in this family, Nigel played a lot of games in tormenting his kids, and I imagine turning them against each other, or at the very least Tommy against Simon, was one of them. I wonder if that dynamic might have changed when Simon left, leaving Tommy to be the only child in the house and no longer having a 'weird' older brother occupying the role of scapegoat (and protector, in his own way). In the beginning, I can see Tommy hating Simon for leaving, it's easier than hating his abusive dad at this point.

Things do change for the better, and in all honesties I can see Tommy getting therapy/counselling as an adult and learning how to become better adjusted and look back on his childhood with a trauma-informed lense, equipped with a kind of knowledge and vocabulary Simon doesn't/refuses to have. Internalied ableism definitely informs how they process their trauma and percieve therapy, and for Simon this is another brick in that wall after growing up the 'strange' one in the family that just doesn't get it. This is another thing he doesn't get, and it's a source of anger for him.

I imagine there is a lot of frustration for Tommy in the things you mentioned above, which is a dynamic I love love love, considering Autistic Simon growing up in Manchester in the 80s/90s at this point would be. A Lot for both of them, for different reasons. I imagine it would serve to emphasise that feeling of isolation Simon feels in this series, and I would go so far as to say Tommy doesn't hear the word 'autism' until he's an adult/in his 20s. Before then it was always alluded to, or people saying 'he's rather... odd.' about Simon with a strange expression on their faces. Autism and Asperger's (it's an outdated term now, but one that was used then) were very stigmatised and you were seen as there was something wrong with you or you were 'slow'.

God but their potential brotherhood when Simon comes back and kicks Nigel out of the house, and helps Tommy heal. I really love the complexity of their relationship, how two brothers who survived an awful childhood have different ways of coping and healing from it. Again, all in our collective heads, but I'm happy the comics only gave us the bare bones to play with. We'll grow our own meat, with blackjack and hookers.

I really want to write/am in the process of writing a fic set in Tommy's POV, waiting for his brother, beginning from Simon being announced missing after he's caught by Roba, to him being found and returned home, and ending just before That Scene. I want to explore their brotherhood through Tommy's eyes, how disparate some parts of them are and how similar others have ended up, as well as play on a theme Ghost haunting the family well before Simon is returned and believes himself dead. I'm unsure how it'll end up, but the goal is a 20k oneshot. Hopin to work on it in earnest in August, when Art Fight is over :D

Again! Thank you so much for this message! Had a big grin reading this, I'm so happy you liked those fics! Hell yeah!

[eldritchsurveys]

1247.

What feeling do you have the most difficult in expressing? >> If we're talking about expressing them to other people, none of them are easy for me. I guess the one I'm most accustomed to expressing is anger, because I spent a lot of time stuck with people who thrived on conflict. Maybe the hardest thing for me to express is affection, considering my very fraught relational history. It feels unsafe to express anything, but it feels particularly unsafe to express fondness for a person.

Do you make your bed everyday? Why/why not? >> I never make my bed. Because I'm always in it. But also because I think it's more logical to turn the sheets down and let the bed air out when I'm not in it. Does any particular season make you happier than others? Why/why not? >> Spring. It makes me feel like I'm coming back to life along with the earth.

Do you give money to homeless people/beggars? Why/why not? >> I usually don't have any money to give. Every once in a while I will have a couple of bucks in cash on me and I'll give it to someone, but it's not something I can do more than once in a blue moon. Also, I don't feel any sense of obligation to do it, either, not from my meager economic status. Not when there are so many people in this very city with the kind of money where dropping a full $20 into a homeless person's hand would be like nothing to them... not when the government stigmatises and marginalises poor and destitute people and happily deprives them of the same financial resources they pour into defense budgets and capitalistic ventures... I mean, I'm just saying. Put the onus where it belongs.

What do you feel is your number one flaw? Are you doing anything about it? >> My flaw is that I don't see any of my traits or behaviours as flaws. ;)

Do you see yourself as worthy of love? Why/why not? >> I think it's very difficult to feel my worthiness of love when I'm not receiving any. What use is being "worthy", then? It doesn't matter what I deserve, it matters what I am getting. If no one is willing to love me in the way I need or want, then...??? Saying "I'm worthy of love ~*~*" to myself isn't going to keep me warm and fed, man.

Do you think you are competitive? Do you really dislike losing? >> I'm really not. I find competition entirely uninteresting, unless it's the playful, silly kind like when you play board games with your friends. Or, for example, I like to do stupid shit like stack draw-4s and then pile them on people in UNO because I think it's funny but people get really mad about that sort of thing and I just don't get it. This is the most low-stakes situation possible, why does it matter if I make you draw 24 cards? Is that not just incredibly silly and ridiculous? I for one find it hilarious when it happens to me, losing a game in an absurd way like that is peak comedy imo. I also don't mind losing at skill games because I think it's cool when people are really good at things; the only thing that bothers me is if I also want to learn to be good at it and I can't figure out how they're doing it, lol. And competitive people don't really want to share their strategies because they want to be the best. So, yeah, all in all I don't like doing things with competitive people. On which topics do you feel qualified at giving advice? >> I don't know, I have zero practice in giving advice period. I have a fair amount of useful experience and knowledge, I just don't know how I would share it with other people.

Will you be single over winter? .

Do you add random questions into surveys when you take them? >> I don't.

Would you get married if you could right now? >> I am already married.

Do you consider yourself spoiled? >> There is nothing about my life that could suggest even the merest possibility of me being spoiled. Do you remember the first time you kissed the last person you kissed? .

Have you ever slept on a couch with that person? .

Have you written a letter to a soldier? >> I have not.

Where are the majority of your clothes from? >> I don't think there is a majority. My clothes come from all over the place.

Does being in love make you nervous? >> Inworld, it doesn't. But if I were to experience it outworld, I think it would make me extremely anxious and unsettled. Considering my history.

Would you do your own surgery to keep yourself alive? (ex. stitches) >> I'm sure I would, if it were to keep myself alive. A person often finds they can do quite a bit more than they normally would, in that situation. Also, yeah, self-surgery has a high risk factor, but if I'm already dying anyway, that becomes far less of a concern.

Have you ever had any really infected injuries? >> I have not. The only infection I've ever had was a mild one after oral surgery.

Is racism for losers? >> This is too flippant a question for me.

Is there any band out there that you like every song by them? >> Every song... hmm... I don't think so.

Are you popular on any websites? >> I am not.

Have you ever cussed/swore in front of younger children? >> Sure.

Will you go to your high school reunion? >> I wouldn't even know it was happening if it did. Also, I'm completely uninterested. If you could meet one famous person, who would it be? >> Nick Cave, maybe. He just seems so compassionate. I want to bask in some of that energy.

Do you hate it when people look over your shoulder? >> I sure the fuck do. Even if I'm showing someone something. I'll get up and you can sit in the chair or whatever, just... don't hover over me like that.

Would you consider yourself hypocritical? >> I wouldn't consider myself hypocritical because I don't see that as a personality trait. I can behave hypocritically at times, sure. Do you know anyone who had had a heart attack under 30 years of age? >> I assume not.

Are you considered popular at school? .

If you were starving would you eat food out of a garbage can? >> I've eaten dumpster food on quite a few occasions, and the way people freak out about this concept is a bit alienating to me, if I'm honest. Like... yeah, it kind of sucks, and it definitely speaks to how much perfectly serviceable food is thrown away when there are plenty of people who could be eating it, which is a fucked-up thing to realise about society. They'd rather have people rooting through dumpsters than just give the food to them. But... I don't know. I guess I just think about like, how these "fringe" (not really fringe, not in this economy, BUT) experiences are seen by the average person, how horrified they are when they try to imagine themselves in the same situation, and it feels a bit... othering, is the word, maybe. I can't explain it, it's a feeling you either get or don't, I guess. When you last watched a movie, did you watch it alone or with someone? >> Alone. Does your job allow piercings or tattoos? .

Ever had a caricature done of yourself? How much was it, and were you satisfied with it? >> I have not. I don't think I would enjoy that very much. Do you like peanut butter and fluff sandwiches? >> I have never had one.

Ever been to Gaia Online? Do you have an account? >> I was really into Gaia Online in the late aughts. I do still have my account, with its trillions of gold that is worth jack-shit because the site admins fucked the economy so bad. Here's my avatar!

If you got married and then got divorced, would you want to re-marry? >> I think marriage is not a legal institution that benefits me, in my particular socioeconomic situation. I probably would not do it again, unless a lot of things changed about the United States real quick.

Would you ever enlist in the army? >> I'd literally rather die. Last time you were at a job interview? How did it go? .

What’s one place you’d NEVER want to work at? >> There are so many places I'd never want to work at. Not even necessarily because they're particularly noxious (although that is true for a lot of them), but because I am just remarkably unsuited for employment.

Do you use Tumblr? What do you normally post? >> I do. I post stuff about myself/Us or about the video game worlds I play in. I also have an annexed blog for stuff I reblog, which spans a pretty wide variety of subjects.

Did you tease freshmen in high school? >> Of course not. I did not have the social currency to be teasing anyone.

Last thing that pissed you off? >> I was reading a r/InternalFamilySystems thread and someone said something about seeking a professional's assistance and "you can get really hurt if you do this work by yourself". And every time I read something like that I get so enraged, because, well, what the fuck else am I supposed to do? For me, professional assistance is entirely inaccessible. I gotta risk fucking myself up worse in the hopes of living a better life, because I can't afford anything different? And the rage is not directed to the person saying it, because I know that's not what they mean, but it's just a general rage at having to help myself, having to do everything for myself, just... that whole thing. I would fucking love help, dude! Who's going to give it! What’s something you have a very strong opinion about? >> I love how many surveys are often just... frankensteined. Had to delete a bunch of questions because I just did them on a different survey within the past week and this is obviously an amalgamation of that survey and several others, and I'm sure that one is also a frankenstein of several other surveys. Anyway, I have a lot of strong opinions but I can't just think of them off the top of my head at random. Actually, I might have already expressed a strong opinion during the course of taking this survey. Are you family-orientated in everything you do? .

Do others consider you to be stuck up? .

Would you often call yourself a moody person? >> I do consider myself a moody person.

Are you self-sufficient? >> I am not.

Sleep position? >> Side.

Who is your best friend? . Do you have an online best friend as well? . Who is your favorite person to spend time with? .

Have you ever had tendinitis? >> I have not.

Do you know how to grill a steak? >> I absolutely do not.

Do you mosh when you go to concerts/shows? >> I do not, that's not my thing at all. I like to watch other people doing it, though.

When’s the last time you went to a nightclub? .

Are you good at playing darts? >> I vaguely recall playing it a couple of times at a local bar when I first moved out here, but I don't remember if I was any good at it.

Are “school friends” and friends different to you? . Do you like breaded chicken sandwiches? >> Like, fried chicken? I sure do.

Ever been friends with someone you didn’t expect? >>

Do you keep notes, drawings or letters that people give you? >> Sometimes. Have you had a significant other that you never kissed? >> I don't think so. Do you depend on people at all, in any way? >> Of course. Have you written or drawn anything for somebody else? >> I have.

Do you have any pictures of yourself with the person you like? .

[jamie-is-out-of-ideas]

Why Do People Say They Want Tourrete's

Okay so like coming up on 2 years now, I was diagnosed with Tourrette's Syndrome, and like, it sucks ass. Like I know it's kinda shitty to say but having it is shitty. I will never understand the people who fake it for attention, or say they wish they had it so they could swear in public. Like I wish I could give those people what I have to deal with for like 2 days, and then they'd shut their mouths. Like being able to swear in public and attention from others is not worth the pain it causes someone who has it.

I'm embarrassed to go outside and go to family gatherings and be around my younger cousins (one of them forgot my name). I have motor tics that cause me to physically hurt myself. One time I wasn't wearing long pants and I was angry and I had a tic in response to my anger and that tic was me punching myself in the thigh and it left a horrible bruise for a while (large and purple and painful). I have common tics where I bonk myself on the top of my head or hit myself in the face. And there is also a motor tic I have where I bite myself, rather hard sometimes.

In eight grade (pre-diagnoses) I was ticcing (if that's how you phrase it) and I was flapping my hands and my English/Socials teacher was in the middle of explaining something, stopped and said " Jamie, what are you doing?" I was sitting in the front row, so everyone was able to see me, and they were all staring at me, now on top of that, I also didn't have an answer because I didn't know what I was doing, I had no explanation for her so I just stuttered over my words and tearing up. My math teacher was worse that year definitely, she called my tics a distraction and suggested in a condescending way that whenever i was having tics I should go on a 5 minute walk. Now if you have or know anything about Tourrete's or have it/ a tic disorder, you can see how that would be a problem. Also in repose to the swearing thing, only 10% of people with Tourrette's Syndrome actually have vulgar vocal tics, it's called Corprolalia, and despite affecting a minority of people with Tourrette's its the most stigmatised aspect of it.

So people who think its funny or want it just to get attention or just to be able to say inappropriate things without getting in trouble, please carefully consider having to deal with every aspect of this and then how much people who do have envy you and the normalcy you have.

[sleepingdeath-light]

s/o who is an empath hcs ; bakugo, hawks & shinso

requested by @echosoftheocean

reader is written as being gender neutral

note : i’m not really familiar with these characters and their arcs, so i may come back to this piece in the future and rewrite things to be more accurate

Katsuki Bakugo

bakugo is, if nothing else, an incredibly hot tempered and ill mannered individual at first glance; someone ready and willing to pick any fights he can just so he can get to the top and prove himself. so being empathetic is basically a requirement to be able to get close enough to him to be in a relationship.

his temper is something that he struggles with and in the early stages of your relationship, he would have dealt with pretty much all of his problems through lashing out verbally and physically - something that left him looking incredibly intimidating and unrelentingly violent to the untrained eye

so having someone who is willing to help him work through his anger issues and that will stand by him and help him calm down and think rationally would do wonders for his mental health and his reputation

at first he was openly and obviously frustrated at how easily you seemed to read him, how you knew him and his emotions better than himself - he felt exposed, vulnerable, and he hated it for the longest time

but then you smiled at him and brought him into your arms, assuring him that you understand - that you understand him - and that he didn’t need to say anything; you were there and he wasn’t alone

that was the first time he cried in front of you and it certainly wouldn’t be the last

you’re probably the only person he feels comfortable being vulnerable and truly open around - in his mind you’ll figure it out sooner or later so why hide?

though he’ll still act very tough and aggressive around his classmates and colleagues; you’re the only one that gets to see the real him

that being said, he never really gets used to how in tune with his emotions you are and it will startle him no matter how long you’ve been together

Keigo Takami / Hawks

hawks himself has a high level of emotional intelligence and can read the moods of those around him, but he isn’t used to being read in that same way - so, needless to say, your highly empathetic nature would throw him off at first.

makes an effort to deflect any attempts at reading his emotions by further pushing his relaxed, cocky facade - becoming very obviously irate the more you’re able to see right through it

this behaviour continues for the entirety of the time he spends as your acquaintance, friend and potential partner until you finally confront him about it and tell him that he’s allowed to be himself: to be frustrated, angry, upset and happy without hiding it

and, surprisingly, he slowly starts to accept that as your relationship evolves

though these changes occur exclusively in the privacy of your shared home, as his work as a hero is dependent on the persona he developed

doesn’t mention it much, but really appreciates that he doesn’t need to tell you how he feels for you to understand as it’s something that he struggles to talk about - and, frankly, deal with in general

but as much as you read him and help him deal with his distress and difficult moments before they even hit him, he quickly learns to recognise issues with you and help you deal with them - sometimes before you even realise what’s happening - without even saying a word about it

Hitoshi Shinso

shinso has been forcefully isolated and stigmatised since his quirk first developed and he was labelled as “villainous” by default - so having a partner who is highly empathetic and can read his moods would be incredibly important to him.

having someone truly understand him, even better than he knows himself, would absolutely warm his heart and make him feel truly loved and appreciated for the first time since his quirk manifested

he trusts you above anyone else, even above his mentor, and you are the one he confides in about his concerns and anxieties and his dreams - knowing that you’d never judge him and feeling that bit more comfortable as a result

highly appreciative of the fact that you’re able to read his emotions and will accept your support and fretting even if he doesn’t recognise the cause; he just trusts that you know what you’re doing as you help him confront his feelings

still tries to keep up his stoic, distant persona around others - and even you, at first - but you get to see a very different side of him as he opens up to you about, well, everything

though you will need to bare in mind that progression with him will be slow because of how he was treated in the past; he understands that you can read him, and he does truly appreciate how much you care for him, it’s just a bit intimidating to go from being feared to being loved by someone that gets him

it’s all very new, but he loves it and he loves you

[intersex-idiots]

"well you see, MY roleplay is much more valid than that person's roleplay or this person's roleplay because *I* pretend to have a heavily stigmatised and crippling disorder that is caused by horrific trauma! can't you see how special and different i am? aren't i just so valid and totally not mocking you and everything you survived to develop this horrible dissociative disorder?"

we did NOT suffer through and survive all of our fucking trauma since a young age and having that carry on through our life just to have a motherfucking CHILD pretend to have our disorder to feel like they mean something in this pathetic world. we KNOW we did not. you fuckers anger me to no motherfucking end. i am not about to let fucking CHILDREN think they know more about my disorder than i do. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF EVERY NON-EXISTANT GOD. JUST EDUCATE YOURSELF, GROW, MATURE, AND APOLOGISE TO EVERY SYSTEM YOU DECIDED TO HURT, HARASS, AND TRIED TO CONVINCE THAT THEY DID NOT HAVE TRAUMA WHEN YOU STILL THOUGHT ROLEPLAYERS WERE ALLOWED IN A COMMUNITY FOR TRAUMATISED PEOPLE. THEN MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, WE WILL FUCKING ACCEPT YOU.

all i ask is for one day, ONE DAY, where roleplayers don't try to make us believe we didn't experience our trauma when we have physical evidence that we did. all i ask is for one day that i can live in fucking peace without these roleplayers taking shit way too far and sending me death threats for not wanting non-traumatised people in our safe spaces.

i can barely go on this fucking app anymore because all i see is their bullshit. if it's not in asks, it's in reblogs or comments. i'll definitely be turning anon off so y'all can tell me to kill myself with y'all's whole chest since y'all wanna be fucking bold again. <3

-🧃

[kotokoharrow]

So, we need to talk about Mikoto.

I’m sure you’re all intelligent people who know better than to take your understanding of a complex, highly stigmatised mental health condition from a YouTube series, but as a person with DID, I still feel compelled to make a post talking about the realities of the condition.

Whenever DID is represented in media, it’s shown as something flashy and eccentric, as well as often being associated with murderers, or at least violence. This makes it difficult for those of us with DID to reach out for support; I know multiple people with DID who, upon telling their support network about their condition, were met with jokes (and sometimes serious comments) about whether they’re violent.

So, take this as DID 101. At the end of this post I will include my masterpost of DID resources, which I strongly recommend checking out if you have any interest in this condition (especially if you’re a fan of Mikoto and plan to make analyses of him). Deco*27 may have no interest in understanding the reality of DID, but you can do better.

Please note that I am overlooking a lot of nuance in this post because I want people to understand the pure basics of DID. The resources linked at the end go into far more detail, and given that many of them come from medical sources or professional advocates, are far more reliable than just some guy on tumblr.

So, what is DID?

DID stands for Dissociative Identity Disorder. It’s a condition that forms in response to repeated early childhood trauma, most often abuse from a caregiver, but other forms of interpersonal trauma can also cause it.

As children, our brains are hardwired to attach to our caregivers no matter what, because that’s how we stay alive. Our caregivers give us food and shelter, they give us protection from strangers, they give us affection and attention, all things that are necessary for healthy development. Because of this, even if a caregiver is abusive, a child is still wired to attach.

One way that a child can ‘cope’ with having an abusive caregiver is by denying the abuse. The brain dissociates (disconnects/denies/fails to integrate) from the abuse, seeing it as happening to ‘some other child’. This process is called splitting. 

The part of the child that copes with daily life becomes amnesic of the abuse, or at the very least emotionally disconnects from and downplays it, while the part of the child that copes with the abuse develops their own sense of identity based around the experiences that they cope with.

Now that the brain has learnt splitting as a coping mechanism, it can continue to split for any experience that overwhelms the person’s ability to cope, creating more dissociative parts that may or may not develop their own senses of identity.

DID is a disorder that often forms in the face of violence, but this does not mean that the dissociative parts are violent, themselves. It is common for dissociative parts to hold repressed anger, or to be based on external abusers, but this does not make them violent or abusive themselves. It is common for those with DID to experience intense internal conflict and self-directed violence, but not to express other-directed violence, outside of situations where fight/flight is triggered.

What if someone with DID did commit a crime?

DID has been used as a defence in criminal cases before. However, within the DID community, there is an acknowledgement of the fact that every part is responsible for the behaviour of one part.

Despite the way that media may like to act, DID is not ‘multiple people living in one body’. It is one person with multiple, often radically different ways of perceiving themselves. One person with a fragmented sense of self. One person who experiences amnesia.

Due to this, if a part committed a crime, the entire person with DID would be responsible for it.

Something else to keep in mind about DID is this- because a person with DID is still one person, morals don’t radically differ between parts, unless there is a trauma-based reason for it. So, if one part is willing to commit murder, outside of any external pressures, that means every part is okay with it on some level.

What’s the harm of Milgram’s portrayal of DID?

Outside of what I mentioned in the introduction to this post, many people with DID are deeply afraid of their parts when they first discover that they have this condition. It’s a disorder based around denial of intolerable experiences. Fear and avoidance are central to how the disorder forms and maintains itself.

Many people with DID feel out of control when their parts ‘front’ (take control of the body), even moreso if they experience more intense amnesia and can’t remember what their parts do, or if their parts experience overwhelming anger/pain/fear that they struggle to understand.

Many people with DID struggle to understand their parts ways of thinking, belief systems and needs. This causes internal conflict that maintains dissociation. It is one of the major hurdles to recovery.

Media portraying people with DID as violent and murderous doesn’t help. Many people with DID do not realise that their parts will have the same morals/ethics that they have. Many people with DID are afraid of what their parts may do. The normalisation of DID as a disorder that causes violence makes this worse.

Many people with DID also experience shame of their condition. Shame is a very common emotion in survivors, and it causes many people to keep their trauma a secret, even from those who could support them. Many people will keep their condition to themselves due to not wanting to be seen as violent, and not wanting to have to educate people about the realities of their experiences.

Milgram has a huge issue of using mental illness as a shock-factor, both with Mikoto and Haruka. While this isn’t intended as a callout or to tell people to stop watching Milgram (I have every intention to continue watching, after all), I do want to encourage people to be critical and understand that the way mental health conditions, symptoms and behaviours are being associated with violence and ‘creepy’ imagery is not okay.

If you would like to learn more about DID, I have a document of resources here. The document is periodically updated, and includes resources about childhood trauma, attachment trauma, other disorders and coping skills, along with resources about DID specifically.

Thank you for reading.

[pageofheartdj]

YEAH collector and Luz parallels are SO good. They're both trying their best but things get heavy and hard and aelrkgm. They're both just neurodivergent kids trying their best <3

but OO do you have a hc for a specific PD? I completely agree with your point of people having even less tolerance for people with PDs, which is really sad tbh. The Collector being treated kindly in canon while also (headcanon) having a personality disorder would definitely be very nice to see, because it's not like adults with PD just appear outta nowhere right?

They were kids at some point, possibly kids that struggle and don't get the help they needed <- not to justify people who do bad things, but like everything is so much more complex than just "this person bad because of [insert thing here]"

Anyways you're pulling me into the Collector-specific fandom, thanks! xD

Luz and Collector are paralleling so much it's unreal!XD Really hope for some quality ND bonding <3

Yes! Trauma is a very common reason of a person developing pd! And often adults are struggling and hurting others because they were not helped with how to deal with it in a healthy manner, just shunned. And being treated like some kind of irredeemable evil, which is so unfair and not true!

I hc Collector having BPD. And since this pd is one of the most stigmatised ones, it would be nice to see a character being treated with care and patience.

I am no way stating like some kind of professional, I just liked reading about them. For me Collector has mood swings, jumping from positive to negative emotions in a click, especially with explosive anger. Unstable relationships, Collector treated Philip as his friend but then quickly dropped it and attacked after Philip betrayed him, and then as quickly attached himself to King, someone who freed him, immediately calling him his best friend. And for me his behaviour in the episode looked like coming from fear of abandoment. Impulsive behaviour is not something I can find in canon(although he is impulsive by child standards xD) but I can see him having something like that in theory. Also maybe unstable self image? He was alone for a long time and we see him being different with Philip and King.

[thirty-five-owls]

Guide!Frank who joined the marines young and fought well, who recently returned from active duty, stationed in the Tower.

He was in the break room that day with some guys, having coffee, enjoying his time, when his superior came down to call on them “they need a guide up there for a rogue. Now.”

It wasn’t his job but he went anyway, like the good soldier he was. He was also curious because the department has been enforcing a registration system for decades, and there’s not supposed to be any rogues left who’s dangerous enough to warrant military attention.

After a short debrief, he followed the long, white corridor to its end where a lone door stood, a floor-to-ceiling white-cushioned cell with nothing but a single plastic chair bolted down, an odour-neutral room designed to maintain the perfect temperature and absorb sound. They used it to calm Sentinels who lost control of their senses and needed isolation.

When he walked in, there was a bloodied man bound to the chair in plastic cuffs, his head hung low, his existence was a shade of red so provocative against the white cell it was almost offensive to the eyes. Frank squinted.

Sentinel!Matt had been operating in New York as a vigilante under the alias “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen”. He put himself on the radar when he began investigating civilian disappearances traced back to the Tower. He knew they kept a file on him as a rogue, probably had his name too, but that day was the first time he fell captive and his helmet was taken away. He was also on the brink of a sensory overload.

He heard the guide as soon as the door was cracked open, all the information from the outside world washed over him at once: the loud, steady heartbeats and breathing of a well-trained marksman who was at least as strong, if not stronger than him, the smell of hot coffee and sugary pastry, ink, paper, perspiration, aftershave, the afternoon sun, and a brisk shower some time earlier; he can taste something metal in the air the guide brought in with him, but couldn’t easily place his nuanced movements because of the room. The frustration was fuelling his anger. He lunged forward in the chair, yanking hard on his silent restraints.

Frank closed the door behind him. “Devil of Hell’s Kitchen, huh? That’s a real cute name. Why don’t you calm down, buddy.”

“Get out. I don’t need a guide in here. Send in whoever’s in charge of you.” The man in red growled, but did not look up.

The Sentinel’s hostility almost immediately had an effect on Frank, but he handled it well. He noticed the bolts in the legs of the chair coming ever so slightly loose from the sheer force of the Sentinel’s pull. Already a bad sign indicating this might be a messy job. That, plus the condescension in his voice was really rubbing Frank the wrong way.

It’s a stigmatised career for gifted folks who join the military; some people think they deliberately signed up to become the government’s weapons of death, that they willingly gave up their rights as a free agent to be objectified and abused by an oppressive system just so they can chase the thrill of being a natural killer. There are, of course, also people who admired them and their powers, respected them for being protectors of the country, proud American patriots who fully supported the growing military budget used to train and maintain their division.

Clearly the man in red was not the latter. He sunk low on the edge of the chair, straining and bleeding, refusing to show his face, but kept tilting his head this way and that, Frank knew it was a telltale sign his auditory senses were trying to figure out echoes in the room. But the walls absorbed most of that.

“Nobody in charge of me is coming up here anytime soon, so I suggest you take a moment and relax.” Frank replied coolly and positioned himself to stand comfortably in front of the prisoner, ready to work on him.

Sentinels were generally stronger than the average person, but most were gifted in one sense, rarely two, the rare ones tended to rise to higher ranks in the military early on. But knowing which one this Sentinel had was greatly helpful.

He lowered his tone and voice to a softer breathy whisper, “listen to me, I’m not here to hurt you as long as you don’t give me a good enough reason to, you got that? ”

Frank’s calming affect seemed to have worked on him. The man in red quieted down for a moment, breathing long and shaky breathes down his chest.

After some silence, Frank heard a raspy voice, “you don’t know what they’ve got you into. You have no idea.”

Frank nodded, "is that right. What exactly do you think 'they' are up to?"

"Let me out of these and I'll tell you." The reply came so fast it made Frank chuckle.

"Just uncuff me, please. I'll tell you what you want to know. I just can't take this anymore." He said with a pained tone, yanking on his arms again.

Frank considered it. His mission was to extract information and he was confident in his ability to get it done. Besides, they were on one of the highest floors in the Tower with so many layers of restricted access a cockroach wouldn't make it to the ground. He knew there were guards outside and a surveillance feed in the ceiling corner. He knew there were people watching this feed right now on the other side. He was never instructed to uncuff the prisoner under any circumstances, but they sent in a guide alone so they'll just have to trust the process. If it took a little blood and bruises to get the job done, then so be it.

"You play by the rules, I'll take those off, alright?"

The man nodded slightly.

Frank walked up to the prisoner, fully aware of the fight that might break out between them as soon as he let him free, but still wasn't prepared for how fast the Sentinel's reflexes were. His hands were reached around their back, and the man stayed perfectly still, but as soon as he felt the slight give of the lock under pressure, before his mind had even registered it, the man in red already broke free and jumped on him. There wasn't even a millisecond more of pretense.

He cursed loudly as they both went down, adapted to the situation at hand, and immediately reached for the concealed knife under his shirt. But for some goddamned, nigh-impossible reason, the Devil of Hell's Kitchen beat him to it, as if he always knew where Frank kept it hidden.

Frank saw his face while being pinned underneath him, those glassy eyes that casted an unresponsive blank gaze off to the side were not normal. He'd never seen a blind Sentinel before.

"You listen to me, I don't care what lies your pathetic headquarter has been feeding you about fighting for justice," the Sentinel growled, the blade of the knife pressed to Frank's throat, "they cannot prevent what's coming. Tell them I'm going to hunt them down, one by one," the rage in his voice filled up and vibrated in his chest, shaking as it passed through him, "and I will make them pay."

They fought each other mercilessly on the floor of the isolation cell, every hit that Frank landed was intended to break bone or induce immobility, but the Devil had the upper hand with a weapon. Though he couldn't use his eyes, he moved with inexplicable speed and precision, something that couldn't possibly be explained by heightened hearing alone.

As he felt the familiar scorched pain of a shoulder fracture, Frank started wondering why in the hell hadn't someone interfered yet. It was good in a way, because now they know the rogue had an agenda against the Tower. He held onto this thought and doubled down.

Frank could tell the rogue's senses were overloaded, which somehow made him more dangerous because now there was an urgency to escape while he still can. He tapped into the Sentinel's rage, wanting to regain some control, and their affects blended in instantaneously. It took him by surprise.

Whoever's behind that camera watching us right now, you think they give a damn what happens to you? Frank heard the Sentinel in his head. They should've intercepted this a long time ago, but no one came. I could kill you or imprint on you right now and all they'd do is watch it happen. Why do you think that is?

It was getting hard for Frank to distinguish his own emotions from the Sentinel's, the blood loss from the fight made his head ring, and the sensations he felt from the man in red were more intense than any other Sentinel he's ever encountered. He knew he was slipping and cursed every single being on earth including his superiors for the lack of reinforcements so far.

You're fighting on the wrong side of the war, soldier. Whenever you're ready, come find me in Hell's Kitchen.

And with that, the rogue seized the opportunity, plunged Frank's own knife into the side of his leg, threw him backwards into the chair, and broke out of the door.

[thedreadvampy]

Hey Ruth! I noticed you've talked in the past about asexuality in quite a negative manner. As an ace-person (who has received backlash for it) I was wondering: do you still uphold these opinions?

Hey! I have in the past said I don’t really...like people popping up in my ask box asking me My Opinion On Asexuality, but I do appreciate you asking me as someone I kinda know and with your face turned on, so I’m gonna aim to answer in the macro. Though I mean it depends on what the opinions...are? I have had a lot of opinions over the time I’ve had this blog and I don’t necessarily know what all of them were or which ones have concerned you. I can give you a top-level view of how I see my views, though (however, since I have been largely holding off on answering this kind of ask for Literally A Year Now this is less an answer to your specific question and more an answer to the last year of asks)

(also if I get dogpiled in my inbox for Having Bad Asexuality Opinions which I do every time I talk about asexuality regardless of what I actually say then. my phone is broken I won’t know about it :) so I feel untouchable)

I don’t think I hold a negative opinion of asexuality as an identity (I say I don’t think bc we all have blind spots)? I have a lot of very important people in my life who are asexual, aromantic or aroace and. I mean it feels pretty condescending to say ~uwu it’s valid~ bc like. ace and aro people don’t really need my input to validate their identity. but a) it seems like a pretty accurate way to describe their experience and b) I know a lot of them have had a really huge boost from finding a name and community to fit their experience and have found that really helpful, and I’ve seen that make a huge difference in people’s lives and I’m really happy to watch my friends come to understand themselves and feel comfortable and accepted in a part of themselves they had felt really alienated or stigmatised by. In a broader sense, I think there’s huge value in decentralising romance and sex in our assumptions of What Human Happiness Means and for some people that’s not the most important thing, and for some it’s just not interesting. 

So like. I find it difficult to really express these opinions in any meaningful way because my opinion on asexuals and aromantics is much like my opinion on trans people or idk like people of colour. like very obviously those people exist and very obviously those people don’t deserve to be marginalised or stigmatised but it would feel. weird and performative to just make a post saying like “Asexuality Is Good And Valid, I Am Pro It” bc again like. who needs my permission or cares about my opinion. it’s not a Good Thing To Do it’s just. a thing you are that shouldn’t be treated as a bad thing.

however. and I suspect that this is what you’re referring to. while I love and appreciate ace and aro people, I think building communities and active support for ace and aro people is valuable and needed and, as above, I think Asexuality Is Good And Valid I Am Pro It, I do take some issue with elements of how discussions around asexuality are framed online (pretty much only online, I really haven’t run into the kind of black-and-white thinking in in-person queer spaces) 

and I also. think there are some issues with people extrapolating their experience of their own sexuality onto the world in a way which. I’m just going to say a lot of the time when I talk about The Ace Discourse in a negative way it’s around people assuming that the world is split into a binary between ace and allo people, or assuming that only aspec people experience a nuanced or complex or fluid relationship to their sexuality while pigeonholing allosexuality into a pretty flat image of sex and romance focus. and I have always felt like this does a massive disservice not just to people who don’t identify with aspec labels, but also to the general hope that we could work against the expectation that there’s a Standard Amount To Value Sex/Romance - I think that the assumption that there are aspec people and then Everyone Else Has The Normal Type and Level of Attraction just. reinforces the idea that there’s a “Normal” type and level of attraction. which is ultimately pretty self-defeating and also just. observably untrue. 

and this division of the world into Aspec People and Allo People also has some other weird knockon effects - I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically wrong with identities like gray ace or demi or other aspec labels beyond asexual and aromantic, but I do think that the way those labels are used is often. unhelpful. and they’re defined in such personal, subjective ways that you get weirdnesses sometimes like people Diagnosing Each Other With Demisexual or people saying ‘you can’t talk about this experience you share because it’s an Aspec Experience’ and again. there isn’t a concrete material experience there because the whole experience of romantic and sexual attraction, what that feels like and how sharply divisible it is is very, very personal and subjective. and everyone has different experiences of those and will name those experiences differently.

there’s also. historically a minority of Big Ace Blogs that kind of sneer at allosexuality or who would hijack posts about other issues to derail them to asexuality. but I don’t think they were ever representative of the community as a whole and I certainly think that inasmuch as those blogs remain around they’re a legacy of the Long-Ago (and a lot of them are trolls imo)

but there is. an issue I take that does seem to be more currently live which is the question of allo privilege. I think personally that framing all allosexuals/alloromantics as privileged over all aspec people on the basis of feeling sexual/romantic attraction is provably untrue in a world where people, particularly queer people, are actively oppressed and marginalised for expressing non-normative sexuality. it isn’t that I don’t think asexuality and aromanticism isn’t marginalised and stigmatised, because it visibly is, but it seems pretty reductive to boil it down to a binary yes/no privilege when both sexualisation and desexualisation are so actively tied into other forms of marginalisation (this is what I was trying to express in the argument about Martin a while ago - sex and sexuality are so often disincentivised for fat, queer, disabled and neuroatypical people that it doesn’t...feel like a reclamation that those tend to be the characters that get fanonised as ace where slim, straight, able-bodied and neurotypical characters aren’t. like it’s more complex than a binary privilege equation; sex and romance are incentivised and stigmatised differently at the intersection of oppressions and. for example. in a world where gay conversion therapy and religious oppression of gay and SGA people is so often focused specifically on celibacy and on punishing the act of sexual attraction, I don’t think it’s a reasonable framing to say that a gay allosexual man has privilege over an aroace man on the basis of his attraction) 

so those are like. things I would consider myself to feel actively negative about in online discourse (and again. in online discourse. not in how I relate to asexuality or aromanticism or aspec identities in general but in the framing and approaches people take towards discussing it in a very specific bubble).

but also. um. the main criticism I have of the online discourse culture of asexuality is that there are things I don’t have experience of that I have mentioned, when asked, that I don’t personally understand the meaning of but I don’t need to understand them to appreciate that they’re useful/meaningful to others. things like 

the difference between QPRs, asexual romantic relationships and close friendships

how you know the difference between romantic attraction and friendship

the distinction between sexual attraction and a desire to have sex with someone for another reason

and I hope I’ve generally been clear that this is. honest lack of understanding and not condemnation. I personally have a very muddled sense of attraction and often have difficulty identifying the specifics of any of my own emotional needs so like. it’s a closed book for me at the moment, how you would identify the fine distinctions between types of want when I’m still at step 1: identify That You Want Something Of Some Sort, Eventually, Through Trial And Error. but I think I’ve always been explicit that this isn’t a value judgement it’s just a gap in my own knowledge and yet. every single time I’ve said anything other than enthusiastic “yes I understand this and I love it and it’s good and valid” (and again. I have not gone out of my way to talk about it I have mostly only mentioned it because people keep asking me to talk about it) I have got a massive rush of anger and accusations of aphobia and “just shut up if you don’t know what you’re talking about but also answer my 30 questions to prove you think Correct Things about asexuality” and. I understand that this comes from a place of really unpleasant and aggressive backlash towards the ace community so it’s a sensitivity with a lot of people but like. it doesn’t seem proportional.

also I feel like ever since I hit like 700 followers my Tumblr life has been a constant cycle of people asking me Are You An Ace Inclusionist Are You An Exclus Are You An Aphobe Justify Your Opinion On Asexuality which. eventually yeah I’ve got pretty snippy about the whole thing. but you know. fuck it I’m just gonna lay it out and if you or anyone else is uncomfortable following me based on those opinions then I’m sorry to hear that and I will be sad to see you not want to engage with me any more but I also think that’s absolutely your prerogative. however I will not be taking questions at this time (and not just bc my phone’s broken) - demands for an argument about this Are Going To Be Ignored so if you want to go then go.

so like the big question I reckon is Do You Think Asexuality Is Queer and

yes. no. maybe. I don’t understand the question what does it mean for an identity to be queer? 

there are spaces and conversations where any form of aromanticism or asexuality makes sense as a relevant identity. talking about hegemonic expectations of normative romance. building community. combatting the idea that heterosexual missionary married sex between a man and a woman is the only rewarding or valuable form of relationship or intimacy.

there are spaces where I think heterosexual aros/heteromantic cis aces don’t. have a more meaningful or direct experience of the issues than allo cishets. because while being aro or ace or aspec has a direct impact on those people on a personal and relational level, disclosure is largely a choice, and the world at large sees them as straight. they don’t have the lived experience of being visibly nonconforming that SGA people and aroace people do. they may still be queer but there’s a lot of conversations where they bring a lot of the baggage of being Straight People (because. even if you’re ace or aro you can still be straight in your romantic or sexual attraction and if your relationships are all outwardly straight then you don’t necessarily have an intimate personal understanding of being marginalised from mainstream society by dint of your sexuality). this doesn’t make you Not Queer in the same way that being a bi person who’s only ever been in m/f relationships is still queer, but in both cases a) you don’t magically have a personal experience of societal oppression through the transitive properties of Being Queer and b) it’s really obnoxious to talk as if you’re The Most Oppressed when other people are trying to have a conversation about their lived experience of societal oppression. and they’re within their rights to say ‘we’re talking about the experience of being marginalised for same gender/non-heterosexual attraction and you’re straight, could you butt out?’)

(I very much object to the assumption coming from a lot of exclus that “cishet ace” is a term that can reasonably be applied to non-orientated aroace people though. het is not a default it really extremely doesn’t make sense to treat people who feel no attraction as Straight By Default. when I were a lad I feel like we mostly understood “asexual” to mean that identity - non-orientated aroace - and while I think it’s obvious that a lot of people do find value in using a more split-model because. well. some people are both gay/straight/bi and aro/ace, and it’s good that language reflects that. but I do think it’s left a gap in the language to simply refer to non-attracted people. this isn’t a criticism of anything in particular - there’s a constant balancing act in language between specificity and adaptability and sometimes a gain for one is a loss for the other)

some queer conversations and spaces just. aren’t built with aces in mind. and that isn’t a flaw. some spaces aren’t built with men in mind, but that doesn’t mean men can’t be queer. some conversations are about Black experiences of queerness but that doesn’t mean non-Black people can’t be queer. not all queer spaces will focus on ace needs but that doesn’t mean asexuality isn’t queer, or that queerness is opposed to aceness - sex, sexuality, romance and dating are all really important things to a lot of queer people, especially those whose sexuality and romantic relationships are often stigmatised or violently suppressed in wider society. there should be gay bars, hookup apps, gay and trans friendly sex education, making out at Pride, leather parades and topless dyke marches and porn made by and for queer people, romantic representation in media of young and old gay, bi and trans couples kissing and snuggling and getting married and saying sloppy romantic things. and there should be non-sexual queer spaces, there should be discussions around queerness that don’t suppose that a monogamous romantic relationship is what everyone’s fighting for, sex ed should be ace inclusive, etc. 

I think the whole question of inclusionism vs exclusionism is based on a weird underlying assumption that If An Identity Is Queer All Queer Spaces Should Directly Cater To That. like. aspec identities can be queer and it can be totally reasonable for there to be queer spaces that revolve around being sexual and romantic and there can be conversations it’s not appropriate or productive to centre asexuality and aspec experiences in and we can recognise that not all queer people do prioritise or have any interest in sex or romance. in the same way that there’s value in centring binary trans experiences sometimes and nonbinary experiences at other times but both of those conversations should recognise that neither binary or nonbinary gender identity is a Universal Queer Experience.

anyway that one probably isn’t one of the opinions you were asking about but I have been wanting to find a way to express it for a while so you’re getting it: the Ruth Thedreadvampy Inclusionism Take.

uh. it’s 1:30 on a work night so I have been typing too long. if there was an opinion you were specifically thinking of that I haven’t mentioned, chuck me another ask specifically pointing to what you want me to clarify my thinking on. sometimes I gotta be honest I’ve just been kind of careless in my framing (thinking of the Martin Fucks debacle where I spent ages insisting I didn’t say Martin couldn’t be aroace then read back like two days later and realised that I had said “he’s not aroace” bc I had written the post at 2am without proofreading and had meant to say “unless you think he’s aroace”) so I May Well Not Stand By Some Posts or might Stand By Them With Clarification

[kaylorfails]

Yes, Karlies Kloss is married.

I normally don’t do debunks but the outright lies being spread and about about Karlie Kloss’s marraige to Josh Kushner are annoying, so here we go.

On July 24 2018, People announces that Karlie and Josh got engaged X . This wasn’t a surprise to those of us not kaylors, it was quite obvious, but before the announcement all was well in kaylorland on July 23rd:

This surprised and angered a lot of kaylors whose reactions went from “they’re stigmatising lesbianism” (X), “this is horrible news” (X), “she’s going to jail” (X), “they’ll never get married” (X) (X). “it’s part of the fucking story” (X), “giving you the truth is not my call to make” (X), to “publicity stunt” (X) 

While kaylors were bemoaning her lack of ring, Karlie showed it off (X), posted insta stories about her friends and family reacting to the news just to rub it in further (X). Congrats from the sisters-in-law (X) (X), parents-in-law (X), Toni Garrn (X).

That was just the antipasto, now onto the main dish. I’ll be using “you” in this. This is a debunk directed at kaylors, so never mind that.

On Otcober 18 2018, Karlie Kloss got married to Josh Kushner and prior to that, she made a spotify playlist with her wedding date.

“She isn’t Jewish and didn’t converted” She is and she did. Apart from the fact that a British Vogue video in 2015 showed “meeting a Rabbi” in her notebook, shes’s spoken about it in Vogue in 2018, on WWHL, and recently with Naomi Campbell. Her conversion has also been discussed on various Jewish publications (X) (X). Any further insistence she didn’t convert is antisemitic. There’s only so much ignorance can excuse.

“A thursday wedding is weird” It would be if they were WASP or Catholic. Even then, I’d still call it unusual at best. But they’re Orthodox Jews. Shabbat, a weekly 25-hour observance from just before sundown each Friday through the completion of nightfall on Saturday, would make the usual saturday wedding not possible. For a Jewish couple, thursday is a good day to get married. I could understand thinking thursday is a weird day if you’re not Jewish, but insisting it is after being informed about it, is offensive.

For your information, ttb, a blog run a white, straight, definitely not Jewish woman and followed by many non jewish kaylors, is telling you about Judaism.

I don’t get the “photoshoot” argument. The kaylor fandom is literally build on a Vogue photoshoot actually used for promo (X). It was also a blatant ripoff of Poppy Delevigne and Alexa Chung’s bestfriend shoot (X) (X).

“The wedding was a photoshoot” You know those beautiful wedding pictures you might have seen on facebook or instagram? They were taken by professional photographers. Not by a ghost or potatoes, professional photographers. Yes, you can gasp.

And they are hired to do their job and do it beautifully. I don’t know what kaylors real life wedding experiences are, but there’s this thing called pre-wedding shoots people like doing at their weddings. Yes, it’s a weird world we live in. These pictures end up in a strange thing called wedding book, which will be shown to friends and family, future babies and grandbabies, and unsuspecting guests. Or burned if the marriage ends in a divorce.

Professional videographers are also hired to film the whole thing. From the bride waking up, to her getting her makeup done, her friends being silly, to her leaving her wedding reception. The world is wild.

On the wedding day, the pictures were posted on Hongbo Li’s instagram:

A friend of hers demanded it to be taken down (Karlie follows this friend on IG):

Who is HongBo Li? A comment on a ttb post gave us the answer:

And he’s also mentioned in this Vogue writeup about haute couture. As you can see, he isn’t some random kaylor voraciously living through strangers. he’s actually worked on various celebrities wedding dresses. Karlie didn’t put on a local store wedding dress, she actually had one Dior designed for her. That lucky bitch! I mean oppressed lucky bitch!

Onto the photographer. Her wedding pictures were taken by Heather Hazzan, A NY based photographer and very good and successful at her job:

Again, Karlie didn’t get a random photographer for her wedding, she got the best.The only thing this is proving is that being rich and famous gets you access. And not ony is she rich, she also married an obscenely rich man. The picture of the oppressed.

“There was nothing showing a wedding was going on” Now, that’s a lie. Should Karlie have released a full movie showing every detail? For why? You’d still call her wedding fake:

JK robes and hotdog stands (The guy is Kristine’s boyfriend):

More (X) Go through this tag you lazy bags! I’m tired.

Karlie getting prepared for her wedding (X) (X) (X). An expression you might have while your sister is being forced to fake a wedding:

“None of her friends were there” While I’m sure there’ve been many guestless weddings and they’re just as valid as the populated ones, this doesn’t seem to be one of those.

A childhood friend who didn’t get the memo about this being a stunt:

Toni Garrn, a kaylors appointed ex gf, posted this a whole year after the wedding:

David Geffen showing you’ve been sold a bridge about this being fake:

Ashley Graham speaking about being a guest at the wedding.

“She doesn’t look happy” Uhm, if you say so. Here’s Karlie being an unhappy and miserable being on her wedding day and here she looks devastedly sad looking at her wedding dress.

“There was no wedding reception” As Katy Perry would: “Time, the ultimate truth teller” Here’s the video Karlie posted on her 2nd anniversary showing there was indeed a wedding reception.

A pre-wedded Karlie with Josh and his parents.

Everything pointed to this being a real wedding and not a woods photoshoot you’ve been told it is. I’ve yet to see the magazine spread this shoot was supposedly made for and It’s been 2 years already.

So yeah, Karlie Kloss is married. She’s married and pregnant. Move the fuck on.

If you’re sure of your stuff, come to me with something that isn’t a version of this:

If you’re a kaylor trying to get out of the cult, go through this Joshlie timeline to purify your soul.

But if you’re a firm believer that Karlie is pregnant with Austin Swift’s sperm and she’ll raise the baby with Taylor Swift, there’s no hope for you and you’re disgusting.

That’s it for the October wedding!

[australet789]

Hey I'm sorry you're having such difficulties right now. I wanted to suggest that you might have BPD (borderline personality disorder). It's an awful name imo that stigmatises people. My siblings and cousin have it, and some of the things you're describing are similar. The diagnosis criteria is having FIVE or more of the following list (sorry this is an url you will have to fill out): i DOT mgur DOT com/4WO63oO DOT png. 1/2

Thank you for the recommendation and i appreciate it. Im aware BPD is stigmatized

But i dont think i have it.

The symptoms at least that matches the ones i have are

-suicidal thoughts, that arent much in my mind tbh. They happen like once? A month? And it's more about "i dont want to be here right now" than actually wanting to kill myself. I dont want to die.

-unstable self-image; even tho it's not marked, i have low self-esteem, related with my anxiety and depression, most likely impostor syndrome tbh.

-irritability or anxiety during a couple of hours i do have, but again, those are also symptoms for anxiety and depression. Also i dont have them everyday.

-trouble controlling anger. Apart from my anger/rage attack, while i do get irritable very easily, i do know how to control it. Im not always looking for fights, quite the opposite, i try my best to retreat and cool off.

-chronic feeling of emptiness. This one is the only one i have i can 100% say it's the same for BPD but i feel this is related to my depression.

The other symptoms listed on the image you sent me arent as marked or i dont have them. I dont do impulsivity self damaging (self deprecating humour is something i think all of my generation need to work out), i dont do frantic efforts to avoid abandonment (yes, i have mentioned friends that have gone away and it hurt, but i try again, even tho i get nervous, i keep trying with new people), i dont idealize my relationships to a extreme and i dont have extreme disassociation nor stress paranoia.

Now that's how I feel. Maybe i express myself differently and im not noticing. I will try to bring it up tomorrow with my doctor and see what he says.

Thank you again for reaching out, anon.