#We're Being Abused

[weareuniqueandimportant]

Those Stroke Traits Have Gotten So Much Worse. We Told Our Abuser She Only Insulted And Dehumanized Us And Said We Look Completely Fine Abuser Style. We Could Die And That's That.

And The Doctors Won't Find Anything Again If We Get There.

This Has Only Gotten Worse. And None Of You Care Either.

[beybuniki]

alternative universe where there are TWO epic fail sons in the todoroki familiy

[stonebutchery]

it's kind of baffling to me that entire sub-groups of queer folks endured a decade of being singled out and targeted for being asexual, aromantic, bisexual, pansexual, nonbinary, polyamorous, etc. and i have yet to see any substantial apologies from people who were directly responsible for causing genuine harm. i find it completely bizarre that there are so many people who want to sweep their past contributions to widespread lateral aggression toward specific queer groups under the rug like it didn't happen so they can wash their hands of it... there are people who are irreversibly traumatized because of this. there are people who took their lives because of it.

i'm wording the post like despite the fact that exclusionism targeting these groups (and more) continues to persist partly because it was a really frighteningly common trend to harass people just because they were ace, aro, bi, pan, nonbinary, poly, etc... and it's crazy to me that many of the people who were affected by this massive multi-pronged public online bullying campaign against the 'unacceptable types of queers' are the ones still receiving messages like "my url got put on an aphobe blocklist in 2016 because apparently a post i made making fun of asexuals got some teenage asexuals harassed and i still distrust asexuals to this day because of that" ...are you fucking kidding me?

we will never achieve any kind of unity as a queer community while we are insisting upon ignoring the hurt that lateral aggression has caused, and acting like the burden lies on the shoulders of the people who were harmed to forgive the people who harmed them and 'just move on', many of whom are not sorry for what they did! or they don't consider what they did to be wrong! how is that not deeply disturbing and troubling to more of you?

03/06/2024 edit: i’m putting a complete moratorium on this post because i am really sick and tired of having my point not only completely misconstrued and distorted entirely but also weaponized against transfems (particularly in replies i have decided to delete about how “ugh yes, exclusionism, and now transfems are bullying transmascs”) i find that really sickening and i’m demanding that it stop, and i can make it stop by turning off reblogs. so i have.

my objective in writing this post was never to request an apology from people who have been laterally-aggressive exclusionists in the past. i don’t think we’ll ever get more than a handful of apologies from those people, anyway. my point was that it was pretty terrifying to witness and experience a lot of lateral aggression that transferred from the real, in-person world to the deeply online spaces back into the real, in-person world in a really fucked up feedback loop and being a young queer person during this time and having that shape me, snd shape the experiences of my queer friends who have been traumatized by it.

however, it is absolutely unacceptable to me that the issue of transmisogyny is so blatantly overlooked by our entire community. for decades, transfems have experienced oppression and exclusion from transmisogyny-exempt women and queers. their exclusion from political queer liberation movements has caused many of the major schisms within our community we are still having arguments about to this day. if you want collective queer liberation, you must uplift transfems. there is no other option. you don’t get to write off all transfems just because one person who happened to be transfem was mean to you online or something.

i have answered and responded to way too many conspiracy-brained transmisogynist reactionaries to allow this post to keep fucking snowballing with people writing paragraphs in the tags about “transmisandry” or “transandrophobia.” please get your heads out of your asses.

this absolutely is the transmisogyny website, as always, and the place where all basic textual comprehension skills go to die, apparently.

[deoidesign]

I'm so mad that post was misinformation because there is actually an EXTREMELY important conversation to have about the production schedules artists are forced into. There's no need for exaggeration, the conditions are bad.

I work for webtoon. My publication schedule is weekly. While publishing I'm required 10-15 pages a week. Fully colored.

This means I'm finishing a 150 page fully colored graphic novel every 10-15 weeks.

When my comic is not updating, I am not getting paid. Any time writing, editing, or off is out of my own pocket. I don't get healthcare. They do not provide any assistants. They expect me to promote myself; they chose to deprioritize me before I even launched and gave me an end date half a year in. I never had a chance.

And this is the industry standard! Every company has artists forced into crunch hours, overtime, and burnout. Artists are literally dying early due to it. So many of my friends can't afford to go to the doctor.

It's unsustainable and untenable, and it's also the expectation our audiences have.

If we want to have this conversation, there's plenty of conversation to be had with the realities of the situation. It's bad as is.

[thisismisogynoir]

I love it when women hate men. I love it when women are allowed to vent to each other about how horrible and creepy men are. I love it when women form friendships with and prioritize each other over relationships with men(whether they're attracted to them or not). I love it when women put men dni in their bios and on their nude photos and on posts on their blogs. I love it when women refuse to mollycoddle and accommodate entitled male feelings with "but this doesn't mean I hate all men, I know a few men who are great, I love my father/sons/brothers/uncles/male cousins/guy friends" I love it when women complain about men WITHOUT "not all men" being a disclaimer. I love it when women avoid socializing with/refuse to be around/befriend/get close to men because they know men can't be trusted. I love it when women make "kill all men" jokes. I love it when women offer absolutely no concern or care for men's feelings and if their misandry offends men whatsoever because why should we, men are the oppressor class who have raped and killed and abused us and kept us as subjugated as second-class citizens for millennia, they regularly mistreat us and the women in their own marginalized communities still every single day and make this world so much harder and more awful for us to be in, and if we choose to hate them and not spare them any sympathy then so be it, and I don't just mean "men as a class" either, you can be a woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with any man on an individual basis and completely cuts off men from her personal life too and ykw I will love and fucking support you in that because men deserve absolutely NOTHING from us. If they're so tough and strong then they can handle it just like they can handle being lonely. If you are a woman who hates men, ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A LESBIAN AND/OR A TRANS WOMAN, then just know that I love you. I love you, I support you, and you are safe here.

[ruegarding]

the entire point of the blue food was that it was the only way sally could consistently rebel against gabe without getting her or percy punished. sally is not and never was submissive in the books. percy himself says sally has "a rebellious streak, like me." however, sally and percy were under threat of serious abuse from gabe and therefore had to pick their battles. blue food was sally's way of telling percy "i am here and fighting with you" and "there is hope in the world still."

[gynoidgearhead]

Forget Traditional Homeownership: Meet the Transgender People Who Have Given Up On The Unattainable Ideal Of Traditional Personhood

[internutter]

Not being normal about BG3

Not being normal about that little gasping gulp Astarion does after he gets human(oid) blood for what's possibly the first time. How out of breath and astonished he is at how it feels.

Not being normal about how he was wheedling and pleading beforehand, bargaining for "just a drop".

Not being normal about how shocked and surprised he is

Completely not being normal about how the rants about rats and bugs and Cazador puts that little gulp into a whole new perspective.

Especially not being normal about when you find him bear-drunk and he compares human(oid) blood [YOURS!] to a fine wine in contrast to the "plonk" of animal blood. Or the "sewer water" of rats.

...and not being normal about Larion not allowing our Tav's to get blushy about being "a fine wine" for a nice little conversation derailment...

This tiny gasp is that of someone who's never had anything close to a proper meal in two hundred fucking years.

No wonder he wants to hold on to what we players give him with both hands. No wonder he throws all his ploys at you to try to keep you.

And I'm not even out of Act 1.

[blackhholes]

teen wolf meme: [1/5] motifs -> fire

You find the girl wearing that necklace, she's your arsonist. Murderer. Excuse me? Arson happens to property. This girl's a murderer.

[batcavescolony]

I feel like people aren't getting it. In. The. Books. Perseus. Jackson. Is. An. Unreliable. Narrator. This goes for everything he thinks. Percy loves his mother, so he writes her praises. In the show we get to see what Sally does from an outside POV not filtered through a child that idolizes his mother. It's not ooc for Sally to act like she does in the show. she's a single mother raising a neurodivergent, Demigod, and she's scared that when the Gods get to him they'll corrupt him. She's not suddenly a girl boss we're getting to see her for how she is.

[nyctocollective]

friendly reminder that plurality is caused by trauma. trauma is defined as an event that has a severe negative impact on oneself. there are going to be dark parts of plurality that no one wants to talk about. the brain created you to cope with what it went through. it's okay to have parts (or wholes) that have “twisted” desires, attractions, innerworld or external relationships, sexual or emotional needs, etc. other people might call you disgusting, evil, immoral, but it's just part of being traumatized. it's going to be unpleasant or unsightly.

read the tags.

[gaypiratepropaganda]

Izzy's apology in the finale seems to have taken some people by surprise. During the break between seasons, I tried a few times to politely bring up the fact that Izzy was technically abusing Ed. Not because I wanted anyone to stop liking him (you can like a character who's doing abuse! it's not real. who cares), but because I was worried about the reaction when season two came out. I love this show very much and I know how tumblr can get. Most importantly, I love fucked up fictional relationships and cannot abide people making these two boring. So here we go. (I also love lists)

First. Emotional abuse can occur in intimate relationships, family relationships like father and son, or in the workplace (Ed/Izzy triple threat!). Second, it has to be an ongoing thing. Someone doing one of these things once is not abuse. Abuse is a pattern of cruel and frightening behavior in order to control the victim.

(Don't feel bad if you didn't notice this stuff! It's relatively subtle and we're kind of trained to ignore and forgive it, especially from characters like Izzy. I wasn't 100% sure I was right about this either until season two confirmed it. I think a lot of people don't even know what emotional abuse is, at least where I live.)

Below are some pretty solid warning signs (this said "criteria" before but I changed it to be more accurate) for emotional abuse, followed by examples:

•Monitoring and controlling a person’s behavior, such as who they spend time with or how they spend money.

One of Izzy's main motivations in season one was trying to force Ed to act more like his image of Blackbeard. To achieve that, he bullied, belittled, and threatened Ed. He attempted to kill Stede because Ed was spending too much time with him and he felt that Stede was a bad influence.

• Threats to a person’s safety, property, or loved ones

He tried to kill Stede (Ed's loved one) or get him killed several times. Once trying to get Ed to do it himself with the doggy heaven situation, once directly with the duel, and once by calling in the navy.

He didn't directly threaten Ed's safety until episode ten, but he did seem to have Ed convinced that the crew would kill him if Izzy wasn't there to protect him and then when Ed did things he didn't like, Izzy threatened to leave. It's indirect, but has the same result: Ed felt he was unsafe unless he did what Izzy wanted.

• Isolating a person from family, friends, and acquaintances

Izzy seemed to keep Ed isolated from the crew, act as a go-between, and control their perceptions of each other to a certain extent. In the first few episodes, Ed was always shown alone in his goth cabin with Izzy as his only contact. When he started to make new friends Izzy tried to make him kill them.

After Izzy was banished, he secretly sent Ed's ex in to manipulate him and get him away from his new community. Then he got them all arrested, culminating in the deal he made with the English that would have made Ed his prisoner. Not sure that was on purpose, but it was so fucked up I had to mention it.

The bit that really got me, for some reason, was when Frenchie asked after Ed and Izzy told the crew he was sick.

• Demeaning, shaming, or humiliating a person

Izzy is often shown berating Ed and yelling at him. The way Ed reacts suggests to me that he may be used to this kind of treatment from people in general, or from Izzy in particular. He never leaves or asks him to stop, he just takes it.

• Extreme jealousy, accusations, and paranoia

He was so jealous of Ed's relationship with Stede that he got the literal military involved. His explanation to for why Ed enjoys spending time with Stede was that he has "done something to [Ed's] brain." Like, what magic powers do you think he has, Izzy?

• Making acceptance or care conditional on a person’s choices

Izzy made it very clear that he would only support Ed if he conformed to the Blackbeard persona. He also seemed to have Ed convinced that there was no way he could survive without Izzy's support.

I just realized that if you subscribe to the headcanon that Izzy acts as a sort of caretaker to Ed (I do not) then all of this is way more fucked up.

• Constant criticism, ridicule, or teasing.

In season one he criticized everything Ed did, all his plans, even while telling him to come up with more plans. He ridiculed Ed and called him names pretty often: "twat, namby-pamby, insane." Even in season two when he's doing better, most of their interactions consist of Izzy teasing and making fun of Ed for being mopey or in love.

• Refusing to allow a person to spend time alone

I didn't think of this until now, but Izzy is often around when Ed thinks he's alone. He knows about things that happen in scenes he isn't in. Izzy's always sort of lurking, though? And he does it to everyone. So I'm not sure if we should count this one.

• Thwarting a person’s professional or personal goals

He's ok about piracy related goals, but as soon as Ed tried to do something other than that he got so weird about it. "This crew is so talented, why are we even being pirates?" is what got Izzy to threaten Ed. Which is interesting because he was fine with the retirement idea before, when he thought he'd get to be captain.

• Instilling feelings of self-doubt and worthlessness 

"insane unpleasant shell of a man merely posing as blackbeard." "I should have let the English kill you. This... whatever it is you've become is a fate worse than death."

• Gaslighting: making a person question their competence and even their basic perceptual experiences.

He called Ed insane and implied that the crew would mutiny if he wasn't there to stop them. This is clearly untrue, as we were already shown that his method of "massaging the crew" consisted of calling Ed half insane and pulling Fang's beard even though Fang hates that. The fact that he calls Ed insane more than once while at the same time trying to get him to act more insane seems like basic gaslighting to me. Then again, Izzy's definition of "insanity" may be like, depression, crying, showing emotions, loneliness, and enjoying softness.

[can't find a gif of this so just imagine Ed in the gravy basket with Hornigold saying "you're worried you're insane."]

Something that wasn't on this specific list but is generally considered part of emotional abuse is manipulation: the use of indirect tactics to change someone's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors in an attempt to influence them for personal gain.

I think Izzy often tries to be manipulative. He's not the greatest at it, but it's the thought that counts. He manages to be surprisingly successful through persistence and repetition.

He's got Ed convinced from the first time we see them that he is useless as a captain without Izzy. That's why Ed feels like he needs him. He tells him that the only thing standing between Ed and a crew constantly on the brink of mutiny is Izzy. Then he tells him that he will leave if he can't live up to his expectations.

He has a pattern of lying to Ed or not telling him the whole truth. He threatens him directly and indirectly in an attempt to influence him and control his behavior. He wants power, whether he gets it by becoming a captain when Ed retires or by making sure Ed remains powerful by any means necessary.

this is what he was apologizing for, along with the years of being terrible to Ed before Stede came into the picture. I never expected him to admit it so clearly like that. He fed Ed's "darkness," poked at his trauma for so long because he needed Blackbeard. It was something they did together, and he enjoyed Blackbeard's dominance and cruelty.

Of course there are other things that can be part of this kind of abuse, like infantilization, silence, and harassment. There are more examples of abusive behavior from Izzy at the start of season two, especially in the scene where Ed's asking Izzy to kill him. but I am not ready to get into that right now.

Anyway, Ed and Izzy's storylines in season two only make sense to me with this in mind. Ed is recovering from not only the suicide attempts but also this fucked up situation he was in, whether he realizes it or not. Izzy learns to stop being such a shitboy and admits he was wrong. ~growth~

if you interpret their relationship differently that's obviously fine. but I think this is the most interesting interpretation, as well as what was intended. It's no fun for me when people make them both equally awful to each other. I like it better as it is in the show: Ed fighting back against Izzy's emotional abuse with physical violence, which only ends up traumatizing him further. It's such a unique and fascinating story.

[maeaniseyas]

The Star Wars fandom has never gone this hard or been this invested in any Asian or Black character, ESPECIALLY a Black woman. The Star Wars fandom has never been going this hard for an interracial relationship involving no white people. So for me yeah, it is pretty telling that now is the time some people are deciding to declare everyone lacks media literacy because allegedly we can't tell or admit a man is a bad person because people are sooo blindsided by his looks.

It's the same exact way people adore Anakin/Vader, Maul, Kylo, Revan, Shin, etc. But now that a South East Asian man is playing the Sith y'all suddenly have to "suffer" seeing him a lot and people enjoying his character? When I called out the person who made the og post, they said "I didn't mention Qimir and wasn't only talking about him" like k bro....I know you think everyone but yourself is an idiot or something but just know I'm not and that I know there's no coincidence you literally TAGGED that post as "the acolyte". The claim it was only tagged as "The Acolyte" because it's the "most recent example" is total BS. You purposefully tagged The Acolyte, Acolyte Spoilers, Qimir, Osha Aniseya, ALL OF IT because you weren't talking about the fandom with ships and dark side characters as a whole, you were specifically talking about The Acolyte, Qimir and Osha.

And yeah, it definitely does feel racially coded. Everyone knows this show, the creator and the actors have been enduring a MASSIVE racist, misogynist, and homophobic hate campaign against this show for literally over a year before it even aired, and you have people making posts about how UNBEARABLE it is that they're going to have to see the fandom be obsessed with a sith played by a handsome Filipino and be excited over Oshamir, an interracial ship involving no white people but a Black woman and an Asian man, as if Star Wars fans have a good track record of treating characters of color well. It IS adding to the overall negativity of the show and convincing others not to watch it for your petty little reasons when this is without a doubt the best show Star Wars has released yet on Dinsey+ and by far the most diverse. Have any criticisms you want about The Acolyte, it's totally fair, but this "criticism" I'm referring to was just an attack on people enjoying the show, claiming stupid shit like a "lack of media literacy" over something everyone already knows like the fact Qimir isn't a good guy. Here's something that might shock y'all: we know, AND WE DON'T CARE.

Anyway I hope Oshamir, Qimir, and Osha continue to pop up on these peoples timelines and continue to make things unbearable for them. Because if enemies to lovers is all good when it involves someone like Shin and Sabine, but not when it involves Qimir and Osha, then you're a hypocrite and not to be dramatic your life deserves to be unbearable if that's really what does it.

[cluster-b-culture-is]

Cluster b (npd? Aspd?) Culture is constantly pushing down the need for affection 'cause you can't allow yourself to be human. Never again

.

[genericpuff]

i have nothing to say about the newest episodes of LO

so I'll let past me from the year 2022 say it instead

because everything they said a year and a half ago ironically still applies today and i don't even know how that's possible but it's where we are 💀😭

[goemon-fan]

Lupin III Part 1 Episode 5: The Coming of Goemon Ishikawa XIII