#actions have consequences and we all have to live with them

[nerdygaymormon]

Final Session, Nov 2024

In May 2023 I was diagnosed with an eating disorder and began therapy. I binge and I chew & spit, or rather I did. Over the past 20 months I've managed to overcome this disordered eating. It's been quite a journey and I've learned a lot about the how's and why's and my long history with disordered eating.

I go to a facility associated with a university and I see students who are overseen by a licensed psychologist. It means every semester I see a different therapist (it also means I pay bargain rates). It's been interesting to see so many therapists and their different approaches and how their personality and viewpoint makes a big difference in the way the sessions go.

At my previous session, we spoke about the hurricane, the stress of it and losing power for days and how my eating behavior changed. I turned to comfort foods and I couldn't cook so lots of canned and instant foods. However, within a week I was back onto more healthy eating and back to cooking several meals in one go and storing them in the fridge.

At the end of that session, the therapist asked if it would be alright if he read my blog post from 2017 which went viral and outed me to everyone. I've referenced it several times, it is clear it was an important moment for me and had a big impact on my life. Tbh, his request surprised me and felt invasive. I know that reading the blog post would then give him access to read the rest of my blog. Of course I talk about a lot of private things with him that I don't share on my blog but in my sessions with him I hadn't really discussed my current relationship with church and faith. I gave him the links to the blog post because he had a good reason for wanting to read it and I've learned my anxiety often senses danger where there isn't any.

I arrived for my current session and the therapist came to the lobby to bring me back, and he was dressed in a way that accentuated his body (he must be a weightlifter). I was walking behind him noticing his bubble butt and I thought to myself, "I don't know if I can meet with a therapist I find attractive." ���

When we got to the room, he told me he read my blog post, it seems like it was a beautiful experience. Then he asked me what is my current relationship with this church and faith? I shared that there's a difference in my belief and actions. My beliefs have changed so much over the past few years, even as I continue going to church. He asked if I still hold the position I did in the blog post (stake executive secretary). I indeed do have that position. I shared that the calling often gives me a chance to be at church without actually attending the worship service, or even when i do go to the worship service I don't go to Sunday School, instead I go do an office to do this position.

He asked why I still go because it sounds like I'd rather not be there. I know that it seems contradictory, but it's not a simple choice of go or not, it affects other things. When the blog post went viral in 2017 and basically outed me to everyone, I had siblings say that access to see their children was dependent on me remaining in church. My mom is homophobic and me going to church helps keep the peace. To stop going to church comes with some big consequences. He looked stunned and asked if they really gave ultimatums like that. Yes they did, so if that's their position, does that mean I wouldn't be welcome at family gatherings, will it be me or them & their kids?

Plus, I live in the same house as my parents. Were I to not go to church, that would likely cause tension. I've looked at moving out but apartment rents are wildly high and would take a lot of my income. Just explaining that there's a lot of layers to consider to this decision. Also, it's not like any organization is all good or all bad, there are some positive things about church and this community, I have many friends there.

I know I am not supposed to live my life for them, it is MY life, yet I love and want to be part of my family. It feels like I have been set on a branch of the family tree and told it's up to me whether I want to use the saw to cut myself off from them. Because of that, most of them don't know much of anything that goes on in my life because I don't share with them, I don't think they'd welcome hearing about it since it's related to me being gay. I have another side of my life with gay and queer friends. I am involved in organizations for queer people. I have two sides to my life that often don't feel like they fit together.

Then on top of that, this election scares me. Project 2025 has very anti-queer goals and many of those people will be in government trying to move those goals forward. When I woke up Wednesday morning to see the winner of the election, I took some deep breaths, I didn't turn on the news or listen to any podcasts, I ate a healthy breakfast and went to work. I don't have the emotional bandwidth right now to do more than take care of myself.

I thought to myself that I have lived through worse. No matter how much they try to roll back LGBTQ rights, it won't go all the way back to where it used to be. But with that said, it will be a struggle because we've gotten used to the better climate, to being able to be out and open, to having legal protections that others take for granted. So much of queer rights have come from the Supreme Court, and with President Trump likely getting to name several more justices to that court, I foresee them undoing those rights, and the legislature and president won't fight to restore those rights through legislation.

I was 25 years old when the Supreme Court ruled that laws can't target queer people to restrict them and their rights, that laws couldn't exempt queer people from protections that other people get. I was 32 years old when sodomy laws were struck down by the Supreme Court, which means I spent over half my life with gay relationships being illegal. It was less than 10 years ago that the Supreme Court decided I could get married and only 4 years ago when it decided employees couldn't be fired simply for being gay and trans. It's the court which has step-by-step allowed me the opportunity to live life similar to non-queer citizens, and now I fear it can take that away.

I can't change or fix any of that. Whether it's my family, my church, my government, I will have to deal with the fallout from just trying to live a normal life, the kind of life that other people feel so entitled to that they don't ever contemplate what if that was not possible for them.

I think I'm clear-eyed on what my options are and the consequences of them. Sure, I've kicked the can down the road about my family and my church because there's sure to be a lot of negative consequences, but it can't wait forever. Over the past 7 years since my blog post went viral, I've gone to therapy and built a better foundation for myself. I've dealt with social anxiety, low self esteem, internalized homophobia, eating disorders, generalized anxiety, and processing trauma. I've built a community of queer friends. The reason I work at a university is because 20 years ago they offered partner benefits so I knew if they found out I am gay, I would be okay. I have a foundation that let's me now think about making some of the hard choices I must face.

I arrived for this session thinking it would be pretty upbeat and light as it's my last time seeing this therapist. The semester is ending and his rotation here will soon be over. He responded that he's glad I brought this up. He and his supervisor were discussing me and agree that it's time to end my therapy. Unless there's been a change since our last session and I've relapsed, they feel I have the internal tools to move forward without their help. This therapist was here for the Summer and Fall, so I've seen him for 6 months, and he said it's been a pleasure to see me succeeding.

It was my response to the hurricane last month, how I turned to comfort food and seemed to go off track, but then snapped back into a routine of meal prep and healthier eating, that led him to believe I was ready to move forward, that I'd really overcome the eating disorder.

I replied that I don't know if "overcome" is the right word. My experience with other mental health disorders is they're like seeds in the ground that from time to time will try to sprout, and I have to choose not to let them grow. He responded that he likes another metaphor, that we've been installing lights in a house, and now the living areas, bathroom, and bedrooms are brightly lit, yet there's the basement, maybe some rooms in the corner that are still dark, but we don't have to go there, and at some point maybe I'll install lights in those places, too. However I want to think about it, I am ready to go forward. I did the work and should be proud of what I've accomplished.

As I walked out to my car, I was overwhelmed by emotions. I think I should have felt like celebrating, but instead the feelings I've had from this journey all came rushing back. It was a lot, so many feelings jumbled together.

I again felt stunned at being officially diagnosed. I felt disgust that I choose to still be part of an institution that has hurt me so much. I felt thankful for having friends who I could share about this. I felt shame at what I’ve done to my body. I felt compassion for myself when I understood my body & mind did this to help me survive. I felt the discomfort of sitting in body positivity classes being asked to share very personal thoughts and feelings with others. I felt the shock at realizing I engaged in disordered eating every single day. I felt the curiosity and wonder when I learned how I used different foods for different reasons and how disordered eating was a way for my body & mind to deal with a variety of things. I felt sad for teenager me who used to self harm, and when he stopped doing that he then turned to disordered eating to deal with the feelings about the situation he was in. I felt scared as to whether I could really change. I felt satisfaction at knowing I made choices and was moving forward. There was a sense of safety at knowing I had professionals on my team helping me and also feeling loss that they won’t be there in the future.

It was all these feelings & more, and it was overwhelming. In the past, I would have gone to the store and bought food to binge, to create a physical sensation and discomfort that would distract me from my feelings, instead I cried and just let myself feel all this, and somehow crying led to a feeling of relief.

[saintavangeline]

This whole interaction is a good example of how poorly this has been handled. If I doubt you I'm probably them or brainwashed and need to be condescended to as not knowing what I'm saying or doing, but just incase let's threaten to name drop a username we already know because you both had a very public relationship,but let's also drop personal chats with them. I never asked whether it did or didn't happen, infact I didn't even ask a question. I said the way you handled this was hamfisted and immature, and there is a great deal of irony and contradiction in a lot of what you say in this blog, so maybe the best solution is to really just move on with your life, because you're choosing to make a spectacle of this by posting the asks that get you riled up. You are giving this energy, you are giving this batteries in its back, and you platformed topics that are clearly very sensitive to you.

I'm not the one who brought all of this up. Someone sent me a heads up that they were talking about me again, and I said thanks for the heads up. I'm not the one who poured water on the ant hill. If you aren't them, then you have indeed been brainwashed.

Trust and believe that's what they did to me about their previous exes until I learned the full story. I'm allowed to speak about what happened to me because they chose to abuse me. It's not just some petty and immature drama. They have even taken our stories of being sexually abused and turned it on us. Literally stolen our stories.

This adult person controlled my life for an entire year and openly bragged about ruining their previous partner's life as a means to threaten me. I'm not going to be silenced. This is the consequence to their continuous actions. End of story.

I've been respectful enough to protect their true nature for this long, but if you continue to push, I won't hesitate to share the disgusting truth. I worry every single day for the women who enter their lives. Hopefully you're smart enough that you won't stay in it for long.

[spacebarista-blog]

There is also this idea that we can not kill our enemies, because killing is bad, and like, no random murder is bad. When someone expresses intent to hurt a group of people or deny them human rights you talk them down. When someone supplies them self for such intent, you remove the supplies and rehabilitate them. When someone begins causing mass violence you kill them. Fascists and billionaires are supplied and actively hurting people. Do not make their work easy. Do not engage is discussion. Do not let them approach you without a weapon in your hands and their body in your sights.

And I want to be specific here, Walmart is not a person it is a store owned by billionaires. Firebombing a walmart would be an act of rebellion against their repeated suppression of fair labor laws and Unionization attempts of their workers. Do not fall for the idea that walmart is nonviolent in their actions while a firebomb is violent. Are the CEOs and Shareholders not hurting people with their greed? Are you, as a worker, not suffering? Are you, as a taxpayer, not unjustly paying for their bills because their workers are on food stamps and Medicare? They may kill us indirectly but it is not accidental. They know we cannot afford to eat and stay healthy and stay housed. Our death is at worst another cost to their bottom line.

Lastly, do not fall for the idea that killing the ruling class makes us like them. We did not sit at a table and agree to be exploited. We did not repeatedly deny raising wages while slowly increasing the cost of everything. We did not ask for them to take all of the money and hoard it out of reach. They know history and the consequences of doing all of these things, of trying to ignore our pain. They chose to do them anyway thinking they'd be gone by the time it matters.

We do not want to kill anyone. We want survivable wages, access to healthcare, and homes to live in. They have told us "No." Our remaining options for survival are limited but not nothing.

ok do people not get the rhetorical use of "just kill them" or do i have to explain like.... direct violent action against the ruling class wether it results in death or not is valid political action that we are ideologically cut off from by our government because it benefits the ruling class to convince us they're immortal/untouchable so their violence against us cannot be retaliated against. its not "my plan is to firebomb a walmart" its "firebombing a walmart is a valid and accessible political act so you must open your mind to understand political action can include it, therefore breaking the barrier of nonviolence placed on us by the ruling class" yall interact with politics only through memes abt hating marxists

[biblically-accurate-dca]

KILL!!!!!!!!!

[caramellody]

I could go on and on and spiral about a LOT of things relating to NSBU:

The NATURE of the nsbu movie and what THAT could entail and what THAT could mean for the characters in this movie

The way at how everyone in the main cast AND barsimmion follow the themes of the lack of change and stalemate in life

[meganechan05]

While I love the possible Gira Corruption Arc with him being cynical about the Body Swap and calling Jeramie naive, think about it.

Gira was their roommate at some point while he was playing dead soon after he was tossed around between countries for different reasons per King.

He had to live with them after learning what kind of Kings they are.

That's freaking hilarious if you think about it.

Not to mention soon after he and Jeramie became Kings, they all fcked up and were thrown into Gokkan's prison. He had to reassure their aides that the 2 years that have passed were peaceful enough for none of them to worry until Dugded showed up 🤣🤣

[bunnihearted]

i thinkkk i thinkk ppl like just blaming the "oil companies" so that they can completely renounce any responsibility whatsoever and keep doing whatever they want without feeling a single drop of guilt 💀

[edwardseymour]

Love that we're blaming Jane for Anne and the other men's deaths, she was a wild woman after all lol. Honestly though whenever I see that take I'm like how many deaths are we now allowed to lay at Anne and Elizabeth's feet? All those people that refused to sign the oath of succession?

you see, it’s different, because one was judicial murder to facilitate a regime change and the other was legal execution where the forced submission to a regime change failed. very different!

[lilgynt]

moms WILL make sure you cry once a day at least

[punkrockproblematic]

no but really, why do "liberals" see this as a good thing to do? this is not "just the consequences of their actions" for voting "the wrong way" at all. this is the results of multiple marginalized communities being pushed away from seemingly accepting spaces when their existences and/or viewpoints are not compatible with said spaces of living. sorry your latine/jewish/trans/etc neighbor voted for trump! maybe let's think about why that was the better option for them and look at the faults of our system before we fault the individual for how they voted... and let's look at how "accepting" spaces push people out who are actively trying to be better but still have internalized biases or viewpoints that are not politically correct...

i've spent the better part of a decade being called part of the "dirtbag left" and yet in the last week i've had to explain to an alarming number of liberals that calling ICE on their neighbors or literally casting trans people into the volcano is not a moral or wise thing to do.

[pallases]

i miss my honors sequence from last year :/

[bayesiandragon]

Not to sound like a crazy person or anything, but I do believe that physical violence and torture in the name of punishment/justice is fundamentally wrong. On principle. As an ethical standard. It's not something that's okay actually with the only consideration just making sure the receiver was sufficiently bad to "deserve" it.

[isekyaaa]

One thing that conversation came extremely close to but (I was smart enough) not to touch on is the idea of people's "right to know." I think the point I was trying to get at (that I did a bad job of explaining) is that there's a difference between a shitty person and a horrible person. Shitty people are shit, yes, but that doesn't mean you should ruin their lives over it.

And going back to people's right to know, one of the people in that conversation mentioned about "putting your experience out there but not telling people what to do" and that's like absolutely stuck in my mind. In my personal opinion, it's nobody's business to know the business of shitty people and how shit they are. Horrible people, yes, but not shitty people.

It reminds me of this story I read a few months back about a fanfiction author that had two Ao3 accounts. On one, they put g-rated stories that were really popular. On another, they had stories that dealt with things such as rape, incest, etc. They kept both accounts completely separate with nobody knowing they were the author of both. Someone found out and was so horrified that they basically doxxed their g-rated account and ruined that person's rep online. Now comes the question. Was that doxxer right to do so?

It scares me to think that majority of the people online would say yes, that they would hate to enjoy any fics written by someone that likes horrible things. That yes, that they have the right to know. Am I the only person who thinks that's wrong? That, even if this person is into horrible things, they don't deserve to have their lives ruined over it? Am I the only person to think that's completely insane to just spread out to the world?

There's this weird purity culture going on in the world that you are not allowed to enjoy things made by bad people. That you're not allowed to support them. That if you enjoy these things, that is a direct reflection of you and your character. That because you enjoy this author's g-rated works, you must condone their personal kinks as well. If you consider them a good writer, you must support rape and incest as well.

Am I insane to think that that's none of your business? That you shouldn't go about life vetting every tidbit of entertainment you take in to make sure that it's good and pure? That everyone has evil things about themselves that they are not proud of and preferably don't want spread to the world? That just because you had a bad experience with someone, you have no right to air their dirty laundry to millions of people online? Am I the only person that thinks that's cruel?

[rachelamberish]

nevermind i tried to write my thoughts in the tags but it became way too much and i had more to say so all this:

…and then, yeah, I think maybe OP puts it best with the point about Mythal’s non-apology. When it comes to radical change, there are questions the series asks that we in turn have to ask ourselves about what does more harm than good and if the harm of something is ever worth the price of change that will (potentially) make the world a better place. Or if any one, mortal person ever has the right to make that decision for others on their own, in a vacuum. Is the desire to do good enough? Is feeling sorry about something enough when you believe you are still doing what is right for the world at large, even when your actions have unintended consequences?

Accountability is important but regret doesn’t allow you to move forward, which is necessary for any meaningful change that isn’t in and of itself regressive. So in that sense, Mythal’s non-apology is…kind of that to a T. It’s not about her or her guilt in that moment, if she even feels any. Solas doesn’t need to hear that she regrets what she did to him. What he needs is exactly what she gave: “I did these things. Now you live with them. But you don’t have to anymore. I release you.”

Progressive, radical, systemic change and the methods we use to get there just isn’t a monolith because it comes from people and people are fallible. It’s nuanced and every instance is different. Anders was both right and wrong. The Inquisitor was both right and wrong. Solas was both right and wrong. Change and its enactors is less about always doing the right thing and never making mistakes and is, in fact, more about these personal stories and reconciling with *why* we as individuals make the choices we do and what gives us the right to make them in the first place. That’s why that balance that Dragon Age has *previously* held was always so important, between grand stories about big things and intimate stories about small things. The combination of both is what life is.

more me verbally processing my feelings on this game and it's story that i sent in discord but i know reading these things can be helpful to others processing so im sharing them here <3

even though i think i personally am able to find coherent meaning in solas's ending, specifically the status of the veil, and i do think its good and i like it, i really have to work to do it. the way its written is kind of confusing because the message is like ok. let go of your regrets. but you also have to atone for your mistakes. but solas believes he is atoning by taking the veil back down and bringing immortality back and making sure more spirits are not turned into demons? but the story tells us that version of atonement is Wrong, but why is it wrong? because people will die? but people also die because of the veil? mages are mass incarcerated and lobotimized bc of the veil, elves have been enslaved for millenia, PEOPLE AGE AND DIE, BECAUSE OF THE VEIL? so he isnt supposed to atone for that mistake by fixing it he's just supposed to accept it and let go? so are we supposed to atone for our mistakes or not? what determines whether or not we need to atone? he has to atone for what he did to the titans but not what he did by accident to his own people i guess? and he is going to atone by maintaining the status quo that he created because people have gotten used to it?

i think the answer based on the regret prison scene with rook escaping with varric's help and that banger line of varric's is to take accountability and own up to your choices, they are yours and no one can take them from you. rook says something to one of the regret statues (for me it was harding) thats like "i made a choice and so did you and you knew the risks" or something so i think that is the key. solas cannot accept his choices and so he is desperate to undo them no matter what kind of harm it may do. he is trapped in regret and the past to the point that he cant accept them and move forward, and varric is the perfect contrast of this with how readily he accepts his death as a consequence of his love and hope for his friend. even mythal accepts her own choices when she tells solas that she turned him from his purpose. and she doesnt apologize or even express regret at all, partly because shes a crazy bitch (affectionate) but partly because i think her quiet, cold acceptance is part of the lesson solas needs to learn in that moment. solas is constantly saying, "im sorry, but", "ir abelas, vhenan, but i cannot". mythal just states her actions plainly; i forced you to take a body, i brought you into war, these burdens are ours to bear together, i release you. no apology, no rumination, she is at peace with her decision even though it is wrong. i think this works wonderfully on a personal individual level of personal regrets. it is a good lesson; regret does not serve any purpose other than to hurt you. it brings no one back, it helps nothing, it does not make the world a better place. solas has to let go of his regrets so that he can become the hero that varric sees deep down in him. it is an essential part of his personal journey as a character... but it gets stickier when we are talking about systemic change. obvi a lot of dragon age's modern, young audience is very much in favor of "tear it all down!!" and i am too but i think with solas they are trying to tell a very personal and individual story of a man and his regrets rather than make a social commentary on radical change, but they also dont make that clear enough, so the two get muddied together when it comes to the question of the veil in a way that feels like they are advocating for maintaining the status quo, which i dont think was their intention.

i think this is so muddied because inquisition very much makes clear commentary on systems and institutions with the chantry, the orlesian empire, ferelden monarchy, mages and templars, and the inquisition itself being all vulnerable to corruption, and solas has a lot to say about all of this and he is very much presented as being right (like when he tells you about the corruption in your own ranks in trespasser and how hes spying on you lol) and then veilguard does not do this AT ALL, all of the issues are very personal ones of people and their identity, people and their family, people and their regrets etc. so i think a lot of us are in this mindset from inquisition of like.... yeah disrupt the status quo install a puppetmaster elf to rule an imperialist empire, make leliana pope and radicalize the chantry even if its bloody, dissolve the inquisition, abolish the circles etc. etc. and the question of the veil is very much an extension of these philosophical questions about systems and organizations. and for those of us who leaned towards dissolution of all of those corrupt structures, dissolution of the veil is the logical conclusion to a story thats sending us that message. but then veilguard just. does not even engage with these topics at all. like its not even a question. it takes the question of the veil and translates it into a personal issue of solas's psyche (which is super interesting, just different) and connects it to his past actions, his relationship with mythal, and his perception of himself, rather than a macro-level question of what is best for the world when pursuing change, and the answer for solas on a personal level ends up being different from the answer that inquisition was asking us, but it feels disjointed as a result.

so the veil staying up was the right decision because it forced solas to let go of his regrets and the game is about him. so it was an exercise in his therapy session with his two ex-gfs and some annoying kid who wont leave him alone. but the problem is it doesn't answer or engage with the greater questions and themes about systemic change that the series has been building up to.

veilguard is interesting because it wants to be dragon age 2 so bad while simultaneously being terrified of dragon age 2. solas bringing down the veil would have been the answer to the question that anders blowing up the chantry asked, but veilguard decided to ask a completely different question instead. and i think it did a good job in that specific goal, but it doesnt satisfy 15 years of build up and instead just throws it out the window in favor of something else.

[zorthania]

A piece about survivors guilt.

This comic isn't perfect. I started it back in October 2023, and every time I picked up my pen, I wept.

I bring this to you today, on 9/11, in hopes that you reflect on this day a little differently than how most Americans would. Let it move you to continue to boycott, protest and challenge your family, friends and colleagues. You have a bigger impact than you would believe.

Thank you for reading this with an open heart.

From the river to the sea...

I'd like to bring to attention the fact that the figures depicted above are a gross undercount of the actual number of deaths. I scoured the internet high and low to source my findings and not a single one could break down the devastation that befell an individual ethnicity. Instead, they lumped a bunch of ethnicities together, provided a general timeline, and called it a day, reinforcing the sheer scale of dehumanization propagated in the west. The only consistency between all the articles I looked up was the 4.5 to 4.7 million figure I've included above, and even then, they were all published by western media news outlets... the very same that have been so unreliable and complicit in the genocide of Palestinians today. So I have to take everything they say with a grain of salt.

We are not just numbers.

All of us have ambitions and desires and lives worth living.

With that said, this is your friendly reminder to:

Donate an e-sim

Donate to PCRF to provide Palestinian children aid

Donate to Pious Projects to provide woman with feminine hygiene kits

Donate to CareForGaza to provide food to displaced families in Gaza either through their Gofundme or their paypal

Donate to any of the vetted gofundme campaigns on GazaFunds to help Palestinians trying to flee Gaza.

And if you or someone you know sees or experiences a hate crime and can afford it, SUE. This is a more effective use of your money than most realise. The reason zionists act with impunity is because of the normalization of white supremacy and oppression of ethnic minorities. Challenging that in any capacity tells them that there are consequences to their actions and makes them think twice before engaging in hate crimes and helps raise all of us up against the systems currently in place that let them get away with it.

If you can't donate or spend any money, you can:

Do your daily clicks.

Boycott targeted companies on the BDS list (if you're like me and you don't want a single dollar to go towards anything supporting Israel right now, you can use Bdnaash to double check what products are okay to buy, but the BDS list is sufficient as it is a strategic attack and proven very effective thus far)

Flood your representatives emails and voicemails with how you won't be voting for them unless their politics align with an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.

Attend a protest, be LOUD.

Challenge your circle of friends, family and colleagues with conversations about Palestine. (THIS IS THE MOST UNDERRATED AND MOST EFFECTIVE THING YOU CAN DO)

and if you're really up to, be disruptive in any capacity that you can think of towards major corporations benefiting from this onslaught. (i.e. halting military manufacturers from production + shipments, sticking boycott stickers on products at your market etc)

And finally, if your country wasn't mentioned in the above excerpt, it was no deliberate omission on my part and I encourage you to come forward and tell your story about the suffering of your people so that this may be a learning opportunity for everyone.

You are seen.

You are not alone.

Thank you again if you've read this far.

From the river to the sea...

[illmoraineakoi]

This is one of the really interesting questions about the stick figures: how does age, or rather maturity, actually work for them?

As far as I can tell, there are three major types of sticks in canon: Artificial Animated Sticks [Alan's, and potentially other Animators too], Artificial Other Medium Sticks [ie: sticks from games or other types of art that were still created by humans, like the RGBY] and Natural Sticks [Sticks like Purple who were born via reproductive means]

Age between these types of sticks has to have wildly different meanings, as well as the rate of maturity.

Purple, a born stick, is shown to be a baby in his backstory. He's then shown to have grown, though over how long of a timespan is unknown. At best, we can speculate that this type of stick's lifecycle is somewhat similar to a human's: born as an infant that needs to be cared for, and then learning how to live, developing/maturing, as they grow up.

But Artificial Animated Sticks are CLEARLY different.

All four of Alan's sticks are very capable right after creation. They're already quite mentally developed. Victim and Orange especially are quite smart just minutes after their 'birth'. Like they're already at least a couple of years old, cognitively.

Not much has been revealed about other types of Artificial Sticks, but it's likely that they're similar to Animated Sticks in this regard. Perhaps their level of maturity is based on their Creator's intent for them, but without further info, it's difficult to speculate.

As far as I see it, there's two potential measurements of age one could apply to Artificial Sticks: mental age, and age based on their creation date.

Personally, I think that Orange, RGBY, and Chosen all have mental maturity ages equivalent to their creation age [10-12, and 17-18 respectively]. Dark and Victim, however, just feel different.

Dark has always seemed to be a lot more similar to Chosen's age than his 'true' age, and I think that it might be due to the manner of his creation. He was made to Chosen's equal in almost every way, his polar opposite that was designed to be able to destroy him. This intention may have factored in to how "old" Dark was at his time of creation; old enough to match Chosen's. So I feel like Dark is also around 17-18. Maybe 16, if we want to interpret his enthusiasm for showing off the ViraBot as a 'childish' action.

Victim's different. I think that he's a case of being "wiser beyond one's years", entirely due to how much crap he's potentially lived through. 17 years is already a long time for stick figures, but Victim had five extra years to do things that Chosen did not (due to the enslavement). This, combined with how intelligent Victim seems to be, gives off the impression that he's older than 18. More like 23-25. Older than his creation-based age, but still young enough to make reckless, foolish choices based in anger, like trying to get vengeance on his Creator. Undeniably smart and clever, but still a little naive and unable to comprehend the potential bigger picture or the consequences very well. Or perhaps he's just really ambitious and genuinely doesn't care about any of the risks/danger, just about satisfying his vendetta.

(It's possible that future revelations from AvA11 might change this interpretation, so this is all, currently, tentative and speculative despite my own headcanons lmao)

While not specifically important to anything, I also personally headcanon Yellow being the oldest of the RGBY, followed by Blue, Green, and finally Red, though it's more of how twins/triplets argue about who's technically oldest than any meaningful time difference. They were all created on the same day, just a a couple of dozen minutes apart. Orange is the youngest of them all, by at least a year.

Also, another factor that complicates the entire age thing is that we don't know exactly how long living stick figures have been around. We don't know when the Outernet was made, nor where the artificial life came from. It's possible that all of it, everything, only came into existence in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Or, perhaps digital life began around the same time the internet itself was created, which would be around 1983. That's not a lot of time, all things considered. If Natural Sticks age at similar rates to humans, there can't be many generations of them yet.

It' just a really fascinating and confusing part of the lore. It always hurts my brain trying to think about it.

Oh! Oh!

Genuine question for people who consider and accept Color Gang to be 10-12 years old because of their debut episode date(2014):

Do you also accept that Victim and The Chosen One are 18? And The Dark Lord is 14? Because Victim and TCO's videos were uploaded in 2006 and TDL's in 2010.

This is like a GENUINE question. I'm not making fun of you, I'm genuinely curious.

If not, why? I would like to know why Color Gang are special cases.