#and then they make their own conclusions anyway

[crashpit]

in 5th grade my friend and I had websites on a site maker thing called yolasite. also we had like major beef on this girl named Aubrey bc she was always snitching on us and getting us in trouble for random things. anyways, one day my friend was at my house and we were in the computer room on our home PC which was windows 2000 in the year 2009 if that adds any flavor to this. my friend suggested we make our own website, one called aubreyhaters .yolasite .com but we had to make it on my account because her parents would be mad if they found out. I thought this was reasonable, as her parents scared the living shit out of me too. we made the site detailing all the little things we hated about her (she lied about befriending Justin Bieber, lied about being related to the Jonas Brothers, was mean, etc.) alongside poorly drawn mspaint imagery (stick figures).

I didn't think about this until the next day at school during lunch, my friend and I were sitting at the table and Aubrey was at the same table too so my friend gets her attention and she's like "hey Aubrey! I found a crazy website you should look up. it's literally called aubreyhaters .yolasite .com. I swear it's real!! look it up!!!" and then my heart sank. I felt so incredibly numb with anxiety like my whole body was liquified into a puddle then and there.

so the next day at lunch Aubrey comes and tells us that she found the website and she's gonna tell EVERYONE in school including the principal. she was determined to find the creators of the site. so anyways I am fucking horrified to go to school for days on end I mean it felt like months but it may have been moreso a week or two of the school trying really hard to figure out wtf this site was and who made it. at the time, there wasn't much knowledge on tracking things down to IP addresses especially in a small school where there wasn't any protocol for this sort of situation yet. when it became known that the school was investigating that was when I went and permanently deleted the site and prayed to myself that nothing would happen.

well, one day they came to our classroom, deciding it had to be one of us as this was the same class Aubrey was in. they gave a long lecture on cyberbulling, which they had described as a crazy and new, never before seen phenomenon where kids could, omg, bully each other online. who knew that could happen. so what happens next in this situation is that they come to the conclusion my friend might have made this account, considering history between her and Aubrey. they take her out to the hall to have a conversation. she comes back crying. the principal comes up to me with this look like "you're in huge trouble" and pulls me immediately to the principals office. hes like "you friend told me YOU came up with this website and it was all YOUR idea and your friend there? you were trying to frame this on her and you're lucky you have no history of being in trouble for anything otherwise you would be in much worse trouble." basically I clammed up couldn't say a word just sobbing profusely for the whole thing and he felt bad probably so gave me a slap on the wrist at most. still, this is one of my most traumatic memories of my childhood I can remember.

in retrospect, I don't feel bad about making aubreyhaters bc Aubrey in the year 2025 is uh... well at one point she was a security guard or something and acted like she was a fully fledged police officer online to the point where I genuinely thought she was a cop until someone told me she wasn't even a real cop just a security guard who's pretending to be a cop online. before that she joined the military and then got dishonorably discharged and lied about that whole situation saying she left bc she hurt herself but that's not what happened. well that isn't exactly the most recent fuckery on her part she's also like.. got Israeli citizenship and fullheartedly is supporting Israel and yea I do not feel bad about cyberbulling her in 2009. it was not even real cyberbulling we were spitting straight facts about how she was a lier in regards to Justin Bieber and The Jonas Brothers. reasonably I avoid her and a lot of people I went to school with like the plague :/

what's the most demented thing you guys got in trouble for in school mine was when an english boy in my class made fun of my name and called my mum a (derogatory word for irish travellers) so i told him my ira uncle was in town and was coming to blow him up after school

[pompomqt]

Journey to the West chapter 71

I love Guanyin but she has got to keep better track of her pets.

Welcome back to this week's chapter of Journey to the West with @journeythroughjourneytothewest. This week we have a Queen to rescue, so let's get into it shall we?

Since Wukong failed to escape with the bells last time, the palace is now on high alert looking for him. As a fly Wukong makes his way back to the queen, who is currently under the impression that her rescue attempt was a complete failure and is in tears over it. After Wukong is able to convince her that he is indeed alive and currently a fly, he tells her he is going to need to try and lure the demon one more time, this time with feeling.

Wukong, probably inspired by the king constantly trying to get him drunk, suggests that the Queen try and do the same to the demon, while he transforms as her favorite servant to wait for the right opportunity to take the bells. So the Queen calls in her servant, named Spring Grace, and Wukong puts her to sleep with his sleep insect spell, before taking her appearance and going to wait with the other servants. Meanwhile, the Queen goes and fetches Jupiter's Rival, and asks for him to retire with her for the night, and also calls for some wine to help ease his wariness.

The Queen lays on the charm, while Wukong has the other servants entertain them with song and dance, while he serves them wine. After a while, the Queen feels it's safe to broach the topic of the bells again and asks if they were damaged. The Demon says they are just fine and he has them tied around his waist again. Now that Wukong knows where the bells are, he decides to divest the demon of them by changing some of his hairs into flea's and lice.

The Demon is horrified by his own apparent lack of hygiene in front of the girl he likes. The Queen however is very polite, and suggests he strips so they can get rid of all the bugs, which the demon agrees to. During the chaos, Wukong is able to offer that the Demon hand the bells to him, which the Demon does without really thinking it through. Once he has the bells, Wukong hides them on his person before making a copy and handing that set back to the demon. The Demon is also gracious enough to hand them back to the Queen for safe keeping despite what happened last time. After that the party winds down and everyone retires for the night.

Meanwhile with a little unlocking magic, Wukong is able to leave the demon strong hold through the front door.... only to immediately turn around and start banging on the door, demanding the Queen's return. When the demon finally gets tired of all the racket he's making and goes out to fight him, Wukong introduces himself as Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven the wrecked havoc in heaven five hundred years ago. The Demon asks if he's so important, why he's acting as an errand boy for the Scarlet-Purple Kingdom. Wukong is offended at the idea of being anyone's servant, and the two begin to fight.

The two fight for long enough for Jupiter's Rival to realize he's outmatched like this, calls for a 'breakfast break' so he can go retrieve the bells. Wukong is well aware of his intentions but let's him go anyways. The Demon goes to receive the bells from the Queen, who hands them over fearfully, under the impression that they are the real deal. Bells now in hand, the Demon once again goes to confront Sun Wukong, only for Wukong to show him that he has three identical bells himself. Monkey suggests that they must have been made at the same time, and that he has the female set while the Demon has the male.

So they have a little bell shaking contest, and Wukong graciously allows the Demon to go first. Of course the Demon shakes the bells, but to no avail, and the Demon comes to the conclusion that they must be having performance anxiety in front of their girlfriend. I wonder if the night he's had so far, had any influence on that idea. Either way, it's Monkey's turn, and I guess girls just do it better, because his bells actually work exactly as advertised. However before Wukong can use the power of the bells to wipe out the demon, who should arrive but Guanyin? Odd, usually he is the one that has to go fetch her when they run into trouble.

Turns out it's no coincidence that she's here though, since this demon happens to be another one of her missing pets! Unlike the goldfish catastrophe however, this pet didn't come down just to eat children and cause problems. Jupiter's Rival's true identity is that of the Golden-Haired Wolf that Guanyin likes to ride on sometimes, and actually came her for some 'not quite sanctioned, but not not sanctioned vigilante justice.

See back when the King of the Scarlet-Purple Kingdom was still just the prince, he was an avid hunter and shot two rather important birds, who were the children of the Great King Peacock. For this crime they decided to sentence him to three years of pining, Guanyin was with her wolf when this sentence was passed down, so later on when the wolf escaped, he decided to come down here and handle the sentence personally.

Wukong is fine with that story and all and is willing to spare the demon's life, but still thinks he should be punished and asks Guanyin if he can smack him around a little more for all the trouble he caused. Unfortunately for him, Guanyin says no, and takes the wolf and bells back to heaven with her, despite Wukong's best attempts to keep the bells.

Now all that's left is to reunite the happy couple- one problem though, the Queen is still wearing the 'Pain Cloak' so Wukong can't just fly her back. So instead he weaves together some grass into a dragon and has her climb onto it and he flies that back. Why can't he use that method on Tripitaka to make the journey shorter again?

Anyways they arrive back at the palace in record time, unfortunately their beautiful reunion turns a bit sour when the King tries to take hand and falls to the ground in agony. Which I guess Zhang Ziyang, the god who gave her the garment in the first place takes as his cue to take it back now that she doesn't need it anymore. Once he takes back his coat and is on his way, the King and Queen are able to reunite for real this time. After Wukong has finished regaling them the tale of this arc, it is time for the pilgrims to continue one their Journey to the West.

Current Sun Wukong Stats: Names/Titles: Monkey, The Stone Monkey, The Handsome Monkey King, Sun Wukong (Monkey awakened to the void), Bimawen (Banhorseplague), The Great Sage Equal To Heaven and Pilgrim Sun. Immortality: 5 + 94,000 years Weapon: The Compliant Golden Hooped Rod Abilities: 72 Transformations, Cloud-Somersault, Ability to transform his individual hairs, super strength, Ability to Summon Wind, Water restriction charm, and the ability to change into a huge war form, ability to duplicate his staff, ability to immobilize others, the ability to put others to sleep, and the Fiery eyes and Diamond Pupils, intimidating horses, churning large bodies of water, sleeplessness, seizing the wind, enhanced smell, discerning good and evil within a thousand miles, Spirit Summoning, lock picking, object transformation, distance reduction, vanishing in a flash of light, super healing, transforming others, Invisibility, Wind Immunity, Medicine Making, putting out fire from a distance with a glass of wine and weaving a straw dragon Demon Kill Count: 712 + Unknown Number of Minions Human Kill Count: 1039 God's Defeated: 23 + Unknown number Defeats: 7 Crime List: Robbery, Murder, Mass Murder, Arson, Theft, Coercion, Threatening a Government Official, Resisting Arrest, Assault, Forgery, Employee Theft, False Imprisonment, Impersonating a Government Official, Treason, attempted murder, failure to control or report a dangerous fire, desecrating a corpse, breaking and entering, trespassing, violating Tree Law, looting corpses, trading counterfeit goods, criminal threat, animal abuse, Assisting or Instigating Escape, Damage to Religious Property, contaminating a substance for human consumption, Identity Fraud, Disorderly Conduct, Joyriding and unauthorized practice of medicine Cry Count: 11 + 3 fake cries Mountains Trapped Under: 4

Current Tang Sanzang stats: Names/Titles: River Float, Xuanzang, Tang Sanzang, Tripitaka and the Tang Monk Abilities: Curing Blindness, making branches point a certain direction (allegedly), reciting sutras, pretty privilege, memorization, Heart Sutra, Meditation, and Being Heaven's Specialist Little Guy Cry Count: 35 Tight Fillet Spell Uses: 63 Paralyzed by fear: 6 Bandit Problems: 3 Kidnapped by demons: 11 Falling Off Horses: 11

Current Bai Long Ma Stats: Names/Titles: Bai Long Ma (White Dragon Horse), Prince of the Western Ocean, and third prince jade dragon of the dragon king Aorun Abilities: Transforming into a human, a water snake, and a horse, eating a horse in one bite, flight, Magic of Water Restriction, Singing, Sword Dancing and Magic Pee Cry Count: 1 Crime List: Arson, and Grave Disobedience. Contributions to the plot: 4 Kidnapped by demons: 3

Current Zhu Wuneng Stats: Names/Titles: The Marshal of the Heavenly Reeds, Zhu Wuneng (Pig who is aware of ability), Zhu Ganglie, Pigsy, Idiot and Eight Rules. Weapon: Rake Abilities: 36 Transformations, parting water, fighting underwater, cloud soaring, size enhancement, CPR and Shoveling Demon Kill Count/Kill steals: 15 + Unknown number of minions Kidnapped by Demons: 7 Human Kill Count: 1 Failed Flirtation/romances Attempts: 4 Cry Count: 2 Crime List: Sexual Harassment, Murder, Kidnapping, arson, defamation, Damage to Religious Property, contaminating a substance for human consumption, Identity Fraud, Theft, Forcible entry, Disrupting a Funeral, Violating Tree Law and Arson

Current Sha Wujing Stats: Names/Titles: The Curtain-Raising General, Sha Wujing (Sand Aware of Purity), Sandy and Sha Monk Weapon: Monster Taming Staff Abilities: Fighting underwater, Cloud soaring, and fetching water from a well. Demon Kill Count: 1 + Unknown number of minions. Kidnapped by Demons: 5 Human Kill Count: 1 Cry Count: 1 Crime List: Breaking a Crystal Cup, murder, desecration of a human corpse, Damage to Religious Property, contaminating a substance for human consumption and Arson

[samuraionyourmom]

Been thinking about my Android Dazai AU lately. I've been asking myself a couple of questions about it since no one else seems to 😒 /lh (if you have any questions, please send them in, I beg. I yearn to yap). I've been mostly asking myself these questions to help me flesh out this AU better, and I thought I'd share my process.

If you haven't heard about it, you can check out my other posts about it here as well as the fic I made for it!

So, anyway, onto my ramblings. Prepare for an info dump and a half.

I'm sticking with the main question I've been asking myself for this post, and that is:

Why did Mori create Dazai? Why not just stick with Elise? What are his motivations?

This has been one of the toughest questions I've been faced with when I imagine this AU. It stumped me for a long while, so I just ignored it for the time being. But after a deep analysis of Mori's character, I've come to a conclusion.

Right off the bat, I'd like to make it clear that Mori has no creepy or pedophilic reasons for creating Dazai in this AU, so throw that thought away. I don't want to hear about it.

For starters, I'd like to lay out who Mori is as a person. Or how I view him, anyway. Deep down, Mori longs to take care of someone. We see this in Beast when he's free from his duties as Boss and is able to open up an orphanage. He states that he wishes he could have saved Dazai instead of manipulating him like he did.

But as it currently stands in the main timeline, Mori is unable to indulge in this desire. He is a slave to the organization, as he puts it, and he has a duty to go with the most logical solution as its leader. Facts over feelings and all that. Whether that means pushing Yosano to her limit despite his own hatred for using fear as a way to control people or sacrificing Oda, someone who he knows is very dear to Dazai, for the sake of obtaining the permit.

All this to say that Mori is very repressed. Personally, I say that these secret desires manifest themselves in Elise. She has some of Yosano and Dazai’s characteristics, both people Mori wish he could've cared for properly, and he spoils her openly, almost as if he's trying to make up for lost time.

Now, back to the AU. Elise's existence allows Mori to indulge in his fantasies, yes, but he wants something tangible. Elise is a manifestation of his own wants, but she's not real. So Mori decides to make an android. Maybe it's in a moment of weakness, so desperate for something, anything, to care for to make up for the pain he's caused.

Why not just adopt a child? Well, as much as he would like to, having a child in the Port Mafia isn't a wise decision, morally or logically. So he settles for an artificial one. It's different enough from Elise because it's something that can just vanish into thin air like she does. Something physical.

He works tirelessly to design, engineer, and produce an android that can give him as close to what he wants as possible. Not a baby, though. He couldn't bear that. He settles on a young teen for the design (again, not for creepy reasons, you weirdos). Something that he could care for, but isn't entirely helpless.

I imagine the first thing Mori did was create the AI for this thing before working on the body, and suddenly, this AI just starts yapping at him from his computer. The android takes on a life of their own. Starts calling themselves "Osamu Dazai." Orginally, Mori was set on creating a feminine-leaning android (his failures with Yosano are still haunting him at this point), but Dazai's like: uh, hell no. I am Osamu Dazai. I am a boy. Fix my body, u stupid doctor. (I love transzai)

Anyway, Dazai helps Mori design the body he wants. It's more androgynous than before, which Dazai enjoys. He's implemented into it shortly after it's finished, and voila, our favorite little bandage boy, is born.

Sure, Dazai isn't exactly what Mori had envisioned when he first started the project. He had imagined something more docile, easier to project his desires onto. But Dazai is what he is, and he won't be changed now. He's here now, and he's here to stay. Very human, despite how he came into this world or how much he denies it.

I may or may not have been influenced by the recent release of the Stormbringer Manga with that last bit. Anyway, Dad Mori is real. He's just not very good at it.

[the-ghost-of-jason-todd]

Interesting that you bring that up, because I think it ties into a different Jason post I made once. You don't have to read all of that, the important part is this:

i think thats my favorite thing about the red hood. he pulls people out of the abyss. he never steps entirely out of the shadows himself, but he will extend a hand to someone else, until they can get their own grip and climb past him. he did it with roy and kori, and with the random pyg minion in batman reborn, and with duela dent, and suzie su, and bunker, and ma gunn, and in a way even his own father. he does it all the time, and i love him for that.

That post is in regards to the (eventual) conclusion to the Duela Dent arc, where Jason helps her unjokerfy and go back home. Because it really is a theme we see! I don't think DC did it intentionally, especially since half of these happened during Scott Lobdell's runs and I don't think the man did anything except throw spaghetti at a wall in the hopes that it would stick, but it's become a theme. (....Scott Lobdell also had the Generation Outlaw storyline that he didn't fucking land or conclude in any satisfying way, but that's a rant for a different day).

Anyway, the point is that yeah, in some ways Jason DOES still have to choose. A lot of the storylines he has are with people who do, eventually, decide to be less morally gray. And that's just something he doesn't do. Or, if he somehow did, if he TRULY came back into the light, he would ABSOLUTELY lose the ideological purity that drove him in the UTRH era. I'm not saying it's not possible for someone to stay with him in his moral gray zone or even in his True Villain Zone, but there is actually an interesting tragedy in the fact that no one does, because it kind of highlights the point of his character--which is that he KNOWS BOTH SIDES and he CHOOSES to stay somewhere between them. He wavers sometimes in canon, moves more toward one side or the other, but so far he always returns to that gray zone, consistently, every single time.

Comics are, in a lot of ways, black and white. Questions of morality are almost always framed in what is right and what is wrong. Characters are good or bad. Things are mutually exclusive. I don't think it's impossible to find the balance, but IMO it would be much trickier to make it work, especially in canon. To find that balance and make it truly compelling would need some significant skill. We would need someone who was truly okay to live in that gray zone, but whose values wouldn't turn out to be incompatible (which is often, I think, why he and Rose don't usually work out when they're put together. Rose WOULD be that character, but I just don't think they're sustainable, generally speaking).

With that in mind, I can see why it's usually the Batfam that he returns to in search of family. He doesn't want things that are fleeting. He doesn't want "well, we can put Joker in Arkham until his next breakout", he wants the Joker DEAD. And he really doesn't want the people in his life to give up on him!! He WANTS both. NEEDS it, maybe. Even as far back as UTRH we saw this tension. Jason is holding VERY tightly to his ideals in that comic, and still he all but begs Bruce to join him so that he can have both. His origins will always be most deeply rooted in the Batfam. But maybe that brings a different sort of tension to the question--one having to do with whether a fan wants Jason to keep hold of his history, his roots, and find the permanence that Bruce promised when he took Jason in... or if they want him to give that up and forge a new future with a new family.

Jason really is, IMO, about tension. Not just in the conflict sense, though he does tend to bring tension and conflict to interactions. But thematically, his character and his arcs are filled with themes that constantly pull him in opposing directions. Even the dichotomy of the poverty he faced as a child versus the abundance of living with a millionaire is like that. In a lot of ways, canon tells us that he really just can't have everything he wants. So the question is... what does he have to give up?

i’m starting to realize there are at least two camps of jason todd fans. 

there are the ideological campers, who took under the red hood and ran with it.  the ones who believe whole-heartedly that jason todd is a character with a moral stance–counter, perhaps, to the man who raised him and the monsters that shaped him, but extant, all the same.  these people see jason shucking his ideals in canon and scoff, saying that it is a loss of integrity and a tragedy of what was good characterization. 

and then there are the emotional campers.  the ones who saw jason todd’s pain, his desire for a family who loved him enough to act as executioner.  it wasn’t an ideological purity that drove him–it was the emotional one, the familial one, and these people see jason struggling to mend bridges once burned and cheer him onward.  the ones who desperately want to see him shed his lone wolf persona and really, truly, become a part of the family.

in some sense, it ends up being a question of how faithful to the original characterization you want to be.  when jason is the villain and often when he’s the outlaw, he is antithetical to batman by nature.  he grips his pain and grief in his hands and uses it to act, same as batman, but in a diametrically opposed way.  in order to hang onto this, to keep this opposition in place, he cannot have his family.  but in order to have his family, to change from what he once became, he cannot have his ideals.

and i think it’s neat, because both of these camps want jay to succeed, you know?  but the question lies in whether they want that success to be in ‘cleansing gotham’/‘ridding the world of that which hurt him so no one else can be hurt’, so that he might save the world…

…or if they want it to be just him, reaching out a hand to someone and asking to be lifted up, so that he might save himself.

[rosalesbeausderholle]

I'm seeing a psychiatrist on Monday, I only have 15 minutes with them because those people love to slack off work, how do I manage to convince them that my attention deficit problems (and the stress they bring) are a real issue that has hugely hindered the later part of my education as well as all my work life (yes, I got good grades until I was 16, so what? What about everything after?) and that they literally disable me in my day to day life and make things infinitely harder for me and that I'm not making it all up and that I don't care if this is ADHD or social media or ADHD made worse by social media, the symptoms are the fucking same and I need help and some actual tests and yes, medicine?

[crystallizsch]

yuusha didn’t have anything else to wear so💥

[bigskydreaming]

Imagine if you were a gay or bi man who tried a certain firefighter show because of all the attention it was getting for one of its mains having a later in life bi awakening.....and between seasons you ventured into its fandom in search of material to tide you over til the next one. And you're greeted by a deluge of posts and fics that are just cheerfully homophobic towards one half of the newly out bi character's canon relationship on the basis of 'well he's not the RIGHT gay guy' and pushing the idea that actually its fine to cheat on him because Reasons and he's sexually predacious based on......behind the scenes implications people have divined like they're reading fucking tea leaves.

But don't get it twisted....this fandom, like all fandoms, really cares about representation!

Sorry not sorry, but we really need to kill this idea that fandoms are welcoming and inviting and inherently progressive when they're frequently insular and reductive as fuck. Every single fandom I've been in has had major trends of people doubling down on their own headcanons and fanon interpretations of the characters and willfully enacting trends aimed at running off people who like the 'wrong' characters (usually characters marginalized along one or multiple axes), like the characters in the 'wrong ways' or other bullshit.

Scott is a Bad Friend fics overtaking Teen Wolf fandom was not incidental, it was a FEATURE of the fandom, because the vast majority of that fandom did not want to share its space with anyone who had the nerve to like its main character. Survivors complaining about or criticizing the prevalance of rape fics in a certain fandom has in my experience always led to a reactionary UPTICK in those fics, with gems like 'this character can, will, must be raped' in the tags making it crystal clear that some of these fics exist because how fucking DARE anyone try and push forth a narrative not agreed upon by Fandom Main.

I could cite examples for so many other fandoms, with the commonalities always being that vast majorities in these fandoms are explicitly reacting defensively to being asked to be more mindful of fandom trends revolving around or exacerbating racism, homophobia, transphobia, rape or abuse apologia, ableism, etc....

With the most prolific fucking rallying cry across countless fandoms being "No the fuck we will NOT be doing that," because lolololol.....

Fandom is an inherently progressive space, didn't you hear?

[3416]

okay none of this is coherent bc i'm on the verge of sleep at 9pm rn but that right hand man as dog post literally has my gears turning bc that's mitch fucking marner bro. that's mitch and there are so many levels to it. mitch who has made his whole career being the assist guy... takes pride in the fact that he can help the team even if that results in his point accumulation seeming lesser bc they're not goals. taking advantage of the skills and iq he possesses to try to make the people around him better and literally set them up for success...always the first one there to congratulate them on it too.... literally naming his whole foundation the marner assist foundation bc he embraces that role on a team with a generational goal scorer who's made it clear he wants to play with MITCH and appreciates mitch's talent and communication. like. actually his right winger... his right hand man. okay and even happy with being the second best, as he's been for large portions of his life w an older bro who's good at everything right on into a stacked draft class.

and mitch personality wise gets the dog description sometimes too. loyal, happy go lucky, wants to be around his guys all the time, and it's where he's the happiest and thrives the most. he's energetic, he's buzzin, he's willing to entertain, he's the life and love in that room in so many ways that are loud.... that bark but don't necessarily bite (THOUGH THEY CAN BITE. criticism can be doled out and taken as long as it's from the right places with him) but like. especially when he was younger too, he was literally the team emotional support puppy who loved cuddles and attention and with age comes protection from the outside a little bit..,. dialing back what he's willing to show or admit to people on the outside but it's still there and what keeps the camaraderie alive despite an ever rotating roster. and i kNOW. i know. so much dog imagery and symbolism has to do with being protective and fierce, and in hockey for mitch that doesn't necessarily translate on the ice the same way bc he's not big and rough and physically forward the way some people wish he was, but he probably would take a bullet for most of those guys. and in ways, he has taken on the shield or become the punching bag... he was with babcock, he's taken on the scapegoat with media so a lot of critique is thrown squarely at him for group failure. he's the martyr even if that's not exactly what he signed up for.

he's grown more guarded but he's LITERALLY. literally. a dog. a dawg. auston's dawg.... their dawg. the epitome of lots of good things about hockey culture (and i'm sure some bad too), but he embodies so much of the loyalty.. the side kick.. the best friend energy in some ways.... it makes me emo. and....... and to think of him with his own dog trying to recreate unbridled joy from his childhood (cut to those pics of him as a kid w his chocolate lab vs him now w zeus).... like he's desperate for love and recognition of his loyalty and companionship. he's gotten used to being second fiddle, not necessarily in any resentful way but like. these past few weeks he's kind of gotten to step up and be the guy™. he's the heartbeat...... the dog's not usually meant to be the main character but maybe he is worthy of it.

[ruvviks]

we would sell anything just to buy who we're not // we kill our way to heaven

taglist (opt in/out)

@shellibisshe, @florbelles, @ncytiri, @hibernationsuit, @stars-of-the-heart;

@lestatlioncunt, @katsigian, @radioactiveshitstorm, @estevnys, @adelaidedrubman;

@celticwoman, @rindemption, @carlosoliveiraa, @noirapocalypto, @dickytwister;

@killerspinal, @euryalex, @ri-a-rose, @velocitic, @thedeadthree

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

this whole fear of repressed memories regarding sexual abuse has been following me around for years, probably since I became aware of memory loss/repressed trauma in the first place, but idk why it's been so intense this summer and it's really really frustrating how every time I think I've worked through it and gotten over it, I see a picture or someone says something and I'm all "I'M SCARED THAT THIS FAMILY MEMBER RAPED ME AS A KID AND I JUST CAN'T REMEMBER IT" and like. it's so frustrating because it's literally a symptom of OCD or whatever that I can't stop going over and over and over this, and it's driving me nuts that I can't seem to trust my own mind

[overlymetaromantic]

:P

[yakultii]

random but i'm so curious as to know how your eyes look, the way you described them in the past have me intrigued

weird girl eyeball compilation

[maddymoreau]

ConnorDawg worded exactly how I’ve been feeling about the internet lately:

Source: Click Here

[seaweedstarshine]

Hi! Long time no yap but I've been really bothered by this thing and I know you're just the person I can go to with this (even if we don't always end up agreeing at times).

I got into a tiff with someone in a comments section of a post that was about Amy (Which character do you think deserved to become a villain? or something similar). They brought up Amy's abuse of her boyfriend. I may have tried to defend Amy (key word is tried. I am officially rubbish at debating) but then I may have said something? Because they said that I (and apparently a lot of other fans) was excusing Amy's abuse because of her trauma. It got me stumped because isn't young Amy's treatment of Rory rooted in her trauma? Did I miss the memo where we separate trauma and abuse? Am I missing something?

That statement bothered me a lot because if there's one thing I never want to do it's defend an abuser. So here I am, humbly asking and hoping to clear the muddy waters.

Your really confused and disturbed moot, Tia 💌

TIA!!!!! Thanks for the ask 💌 , and I send you all the hugs.

Discussion of abuse, trauma, ableism, infidelity, and unhealthy relationship dynamics beneath the cut.

(First off… while I really appreciate your faith in my explaining skills <3 <3 <3 my passion for traumatized characters and mentally ill+neurodivergent rights doesn't make me especially qualified to fully clear muddy waters especially not knowing the full context, but I feel you, and what follows is my informed perspective!)

Speaking generally first, harm done in media is best examined by the impact on the audience, with a different lens than harm done to real people. While relatable experiences in media can be useful and validating and incredibly important, you can’t be “defending an abuser” when the abuse is fictional. It's actually normal for traumatized/ND/mentally ill people to project onto mentally ill villains, when villains are the only significant representation for those stigmatized symptoms in a media landscape that excludes and demonizes us simply for existing. RTD can't stop people who hallucinate from reclaiming the Master's Drums and projecting onto the Master, for example — 90% of the best Doctor Who psychosis fic by psychotic authors is about the Master, whether RTD likes it or not. It's not true crime.

(This is speaking generally. Amy Pond is very much not the Master.)

Abuse is a behavior, and there can be many reasons for it, but reasons based in trauma don’t make it not abuse (some forms of generational trauma can propagate abusive parenting styles, when the parent thinks abusive parenting is normal, or lives entirely vicariously through their child). This absolutely should not be taken to mean trauma correlates with abusive behavior; rather that abusive behaviors from traumatized people are more likely to present in specific ways.

Abuse is also a targeted behavior, based in control — not consistently displayed C-PTSD symptoms as seen in Season 5 Amy Pond through many aspects of her life. Mental health symptoms don't become abuse just because they hinder one partner from meeting the other partner's needs. Any life event can do that.

Without knowing the context of the arguments, this is the aspect of their relationship I've seen you talk about before (which I also feel strongly about), and what I assume is what you were debating? So, here I will talk specifically in regard to Season 5.

We all know Amy — she's never attached to Leadworth because she never wanted to leave Scotland, no steady therapist because none of them stick up for her, can't stick with one job yet her first choice is a job that simulates intimacy because her avoidant behavior (a known trauma response) isn't sustainable to her wellbeing. Rory knows her fears of commitment stem from her repeated abandonments, it’s why he’ll always wait for her, and it's why he blames the Doctor “You make it so they don't want to let you down.”, who apart from having caused a lot of her trauma, has actively taken advantage of her being the “Scottish girl in the English village” who's “still got that accent,” because he wants to feel important, so yeah, I think interpreting Amy's issues (and how Amy and Rory transverse them) as Amy abusing Rory indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of their relationship, as well as a misunderstanding of the (raggedy) Doctor’s role in Amy’s formative self-image (which of course she works through in Season 6, but I am sticking to Season 5).

Abuse is always based in control. That just doesn’t fit here. While Amy's detachment from her real life includes things like calling Rory her “kind of boyfriend” (which she is upfront about to his face; differing commitment levels isn't abuse, though it can be a relationship red flag for both parties IRL) — her Season 5 disregard of Rory’s feelings occurs only in response to the fairytale embodiment of her trauma. It's never a response to Rory; it's a response to the Doctor, who stole her childhood and led her by the hand to her death. She cheats on Rory with the Doctor in her bedroom full of Doctor toys, drawings, models, she made from childhood to early adulthood.

(And yes, like many repeatedly-traumatized people, Amy is prone to being sensitive and reactive. Take her “Well, shut up then!” line in The Big Bang; but given Rory responds to this by hugging her, clearly he doesn’t take it as her actually dismissing him. He knows her better than that.)

And by no means do I meant to imply this is fair to young Rory, poor Rory, who's left struggling with the feeling that his role in her life is in competition with the role of her trauma (aka the Doctor). But not every unhealthy relationship dynamic is unhealthy because of abuse. Labelling Amy's treatment of Rory in Season 5 more accurately isn't the same as excusing her harmful choices — but making mistakes is part of being human, Amy's mistakes are certainly understandable, and she works through them out of love for Rory.

If there's one thing to say about Moffat women, it's that Moffat allows his female characters the same grace that the male characters *coughTENcough* have always had, to hurt and struggle and make realistic mistakes and overcome those mistakes and to heal without being demonized.

Amy isn't perfect, but she is a fully realized character, and her story gives us a resonant depiction of childhood trauma.