#and also has been absolutely atrocious for my mental health

[nervousyoungtwinfantasydog]

>:(

[bougiebutchbitch]

I've been loving your Curly/Mouthwashing analysis! (I too want to study him under a microscope lol) Anyway, I wanted to know what your interpretation is of 'standing on a bridge, my feet in cement' means in regards to Curly's mood/outlook! I've seen people thinking it refers to his feeling of being stuck, but I always thought it was more a flag to him having anxiety? I don't know if it is just because I watch a lot of mafia content but I always think of cement and bridges as analogous to staring down the barrel of a gun. Less feeling stuck and more a terrified paralysis that comes with being faced with certain doom. I feel crazy because I know there is a poster about anxiety in Anya's office, and Curly mentions multiple times about not sleeping/not sleeping well, and not opening up to Anya beyond surface level, so I wonder if I am just looking too deeply in it, or if he was struggling with some major anxiety and it messed with his ability to lead.

Oh, I absolutely took that as a 'cement shoes' reference - like someone stood on a bridge about to commit suicide or be pushed off by a murderer! I got a sense of helplessness and terrified paralysis, but also a sense of inevitability, like you say.

In short, Curly needed an actual psych eval. He was not a solid choice for a captain for a million reasons, not least of which being his atrocious mental health - which I definitely interpreted as being a canonical part, albeit subtle, of the game!

The only problem is, I don't think anyone on that ship would've been a suitable captain?

I'm not sure the story would've evolved differently if anyone else had been in charge in the pre-crash era, tbh - not even Swansea, who also seemed to gloss over Anya's rape for a considerable period. That's what makes this story so effective as a tragedy, imo.

Mouthwashing seems to me, in part, to be about rape culture. Obviously. But it also has an element of doomed tragedy: you do what you think is right in an ever-escalating, incredibly traumatic situation, but constantly fail to prevent the escalation. Everyone is a victim both of the situation and all the other characters' flaws. I think this goes for all characters, not just Curly - though he's the most glaring example, as he winds up in a burnt, limbless, skinless body, only able to comprehend pain, entirely reliant on his abuser/ex bestie for basic care, watching his other friends die in horrific ways.

[thegreymoon]

The Story of Minglan

I have so much work to do, it isn't even funny, and here I am, doing none of it. So, instead of just sitting in front of my computer and letting anxiety eat me up, I'm going to see how married life is treating Minglan.

I have three shows that I am actively watching right now. It's a battle to choose which one to watch at any given time. The struggle is real 😫

***

Well, he's feeling energetic the morning after 😅

***

LMAO, OK, so I know that the implication here is that he has great stamina and wore her out, but, honestly, my first thought was that she must have been doing all the physical work of their first night together, so she's now tired and he's up and about doing acrobatics 🤣🤣

***

LMAO, I'm on her side here!

Sleep above all!

To hell with the shitty in-laws.

***

What a thing to tell your newly-wedded wife!

Yikes 😬

***

LMAOOOO 🤣🤣

Hopefully he, ahem, learned other skills at the brothel instead 🤣🤣

He's so fully of nonsense, I cannot 🤣🤣

***

Ugh, these vipers.

The sooner they move out, the better.

***

Who?

***

AGAIN, WHO??

Honestly, my stance for this drama is that anyone who wants to commit suicide should be allowed to 🙄

***

Wait, is she implying that Gu Tingye is sleeping with this woman?

Because, seriously? SERIOUSLY??

Now they are straight-up lying to stir up trouble in their marriage! AND THIS IS, LIKE, THE FIRST DAY!! 🤬🤬

Minglan, don't be an idiot. Don't believe them!

***

Oh, and the lot of you are soooooo worried about how some random servant who is sleeping with the master of the house is going to live 🙄🙄

I cannot with the what-the-fuckery on display here 🤬🤬

GU TINGYE, WHERE ARE YOU?

THIS IS SLANDER!!

***

Even if any of this was true, WHO GIVES A FUCK??

OK, so, personal story time. Skip for TMI, or something. IDC.

When I was nineteen, I was living away from home for the first time in a dormitory and I had these roommates. I was a very stupid, naive, sexually inexperienced, frontal-cortex-still-entirely-udeveloped nineteen. I was studying architecture, the hours were ridiculous, the living conditions were atrocious (and I mean no hot water, communal toilets for the entire floor, no privacy whatsoever, perpetually drunk, eternally partying next-door neighbours bringing creepy men over, it was absolute hell with no recourse) and I was really, really struggling to keep afloat.

My self-esteem also wasn't the greatest and I'd spent my entire teens feeling unlovable and unattractive because, idk, I didn't look like Naomi Campbel, and was told from numerous sides that being some random average girl was just not enough. My mental health went down the drain that year and it never really recovered. I hadn't been doing particularly great even before that, but it was like that whole hellish mess snapped some final thread in me and it was just a downward spiral after downward spiral for years after that. It took an additional ten years to get diagnosed and put on meds because everyone is just so stupid and when you are young, you don't know how to advocate for yourself, or even that you should be doing so.

And then there were these roommates.

There were three of them, all older than me, and we lived in this tiny twelve-square-metre room with three single beds (two of them had to share because one of them was a friend who was there "illegally" because she had lost her right to accommodation for repeating the year and didn't want to go back to her parent's home for the time being and I was too stupid to put my foot down, report her and tell her to fuck off). The two legal ones were sisters.

And let me tell you, I was so in AWE of them! All three were tall, beautiful, put together and confident! They were incredibly popular and had men crawling all over them. I felt pathetic in comparison. I wasn't jealous, not exactly, I just felt inadequate and held the two sisters on this incredibly high pedestal because they seemed so smart and gorgeous (not so much the friend, because even though she was beautiful too, she had this self-absorbed, self-centred, flighty, shallow character that I just couldn't respect). The sisters, however, were everything I wished I could be, especially the younger one.

That particular sister, let's call her M, was also studying architecture. She was in year four (compared to my miserable first year) and she was doing so well, her work was amazing. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was the epitome of elegance, intelligence and beauty in my eyes. She could do no wrong. Hero worship was in full swing, I couldn't imagine she could be any more perfect even if I tried.

And then a few months into our hellish living arrangement, I found out that she was fooling around with this worthless guy who was cheating on his long-term girlfriend with her. They had an on-again-off-again relationship. They had broken up before because he refused to leave the official girlfriend, but for whatever reason, she was in love with his mediocre ass and kept going back to him. I was shocked when the whole story came out. There she was, the most perfect girl I had ever known, letting this cheating loser string her along like that. It was gross.

Let me tell you, that pedestal I put her on came crumbling down so fast because even my infatuated, naive, sleep-deprived and chemically imbalanced brain knew this was very wrong (it took me several more years and another incident with a woman I was super close to and had adored for years to teach me not to mess with cheaters and the people they cheat with because they are always fundamentally deficient in some hidden (or not so hidden) ways and that whatever damage they have that lets them act in this way will eventually drag you down too, but I digress).

In my shock, I asked her, why? Of all people, why him? This girl was so gorgeous, she could have had any man on the planet. She said they were in love. And I asked her, if he loved her so much, why didn't he break up with his girlfriend (mind you, the girlfriend fully thought they were getting married sometime in the near future). It seemed so obvious to me, if he truly loved her, he should have ended his previous relationship and dated her openly.

AND SHE TOLD ME THIS EXACT SAME LINE. THIS COMPLETE BULLSHIT OF A MANIPULATIVE EXCUSE.

Apparently, the shitty cheater couldn't break up with the girlfriend because the girlfriend had sworn that if he broke up with her, she would never marry anyone else and stay single her whole entire life. And he, the poor baby, couldn't live with that, so he couldn't leave her 🤯🤯

I had never heard something more ridiculous in my life. It was so absurd, and it was so world-altering for me that this perfect girl, the girl I had thought was so put together and so incredibly smart, was TAKING THIS UTTER STUPIDITY SERIOUSLY. I still remember it so clearly, even after all these years. It didn't make sense then and it still doesn't make sense now. It's the XXI century!! Break up with the woman you don't love!! What the hell is this nonsense?? WHO THE FUCK CARES IF SHE DECIDES TO NEVER MARRY ANYONE ELSE? IT IS NO LONGER YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM!!

Also, all these people were in their early fucking twenties, the absolute delusion that any of her threats (if they were even real and not made up by the loser cheater because all cheaters ever do is lie) were in any way a real and enforceable thing that would come to pass. BUT EVEN IF SHE NEVER DID GET MARRIED? SO FUCKING WHAT? NOT YOUR CIRCUS, NOT YOUR MONKEYS.

And there she was, sneaking around with this garbage man because he gave her this nonsensical excuse. The stupidity is unending. I cannot. I could not and will never be able to can 🙄🙄

And back to the actual show now.

WHO THE FUCK CARES IF SHE NEVER MARRIES? WHAT KIND OF BULLSHIT BLACKMAIL IS THAT? FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF AND THEN KEEP FUCKING OFF SOME MORE UNTIL YOU DROP INTO A DEEP BLACK HOLE AND KEEP DROPPING UNTIL YOU REACH THE EARTH'S CORE AND DISINTEGRATE IN THE LAVA.

Ugh.

***

WHO THE FUCK CAAAAAARES 🤬🤬

Also, let's not forget that these are the very people who wanted to murder Manniang and Gu Tingye's actual children with her. They are so concerned with the status of a lower-class servant sleeping with the Young Master and how she will raise her head in public and go on living. So, so, so concerned 🙄🙄

***

Minglan, please tell them to fuck all the way off.

I am beyond pissed.

***

OMFG.

I am beyond sick of these wretched bottom feeders and their "path of survival" 🤮

BITCH, DIE.

***

True! Let's all ask him!!

I am sure he will just love all this slander.

This whole thing is just beyond WTF.

***

What exactly were her parents supposed to teach her?

Just take in some random prostitute for her husband the day after she was married? What the actual fuck is wrong with this woman? Worms for brains, I swear. The audacity is astounding.

***

OH MY GOD, THEN GO DIE ALREADY

I am so tired 🙄

***

This dumb fucking bully.

The best thing that ever happened to women was emancipation and no longer having to live in their in-laws' homes.

***

LMAO, how many statuses do these mistresses that the wife is forced to support even have?

Fuck off with this bullshit.

***

MINGLAN, ARE YOU SERIOUS

***

LMAO, wait, what?

They accused him of raping this woman?

Speechless.

Gu Tingye, please take your wife and fuck off from this place.

***

LMAO, Gu Tingye keeps making good life choices!

Gu Tingye is not among my favourite characters by a long stretch, but I do appreciate him so very much!

Go, king! Protect your wife and stay winning!!

***

Don't you just love it when utterly disgraceful people start blathering about not getting the respect they feel entitled to 🙄

Gross family.

[courtofparrots]

🍄 ❄️ 🔪 - for the ask game!! :D

YAY THANKS FOR THE ASK

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

SO I love the Serennedy headcanon that seems like, universal which is just that Leon brings Luis back to the states to his absolutely atrocious bachelor pad apartment where he has never hung anything on the walls or probably vacuumed and Luis is like "damn bro you live like this" and then he makes it a livable space, vastly improving everyones mental health in the process

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

THIS IS SUCH A DIFFICULT ONE. Tbh I am such a sucker for anything poly, where like there is an established relationship and they adopt a third, whether that's platonically or romantically or just for smut purposes I eat it up when done well.... as far as who I would trust.... I have no idea. My mutuals all do different things so well that would benefit a polyamorous fic..... I want them all to work on it. I don't even care what the relationship is that much. (as long as it's not FFM in a fetishy way)

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I misuse my science knowledge and resources a lot for resi fic research specifically. I have docs where I have my personal beliefs about las plagas and T-virus life/replication/infection cycles that I put together by modeling them off of real parasites and viruses. and I read through medical journals provided by my lab to get that info lmao

Oh and I've also been researching seizures lately oops

[youdontknowhowtodiequietly]

This is mad long, bare with, or don't lmao

TW's for: References to depression, r*pe, a*use towards women, and a bunch of other women rights related issues. I don't go in depth, but they are very much there. Be careful. Look after your mental health, please. Also a smidgen of spoilers for the Barbie movie at the end.

So, this whole tangent began with the Barbie movie. I've wrote all my thoughts down in a notebook, that's how I know what I'm going to type - vaguely. This will seem insane to have come from the Barbie movie, but I think it will hopefully be coherent. (Not like anyone will read this, lol. I am NOT anywhere near popular enough for this to even get a comment but here we go)

Right. A bit of context to my life. Since I was about 14, I have always felt that I am some sort of trans. For a while I thought I was non-binary, then I thought I was gender-fluid, then (a recent development) I thought I was a guy. So, you can imagine the absolute loop I have been thrown through when I realised that what I might have been feeling is internalised, borderline, misogyny.

Wild right? Let me explain.

Since I was 11, I have repeatedly heard the horrors of being female in this world. The rape/murders that happen on a daily basis. The horrors towards women in the past. The continued disregard for female autonomy. The abuse faced at the hands of people who are supposed to protect us. It's all horrific. Not only this, but I have seen, heard, learnt, about the way society completely destroys women. The lack of acknowledgement for the pain of females', the constant dismissal of mental illnesses, physical illnesses and disabilities (this also happens with males, too, I am aware, especially in the mental health department, but this section of this post is about people with the female anatomy.) The blatant disregard towards women who report abusive partners or stalkers is disgusting. (And that is just in 1st World countries where human rights are supposed to be the best. The horrors that happen in other countries are worse, but I am writing about what I know. I cannot say anything about other countries other than I know that there are some truly atrocious things happening to women in a lot of them because I am not educated on those situations. But believe me, I see it.) I see people AFAB lament the horrors of having the female anatomy. The wish to not have periods, or a uterus at all. The constant pressure put on women to look a certain way all the time. To not be too thin or too fat, not have too much hair but have enough that it doesn't look like you're trying too hard, etc. Honestly, the Gloria speech in Barbie is the best one I have ever heard about what it's like to be a woman. I see people expressing disgust at pregnancies, how they never wish to have one because it'll make them look ugly, or because of the complications that come with it. I have seen it, and do see it, all. For the past 7 years I have seen it all.

Can you imagine how much that has f-ed me up? I'm sure you can, because I'm sure it's also true for a lot of you.

All of this has made me hate the idea of being a woman.

When I was in my early years of high school (I'm in the UK and we start high school at 11 and finish at 16) I always said how I would "love to be a boy" because I always saw it as easier. I hated being a girl because everything was so shit. And that carried on into my later years of high school.

As I was introduced to the wonderful different gender identities that exist, I began reading and hearing stories of how trans/non-binary/gender-fluid, etc, people felt before they realised they were what they are. And I thought, "oh, damn. That me." So I began experimenting with labels. But even whilst I did that, whilst I played around with pronouns, names, hairstyles, clothing, I always felt this deep want to wear pretty dresses and have long hair. But I rejected those wants because I was "trans/non-binary/gender-fluid now and if I want those things then I can't be any of those." Which, yes, I know, is very binary of me. I understand that anyone can wear pretty dresses and skirts and have ling, flowy hair that they place sparkly pins in. I know. But you have to understand how damn difficult it is to ignore the stuff you have been taught all your life. I wanted to be called she/her but at the same time rejected those feelings because the thought of being a woman made me sick.

But then I watched the Barbie movie.

Now, I don't remember my childhood much. I don't know if it was what you would call "traditional girlhood." But I know it was good. And I know many AFAB have experienced horrendous childhoods, which hurts me to think about every time. But when I saw the ending of the Barbie movie. When the videos of those girls and women were playing. I felt something in me. I'm sure you've all heard different renditions of how the montage made women feel, and a lot of them is how I would describe how I felt. So, I won't get into it. But just know I felt a shift in me.

As well as that montage, other things in the movie got to me. The inherent femininity of it, for one. I know from discussions with other people, and from seeing many videos/blogs online, that what I'm going to mention is a common experience for a lot of AFAB. I hated the colour pink. Despised it. I only very very recently, before the Barbie movie, began admitting that the colour wasn't so bad. But the Barbie movie made me think that, omg, I might actually love the colour. Alongside the colour pink, I loved the outfits of the Barbies'. They were so freeing to see. As I wrote previously, I wanted to wear pretty skirts and dresses and have pretty hairstyles, but always refused to acknowledge that. Seeing the Barbies' in their overtly feminine clothing (again, I know I'm leaning into gender binary but please give me some slack. It's hard to write when you're not a novelist) made me feel giddy. I saw them and was like "pretty pretty pretty" and not just because all the women were beautiful lmao. It lit up a spark of joy in me seeing them dress in those clothes. That's how I can best describe my feelings. I just suddenly felt that I could wear those things. Weird, huh?

Another thing in the movie is the portrayal of happy older women.

This again links with the video montage, but also links with the old lady at the beginning of the movie saying she knows she's beautiful, with Ruth Handler being so gentle with Stereotypical Barbie and not ridiculing her for being stupid or naive. It also links with Gloria. I freaking loved Gloria. All of these portrayals made me so happy because it gave me a sudden sense of hope that I will be okay one day.

As someone with severe depression and probably autism/ADHD, who doesn't remember not being depressed, that really spoke to me. These women were happy. They were okay with themselves. No, the LOVED themselves. It was beautiful.

This movie healed me, just a bit, and let me make the first real steps to healing fully. I'm still not 100% sure about my gender identity, but tbh I don't quite care. I'm starting to wear makeup often, starting to take care of my body better. I also bought a cute little Stitch dress lmao, and a white, frilly tank-top with purple flowers on it. I'm embracing my feminine side and I've never felt more free.

It's a wonderful feeling. I'm surprised myself that this all came from a Barbie movie. But, at the same time, I think I was beginning to realise this about myself before the movie. Having finished college and not needing to worry about Uni as I'm not going has given me the freedom to actually look at myself, internally, and ask "what do I feel?" Again, linking back to the Barbie movie when Ruth says, "Take my hands...Now, feel." And I have done. I've asked what my brain needs, and it's full of pretty dresses and pretty hairstyles and warmth and a want to live again.

I'm aware that this may seem silly to a lot of people. Maybe even childish. But I don't care. And that's a lot for an 18 year old to say, because many people my age, and older, do care. A lot.

This has just been an introspection, but I chose to share it because maybe it will help other people.

(Also, heavy disclaimer if you got this far. I don't know what terms are still used now, or how they're used. And writing about girl/womanhood and femininity whilst also trying to be inclusive to those who have the female anatomy but don't identify as a woman, and those who don't have the female anatomy but identify as women is very difficult. So, I deeply apologise if I used the term AFAB wrong, or if it is no longer an accepted term. Also, if anything else in this post is wrong/offensive or incorrect, again I'm sorry. Please let me know what is wrong and how to fix it and I will do my best to edit this post with the updated terminology/fixes.)

[fagsystem]

I put far, FAR too much energy into this, so I'm making a separate post with just this. Essentially, this is about providing the scientific evidence proving that DID is a disorder. It also provides evidence of trauma being a factor in DID. It also discusses why plurality should not be conflated with DID (while remaining supportive of DID systems who identify as plural and not erasing the experiences of non-disordered plurals), because not only are they not comparable but then it makes DID out to not actually be a disorder. This is a huge problem of systemic ableism, which has not been helped by groups that plurality was born from ("natural multiplicity").

I am tired I am angry and I BEG of people to SHUT UP.

Context for the image: That is someone with a psychology degree who reblogged my post saying the DSM is a reliable source of information.

Table of Contents:

Prefacing Statements

Clarification on the Conflation of DID and Plurality

Education Surrounding What DID Is/Correcting Misinformation

Why What You Said Is Contributing to Systemic Ableism of a Disabled Group (pwDID)

Bibliography

Prefacing Statements:

Yes, this is so long I decided to include a table of contents for organisational purposes. As a result, I have a couple of key things to note before we begin.

1. I am autistic so I struggle with understanding and regulating my tone. I am clarifying that the following text is all educational. This is not a debate or argument, although you are absolutely free to debunk what I have said, and I am not attacking you. (Having said that, the final section in which I am attempting to explain how atrociously ableist what you said was is in fact not tone policed. I am definitely expressing my anger and pain there, you are warned. If it is not something you can read, tell me so I can rewrite it because it is quite you understand that.)

2. I am openly acknowledging that you have a degree in psychology. In fact, that is why I made such a lengthy and articulated post. You clearly must be very knowledgeable about the field of psychology and therefore able to engage in a well formulated discussion about it. Having said that, your degree does not make you infallible to misinformation. Especially if you are in or are going into the mental health field, it is critical that you are corrected in said misinformation prior to a potential negative impact upon your clients.

3. I know that you are a traumagenic system, I do not know if you have a DID system, any complex dissociative disorder (CDD) system really, or a non-disordered system. Whatever sort of system you are does not change what you have said nor my approach to this discussion. I am merely making this clear to ensure you do not believe I am invalidating any potential experiences you may have with DID, and also to clarify that non-disordered plural is how I will be referring to plurals without CDDs in order to be inclusive of non-disordered non-endogenic plurals.

4. Some of what I will be citing is DID-research.org. It is a compilation of various DID related research. While the sources it cites are credible, I acknowledge that the cite itself is not a credible scientific resource. However, due to the accessible format it is in and the fact that you can access the relevant credible sources through it, I am still going to be citing it.

Clarification on the Conflation of DID and Plurality

We shall begin with some definitions to ensure we are on the same page.

DID - Dissociative identity disorder is a complex dissociative disorder characterised by the presence of multiple identities within the one body separated by dissociative and amnesiac barriers. (DIDR, 2018)

Plurality - A non-pathologised label some may self identify with to describe their experiences of feeling like/being multiple people.

These two terms are not interchangeable. One is a disorder in which someone's development was interrupted as a child, leading to permanent and measurable alteration of their brain structure (Blihar et al., 2020), and the other is a label to describe someone perceiving themselves as multiple people.

You are correct when you said, ‘Plurality… is something u know in ur being. It’s not something a doctor can diagnose.’ Which almost perfectly summarises why DID is not plurality. Plurality is a non-pathological term to describe those feelings your mentioning, that thing you ‘know in ur being’. DID is a mental disorder that a professional can in fact diagnose, and often times is diagnosed without the system knowing they have DID.

Plurality and DID are separate things. DID systems can identify as plural in the same way anyone who is not a DID system can, if they believe it fits their experiences. Yes, even if those experiences are the symptoms of a disorder. But that does not make DID and plurality interchangeable terms, and if your understanding of DID is based in plurality then you do not understand DID.

Education Surrounding What DID Is/Correcting Misinformation

As I have touched upon already, DID is far more than simply ‘headmate disorder’. To summarise, it is a complex dissociative developmental trauma response disorder.

(Here is a post in which I discuss trauma in relation to DID. I request you read the rest of this first, but I put this here to ensure you have it in case the ‘discoursey’ nature of my comment puts you off.)

To begin to understand DID, let us focus on how it forms. The most reputable theory for DID’s formation is the Theory of Structural Dissociation (ToSD), especially when used in conjunction with the biomarkers visible in those with DID.

The theory follows the assumption that during the early years of development, children are not one cohesive identity and are instead a collection of different states of self. These self states handle different things, such as acquiring food or seeking emotional contact. Around the ages of 6 to 9 these states are supposed to integrate into one cohesive identity. DID (and other CDDs) occurs when two or more of these states are unable to integrate and instead grow into two or more separate identities (known as alters).(DIDR, 2015) Not reaching the developmental milestone of a fully integrated identity during the critical time period causes permanent damage to the brain’s structure. (Blihar et al., 2020) That damage is what allows for alters to exist and new alters to split even if the system had reached final fusion.

With the explanation out of the way, I want to address that I have seen a lot of baseless criticism for the ToSD. Most of it seems to stem from the fact that it does not explain non-disordered plurality. However, as we established, plurality and DID are different things and there is no guarantee that there is one theory that explains both. So, I hope that you (and anyone else reading this) are able to set aside personal bias and assess at my sources before reaching a conclusion.

There is no better source on the ToSD than "The Haunted Self: Structural Dissociation and the Treatment of Chronic Traumatization" by Onno van der Hart, Ellert Nijenhuis, and Kathy Steele. Here is a link to a less in depth but free version of it.*

However, with my defence of it out of the way, I want to acknowledge the theory does have limitations. The reason I bring it up is because it is the best understanding currently available as to the formation of DID. It should, at the very least, provide a theoretical understanding of the way trauma impacted the development of pwDID. (DIDR, 2019)

With that understanding in mind, let us move onto the point. The idea that DID is based on a ‘feeling’ and ‘not something a doctor can diagnose’ is outright incorrect. Yes, due to ableism there have been dozens There have been dozens of studies attempting to prove that DID is not a real disorder, if it were possible for DID to just be something someone felt as opposed to a disorder, we would know by now.

The best piece of evidence towards the validity of DID historically was the association with trauma. This association has been further confirmed by the current best piece of evidence towards the validity if DID- brain scans. Various brain scans have revealed structural differences in the brains of pwDID. (Blihar et al., 2020) These differences have similarities to impacts of PTSD on the brain structure, while also being distinctly different from PTSD. (DIDR, 2017) This indicates that DID is, as studies have suggested for the longest time, a trauma response disorder that is different to PTSD.

Beyond just that, the brain scans have provided evidence and explanation related to many aspects of DID. (Blihar et al., 2020)Here’s just a brief list.

Whole brain: Structural changes similar to PTSD, further evidence indicating trauma in DID.

Motor regions: A greater amount of white matter in the motor regions in the brainstem and right hemisphere, potentially providing an explanation for differences in skills between alters.

Pars Regions: Reduced grey matter. Damage to this area is associated with muteness. While there is only one article I can find even beginning to broach this subject, myself and many other systems I know have mute alters. Further research is required, it appears like muteness may be more common in pwDID.

Orbito-Frontal Cortex: It is decreased in size, something that has been shown to occur in PTSD. This further indicates trauma as a key factor of DID.

Anterior Cingulate Cortex: Significantly decreased in size. This provides a potential explanation to deficits in emotional regulation, fear processing and learning, and interpreting emotion.

Global Parietal Cortex: Reduced grey matter, which is associated with increase in severity of dissociative symptoms.

There is more than just that, but I believe the picture is clear. DID is in a disorder that is diagnosable by doctors, and beyond that has disabling symptoms as a result of damage to our brains. It is critical for us to be able to access the proper care for our disorders, something that is incredibly difficult to do in the face of the systemic ableism you are promoting.  

Why What You Said Is Contributing to Systemic Ableism of a Disabled Group (pwDID)

This is no longer about science. This is about the demedicalisation of my disorder.

I mentioned previously how psychologists have tried time and time again to disprove the validity of DID. Things such as the sociocognitive model, the iatrogenic model, the fantasy model, all fancy ways of saying, ‘DID is not a real disorder.’

DID is very clearly a disorder. It has a lot of really disabling symptoms. Most of us require medical assistance in order to manage it. In the event that DID becomes demedicalised, we lose that support.

I have been truly trying not to be mean or aggressive to you, but I really need you to understand the severity of what you said. You said that, because some people have fun li’l brain buds, DID is not a real a disorder—clearly also fun li’l brain buds—and it is perfectly alright to advocate for removing life support from us.

You understand why I’m upset, right?

Especially because you are a psychologist. You are the systemic problem of psychologists denouncing and not believing in our disorder. You are the person these people rely on, you could get someone killed by not taking their disorder seriously because your own biases.

I seriously, seriously encourage you to shut up when you don’t know something. Especially when you are a psychologist, your claims have credibility behind them and people are going to be influenced regardless of whether or not you know what you are speaking about. ‘Oh, this psychologist thinks DID is not a real disorder!’ is an old song I am so tired of hearing.

Not to mention the general ableism behind fakeclaiming us. Saying DID is not a disorder is fakeclaiming, you are fakeclaiming all of those symptoms. For what? What justifies you literally saying DID is not a disorder and everyone dealing with its symptoms are liars? Because that’s what you’re saying.

There is no good excuse for this behaviour, especially not from you. I beg of you to do better.

Bibliography:

DIDR. (2018, December 17). What is dissociative identity disorder? DID-Research. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/did/

Blihar, D., Delgado, E., Buryak, M., Gonzalez, M., & Waechter, R. (2020, February 12). A systematic review of the Neuroanatomy of Dissociative Identity disorder. European Journal of Trauma & Dissociation. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246874992030017X

DIDR. (2015, April 8). Structural dissociation. DID-Research.org. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/

DIDR. (2019, July 22). Problems with structural dissociation. DID-Research. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/problems

DIDR. (2017, March 9). Dissociative identity disorder validity. DID-Research. Retrieved March 21, 2023, from https://did-research.org/controversy/validity/

[halucygeno]

Mental health vent: on being neurodivergent, Kokobot and counterproductive “help”

So, I recently looked up the #Depression tag and was immediately messaged by Kokobot, Tumblr’s officially partnered mental health counselling provider. In typical late-capitalist fashion, it was absolutely atrocious at its job, and not-so-secretly a scheme to harvest people’s user data. User @viridianriver​ made a fantastic post where they summarise the issue better than I ever could, give it a read:

https://www.tumblr.com/viridianriver/722834494910038016/kokobot-the-airbnb-owned-tech-startup-data?source=share

Highly unethical shit and revolting all around. Whoever from Tumblr staff decided this was a good idea should be fuckin’ ashamed of themselves.

But this saccharine, performatively gentle parasite of a bot made me reflect on some of the ways people in real life have failed me when I’ve brought up my mental health problems. Aside from the struggle of finding a therapist who understands my style of thinking and the type of guidance I need (I’ve been through 4 different ones), I’ve often ran into an invisible wall when openly speaking to friends and family.

I’ve been meaning to write something like this for a while, and Kokobot gave me the push to articulate some of my observations - about what is helpful, what isn’t helpful, and some general patterns in how people have addressed my mental illness.

Anyway, here’s my honest advice:

[DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional. This is just an opinion based on my personal experience. Take everything I say with a tablespoon of salt.]

Seek out other people who have struggled with the same (or similar) problems as you. These are the people who are best equipped to empathise with you and see things from your perspective. I know it may sound impossible at first, but you gotta try.  

If your school / university has a counselling service, see if they run any support groups. If not, check to see if there’s something hosted independently by students or local organisations. You preferably want to talk to someone you can trust, like a family member, friend or close colleague. If there is absolutely nobody in your real-life environment you can turn to, then confiding in a stranger online is a “good enough” substitute. Obviously, maintain a good level of caution when speaking to anyone you don’t know - don’t reveal identifying information like photos, names or addresses. If your problems involve something very specific or personal, use analogies and fake names.

The reason I put emphasis on contacting others who have gone through similar issues is that people without that perspective, even if well-intentioned, can actually worsen the situation with their attempts to help.

For example, if you speak openly about your suicidal thoughts (even if you make it very clear that it’s only casual suicidal ideation, with no clear “plan” or strong compulsion to actually do it), people may panic and call emergency services, which can lead to you having to spend half an hour explaining to confused cops and medics: “no, I’m fine, I’m not about to kill or injure yourself, the caller misunderstood me, no, I don’t need a Diazepam injection, no, I don’t want to see a physician...” and so on.

Trying to open up to people who lack the proper perspective will, ironically, increase your frustration and isolation as they adopt an overprotective, patronising attitude. Your negative thoughts will be treated as aberrant and pathological (even if they are well articulated and backed with arguments), and therefore quickly dismissed as “the illness talking”. The condition will basically be used to discredit your autonomy of beliefs, and you will be pressured to adopt the standard, “healthy” attitudes and desires.

Paradoxically, while acting as if your mental illness has completely taken over your thoughts, they will also heavily underestimate its severity and treat it as an issue of “willpower”. You may hear suggestions for things like mindfulness exercises, breathing techniques, meditation, a healthier diet, homeopathic treatments, etc. While these may help in some cases (especially eating healthy), they completely ignore the fact that people on the spectrum or with attention disorders may be straight-up neurologically incapable of focusing on some of these these tasks. (This is anecdotal, but I have attempted about a dozen guided meditations + yoga, and each time it feels like being put in a straightjacket while some pretentious twat tries to gaslight me about what I’m feeling to the tune of the most annoying, cliche “relaxation” music imaginable. It’s impossible to feel anything other than frustration.)

The worst part about this is that these very deliberate displays of “care” and “sympathy” usually dehumanise you by refusing to meet you where you’re at and discuss things on your own terms.

If you’re feeling depressed because of socio-political issues like climate change, racism, economic exploitation and inequality, instead of helping you channel your frustration into action - telling you how to network with local activists, offering to read political theory with you, etc. - they will view the social concern itself as the issue and nudge you towards supressing it (saying things like “focus on your own life, then worry about politics”). Instead of trying to politically empower you, they want you to surrdener to disempowering political apathy.

If you’re feeling depressed due to difficulties with an academic or personal project, you’ll hear vague non-advice like “be kind to yourself” and “don’t push yourself too hard”, with zero actual interest in learning about the specifics of what you’re struggling with. If you’re a writer, for example, these people won’t bother to read your work, and if you ask them to give you some feedback on a draft, they’ll agree before procrastinating it into oblivion.

And don’t even get me started if your sadness stems from philosophical reflections. Most people are extremely illiterate in even conversational-level philosophy, making constant appeals to anecdotes, mysticism and “common sense”. It’s often a struggle to get them to question something they take for granted, much less make them logically evaluate the coherency of a philosophical principle.

You get the point. People say they want to help, but they seemingly want to do that without making any commitments or getting to know anything difficult about you. They can be incredibly overbearing in terms of suggesting broad, overarching lifestyle changes, but when it comes to specific habits and behaviours you yourself want to change, where you could really use a bit of coaching or encouragement, they don’t even examine it.

I understand that the kind of help I’m asking for is incredibly labour intensive and difficult - especially if someone is struggling with a highly technical skill (in which case it may be downright impossible; how are you supposed to help a friend stuck on a programming task without being a programmer yourself)? But if these people are not willing to do that, then the least they can do is shut up with their patronising self-help platitudes. It feels more alienating and depressing to constantly hear stock responses like “it will get better” than just not talking about it at all.

So yeah, look for others who have gone through the same thing. Seek practical, actionable advice instead of vague, feel-good nonsense. Don’t bother talking to those who obtusely fail to understand your condition and condescend to you - it will just exhaust you.

Those are my two cents, and better mental health advice than anything Kokobot will ever give you. Peace.

[butleroftoast]

[Under the read more: rant about work which got out of hand. My apologies, ignore me.]

Background: work has been absolutely exhausting lately. I haven’t had a lunchbreak in several weeks because it’s been too busy, I’m coming in early and leaving late (mostly unpaid), we’ve had extra stuff going on on top of already relentless days, and on the rare chance I get a day off I am literally so tired I’m shaking and unable to do much. The stress is making me actually, physically ill. I convinced senior management to let us have an extra person for the festive period but it was like pulling teeth, and is still barely enough. Managing my section on top of this is nigh-on impossible because I do not have time to do anything, let alone admin, but I’m giving it my best.

There’s a special event happening today which requires us to close early and help out with something new. It’s totally unnecessary and used to be held elsewhere on-site (which didn’t require shutting down a whole section), but whatever, we’re flexible, we’re game, we’ll do it (also we don’t have a choice because senior management made the decision without discussing it with us, as usual).

Despite not having enough time to feed myself, let alone talk to colleagues, I’ve passed on all the information I can to my team, bearing in mind that we’ve never done this before. I’ve given said information verbally multiple times and also in writing. My team know they can always message me if they have further questions. The final thing I did on my last shift was leave a prominent message explaining what was going to happen, who was going where, and what they would be doing there. I was so tired I could barely lift the pen, but I knew if I didn’t do it someone would moan about not being told anything.

This morning - one of those rare days off for me - I was woken up by a message from (who else) X, warning me that senior management was about to phone. Apparently they asked X what was happening, and X told them they had no idea what was going on today and hadn’t heard anything from me.

Senior management are now of the opinion that I’ve got zero communication and organisational skills. My one saving grace is that I do have the written proof of telling X what was happening, but by my next shift senior management will have assumed I’m incompetent and lost interest, because it never occurs to them to support or encourage their staff. All they ever do is criticise and then move on.

(Tangent: way back in the spring, we had a review of my start as a supervisor. With absolutely no training, I’d brought my section back after an entire year of being closed due to covid and losing all of our experienced staff. “How do you think it’s gone, Tozby?” “I think we’ve done reasonably well, considering the problems we’ve faced, and all of the new staff are working really hard.” “I disagree.” Why did management disagree? Because I hadn’t put a fruit bowl on the counter, and one morning three weeks prior we were so busy that senior management had to wait for their coffee while we served customers (senior management don’t allow us a coffee break, by the way).)

I am so tired. I am tired of this field, I am tired of X’s bullshit, and I am tired physically. Every time my phone pings I want to throw it at a wall, because it’s always, always, X starting drama over nothing. I would quit, but I need money and what else can I do? My only qualifications are in the arts, my only experience is in this work I’m so burnt out by, my mental health is atrocious, and there are no job opportunities in my area.

Anyway. Merry Christmas.

Yours sincerely, Someone in the Retail, Hospitality and Catering Sector

[sixty-silver-wishes]

With regards to current events and I/P, I’ve shared my thoughts on it and make my stance VERY clear. I’m still learning a lot, but by this point, I’ve come to notice some serious red flags in terms of how people talk about it, particularly from left-leaning positions.

Yes, collective punishment is a war crime. What the Israeli government is doing is atrocious. Let’s make that absolutely clear. But I’ve also cut ties with people who praise the October 7 attacks and romanticize them. As I’ve said before, I can’t in good conscience agree with those who praise the attacks because civilian lives don’t stop mattering. I find it disturbing when people say that I/P “isn’t complicated,” because understanding it means understanding a long history of intersectional issues. Nothing in history is ever “not complicated.” That doesn’t mean it’s a topic to be avoided, but it is one that requires nuance to understand.

Among the most disgusting things I can remember people saying here after the attacks was those who said “stop telling people to check in on their Jewish or Israeli friends’ mental health, because it’s so much worse for Palestine.” Which. Gross. The mental health of Jews and Israelis doesn’t stop mattering because of the crisis in Palestine; why can’t I be worried for the mental health of everyone who may be suffering? And if I have friends anywhere who may be impacted by current events, I always check in on them, because that’s what friends do.

Overall, I believe the biggest issue with discourse surrounding I/P is the expectation that people “pick sides.” And when people “pick sides,” they’re not paying attention to nuance, colonialism, discrimination, etc. It’s either casting the entire respective Israeli and Palestinian populations as “good” or “bad,” and that generalization of assigning black-and-white morality to entire populations of people spills into Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, with no regard for the history of both Jewish and Palestinian displacement- and no regard for present-day civilian lives. There’s this disgusting mentality I see from non-Jews and non-Muslims about how every Jewish person must be responsible for the actions of the Israeli government and military, and how every Muslim person must be responsible for the actions of Hamas. And as someone who is not Jewish or Muslim, I want to make it clear that I am not entitled to the opinions of any Jewish or Muslim person on I/P. Hell, as a Christian (and a white one living in the US), if anything, it’s my responsibility to be aware of what’s been done to harm both communities in the name of my own religion.

I remember seeing an NPR article at the end of last year interviewing different Jewish Americans from different generations on their views on Israel, and because a variety of people were interviewed, they all gave different opinions. But one that stuck out to me was one older lady who said that she viewed Israel as a “safety net,” and the above post explains where this lady was coming from in great detail. And while I cannot get behind the idea of oppressing one group of people in order to create a safe haven for another (regardless of the group of people), we also can’t deny how horrible the world has been to the Jewish population throughout history, to the point where many feel the need for a “safety net” in the first place.

So, I guess what I’m trying to say is, we need to be smart about this sort of thing. It’s why I refuse to use slogans that have to do with I/P; one slogan can mean many different things to many different people. For instance, “from the river to the sea” is used both by people advocating for peaceful coexistence, and by those who advocate for genocide against the Israeli population. The other reason is I want to avoid groupthink. I want to make sure that all opinions I have on I/P are formed from research and listening to a variety of viewpoints, rather than condensing them into charged statements that can be vague and omit important information.

It’s an issue I want to be VERY careful about, and one I’m still trying to learn about, because it’s easy enough to say “Islamophobia is wrong” and “anti-Semitism is wrong.” Nobody wants to be a bigot (or at least, nobody should want to be one). But I also want to make sure I know exactly what each of those concepts are, where they come from, and how they manifest, or else I can’t help dismantle them.

So a while back, a fairly left-wing friend of mine was shocked at the thought of Left-Wing Holocaust Denial, asking how it could even be possible, how can the Left even deny the Holocaust given everything (quote: "why would the LEFT be in denial? After you read Elie Wiesel, you can't deny any of it. Same with Maus, Frieda Appleman-Jurman's memoirs, and all that. Also, Lois Lowry won a Newberry medal for Number the Stars"). So I've been chewing on this for a while now.

First, Right-Wing Holocaust Denial is straight up "denial that the Holocaust happened"--often with an undertone of "But we wish that it had and it was a great idea". They deny the number of deaths, or excuse the Nazis, or say that the Jews had it coming, or say that it didn't happen at all, that sort of thing. It's a very blunt, straightforward form of denial.

Comparatively, Left-Wing Holocaust Denial takes a different, more sophisticated form that functions on multiple levels--with an undertone of its own along the lines of "the Jews are exaggerating to try to portray themselves as victims"--and to talk about this form of denial, I have to explain what the Holocaust was.

So this gets a bit long, because what is being denied is long, but I will ask you to bear with me.

But, TL:DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

The Holocaust, 1939-1945, was the culmination of literally centuries of anti-Jewish hatred from Christian Europeans, dating back well over a thousand years.

For one example, there were anti-Jewish riots in France in the 1020s in misplaced vengeance for the Islamic destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in 1009 CE. Decades later, the Crusaders butchered 99% of the Jewish population of northern Europe, beginning in 1096 and continuing for centuries, such that a population of nearly 100,000 in 1050 CE was reduced down to less than a thousand in 1350 CE, as genetic studies show.

Jews were vilified as "Enemies of Christ", and various forms of attack to whip up mobs against Jews became common enough to get names of their own: Blood Libel (the accusation of Jews stealing children and murdering them to use their blood) and Host Desecration (the accusation that Jews were stealing consecrated Hosts and "torturing" them in order to attack Jesus), among others. These resulted in thousands of Jews being attacked, harmed, killed, and expelled.

Pogroms, massacres, and expulsions were just part of the pattern; Jews were effectively second class citizens at best, confined to marginal parts of cities (the original ghettos), subject to ritual humiliation (there was a part of Carnival in Rome that featured "The Running Of The Jews" where the Jewish population of the city had to race and be beaten by the Christians and there are designed-to-be-humiliating carvings of Jews on churches), and so forth. Jews were the scapegoats of choice--a powerless minority made to do the dirty work (such as tax collection) by the powerful and then liquidated when the lower classes got upset, as a distraction (King: "It's not my fault you're hungry!" *motions to table laden with food* "It's the fault of those greedy Jews who I force to work as tax collectors! Go kill them instead of me!"). And that cycle further entrenched the hatred.

Martin Luther took this to new heights during the Reformation; initially, he was "nice", saying that the Christians should treat the Jews gently to get us to convert... and when we didn't, he got nasty, writing a book titled "On The Jews And Their Lies" where he outlined a "how to persecute Jews and make their lives utter hell so they'll convert" prescription of behavior.

And this all became deeply baked into the culture of Europe, in plays, architecture, pop culture, stories, and conspiracy theories over the centuries. Even after the ghetto walls were torn down in the early 1800s by Napoleon and Jews were allowed to integrate into mainstream society, that hatred did not go away. If anything, the resentment grew, culminating in outbursts like the Dreyfus Affair, where a French-Jewish artillery officer was made into the fall guy for another spy, because he was Jewish.

There was a "Jewish Question" in the countries of Europe. A political National Question that went, "What shall we do with these Jews who live in our lands who we do not want?" And many of the Jews desperately wanted to prove that they were Good Model Citizens, but it didn't matter. Some of us, seeing the writing on the wall, and that the Europeans would never accept us, started agitating for political separation and independence--Zionism.

During this time, the old religious-based hatreds were being ostensibly phased out, and it was the era of "scientific racism", so a new word was coined--"antisemitism", to replace the old "Judenhass", to sound more "scientific". More anti-Jewish accusations were created, such as the "Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion", which is a Russian-made forgery that is supposedly the record of a meeting of Jewish elders in their master plan to control the world; it was written to distract hatred away from the Czar and onto a scapegoat. (Essentially just an updated version of the kings' tactic of scapegoating the Jews from centuries earlier)

So the hatreds stayed, regardless of what new clothes they wore. After World War One, when the Nazis said that the blame for the loss and subsequent humiliation and economic collapse of the Weimar Republic was because of the "Jews stabbing us in the back", there was a massive population of people who were already primed to hate and resent Jews and just needed that excuse to focus that hatred. They passed laws that specifically stripped citizenship from the Jews on racial grounds, instituted blood purity laws--again, on racial grounds--and built up to the Holocaust, where the Jews were not seen as human, but as vermin, out to contaminate their pure race.

In the process, they killed nine out of ten Jews who lived in Europe. Their hatred to the point that they diverted efforts to fight the Allies just so that they could kill Jews. Local people hated Jews so much that they collaborated with their own conquerors, just so they could kill Jews. Because they hated us so much, had hated us for centuries. Their "Final Solution" to "The Jewish Question." This part is what the Right Wing denies.

And then, in the aftermath, nobody wanted the remaining victims. Literally, the British said, "We'll carve off part of our Empire to give to them rather than let them come here."

So, after centuries of hatred and marginalization, Europeans gave into their hatreds that they had been raised with and murdered us in our millions, and we were traumatized.

And some of us went to the USA--the few that the US was willing to take in--and many more, not having any other place to go, went to British Mandate Palestine with the hope of self-governance in the future Jewish territory... having learned that they could not trust non-Jews.

That is the Holocaust and what led up to it, and some of the aftermath of it.

Left Wing Holocaust Denial erases all of that, except for the Holocaust itself, which is taken out of context as a moral lesson.

The Left Wing Unofficial Narrative Of The Holocaust is that the Nazis arbitrarily picked several groups of fellow European Whites, the Jews being just one of them, agitated against them in order to make an Enemy, and then killed them in order to cement power. Thus, in this narrative, the Holocaust was thus an aberration brought about by demagoguery and propaganda. Thus, it is imperative to remember "Never Again", because it can happen to anyone.

According to this narrative, "Jews" are just White Europeans who practice a different Abrahamic Religion, and who played the aftermath of the genocide for undeserved sympathy points to get a colony of their own where they could become oppressors in turn, and that they are getting special treatment that ignores the other victims of the Holocaust.

In doing so, the Left needs to ignore...

...the racial aspects of the Holocaust and the decades and centuries before it--the blood purity laws, the specific "racial science" that Othered Jews, and so forth--in favor of a "Jews are White" narrative.

...that the Jews were specifically targeted by the Nazis for extermination, to the point of irrational, self-defeating fixation, whereas only the Roma were as targeted for complete eradication alongside the Jews--in favor of a "But what about the other victims too?" narrative.

...the Nazi obsession with hating Jews (which has not gone away) as a fundamental part of their ideology, and pretending that the Nazi hatred of Jews is no different than the eugenics and political oppression that other groups were victims of--again, in favor of a "Other people were victims of the Nazis too!" narrative.

...the centuries of hatred and victimization that preceded the Holocaust and culminated in it--in favor of a "Jews are just European White People" narrative.

...the trauma that happened when you've lost your homes, your families, your way of life, and your society, and nobody made any efforts to help you, and how it becomes apparent, after trying to fit in and integrate for decades, that you can be Perfect Citizens and the Christians will still hate you so we need to defend ourselves for our own sakes--in favor of a "Jews are oppressors and didn't learn the right lessons from the Holocaust" narrative.

So, TL;DR:

Right Wing Holocaust Denial denies the body count and the atrocities...

Left Wing Holocaust Denial denies everything that built up to it, the centuries of Othering and murders, and the aftereffects.

[ebdanon]

hope you're alright after work <3 and tw for bugs and another long ask lmao

to be honest, we don't have access to mental health resources, that kind of stuff is expensive here, and we already spent a bunch on trying to figure out what was physically wrong with both of us first, during which time my husband (he got ibs) was not working because it was physically impossible for him, and I (thyroid issues) stopped getting paid from the freelance work I do (I'm still owed about 10k which is enough for a down payment on an apartment in the most expensive part in my country) which put us in a ridiculously tight spot. we had to move out of our apartment and start living with my in-laws, which is where more crazy has just been tacked on. it's been a very shitty couple of years in terms of what other people have been doing that directly affects us, but we're trudging on anyway. we finally started applying for jobs abroad, which we couldn't really do until we moved because it was constantly dealing with doctors and with health issues, and scrambling together money for bills and rent and overall living, and then the building got infected with cockroaches which was the cherry on top when we both finally said "we're outta here" and moved out in like 2 days (we knew the consequences of doing that). the day we decided to do that, we were up until 5am - me shrieking at each new baby cockroach I saw, and my husband killing them (I'm terrified of bugs), because a cockroach laid some eggs in a door frame in the apartment. that same week our vacuum made a loud noise and smoke just started coming out of it and it broke, the stovetop also broke, a repairman came and tried to fix it a bunch of times so we had no stove for 4-5 days (which was awful because my husband has to eat carefully cooked meals, and the only thing we could use to cook was the oven, which is ridiculously limiting on an already limited diet), and two of the ceiling lights went out. and then I got a flare up (different health issue) on top of everything which meant I was in bed for a couple of days. it was the worst week of 2023.

we've been applying for the last 6 months, and it's been nothing but rejections because we require visas to move to the countries we're applying to (it's the literal explanation we've been receiving which is a great thing as it's not our skills or something), but it's fine, one of us will find a job at some point (I hope soon) and we'll get to get out of this shithole of a country filled with shitty people. I'm definitely getting a therapist when we're out of here though, I've wanted to talk to one for years but my plan has always been to do that when I leave this country. Mental health is very much taboo here sadly, which contributes to many of the issues people tend to face. Also fun fact, the last time we applied for jobs abroad was at the end of 2019, and then the pandemic happened which meant all the embassy shut down and the applications got canceled (it was a different application system back then). The plan was to get the marriage certificate and start applying again, but the drama happened and we needed to decompress. Then the plan was to start asap after the decompression and then all the health issues happened. Have you ever seen a train wreck lmao it's just me trying to get the hell out of this country since I was 12 BUT IT WILL HAPPEN ONE DAY I JUST KNOW IT WILL (can you feel the desperation lmao)

i know that may have sounded worrisome but don't worry about me and my lore-filled asks, things will work out, they always do

i really hope you guys are able to get the hell out soon :( the job market here in america (idk where ur applying but might be the same elsewhere anyway because the pandemic fucked everything up for everyone) is absolutely atrocious rn so i wish you the best of luck!! you’re right when you say things work out i know they will for you 🫶 it just takes time unfortunately :( but hopefully soon

also as a fellow renter im crying for you with that apartment stuff jeez. it always feels like everything happens at once tbh

[alwaysahiccupandastrid]

How Bad is Sia’s “Music” really?

I watched it illegally (because there was no way I was paying for that bullshit) and found out. It’s not as bad as we thought... It’s worse.

TW for ableism, Sia, drugs, alcohol, just in general a terrible movie, meltdowns, blackface

Literally the first thing you hear while they’re showing the production companies is THOSE stereotypical noises. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ll know what I mean.

And yes, she does this for the WHOLE fucking movie

What was the need to show her in her underwear? Maddie Ziegler was 14 when this was made, so what was the need??? And why did Sia prolong the scene by having her hitting herself?

Less than a minute in and my reaction was already “what the fuck is this shit?”

So the opening number not only had stereotypical exaggerated facial expression, it has Maddie in BLACKFACE?!? And with culturally appropriated hair?!?

The exaggerated facial expressions are literally constant and I took photos during the film to show it, more later, but I’ll keep mentioning it

ITS LITERALLY THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME SHE IS ON SCREEN

Even her way of walking is fucking offensive, Jesus Christ

The vocalisations just had me cringing so hard, I cannot describe how awful it made me feel

Why do all the neighbours need to be paid off and help her when she goes for a walk? I don’t-

Yes, by about the five minute mark I was already seriously debating all my life decisions. It was that bad.

Kate Hudson really didn’t give a fuck that her grandma died

I will keep saying it but WHY are the facial expressions/vocalisations CONSTANT?!! Literally they do not stop at all. I work with a child who is actually similar to this in that he’s nonverbal and he makes similar noises/faces, but the way they’re in this movie is so over-exaggerated?!? And even the kid I work with doesn’t do it 24/7?!?

Sia, calling your characters Zu and Music doesn’t make them interesting in the slightest. They’re still painfully terrible and one dimensional

Literally ONE minute after being left alone with her autistic sister, Zu calls the mental health service asking if they could “theoretically” “pick up” her sister?!? Like she wants to get rid of her already?!?

“A magical little girl” - autism isn’t a magical power?!? And Music is a young woman, not a little girl?!? Why are you infantilising her?!?

Okay I’m not being funny but this choreography is NOT hard. ANYONE can do it, so claiming that you needed to hire a dancer to be Music because of the numbers is literally bullshit (and even so, there are so many amazing autistic actors and dancers?!?)

20 minutes in and I wanted to give up

So she had her first meltdown because her hair didn’t get braided immediately and that’s... certainly interesting??

The fact that Leslie Odom’s character says “I’m going to crush you now”?!?

AND THEN HE FUCKING PICKS HER UP AND FULL-BODILY PINS HER DOWN ONTO THE FLOOR

“I’m crushing her with my love” - oh fuck you, just fuck you

So Sia lied, the restraint scenes were NOT removed and there was no warning. She’s a fucking POS liar

I have no idea why he’s called Ebo or why he has such a cliche African accent?!? I might have missed out on why because I was busy trying not to bang my head into the table while I watched this film but just... yikes

“He (his brother) liked to be held” - YEAH, HELD. NOT FUCKING CRUSHED

“He is dead now” - IM NOT FUCKING SURPRISED IF YOU CRUSHED HIM LIKE THAT

The constant babying and patronizing of the autistic character is so exhausting to watch. I’m so tired

“Planning on sending her to the people pound but I guess I’ll keep her a little longer” - SHE WAS JOKING BUT THAT WAS NOT EVEN REMOTELY A FUNNY JOKE. NOT EVEN IN AN AWKWARD WAY

STOP THE FACES IM-

^ YEAH, Sia, totally a fucking love letter to the autistic community here ^

So Zu finds this necklace she made as a kid that had a little dog on it, and she says to Music, “He had seizures too, just like you”... MELTDOWNS AND SEIZURES ARE NOT EVEN REMOTELY THE SAME FUCK THIS MOVIE-

It’s like Sia is trying to make the movie funny but it’s really not at all

Is Zu implying that Music is autistic because the mum was a junkie?!?

For real though, the dialogue in general is so fucking awful and cringey. Whoever wrote this should never be allowed to write again

Did she seriously leave her autistic sister alone to talk to who I’m presuming was her dealer or loan shark?!?

Also why is he - a white dude - wearing cornrows?!?

So who is the film really about? The autistic girl or the older sister saviour? I think we all know the answer to that one

WHY IS SHE WALKING AROUND WITH HER TEETH JUTTING OUT LIKE THAT ALL THE TIME

The musical numbers are literally so painful to watch. The overly bright colours, the flashing... my eyes were hurting and so was my brain

Autism representation aside for a second, the musical numbers/choreography are all fucking atrocious. Ditto for the costumes

LIKE WHAT THE FUCK WERE THE PINK OOMPA LOOMPA FRUIT THINGS?!? THEY LOOK LIKE THE PINK VERSIONS OF VIOLET BEAUREGARDE THE BLUEBERRY

I wanted to cry by this point, this movie is far more awful than I thought

“I’m not saying she doesn’t want to change, I’m saying she can’t” - FUCK YOU. Why is it okay for him to assume what she can or can’t do

Can I just say that autistic people aren’t constantly in a coked up wonderland state?!! We don’t see the world as a wonderland fantasy world 24/7?!!

“She can hear you from two rooms away” / *shows her listening through two brick walls to a conversation* — Also, we don’t have super fucking sonic hearing?? WE CANT HEAR THROUGH FUCKING BRICK WALLS?!?

“She can understand everything you’re saying to her” - she’s autistic not fucking deaf

Less than 45 minutes in, there’s another meltdown in the park

“I’m not climbing on top of a small screaming white girl in public” - yeah please fucking don’t

So Zu fucking pins her down with her weight 🤦‍♀️

“She doesn’t know who she’s hitting” - IM SORRY WHAT

EBO LITERALLY SAID “TREAT HER LIKE A BEAR” when talking her through the prone restraint, I fucking CANNOT

“Tell her she’s safe” - NOT IF YOU FUCKING RESTRAIN HER LIKE THAT SHE IS NOT

The fact that she gets up, smiling and happy after a meltdown and immediately is excited to get a snow cone... I can honestly say that after a meltdown, I am in no way happy or smiling. I am often not very verbal and I’m withdrawn/not myself for at least several hours, usually the rest of the day. Fuck this film

This film is literally just about Zu, and Music is there for a plot device to give her character development. That’s all she’s there for.

Love how Sia shoehorned Zu being suicidal in there. You know, just to try and make her more easy to sympathize with (it doesn’t work)

This film is literally just a 1 hour 47 minute Sia music video with ZERO plot

WHY WERE THEY WEARING PILLOW DIAPERS IN ONE NUMBER-

I really did not feel into the side plot with that guy who was fighting but it was still better than the actual movie so...

I am SO DONE with the NON STOP CONSTANT vocal shit. So tired.

LOJ’s only role in this film is to be the stereotypical wise black guy who assists a white woman’s story. There’s like hardly any other depth there

The Ebo/Zu romance is so fucking stupid and pointless and out of NOWHERE. I couldn’t even tell if they were into each other or not

I was already so bored of the musical numbers by this point. They added NOTHING to the plot but they pretended they did, and I was so over it. And it’s not because I’m not “creative enough” or anything to understand, I love musicals and I think it could have been cool if done right... but it wasn’t. They were a mess. It’s just bad.

Sia really tried to pretend her movie was deep but really it’s a shallow mess

So Zu is meeting rich drug clients and says to Music “try not to have one of your freak outs up there” and “if you could try to get it out now”... FUCKING YIKES. It’s not an on/off button, shut the fuck up

YEP THIS WAS THE SIA CAMEO FUCK THAT BITCH

The fact that she just calls “DRUG DEALER?!? DRUG DEALER IS THAT YOU”, fucking end this please-

I fucking hate this bitch I’m dead serious

“We’re gonna send them to Haiti cause there’s been an earthquake. All these buildings fell down, children’s bones were dislocated” - WHY WAS SHE SO CHEERFUL ABOUT IT

“Gonna buy a shit load of pain meds, gonna but them on my private plane” - FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU

“Pop stars without borders” - Sia thinks she’s so clever but I would give anything to punch her I swear-

ANOTHER MUSICAL NUMBER JUST STOP IM BEGGING YOU

There’s this awkward conversation/bit with Zu and her drug dealer/loanshark about his outfit that was clearly meant to be funny but was just flat and painful

Yep, Sia really showed Music eating chewing gum off the underside of a park bench. Of course.

Look, the kid I work with does similar stuff by putting literally anything and everything in his mouth but like... why would you put that in your movie?

And there’s no indication before this that Music puts everything and anything in her mouth, she just randomly decides to get on her knees, under the bench and eat chewing gum, like she calculates that it’s there and gets it???

She has a THIRD meltdown after an allergic reaction to a bee sting and her sister just yells at her before realizing... I’m not here for this movie, I feel like I drifted off and was not really there

So Zu got angry because she left the drugs at the park but she’s not that upset that her sister had an allergic reaction???

Zu gets absolutely drunk because a) she lost Sia’s drugs and b) she’s stressed out by her autistic sister... wow, great message, Sia!

She really fucked off and left her sister alone to go clubbing/on a bender

The less said about the musical number here the better

Sia’s movie also checks the box of having stereotypical Asian parents, specifically stereotypical Asian dad being harsh/angry and hitting his wife!

ALSO HE PUSHED AND KILLED HIS SON WTF IS HAPPENING

Less than 3 minutes after the last, there’s a musical number that I think was about this side character going to heaven... another shitty Sia-esque number

The patterns during the number made my brain hurt.

Also there are so many autistic actors who can also dance, and yet Sia chose the neurotypical one because ✨ N E P O T I S M ✨

I just want to know how it was deemed necessary to show the fact the autistic character peed/wet herself? I mean... ??? It’s just so undignified and not at all necessary to the plot. Nothing happens after that, it just moves onto the next scene and it didn’t do anything

“I have no one” - 1) YOUR FUCKING SISTER. 2) GEE I FUCKING WONDER WHY, couldn’t be that you’re a shitty human being?!?

There’s a scene where Music is walking and she does ALL the stereotypical behaviours at once... just YIKES

Zu somehow stopped another meltdown just by grabbing Music by the shoulders and sitting her down???

Aaand yep. Another shitty musical number

Zu really goes to put her sister in a fucking facility and claims it’ll be “better for her” - BULLSHIT. Better for Zu, maybe, not Music.

Ah yes - the girl who the characters have said has problems with routines being changed/change in general... you’re now going to fuck up her routine by dumping her in a facility. Perfect Plan.

The nonverbal autistic girl suddenly speaking to say “don’t go” - you can just predict it from the off, can’t you?

Love that as soon as Music starts talking, Zu is like “fuck it, I’ll keep her!”

Zu really went and crashed Ebo’s brothers wedding... in a fucking bralette... YIKES

“I almost gave Music away” - SHE IS NOT A DOG YOU DONT GIVE PEOPLE AWAY

“We should sing a song” - PLEASE DO FUCKING NOT

Also that kiss/romance montage between Zu and Ebo was the CRINGIEST fucking shit ever

This movie seems to be implying that Music has locked in syndrome or something, like she’s locked in her own head or whatever it’s called, and I just... *sigh*

Oh and now Music magically fucking sings in a room FULL of strangers... this is literally embarrassing, please let this end

I mean it, this movie was fucking painful to watch on ever level

She got a service dog puppy which... okay?

Oh look, it’s the only decent song on the soundtrack but with an absolutely shitty over-stimulatory music video with the credits!

I can only name 5 characters in this film. Maybe 7 at a push, but even then I would be guessing

AND YEP SHE THANKED AUTISM SPEAKS OVER THE CREDITS. FUCK YOU SIA 🖕🏻

Let me reiterate: this is a movie about a neurotypical former drug addict whose character development comes from the autistic character, from having an autistic sister she has to take care of. I’m so tired.

We are NOT plot devices or tools for character development. Not once does anyone in this film treat Music like a human being - she’s treated as a burden, a problem, and then like a pet that they decide to keep. Not once is the film focused on how she is feeling - it’s always about Zu or Ebo. The performance itself was so over exaggerated and it made me want to cry when I watched it because this is how the world sees us, and this movie will make it ten times worse. It’s stuff like this that made me think “I don’t want to be labelled as autistic because people will think I’m a certain way”, that made me wait so long before going to the GP to get a referral.

As I said, poor autistic representation aside, the movie is just so appallingly bad. It truly is one of the worst films I’ve watched. If you’re going to watch it, please don’t - or, if you want to because you want to see how bad it is/to raise awareness/critical posts, at least do it illegally. Do not give Sia your money.

[tarnishedxknight]

{out of dalmasca} I realize that I have never explained why I prefer Basch with long hair and why I’ve always imagined him keeping longer hair despite his drastic and messy hack in the canon game. I do think it looks better aesthetically speaking, but that’s not the main reason why. A bit of a rant about hair below, haha. Enjoy. XD

We’re all familiar (those of us in the fandom, of course) with his canon game hair, atrociously cut, perma-stiff, barely moving with the wind except somehow often oddly indoors???, and quite honestly apparently hairsprayed? Does hairspray even exist in Ivalice? Because if not, his hair isn’t just a crime against nature and fashion, but also in defiance of the laws of physics. Yes, we know it, we love hate it, it has been the subject of many a joke and meme, I present to you... TheBasch™:

*sigh* Sweetheart, what even do you call that? Aesthetically, it’s an absolute abomination. In my head, Basch has semi-normal, average medieval fantasy man hair, one of many reasons I use CH in T:TDW as his live action FC:

So this is around the length I imagine him with and that’s his usual hairstyle, maybe minus the braids, but yeah. Half-ponytail, tied in the back with a leather strip, and yes, messy with strands hanging down. All dungeon imprisonment and sweaty adventuring aside, assuming he has access to proper bathing facilities, Basch keeps himself and his hair very clean. He’s just... a clean guy, when he can help it. So his hair is clean and all that, but... messily styled. Because there is no style. He puts it back in a half-ponytail without the use of a mirror, and just... that’s how it is. He doesn’t take it down again until he retires to bed, and he doesn’t do too much about strands that don’t make it into the ponytail. I’ll come back to that later.

Although this is 1047% better aesthetically speaking, the reason I imagine him with this hair is actually to do with his mental health. First, I will clarify that I imagine him with this length of hair and general style post-Nalbina-dungeon. Before that, I hate it, but I accept his canon hair. But after he’s busted out of the dungeon, the game chooses to have him almost immediately hack off the two years’ worth of hair growth (which honestly to me looked like way more than would grow in two years) to reset him back to his canon terrible hair. I... kindof reject that, and I say he keeps the long hair.

The reason for this is kindof nebulous in that I don’t have a clearly definable reason why, but I do have an explanation. It’s a coping mechanism for him. A security blanket, if you will. A way of protecting himself mentally. How does one do that with hair, you ask? Well first of all, it isn’t deliberate. He doesn’t even realize that that’s why he’s keeping his hair long. It’s just that he feels calmer, more grounded, and strangely enough, safer with the feeling of having long hair around him. Like... around his shoulders and framing his face. That’s why he doesn’t overly pay attention to the loose strands that don’t make it into the ponytail. Leaving it completely down would be a problem during combat, because it would constantly be getting in his face, so the half-ponytail fixes that, but the loose strands against and around his face still give him that feeling of mental security. They don’t obstruct his vision enough to be a problem, but they do the trick well enough with regard to his mental health.

Again, I don’t have a reason for him wanting to do this, and if he was asked, he would probably not be able to give much of a response. He doesn’t know. It’s a subconscious feeling of comfort that he gets from the feeling of his hair around him. It makes him feel more closed off, I guess? Not in a bad way, but just... the world seems a bit smaller and more under control with that feeling of something draping around his shoulders. I know it makes no sense at all, but this is actually something that people in real life sometimes experience when they’ve had a lot of trauma. It’s almost in the same vein as wearing oversized, baggy clothing or maybe something with a hood. That’s another type of just... draping yourself in something to kindof put this buffer between yourself and the world. Of course neither oversized clothing nor long hair really protects you from anything, but like I said, it’s an issue of mental security, a coping mechanism.

Since the majority of writing I do for Basch takes place after his stint at Nalbina, he’s got the longer hair. It’s a trauma response from what he experienced in the dungeon. Regardless of what he tries to tell people or deny to himself, that imprisonment changed him and left him with both physical and mental scars. He’s managed to repress a lot of it and he hides the effects of it from most people, but his long hair is a side-effect of that trauma and he doesn’t even realize it. I headcanon that he’s got a little bit of a fuller beard post-Nalbina too. It’s his armor against the world, in a mental health sense.

And there you have it, folks. More than you ever wanted to know about Basch’s hair. XD

[vergess]

Lindsey Ellis and SarahZ did what?

Twitter is hell, and white women will just say any fucking thing they feel like on there.

Both of them think that antishippers are just "kids stuff" and that anyone who rightly refers to the group as a child sex cult with a history of rape, abuse, and murder is a fanatic who "enjoys fighting with children online."

They've both made videos on the subject, and I even appear (with neither permission or invitation) in the SarahZ video.

In regards to me specifically, Lindsay Ellis said some racist shit about how I and other POC who pointed out that referring to this cult appropriately given the death toll were race-baiting or even race-faking, and went on to start fights about how it's actually not racist at all to flatten Asia's diverse cultures into a monolithic mashup to develop an ~exotic~ fantasy setting.

She then deleted her twitter account to delete receipts of her atrocious behaviour. Screenshots still exist, but there is no way to validate them, and they can be difficult to find.

SarahZ got in an extended fight with me, including sending her fans to harass me specifically with extensive quote-tweets of me and vague comments like "get a lot of this guy," implying (though always deniably) that I am a child rapist, and getting my only source of income at the time shut down with fraudulent reports of such by her little fanclub. Meanwhile, she was also vomiting a bunch of transphobic trash about how trans men (which for her purposes included all female-assigned trans people, all intersex trans people, any anyone other than trans women basically) are actually WAY privileged over cis women in ALL cases and especially tend to be wealthier than cis women, which is just. Nonsense. That's nonsense. That's not true, it's literally the reverse.

Then she put my in her fucking video about the incident six months later, so she could further slander me.

The unified front of Ellis and SarahZ coming after me specifically led to a whole host of "breadtubers" coming after me on twitter as well, including but not limited to Folding Ideas, Big Joel, Vaush, Peter Coffin, and PhilosophyTube.

That month was one of the worst of my life, and I was a middle eastern child sex slave during 9/11.

The both of them are stupid spiteful pieces of shit.

The fact that Ellis has since pivoted to doing liberal-conservative think pieces instead of anything even remotely progressive is both indicative of her specific brand of spite, and also, inexplicably, has been blamed both on me specifically and "people like me" in general "turning on her" and "coming for blood" as part of "cancel culture."

I cannot emphasize enough how bad Twitter is for your mental health. That place makes people absolutely fucking violent.

[manychocolatefactories]

CatCF Milk Chocolate: Part 1, the kids

About this version: Milk Chocolate was inspired originally by a mix of the book, the vibes of the 1971 movie and the Tim Burton movie aesthetic. A bit more goofier and whimsical than the other versions. In term of era, I thought of it as a mix of 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

In this version seven Golden Tickets are spread throughout the world, and each time one is found the same female reporter (her character is a reference to the musical) goes to interview the children. Another recurring joke is that while the hunt is going on for the Tickets, there are all sorts of ridiculous debates on television such as: do the Golden Tickets really exist, or is this just a hoax ? Do the Golden Tickets give cancer? Can animals go on a tour like humans? What happens if a Golden Ticket winner dies before the tour? Are the Golden Tickets linked to the rise of youht delinquence? Are the Golden Tickets a proof of Wonka's alleagiance to the obscure sect of the Golden Bird?

  First Winner: Augustus Gloop

(Based on Augustus Gloop)

This Augustus was actually based on an idea Stained-by-the-sea allowed me to "borrow" a bit. Stained noted that Augustus always made him thought of this section from the movie "North", about Buck and the Texan parents. If you don't know what I am talking about, I'll leave links down there. And this is such a perfect matc I had to dig a bit down there.

This Augustus is basically a mix of all the archetypes associated with Texas and Nevada. But more precisely, he is basically "Buck" from North - a boy whose family (and his own mindset) embody the motto "bigger is better".

The Gloop family always thought that they should be "the biggest and the bests" and that "bigger is better". Ironically, the Gloop parents themselves are regular-sized people, but they clearly enforced this mentality on their son. Augustus is a big boy. Literally. He is tall, he is thick, he is fat, he is very, very big. He is probably one of the tallest, and definitively the largest boy on the tour (in fact, he once or twice gets stuck in the doors of Wonka factory). He eats ten meals per day, and we are not talking of regular sized meals. We are talking piles of ribs, kilos of potatoes, entire chickens... His parents also prepared for him a "big" and "best" future - paying the local sportive teams to claim he is a sports champion despite Augustus never setting a foot on a sports field, arranging his marriage with the local beauty queen of the state he lives in, already preparing the three different houses he will live with his fifteen kids... As a result, Augustus isn't just big and fat physically, he also has a massive and bloated ego. He thinks that he is the best at everything, and that he should have absolutely everything he wants.

The Gloops themselves are actually the masters of the state they live in, so to speak. They are the wealthiest and most influential industrials of the area: they built highways, casinos, hotels, private villas, they are cow-farmers, owing a lot of slaughterhouses, and also dig for oil and gold. They want their business to be the "biggest there ever was" and all they do is exaggerately big: their villas are enormous, their hotels are everywhere, their farms hosts several thousands cows, their mines are among the deepest in the world...

Trouble is that, due to their expansion and consumption of everything, they are a threat to the landscape and the environment - destroying forests to build their roads and buildings, drying out the lands to feed their farms... in fact, part of the reason why their state looks like the most desertic parts of Texas and Nevada is due to their actions.

Think... Buck from North. Think Art Land from Mar Attack. Think an evil (and obese) version of Clay Bailey from "Xiaolin Showdown". In fact, if I remember well in one episode Clay turns into a sumo for one of the Showdowns... this would probably be Augustus' appearance in this version: sumo Clay Bailey. (Edit: Yes, I checked out, it is episode 23 of the series).

 Second Winner: Clarence Crump

(Based on: Clarence Crump)

Clarence didn't had any kind of personnality in the original drafts outside of a desire to prove he was right. As a result, I decided to have a lot of fun and create my own character.

The idea of vanity has already been touched several times with the other brats, but I wanted to give it its own character and kid. I also wanted to create a polar opposite of Augustus, denouncing the fact that being skinny can be just as bad as being fat when in excess. As a result, Clarence Crump is here a boy obsessed about being thin, and proud of being too skinny for his own good.

Mr. Crump is a pseudo-health guru that keeps writing phony and very dangerous diet books, the kind that will advice you to stop eating altogether to lose weight. As for Mrs. Crump, she is a beauty pageant champion (local and regional, and while she acts as if she was some national beauty champion, she always failed at nationals). From their union was born a child who inherited their vanity, pride and obsession with "health"

Black haired, very pale, very thin, very slender, to the point his bones show, Clarence delights in being skinny, and works as a teenager model promoting the "thin-fashion". He is also the embodiment of fat-shaming, never missing an occasion to insult fat people (in fact he often calls Augustus a big fat cow). He uses however the excuse of health for that (a trick his parents taught him) - promoting extreme thinness by talking about health and fat-shaming people in the name of health allows one to be much more horrible than normally accepted.

A good proof of how Clarence actually is just very vain and obsessed with being thin, and not at all defending health - Clarence condemns sports for being unhealthy, because according to him "muscles are unhealthy because they don't make you look beautiful, they make you look ugly".

He always wears short and black sleeveless tank-tops, the point being that he needs to show as much as his body to the world as possible, to be a "living example". He even wears his black short and tank-top during the tour (despite it being winte - the only thing he wears on top of his clothes to not get cold is a skunk fur coat).

  Third  Winner: Miranda Grope

(Based on: Miranda Grope)

This character was based on Dahl's own character of "Miranda Grope" from early drafts of the story, the horrible and atrocious girl allowed to do "whatever she wants".

In my version, the Grope parents are hippie-like people, the father having a very long beard and being covered in fleas, while the mother is covered in flowers and oss (plants that grew over her), and both always wearing rose-tinted glasses. They are the kind of parents that refuse authority and orders, seeing these (and social norms as a whole) as a "dictatorship". They prefer to trust their daughter to find her own way in the world, believing that experience is the best teacher in life. The result? They lazily raised her by telling her they would never forbid her anything and that she could do anything she wanted.

Miranda is a devilish little girl who does only what she wants, and becomes extremely violent when prevented from doing something. Or when people say something she doesn't want to hear. Or just when people she dislikes are near her. She shouts, the screams, she insult, she kicks, she hit, she throw enormous and terrifying tantrums. She has a very wide range of insults, and a truly evil mind : most of the things she wants to do are borderline crimes. It seems for her only chaos and destruction is "fun", a true little punk.

Miranda has a disastrous haircut because she cuts her hair herself, and she is always wearing the same clothes that she rarely washes): a white shirt, a blue sweater with long sleeves, and a plaid tiles skirt. An outfit that looks strikingly like a school uniform - but it is pure irony, because Miranda hates more than anything in the world school. She doesn't go to school, and the only time she went near one was to try to burn it down. (Her appearance is in fact based on Lauren Child's illustrations for Miranda, if you are wondering).

  Fourth Winner: Veruca Salt

(Based on: Veruca Salt)

For this Veruca, I wanted to do something slightly different... here, Veruca doesn't want everything just because she is a spoiled rich brat. She is still one, but she is also the product of post-WW2 consumerism.

This Veruca was born surrounded by advertisements, logos, slogans and product placements. On television, in the streets, in shops, in journals, at the radio... She grew up with them and was influenced, brainwashed by them. As a result, she is obsessed with obtaining everything that was advertised, and she herelf looks like a walking billboard since she is covered in big, flashy logo and keeps reciting different brands' slogans and mottos. As soon as she sees something she saw publicity of before, she needs to obtain it at once. She is a true zombie, only hearing the call of the shopping mall and of the television advertisements.

One idea I had was that the Salt parents actually worked for (or where at the head of) a wealthy advertisement company, known to produce, design and create all kinds of famous publicities and slogans - and that they used their daughter as a guinea pig for their tests, and delighted in Veruca being so addicted to consumerism. In fact, they may have named her Veruca because at the moment of her birth they were working on advertisements for an anti-wart product, so that's all they had in mind.

  Fifth winner:  Herpes Trout

(Based on: Mike Teavee)

I went with this version of Mikee Teavee with the focus on "violence" already present in the original work, but also heavily used in the opera (and touched a bit in the 2005 movie).

This Herpes Trout is the embodiment of the fear of kids becoming violent upon watching television and playing video games (his only two passions in life). He has a true fascination with guns and firearms - US soldiers shooting aliens, gangs shooting each other, cowboys shooting at bandits, it's all he ever plays and watches. Herpes worships violence, and is absolutely obsessed with war (here I am thinking of all the wars present from the 60s to the 80s, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Glasgow Ice Cream Wars...). War propaganda and the fight being glorifyed heavily influenced him - as a result his biggest dream is to go at war in some foreign country to kill everyone there and come home a hero.

Herpes comes from a family of rednecks and hillbillies from the deep country. They are not poor however, they are wealthy enough to have television and several video games, but they are uneducated people full of stereotypes, discrimination and hate. They named their son Herpes because they ignored what it meant but just thought of it as an "intelligent" name. Herpes has everal brothers and sisters, and all have a disease name.

Herpes himself is a big and strong kid, who followed body-buildings process a la Charles Atlas and military training, becoming impressively muscular. However, he retained a soft, childish and chubby "baby face", which kind of ruins the effect of this massive, muscular, almost adult body. Always dressed in a military outfit, he carries everywhere with him guns and firearms, the question being: are they real? Or are they not?

  Sixth Winner: Violet Glockenberry

(Based on Violet Beauregarde)

I wanted with this version to take back the idea of a competitive and "sportive" girl obsessed with contesting and winning - introduced in the Tim Burton movie.

This Violet is a tall, muscular and strong girl. She won numerous sportive competitions, but this doesn't make her just arrogant and prideful like in the Tim Burton version. In my version she is also very aggressive and violent (a bit like in the original novel). She is a nasty and rude bully easily prone to anger (in fact, if she keeps chewing gum it is mostly to calm her down sot hat she doesn't punch everyone around). Her parents originally pushed her towards competitions to manage her anger issues, but sports only gave her more strength and destructive power. In fact, they became terrified of her, while she considers them losers here to serve her - she basically thinks of herself as self-made, literaly.

  Seventh Winner: Charlie Bucket

(Based on: Charlie Bucket)

For this Charlie, I wanted to go with a Charlie similar to the original illustrations of the character: blond hair, blue eyes, a white boy...

Basically, he is the original Charlie. Very sweet, very innocent, a gentle kid, the best of the group.

However I changed slightly his background. Charlie in this version is not the grandson of four grandparents, but rather the big brother of four younger siblings - and his family here struggles with trying to feed five children (and a total of seven mouths) despite having very humble and low-paid jobs. I think Charlie has taken the role of a parentive figure for the siblings, but at the same time him spending so much time with young children helped him keep in touch with his "childish" side.

[katsidhe]

Spn anon back! I absolutely love your brand of analysis, and seeing it applied to dsmp is *chefs kiss*. I was very interested to hear your thoughts on Dream, as I don't think I've ever seen so divisive of a character in a fandom before. I think a lot of the fandom's feeling towards him is a product of the morality of his past actions - while he certainly is morally grey in certain aspects, most people tend to base their opinions off of his past events - his treatment of Tommy during exile, his intent to manipulate everyone with their most loved possessions and his plan to kill Tubbo during the final disc confrontation, and his murder and resurrection of Tommy while he was trapped with Dream. As someone who watched these events live, particularly exile with Tommy's decline in mental health during that period, I also know that my opinion of Dream is heavily biased by these moments - I would personally place him in the villain category rather than anti-hero. Dream is a very fascinating character in that he has admitted more than once that he knows he has done terrible things, he just claims he does them for the right reason or brushes off someone calling him a villain with a simple "okay." I do also see a lot of parallels between Dream and Tommy's relationship with that of Lucifer and Sam from spn - with both Tommy and Sam being relentlessly tormented and traumatized by Dream/Lucifer (both pairs were even trapped together in a torture box for a while, both of which are so messed up and fun to analyze). Dream and Lucifer are also both obsessed/fascinated with their respective victims, treating them as less than human, a toy to break and play with until they get bored. However, bringing it all back around to dsmp Sam, as I always do (I love my messed up creeper man too much), what I love most about Sam and Dream conversation after Sam finds Dream hiding under the toilet hole is that Sam is very aware of who Dream is as a person but is almost willfully ignoring the parallels between the two of them. Sam calls out Dream on his intent behind building the prison, to make it as miserable as possible for the person trapped inside, Sam is also unable to accept the fact that he has sunken to the same moral level as Dream through his actions as the warden, and has committed his own atrocious acts in the name of 'justice and law'. (cough cough cutting off your best friend/boyfriend's hand). Dream certainly isn't a good person, but he doesn't deserve the torture he has gone through, not by a long shot. Thats the whole point of the prison narratively, it showcases the worst of these characters and how far down their willing to sink to achieve their goals. Of course, this is an ongoing story, and the fandom has been waiting for a "pre-recorded Dream lore stream" that content creator Dream showed a clip of and teased all the way back in March. I am very curious to see where Dream's story will go, as he could very easily stay as a villain or they could attempt to go down the much more challenging road of redemption. Apologies for rambling so much, not sure if you would like to add anything onto my thoughts, but I would love to hear how you agree or disagree, and if you'd like to continue the discussion let me know!

mmm, yeah, Dream is fascinating! He’s fairly opaque in some ways, and fairly open in others. The degree to which he is delusional, or Machiavellian, or simply reactive, is up for interpretation. Obviously my perspective is colored by being exposed to Dream first as a victim rather than an aggressor. That notwithstanding, I wouldn’t really say I see much as regards Dream and Lucifer parallels: Dream reads to me as a paranoid control freak rather than a sadist. He’s got a certain level of dispassion, and a ruthlessness towards himself as well as his victims, that Lucifer lacks. And I think it’s interesting that he didn’t intend to kill Tommy in prison: it was obviously a spur-of-the moment decision, one whose consequences he would come to bitterly regret.

Re Sam’s perspective on Dream: I think it’s fun that Sam’s excuses his actions as Dream’s, while in a position of absolute power over Dream. Dream leads him by the nose through the logic “if you think I’m pure evil for commissioning this prison, what the hell does that make you for a) building and running it and b) making it hilariously, absurdly worse?” and Sam simply declines to finish the conclusion.

[yankeeclapdoctor]

Once again it is time for some 2011-2014 era Loki discourse because I have been confronted with.....um...a certain Hot Take, and I must respond publicly because I have been blocked from responding in DMs and I cannot just let this go because my brain is screaming. So here we go...uh...proceed at your own risk

cw for mentions of (fictional) g*nocide

First message: “For the record, Loki going insane actually does excuse him trying to destroy Jotunheim. It doesn’t JUSTIFY it, but it does EXCUSE it. Being unable to control/understand your actions excuses them, no matter how horrible they are. In the court of law, Loki would have been rehabilitated, not punished.”

Second message: “For the record, Loki going insane actually does excuse him trying to destroy Jotunheim. It doesn’t justify it, but it does excuse it (big difference). Being unable to control/understand your actions absolves you from blame, no matter how horrible they are or the consequences. Loki needed to be rehabilitated, not punished. Nothing can justify g*nocide. It is inherently wrong in and of itself. But he is excused by virtue of not having known any better at the time.”

For the record, I do not know this person who has messaged me and, as I say above the read more, I cannot respond to them privately both because they have restricted their message settings to only blogs they follow and also they seem to have blocked me after sending these messages.

let’s Get Into It, shall we!

Okay……so……….I might conditionally agree with you, if you were talking about Loki attacking Earth—when he does that, he is under the influence/control of Thanos and of the Mind Gem, and therefore he is not fully in control of his actions when he attacks New York, so I wouldn’t say he should be penalized as though he were.

What I’m getting from you saying there’s a “big difference” between an “excuse” and a ‘justification’ for someone’s actions is that there’s a difference between being able to point to a reason for someone’s actions versus saying that someone’s actions are correct. And yeah, of course there is. But also, again, just because there is a reason for someone’s actions, mental health related or otherwise, does not mean that the effect of their actions can/should be ignored, or that the person can be entirely absolved from blame unless they are under complete duress. If you’re referring to the difference between justification and excuse in law…..well if Loki were to be tried in a court of law on Earth for his crimes in Avengers, I guess he would have grounds for an automatism or duress defense because of the mind control, which would hopefully get him sent to a psych facility for rehabilitation instead of a straight up prison…but I don’t know how exactly the judicial system would factor in magic or how they could prove Thanos’ involvement when they didn’t know about him at the time and the only one who knew of him was Loki and he probably wouldn’t be considered a credible witness…and also he wasn’t tried on Earth and again I don’t know if they have psych facilities on Asgard and based on his hearing in Thor 2 I really don’t think their criminal law system is the same as it is on Earth. I certainly didn’t see a jury of his peers, just Odin being a dick.

But since you’re talking about Jotunheim, that’s a whole different situation/mental state he was in. Yes, his messed up emotional state is a reason for his actions, but I believe that he does know better, and even if he didn’t, “not knowing any better” Does Not erase the harm that someone’s actions cause (especially when they are as bad as g*nocide!). It may explain why the actions occurred, but the existence of an explanation really does not always justify complete absolution, and in Loki’s case with Jotunheim, I don’t think it does, because I don’t think there’s any evidence that he was ‘insane’ in a way that prevented him from understanding the gravity of or controlling his decisions, and the movie (through Thor) ultimately condemns the hateful ideology upon which his decision was based (that Frost Giants are monsters and deserve to die). I can call his behavior ‘insane’ or ‘unhinged’ or ‘mad’ (to borrow Thor’s term for it), but that doesn’t mean that I think he was truly mentally incapacitated. He’s a dramatic bitch and (in my interpretation) he had years of weird resentment and insecurities building up before Thor’s banishment and the adoption revelation happened to catalyze his wacky behavior in Thor 1.

In terms of real life human legal terms and systems (if those are even valid to apply here, which, for the record, I don’t think they are because this is a fantasy world with an entirely different and unknown legal system), I don’t think he falls under the requirements for an “excuse” defense. I don’t think he’s shown as ‘going insane’ to the point where he wasn’t able to control or understand his actions. There isn’t ever a moment in the movie like in Avengers when Thor is like “look around you. do you think this madness will end with your rule” and he looks genuinely startled and upset by his actions for a second—that moment in Avengers makes it clear to me that he’s being influenced/controlled, and also that he’s capable of recognizing the harm he causes when confronted with it. But in Thor 1, he stands by his choices until the end, and even after that, he doesn’t express remorse or a sense of newfound understanding that what he has done is wrong or was out of his control, even when he is told by Thor and Odin (and Frigga, in Thor 2) that what he has done is wrong. His anger is driving him, not ‘insanity.’ He knew the meaning of his choice to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifrost: it would “destroy that race of monsters” (his words) that he wants nothing to do with, and it would “prove to [Odin] that [he] is a worthy son.” When Thor says to him, “you can’t kill an entire race,” Loki responds, “why not?” and reminds Thor that he was ready to kill them all earlier, and that they have been taught their entire lives that they are monsters and not deserving of mercy or respect. He knows that it is g*nocide, and he chooses to do it because he sees it as the justifiable and correct solution to his own and to Asgard’s problems, and because it is a way to express his anger—here, he is working based on hateful ideology he was taught in conjunction with his own grief and anger. His feelings of betrayal and self-hatred and anger lead him to make this decision, not any demonstrable mental disorder; in desperately trying to retake control of his life and show to himself and to his family that he belongs and is “worthy,” he makes a choice, does not express remorse for it afterwards, and at no point is shown to be acting out of character/not in control of himself and his actions. Thus, he should be blamed and take responsibility for the damage he caused. A dramatic anger and grief response would not qualify as an excuse or justification for a crime, nor does it necessarily indicate mental illness…definitely not on Earth, and I highly doubt on Asgard (I don’t think that it would make sense to apply any diagnosis based on human psychological science to his mental state, seeing as he’s not human. Or Asgardian. I don’t know the state of psychological science on Jotunheim, but if you do know, feel free to enlighten me).

I can see and understand his reasoning/explanation/the “excuse” behind the action, but that doesn’t mean that I can (and the movie doesn’t) endorse it or say that it can be entirely “excused,” because as you say, “nothing can justify g*nocide.” Again, since he’s a fictional alien, I don’t think it’s relevant or productive to actually apply our labels or frameworks of thinking about mental illness to him. In the real human world, his emotional meltdown in Thor 1 might be grounds to say that he is mentally ill, but because he never expresses remorse for trying to destroy Jotunheim afterwards, that to me emphasizes that the choice was not entirely a result of his messed up mental/emotional state, but a combination of that and a logical (albeit morally terrible) line of thinking. The moment at the beginning of Thor 2 when he has his hearing about attacking Earth solidifies this interpretation even more to me, because he makes it clear that his actions (which in this case were influenced by Thanos/the Mind Gem) were a result of what he’s been told his entire life: “that [he] was born to be a king.” While he isn’t referring to his attempt to destroy Jotunheim there, it does indicate that he holds the belief on his own, even when not mind controlled, that atrocious actions can be excused because of his interpretation of his socialization. I agree that if he were not in control or didn’t fully grasp the meaning and magnitude of his actions that he could be ‘excused’ a bit, but I disagree that it would ‘absolve’ him entirely. It doesn’t change the fact that the realm was almost obliterated. Nothing he ever says/does/emotes communicates that he didn’t know or didn’t realize what he was doing when he tried to destroy Jotunheim, he is only upset over having failed (“I could have done it, Father. I could have done it. For you. For all of us” he says); he never expresses remorse for his attempt to destroy it, and this does not seem to be because he is prevented from seeing that what he did is morally wrong—again, instead, he seems to think that his morally reprehensible actions can be justified by his motivations. His judgement was determined by anger, but being emotionally driven doesn’t mean one is ‘insane.’ Again, I agree that he “needed to be rehabilitated,” because he is a very very unstable person who needs to learn how to process his feelings better, but we can also see throughout all of the movies that he has trouble accepting and admitting the consequences of his bad choices, even though he tends to know when his actions are bad (either because he just knows and is being a bastard and/or because Thor tells him). That’s one of his major personality flaws. His first instinct is usually to get defensive and angry and try to explain away his actions because of his trauma, rather than empathize and try to acknowledge and apologize for what he has done. He needs to understand that he can’t just make horrific choices and then “excuse” them afterwards, no matter how distressed or traumatized he was at the time—especially when the choice is g*nocide that he was not mind controlled into attempting. Therapy could absolutely do this for him, and probably would be most effective even without a formal diagnosis of anything, because it could help him understand how his personality affects and is responsible for a lot of bad behaviors. But a dickish and highly emotional personality does not equal ‘insanity.’

In summation: he’s not insane in Thor 1. He’s acting based on discernible emotionally and ideologically informed logic, even though that logic is morally reprehensible. Also I think it is dangerous to say that if he were insane something like g*nocide could be excused just because it can be explained by supposed insanity—it does not erase that it happened, and that it is terrible, and should be atoned for. Maybe in the real life human American legal system he could go for some sort of excuse defense, but I don’t think it would hold up in court. Just because he would very much benefit from therapy does not mean that he went ‘insane’ and that such ‘insanity’ drove him to attempt g*nocide; his distressed mental/emotional state does mean that he should receive rehabilitating treatment, but a need for rehabilitation does not mean that he is also not deserving of blame for the consequences of his actions, and for making the decision to commit an atrocity in the first place.

In conclusion: I love Loki very very much. I do not blame him for his space meth-fueled actions in Avengers (2012). I DO blame him for choosing to try to commit g*nocide when he could have chosen not to do so in Thor (2011). And yet I still love him, because I am capable of both loving a fictional character AND recognizing that he is a bit of a war criminal.