#and folks are just like

[getvalentined]

I'm gonna say something really important here that was inspired by one specific event but applies to several others I've seen over the last few years. This is not vagueblogging to call someone out, this is a pattern I've seen a few times now that I'm genuinely concerned about.

If a series, whether books or television or films or video games, is so all-consuming in your life that a new installment going in a different direction from what you want is enough to make you have an emotional breakdown, you need to unplug from that series. If you sincerely refer to characters in this series as "[your] people" or "the love of [your] life" or "[your] family," not as a figure of speech but as something so genuine that having them handled in ways contrary to your preference makes you feel like your way of life is under attack, you need to distance yourself from those characters.

I'm saying this as someone who literally can't get into fandom debates anymore because I get so wrapped up that my heart rate spikes to the point of danger to my person. Because of a specific experience with a specific person (related to events outside fandom, but triggers are triggers) I have a very real trauma response to these discussions, and I can't engage with them anymore. I'm not saying this as "it's just a show calm down" or "why do you care so much about a video game" or as any kind of insult or passive aggression; I'm saying this as someone who understands firsthand that feelings get caught in specific places, and sometimes we just can't seem to pull them loose.

If you feel like this over a work of fiction, you need to get help, because there is something wrong. Something in your head and your heart has gotten caught on this work of fiction, and you need to pull it loose for your own wellbeing, but when it's gone that far it's all but impossible to do on your own.

I need to be very clear that I'm not talking about special interests or hyperfixations. I'm not talking about people who throw their lives into loving a specific thing, learning everything about that thing, expressing their interest in that thing, and so on. There's a line between passion and obsession, and a difference between what appears to be an obsession but is harmless and what appears to be passion but is an unhealthy level of obsession.

It's easy for those of us on the outside to write this kind of behavior off as just more entitled fans being entitled, but there's a point where what looks like entitlement exposes itself as something very different, something much more dangerous. If you're feeling this way—you need distance and assistance. If you're seeing friends behave this way—they need help, not rallying cries to "speak [their] truth."

I cannot express this strongly enough. No fictional character, no fictional story, no fandom is worth your health. Not one. Period. You are a real human being who deserves to be alive and safe and happy. The creators of a work of fiction are not attacking you or belittling your efforts by continuing to create within the boundaries of the fictional universe they created.

To put it as simply as I can:

If a work of fiction that you did not create existing in a state that you can't control is seriously damaging your mental and emotional wellbeing, you need to step away.

[carefulzombie]

gf fandom in 2016: if you so much as hint - even jokingly! - about the nature of ford and bill’s relationship being anything other than platonic (and even then you NEED to give a disclaimer that bill is manipulating him!) then you support abusive relationships

gf fandom in 2024:

[rivetgoth]

It's honestly crazy that discussion around testosterone HRT skews so much towards the beginning stages of it (to the point that you have dozens of guys thinking their transition is "failed" if they don't pass by like a year in lol) and what the initial changes of the first couple of months to years look like, like the classic laundry list of those early basic changes like bottom growth, voice drop, etc, when IMO literally none of that compares remotely to the depth and intensity of the long term total masculinization you start to experience like 3-5+ years in.

[chloesimaginationthings]

Everyone “hates” Mike in the FNAF movie..

[charbroiledchicken]

reblog if you're a writer but would rather drink straight cyanide than show any of your family members your work

[brainrotcharacters]

the easy grip on the knife. the leg over the seat. the hand over the other seat. the sassy "come get it" move. you know the bitch is smiling behind that mask even as he said the line.

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[ionomycin]

pull of the tide

[wetslug]

ppl who r using poll results as a way to Prove Something about society or come to any conclusion.. i hope you are aware that tumblr users are one of the most biased population groups you could conceivably find. gob bless

[tibbycaps]

“omg gem is so mom coded” “pearl is so sibling coded” ok well i think gem and pearl are this

[bonetrousledbones]

fuck it since my birthday is in like one day i'm gonna use my birthday wish to tell y'all to look at the shit going on in southern Appalachia right now after Hurricane Helene. look at it and talk about it and spread resources about it like wildfire because nobody else fucking is and it feels like we're on our own out here.

there are people who are stranded in hazardous areas that are still safer than trying to leave by driving on the increasingly hazardous roads. i'm personally going into my third day without electricity at this point, and haven't been able to get any gas for a generator to even keep our fridge working. there are very few places with power or running water, and cell service has just barely been restored in the last hour. ground crews are working hard to repair things, but there are many, many areas that are entirely inaccessible that may not receive these fixes for several more days if not weeks. i'm afraid my own neighborhood might become one of those areas if repairs don't get to us soon, and since we're much more rural i have a difficult time trying to be optimistic about it.

we're very far inland. i guarantee you damn near everybody here was expecting a little more rain and wind like we usually get during hurricane season, if they even heard about the hurricane beforehand in the first place since most people only got about a twelve hour notice before landfall- after several major areas had already been flooded. our terrain protects us from most major weather events- most locals have never encountered a single tornado or legitimate tornado warning in our entire lives. nobody i've talked to or heard from about it seems to have had any idea that it would be this bad. everybody's wishing that they took it more seriously, but we've never, ever had to before. i've seen people comparing it to Hurricane Katrina and honestly i'm not sure if that's all too inaccurate. today while looking for a single working gas station i drove by a military helicopter parked in front of the elementary school i went to when i was little.

please for the love of god, talk about us. talk about the good memories you had here or the beauty of our mountains, and talk about how devastated we are as we watch historic structures, buildings, and entire towns get wiped from the face of the earth like they were never even there. stop dismissing us as uneducated hicks and rednecks and hilllbillies and fucking help us.

r/Asheville resource/updates megathread (Asheville is the largest city in western North Carolina)

How to set up disaster roaming for cell service

WLOS Live updates

Duke Energy power outage map

WNC Landslide Map

Hotels accepting locals

Emergency shelter locations

I live in western North Carolina so all of my own resources are centered around that. If anybody from the other impacted areas has additional sources they'd like to add, please don't hesitate to do so.

[giantkillerjack]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

[plain-text version of this post can be found under the cut]

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

Plain-text version:

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

P.S. Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[stealingyourbones]

Amity Parkers are super good at dealing with superhero and villain battles, getting out of the rubble, helping others get out, etc.

This doesn’t shock anyone. There’s so many cities that consistently deal with superhuman battles that millions of people around the world are used to it and know what to do during a battle. Hell, there’s even government standard safety drills in schools about villain attacks now.

They didn’t stand out for a long long while among crowds of other city goers trying to flee a battle scene.

That was until a green glowing android appeared out of nowhere defeating heroes and villains alike because their abilities were rare enough to be hunted by this mysterious newcomer. So far no known weapon is able to hit the being while intangible.

That is until one unassuming citizen pulls out a strange wrist ray contraption that seems to actually stun the creature for a few seconds.

NOW all eyes are on these citizens that once lived in Amity Park

[trustymikh]

Elesa should have expected that answer, to be fair

I didn't know it's the sanrio franchise and not hk when making this sry

[chloesimaginationthings]

Glamrock Freddy feels betrayed by FNAF Roxy..

[xray-vex]

"Like stuff. Don't be someone that doesn't like stuff, and if you don't like stuff, don't be a dick about it."

- David Jenkins