#and how it leads people to do terrible things

[creature-wizard]

How the "divine feminine" and the "divine masculine" perpetuate patriarchy - and what we can do about it

One thing the occult is very good at is coming up with systems to categorize and conceptualize things. These can be incredibly useful to us in various ways. But we also have to remember that these systems we come up with are mere constructs, and the actual world itself probably doesn't conform to them as we might like. As the saying goes, all maps are wrong. But as the saying also goes, some maps are useful, and some are more useful than others.

One thing that often comes up in esoteric and occult systems are various forms of binaries or polarities. This often makes sense; for example, without light, you have dark. Without heat, you have cold. One party gives, the other takes. Creatures are born, and eventually they die.

But we can run into problems when we start trying to lump all apparent forms of polarities and dualities together. Here's an example: Life/Death, Masculine/Feminine. In doing this, we create an association that might lead us toward some terrible ways of thinking about real people. If we associate masculinity with death, we can find ourselves thinking that waging war and inventing weapons of death is just what men and masc people do, but women can always be counted on to be diplomats and peacekeepers. Or if we associate femininity with death, we might find ourselves more inclined to think that women and femmes have a natural desire to commit infanticide and tear apart societies, and they must be carefully watched and their freedoms limited so they don't upend civilization and endanger the human race.

These are of course extreme examples, but they are real ways that some people think. And you might think to yourself, "well, I don't polarize genders this way, I think people should try to be a healthy balance of masculine and feminine." And if this is you, I want you to ask yourself why you're so attached to categorizing traits as "masculine" and "feminine" at all.

If you're like most people, you probably just came across this in some form of occult or spiritual literature and just adopted it without really asking yourself too many questions about it. When we see something framed as ancient or higher wisdom, it's pretty easy to take it fairly uncritically, especially if it aligns with our unconscious biases in some way. It often doesn't cross our minds to ask where these terms really come from, and what they signified in their original contexts.

You may have heard that male/female stuff has roots in alchemy, which is true. But the thing with alchemy is that it was using familiar terms and concepts to describe chemical processes and reactions. Think of it a little bit like how we use terms like "male plugs" and "female plugs." While old-time alchemy did have a spiritual component to it, it was more about believing that you had to be spiritually pure to make your desired alchemical reactions happen. When alchemy gave way to chemistry, and people began to realize that your spiritual condition had nothing to do with your ability to make things happen in the lab, certain people began to seek more mystical meanings in the works of alchemists, and this idea of masculinity and femininity as transcendent mystical forces unto themselves really started to emerge. It was an incredibly easy concept to project on all kinds of mythologies, because a lot of myths have male and female figures interacting in various ways.

Now the thing is, having myths with male and female figures doesn't mean seeing masculinity and femininity as discrete forces or powers unto themselves. It can mean that they simply personified various figures as male or female depending on what their own experiences and cultural biases suggested to them. For example, straight men tend to think of love and lust as something they experience when they see a beautiful woman. In a patriarchal society, where men are calling most of the shots in conceptualizing the divine, a love deity is thus likely to be personified as a beautiful woman. Straight men can also see beautiful women as a source of discord and strife, so it makes sense that love goddesses would have war aspects to them.

A society where men are sent to war while wives are left behind to raise the children and tend the farm is going to produce an association with men and violence, while the act of nurturing will be associated with women. Men who deny higher education to women are going to produce a society where intellectual pursuits and higher abstract reasoning are associated with masculinity, and intuition and practical knowledge are associated with women. A society where men are seen as bringers of social order and upholders of civilization while women are viewed more like forces of nature than rational actors will associate men with civilization and women with natural, wild spaces.

In continuing to associate these characteristics with the "divine feminine" and the "divine masculine," we preserve and perpetuate the implicit biases created by these patriarchal societies. And while there is absolutely value in saying, "hey, these 'feminine' things are actually valuable and worth respect actually," framing them as intrinsically feminine in any sense - physically, psychologically, or metaphysically - will undermine any effort to dismantle patriarchy and bring true equality.

So what can you do? I would suggest being more specific.

Do you mean passive/active? Then just say it.

Do you mean giver/receiver? Then just say it.

Do you mean harmonizing/disrupting? Then just say it.

Whatever you have filed under boxes labeled "masculine" and "feminine," you can simply take them out of those boxes and find better categories for them.

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

Lesbian Pulp Breakdown #2

Here for another pulp breakdown ! (Finally 🙈)

This one will also have spoilers and lots of triggering content. Please be warned.

This pulp fiction breakdown is for Lesbian Love by SV Miller. 100%, absolutely written by a straight man. This book is WILD, and significantly worse than the last one I posted about Alone At Last, which I didn’t think was possible. Because that one was a train wreck.

So in this one we have our protagonist Aggie; now Aggie is married to a man called Jim but she also sleeps around and has affairs a lot. The first three chapters, if I recall, were literally just her having affairs with other men and then getting mad at her husband for accusing her of having affairs. Her and Jim have a very toxic and volatile relationship, as well as being very inconsistent in the way they approach each other, the way the approach themselves and their marriage. It’s wild.

Anyway, she gets to the point where she’s like: I don’t want to be in this marriage anymore. I don’t like him. I don’t like what we’re doing. We’re always fighting, throwing things at each other and then we end up being intimate. She hated it. Then she found an advertisement for a sanctuary away from men that was supposed to heal her, heal the relationship and get her away from there; BUT to get there she had to have a lot of money so she ended up having even more of an affair and putting herself in very dangerous situations to get the money. Though when she did, phew, off she went - she was there. It was all secret and she was given these very weird and ominous directions to get there, she wasn’t allowed to bring certain things with her etc.

When Aggie is there, it becomes very clear to us, the reader, she has just entered a massive cult. It’s also when this book just dives head first into all of its problems.

This isn’t to say Alone At Last was a good book by any stretch of the imagination, however, it did hold little nuggets of positivity, mainly in the areas of acknowledging homosexuality was natural and not having the main lesbian character end up dead or in an institution. This book can’t even say it has that going for it.

This pulp genuinely felt like a homophobic pamphlet fever dream.

There was so much sexual assault in this book committed by a lesbian, but sometimes the author would jump around on if it was assault or not in a very uncomfortable way that felt like it was rooted in a fetish.

So we have our lead lady, Aggie, introduced to this lesbian commune that is run by the lesbian dictator Helen. A rich woman set on assaulting women, keeping them trapped in this isolated location, and “turning” them gay - or as this book likes to paint it, corrupting women to sin.

There is a massive emphasis all throughout the book about how broken, unnatural and wrong lesbians are, ( the very last line is “I feel … normal!”) while simultaneously sexualising them for male titillation. With big strong men to come in towards the end and save them all.

It tries to entice us into the plot with this evil lesbian cult commune plot , where women are forced to pair up with one anther in this instance Aggie is forced to be with both Helen and a woman called Grace ; Grace is also the character Aggie ends up snot being attracted to, but only because she is in a “perverse” place). These women are locked up in torcher chambers if they don’t comply to the Evil Lesbians or try to run away.

In the end this pulp is probably a textbook example of what people think of nowadays when they think of old school lesbian pulp. With terrible writing on top! It was genuinely a slog to get through. Even though it’s relatively small it took me 4 months to finish reading it because it was just so terrible and had no redeeming qualities about it. Just a terrible mess of assault, homophobia and horrible writing.

Let’s hope the next one is better.

[stylesispunk]

"Unholy christmas" day 3/3

outbreak!Joel Miller x f!reader

Summary: After spending months wandering outside in the wild, you and Joel find safety inside the gates of Jackson just around christmas. A confession and a kiss lead to other things and you wake up wrapped around each other's arms.

wc: 4,5k

warnings: fluff, mentions of smut and no proofreading at all, sorry my head hurts.

a/n: welcome to the third and last day of my joel's fic christmas version event. This one didn't turn out as i planned but is still cute. (my personal favorite was merry christmas, please call me) thank you so much for being here and reading and I wish you all a merry christmas, i hope you all have a beautiful night either if you spend your night with other people or alone. happy reading and merry christmas 💌♥️🌲

You couldn’t believe your eyes the first time you stepped inside Jackson. How the gates creaked open, or how the snow crunched beneath your boots as you and Joel made your way. A town in the middle of the hell you had faced felt almost surreal. After months of wandering through the wilderness, living on edge, Jackson felt like stepping into a dream, all decorated and bathed in warm lights, strings of Christmas decorations you thought you would never see again.

As you made your way inside, Joel glanced at you, his rugged features softening for just a moment when he took a glimpse of your awe expression. Something inside his heart felt at peace for the first time in months.

He had put you through so much during this time. Dragging you through the danger and fighting just to kept you both alive, and doing terrible things just for him to allow you to see another sunrise. He didn’t regret the things he had done for keeping you safe, not for an instant, but when the weight of it all bore down on him. When you were sleeping clung to him at night and he’d lie awake, watching the firelight flicker against your face, wondering if you would be better off without him.

But what would it be of him without you?

Your existence overwhelmed him. In a way his heart would stop beating the second your gaze locked with his. In a way his breath caught up his throat when you held his hand or simple touch him when sleeping.

It terrified him how much you had become a part of him, how much he depended on the sound of your voice to lighten the weight on his shoulders, or how your simple presence was enough to silence the worst of his thoughts. His chest ached whenever your gaze locked with his, the world narrowing to just the two of you.

He felt alive and vulnerable all at once, and it scared him. But what scared him more was the idea of losing you.

Without you, the hollow emptiness he had spent years suppressing would swallow him whole. He had fought so hard to keep you alive since you gave him something to fight for.

And now, looking at you smiling at the big Christmas tree in the middle of Jackson, he felt whole.

He stayed rooted in place for a moment, his breath caught in his throat as he drank in the sight of you. How could someone like him, a man who had done unspeakable things, deserve to stand by your side? But he couldn’t bring himself to pull away, not when you looked at the tree with the kind of joy he thought was lost forever.

“Joel?” Your voice broke his thoughts, soft and questioning as you turned to face him.

He cleared his throat and stepped closer, the snow crunching beneath his boots. “Yeah? You okay?”

You nodded, a small, wistful smile tugging at your lips. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? I can’t remember the last time I saw a Christmas tree.”

Joel’s gaze flicked to the tree for a moment before settling back on you. “Yeah, it is.”

Joel opened his mouth to say more, but the sound of approaching footsteps on the snow made him pause, breaking the moment between the both of you. You both turned to see Tommy and Maria approaching, their faces lit with warm smiles.

“There you two are,” Tommy said, his tone teasing. “Figured we’d find you here.”

Maria stepped forward, her eyes flicking between you and Joel. “We’re heading over to the hall for dinner. Thought you might want to join us.”

You blinked in surprise, glancing at Joel before looking back at Maria. “Dinner?”

“Yeah,” Maria said with a nod, her smile widening. “The community does it every year around Christmas. Everyone pitches in—food, music, decorations. It’s a nice way to celebrate together.”

Joel shifted beside you, his hands tucked deep in his jacket pockets. He glanced at you, silently asking what you wanted to do.

“That sounds… nice,” you said after a moment, the idea of a communal dinner feeling strangely foreign after so long on the road. “We’d love to join.”

Tommy clapped Joel on the back. “See? Told you it’d be good for both of you to settle in a little.”

Joel grunted something under his breath, but his gaze softened as it lingered on you. “All right,” he said. “Lead the way.”

The walk to the community hall was short, the warm glow of lights spilling out through the windows guiding your way. Inside, the hall was alive with the buzz of conversation, the smell of roasted food, and the soft strum of a guitar from one corner.

As you followed Tommy and Maria to the community hall, the air around you felt festive, filled with laughter and the warm glow of lanterns strung along the path. The hall itself was bustling with life, long tables set up with trays of food and steaming mugs of cider. People greeted each other warmly, their voices blending into a symphony of holiday cheer.

You and Joel stepped inside, your eyes taking in the scene. For a moment, it was overwhelming—the sheer normalcy of it all after so many months of survival.

Maria nudged your arm gently, pulling you from your thoughts. “Grab some food and find a spot,” she said with a smile. “Tommy and I will join you in a bit.”

You nodded, glancing at Joel, but he was already being pulled away by Tommy, who had clasped a hand on his shoulder and steered him toward a group of familiar faces.

“I’ll catch up with you,” Joel muttered, throwing you a quick glance before disappearing into the crowd.

You made your way to the serving table, piling a plate with roasted vegetables and slices of bread before settling at a spot near the corner of the hall. From there, you could see Joel easily.

At first, it was endearing to watch him interact with Tommy. It reminded you of how hard he had fought to came here in order to be reunited with him all over again. And it was endearing, the sight of him, relaxed, the rare ghost of a smile playing on his lips. But as the minutes passed, your gaze lingered longer, drawn to the way people seemed to gravitate toward him.

Women. several of them.

They approached him with bright smiles displaying on their lips. Some were close to his age, others younger, their faces lighting up as they introduced themselves or leaned into a conversation with him. Joel, ever the gentleman he was, nodded politely, his deep voice lost in the noise of the room.

You knew Joel wasn’t the type to encourage attention, but the sight of him surrounded by all these women, some of whom placed a hand on his arm or laughed a little too loudly at something he said, sent a nagging feeling creeping into your chest.

You had never had felt the feeling of sharing before, it has always been you and him.

Until now.

You tried to focus on your food, but your appetite had vanished. The hall, went from feeling warm and inviting, to feeling suffocating. You told yourself it was nothing, that Joel was just being polite, but the tightness in your chest didn’t ease.

And you felt alone as if you were a burden Joel had to carry with him because he didn’t have the heart to left you behind.

Your gaze dropped to the table, your fingers toying with the edge of your plate, but what did you expect? Joel had done so much for you, had carried you through hell, he had brought you to a safe place where you would be able to live a life again.

The nagging feeling twisted into something sharper, something you didn’t want to name. You took a deep breath, trying to steady yourself, but your eyes drifted back to Joel, now leaning slightly as another woman spoke to him, her hand lingering just a second too long on his forearm.

You set your plate down, your appetite gone completely. For the first time since arriving in Jackson, you felt an urge to leave, to escape somewhere else.

The sight of Joel, so effortlessly blending in and laughing softly at something Tommy said, nodding politely as the women around him vied for his attention, made you feel like an outsider looking in.

And then it happened.

Joel’s gaze found yours across the room. His expression softened, a small, almost shy smile tugging at the corner of his lips. It was the kind of smile you rarely saw from him, one that seemed reserved just for you.

For a fleeting moment, the world quieted, the knot in your stomach loosening ever so slightly. But as your eyes scanned the room, taking in the familiarity shared between the townsfolks you felt it again. That foreignness. Like no matter how hard you tried, you’d never quite belong here.

Joel might. He was already starting to, even if he didn’t realize it yet. The way people looked at him, sought his attention, told you he could find a place here, a life.

But you? You weren’t so sure.

The thought settled heavily in your chest, and before you could overthink it, you pushed your chair back and stood.

You didn’t look back as you walked out of the hall, the cold night air biting at your skin as soon as you stepped outside. The muffled sounds of laughter and conversation followed you briefly before fading as the door swung shut behind you.

The town was quiet, the snow under your boots crunching softly as you wandered aimlessly. The lights strung along the houses glowed warmly, but they only deepened the ache in your chest.

You stopped at the edge of the main street, your breath visible in the cold air. Wrapping your arms around yourself, you stared up at the sky, the stars barely visible against the glow of the town.

The crunch of snow beneath your boots was the only sound accompanying you as you wandered, drawn toward the faint glow of the Christmas tree in the center of town. It stood tall and proud, adorned with twinkling lights and ornaments that glittered like tiny stars.

As you reached it, you came to a stop, the cold biting through your coat, but you barely noticed. You gazed up at the tree, and a flood of memories washed over you, brief, fragmented flashes of a childhood long gone.

A living room dimly lit except for the glow of a tree like this one. Laughter, faint and warm, as presents were unwrapped. The scent of pine and the soft hum of a Christmas carol your mother used to hum under her breath.

You wrapped your arms tighter around yourself, a lump forming in your throat. That world felt like it belonged to another life, to someone else entirely. The woman standing here now, hardened by years of survival, couldn’t reconcile with the girl who once giggled over snow angels and stockings by the fireplace.

Joel stepped outside, the cold air biting at his skin as he scanned the bustling streets of Jackson. It wasn’t like him to let things go unsaid, especially not when it came to you. He’d noticed the way you pulled away, your silence heavier than usual. He could feel the weight of it, pulling at him, gnawing at him.

You inhaled deeply, your breath shaky as it clouded in the cold air. This was why you felt out of place here. Jackson was built on hope, on community, on remnants of a world you weren’t sure if you were going to fit into.

He’d watched you slip away from the warmth of the hall, your figure disappearing into the night. Without a second thought, he followed. He couldn’t let you disappear into the night like that, not when something was so clearly eating at you.

The snow crunched beneath his boots as he made his way toward the glow of the Christmas tree. The town was quieter now, the hum of conversation and laughter fading as he walked through the streets, searching for you.

He found you standing under the towering tree, your face lit by the soft, flickering lights. His heart skipped a beat at the sight of you, so small against the backdrop of the glowing tree, lost in thought. Your gaze was fixed on the ornaments, the lights reflecting in your eyes, and for a moment, he just watched you.

His chest tightened, and he swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. He couldn’t stand to see you like this, so distant, so detached from the world around you. It was like you were still trapped in the past, somewhere far away from here, far away from the safety of Jackson and everything it had to offer.

“Hey,” he finally called out, his voice low but steady.

The sound of Joel’s voice startled you, low and rough but unmistakable. You turned to find him standing a few feet away, his broad frame silhouetted against the glow of the Christmas lights. He was breathing hard, like he’d been searching for you.

“I wondered where you ran off to,” he said softly, his eyes scanning your face.

“I just needed some air,” you replied, your voice quiet.

He stepped closer, his boots crunching in the snow, until he was standing beside you. His gaze flicked to the tree for a moment before settling back on you.

He stepped closer, his boots crunching in the snow, until he was standing beside you. His gaze flicked to the tree for a moment before settling back on you. “Didn’t mean to leave you alone there”

“Don’t worry.” you said quickly, but even to your own ears, the words felt hollow.

Joel's brow furrowed slightly, sensing the distance in your voice. He could see it in your eyes, the same unease, the same weight that had been there all night. Something was pulling at you, and he could feel the space growing between you both, even as you stood so close.

“I know you don’t like crowds,” he said, his voice softer now, as if trying to tread carefully around your thoughts. "But you don't have to be alone, not here."

You swallowed hard, the lump in your throat refusing to go away. "I just... need to figure things out."

Joel turned his body to face you more fully, his expression open but intense. He wasn’t going to let you pull away from him, not now. He reached out, gently brushing his fingers along your arm, his touch warm against the chill of the evening.

"Hey," he said, his voice steady. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve been thinking,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper.

His brow furrowed. “About what?”

You hesitated, glancing back at the tree. “About us. About how maybe it’s time for me to��� move on. Find my own place here. I don’t want to be a burden to you anymore, Joel. You’ve done so much for me already-”

His jaw tightened, and before you could finish, he cut you off. “Stop.”

You blinked, startled by the firmness in his voice.

"I think it’s time we go our separate ways," you said softly.

Joel froze, the words slicing through the cold air. "What?"

You looked down, unable to meet his gaze. "I’ve been thinking about it for a while. You’ve done so much for me, Joel. You got me out of the QZ, kept me alive out there...but I know I’m just a burden. You don’t have to keep looking out for me. Tommy can find me another place."

He stared at you, stunned. "You think I’m tired of you?"

You nodded, your voice barely above a whisper. "Aren’t you?"

Joel closed the distance between you in two strides, his hands gripping your arms gently, but firmly enough to make you look at him. "No," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "I ain’t tired of you. Not even close."

You blinked, caught off guard by the intensity in his tone. "Joel, I just don’t want you to feel like-"

"Like what?" he interrupted, his jaw tightening. "Like you’re something I have to put up with? You aren’t. You’re the one thing that makes this goddamn world a little easier to stand. Don’t you dare think I’d ever want you gone."

Your breath hitched, his words sinking in. The way he was looking at you, like you were the only thing that mattered in his life, made your heart ache.

"Joel?" you asked, your voice trembling. "Why would you want me to stay? I don’t… I don’t bring anything to the table."

He exhaled sharply, his thumb brushing over your sleeve. "You bring more than you’ll ever know. You keep me sane, keep me fighting. You’re the only thing in my life that feels right."

The lights from the Christmas tree flickered behind you, casting soft patterns across his face as his voice softened. "I need you, baby. And if you ever think about leaving again, you tell me first. I’ll set you straight."

You let out a shaky laugh. "You really mean that?"

Joel’s lips twitched into a faint, crooked smile. "Damn right, I mean it."

Before you could overthink it, you leaned into him, wrapping your arms around his torso. He held you close, his chin resting lightly against the top of your head.

Joel pulled back just enough to look down at you, his hands still resting on your arms. His eyes softened, a quiet intensity behind them that made your heart skip. The flickering glow of the Christmas lights reflected in his gaze, but it was the warmth in them that held you still.

He tilted his head, his voice barely above a whisper. "You’re not going anywhere."

Before you could reply, he leaned in, his lips brushing against yours as if asking for permission at first, as if testing the waters. The world seemed to stand still as his hand moved to cup your cheek, his thumb gently grazing your skin.

The kiss deepened, slow and unhurried, carrying a quiet desperation that told you everything he couldn’t put into words. He was telling you that you were his world, that you were his, that he needed you as much as you needed him.

When he finally pulled back, his gaze lock with yours, his breath mingling with the cold night air. His voice was rough, almost a whisper. "You understand now? I don’t just want you here. I need you here. With me. We are a team."

Tears pricked at your eyes, but you smiled, your hands resting against his chest. "Okay, I promise I won’t go away from you.”

He closed his eyes briefly, relief washing over his face, before pressing another kiss to your forehead. Then, he went all over for your lips again, this time deeper, as if he wanted to imprint this moment on his heart forever. His hand slid from your cheek to the back of your neck, drawing you closer, while his other arm wrapped securely around your waist.

You melted into him, your fingers clutching his jacket as if to anchor yourself to the only steady thing in your chaotic world. The cold air nipped at your skin, but you barely noticed, lost in the warmth of his skin, of his presence, on the way his lips moved against yours, the way he held you like he never wanted to let go.

When the kiss broke, you both stayed close, breaths mingling in the frosty air. His thumb brushed your cheek, his gaze soft yet unreadable.

“Come on,” he murmured, his voice low and warm, “let’s get you back inside before you freeze.”

You nodded, but your hand found his, intertwining your fingers as he led you to the house. The walk was silent, but the tension between you was electric.

Inside the house, the fire burned the room dimly lit by the soft orange glow of the embers between the both of you. Joel shut the door behind you, his eyes lingering on you as you removed your coat. There was no space for words now, just the unspoken language that pull you back to him.

He crossed the room in two strides, his hands finding your waist, his lips meeting yours again with a quiet urgency. You let him guide you toward the bed, his touches careful, his gaze searching yours for permission every step of the way.

You gave it to him, silently, your hands slipping under his shirt, feeling the warmth of his skin beneath your fingertips that almost felt like they burn, his breath hitched, but he didn’t stop, he couldn’t. Not when you were looking at him with those puppy eyes that made him feel like he was your biggest treasure.

That night, the world outside didn’t exist anymore. It was just you and Joel, tangled together beneath the blankets, your mingled warmth chasing away the cold. Every touch, every kiss, every whisper of his name felt like a promise you didn't dare break.

Later that night, the room was dim, only the crackling of the fire providing light. You could feel his breath on your skin, slow and deliberate, as if he was savoring the taste of you, every moment with you leaded to this and his hands moved with a gentleness that surprised you, as if he was treating you like something fragile, precious he has promised himself he would protect.

But there was nothing fragile about the way you felt. With him, there was strength, a connection that ran deeper than anything you could put into words. You felt it in the way he held you, in the way his body responded to yours. It was raw, but it was also tender, and that combination left you breathless.

You pulled him closer, your fingers tracing the lines of his chest, feeling the steady beat of his heart beneath your touch. You wanted to show him how much he meant to you; how much you needed him in this moment.

Joel’s lips found yours again, but this time, the kiss was slower, more conscious. It was a silent plea, an exchange of everything you couldn’t say aloud. You didn’t need words. You had each other, and that was all that mattered.

When he finally pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours, his breath coming in short, soft bursts. “You okay?” he asked, his voice low and rough, a faint hint of concern threading through his words.

You nodded, your hands slipping into his hair, tugging him back down to you. “I’m more than okay,” you whispered, taking his lips on yours again.

But Joel’s voice broke the kiss as he pulled away slightly, his hands lingering on your hips before he stood, turning toward the small table in the corner of the room. “I, uh... I got you something for Christmas,” he said, his voice rougher than usual, but there was something softer behind it.

You blinked, surprised. Christmas hadn’t really felt like Christmas since the outbreak, and you hadn’t expected anything, certainly not from him. As he turned his back to you, his broad shoulders and his muscles in his bare back caught your attention. He was a picture of raw strength, but in that moment, you saw something else in him, vulnerability, tenderness, and a depth of care you hadn’t expected from the man who had carried so much loss during his life.

Your chest tightened as a strange, overwhelming sense of clarity washed over you. It was like everything had all led to this. To this moment, with him. You didn’t need anything else. You didn’t need a world full of certainty or things that made sense. With Joel, every simply made sense.

He reached for something on the table, a small wrapped box that was too carefully wrapped. His fingers lingered on the edges of the paper before he turned back toward you. His expression was unreadable, though there was a small, almost shy smile on his lips.

He stepped toward you, the firelight casting a warm glow on his face, illuminating the lines and scars on his temple. When he stopped in front of you, he held the gift out, his eyes meeting yours, softly “It ain’t much,” he muttered, “but I thought... I thought you deserved it. I got a while ago but since we’re here and we can celebrate Christmas again, I feel like I can give It to you.”

You took the small box from his hands, feeling the weight of it in your palm. Your heart skipped a beat as you met his eyes, seeing the love in them, the thought behind his gesture. It was so simple, so genuine, that it took your breath away.

You slowly unwrapped the box, your hands trembling just slightly as the soft paper fell away. Inside was a delicate silver necklace, the pendant a small, simple heart with intricate engravings along its edges. It caught the firelight, glimmering softly, and something inside you fluttered as you held it in your palm.

Joel watched you, his gaze soft but intense. He seemed to be holding his breath, waiting for your reaction. You could tell it meant something to him, something more than just the gift itself.

You swallowed hard, trying to keep the emotions from flooding your voice. “Joel...” you whispered, your fingers tracing the edges of the pendant. “It’s beautiful.”

His face softened, the corners of his mouth curling into a quiet smile. “I saw it a while ago,” he said, his voice low, almost uncertain. “Thought you might like it. And... I didn’t know when the right time was, but I guess now felt right. This... this is for you to carry me with yoy everywhere you go.”

You felt the warmth of his words seep into you, settling in your chest as your heart pounded. This wasn’t just a piece of jewelry; it was a symbol of the quiet love he had for you, the love that had been building ever since you had met in the ruins of the world.

Your eyes lifted from the necklace to his, you cupped his jaw, feeling his breath catch as your lips met his again, soft at first, but deepening as the world around you seemed once more. It was just the two of you, lost in each other, breathing each other in.

When you finally pulled away, you rested your forehead against his, your chest heaving with the emotions swirling inside you. “I didn’t get you anything,” you murmured, the guilt creeping into your voice.

Joel’s hand brushed through your hair; the soft gesture meant to comfort you. His eyes met yours, the warmth in them determined. “It’s okay,” he said, his voice low, steady. “You’re here. That’s all I need.”

You couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at your lips, but then he leaned in, his voice softer this time, laced with something tender. “But, uh... Can I call you love?”

His question caught you by surprise, but it also made your heart skip. The simple, honest sincerity in his eyes made your chest ache with affection.

“Love?” you echoed, testing the word in your lips. It felt strange and foreign, but in his presence, it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

He nodded, his gaze earnest. “Yeah. If that’s alright. That would be a gift for me, for now” he clarified, smiling at you.

You felt the warmth of his words wrap around you, making your heart flutter with a mix of emotions. The sincerity in his eyes made the world feel smaller, like everything was finally making sense.

“Yes,” you whispered, your voice barely audible as you gazed up at him. “You can call me love.”

A smile stretched across Joel's face, his eyes softening with joy. He leaned in again, this time his lips capturing yours with a tenderness that made everything feel right. The kiss was deep, filled with the promise yet to be written, and as you pulled away, your heart ached with a love that had been growing between you, unspoken, until now.

Joel gently guided you back onto the bed, his hands roaming over your body with a careful urgency. You felt his warmth radiating from his body as he settled beside you, his chest rising and falling with each breath. The room was silent except for the crackling of the fire, but in that silence, everything spoke.

You pressed your cheek to his chest, your hand splayed across the warmth of his skin, feeling his heartbeat beneath your fingertips. It was a beating you could now call yours, a melody that you caused.

“Merry Christmas to me, then, I guess,” he murmured, his voice thick with affection as he pulled you closer. His body felt like a shield, protecting you from everything that had ever threatened to tear you down.

You smiled, nestling into him even more, your own fingers tracing patterns along his skin. “Merry Christmas, baby.” you whispered back, feeling more alive, more complete than you had in years.

In the quiet darkness of the room, wrapped in his arms, with the world outside frozen in time, you knew this was where you were meant to be.

And that was enough. The world could wait. Tonight, it was just the two of you.

[ilikekidsshows]

This is related to something mentioned on one of your asks (apologies if you did talk about it and I just didn't understand) but do you think calling Adrien a sexual harasser is comparable to calling Marinette a bad leader in terms of criticizing characters?

--

This is literally what I meant with my big rant on people who use “it's all just bad writing” to sweep aside bigger and bigger problems with the show. We're all used to excusing some level of bad writing from this show, but, like, usually people have a threshold for how much bullshit they're willing to swallow. I could excuse Cat Noir not getting the hint, just like I could excuse Marinette following Adrien everywhere and knowing his schedule (this is the actual equivalent point of comparison). They were quirky about it. Ladynoir was mutually flirty even if Cat Noir was too serious with it sometimes, and Marinette's nonsense was often funny. I mostly treated the stalker/harasser takes as opinions. I could see why people would view the characters that way, but I could see enough outside it to look past it. It was beneath my bullshit threshold.

“Marinette does practically everything wrong on screen but we praise her for things she didn't do so she did everything right actually” is past my bullshit threshold. You can't show the exact opposite of what you mean on screen and then claim something different is going on. Ladybug treats her teammates with different expectations, her rules are situational and conditional, she picks favorites, she keeps valuable information from her teammates, making it harder for them to do their jobs. Her failures directly lead to bad consequences. But, because she cried about it and was instantly forgiven while taking no steps to improve, that means she's actually the greatest superhero and leader ever. Like, that's a big plate full of bullshit and I’m done eating it.

Also, like, we really need to take the level of my personal betrayal into account when it comes to willingness to swallow bullshit. Like, Marinette being a bad leader and a terrible hero wouldn't bother me nearly as much if she wasn't also an abuse apologist. Marinette, when faced with the choice between doing what Adrien's abuser wanted and considering literally anyone else's opinion on what Adrien might need or want, picked the abuser’s opinion. Marinette picked Adrien's abuser over him. Like, if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be near this angry. If Astruc hadn't smugly tweeted about how perfectly this decision ties in with her choice in The Bubbler, retroactively ruining one of my favorite episodes for me, I wouldn't be looking back at all of Marinette's failings and seeing how they led her to that moment. The writers practically invited me to do so. Even fans who still adore the show and Marinette think Marinette turning to abuse apologia makes sense. A lot of Marinette's character flaws lead to her making that choice.

Stalking Adrien > disregard towards Adrien's personhood > not considering what Adrien would want when she makes excuses for Gabriel

Lying/secret-keeping > constantly keeping things from people when the truth makes her uncomfortable or look bad > lies about Gabriel because she thinks it will make Adrien's emotional reaction less volatile

Repeatedly insisting kids are safe with their parents regardless of evidence to the contrary > discounting victims’ testimonies > trusting Gabriel's opinion on how Adrien should be treated

Unequal leadership > treating people as objects to be controlled instead of equals to negotiate with > thinking she even has the right to lie to Adrien about his dad

As you can see, a lot of the patterns of Marinette's flaws lean on attitudes that explain almost too perfectly why Marinette would trust Adrien's confirmed abuser's opinion on things relating to Adrien, even when she sees the sensory deprivation chamber Gabriel put Adrien in. Almost all of the bad writing choices regarding Marinette now connect to one of the worst, if not the worst, moments of the entire series so far. And, because it's all so interconnected and all-encopassing to Marinette's character now that I can't just ignore it. I can't ignore any part of it. The writers are making me question Marinette's integrity all the way back in the first season, because many of her flaws were already established from the start of the series.

In addition to all this, Miraculous functions on Protagonist-Centered Morality, aka, the things the protagonist does are meant to be seen as the morally good thing to do or at least a valid choice even when the consequences are "unexpectedly" bad. Adrien’s “harassment” is never framed as the right way to act, but Marinette’s abuse apologia, disrespect of Adrien’s personhood and abuses of power as team leader are all treated as morally being on the same ground as not doing those things. “Lying to him or telling him the truth will lead to very different consequences with their share of happy and sad moments,” my ass.

Adrien being a sexual harasser, Marinette being a stalker, Marinette being a bad leader and hero and Marinette’s abuse apologia are all bad writing, but not all bad writing is written equally bad, if you catch my drift.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

One of the problems I had with the online radicalization of Jalil in reunion is how it actually occurs. Jalil is supposedly radicalized by a message board, but it’s provided by alliance and the AI mascot he uses is Lila. So it’s left muddled on what exactly is happening here.

Is there really an internet based opposition to LB and CN? You wouldn’t think it since Paris enlarge is shown to still support them. But the presence of message boards would imply at least some support for monarch even if it’s mostly trolls. Or is alliance fabricating it for Gabriel to upset people in a targeted way? Or is it just Lila with a bunch of alt accounts? It’s really hard for me to tell just how wide spread this is as a problem for Paris considering it’s dropped after this one episode.

I'm also not sure how seriously we're supposed to take the criticism shown in that episode. It feels very much like the sort of BS we get with Su-Han where he points out a legitimate concern but in the most obnoxious, inflammatory way possible so that the audience feels forced to disagree with him. It's terrible writing that isn't very fun to watch. Reminds me of all the awful live-action Disney reboots that try to engage with every critical take anyone has ever had, leading to a lesser story. They would be much better off to just ignore the criticism they don't want to properly address and have fun with the story even if there's an arguable flaw. That's what suspension of disbelief is all about!

You want Paris to support Ladybug and Chat Noir no matter what they do? Cool! That works! Just don't take an episode and introduce the idea that there is actually criticism out there because that makes us start to question things like anon is doing here.

Another great example is the "issue" that Gabriel never uses the butterfly miraculous to heal his wife when it feels like that should be within its power. The show was totally correct to never address that on screen because the butterfly probably should be able to heal her! The reason it can't is because then the show would end. If the writers tried to explain an in-universe reason, then it would be as nonsensical as their explanation of how the rooster works:

Gabriel: There! (to Orikko) You! You can grant me any power I want! (closes the Grimoire and walks toward Orikko) You will give me the power to travel through time! Orikko: No, you're mistaken! Time travel is Fluff's power and I can't grant the power that already belongs to another Kwami! Gabriel: Are you trying to deceive me?? Orikko: (nods) By all means! Read the Grimoire again! (Gabriel reopens the Grimoire.) Sass: Each Kwami represents a concept, and a concept can only exist once in the universe. Xuppu: Too complicated, Sass! Let's use an example to make things simpler. Take Tikki, she is the Kwami of Creation, and creation is creation, and if there's another creation than creation, then it's not "creation", it's "replication"! Gabriel: Then grant me the power to locate Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous! Orikko: Trouble is, that's not a power; that's a wish! Xuppu: For instance, if I asked Santa for a pair of socks, that's a wish. But if I want Santa to grant me the power to knit socks, then it means Santa needs to know how to knit socks in the first place so he can teach me! Gabriel: (groans angrily) Grant me the power to unmask Ladybug and Cat Noir's secret identities! Xuppu: No can do! Orikko: (shoves Xuppu away) I cannot give a power that would disrupt another Kwami's magic. And being able to conceal the person behind the costume, well, that's part of the magic of their Kwami. Gabriel: (enraged) So you're utterly useless!

If all of this is true, then how do the goat and the peacock make things? Isn't that Creation? And how was the butterfly able to make a time travel villain? That's Fluff's power! And how was Gabriel able to offer to make Marinette into a villain who could unmask people via the butterfly? That's going against the miraculous' powers!

The answer is simply that the lore was not thought out in a way that stands up to even the most basic questions. When that's the case, the only way to handle the problem is to just ignore it. Keep your on screen explanations as shallow as your lore. Don't try to add depth that isn't there. Trying to address it just highlights how shitty your world building is.

[lxdreyar]

Hi guys! I did it in the fall, for Halloween, but I've only translated it now! I hope you enjoy this zombie virus universe comic! Sorry for the bad English, I used a translator.

Laxus Dreyar. He is nicknamed "Thunder" because of his loud voice and unexpected appearances out of nowhere. Ivan Dreyar, Laxus' father, decided to do research on this very virus. But not in order to create an antidote, but in order to find out how the virus can be manipulated for its own purposes, subjugating (already former) people. Young Laxus, not fully understanding what is happening and why his Grandfather banished his father from the town, follows him to find out everything and help his father, believing that he was driven away unfairly (he does not know the reason and cannot believe that his father could do something so terrible). Ivan was not so friendly towards his son, believing that he would interfere with him in every possible way, as he saw in him exactly the same thoughts and views on life as Makarov. While they were walking to Ivan's temporary base (which he created while still under Makarov's command), he finally decides that his son will be an obstacle to him, after a couple of phrases that Laxus said "casually." Therefore, in the same way, "casually", as if by chance (so that his conscience would not torment him) pushes him down from the roof of one of the garages along which they were walking. The guy lands extremely unsuccessfully, from that moment Laxus has no right eye. Ivan watches as his son slowly dies and his conscience begins to really torment him. He begins to grieve even more when he sees one of the infected fall to his knees in front of his son and bite his hand. Ivan goes downstairs, realizing the mistake he made. He kills the infected and decides to stay with Laxus until he dies. He heals his eye as best he can, spending some reserves of alcohol and bandages on it, and can only wait for when he will have to kill his own son a second time. But what a surprise for him when Laxus wakes up fully conscious after a while, he feels bad because of the loss of his eye and he is disoriented, but he is alive, can talk and, in principle, no symptoms appear on him. Ivan dramatically redoes the story of Laxus' fall, saying that it really was an accident and pulls him towards that very "base" - the "Raven's Tail" There he tries in every possible way to explore Laxus and the only thing he understands is that His bitten hand has become darker, almost completely black, the veins have swollen and become brighter and obvious purple color.

But it didn't go above the forearm. It was in this area that the weakness and problems in using the right (previously leading) appeared. hands, because of what he will have to retrain and become left-handed. At this base, Laxus eventually meets a newly arrived guy, Freed Justin. Despite his abominable socialization, he manages to make friends with the guy (although, rather on the contrary, Freed manages to make friends with him) and from that moment on they spend all their time together. After a while, Laxus finds out that Freed has some other deadly disease and he has very little left. It breaks his heart and he angrily shuts himself off from everyone (including Freed) A couple of days later, Ivan calls Freed for one of the studies, telling him that it could help with his illness. This study becomes lethal for the green-haired man.

Laxus was an observer of this study, greatly worried about his friend, so when everything went wrong and Fried began to literally change before his eyes, losing his mind and screaming in pain, he began to panic greatly. When Laxus saw that Freed's pulse had stopped, his heart broke for the second time. Realizing that he was left without the person who had become his first and true friend, he slowly began to lose his mind. He saw hallucinations in the form of Freed, dreams, sleep paralysis, and so on and so forth. He could hear his voice and it seemed so real..

[manda-kat]

Sometimes you really just have to let people be mad at you.

I've known several people with anxiety, RSD and other personal hurdles that lead them to be super aware of tone changes and anything that may hint at a person being angry or upset at them. A lot of those relationships didn't end very well, but hey- my heartbreak can be your learning opportunity! (This is especially important if you know you have a tendency to overthink relationships)

It's okay to just let the other person be mad at you!

Here's a story that's happened to me a few times. Someone meets me, becomes my friend and everything is great until one day I suddenly change. I give them a weird tone or I don't respond like I usually do. I must be angry at them. They ask if I'm angry at them. I say no. They aren't convinced. Every time they ask me, I tell them I'm fine. They don't know how to make me tell them what's bothering me. I become more distant every time they ask. Finally it comes to a head and they're convinced I hate them and they've ruined the entire relationship by being a terrible person.

Meanwhile, on my side of things, we're both enjoying life until one day out of the blue they ask if I'm angry at them. I have no reason to be angry at them. I say no. They continue to ask over and over again, each time getting reassurance that I'm not angry. It comes to a point where I'm pretty sure I must be doing something to upset them, but I have no idea what. We both become convinced the other person hates us.

If you ever feel stuck in this kind of situation, please try to just let it go. When you ask 'are you mad at me' and they say 'no'- take it as a no! You might not be as good at reading emotions as you think you are. Me personally? I have trouble expressing my emotions- especially over text. But for some reason, telling them that didn't help. They were convinced that they knew how I felt and that I was lying about not being angry.

So if you ask someone 'are you mad at me?' And they lie and tell you 'no'... that's a them problem. Either they don't want to push the issue OR they actually aren't upset at all. Either way, they won't want you to keep asking. If they're mad, let them be mad. They'll get over it easier if you don't keep bringing it up.

They're a big, mature person who can make their own emotional choices and can pick their own battles. If they AREN'T mature enough to deal with their emotions in a healthy way, then forcing them to keep addressing those issues is only going to upset both of you!

You don't need to face their feelings for them. They don't need to admit their frustration with you. If they're hiding their own feelings, then it's usually out of kindness. You don't need to know every single time someone is mad at you. That sounds like torture. Your friends don't want to torture you.

If you keep asking and pushing, then when you do finally upset them, they won't feel safe telling you because you've convinced them you're emotionally needy and can't handle negative feedback. Even if you're just trying to be mature, you can end up convincing them of the opposits.

Your relationships are going to develop their own spoken and unspoken rules over time, but a good rule of thumb is: ask once. If you REALLY think they're being dishonest with you, ask again, making it clear that you just want to make sure you haven't done anything wrong. If they insist they're fine, then they're fine. Move on.

It might be hard to just take someone's word for it and it feels like open communication may be the only way to keep a healthy relationship, but sometimes you need to have a little faith in your friend. Sometimes you need to be able to let sleeping dogs lie. If it's important enough for them to tell you, trust them to tell you.

Don't overcommunicate your friendships to death.

[randomyounglady]

On the topic of The Amazing Digital Circus, I need to talk about how amazing Kinger is as a PTSD representative, specifically relating to my own experience with PTSD-related memory loss. A lot of people I see try to connect it to his age, but I have to disagree.

I personally have extensive memory loss related to my PTSD. My brain throws out so much so quickly that I risk even losing some of the good times. I have to look at some of the pictures of my semester in Japan to remember it. On the other side of the coin, I have to look through things I wrote following the worst experiences I had under my parents' roof just so I dont risk losing the severity of it. While I know that their influence was terrible and even hearing my mother's voice when I wasnt prepared for it sent me into a paranoid spiral, sometimes the chronic pain (which, mind you, is also a manifestation of PTSD and anxiety) is enough to make me consider going back to them just to not put so much stress into the little work I can do. If I forget, I risk making everything worse.

Kinger is great because he shows how these sorts of mental relations can stay even if the direct memories don't. While sometimes it's a fight to remember for one reason or another, other times these memories (be they important or not) can show themselves in these sorts of lower level connections. Kinger may not remember all the events leading to his abstraction, but he can remember the last moment with his abstracted wife when darkness is involved, actively calming him down. I can remember the few quiet moments in my parents' house watching Majora's Mask videos in the kitchen after everyone was asleep by eating those microwaved taquitos, despite how rare they were.

It isn't a problem of age. It's a problem of PTSD. While PTSD is usually linked to remembering everything no matter how painful, the opposite problem also exists. Memories are eaten like a black hole unless you force them to stay. This is where Kinger sits in my mind. While age can also exasperate this, the lack of aging in the circus makes me think it isn't the aging making him seem spaced out and crazy to the other circus members. It's the PTSD eating all the memories. At least, that's my thoughts on it.

[puppyluver256]

I think it's time I addressed something.

cw: mentions of targeted harassment/online stalking, colonial/religious violence on mass scale, and ongoing genocide as a result of said violence

The names of anyone involved will be anonymized to protect people’s privacy. The only time uncensored usernames will be mentioned are in regards to people who have literally no knowledge of or involvement in this situation, and are not used disparagingly.

Recently, through a total fluke of curious self-googling, I discovered that a random blog I had blocked months ago had in fact posited themself as a """receipts""" (aka harassment) blog and had been actively trying to tear me down based solely on my attempts to keep my own sanity in a time of international turmoil--or rather, a time of international injustice. Even though it seems like the blog in question (which I will refer to simply as H going forward for the sake of their privacy, and if you know who it is do not mention it here or harass them in any way, shape, or form or I will find out and be deeply disappointed in you at the very least) has had a very narrow reach, once I realized that this was even a Thing and had some time to actually think about things after the initial anger and revulsion of such an act had settled a bit, I felt that I couldn't in good conscience let it go unaddressed even if it risked giving the source of the harassment even a marginally wider reach to continue their actions with impunity, especially when it was clear that they hadn’t had enough of trying to torment just me and moved forward with more insidious tactics that felt all too familiar. Because quite frankly, despite them going about it in completely the wrong way, H had a small point with regards to things I had said.

As you can probably gather due to the content warnings, this is about the horrors happening to the people of Palestine. Or rather, it is about my tendency to hide from the horrors of the world while online for the sake of my own sanity, with Palestine being just one of the most recent out of many over the years, and how my venting about being unable to do so consistently (and venting about being harassed for said venting, I will go into that particular issue much later) was twisted into the belief that I either did not care about or genuinely wished for the ongoing harm to an entire people group. The opposite is the case, in fact--I care far too much for my own good.

Let me make this clear upfront: the very first time I was taught about the still-ongoing issues between Israel and Palestine, in my freshman year of high school I might add, I was (and still am) on the side of Palestine. (admittedly the teacher tried to "teach" us about it via a stupid game that she eventually gave up on and just taught us the damn facts, but that's neither here nor there, the point is I learned what was going on a little less than 20 years ago and my opinion on the matter has been relatively the same since) I may be an atheist, but more importantly I am a secular humanist, and before knowing the latter term and taking on that label I was still an atheist even at the time, so the religious argument of "god gave them that land, they own that land" would never have worked on me the way it seems to with so many people. And tbh I don't even know if that's an argument that the Israeli government themselves put forward (it's a terrible argument no matter who put it forward), but I do know that christian fundamentalist extremists say things like that in their push for """god's people"" to return to """their god-ordained homeland""" so they (the christian extremists, I mean, just so we don't get confused here) can try to usher in the end of the world based on the drug trip of a final volume in their bizarre storybook and no I am not kidding that is literally what they believe.

(timestamp'd to the relevant part, this vid is three years old and while this comes off as a little more neutral, some of this channel's more recent podcasts have expressed support for Palestine specifically when the topic came up)

So as you can imagine, I am absolutely not in favor of innocent people being slaughtered senselessly either for the sake of power/bigotry or for the sake of trying to kickstart a supposedly promised omnicide (as delusional as that belief is, and it's about as delusional as a socially accepted belief can be) because I am A Decent Human Being. I am also vehemently anti-military, in all forms, and have been since at least high school. And in response to a line from the post that spurned this one, "it's a genocide not a religious war", I have never once said or even implied this isn't the case. In fact, it's both at once. It is warfare, waged with religion as one of the motivating factors, against a people group with the goal and/or outcome of genocide. The terms are not mutually exclusive, and both are disgusting on their own, even moreso when one is the result of the other.

Addressing the vent posts/tag rambles directly:

This is something that is not going to surprise anyone who knows me to hear: I have the emotional constitution of an improperly set flan.

Human beings are not equipped to deal with our current 24-hour news cycle and internet rage-pushing algorithms, and I have found over time that I am far less equipped than most. Every single post about it, tweet about it, insertion into a video I was watching that gave no prior indication it would even remotely talk about it, it kept breaking my heart little by little, especially as I could do nothing to help and the charged language of everything was written to basically shame anyone who didn't do anything regardless of whether or not they were actually capable of doing so.

And then there were the pictures of bodies. Gruesome injury and death, over and over and over again. It was all too much to force myself to just helplessly watch, and I can only imagine how hard it is for the people actively experiencing all of it.

All of this on top of my more direct struggles--adjusting to a new house I never wanted to move to in a location I never wanted to even visit again, learning to care for a new dog and never getting enough time to get anything done as a result, constantly getting bitten by said dog, the brand new house constantly falling apart either due to shoddy workmanship or because of Dog, never getting enough sleep anymore (admittedly through no one's fault but my own), pulling my hair out over all this stress and then stressing out over that in a vicious cycle of bald--meant I had to focus on what I could actively take care of, namely myself, my family, and my living space. And when I finally get a moment to myself, you can imagine that it doesn't help in the slightest to go online and see a constant stream of global tragedy when I just wanted to chill for an hour. No one is equipped to handle this sort of thing all the time. And it certainly isn't helping anyone to allow myself to be constantly inundated by the torment of people I cannot do anything to alleviate.

The fandomization of tragedy:

This is another big part of why I had to filter so much. I 100% understand and encourage the making of artworks in the face of an injustice such as what's happening to Palestine, but something about it being intersected with light-hearted media just feels...unsettling? Disrespectful? I get it, people deal with bad stuff in different ways, but I just can't jive with putting the language of The Current Bad Thing That's Been Happening Lately into the mouths of characters for whom those issues would never come up. Like with that one post of modern-ized Disney princesses that included Tiana and Charlotte at a BLM protest, that makes sense as a modern interpretation of Tiana's pre-inciting-event struggles and Charlotte's determination to support her friend because Tiana was dealing with the much stronger systemic racism of the intended time period in the actual source material (albeit in a sanitized, watered-down, "we don't wanna draw attention to the fact that we pulled this sort of crap too irl" sense on Disney's part). But randomly having a character spout off Palestine slogans or flying a Palestine flag when their universe doesn't even have any real-world locations...just does not feel right, even if it is meant in genuine support. It had the same energy of those art pieces where all the fictional characters from different media would be sitting together on the couch, watching TV as the news of nine-eleven plays on screen and they all start crying. More of an unintentional mockery than the poignant piece it's intended to be. Then again, this is the place where getting one's important news items delivered to them via the infamous Destiel screenshots is considered normal, which half the time makes it hard to take said important news as seriously as one should.

This all came to a head for me with "Fakemon for Palestine".

I'm sure you can gather what Fakemon is through context, fan-made Pokemon, something I've heavily gotten into myself via the Cantessy project and at least three planned future Fakemon projects, and have been following plenty of artists and collaborative creators in the field for years now. I think the "Fakemon for Palestine" trend was started by the Fakemon creator PragMagik (if it wasn't then he definitely helped popularize it), and for the record, from what I've seen of the demiguy I believe his heart was absolutely in the right place. And it caught on, and spread like wildfire within the Fakemon community. And it Just. Felt. Wrong. All the cutesy Pokemon-ified takes on Palestine symbology just felt like it was making light of a very serious situation. I'm sure that 90% of those jumping on the trend meant their contribution(s) to be a genuine show of support for the Palestine cause, and let's be real it's probably a lot more preferable for those going through this to see fun and encouraging fanart rather than more of the death and destruction they have to deal with on a daily basis (if they even do get to see the fun and encouraging fanart at all due to spotty internet in what infrastructure remains or was cobbled together through proxies), but I still couldn't shake the feeling that this was inappropriate. Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong.

What hasn't been publicized:

As mentioned before, I have felt as though I could not, and still cannot, do anything to help. I'm constantly in a state of decision paralysis when it comes to this sort of thing. Sharing everything that came my way led to the risk of just spreading misinformation, and taking the time to comb through everything would just make me shut down entirely. Donating to any old fundraiser was tricky, both because I don't have the money to spare and because I would have no way of knowing if the money would actually reach the people it needed to, either by way of the money being intercepted before it reached its intended recipient or the fundraiser itself being a malicious scam. Attending a protest would be out of the question, as I live in The Middle Of Goddamn Nowhere where there's likely no protests within 100 miles, and if I did manage to get to one and ended up getting arrested for the "crime" of speaking out in support of oppressed people, not only would no one be home to take care of my dog for way longer than I'm okay leaving him at home alone, but it could get more than just myself into trouble. My mom's a government employee (city gov, but still) in an unfortunately crimson red state, and while I don't know for a fact if me getting arrested as an adult would put her job at risk, I'm not willing to take that chance with her. I'm not putting my loved ones at risk like that.

Ironically I've probably been "participating" in some of the boycotts people have been calling for longer than they'd even been called for. Of the three I can think of off the top of my head, I've never gone to Starbucks because I don't like the smell of coffee, I can't stand the abusive business practices and environment inside of Walmart so I try my best to never go there unless something I need is literally not available anywhere else within a reasonable distance and/or timeframe, and I've avoided McDonald's for years because let's be honest, when a restaurant chain serves you two bright red burgers on two separate occasions at two completely different locations, you tend not to frequent that restaurant chain ever again for the sake of your own physical health. I know this doesn't quite count, hence the use of quotes above, but it's still less money going into the pockets of bad actors. I'm reminded of that post where someone was all "you people can't even boycott chik-fil-a", and it's just...yeah I can. I did it (and am continuing to do it) without even trying. Just because I didn't announce it to the world didn't mean I didn't do it.

Also, just because I filtered the topic on social media does not mean I was "keeping (my) head in the sand" about everything. I was keeping informed, but only when I was in the right headspace to do so, and with plenty of preparation for what I would be getting into, and I never felt the obligation to announce my attempts to keep informed because it would all be information better obtained from more appropriate sources than Some Random Nerd On The Internet Who Is Not Directly Involved And Thus Does Not Have Proper Perspective Or Any Sort Of Media Sensitivity Training. That's all I was ever upset about wrt the content of the initial vent post: I wanted the chance to prepare myself for what I would be seeing, and people were refusing to let me have that chance and then directly berating anyone else who wanted the same. My only real wrongdoing here was complaining about things in spaces where one can openly complain about things and not being the most tactful about it.

To paraphrase a friend of mine I was discussing this whole with, if we had to turn off our computers to avoid seeing senseless violence as a result of military aggression, the internet would not exist because the world has been in war for practically forever. The world is always in conflict, always messed up, and just not wanting to see it all the time because of how much everything is right now is not a morally incorrect action but a tired one, and one is allowed to be tired. (or more specifically in my case, emotionally overwhelmed)

Misinterpretation:

I'll admit, I was too upset to force myself to read H's posts in too much detail, but in what I could remember I noticed several misinterpretations, whether genuine or intentionally twisted I can't tell. One was stated above, another I remember was criticism of my using the phrase "upsetting event" wrt trying to filter, well, upsetting events. In general. Not just this one, but any upsetting event. I was defending the use of filters for people to keep themselves safe online regardless of what it was they decided to filter. Celebrity deaths, celebrity controversy, widespread diseases, natural disasters, and yes, any form of global injustice. I was being vague for the purposes of letting anyone fit in whatever thing they'd find upsetting and needing to filter, and that was deliberately taken as me dismissing a very specific travesty. I encourage people to educate themselves on such things that they may need to have filtered whenever possible, but no good comes from people forcing themselves to get tragedy-jumpscared at any moment with no warning whatsoever. In my case, I oftentimes forget entirely to clear out my filters when I'm in a mindset to not need them anymore. But make no mistake, just because I need to filter something doesn't mean I don't care about said thing. In fact, I would've just kept it to Xkit filters rather than vanilla Tumblr filters, as from there I at least have the warning button to where I could open it up if I was in the proper headspace, if not for my morning phone scroll not at all being the proper headspace for me in the slightest.

Also, many instances of me venting on the "I can't curate my feed when no one wants to meet anyone halfway" issue? Not even related to something even remotely as serious as what has been claimed is the sole focus of my venting, in so far as I can recall. You wanna know some of the other things that are in my filters? The wizard school book and its author. (bad example tbh, what with the end goal of that bitch's transphobic statements/actions making it just as serious) The show about an undersea kitchen cleaning tool who wears angular clothing. The show about a hotel in hell and its spinoff and also anything its main creator has ever touched. Freaking spíders. And yet no matter how many variations of filters I apply, those too keep leaking through to me, that second one in particular due mostly to its omnipresence in meme culture and no one thinking to use fandom tags for what are considered general purpose memes. And that's not even taking into account the people who think it's even remotely okay to censor serious topics that many people need to blacklist. We've all seen and raged at the growing tendency of people "warning" for "r*pe" or "5u1c1d3" / """unaliveing""" or "dr-ug u-se" or "4l-c0-h0l" or "g*ns", after all. (for those using screenreaders who just got a blast of Absolute Audio Garbidge in their ears, those words were "rape", "suicide", a nonsense word that means nothing, "drug use", "alcohol", and "guns", and I'm sorry if those words/phrases coming at you with no warning was distressing to you)

Conclusion:

TL;DR, I used various social media's moderation features to try and hang on to the last strands of sanity I have after both my life and a far-off part of the world have been turned upside-down last year, and I was """called out""" for publicly being upset that people were actively making that more difficult. I was upset that someone (almost certainly H) sent me aggressive messages berating me for being upset, using the deaths of real innocent people as a weapon to do so. I was told the typical "curate your feed" line when the thing that I was complaining about in the first place was that I could not effectively do that. I was repeatedly attacked for daring to complain about something that was stressing me out, and my complaints were archived and posted in such a manner where they could be dissected, reinterpreted, and attacked some more with no way for me to directly defend myself because I literally could not see them until a random google fluke led me to discovering the harassment campaign that had been going on for months.

If you were hurt by my words, if the interpretation of my statements led you to consider me to be something I very much try not to be, I would not blame you. Quite frankly, you have every right to feel that way. It was very easy to see my wording as callous and cruel, even if from my perspective it was simply tactless and frustrated. I will not be deleting anything that I have said wrt circumvented filters and the messages I've received, partly because I feel it important to take accountability for when I've unknowingly upset someone and partly because I can't be assed to find all of it, especially when someone thought it was a good idea to "preserve" it without my consent anyway to make any such deletion a waste of my time. And to a specific someone, who I will refer to as A, I apologize to you in particular because I had briefly suspected you of being the person behind this. I thought you were understandably upset about everything going on (as you have more direct connections to this than anyone I know) and taking it out on me, so I’d unfollowed you with the mistaken understanding that you didn’t want me around anymore. I now have no reason to believe this was the case, and I’m sorry for ever suspecting you.

In a better world, someone who was upset by my statements would've taken the time to try and have a conversation with me about my lack of tact on the matter, an actual one-to-one conversation and not just yelling at me in my inbox, treating me like a fellow human being to be informed or convinced rather than a monster to be spat upon. But then again, in a better world, none of this would be an issue because everyone would be safe and thus there would be no death and destruction for me to desperately try to hide from. And of course, there's a possibility that maybe someone did try to talk to me in a good-faith manner, and I just never saw their attempts because I was filtering the words they were using.

I'm not asking for forgiveness, only understanding, and I hold no ill will to anyone who saw me venting about my attempts to protect myself from further heartbreak (among other less serious things) being constantly and purposefully circumvented as more than what they were.

Except for You, H.

(note: the rest of this post is referring to H and H alone, if you are not H [and you will know whether or not you are] feel free to keep reading but remember you are not the intended target of the anger contained in the ongoing text)

Yes, I'm talking to you, H, as unlike you I have no intention to "archive" your posts to harass and berate you. Because that’s what you’re doing, you’re harassing me, and that’s why I have called you H: the H is for “harasser”. I have no doubt you will be reading this post, as you're probably still "keeping tabs" on me to find more things to add to your little archive of ire, if recent developments are anything to go by. Who keeps a """receipts""" blog in 2024 anyway, let alone for something as petty as tactless takes on the internet? If I was actively contributing to those perpetuating the genocide it'd be more understandable, but to go through all this effort to smear someone who just wants to take a moment to scroll through social media without getting slapped in the face with Another Dead Fucking Body with no warning or opportunity to prepare for it? This is just cruelty for cruelty's sake, and you know this, and you don’t care.

You claimed I would make "bait posts" to try and do...something, I don't even know where you were going with that. I'll admit I don't remember much of what I wrote, and I don't have the mental fortitude to wade through your blog again to get berated from the past yet again, but the only thing I have ever wanted from you was for you to leave me the hell alone. By your logic, I suppose the Nexgard and Heartgard I give to my dog every month are meant to attract ticks rather than repel them. Or that the bug man comes once a year to line the outside of the house with a chemical that lures spíders and other pestly invertebrates into our living space. I’ve tried everything in my power to get you to go the fuck away and you refuse to leave! You refuse to get out of my life!

You all but explicitly called me a zionist for daring to want to have some peace in my life, when I have never been anything of the sort. Scroll back up if you want a refresher of my feelings on the matter, the tl;dr being that I am against ethnostates regardless of who the attempted "ethno" of that "state" is and I condemn any and all forms of genocide, religiously motivated or otherwise. But I know you won’t have bothered to absorb any of that, as you not only seem to be the premier of “piss on the poor”, but the king (gender neutral) of “I think Coolsville sucks”.

(for those who don’t know what I’m talking about, tried to find the screencaps with added context but I couldn’t so you get the clip)

You carefully made sure there was no way I would find your blog and your targeted harassment under normal circumstances--even with that one instance of you commenting directly on my post that led to me blocking you, you'd tagged all of your posts with tags you either knew or suspected I would have filtered via vanilla Tumblr so that I could not see it while logged in even if I unblocked you or told Tumblr to show me your blog despite my block, or perhaps you blocked me on that blog and Tumblr finally fixed the issue of blocked users being able to view the blogs of those that blocked them (I doubt it, given what you've been doing). Hell, I only found out about this in the first place from a mere google fluke, trying to make sure my own inattentiveness on a completely unrelated issue didn't lead to someone doing exactly what you've done on that issue and just so happening to be on an incognito window while doing so.

And don't think for a second I didn't notice all the "she"s and "her"s in your main post about me. Anyone who looks at my blog can see that I go exclusively by they/them pronouns, and I have been exclusively using they/them pronouns for years. There's literally no excuse for she/her-ing me throughout all of the insults and jabs, just the perfect slathering of piss icing on that turd cake you baked. You do know that correctly gendering people is something you need to do even if you don't respect them, yes? Like no decent trans-supporting person would call Caitlyn Jenner or Blair White by anything other than their chosen names and correct pronouns, we'd just call them awful people while still calling them women and using their current names, because that's what and who they are. It's no different here--even if you feel I've done too much wrong to be deserving of your respect as a person, that's no excuse to disrespect my identity as a nonbinary individual. My right to be correctly addressed is not conditional based on whether or not you personally like me.

But here's the kicker in this whole thing: I don't believe for a second that you actually give two shits about the plight of the Palestinian people beyond some vague sense of "clout". I can't even bring myself to call you a slacktivist, as slacktivists at least tend to spread helpful information about things they care about. I looked at your blog, its layout themed around the symbols of Palestinian liberation, and as far as I can tell it's all just window dressing. One would think you'd have links to aid for the victims, news posts, anything remotely helpful, but searching "aid" or "donate" or anything similar on your blog brings up a blank page. Hell, with the vindictive nature of your blog, you'd think you'd’ve even had posts targeting other peoples who are at best trying to get on with their lives through the 24-hour news cycle of death and destruction or at worst actively supporting the deaths of innocents. (I still wouldn't encourage such things, but it'd at least make sense given your general vibe) But no, I went through the entirety of your blog's posts and up until recently (we will get to that) it's only posts focused on me. Berating me. Taking screenshots of my posts and my tags on said posts and/or reblogs, even those that are completely unrelated to this issue which you decided to interpret in the least generous way possible, misgendering me all the while. No one else, no-thing else. Just me.

This isn't about Palestine to you, not really. Palestine is just a convenient cudgel to use in your true goal: tearing me down as some sort of personal grudge. And the worst thing is, despite recent actions all but confirming my suspicions, I can’t definitively prove who you are or why you would be motivated to do this before any of this happened, you've made damn well sure of that. There's no way that blog isn't a sideblog, it's too devoid of anything Personal not to be. And I wouldn't be surprised if every single one of the hateful anonymous asks I've ever gotten over the past few years had been sent from one person, and I believe that person is and has always been none other than you.

I would say you should be ashamed of yourself, but let's be real, someone who runs a blog dedicated to a smear campaign against one single person is almost entirely immune to the concept of shame, especially when they're so far up their own ass so as to convince themself that doing so is somehow the good and noble thing to do. Clearly someone who thinks it's in any way appropriate to tell someone, and I'm quoting mostly from memory as it's been months, "I'm sure all those dead kids are glad you're protecting your mental health" has NO sense of shame whatsoever. If I were to stoop to your level, I’d tell you that those same dead kids are probably really proud of you for harassing someone who has, at worst, made some tactless statements out of frustration. But I’m not you. Those dead kids are dead, and needlessly so. They’re not glad for my mental health (even sarcastically as you meant it) nor proud of you for harassing people online, nor are they scared or sad or angry or at peace or anything. They are dead. Murdered. And you dared to use their deaths for your own selfish purpose of furthering your pathetic grudge.

What do you even hope to gain from doing this? The knowledge that you've deeply hurt me? My complete and total isolation from anyone I care about online, perhaps culminating in my disappearance from the internet altogether? My inability to fully engage in the fandom of any media I enjoy or any multifandom art events, seeing as how you tried to attack my potential participation in Art Fight too? The ruination of my only ability to make any small semblance of an income? The right to dictate what I see and post online? A reaction of any kind? Because you've certainly gotten that last one now, if nothing else. Whatever the case, I know nothing I do will ever satisfy you or get you off my back, and you've made it so that I can't even force you out of my life--I'd already blocked the blog you were using to do this, and yet you kept stalking me to find any scrap you could use to make me look worse than what I'd ever said or believed (that's what we call "block evading", btw, and it's against tos on basically every major social media platform), and I can't figure out what Twitter account you'd been using to stalk my Twitter page since some loser who thinks he has any right to the place decided to make Twitter visible only to people who are currently logged into Twitter, meaning you have to have one too.

You don’t intend to make the world a better place by doing this, not in the slightest. No, instead you've just berated the "snowflake trigglypuff" for trying to keep their "safe space" intact, while painting that sentiment in the language of the social justice warrior you believe yourself to be rather than that of the crazy altright loser I believe (or at least hope) you'd find as repulsive as I do so that no one would clue in that that is in fact what you were doing.

And then you had the nerve to go after two of my friends, M and C. Maybe you’ve gone after more than just them, but these are the two I know of for certain. M told me directly, and I saw C’s post about getting an anon “warning” her about someone with an “anti-religion agenda”, and because I’m not a complete moron I could put two and two together because that’s the kind of bullshit religious people spread about atheists all the damn time. And while I admit I don’t see religion in the best light, I don’t have an “””agenda””” to take the comforting aspects of religion away from people. I counter the harm of genuinely dangerous beliefs and stand against fundamentalists and their goal of getting everyone to follow their exact belief system and theirs alone, but if someone donates to charity (and I mean actual charity, not just giving money to their religious organization) or gets involved in beneficial activism because that’s what their religious belief encourages, I have no problem with it. Like I’ve said numerous times, I’d take a dozen progressive theists over one asshole atheist. But more to the point, what makes you think you have the right to bring in people who have literally nothing to do with any of this? Whatever your goal was with that, it was your final mistake, because now I know exactly who you are.

This has happened before, H.

You’ve likely done this before, H, and I know someone exactly like you has.

Because this is all too reminiscent of something that went down four years ago with one of my friends during a time when they were suffering, and just as I stood by their side back then, I refuse to stand by and let you target me and my friends like that now. It saddens me that in four years time people still haven't learned to try and be better than this, and while that person was an angry teenager back then and didn’t have the tools to appropriately deal with their personal problems with others, you are presumably an adult. You need to start acting like it and find a better way to deal with your interpersonal problems, and using the pain and suffering of others is NOT the way to do it.

My problem was that I had no choice but to temporarily close off my heart in order to keep it from breaking every time I opened social media for five minutes, protecting myself from my own tendency to care too much while unintentionally making it seem like I didn't care at all. Your problem is that you used the deaths of real, innocent people to try and turn an unemployed queer nd artist into an emotionally broken persona non grata and make yourself look like a big damn hero, hiding your personal grudge under the veneer of giving a shit about people desperately hanging on through atrocities directed toward them, and also try to bring down said artist’s completely uninvolved friends in the process in order to further salt the wound. But you are no hero, nor am I a villain, and I would not be so gauche as to claim the reverse is true either. We're just a couple of randos on the internet, one who has an unhealthy level of vitriol toward the until-recently clueless other. And I have no doubt that you will not listen to a damn thing in this post, and perhaps you will purposefully twist this into some "(they) only wrote this because (they) got caught!!" nonsense or claim that I'm lying about everything in this post that doesn't 100% accept your interpretation of things since I don't remember every single thing I've ever said in any given vent post/tag ramble or I don't address every single point you made (spoiler alert, most people don't have the patience or energy to read in-depth A Wall Of Insults Based Solely On Malicious Misinterpretation, so "forgive" me for merely skimming your blog and not allowing you to take up any more of my time than you already have, except don’t because I’m not apologizing to you for having been an until-recently unaware victim of ongoing harassment), because someone like you can't stand the thought of someone you don't like learning from their mistakes and improving themself. But on the slight chance that this actually does get through to you and make you think for two goddamn seconds and realize the true nature of what you've been doing, here's my final message to you:

Get some help, H. Stop obsessing over me. Learn to try and have an actual conversation with someone you have an issue with instead of immediately going into a tirade of insults and accusations. And if you really do care about Palestine and aren't just using their hardships as an excuse to tear down someone you hate, go do something actually useful for the cause. You don't even have to publicly announce it if you don't want to, though if you had done anything useful by now you seem like the type who would absolutely shout from the rooftops about it for the internet brownie points. Just stop wasting your time with a small potato like myself and focus on the big picture.

Now then, I'm going to keep doing what I do with the addition of trying to improve myself wrt complaining about serious stuff in public like I have been, y'all can keep doing what you think is best for yourselves, and as for H...please, for your own sake if not for any other reason, channel that anger into something productive. It's what I try to do when I'm upset with something or someone, and it usually helps. Harassing randos on the internet isn't helping anyone, not even yourself.

EDIT: Altered an admittedly accusatory part to be less directly so, just on the off-chance that I am wrong about this person's identity. I'm still fairly confident, but I don't want to be THAT guy, especially with someone like the person that spurned me on to make this post in the first place. As you can understand, I was and still am very angry that I had to make this post at all, and I historically don't make very good decisions when I'm angry. Especially when my friends are roped into this.

[quietwingsinthesky]

i really do think the desire to paint ten as unambiguously The Worst™️ when it comes to his relationship with martha is out of this desire to uncomplicate their relationship. to decouple them as friends and people who profoundly impacted each other’s lives. it’s just an easier narrative to swallow: that ten was Awful to her and then martha kicked him to the curb when she realized she was too good for him. easier, maybe, then dealing with the troubles of unrequited affection don’t have to be anyone’s fault, or that ten shut martha out in a lot of ways but let her in in others that he wouldn’t let any other companion near, or that they were still friends, they still wanted to see each other and be around each other, even though it was messy and sometimes hurt. you know?

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

All I’m going to say I think now that my brain remembered part of what it was thinking is that Taylor and Joe went through a lot together (good and bad) and regardless of how it ended or what led to it they both seem to be determined to keep that private and not throw each other under the bus and in the end they’re just two very, very different people whose outlooks in the long term were just never going to align and never has that been clearer.

[tlgtw]

Man that DLC's final boss has got me feeling kinda fucked. I'm kinda depressed about it now that I'm done. Everything else is, was, so good. But I do not like that plot development. I honestly think it is bad. Why did they choose not to foreshadow this in literally any way? Why did Miquella attempt to resurrect Godwyn at all in the first place, then? Practice? Was this really what was originally planned? There's no actual evidence to the contrary so you gotta assume it must've been.

So yeowch...

[altruistic-meme]

sigh.

[runningatypufullspeed]

WOULD YOU GUYS LIKE TO SEE MY FUGLY UGLY ASS ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE X FAHRENHEIT 451 CROSSOVER DRAWING THAT I WAS FORCED TO DO FOR SCHOOL….. ITS SO UGLY AND MONTAG IS

WHITE.

AND THE HOUNDS ARE DISGUSTING THE COLORING IS SO SHITTY AND MILDRED …. Well ok she looks alright kindof but the COLORING ….. SKETCH WAS BETTER but do you guys. Do you still want to see it…….,,,,,,

ALSO NO OFFENSE TO WHITE PEOPLE PLEASE I LOVE YOU GUYS 🫶😁👍 within reason

[todayisafridaynight]

I’m fairly new to the fandom, but I do have a question if you can answer it! Why do people ship Daigo with Aoki / Masato? I tried looking to see if they’ve interacted before, but couldn’t find anything! Sorry for asking I’m just </3 dumb AND I LOVE YOUR ART OF THEM!!! Nerd looking ahhhhhh

hi ! welcome to the community i hope you're having a lovely time so far and ty for enjoyin my stuff :) no need for apologies it's a very fair question to have :]

i cant speak for everyone (all. ten people into masadai anyway) but Personally To Me i just think the idea of them together is very funny. thats quite literally it im afraid..

[koiroshiki]

nothing really sucks more than feeling like a selfish person because trying to get comfort simply feels like a selfish act .