#and the fact that you know so many people with negative experiences is a problem with sampling bias

[redheadedbrunette]

But there is concrete data. A lot of it. That's what I'm referencing. Homeschoolers have been shown time and time again to better off socially, mentally, and academically than their public school counterparts.

Anyway, I've seen some rancid takes about this topic recently so here's a reminder that the homeschooler that's socially isolated and basically in a cult and was never taught science because Jesus said no is so rare that it's functionally a myth to make people against the idea of homeschooling in theory

[blackpilljesus]

I saw this from the female separatism subreddit & the responses are some of the biggest reasons for separatism et al (or extinction if I'm being candid here). Moids cant be reformed they are fully aware of the hell they force women to live in. MaIe achievement & happiness is rooted in female exploitation & life. Their glory days are based on our horrific days. No amount of love, kindness or facts will change maIes and we cannot happily or even neutrally coexist with them.

Main points across answers:

Many want to experiment but not permanently be women

They dont want to be in constant danger or lose their autonomy at the hands of maIes for merely existing

They dont want to deal with childbirth (& periods)

They dont want to have to share spaces with species much stronger than them with ulterior motives

It makes me go crazy seeing people give moids benefit of doubt for their evil like "maIes just dont understand", "we need to teach maIes", or claiming that maIe violence is a result of maIes struggling with (expressing) their feelings. I get that women love maIes and it can be hard to imagine that people can intentionally be so evil but it is what it is. MaIes have no problems expressing themselves, abusing women is what maIes choose to do because they enjoy & benefit from it - that is their expression.

MaIes see the same news of women being abused, raped, and killed like we do except rather than be disheartened or alarmed they're either apathetic or satisfied. It isn't aliens that's committing GBV it's maIes & maIes have no problem reminding women of this when women anger them (such as rape threats & threatening women they'll end up on the news/true crime). The victim blaming, denial, and derailment of misogyny is part of the game to keep the system alive, they know the events occured & are a systemic occurence they just dont care. Hell not only do they not care, they rejoice in it or get off on it.

MaIes set up environments that work in their favour which simultaneously ensures that women will lose. They know women are set up to live in damn near impossible conditions for us. It's normalised for women to defenselessly share personal & private spaces with beings much more stronger than them with ulterior motives for us, it's trap. It's interesting how these moids aren't saying that they'll just cover up and *poof* harrassment gone, or they'll just pick a nice guy & they'll be okay. MaIes know the net negative they are towards women.

MaIes know that childbirth is a painful process & what do they do? Demand it happens and make it even MORE painful for women. MaIes that impregnate women do not love or care for them. Pregnancy itself is dangerous & sometimes lethal, often comes with a range of health issues, to cause someone to be in that condition especially in a environment where abortions are illegal is reckless & unloving. Now imagine how sinister & full of hatred one has to be to impregnate someone and abuse them on top of that. Many women risk their health & lives to reproduce with a Y and they get abused by said Y instead of being taken care of. Deranged.

Realising that maIes are aware of the evil they inflict is one of the things that radicalised me. It isn't a miscommunication or ignorance issue, their violence is intended. They want control. The cruelty is the point. Instead of wasting time & energy trying to change maIes or hope that they "understand" one day, focus on yourself & other women (who prioritise women). Moids aren't oblivious to female pain they enjoy it. A lot of women treat maIe evil like it's a mistake on maIes part but it's calculated terrorism. I know that this will go over many womens heads as they refuse to hold strong negative sentiments about moids as a collective so if you're not a woman like that, take this post as a sanity check. You aren't crazy, it isn't all in your head.

[rederiswrites]

I wrote this out for FB and then thought I might as well share it here as well. So if you have ADHD, are a late-diagnosed adult with ADHD, and most particular if you are a person with a uterus and/or have children, this one might be for you.

...

Last couple of days have been a little...weird. Let's start at the beginning. Buckle up and learn something.

As many of you already know, I have ADHD. It's a condition with a PR problem--a lot of people, often even medical professionals, have a very distorted idea of what it does, and a very limited one. For starters, it's not about parenting, or lead paint, or lack of discipline. It's genetic, *highly* heritable, starts in childhood and persists throughout life, and is a sufficiently severe disability that it comes with a decrease in life expectancy of up to 13 years. It is a visible difference that can be perceived in brain scans. These are all, at this point, well established and thoroughly attested in the scientific literature. ADHD affects up to 5% of the population and appears across cultures. It is very common.

It's not just about lack of attention--in fact, plenty of medical professionals think the name should be changed, as in fact the problem isn't the volume of attention but the way we struggle to direct it. We are motivated by interest, and struggle to properly weight future goals and consequences, specifically because they are in the future. If the robin outside the window is more immediately rewarding to our brain, we will watch that, and not the teacher. Our ability to properly weigh the consequences of that choice is negatively impacted by our own biochemistry.

We struggle with many of what are termed the "executive functions", the self management systems of the brain. Degree and presentation varies from person to person, but initiating tasks, completing tasks, staying ON task, restraining impulses, emotional regulation, and working memory are among the things impacted. My working memory is notoriously horrible. When they send you those activation codes on your phone? I often have to go back and read them out several times to enter a six digit number. I have to stop and remind myself what I'm doing between every step of my morning bathroom routine, or making tacos. Sometimes I take off my glasses to put on my contacts, reset, and reach for my pill bottles while I still can't see. My long-term memory is also affected, with my husband de facto serving as the memory-holder of the family.

Another common symptom I personally experience is "time blindness", which can mean both that you have no "internal clock" that has a clear idea of the passage of time, and that our ability to properly weight the importance of things in the future is impacted. So, for example, I can know intellectually what's coming, but it takes some really complex and exhausting antics to actually focus and work on those things if they're more than a week or sometimes even a couple days away.

Without externally imposed controls, many ADHD people flounder and fail to meet social markers of success. Estimates of how many ADHD people manage to complete college range from 5% to 15%. Again: 5% to 15%! I have failed twice myself. WITH externally imposed controls, ADHD people often have to work far harder to make their brains do what is required, and either fail and develop an image of themselves as failures (usually with plenty of external help), or keep fighting and suffer crippling burnout.

To that point, ADHD is HIGHLY comorbid with a whole range of knock-on conditions, some of which stem from the same brain patterns that give rise to the ADHD itself, and others from the trauma of living with a disability, but they include very high rates of depression, anxiety, fibromyalgia, social isolation, and addiction. I have dealt with depression, anxiety, and fibromyalgia my entire adult life. I have never ended up in the trap of self-medication but let's be real, that's partly about having supports and a healthy social environment. It's not some accomplishment I praise myself for, nor is addiction a sin I shame anyone for.

And anxiety has a very different texture to it when what you're really anxious about is the next time you fail in some catastrophic way. Lock your keys in the car. Completely space on a doctor's appointment. Go to pay for groceries and find that your wallet is next to your computer at home. Because the anxiety is not irrational fear of some generalized bad thing. These things do and will happen, regularly. Sometimes it feels like the only fix is getting good at recovering. Because no matter how many times you manage not to blow it, there's always another chance.

So, the struggle to be a reliable person, to be a consistent parent, to be a dependable life partner, is continuous. And it is so so so hard and it sometimes feels like you're not actually making any progress at all. I have tried therapy. I have tried three (or four??) different non-stimulant medications that sometimes help people. One of them DID help. ALL of them had catastrophic side effects. There were times as I was trialing these medications when I needed to be minded because I wasn't capable of taking care of anything, not even myself. Without Jacob, I don't know where I'd be. Not here. Probably in poverty, which is where he found me.

I have tried probably most organizational tools you know of. I have tried imposing schedules, all of which turned to dust and ash when the next fibromyalgia flareup or the next major life disruption happened. I don't think a new schedule has ever lasted a month before.

I HAVE felt like I'm made progress lately. I learned things that really helped my fibromyalgia, which gave me the space to work on other things--just like getting the borders of a puzzle finished. Enough things were spiraling upwards, and I think I might be cementing some gains. I have felt optimistic.

But in the meantime, I asked my doctor if, now that no less than three cardiologists have insisted my heart is Perfectly Healthy, I could finally try stimulant medications. After decades of use, Adderall, Ritalin, and a couple related stimulant drugs are still the gold standard for ADHD treatment and improve outcomes substantially for many people. And stimulants are in serious international shortage. Have been for many months. The only one she thought she could get me was Adderall. And she didn't dare try anything but the standard 30mg because nonstandard dosages would be even less attainable.

So now I'm taking Adderall. One week on 30mg, which I stopped when it was clear my function was being seriously impaired rather than improved. Reassessed with the doctor, now trying 60mg, because that's two of the pills I've already managed to obtain. It is....too much. And in some ways it fixes problems I wasn't working on, while so far making my executive function, my initiation or even *contemplation* of tasks, virtually nonexistant. Which was, of course, the thing I was trying to fix.

So yeah. When you have the context, I figure you can understand the substance of my frustration yourself. If you have children, I don't think you need my help to imagine what it would be like to know that you are unpredictable, or to see that your children are used to to you undergoing events that make you act strangely and erratically. I think just knowing that often, new medications introduce themselves by giving me a migraine, and I know this is possible when I take that first pill, is fairly self-explanatory. And so I expect you can imagine what it would be like, with all of this as a backdrop, to experience worsening of your symptoms, probably because of age-related hormonal changes. To in desperation try something you'd previously been denied. And to learn that it probably won't help.

In a week, I will either give up on Adderall for now or find a way to make it work. I'll put together the pieces yet again--at this point, possibly my strongest personal skill--and continue that upward climb as far as I can get. I'm incredibly fortunate in that regardless, I will be fed and dry and warm and loved. But right now, I feel justified in some serious dismay.

[ddarker-dreams]

mini love report — gojo satoru

relationship health diagnosis — 70%*

symptom one — permanent honeymoon phase

he's obsessed with you an (ab)normal amount and makes it everyone else's problem. satoru loves seeing how many compliments he can get in before you're swatting him away from embarrassment. he'll capture your wrist, smother your pulse in kisses, then continue his praise. it's not always suave either. he alternates between having decent game and coming off as cringe. you have no idea how he says half the things he does.

satoru gushes about you to everyone. poor ijichi, mortified higher-ups, the elderly lady sitting next to him on the train; no one is safe. his chest swells with pride every time he remembers that he managed to pull you. it doesn't matter if you're teenagers sharing your awkward first kiss or if you've been married for decades, he'll be singing your praises until the end of time.

symptom two — weirdly possessive

satoru isn't possessive in the traditional sense. when others encroach on you, what troubles him runs deeper than simple jealousy. his smile becomes strained and he physically inserts himself between you and the offending party. you're then whisked away, regardless of how rude the abrupt departure comes off. this isn't limited to instances where you're being flirted with outright.

it's actually amplified when the other person holds some unique position in your life that's exclusive to them. satoru prides himself on the fact no one knows you better than he does. so it's disconcerting when another person has access to information and memories entirely detached from him. he's overwhelmed with the urge to prove you belong to each other — no one can come close to the bond you share. this acrimony lingers even after the interaction ends.

gojo satoru is a greedy man. he might not be the type to insist you cover up if your outfit is revealing, but he does experience this antipathy toward people who fulfill a niche he can't.

symptom three — obnoxious

you deserve a reward for putting up with him honestly. he wasn't wrong when he described himself as having a terrible personality. while it's rarely malicious, he isn't the most considerate person when it comes to others. he'll speak what's on his mind without a second thought. zero filter. if you're around, he's a stunning 10% nicer so you'll chew him out less. the number could be higher but he finds that disciplinary side of you hot. this is a direct admission from him.

he likes your attention and will pursue it relentlessly. as he grows up, he slightly improves this habit. or, to be more specific, he hides it better. he feels he's way more interesting than whatever book or video game you're playing. shooing him off so you can get stuff done is a commonplace occurrence. on the upside, when trudging through chores, he helps with the passion of a thousand suns if it means having you all to himself sooner.

primary area of concern

satoru's seemingly infinite (heh) supply of pep often doubles as a shield to deflect uncomfortable emotions. he isn't one to linger on negative events, the pace in which he seemingly moves on is concerning. the innerworkings of his mind are shrouded in mystery for such an open individual. getting him to open up about his fears or past hurts is almost impossible. he won't dodge your inquiries outright, that'd prove too suspicious. he'll throw a few crumbs your way and hope that's enough to satiate your worry.

the word vulnerability isn't in his vocabulary. this isn't owed to a lack of trust on his part — if anything, the care he holds for you makes it tempting at times. however, taking that first step toward opening up is daunting. you'll have to be patient with him. if it doesn't pertain to your relationship, it's unlikely he'll have an extensive heart-to-heart about the specters haunting his mind. rather, those aforementioned crumbs become more substantial. a late-night conversation will unexpectedly veer toward a sensitive subject.

it'll be fleeting. you don't have to shower him with platitudes, simply grab his hand and squeeze. it's an unspoken message that he isn't as alone as he sometimes feels.

prognosis

gojo satoru can be too blunt, he struggles with emotional intimacy, and he's shameless in getting what he wants from you. he's a mess but he's your mess. you don't revere him like a god among men, you make him feel human. you're his best friend, his soulmate (he keeps the latter description to himself, it's one of the few sentiments that embarrasses him). he'd do absolutely anything for your sake. when you enter the room, it's like everyone else ceases to exist. he brightens up and chases after any laugh, smile, or flustered expression he can get.

he believes meeting you altered the balance of the world more than his own birth.

*the universe has tried (and failed) to wrench you apart (0-20) your friends are praying that you'll break up (21-40) 'well it could/has be worse' bargaining mindset (41-60) a lil messiness as a treat (61-80) pure and wholesome (81-10)

[drdemonprince]

The word “vanilla” comes up a lot in your writing and it’s always with negative connotations.

I fully accept that my own reactions to it are my responsibility alone and no one is making me feel a certain way. But I do wonder if there are ways to have conversations around sexuality that don’t elevate one kind of sex over another in a demeaning way that make vanilla sex almost a running joke.

As someone with pretty severe sexual trauma history for me even having enjoyable vanilla sex is pushing boundaries. To actually be able to initiate, seek out and enjoy sex of any kind has been challenging.

The increased use and acceptance of vanilla as a derogatory term is unfortunate I think as it invalidates the experiences of many sa survivors and makes it feel like sex is only valid if it’s kinky.

In saying that having lots of friends in the kink/fet scene I know they’ve fought really hard to not have their sexual preferences demonized.

So I do understand.

I just wish my preferences weren’t always made out to be boring and dull, and thereby made me boring and dull.

This seems especially prevalent in queer spaces.

I think one of the biggest problems in how people conceive of diverse sexualities is by attempting to place all sex acts upon a single spectrum from "extremely kinky" to "tame." Under this framework, activities like PIV and oral are viewed as neutral precursors to the more racier and extreme forms of sex that a person must "work themselves up" to -- and this obscures that those supposedly neutral sexual activities can be both incredibly exciting to some, and downright disturbing and traumatizing to others.

I am also harmed by this and have written about it on this blog quite a lot.

Like you, I am harmed by the presumption that PIV, fingering, and oral are neutral sexual acts that are lower on the intensity spectrum than things like being slapped or choked. I find receiving oral to be far more intense, triggering, dysphoric, and disturbing than anything in the rape play/primal/dub con/intoxication/hypnosis realm that I enjoy -- because I like and want those things, and I do not want oral.

My problem with oral isn't that it's "boring." It's that it is fucking traumatic for me.

I also find completely un-kinky sex in general to be profoundly alienating and triggering in most instances.

I am harmed by the idea that PIV and oral are more benign, neutral forms of sex, just as you are.

I need language to articulate that the sex acts that most people view as the default are in fact alienating and disturbing to me *as a sexual assault survivor*. In fact, the most common form of sexual assault that I have experienced has been people forcing non-kinky sex on me that they assumed I had to be game for, since I liked the stuff on the more "intense" side of their imagined spectrum.

The cishet, nonkinky world has already created terminology for the views around sex that create these problems, and that's "vanilla." And so I use "no vanilla" to broadcast that I want absolutely nothing to do with anyone who holds that worldview.

I don't think expressing my boundaries (which people repeatedly and forcefully attempt to trample over in all sexual spaces, including kinky ones!) is me derogating people who do not share my kinks. I don't think I'm hurting anyone by rejecting the dominant viewpoint of society. And for what it's worth, I will reiterate again, I don't think people are boring for liking non-kinky sex.

I think that we all benefit from unpacking our assumptions surrounding what sex is or can be, and for many sexual assault survivors it is immensely healing to take pre-written societal expectations surrounding sex off the table.

It's not inherently kinky to reimagine what sexual pleasure might look like, I suppose, but anyone who is doing that kind of deep reflective and interpersonal work is already taking steps to liberate themselves from the cishet power structure that gave us the notion of obligatory "vanilla" sex.

I think that instead of feeling like the term "vanilla" is a thing that you have to defend, you might be better served by simply defending your own right to define your sexuality in whatever ways you choose.

People who are having weird hypnosis fantasy sex are not sneering at you for enjoying what you enjoy. We want you to be free and at ease in your body. What we're sneering at, when we criticize "vanilla," are the dictates that a person must have sex in a certain way, that some forms of sex are more neutral than others, and that we OWE sexual partners certain activities and sexual responses.

"Vanilla" sexual values and assumptions are the enemy of all sexual assault survivors. You don't have to be interested in any remotely freaky shit in order to benefit from us all collectively destroying the notion that certain forms of sex are the default that we owe to people. We ALL benefit from being able to reject the sex acts we do not like as loudly and proudly as we want.

[folk-enjoyer]

Song of the Day

"Call of the moose" Willy Mitchell, 1980 As you might know, September 30th is Truth and Reconciliation day (more commonly known as Orange Shirt Day), a national day in Canada dedicated to spreading awareness about the legacy of Residential schools on Indigenous people. Instead of just focusing on a song, I also wanted to briefly talk about the history of the sixties scoop and its influence on Indigenous American music and activism.

The process of Residential schooling in Canada existed well before the '60s, but the new processes of the sixties scoop began in 1951. It was a process where the provincial government had the power to take Indigenous children from their homes and communities and put them into the child welfare system. Despite the closing of residential schools, more and more children were being taken away from their families and adopted into middle-class white ones.

Even though Indigenous communities only made up a tiny portion of the total population, 40-70% of the children in these programs would be Aboriginal. In total, 20,000 children would be victims of these policies through the 60s and 70s.

These adoptions would have disastrous effects on their victims. Not only were sexual and physical abuse common problems but the victims were forcibly stripped of their culture and taught to hate themselves. The community panel report on the sixties scoop writes:

"The homes in which our children are placed ranged from those of caring, well-intentioned individuals, to places of slave labour and physical, emotional and sexual abuse. The violent effects of the most negative of these homes are tragic for its victims. Even the best of these homes are not healthy places for our children. Anglo-Canadian foster parents are not culturally equipped to create an environment in which a positive Aboriginal self-image can develop. In many cases, our children are taught to demean those things about themselves that are Aboriginal. Meanwhile, they are expected to emulate normal child development by imitating the role model behavior of their Anglo-Canadian foster or adoptive parents."

and to this day indigenous children in Canada are still disproportionately represented in foster care. Despite being 5% of the Total Canadian population, Indigenous children make up 53.8% of all children in foster care.

I would like to say that the one good thing that came out of this gruesome and horrible practice of state-sponsored child relocation was that there was a birth of culture from protest music, but there wasn't. In fact, Indigenous music has a long history of being erased and whitewashed from folk history.

From Buffy Saint-Marie pretending to be Indigenous to the systematic denial of first nations people from the Canadian mainstream music scene, the talented artists of the time were forcibly erased.

Which is why this album featuring Willy Mitchell is so important.

Willy Mitchell and The Desert River Band

This Album was compiled of incredibly rare, unheard folk and rock music of North American indigenous music in the 60s-80s. It is truly, a of a kind historical artifact and a testimony to the importance of archival work to combat cultural genocide. Please give the entire thing a listen if you have time. Call of the Moose is my favorite song on the album, written and performed by Willy Mitchell in the 80s. His Most interesting song might be 'Big Policeman' though, written about his experience of getting shot in the head by the police. He talks about it here:

"He comes there and as soon as I took off running, he had my two friends right there — he could have taken them. They stopped right there on the sidewalk. They watched him shootin’ at me. He missed me twice, and when I got to the tree line, he was on the edge of the road, at the snow bank. That’s where he fell, and the gun went off. But that was it — he took the gun out. He should never have taken that gun out. I spoke to many policemen. And judges, too. I spoke with lawyers about that. They all agreed. He wasn’t supposed to touch that gun. So why did I only get five hundred dollars for that? "

These problems talked about here, forced displacement, cultural assimilation, police violence, child exploitation, and erasure of these crimes, still exist in Canada. And so long as they still exist, it is imperative to keep talking about them. Never let the settler colonial government have peace; never let anyone be comfortable not remembering the depth of exploitation.

Every Child Matters

[yanderenightmare]

Do you normally get any 'ew, you're disgusting' shit in your inbox? I just now posted my first incest fic and got one like 'i hope you don't have any siblings lalala'. Prior to that, I was like "how do these authors go untouched by antis?" but then I realised that it was a tad bit naive of me lol. I was going to respond with a taunt but decided to just delete it because it wasn't worth the effort.

Are they frequent and are they easy to ignore?

On Dealing with Haters/Critics

Good question! I was actually going to make a post on this, as others have asked me the same thing, so here we go!

♡ Personal experience!

I get my fair share of hate from time to time—more often when I publish things that are more taboo than other excepted things—for example, like you say, incest, as well as bestiality, wide age gap, born-sexy-yesterday readers, etc.

It's an odd thing, as haters will often accept the fact that I write rape for titillation but will take issue with these other tropes. But anyway, we can talk about the nonsensical opinions of haters all day, but it wouldn't really do us any good.

So, here's my advice.

♡ First off, accept that haters are gonna hate!

Some people won't like what you write. And that's fine. The problem is that they feel the need to tell you that—at which point, you'll just have to console yourself by telling yourself that no decent person would be rude to a total stranger whom they don't know the first thing about and, therefore, whatever they have to say warrants neither second thought nor reply.

With that being said, however...

♡ You gotta do what feels right!

Engage or don't engage, do what you need to feel at peace. Sure, you can be the so-called bigger man and ignore all the meanies, but you absolutely don't have to!

Of course, we can be cool as cucumbers and say, "Not worth the effort," but who are we kidding? This is Tumblr, and you're allowed to rant when you want in whatever manner you want!

So, if you feel you gotta bite back to maintain your sanity, then that's what you should!

However, I do believe there's a way to go about it!

♡ Never go to bed angry!

This is my personal advice, but if you ever choose to acknowledge hate or critique, do so with tact and with based and factual arguments instead of slinging heated insults in return.

This way, you walk away from the fight feeling good about what you've said and not worse off than before. In other words, don't stoop down to their level.

I actually feel in many ways that answering hate can be rather therapeutic this way, as you've succesfully turned something negative into soemthing positive!

♡ The difference between hate and critique!

Actually doesn't matter. You're not really obligated to answer either if you don't want to.

But for the sake of differentiating the two: "Ew, you're disgusting" is hateful slander, but "Incest is wrong, and you're actively condoning it by writing what you write" is a genuine critique.

And it bears repeating, you don't have to address either because you don't owe anyone anything.

People are entiteld to their opnions just as much as you're free to disagree, and ignore if you want!

But something I've found is that explaining it to those who don't understand why we write such things, and furthermore why people want to read it without being interested in such things in real life, is actually quite a rewarding thing to do!

And by that, I mean it might make your critics and haters understand and rethink their comments, but it can also help your existing fans deal with their own similar self-loathing, and lastly, it's even great for your own mental health for when you yourself doubt your own mental standing!

Personally, in regard to the example I used above, when I get hit with the "you're condoning this and that" I just play the argument that those who play violent videogames aren't condoning the killing carried out by their avatar. Naturally, when roleplaying a fictional version of ourselves, we're not actually playing as ourselves.

Some people have a very hard time understanding this for some reason.

But anyway, moving on.

♡ Final advice!

Ignore and delete any and all the dumb, off-handed comments you feel like. If and when you want, return their rudeness with a cheeky smile and a slap on their ass. Be as cordial as you can be but as sassy as you feel you must—like an aged Queen who drinks her fair share of likewise wine.

But whatever you do, don't ever make things personal!

Though that's also my personal advice. I think, by making personal attacks, you're not being factual anymore, and you'll only feel worse for it. And by personal attacks, I mean calling people ignorant, dumb, awful, etc. You can, of course, say that their chosen words were in ill taste, but going after them themselves won't make you feel better. So, I'd suggest avoiding it.

Anyway, hope this helps!

[m1ssunderstanding]

If Paul can't be who he is, or talk to people, keeping it in him who's to blame for this. If he has problems he doesn"t talk about or we older fans see him the way we do, whom is he hiding from? Is it really fare to blame his fans for thinking like he's happy and got it together. Do the younger generation see things differently? I care and adore Paul and don't want to think he isn't. Is that it? Or do we need to feel he's lying and all pr I know pretty much everything public about Paul. I dont mean to be rude or disagree with you. I enjoy seeing new fans and sees him from your pov but I wanna know what you think what he feels he can't share.

Hi! Okay, let's break this down.

Question one: Who is to blame for Paul not being more open about his private life?

Jim McCartney. Next question. No, it's a lot more complicated than that. Besides it being just a natural part of his personality, the foundation of this trait was formed through the whole context of his upbringing which laid the groundwork for how Paul would react to fame, as opposed to the other three. Then, because he was already set up to do so, fame and its side-affects and consequences made Paul double down on closing up. Then during the breakup, John's diarrhea of the mouth syndrome and Linda's encouraging Paul to lean into his home life and let his public life be, put Paul further into a pattern of craving privacy.

Question two: Is it fair to blame older fans for taking Paul's public self as his private self?

Firstly, I don't see the point in talking about blame in the first place. A) being a private person, putting on a face in public, is neither bad nor uncommon. (Maybe nobody really does it to the degree Paul does it. Maybe it does have some negative outcomes and does point to a lack of self-assurance and a strong tendency to emotional avoidance) but to some degree, Paul's cagey and fake public self is normal and healthy. B) blame is the least interesting mystery here.

Secondly, no one is trying to blame older fans for Paul's behavior. What I personally am frustrated with is what such a large group of people taking the surface as the entire ocean does to Paul's character as a historical figure and to the Beatles narrative as a whole. However, this large group is certainly not limited to older fans, nor does it contain all the older fans. Additionally, people can do, think, and say what they want. It's not some pressing humanitarian concern if people misunderstand Paul McCartney and the Beatles. It does seem to indicate and contribute to a large-scale cultural deficiency which may negatively impact more important social issues, but it is certainly far from a life and death situation.

Question three: Does the younger generation see things differently?

I'd actually never thought of these views in terms of generations, but yes, I guess many younger fans do look beyond the surface more than many older fans do.

Question four: Do we need to assume Paul is lying and all PR?

Again. Nobody needs to do anything. Do what you want. But. If you are looking to gain a more serious understanding of one of the most influential people of the twentieth century, then I suggest you don't take every word from his mouth as one-hundred-percent truthful as you should with anyone. This is absolutely not to say Paul is a liar and only cares about looking good to the public for business reasons. In fact, I believe if he was completely open about a lot of the things he guards against fully sharing, he would come off a lot better.

My personal rules of thumb with the Beatles are these: 1. John (and to a lesser extent George) often speaks from a place of strong emotion and uses talking about his experiences and feelings to regulate and soothe. Therefore, his statements are often extreme and often emphasize the negative. Paul (and to a lesser extent Ringo) cannot express strong emotion and fears talking about his experiences and feelings without disguising them or softening them. Therefore, his statements are often evasive and often emphasize the positive. If John says "I was going through murder," he means, "my mental health struggles were particularly difficult at that time even with all the good things I had going for me." If Paul says, "but it wasn't all, you know, great," he means, "Despite what I've made it seem like, that period of my life was not even safe, let alone perfect." 2. Take into account the culture these men were raised in and the attitude that culture would've pushed on them about certain topics. None of them are going to be particularly open about anything they would've been in any way punished for during the bulk of their life experience.

Question five: What do you think Paul feels he can't share?

If you were internationally famous, would you share absolutely everything about your personal life, innermost thoughts, politics, desires, regrets, hurts, and loves? I don't think so. Now, imagine you had most of your ability to be emotionally vulnerable beaten out of you as a child, you and your three best friends experienced death threats and permanent career damage due to one seemingly innocuous comment, and the person you trusted most in the world turned on a dime and exploited all your insecurities and the entire world followed suit for decades. I imagine there would be galaxies filled with all the things you feel you can't share and that you would use whatever protective measures necessary to keep yourself sane.

[genericpuff]

So, I want to confess something. I believe I speak for everyone when I say that the SA in LO is not only poorly written but very mishandled and was unnecessary. I want to point out I am not a SA victim, so I can not say with experience how well the deception was. Though I do know people in real life that were victims, I also don’t want to disclose their stories either. But, here’s the thing. I personally don’t mind SA in the media, if it is handled with care and they portray it as a serious issue!

The problem I have with most media is that shows and stories will either use SA as A. A plot device for romance development. B. Shock value or C. A joke. So many media I’ve watched use SA as any of the three categories (13 Reasons Why and content from Vivziepop being a few that I can think of off the top of my head). The only show I can think of that actually portrays SA seriously and shows real life impact is Tuca and Bride. I also think it’s pretty hypocritical that the media will use SA as long as they fall into any of the three categories, but when you want to show the negative effects of it like in Moral Orel, suddenly you get canceled! Again, Hypocrites! I also don’t think first time writers should write this kind of stuff, and Rachel is no exception. You can tell she didn’t know what she was doing, based on how little importance the SA has on the plot or how it falls into said categories as well. (and the rumors that she didn’t even know it was SA doesn’t help).

Now, that being said I don’t think a SA plot line was a bad idea for this kind of story. Again, the original myth was “The abduction of Persephone” and in some versions, Hades did force himself onto Persephone. And considering Ancient Greece was rife with many stories of such heavy topics, I can see why they would include that. My personal issue with LO’s SA plotline… is Apollo! First of all, while Apollo may have had some questionable relationships in his myths, he never really forced himself on anyone. In fact, the most famous story of him chasing Daphne was only because he was under the influence of Eros, meaning Apollo had no agency in loving Daphne. Second, Apollo had nothing to do with Persephone. They never interacted in any myths. Sure, there was one myth where Apollo asked Demeter for her daughter’s hand and Demeter rejected, but that’s it. The two never had any relationship. So it makes the plot line even more convoluted because of their lack of historical and mythical connection. Though, I do admit I kind of like Apollo and Persephone as a couple (In Rekindled not Lore Olympus), but I know they don’t get together.

Honestly, if Rachel really wanted to do a SA story that would prop up Hades without demonizing anyone, she could have done that! By making Persephone’s assaulter be Zeus instead of Apollo! Hear me out, in some stories, Zeus actually disguised himself as Hades and slept with Persephone, thus it resulted in Zagerus. So, it is canon in a sense that Zeus did SA Persephone. Not only that, but given he had a role to play in the “Abduction of Persephone” where he sold his daughter off to Hades, this makes him even more impactful to the story. He could be the villain instead of Demeter, who wants to use Persephone. And considering Zeus’s love affairs and his god complex (no pun intended) he would believe he was entitled to Persephone and would want to have her as a secret concubine.

Maybe Zeus would be able to learn more about Persephone through Hera and he would decide to set his sights on her. He could try and get closer to her as she is naive and never met the King of Gods, and would use her trust to pounce on her (Because in SA cases, your attacker is more likely to be someone close to you rather than a stranger.) And maybe Zeus would blackmail Persephone so she would have to keep seeing him or else get kicked out of school and be a disgrace to her mother. Then, you could have Hades find out and he would rage against Zeus. Maybe Hades would get Demeter involved and they would team up to punish the King all for the sake of protecting Persephone. Hades would suggest making Persephone his queen for protection, and Demeter would make the world grow cold unless Zeus complies, thus explaining Winter. Zeus would agree to give Persephone to Hades, and she will be under Hades’s protection. But Persephone would still want to be with her mother, so Demeter and Hades make custody arrangements.

Bam! A SA plot line that A. Actually adds to the story and raises stakes. B. Makes a terrifying but complex villain for the story that we all can hate without assassinating his character. C. Have Hades and Demeter come out on top. D. Be historical and mythologically accurate. (I’m also not saying that I wanted SA in LO or LR, nor do I think this version would have made it better, but I personally believe this plot line makes way more sense than: Apollo meeting Persephone in one day and SA her in her sleep.)

I agree with a lot of this, thank you for sharing!! (sorry this is a late response, I didn't want this big analysis to go to waste fdjasklfdsajlk)

But yeah, in essence / on paper the SA plotline in LO would have been fine, especially considering SA is present in just about every Greek myth story, but I don't think Rachel was really cut out to tackle that subject yet, mostly as a writer as all of her writing is very baseless and doesn't have the necessary planning, research, and direction required to depict a subject like that. It takes a lot of sensitivity, self-awareness, and self control, none of which LO has as a narrative or Rachel as a writer.

IMO Apollo being the god of the sun made for a great springboard for him to be like, this self-centered god who was so delusional in his own ego that he couldn't believe Persephone wouldn't want him, that alone was enough to make him out to be a great villain - even with the use of SA, where he couldn't take no for an answer - but then we had to get into the whole "Apollo is gonna use Persephone to overthrow Zeus" crap and it all fell apart from there. Not to mention the story could never decide if Apollo was some nefarious puppet master or just a delusional dumbass, so all the flip-flopping on his motivations led to him becoming a very weak villain.

That said, I will cut her some slack for not having Zeus assault her. Because while it's more accurate to the myths (and character accurate) the story could barely handle Apollo and he's the canon Good Boytm in the myths, imagine it trying to handle an actual serial assaulter?

But that's not me saying it's necessarily a bad idea. I just don't think LO would be able to handle it with Rachel at the helm lol

[centrally-unplanned]

I might be a bit of a weirdo in this regard so I am a bit biased, but I think a fundamental problem AI Companion Apps like lets say Friend.com are going to have in "replacing socializing" is that socialization is instrumental and that instrumentality lies in the real. The ad copy for this product and so many of its various clones is a normal-looking everyman just chatting with their companion, making comments about the weather or how their hiking is going, etc. Treating it like a friend and talking to it like a friend does.

The rub there is that not many people do those behaviors for the reasons presented. They are treated as somehow "inherently" enjoyable, that you just love talking to ~something~ about the weather and anything that can pantomime the right responses is going to do it for you. That isn't how it works for most people; the point is the other person. The words themselves, divorced from the speaker being a breathing human you have a relationship with, are not very interesting. Instead it is about building rapport, signalling care, a human-connected daily ritual. Sometimes it is positive, but it is negative sometimes too! You put up with Kyle's 18th story about his dog's health woes because, look, it's boring as shit, but Kyle needs to rant about it and if this is the price of admission to his amazing saturday brunch parties you are going to pay up.

Even interesting-in-their-own-right convos are normally not like wow, you taught me some amazing new fact; it is hearing your friend's interesting take or experiences. There is this whole structural undercurrent here, this person is admirable or kind or you have a lot of history with them or they are really hot and so their words are contextualized into an emotional experience of connection or curiosity or wanting to impress them and a million other things around that structure.

When you shed all of that, when it is an AI that you know is just programmed to listen, that you can turn off at will, that you can just override and ask it for directions or to switch over to spotify or to sext you catgirl pics, there isn't anything left. These conversations are useless - what is the point? Why would I tell my phone how tired I am? Those are empty words, I am immediately bored and will flip over to YouTube instead.

Obviously there are niche applications. Porn and its adjacencies of course, where the fiction is the point. Specifics like a daily journal that interacts with you a bit? Sure, that would work for some. One-offs and curiosities of course, "Siri+" because that is a functional tool. But none of these are the same thing.

Now there are already, and have been for years, successful apps like Replika or Character.AI. The people on those clearly seem to enjoy talking to a digital friend, right? And I agree with you, humans are diverse, for some people this stuff works. Now for many, even possibly the majority depending on how you count it, these things are just the above categories though; a porn bot, a curiosity, a "man look how far AI has come" exploration. But I agree there are users who truly treat these tools as their friend or partner

And I have looked at the conversations those people have with their friend or partner. And...look. These tools suck. They do not, in any way, believably mimic a human conversation. By design they do not, endlessly accommodating and affirming, with shallow personalities and infinite flexibility. They are not friends, they are boxes to stuff inputs into and get validations out of, no human conversation works this way. Some people want that, no worries. Some people need that, maybe, I get it. But most people don't. These conversations would, if treated as an actual companion to most people, be incredibly cringe. They are not a sign that AI friends for everyone are right around the corner, if only we boost the specs. They are a niche product for a certain kind of person that does not mass scale at all.

You can sell people the "illusion" of a friend, even a nearly perfect one, and it might sell - as the stage show it is. Like a video game, something you explore, experience, and discard. Because it's not a person; I can just drop it if I want and it won't feel anything. That is what makes it an illusion and not magic; it is a trick that I see through over time. And making whatever implementation of Claude your little bluetooth-on-a-necklace runs have 10% higher fidelity or "able to pass the Turing Test" isn't going to change that. Maybe it will work as a product - video games sell after all. But it won't be a social revolution.

Then again these Friend.com guys apparently spent 2/3rds of their seed money on buying the web domain for Friend so they might have other problems to worry about.

[mdhwrites]

Recently, I've been poring over the 'TOH critical' tags and, as someone who wanted to properly watch the show, seeing just how many flaws the writing and characters have kinda turned me off from even starting for a bit. Before I found these tags, I would have assumed Owl House was some kind of flawless untouchable masterpiece. Now, I can see that it is immensely flawed. Not bad, but flawed. It has great ideas that it just spaffs up the walls. In some cases that I've seen, it goes against its own message, which brings me to the point of this.

The show seems to have a message of 'be a weirdo! Be who you want to be and don't let anyone tell you to be something you're not'. This 'be yourself' message is fine in a vacuum, but then there's a character who's treatment in the show goes against this. Hooty! From the moment he's introduced, Hooty is presented as a weird creature. Even other people in the Demon Realm find him unnatural. He's kinda in his own world, and he says and does things that are weird. This would work well for the message, but the problem arises from other characters' treatment of him.

Everyone fucking HATES Hooty! They loathe him! They call him names, they hit him, they put him down constantly, the works! Everyone holds him in open contempt! I wouldn't really have an issue with this at first, but Luz also takes part in some of these actions. It would be one thing for negative/antagonistic characters to be doing this, but the self-proclaimed 'weirdo' main characters? She seems annoyed by Hooty's very existence. Don't get me wrong, he IS annoying, but he's also just being himself. He's a proud weirdo and doesn't let anyone stop him from being who he wants.

Why doesn't Luz love him?

He is exactly the type of person(?) who she should feel connected with. And the fact she joins in on some of the bullying is real shitty. Keep in mind Luz was ridiculed and ostracised for being weird, so her then turning around and being all dismissive and annoyed by someone who is, for all intents and purposes, just like her is shitty.

Personally, I would have had it that Luz really likes Hooty. She admires how he's so unapologetic in his weirdness. You could even still have Eda hitting him and calling him names, which Luz calls out. She knows what it's like to be put down for just being yourself, and she's not gonna stand to see someone else get the same treatment.

Or, another idea, Luz starts out sharing Eda's view on Hooty and being annoyed by him. One time, he does something or shows Luz something he's proud of. She calls him or it or both stupid, and Hooty just....cries. I don't mean overblown waterfalls-out-the-eyes crying, I mean he turns his head down and looks visibly upset.

Luz sees that her words have genuinely hurt Hooty. This could be her realising that Hooty isn't just some weird talking punching bag to hurl abuse at. For his weird actions and appearance, he's a person too. Her being mean to him just for being himself, she realises, makes her no better than her bullies.

Then, to make this even more shitty, the characters DO start being nicer to him later on, but only after he's proven himself useful. So that's a good message, isn't it? 'Love is conditional!' It really makes the 'found family' aspect of the Owl House residents feel all the more forced.

Tl;Dr It's okay to be a weirdo, unless you're Hooty!

(But that's just me! I hope all of this made sense and you can decipher what I'm trying to say😊)

So the short answer to this is that Hooty is essentially character/thematic assassination on... Everyone? Because the show wants to say "Be who you are! Have freedom! Express yourself!" Hooty however is constantly mocked, belittled and literally hurt by others with at best an apology. People treat his portable form as gross despite that letting him experience more of life and the one time people begrudgingly acknowledge he is truly good, they then force him to promise to not repeat the helpful behavior. He is not allowed freedom, expression or to be himself without ridicule, EVEN BY LUZ.

This... However has a bigger problem. Hooty is a bit character after all. If you want to claim he doesn't matter because he's just a joke... There's okay precedent for it. The problem is that then you have to ask what he's mocking. After all, gag characters are all about mocking a certain archtype or the like. King's whole point is to mock children who think themselves as self important and point out how deluded and funny that is, or how funny a deluded sense of self grandeur in general is, at least in the first season. As such... What is Hooty?

Hooty is Sheldon. Not literally but spiritually and this is gonna get kind of rough but here me out. For those who don't get the reference, Sheldon is the main autistic representation in The Big Bang Theory. He is also the most antagonistic force within the friend group. Not because he's evil or anything but because he his own certain ways of doing things and ways he looks at things and as such actually has a lot of episodes about expanding his perception of the world and of others learning to understand who he is and why he is the way he is. The show is actually shockingly respectful in this way, at least most of what I have seen of it, and I can portray this with the best joke I can recall from the series. It also will help me later in why The Big Bang Theory is better than TOH at one certain element people REALLY want to say TOH is great about.

The setup is that the other three main dudes are at a white board, discussing plans to go so see a movie. Every plan they devise runs into a road block because of allergies, time, etc. like that, not even only just because of Sheldon's quirks. However, then the lead, the Ross of the group, stops and goes, "I see it." The others squint and look closer before he adds, "It's the only way." The other two agree... And then they all just leave without Sheldon coming with. Sheldon pauses, looks at the board and goes, "They're correct. It was the only way."

I LOVE this joke... Because it's not mean AT ALL. One might think if they're overly sensitive that it is. I mean, how could they leave their friend behind!? But Sheldon is very honest and up front about his quirks and habits. These guys know him well enough that they know better than to force him out of his comfort zone. That he doesn't function that way. Sheldon KNOWS THIS TOO. As such, when presented with the options of telling Sheldon they can't go because they can't go without him or still having a good night and not making their friend feel bad for being why they couldn't go out, they choose to go out and Sheldon agrees that it was the correct option. They respected him while still living their lives.

And this is because The Big Bang Theory's pitch is not to be offensive to nerds like many online people like to make it out to be (I fucking hate people who call it 'Nerd Black Face') but to just make fun of us like any sitcom would. Sitcoms are parodies of real life. They always exaggerated characters we know are somewhat true. We know a Kramer, we know a Ross, we know a Barney, we know a Lorraine. Are they exactly like this? No, it's cranked up so that it's a comedy, that's the fucking point. But this comedic framing also allows it to be honest about ALL sides of nerd dom.

Sheldon is BY FAR made out to be the most successful, intelligent and wealthiest of ALL the guys. Also, all the guys are doing well in their fields and monetarily. Do they have widespread fame and acclaim? Not really but they're not discredited or anything, they just have interdepartmental bickering. That's accurate from literally every scientist I have seen talk about the subject. It's genuine about the good and the bad of the nerd experience while being entertaining.

So what the fuck does any of this have to do with The Owl House? And especially Hooty? It's actually quite simple. While TOH champions having a nerd protagonist, it presents the 'gentrified nerd'. The convenient nerd. They know about fanfiction but won't force you to actually hear about it. They have interests but not hyperfixations. They don't ever get lost down a rabbit hole because they're passionate about something or just want to tell you a neat fact.

Do you know who does though? Hooty. Hooty just wants someone who is willing to listen about his day. He has some weird quirks to how he behaves and he likes some strange things like bugs. He will talk to you for hours on a subject, randomly and just because he can and might forget that you might have other things to do. To me, those are very, VERY accurate parts of nerd life... And we're supposed to fucking HATE Hooty for these things. Remember the only person, in the ENTIRE SERIES to actually befriend Hooty instead of treating him at best as a convenience is Liltih... At the start of her becoming a joke. The only person who shows him real, genuine compassion... Also becomes 'The Cool Aunt' who hyper fixates on niche architecture and has her trauma of working the EC mocked as just being really bad at her job.

It is, genuinely, kind of gross to me. I've actually talked about this before that the show is so hyperfocused on a very specific, very small set of people for who it approves of, which is essentially whoever fits into Luz correctly, that anyone who felt excluded by the show is extremely valid. And yes, Luz has a montage at the start of silly, over the top and extreme behavior... That doesn't continue. At all. The one time she subjects someone to an Azura rant is to torture Eda enough to go to the Convention and that's only because they were already on the subject because King was interested. She quotes Azura but quickly and doesn't lose the thread. She might say a cute word like 'Snorses' but not even enough to make a break in the conversation.

She is convenient. Gus is only interested in human stuff when it's convenient. Willow will put aside her interest in plants when it's inconvenient. Amity just stops giving a shit about being an intellectual AT ALL post her getting a crush. Hunter wears a wolf t-shirt and gets into Cosmic Frontier enough to cosplay it for Halloween... But only Halloween. These are people who are extremely socially acceptable in every way.

Which... explains why nerds love them actually. See, I think Big Bang Theory does deserve criticism, it is by no means perfect and I would be VERY interested in hearing what the Jewish community thinks of Howard who is easily the most problematic character in the show but not all of the criticism is genuine. I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that we're used to a side, gag character representing the kind worst parts of us... But we're not used to being the focus. We can laugh at all the broke bitches who show up in Sitcoms or the jock failures who are meatheads, etc. like that... But laugh at ourselves? Why would we do that? Why would we allow that? We're better than what this show depicts, even if we're not.

It is inconvenient to the narrative we wish to tell ourselves that we are still the outcasts. That are we not part of the dominant culture and so it is unfair to mock our interests and lifestyle. But like... Marvel movies have been the biggest blockbusters for well over a decade and no one bats a fucking at that. D&D is quickly becoming a household name due to its ever expanding influence. We are not the outcasts anymore. Being into a weird cartoon is not some shocking thing like it was 12 years ago when Bronies first made people aware that this subculture of nerds existed. Times are changing but we still wish to see ourselves as only the victims, even as more and more our spaces show that they are just as evil, corrupt, manipulative and cruel as any athletic superstar or pretty boy actor's club.

A lot of these nerds want to believe they are Luz. Never wrong, never giving anyone a reason to dislike them, and always just passionate about the things they like, never annoying. And you know who those people would mock? Who those people HAVE mocked?

Hooty. Because he's more real. He's the demon they wish they didn't have to face in the mirror. See you next tale.

======+++++======

I really do want to re-emphasize this: FUCK HOWARD. Big Bang is NOT good for the jewish community and I don't think if I watched it nowadays I would be able to tolerate his depiction AT ALL. Also, Raj is also probably all sorts of rough too. I'm ONLY defending the nerd portrayal part of Big Bang.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[batboyblog]

Interesting thing to consider regarding our situation from Magdi Jacobs. She’s been fairly levelheaded so far about all this. The Pandemic really did change us all and how we perceive things.

The constant stressful vigilance we all needed during the pandemic is still in effect from that era, and that’s why there’s such a disconnect between what we see and feel as true:

https://x.com/magi_jay/status/1812531377184653581?s=46&t=9ilK5pqP73XDblTtTbb4Qg

I don't disagree with her, and I know for a fact she also agrees with what I have to say here:

Covid is part of it, maybe it is its own thing, maybe it super charged something that had been happening in slow-mo before

but I think algorithmic social media is breaking all our brains and Covid locked SO many of us inside with it for a year and a half or so where our only "human" contact was through social media and that was NOT helpful

There's lots of studies about social media and anxiety and depression, we know algorithms intentionally put stories/posts that upset you into your feed, we know that social media causes negative polarization.

speaking just of my own experience on twitter over the last two weeks it really challenges your sense of reality, twitter very quickly forms a group think about a current event and it becomes overwhelming, also it destroys any sense of time and prospective, so nothing is allowed to just be bad it has to be THE WORST THING EVER! and from the debate and now Trump's fist pump after getting shot at everything is NOW! the election is not 4 months away with all the events that will take over the news, people are voting just this second and only based on this news story rn! AAHHHH!!! !

by its short form nature twitter makes it feel as if people are having a conversation with you, but your ability to reply and question their statements is limited and I think that makes for extreme anxiety if the group think challenges your understanding of events/reality. So Joe Biden had a bad debate night, sounded bad, looked bad, he was a sick, jet lagged, overworked, old man and looked and sounded like all of that. Oh well, but the group think quickly shifted to "this is the worst thing ever, he clearly has dementia!" and you were bombarded by that over and over, in more and more shrill and condescending tones. And it became very stress inducing because people were seeing something you didn't see and insisting "don't believe your eyes and ears! believe my hot takes!" and you felt like you were losing your mind.

This is one current event but this happens on social media all the time, twitter is bad, TikTok is worse.

I also think for "younger" (under 40?) people raised on reality TV, and more so instagram, Facebook, now TikTok picture and video based social media there's a, life as reality TV show quality, an unspoken performance and need to make our lives seem perfect for an unseen (and not real) audience, and also to be seen as having the right views, but living in quick sand where liking or using anything could become a problem at any point and having to keep up endlessly. I also think this is intensely anxiety producing and also just debilitating, I don't think you can DO anything good in the world with that mindset

final thought: I've said for awhile I think why you see so many people declaring the economy is bad, regularly saying its historically, Great Depression levels bad, when it is in fact really good, as near to full employment as we've ever had lots of great economic indicators is left over Covid trauma.

We all went through a scary, sad, upsetting time in our lives. But because we ALL did if nothing happened to you particularly, you didn't get hospitalized, don't have long Covid, no one you're close with died and you couldn't be there for them, it might feel like "nothing" happened. So people are reaching for a "logical" reason for that edgy, sad, nervous, upset, unhappy feeling they can't get rid of. Normally that comes from economic anxiety, fear of not having enough money, or losing a job etc. So many people are reporting that they think the national economy is terrible while saying they think they themselves are doing well, that their local or state economy (that they see an interact with) is doing good, while the nation is doing bad, somehow. People are spending like they're doing well as well, never had it so good, never felt so bad.

I suspect its because we're all still dealing with Covid feelings, and thanks to social media, the death of common spaces, political radicalization, we never really came together and drew a line under Covid, it just kinda sputtered out and we slowly went back to our lives like nothing happened.

[holybibly]

Hey girl, some dumb miserable bitch decided to make a hate spreadsheet! and you're on it.. just felt like you should know..

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18bI1CPNpx3vncNjfL-FsKqdV-VBXFZNGbseii8sjJ_Y/edit?usp=sharing

Hi bunny, thanks for letting me know. What a nice start to my vacation 🤭

It's actually quite interesting, don't you think, bunnies?

Of course, I am so pleased that they think so highly of me and consider me a sort of "cult leader." You know, before, this would have caused me another emotional breakdown, and I'm sure I would have thought about it for quite a long time. But now I've grown out of it.

I think we are all adults here, and we can make our own decisions. No matter how sweet and kind I would be to you or anyone else, there will always be people who will think I am the most horrible person on the planet and quite rude, which really surprises me because they probably don't even know who I am.

The fact that my opinion does not agree with others is not my problem; I can express my thoughts and will always focus on the fact that "my personal opinion" is something you can agree or disagree with; it is your personal choice.

I also think that people who do this are a real problem in the community, and that's probably why I've switched fandoms. Unfounded hatred is the reason many authors stop writing and retreat into themselves. You want to start a witch hunt? Come and say it to my face, if you're not afraid, of course.

Besides, only my followers can decide whether I treat them rudely, arrogantly, or as my subjects. You see, writers are people too, and for me, for example, it would be easier to delete the blog and disappear completely than to put up with such crap. I'm too old for that.

I would advise anyone making such lists to read more books and experience the beauty of the world around them rather than creating negativity in an already unfriendly world.

[sweetycupcakeslove]

⭐ Astrology observation 3 ⭐

Hi, I'm once again after a long time I came up with an observation. And please take it as a grain of salt as I'm not a professional astrologer as such. These are my opinions just by observing people around me. It might be true in someone's case and it might not be true in someone else's case.

💫 People shouldn't hate a sign just because they had a experience with them. Because a birth chart consists of different aspects and house placements. A leo stellium in 5th house placements and a leo stellium in 12th house will have different personalities. Yes, you can find something common but not all.

💫 Like damn, a person with Virgo stellium will also have to give a opinion even though you don't ask for.

💫 Aquarius placements loves compliments so much. Just go towards them and say that I didn't have a good opinion of you before and they will go in-depth with you why you didn't have a good opinion about them.

💫 And also having heavy Aquarius placements can make one can have god complex.

💫 Cancer rising are easy to spot because they have this cute and round face structure. In fact, cancer rising men also have round face structure. Two of my male friends also have a round face structure.

💫 Wherever your saturn is in your birth chart, you have to work hard there and you'll also notice that at start you've ignored your saturn house and once you start taking it seriously you have found changes in your life. E.g. If you have Saturn in the 1st house, whenever you start a new job, new school or college at start others were looking down upon you and after you put effort in yourself they started relying upon you or you became their role model. Another example, if you have Saturn in the 4th house then your family didn't take you seriously, they didn't have a good opinion about you or they don't know about you much. But once you start putting effort there, it was easy to get along with them.

💫 Leo in top 6 and you naturally attract attention. I have seen many leo placements they don't even do much but still they get attention from others. Maybe the sun is the ruler of the sign that's why.

💫 Having too many Scorpio placements can make them difficult for themselves and others too. I have a friend who is a Scorpio stellium and damn the kind of anxiety she has. It's like she thinks everyone is out there to get her. Thus she breaks friendship on her assumptions.

💫 Scorpio sun men are the worst men to have in your life. They will stab you in the back. But if they have other placements that say otherwise.

💫 Sagittarius placements 🤝 not standing in one place.

💫 Having too many negative aspects to the sun can also mean that you have problems related to your ego. It doesn't always mean that you had a bad father figure. Or it could also mean that male figures are the problems in your life.

💫 Same as sun, mother isn't the problem always when there too many negative aspects towards your moon. It can sometimes mean that you have problems related to your emotions or else other female figures in your life will be the problem.

[maxdibert]

Actually yes if you'd call someone a misogynistic slur, even while experiencing trauma, you would be misogynistic. Because that comes from your subconcious. Severus was a victim and the reason he joined the death eaters was due to his social and economic victimization, however he was not a complete mindless idiot who didn't understand anything. He was clearly anti muggle (and although yes his prejudice was influenced by his horrible father and home he still encountered normal muggles so he didn't only have negative experiences with muggles, he could clearly see that some of them are not violent. He was an intelligent man I believe his brain could work this out.) And even when he's a big victim it doesn't mean he is entirely blameless of his words and actions and what they say about his morals. Him calling Lily a mudblood is a clear indication that he doesn't view muggleborns the same way he does other wizards and has clear prejudice. He did not only use that word once but many times - according to Lily. I'm not denying your other claims, you just seem to talk about Severus as if he wasn't an asshole who held bad views, because he was victimized. Do you think he was a good person in a bad situation? Not at all. It is fine to criticize his actions and morals while still taking into consideration that he was a victim and a lot of his decisions were a result of that.

I don't see it that way, but this is a matter of perspective. I might have internalized misogyny or internalized racism, but literally everyone has this, absolutely everyone. It's not the same as, at some point, saying a misogynistic slur to a friend in a moment when I'm about to lose my mind, versus constantly doing it. There's a difference between having a generalized attitude and letting something slip at a specific moment. And if we’re going to start categorizing people or characters based on something they say at a particular moment, then I’m sorry, but we should accuse everyone because there’s no one, absolutely no one in this society, who, even if they are very conscious and deconstructed, hasn’t made problematic comments or used harmful adjectives at some point.

I don’t deny that Severus had prejudices against Muggles, but his prejudices stem from a completely different basis than the prejudices Lucius, for example, might have had. Severus’ prejudices come from his own negative experiences with Muggles, from the fact that the Muggles he’s known were literally awful. Is it wrong for him to have prejudices against an entire population because of that? Yes, but it’s also understandable that he has them. I mean, I spend my life insulting cis-hetero men because they’re the types I have sex-affective relationships with, and I’ve had countless bad experiences with them. Could I be labeled as misandrist? Probably. Am I a bad person? I don’t think so. The problem with these issues is that people tend to see things in black and white, but real life is very diverse. You shouldn’t focus on the tree but on the forest. But well, that’s just my personal opinion.

Deep down, I’m very critical of Snape, even though it might not seem like it. What I don’t like is when people make arguments without considering the context and criminalize him without exploring the reasons for his actions. Was it wrong for him to call Lily a Mudblood? Yes, but we must take into account the context of when he did it, and the fact that it was an isolated incident, not a constant. It’s likely that what he wanted was to hurt her, just like when I call my friend a slut, and sometimes you say things to people because you know it will hurt them, not because you genuinely think that way. Anyway, I would be more critical if it were someone else, but in Lily’s case, it’s hard for me to be completely impartial because she ended up marrying an unpleasant, bullying, abusive person, and honestly, I think Severus fell short. If I had seen my supposed best friend half-smiling at my bully, I would have punched her in the face. I swear, I would have destroyed her and then publicly humiliated her, making her wish she had never been born. But as I’ve said before, I’m a very resentfully aggressive person xD.

[doberbutts]

I think the terms TMA/TME work best when they're used as rules of thumb, rather than expected to function as strict categories. They're often helpful, but occasionally they can become obfuscatory, and there are edge cases where they can't be neatly applied. In those cases, they should be set aside, but with an understanding that they will be brought back into conversations when helpful.

To give a personal perspective - I'm a trans masc individual who has, upon occasion, experienced misdirected transmisogyny. I was on T for 5 years, then came off it (partly due to health problems, partly due to starting to identify as nonbinary rather than as a man) and began presenting in a more feminine manner, and people would regularly mistake me for a trans woman.

When people thought I was a trans woman, I did notice an increase in hostility, harassment and unwelcome advances from strangers. Groups of men would shout at me in the street, mothers would glare at me and physically pull their children further away from me if I came near. I also started getting catcalled and couldn't enjoy a night out in a club without being groped. I'd experienced some of these things as a trans man and as a girl, but probably never at such a high frequency or so intensely.

I definitely think I got a taste of transmisogyny and people do still assume I'm trans fem from time to time. But I still wouldn't describe myself as TMA. I don't shout it from the rooftops, but if it feels relevant in the context of a conversation, I will say I'm TME. Because I think the terms are about overarching dynamics, rather than whether or not an individual has ever faced a single instance of transmisogyny.

For me, there was always a sense of distance between myself and any negative experience, that came from knowing they'd misread my AGAB - "that lad just called me a chick with a dick! How funny! I'd be so lucky!" / "You're harassing me for using the female showers at the gym when I am literally menstruating. Are you going to stop being a creep, or do I have to show you my bloody tampon?" There's a degree to which I can sidestep or disavow their idea of me in a manner trans women can't.

I also don't know what it's like to deal with many other elements of transmisogyny, or deal with it as an overarching narrative in one's life rather than a freak episode.

I think it's fair to say I have at times been a grey area and I could use my experiences to argue against the validity of TME/TMA, but I don't want to do that. I don't like it when the terms are just used as a way to say AFAB/AMAB while being perceived as less problematic. But I think it is helpful to have little shorthand reminders about specific power dynamics that do have an impact in our communities. I have absolutely seen transmisogyny play out in queer spaces, both online and IRL, and I think it's worth having vocabulary that emphatically reminds people to check themselves and to not assume they don't have internalised bias against trans women just because they're trans masc.

Trans women are a boogeyman in popular culture and the collective unconscious in a way trans men never have been (at least, not to anything like the same extent). Trans women face an intensity of monstering that I think most people won't understand unless they spend a lot of time sharing space with and listening to trans women. The rapid adoption of TMA/TME feels like an attempt to fast-track that understanding en masse. Maybe it's a bit clumsy, but I do think it's having an impact and important conversations are happening. I don't know if the terms will stick or fall out of use. Having been in the trans community for over a decade and seeing how our vocabularies evolve, I'm inclined to think they'll stick around for a few years and then largely disappear. But I feel that while trans women are finding them useful, we need to be respectful of that fact.

Idk sorry to rant in your askbox, I wanted to give my two cents. Feel free to ignore lol

I'm going to be a bit blunt here: in the span of time I've been off tumblr to, you know, sleep... I've gotten 20 different asks trying to convince me to like the usage of tma/tme and also several transphobic asks about my top surgery. The transphobic ones I blocked and deleted because I'm literally 3 weeks out and will not be dissuaded. But I'm simply not willing to continue arguing a point I've made very clear that I don't love the usage of this particular theory the way it's currently being used.

You can like it for yourself. I have said this over and over again. I do not like it for me, and do not think it is accurate for my life or my experiences or the reality that is what I have to go through on a regular basis. True to everything else that I've posted, I don't really care what you call yourself. If you want to call yourself TME and you believe that framework works for your experience, more power to you. Just don't label me that, because I don't think it works for mine.

Trans women are absolutely a boogeyman in a way that trans men often aren't. That is, unfortunately, one of the ways that hypervisibility is such a curse. Everyone knows what a trans woman is, and a good majority of those people also think the only good one's a dead one. That's bad. That's transmisogyny, and we should ally with trans women to help fix this problem.

Also unfortunately, as trans men become more and more visible to the world, instead of facing mass erasure and dying in silence or escaping to live in stealth, trans men are also beginning to become a boogeyman as well. Now we are a social contagion, a craze, with rapid onset gender dysphoria, mutilating ourselves and ruining our precious bodies, carving out our wombs, simultaneously debasing ourselves and also becoming predators lurking to snatch daughters up and forcefeed them our ideology, betraying women by becoming a mockery of men. What's worse, we tend to politically close ranks with trans women and cis women alike so it's harder for transphobic lawmakers to divide and conquer as they're used to with cis men, so instead they have to demonize us to prevent any further allyship.

That's the conversation trans mascs are trying to have.

Genuinely, I do agree that trans women face an othering that most people do not grasp without understanding transmisogyny theory, which is why I think everyone should have at least a basic understanding of it. But I also think that's true of many other demographics, and that if we want to get out of the pit that bigoted society put us in, we've got to work together to do so. It was, after all, the combined efforts of Marsha P Johnson AND Storme de Laverie that brought us out in the open. And among me friend group, we have people from all different races and backgrounds and genders and more locking arms to ensure the safety of each other, wanting to understand and know each other, lifting each other up.