#and will have painful consequences

[furiousgoldfish]

Kids instinctively test their boundaries and challenge authority; not to be annoying and cause trouble on purpose, but because they need to know where the boundaries are, what are the consequences for breaking them, and who actually is the real authority that can bring forth the consequences. This is normal and healthy human behaviour; if they don’t try it, how will they ever find out? It's curiosity, courage, need to know exactly where they stand, how much freedom can they get, what they can get away with, it's something we all have to test in life at one point or another, and childhood should be the safest, most protected place to test this out.

Based on how well they manage to establish their own place, their own rules and figure out what will and won't have consequences, they'll continue to develop this knowledge in the adulthood; they'll fight for their needs in their friendships and relationships, they'll stand up to their teachers and exploitative bosses, they'll follow their sense of justice and sometimes defy authority in order to do what is right. And if they learned something is a hard limit in childhood, they'll be careful not to cross that limit where it would come back to harm them. And those limits should be along the lines of causing physical harm to others, hurting smaller, more vulnerable people, using their power for cruelty.

In abusive households, children are not allowed this test of limits. Abusive parents insist on complete authority, punish something as small as 'talking back', and thus take away the child's ability to explore boundaries. In abuse the boundaries are usually uncertain, undefined, so the child can never know what could be taken as an offense, as a provocation or excuse to harm them. Abusers prefer keeping children not knowing where they stand, so they would assume anything could be taken as disobedience, even lack of action could be punished. This enables abusers to change the rules at will and to punish child who hasn't done anything wrong – they can retroactively decide something offended them and take their anger out on a child. The child learns that even if someone just perceives a transgression, that didn't even happen, they will be punished for it. They learn to live in absolute fear, analyzing their every action, anxiously trying to figure out how everyone around them is feeling and reacting to them, trying desperately not to give anyone a reason for offense.

So how will this child deal with an unfair teacher, one they get in that situation? How will they handle an exploitative boss? How can they fight back a bully, navigate an abusive friendship or a relationship, how can they stand up to anyone? They've learned that even doing nothing can have devastating consequences, and doing everything sometimes isn't enough either. All they know how to do is to try to please everyone, desperately overthink everything, accept blame and punishment even when it wasn't their fault, even when they're being exploited and harmed. Their needs get forgotten and neglected completely, in their endless quest to protect themselves from harm, by trying to avoid it with their every action and word. They've been taught, by pain and torture, that other people's authority over them is final, that refusing to please others means pain. So they'll accept being exploited, neglected and violated, because to refuse would mean even worse type of pain. And the abusive boss, partner, teacher, friend, will revel in realization that this person is afraid, that anything can be done to them, that rules can be changed on the fly, exploitation can be endless because this person won't ever test what's been said to them; they'll assume other's authority is right, and that to fight back would mean severe consequences.

That is what authoritarian parenting teaches, that's what forceful, demanding, aggressive and punishment-eager parents do to their kid's lives. They lie every time they say it's to make the kid strong, or to prepare them for 'the real life', it's anything but. It's creating a person who cannot fight for themselves or stand up for themselves because they've been tortured for their first attempts to test the boundaries.

Let your kids try stupid shit. If they can't figure out boundaries by testing them out with you, they won't be able to figure it out any other way. Adults do it all the time, because they've learned as children that this testing can bring them benefits, certainty, fairness and needs fulfilled. As it should be, children should try and see what happens if they ask, if they demand, if they try to get their way, if they protest, if they fight back. They need to know that sometimes in life it's worth it. That sometimes it's necessary. They need to know life won't end if they try it. They need to know it's okay to try. They need to believe they have every right to.

[cj-the-random-artist]

I kept debating how to end this short little mini comic. In the original script, they were gonna hold hands (scandalous, I know lmfao), but I didn't think it hit quite right in comic format when I tried to make it longer. Hence why it ends... like that.

Anyways I wrote like a ton of comic scripts for COTL comics that just didn't hit right / I couldn't commit to making and then when driving home from work last week in the pitch darkness I thought about how nice it is to see like actual stars. And I feel like with the cult grounds being kind of among a lot of trees and all that it might take a short hike to get a really, really, really good view of the night sky and stuff. Thus. This.

It's arguably not my best work (I'm out of practice drawing good night skies and all that) but I'm happy with it. Enjoy this thing I made

[cheesenchalk]

i never know how to phrase it but something about the way beatles biographers and people in general view paul's reflexive placating persona and determination to smooth things over as manipulative or duplicitous and john's reflexive barbed persona and habit of lashing out as brave and subversive despite both being equally defensive mechanisms to shield themselves from the world that resulted in them saying things that weren't true says more about how we culturally view kindness or friendliness as inherently untrustworthy or flimsy and anger and carelessness as more believable as someone's true nature than it says about either of them in actuality

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

hope you feel better soon!

I am riddled with ailments, but I stay silly!

[kryaaas]

OH FUCK. I just made a mind blowing discovery on Fayde that you are able to *tell* Kim about about the world ending!!!

And he actually seems to believe you....

[autoraton]

Riz pulling so much weight for everyone and securing votes vs Kristen being the closest to failing out of school thus inadvertently screwing him. plus her inadvertently bringing Kalina back, who as it stands serves as an antagonistic and deeply painful force in Riz's life. there's just something really ripe and tragic about their friendship rn (even moreso if you wanna throw in the meta that the narrative was steered towards Riz running against Kipperlilly) and it's neither of their faults. I feel like I'm watching a disaster in slow motion.

[ooogleys]

DRDT SPOILERS IN TAGS!!!!

highkey i would hate being ace markey

[emi-the-gremlin]

Controversial take (maybe?)

I think we need more of mr. Payne being the good parent, like don’t get me wrong I adore all the good Mrs. Payne fics (definitely check out that tag) but she’s the only one who’s actually been described negatively, parenting wise.

Not to mention it also just balances out the group, Charles has daddy issues, Crystal has parental issues, so therefore it stands to reason that Edwin has mommy issues, right?

[dianagj-art]

The coolest wine aunt there is

for @gemini-forest's DTIYS

version without the chains so Mikey can be seen in his full glory

[basilbots]

Ironically Ruin killing Solar is what appealed Solruin to me like yes let's make this tragic as hell

[fisheito]

Typing "capsaicin snake effect" into the search bar so i can figure out if yakumo can eat spicy food

[laniidae-passerine]

I made my post about Dean Highbottom and then as I was writing my tags realised that his Hunger Games counterpart is Haymitch. and now my head is in my hands and I don’t think I’ll ever recover

[sulfies]

Il love it when fic writers give him golden or charred arm :,0 its mwwwwaaah

[twobellsilence]

people straight up saying curly let jimmy crash the ship on purpose is Absolutely Baffling to me like did you Not notice the fact that Curly Never Once Thought jimmy actually meant the bad shit he said. which is Literally an important part of his character and relationship with Jimmy (not realizing the cartoon horses line was inappropriate as fuck and not a regular joke, anyone?). and also the fact that he was spiraling and literally froze and took A Moment after Jim pushed all the blame onto him mere moments before sabotaging their trajectory. he was literally having An Episode brought on by stress and lack of sleep and the fact that Jimmy had been fucking with his brain for days and Jimmy took this opportunity, this moment when Curly was too overwhelmed to even move, to crash the ship. Like did you not hear his breathing when the screen went black or clicked on Jimmy while running to the cockpit and saw Curly yell at him asking him what the fuck he just did. He LITERALLY ran into the cockpit to try and fix it like that is not the behavior of someone who wanted this to happen. Did we even play the same game

[piastrinorris]

RJ'S SPOTIFY WRAPPED GIF MEME 2023 → 51 + leonard bast: consequences by lovejoy

[voidcat]

leaning in for a peck on the lips and telling your windbreaker darling they're so sweet they give you toothaches... only to be hit by a real toothache hours later