#anyway just ignore me this is probably all about my own issues and values

[workingforitallthetime]

i would just like to note that today the athletic completely confirmed my theory that the bedard family parenting style is letting connor drive the bus. ("How does a parent handle that? By letting the kid lead, of course.") especially fascinating to me in light of connor earegood's article underscoring the extremely different fantilli family parenting style.

[scoobydoodean]

i’d like you to know you’ve made me much more of a bitter deangirl when it comes to the trap. like i still love the idea of it, of them reconnecting in purgatory of all places, and i still like the idea of lots of what dean says re: should’ve asked cas to stay and i forgive you and talking *about* his anger, but… dean had a right to be angry, including at cas. and yeah it’s good that dean apologized, for the sake of healthy communication cause that’s what you do when you’ve said hurtful things in an argument regardless of who’s “right”, but cas also should’ve apologized again. in fact, i can’t remember so i could be completely misremembering, but does cas ever actually apologize to dean beyond expressing the sentiment of feeling bad that mary died?

and i’m also thinking about the conversation they have before being separated. i like the angst of cas’s line re: i left but you didn’t stop me, but again, dean was not the only one in that argument. to leave was very much cas’s choice, and it feels kinda unfair to put that on dean, regardless of whether dean saying smth would’ve actually gotten cas to stay (which, to dean, probably would’ve seemed unlikely given cas’s past habits). and also, cas saying dean couldn’t move on, that’s actually fucking heartbreaking and almost… cruel. iirc it’d been at most a couple weeks since his mom (his mom!) had been killed!! plus dean never got to say goodbye, again!! of course he couldn’t just move on!

idk idk… anyway i believe i’ve sent an ask about your opinions on the trap before lol, and sorry about this long ass message, but i recently saw a gifset about that conversation (before being attacked) and all the notes were like ‘yes cas you tell him!’ ‘dean needed to hear that!’ ‘finally got dean’s head out of his ass!’ and it kinda made me annoyed for dean which. brainrot. but whatever. bitter deangirls unite, dean deserves the support 😭😭

context

LMAO sorry for my tumblr arc culminating in me turning full bitter deangirl ig and taking some of you down with me (I'm not sorry actually I'm having a ball in this bitch).

Cas's attempts at apologies are cataloged here. So he does try to apologize. But how many times has Cas been "sorry" only to do the thing he apologized for again? I mean the fact that he keeps "apologizing" for lack of communication and unilateral decisions over things that impact other people besides him and secret deals that blow up in all of their faces over and over and over and over shows that he is... not actually that sorry? Because if you're actually sorry, you actually change your behavior. Except Cas thinks "getting a win" (while actively digging a deeper hole in his relationship with Dean) is the way to "apologize" and make everything better instead of just... changing his behavior. And whatever his latest big plan to fix everything is never works and instead actively makes his relationships and his own self esteem worse. From the outside perspective, what Cas is doing (apologizing then doing the thing he just apologized for again) is just kind of... the ultimate way of telling a person you claim to love that their feelings actually have very little value to you. I mean Cas would be horrified by the idea that he doesn't actually value Dean's feelings, but what conclusion is Dean supposed to come to? Is it any wonder that Dean is perpetually confused about what exactly Cas thinks of their relationship? Is it any wonder that he reached a point where he couldn't stand to hear one more of Cas's meaningless apologies? To maintain any semblance of a relationship with Cas, Dean has to focus on what he feels about Cas's intentions (intentions Dean has always had faith in being good) but that faith and care increasingly forces him to ignore aspects of their relationship that are deeply hurtful because Cas refuses to do his part in addressing their issues in any meaningful way. It's just a vicious cycle of Dean trying to communicate that their lack of communication is upsetting and Cas pretending to listen and apologizing but clearly not actually listening or understanding the gravity of the situation and how it is slowly building a rift between them over years (with perhaps the most striking and hurtful example being The Future) until the secret over soulless Jack becomes "the straw that broke the camel's back" and Dean absolutely explodes at the end of season 14... and then... still... Cas's secrets remain—to the bitter fucking end.

Also yeah tbh Cas's "I left but you didn't stop me" makes my eyes roll so hard. Painfully stupid dialogue with unpleasant (though likely unintentional) implications (as linked in thread above).

[thatdogmagic]

As before, if you don't know what's going on, and aren't up to speed on Tumblr nonsense, you are totally allowed to go do something else. It will be a much better use of your time.

So, yeah.

I know the logs going around. I know how they come off if taken at face value, from the author's 'I did nothing wrong here' point of view.

Disclaimer up front: what I'm about to say isn't excusing aggressive behaviour, or saying that everything I said is wonderful and/or justified. Even if I think HaliteaTiger et al are going out of their way to heap all their responsibility on to me, like they were just innocent babies who couldn't make decisions for themselves, I don't think anyone deserves to be in the blast radius of an autistic meltdown (required viewing), especially of the Fight variety.

Talking about that is how Haligren and I bonded, in fact. Even before I knew it was autism, we talked about our mutual issues with explosive and dissociative anger.

All this is to say, I am not going to lengthen this post even more by pausing to say, every time I defend myself, that I'm aware of my own bad behaviour. Which I know is going to rub some people the wrong way/serve as 'proof' I'm just as bad as they think, but honestly? Don't care. This post isn't for you. You've decided based on vibes-based posting and cherrypicked logs you don't like me, and that's your business. You're welcome to leave now. I haven't given you any method of knee-jerk replying to this anyway.

For everyone else, the tl;dr is this: it should strike people as odd that I am the only person taking any real responsibility for a situation so prone to blowing up (friends working together) that it regularly shows up in every sitcom known to mankind.

To me, it is the height of irony that my main detractor decided to post me saying the r-slur about myself as an indictment, when 'look at this r-slur' has been the thesis of everyone's posts ever since this started. And no, I'm sorry, they know that's exactly what they're doing.

I can say that with confidence, because each one of them was informed, very clearly, and very early on, that I, as an at-the-time 41-42 year old, was going through some serious struggles with a recent autism diagnosis. In the case of HaliteaTiger, she even ignored photographs I'd taken, physical evidence of what meltdowns could do to me in my younger years.

They know this is explicitly attached to a disability, and they're going on record saying they can't possibly believe that's the case. That I must be lying for my own benefit.

In short, that I'm too smart to be that (r-slur). I must simply be malicious, manipulative, abusive instead.

Which is exactly why the word is so easy to reach for in those moments of meltdown.

Doesn't make it right, of course-- not only should I not use the word, I should really be kinder to myself. But I have a hard time being angry with myself for repeating what people have been saying to me for pretty much my entire life, even if they're not saying it outright.

So. Let me be blunt: I am not taking responsibility for other people deciding that they can "handle me," in spite of a downpour of warnings, disclaimers, and full-blown discussions. It can only be my fault for so long that I am exactly who I say am.

What I can take responsibility for is moving too quickly. It was taking that feeling of 'oh this explains everything' that the diagnosis brought with it, and thinking that relief could translate into control. I wasn't in a rational space for how things went with HaliteaTiger - and I was as clear about that as I could have been - but in the end, I was the one who said 'yes' to working together. I was probably the one who had the idea to work together in the first place. And I genuinely thought I could handle it. Obviously, I couldn't, and I meant every apology I gave when that became evident.

(aside: since people will rightfully ask, I have footnoted why I agreed to work with Jackal/Trish in spite of saying I learned from this bad experience with Haligren; if I go into it here I'll veer off track again.)

When I say this is where my responsibilities begin and end, I'm not writing that off as a small thing. I know now that, that soon after diagnosis and reorienting my life, I was going through a kind of 'skill regression.' Whether I knew it or not - that I was effectively a loaded weapon that could go off at any time - it doesn't change the outcome. Besides that, I knew full well what I was capable of. I had years of experience telling me it was probably too soon. 'Wishful thinking,' and the myriad other reasons for poor impulse control, doesn't clear me of that. I'm not going to ask, never have asked anyone to forgive me for it, either.

That said: it is where my responsibilities begin and end.

Keep in mind, Haligren herself posted what was more or less, 'she did exactly what she said she'd do and I can't accept that maybe I had a hand in this by not bothering to listen to her. Again.'

And the same goes for Jackal, albeit to a far lesser extent. We've already covered the fables she's invented for this.

You know, I know I've said it before, but I feel like it's worth pointing out again that this is all this needed to be. 'I thought I could handle this and I couldn't' was all it needed to be, from everyone. There was and is no shame in admitting that. And admitting it to ourselves didn't need to be all bad, either. It certainly hasn't been for me.

ex: It's allowed me to set much clearer boundaries for myself and others; it's let me see a lot of weak points that need the most work; and it's allowed me to just exist more comfortably with others.

There are things outside of my control that can still trigger me, but I've gotten better at pulling back in time, and if not pulling back in time, then lessening severity. Which sucks, sometimes, because it often means pulling back from things I'd rather be doing, because they're too overstimulating. ex: I often have to stop playing flashy video games because the visuals can exacerbate any ambient tension I already have.

It's where 'ah yeah this why this is a disability' realizations come in. Having to literally lay in a dark room to get your nervous system to shut the fuck up. Which I didn't know, couldn't have guessed would be a requirement for getting my Everything to calm down, any more than I could know that certain types of treble played at higher volumes could make me start feeling panicky and fucked up. I didn't even know 'dark room + reading' would work for me until sometime this year.

With all that in mind, I've been trying to be a lot more mindful about surrounding myself with people who I know for sure know exactly what's going on. Who take it seriously, and understand that I'm still learning a lot as I go, making up for a lot of years to a point where I sometimes feel like I'm relearning how to walk, or tie my shoes. They understand that just the process of de-masking is difficult, either because they've done it or are in the process of doing it, themselves.

I will not hold it against them if they witness a meltdown and decide enough is enough. Which is part of this I don't think Haligren et al ever realized:

I don't want people around if I'm genuinely too much for them. Because, and I know this might come as a shock but, I don't want to hurt people. I never have and I never will. I don't get any kind of fulfillment out of the sound of a telephone, or some random visual overload, sending me into an absolute rage and that coming out at someone I care about. That's not cool or comfortable or fun, that's stupid. I don't get any joy or reward from that. There is nothing that has ever positively reinforced it, and until I knew what it was, every single method I could use to fix it just fell completely flat.

I've spent much of my life feeling completely hopeless about it. Which is something else Haligren and I talked about. Something she experienced herself and sympathized with (which I can say is true; funny enough, she took the reactions to some of her own random explosions and posted them as 'proof I'm just mean all the time'). I have my theories as to why I suddenly lost that sympathy - I wasn't 'fun' anymore when my struggles were real, for one - but that's for later.

Still: everything that happened between us, she already knew was possible. That it was a matter of 'when' not 'if.' That it was not me giving myself permission, it was me telling her, this is a thing I struggle with constantly, it does take a certain type of person to work this closely with me on projects I feel this strongly about.

For reasons only she can say, she decided she was that certain type of person. I did not strongarm, goad, or pressure her into that role. I did not ask 'are you sure?' in some bizarrely nuanced way that inferred she had no choice.

Example: I was in what I can recognize now as that 'pre-meltdown' state when she approached me about using Clip Studio's comics formatting. For whatever reason, I snagged on having found the tool confusing in the past and lost my fucking mind about not wanting to use it. I apologized because it was undeserved, at best random and out of nowhere.

I feel like that should have probably let her know what was going on/its severity.

I would check in (or try to check in) with her after stuff like that and I know at least once initiated the 'are you sure?' conversation about working together, if not twice, in response to not catching myself in time. Long before she let me stick my neck out publicly and announce the collab we were working on.

IDK what she thought I was saying there. With any of that. Which was another problem in and of itself but we'd be here for actual pages of text if I had to go into how many times I was willfully misinterpreted as playing 4D manipulative chess or whatever.

So, yes, to say, 'I knew it could be bad but not this bad!!' is plain bullshit. It's bullshit. She knows that. And she knows I have logs of all of it.

Here's the thing tho: I don't *want* to fucking post any logs. Not least because I don't want *my* personal business out there for everyone to see, but I frankly don't want to be known as someone who posts someone else's, esp wrt mental health. Also:

I don't want to continue a slapfight that will only lose us all friends and colleagues, and may even create fractures in the actual community.

Because, let's be clear: that's the *only* endgame here. That is the best possible outcome of all of this: we annoy our peers and our community with a mountain of shit that will only ever boil down to 'we did not work well together, for a variety of reasons, and we all got messy about it.' That is all anyone will come away with after all the logs are posted, and all the shit is slung. Because there is no tell-all beyond that. There are no juicy secrets.

If you guys ('cause I know it'll be copy/pasted to you anyway despite blocks) want to die on that hill, that's your business. I *am* genuinely sorry anyone had to sit through my meltdowns; I truly don't want to have them, ever at all for any reason, and I don't want other people around me to take the heat of them. But that's the only thing I can really apologize for beyond 'I'm sorry it didn't work out' and whatever other *actual* mistakes I made.

We all made plenty. We all lost an opportunity we wanted in each other. We all lost out on telling our own stories quicker, and on telling new ones with one another. Pointing to one of the only people willing to take any responsibility for their part, and proceeding to dump *all* responsibility on their shoulders, will not fix that. Burning me in effigy won't save you from yourselves, either, because if you can't face this, you'll have all the same problems with other people later on down the line. You just will. There's no avoiding that.

As for me, as I said, I pared down who I work with quite a bit, to people who do take me seriously, and understand - really understand - what they're signing up for. Who won't look at me saying 'I don't take hints well so please just be up front with me' and disregard it as nonsense because I'm clearly too smart for that to be a thing.

It does 1000% require being around people who are willing to talk very frankly and openly about every conflict and confrontation. Which are, it should be noted, *not* people who are pathologically driven to pat your ass and say 'it's ok it's fine' when they clearly meant something different.

...

I'm not sure anything good will come of me posting this.

When I say the posts about me have been pretty much nothing but Jackal, Trish, and Haligren saying 'look at this r-slur,' I really do mean it. People gawking and engaging are joining in to do the same. Me making this post just invites even more of that, from them and from spectators.

Nothing good has come of me staying quiet, though, so it needed to be said.

Their disbelief that I could ever be 'that bad,' their unwillingness to listen to me when I talked about my limits, when I gave clear examples of where I might need additional support... I am not taking responsibility for that disbelief, no matter how many internet randos get sicced on me. Not from Haligren and definitely not from Jackal.

So, yeah, sorry/not sorry. I know someone having a visibly 'fight' response is easy to shit on, but, nah, no. I'm not going to apologize for saying I was *owed* an apology from Haligren, either, because I was, and she knows exactly why. She's just not willing to talk about the context of that moment, because that'll take all the wind out of the 'she was abusive and lashed out for no reason!!' sails.

It'll mean taking responsibility for her part in ruining the opportunity I represented for her and her work. Which is probably an uncomfortable thought to sit with, and clearly has been for years, considering how eager she was to jump in on behalf of someone who knew ahead of time that she held a grudge.

I'm sure that'll work out well for her. I wish them well in their future collaboration. Maybe I'm wrong and absolutely none of the problems they had with me will ever surface ever again with other people ever, and everything will be fine.

ps: Going on public record to say someone who told you, more than once, 'I have no interest in you romantically' indicated they actually had a mutual crush on you is rich. 'The thought crossed my mind' =/= 'I have a crush on you too,' so we're clear. If Haligren weren't playing a game of hate-telephone with someone prone to exaggerate, she'd have known that this assumption is part of the problem I had with her.

Same w/ the constant 'I'm not into women' reminders, like I'm incapable of remembering/might fall in love with her at a moment's notice because I happen to be attracted to women and femmes. Which might just be her being awkward but like, PSA: don't do that to your queer friends, it's weird and gross to just assume that kind of thing.

Especially when, in spite of that, it felt like sometimes I was being treated as a surrogate boyfriend on an emotional level. Which is pretty much what she posted outright, so-- thanks for clarifying that for me, I guess. ;p

pps: The only reason I even considered taking a risk on working on something more intense w/ people again, re: starting up with Jackal and Trish at all, was because I got laid off from my job, had severance, and unemployment. I had a window of time I could work hard on big projects and still be pulling in income. They were both given a pretty detailed account of what had triggered them w/ Haligren and also that they had happened/would probably happen, given how new everything was.

It was still a decision I knew could easily go sideways - and tried to account for that - but took the risk anyway. I knew what I was doing, which is, yes, where I explicitly fucked up, and my way of owning that isn't something I can put on display. I can only prove it with how I act and with whom, and that's what I intend to do.

ppps: I'd say more about whatever it is Trish is going on about in all of this but she and I barely spoke personally which makes her going scorched earth honestly pretty laughable and not really worth addressing.

[wisteria-lodge]

snake primary + neutral snake secondary

Hello. I decided to write this according to the list you gave. I have a huge struggle with my primary. I guess it is burned, but I don’t know what it is, or I don’t want to see it because that hurts my ego if it sounds completely fake or in some way empty, or I just don’t vibe with it. Which I understand is an issue in itself. 

An interesting issue. You don’t want a primary assigned to you because you’re worried it’ll sound fake? I’ll keep an eye on that. 

For my secondary I guess it is just straight up a lion, mostly being off or burned, burned badger or bird. I definitely use pre-made personas in social or stressful situations, but I prepare so little that I could be anyone. 

This sounds like Burnt Bird secondary “I do the Bird secondary thing, but not very well.” Or possibly a Bird secondary model that you wish you didn’t have to use. 

Before I have to tell you even if I don’t have clinical depression or a diagnosis, I don’t feel happy, and it probably shows. I am someone who cries every time they see Everything Everywhere All At Once, which at this point probably tells a lot about a person. 

… it tells me that you’re very probably neurodivergent. Very possibly ADHD, but I don’t like to diagnose in these things. (Not actually possible anyway.) 

Also, heads up for my English, it is nowhere near perfect or fluent, so there might be some annoying mistakes, even though I know you don’t point it out to people. I ran it through a grammar check, but I have little doubt I missed something.

1.

Sometimes I wish I’d care more about other people, about strangers, but I don’t care much naturally, and it becomes even more pronounced when I am stressed or having to spend a lot of my energy outside myself. Then, that gaze towards outside shuts down, and I stop focusing and giving attention to other people.

You’re not naturally a Badger, taking meaning and energy from the community. Snake is absolutely possible, especially with the way Snakes will focus very intensely on their own bodies when they haven’t got a lot of extra energy to spare. Like, sure you’d like to do more, and doing more makes you feel like a good person, but that’s extra.

A co-worker could be talking about their accident and what happened to their family, and I would stare blindly and think to myself they are trying to get sympathy and I would not budge at this point. While more normally I would give them it, even if I didn’t feel sorry for them. 

You might also just be low empathy, which is… just kind of a neutral thing. I’m low empathy. A lot of people actually find it comforting that they can be upset around me without getting doubly stressed that they’re making my day worse. 

After all, some emotional work needs to be put into maintaining relationships and keeping it alive.

True. And the way you just kind of put that out there as a kind of ‘Rule to Live By’ is actually making me think Bird primary is possible... or a Bird primary model over a burnt primary?

2. 

As a kid I was timid, afraid to explore town, thinking someone will come and say I can’t walk there. I was never peaceful, but I followed my mother’s advice to ignore bullies and don’t give them attention. Jokes on me – I never learned how to fight and argue. I remember myself hot headed, attention seeking, trying to talk with others, even making up lies or cutting bangs by myself just so people notice me. But I was always careful not to make trouble for my mother, be safe, get no injuries, clothes fine and without a rip. 

I’m leaning more Snake primary for you. Your mother is clearly a very important figure in your life, and what she thinks and values is important, because she thinks it. You ignore bullies, don’t wander, and don’t get in trouble because your Mom told you not to… but there’s still this undercurrent of but I would have liked to. In fact, the way you behave for your mom seems to be very at odds with the “attention seeking” “hot-headed” “notice-me” behavior from the rest of your life. I’m considering Snake secondary (because of the different faces for differnt people) or Lion/Burnt Lion secondary (because you would have liked learning how to fight and argue.) 

I was obsessed with Three Musketeers, friendship and finding connection. I would focus on a small group of people or even one person and hold onto it. It started getting really hard time when I had no friends whatever. That pushed me into survival mode and made me quiet and thoughtful.

This focus on small groups of friends is making me really lean Snake primary. (Also, if you’re a Snake Lion, then The Three Musketeers would be *the* perfect media for you.) 

3. 

I think I solve low-stakes problems with something that looks like a snake or rapid fire bird.  I think if I can and have someone close I can call for help, I will. Once in the dorms my European windows fall off the hinges, I couldn’t close it or put it back. I could have definitely done it myself with more time and more focusing and seeing how things work. But I had a friend living there next to me, so I asked them to come. Not that they knew more about windows than I did, but as out both room windows were similar in age maybe they would have a similar issue and know what to do. I don’t think they did, but it was fun and I wish I could do it more - meeting life with your friends and not alone, that’s why I called them. Administration would have been the last resort, they were pretty meh. I think we just ended looking around and putting it back in somehow, just trying to close it in different ways. I was always careful with it after that.

That’s lovely. And… weirdly I think I’m going to put this in for primary, for that whole “meeting life not alone” thing. That’s bigger than just problem solving, that’s getting into why you do things at all. 

The actual problem solving seems to be “lets compare the broken window to a similar, not-broken window and see what’s wrong.” There’s a *little* I Know A Guy bird in this ‘who specifically do I know who would be able to solve this problem.’ But I could honestly see coming from any secondary. 

4. 

In high-stake situations, the most important thing to me is reaching a mental space where I am stable, looking around without panic. That’s why sometimes, instead of pulling an all-nighter before an exam I turned on a movie. I just couldn’t deal with the stress and said bye lol. I didn’t do it all the time, I also studied a lot, alone and with friends, although I cannot say where studying or the movie was more useful. I personally would say in high-stakes situations it’s most critical to try to calm down and manage my stress and anxiety. 

This is making me say Improvisational secondary (Lion or Snake.) Extra preparation isn’t going to comfort you, it’s going to mess you up. You’re not a Bird or Badger, who’ll get stressed out if they don’t read their notes over one more time. You want the mental space and agility to correctly read and correctly respond to the situation, and so you’re giving yourself the best chance for that.

I had experience with bad roommates so in dorms I wanted to live alone, not bother or bothering someone. While this opinion wasn’t allowed legally in our college, students would bribe administrator. I hate bribing, giving chocolate for literally noticing me in someone’s place (it’s a bribe older generation does here while asking employees for something they think is a favor, but it’s kind of their job; why don’t we just stop being assholes to each other instead? I am not sure other parts of the world does this so hence the explanation). 

It’s interesting. You’re describing bribing, like - yeah you’re breaking the rules… but everyone does it, and everyone knows everyone does it, and to some degree you’re even expected to do it. But even though it’s kind of normal, it still bothers you. And this would bother a Lion secondary (who love to be straightforward and honest) more than it would bother a Snake (who might not even think of giving an administrator a “”gift”” as a bribe.) 

As I mentioned earlier, administrator was meh and everyone and their mother knew it, so you can imagine I thought this is big, and I have to survive this and come on top.

This is very Snake primary energy, it has that practicality I absolutely love. 

Money, I thought, should be the most useful, but there’s also too much and too little. In short, I sit down, wrote an application, had an envelope in my bag, talked a bit about how I would like to live alone and tried to slip it out of my bag on the table as it was nothing special. The most interesting thing was that he seemed amused all this time, and even then, I had my hair down and had lipstick on, so I don’t know, maybe my baby face looked interesting, or maybe that’s just stress distorting my memories. I was kind of prepared, but not really if you know what I mean, I obviously needed more information, but I was either naïve and thought this will work or this will be enough. In some way I was also mostly thinking I hate this, this either will work with how much I prepared or not, let’s go in and see. Maybe not good enough for sorting according to high-stakes situations but thank gods in some way that the only ones I had are like this one or exams.

Now that I have built your anticipation,

You absolutely have, I am extremely invested in this story. 

let’s check together how that ended up for me, shall we? I did get a room for myself, and I really loved the room I got the first year there. Its window opened up to a street, I saw a lot of trees, sky, a neighboring apartment complex that did not belong to college. The bribery? It went well, they were either monitored or they actually meant what they said that they can’t guarantee me anything, and that the college had plans to reduce the available space due to shortage of students. So in the end, I left with my money, a little bruised dignity and a new experience, that I knew I would never want to repeat. We just do what we need to do, and what we are okay about doing, no?

I hate bribery, but I wanted to live alone more, so it weighted over.

Something like that (and this whole story, really) makes me think your primary is fighting with your secondary. You think bribing is wrong, and your Lion secondary hates not just being direct and ASKING for what you want... but you want that private room, so of course you go for it. You had a bad experience in dorms before, you’re going to protect yourself. That’s the decision that you feel best about. 

And when it came down to this conversation, you got dressed up, you considered your appearance and how you came across, you thought about what the right level of bribery would be. But in the end, you think that the fact that you looked “interesting” got you through. And “this either will work with how much I prepared or not, let’s go in and see” is SO Lion. It’ll work, or it won’t, it’s out of my hands. 

5.

Recently I made a hard decision of whether to go back home or stay. Decisions are hard for me, especially when neither one nor the other option look better. I tried to take all that I have gathered about the situation and see which side is/feels stronger, which one has more value. 

I’m starting to see what’s got you confused about your primary. One thing about being in a Snake is that decisions get a lot harder when they don’t affect your personal safety and well-being, or the safety and well-being of your People. You’re making a decision with ALL the tools here - gathering information to know which side is stronger (Bird), asking yourself what side feels stronger (Lion), and also considering which side has more value (depending on exactly what you mean by “value,” this could be Badger or Snake. All those approaching are going to give you slightly different answers. 

I left unfriendly environment which saw no value in me or my culture for a more friendly place, where my roots are, where I can make my own decisions, but I had to leave my family. I didn’t feel good there, had no one I wanted to hold onto. But even though I am not a badger, but I am still in a missing people mood. 

I bet you are. You’re a Snake, and you don’t have any People right now. (You’re not Burned. You’ve just recently moved to a new place, and don’t have any People yet.)

This was absolutely the Snake decision, also. You didn’t feel valued, so you went where you knew you could set things up the way you like them. You left your family to do it, and sure leaving your family hurts, but I think you would have felt like you’d betrayed yourself if you stayed.

Connection is so human, and we fuck it up so bad from so early on. Does it matter if you still feel alone around people who surround you? It doesn’t, so maybe it’s better to let your family members rest, be somewhere lonely without them and try to do it yourself. Is it already depressing? I am sorry I hope this doesn’t feel like trauma dumping.

Nah, you’re fine. You’re absolutely going to find people you connect to. 

6.

My fantasies change with time depending on what inspires and moves me then. I fantasize about a Scandinavian style house, surrounded by snow and a night sky, full of books and huge windows when I just want to run away. Other times I fantasize about being a powerful wizard on the run or in disguise, just trying to live with friends, accepted and running from some kind of huge responsibilities or a war. Not that I never fantasized about something more ambitious, but that probably changed with how my life experiences shaped the worldview I have now. Do I have to mention fantasies of falling in love with someone nice while doing something that I like and brings me joy or is that just basic haha?

The “living with friends/falling in love with someone nice”... that’s very human, but since this significant other person features heavily in a short description of your fantasy, going to put that as a point for Snake primary. 

7.

The characters I identify most with probably has nothing to do with me or who I am, more with how I see them. I identify with Lorelai from Gilmore Girls. In my opinion, she has a similar energy to me, to what I think I am inside or could be with a little more stability and confidence. She talks nonsense, and it is fine most of the time, people still like her. She loves her community, her little town, she creates life there and doesn’t wish to leave, and she doesn’t feel a need to run or rush somewhere. I feel I am most healthy and stable when that rush leaves me, and I am stable enough in here and now to actually live there. 

I was honestly pretty happy with Lion Secondary as a sorting for you. But now I wonder. This doesn’t seem like something a Lion secondary would say. It seems like a Neutral Snake would say. And Lorelai is a VERY loud Neutral Snake (and a very loud Snake primary.

Now, Lion secondaries can be mellow, and just want to Vibe, but I absolutely do see shape-shifting capabilities from you, and I wouldn’t expect to see them from a Lion (unless you also had models or performances.) When you were a kid you were careful and thinking a lot about the ‘correct’ thing around your mom, but wild around your friends. In the bribing situation you came in with a persona, but then switched around - you’re funny, you’re interesting, you’re naive. Also in the wizard fantasy - you’re running away from the war, you don’t want to deal with it. Lion secondaries tend to fantasize about being revolutionaries or leading armies. 

Snake Secondaries who like staying in Neutral have a blunt take-it-or-leave it quality which I do see from you, but you also seem just... kind of tired. Not Burnt, but just kind of done with dealing with a family who makes you feel lonely, an administration who isn’t helpful, an environment that doesn’t value your culture... no wonder you just want the ability to just say whatever, and not have to think about it. 

I also think that the lack of a Person (which is a primary issue) is making this whole ask much more ‘authenticity’ flavored than it would be otherwise. You want, you really really desperately want a person to trust enough, and value enough, to be that level of authentic with. 

I identify with Joy from Everything Everywhere, because she feels like a friend who doesn’t need you to tell them how you feel in these feeble words, she looks at you, and she knows, the whole movie knows. 

You’re fantasizing about someone who just *gets* you, immediately. (You’re fantasizing about a Person.)

Likewise, I identify with Hunter from The Owl House. He says he misses knowing who he supposed to be. He comes from a really unhealthy background, but I just feel happy thinking how not only he himself warms up to people, but others warm up to him, see good in him, accept him and start to care, not how good people care, but how a friend cares. Hahaha, I identify with Pippin from LOTR movies, because he makes mistakes, and everyone around him is like WTF can you not, why don’t you just stand in one place or be tied to a leash? He’s not stupid, he’s not careless, he’s not bad or ignorant per se, mistakes just happen, it’s natural and instead of being made to feel wrong, let’s just not do that and make it normal, because it will happen, and we will learn from our mistakes without pressure or shouting. It’s a miracle Pippin wants to do things after all.

You’re fantasizing about getting a group of People. Don’t think it’s at all a coincidence that both the Owl House and the Lord of the Rings focus on a small, rag-tag group of people who don’t quite fit, for one reason or another. I also think you’ve probably been dealing with someone who does not react to *normal* mistakes in a healthy way. So of course Pippin and Hunter would be comforting. 

8.

Things that make me feel powerful? Money, having choices, being able to say no, I will not do anything of what you suggest and instead do this completely different thing. Because I can, because I want it, because I can see I will succeed, I will make it. I can choose to do things my way. You need money or other resources to be able to do that. Calling a plumber and being able to pay them would make me more powerful than waiting for someone I know do me a favor based on our relationship. While not being able to select what I want, or having crappy choices wherever I look makes me feel locked up and incredible passive. To quote the quiz, helplessness doesn’t make me angry, it freezes m, but I don’t get angry.

Damn. Yeah, I don’t know what I can say to any of that. What is power? Money, and the ability to say no. And really, when you get down to it - money is important when it allows to say no. The more you can say no, the more powerful you are. 

9.

Recently graduating was the most difficult thing I had to do. I had little to no help, big expectations from the board and little freedom on what decision I could make. Myself already being anxious about what I will do in the future and this major giving me panic attacks in the making did not help focus and do it right. I wonder would it have been better if I majored in something I loved but was kind of useless, than something I hated but what is seen as practical and marketable.

There really isn’t a right answer there. Not everyone needs to love their job, but some do. Some people are fine without a steady paycheck, or without a large paycheck - but some aren’t. Any decision that involves the future like that is going to be a gamble. And I guess I’m at the point now, with how fast the world and the economy is changing, that trying to guess what will be practical and marketable ten years down the line - isn’t nearly as sure a thing as it used to be. 

From what I’ve gathered, thesis can feel useless. I knew a guy who paid someone to write it for him, and honestly with my own experience I wouldn’t care about ethics of it now and would have rather done that if I could have a chance. In the end, how exactly writing your last paper, thesis shows your skills? Sure, you can follow academic paper writing rules, you can use computer, you can read and gather information from research papers, and you can ignore your anxiety and interview people, interpret their answers and have enough skill in a language you are using to not only make sense but follow all the rules. I guess you can use the skills somewhere; I am just talking myself out of this idea. Wait, if someone who never majored in your area and does not have the skills you worked for, can write you a paper and write it good, it’s not an excellent way to evaluate someone.

Yeah, Snake secondary for sure. And what can I say, you make a compelling case. The structural problems in academia, the classism, the behind-the-times - it’s very much still there, and there are lots of people who can talk about it much better than I can. 

My friends were busy with their own stuff, my family were far away and with a big generational gap, professors didn’t help and then evaluated me strangely. It was really hard to see a person I knew for a few years, liked, wanted to impress be against me. Sorry I am tired, but I really needed to write something, and this seemed like a good thing to occupy myself with. Off course, I don’t know how you feel about academic unfaithfulness, but from my perspective, my experience was shitty enough that I wouldn’t give a flying sausage if there would be a next time, especially if I did everything else the right way. I really don’t know how much it was me, because it was me in some ways, but I still think my supervisor didn’t help me, but was ready to judge me. She probably felt she wasn’t paid enough to deal with my problems then. Right. You know what I want to do now? I want to never look back, never get back there, and never even touch this major. I want to leave it in the past and start anew. I want to be able to choose and not be tied to it.

Spoken like a snake secondary. And no wonder why you seem so tired. Also, being treated badly by your advisor is going to hurt anybody... but ESPECIALLY a snake primary. 

Thank you for your time. Have a great day. Or night.

I will. :) Thanks for writing in.

[garfeildfanpage]

What is your opinion on teru minamoto and how he is as a character :3 I find him and akane’s (boy) interactions very interesting tbh

Woah an ask! And as of the recent chapter(s) I think they help confirm a few things I had already thought, but I’d love to go in depth!

Overall, Teru is probably my favorite. He’s different from the rest of the cast in the sense that he’s not a “hero” nor a “villain”. To me he, Akane, and Aoi all sit right in the gray moral area rather than characters like Kou, Nene, and the members of the broadcasting club, who play the direct roles of protag and antag. But he’s always held my attention over any of the other characters because everything around him is just as morally gray, from childhood to now his values never changed as his view on the world is just as strict, though with a few exceptions (which are pretty important).

His interactions with other characters show his views in the most obvious way. He acts charming and aloof around Nene, but he’s never really paying direct attention to her (ex: the mokke of the dead arc and the current trial arc).

When with Kou his actual softer side is shown a little bit more, acting as normal as he possibly can be; save for the times when Kou goes against Teru’s moral code (Young exorcist, Bound for the far-shore) and he goes on the defensive, when Kou’s view on supernaturals rival his he immediately goes from being on his side to disregarding him and acting on his own judgment full throttle. Which shows how he ignores their differences instead of actually addressing them, since he wants Kou to not only NOT be an exorcist but also to not get in his way. And to him pretending Kou isn’t doing exactly what he doesn’t want him to do, keeps the positive dynamic alive and well in his mind.

Now, Akane specifically is where it gets a bit confusing. I’ll take it chapter by chapter (or arc by arc whatever)

Clock-Keeper (technically the chapter after but I’m not super technical about this and it’s close enough)

Where it gets silly! Their dynamic of not only Spirit v Human but also President and Vice-President is established. Teru’s bias towards Akane compared to other supernaturals is from the beginning pretty obvious (he didn’t kill him so that’s a good start) while he isn’t exactly nice to him, he does value Akane in some way or another. It also shows that Teru knows a lot more than he lets on, and that he doesn’t tell people what he does either (which foreshadows some stuff later) also the glasses stuff is kinda tease-y flirty if you ignore the getting attacked by mokke part. What can I say he’s just so charming!!!

(Finals)

Where the care is more obvious. Showing off the more playful side of their dynamic, along with Akane’s view on Teru, which as of now isn’t very positive. At the end, Teru asks Akane for a favor, showing again that he’s psychic or something. But his cruelty here can mostly be seen as him making sure he gets Akane’s help, so the immoral part of it is debatable, he just seems to go about things the wrong way most of the time. could also be seen as him giving an insensitive to Akane to help up his grades for the final, since his grades for the previous semester are comparatively not as good.

Severance

Oh great heavens. Teru’s continued disregard of other peoples values comes to a head here, where this time he’s shown how the person feels when not told important information. But I understand why he did it. If he had told Akane that Aoi wouldn’t have returned to the near-shore, he wouldn’t have returned either, and there’s no way Teru could’ve dragged him out. But would that have been an issue? If Akane was left in the boundary? He could’ve died, he was kindof already doing that anyway, but was that the reason? Or did Teru do it out of selfishness? Did he want Akane to stay? Maybe he wanted to kick some sense into him, maybe he just didn’t want him to leave? Could be a lot of things, Teru isn’t dumb, and typically he’s pretty rational, but he never said why so everything is always up for interpretation.

Day-Off

To regain lost trust. Hanging out, it isn’t obvious why exactly Teru wanted Nene and Akane to tag along, maybe he and his apparent prophetic mind decided it would be the best course of action to do so, or maybe he just wanted a girls day or something. Akane seems to have gotten over his anger at Teru (possibly due to off-screen conversations cause that’s convenient) but when Teru tells him that Aoi isn’t dead, a little bit of trust in Teru’s judgment is recovered. Maybe he had the whole thing planned out from the beginning who knows he seems to suck at being overt. Akane interrogates Teru about the severance and gets all up in his face. And then the “I like Akane-San” happens and stuff gets confusing again.

Red house

I’m starting to think he doesn’t actually like Aoi. Teru learns to complain for basically the first time! At least in front of Akane. It’s obvious Teru’s trust towards Akane didn’t falter the way it did for Akane, in fact in some way Teru put more of himself out for Akane because of the severance. He brings up the dreaded Akane & Aoi chapter, and remarks about it in a really…strange way. Not upset but more bitter, really. But it also seems that Akane’s view on Teru has improved as well, having Teru go from a nightmarish demon stealing Aoi away from him, to a seemingly doting husband to her, what does this mean? Something gay probably. But nonetheless it seems that Teru wants Aoi back as well, but for what reason specifically? Other than just the general “unjust death caused by some undead demi-god 10 year old”, he wants Aoi back for some “dream”. Or is he just bluffing to tease Akane? I don’t know, dissecting a characters motives is hard when he isn’t nearly fleshed out enough to infer things with any kind of confidence. But overall they end on better terms than the severance started with.

Bound for the far-shore

Back to normal-ish. Teru’s fight with Kou is the main catch of these chapters for him, but his back-and-forth with Akane is fun too. It’s playful, it’s sweet, and it’s also nice to see them show trust towards one another!

School festival / Omen

A subversion of the viewer’s beliefs that Teru would go back to tormenting Akane but in actuality he protects him from a threat and makes a weirdly flirty face at him?? I love literature! Anyway I love their interactions here, it’s fun yet simple! I really hope nothing bad happens right after!

Trial of the Clock-Keepers

Ok gonna be honest this chapter is interesting but dear god is the pacing so slow I’m kindof losing interest. But nonetheless! Divorce. It’s a pretty obvious parallel to the severance; in the sense that Akane blindsights Teru, Teru tries to fuck his shit up, and is then forcibly stopped and dragged somewhere else. And though it’s played off as comical, it’s not silly to assume that this is, just like the severance, another reset of trust. I mean Teru does dick while Akane gets his shit rocked (not like he can actually do anything to be fair). but even so he still shows the smallest bit of concern, concern about why they aren’t actually fighting back in any significant way, even though they’re all well capable of doing so. But since the arc is still ongoing, that’s about where by opinions end.

Overall, I love Teru! And I love his dynamic with Akane! Sorry this is like, really long I’ve been waiting for an excuse to talk about this, so thanks for the ask!!1!1!…,ninja out

[spaceacerat]

are these not normal? they were in your tags from this post

Hello! I wasn't sure if you mean blisters, or random moments of pain, so I'll assume both! I tried to separate the sections.

TW: medical neglect, medical abuse from doctors (I think it counts as that anyways, especially under the cut), mentions of skin-based injuries

(I apologize, this ended up turning into a scrambled medical rant because I have a lot of big feelings about how kids/teens/young adults can be completely ignored for even very noticeable signs of disability or issues and grow up suffering for it. I'm also just very tired and feeling weird and am in a ranty mood wanting my pain and suffering to be heard 😭)

BLISTERS:

On the case of blisters, I have little frame of reference for how often normal people blister, but my partners never seem to. Whenever I look into it, normal people apparently blister from shoes being too tight, or hiking or something very strenuous.

If your skin blisters with heat or certain fabrics, from wearing shoes even if they fit, clothing, sleeping, sitting, standing, or walking, or comes off easily from a mild bump into something, it is Not Normal.

My old PCP, when I finally asked him about it, was stunned, and did a biopsy when I had blisters I didn't have to pop. He thinks it's Epidermolysis bullosa simplex, but I can't get an official diagnosis without a genetic test that insurance doesn't cover apparently, and the dermatologist I went to was useless.

I would give advice on how to deal with it if anyone is ever interested, but what works for me probably won't work for everyone.

I don't know how it's supposed to be dealt with according to medical science, and I'm apparently (according to a partners nurse mother) very lucky I haven't gotten an infection. After all, I do it the broke person "here's my value pack of sewing pins and some paper towels" way, not the "I have access to medical resources and specialized sterile needles/bandages" way.

PAIN:

In regards to feeling pain most of the time, I've had one of my partners ask what level of pain I'm usually at, and I shrugged and went "Ehh, most of the time a 1-2, sometimes a pang of 3, a 4-5 if something specific hurts, at worst a 6-9 if somethings wrong like a migraine or whatever." He then wisely told me "You know what level normal people are at most of the time? A zero. Most people aren't in pain unless something is wrong."

I suppose that put things into perspective regarding my health, after years of just dealing with random bouts of sudden health issues I had to deal with usually completely on my own growing up.

(side note, watching something like lord of the rings as a kid, which involved a lot of scenes of them all just walking or running, would make me cringe because "holy shit they must be in so much pain :( they're so brave, and so strong for still walking and running for hours when they surely have blistered by now! I hope they have plenty of sewing needles to pop them when they stop to rest!" because my dumbass couldnt even walk around an amusement park for a day without limping badly and slowly while being told to hurry up by an older sibling, and these guys were walking and running for months on uneven terrain. Still jealous about that >:( )

(more ranting under the cut but about other things I've come to realize weren't normal [AKA specifics about the skin disorder/medical issues] or just makes me mad because suddenly I just feel the need to about my personal medical crap. Maybe someone will see it and see themselves in it. Sorry about that 😅)

in reference of the tag, I meant how I blister. I came out of the womb missing skin, and have always blistered around my body very easily. The docs claimed it was eczema when I was a baby, and they didn't bother looking into it further, but from the few people I have met who have that, they don't show any of my symptoms. Meanwhile I grew up thinking it was completely normal, and that everyone was just walking around in pain and ignoring it better than me.

I can't wear tennis shoes/heels/sandals/flipflops/crocs because the backs always rub my ankles raw and they're too soft so every step they rub around my toes, (or flip-flops would just tear the skin between my toes) but I had to grow up wearing tennis shoes all the time. That meant every night after school I'd come home and have to pop the blisters to drain them before I could sleep. Now I wear flat combat boots with two pairs of socks and it's so much better, but still not perfect, since I can't really walk outside in the summer.

I've blistered from walking, sitting, lying down, being outside in the heat, sweating, sleeping with my thighs touching, all sorts of things. Skin can also come off entirely if I get scratched or bumped into something. One time my leg got stuck at a bent angle because I fell asleep without popping the blister behind my knee, and it dried to the point where I couldn't pull it apart without pain.

Something else about that is that I'm allergic to adhesives and latex. The few times I've 'had' to wear bandaids were hellish, as it would remove the entire top layer of skin with it since it blistered under it. When I had to do an allergy test with the adhesive (dermatologist decided it had to be an allergy, because he's a dumbass), I made them cut them and put them on my arms instead of my back, where they promptly blistered after a few hours and I had to peel them off myself with a leather belt between my teeth to keep from chipping a tooth (because when I say it was incredibly painful, thats a massive understatement).

No one around me cared that I was suddenly having to lean against walls and furniture to get around because my legs wanted to give out from under me due to sudden muscle weakness and a pounding heart/chest pains/dizziness, or the few migraines I got in middle school that made me throw up a few times which weirdly made the migraine go away after enough times doing that. Or my limping from blisters, or the medication side effects that showed up when I started taking antipsychotics.

On note of medication, none of the psychs I went to told me about medication side effects. I was 13 when I started Seroquel (my guess is because they wanted to sedate me because of a whole fiasco, my partners nurse mother was shocked when she found out I was on it at such a young age for what were incredibly mild bipolar 2 symptoms). It caused me to pass out a few times, and I just had to keep taking it despite it actually making my depression/hypomania incredibly bad through the rest of middle and high school, because I wasn't aware I should tell my doctor it was making me worse. Never got bloodwork for it either.

After a while I switched meds, but was still having the worst depressive symptoms and my hypomania got even worse. One of the ones a doc had me try basically short circuited my brain. I had a five second memory if that, was shuffling around leaning against everything trying to stay upright, could barely think or talk outside of slurred words... My family saw this, and just went "You good?" and when I half-muttered a 'yeah' because I couldn't think straight enough to realize I should say no, they just shrugged and asked if I could do the dishes. I shook my head and went back to bed, passing out for 10 hours. Refused to ever take that medication again once I woke up, despite my psych trying to tell me I had to give it at least two weeks to start working properly. Fuck that.

When I show signs that something is wrong and I mention it to someone, and everyone brushes it off, it becomes normalized in the brain. But it's not. Now that I have partners who grew up going to the doctor for their problems, they're horrified, especially when they see me actively struggling with it. I had an episode (sudden muscle weakness/chest pains/pounding heart/dizzy) last month in front of them, and they were seriously debating taking me to a hospital but I kept refusing and saying it would pass because it always did and I wasn't afraid. It did eventually pass after about 7 hours, but not before scaring the shit out of them.

And these were the same signs I showed at work, twice, neither time I went home. I worked as a janitor during one of them, my manager saw but didn't think to do anything. I still managed to clean, but I did lie down and pass out in one of the back offices for a few minutes and just got up and went right back to work because I didn't want to get in trouble.

Also, a shout out to the laundromat I was forced to continue working at when I had covid!! I thought I was dying but they wouldn't let me take work off until I had a positive test, so I was forced to work the place completely alone for 8 hours during the first three days of major symptoms because I was desperate to keep the job and didn't know I could just refuse or call someone!! I mean, have you ever had to wash/dry/fold 200+ pounds of laundry completely alone in one night while every part of you thinks you're dying, and then on top of that having to deal with customers/machine issues, lift heavy trash bags, and clean dusty airvents and the rest of the place aka bathrooms and floors?? It's incredibly awful!! I did my damndest to keep my hands washed to the point where the skin came off a bit on one of my fingers and wearing a mask constantly while trying to keep my distance. Worst three days ever.

[lilisouless]

Do u like darklina? If yes, why? If no, why?

i definitely don't

the reasons are many but i only need one: she doesn't want to be with him and she didn't even liked him that much as she liked the attention. She only went with him when she thought Mal has ignoring him, on the book version she never iniciates a kiss (like, their lack of chemistry as lovers on the books its quite amazing, they only have enemies chemistry at the very best) Alina just lies there like a puppet and makes it happen. He is like her self steem fueller and he was not only perfectly aware of that but makes sure she sees him as such by sabotaging her comunication with Mal, her only friend and having Genya spying on her as well (okay, that the other grisha soldiers her age besides David is ulterly obnoxious certainly helped but still)

Its a little better on the show because at least she shows some interest and book!Alina clearly saw herself as inferior to him while on the show she tries to stand up as an equal which is a nice change and a fix of something that i never liked on the books.

Anyway , neither version work because in both the darkling at the end of the day his attachment to her its awfullly self centered. he is a serious first class narcisist. For him, Alina´s value is always thetered to him, never her, its always what she does for him and thinks Alina having her own mind and morals as a betrayal.

Book darkling supposedly cares about her, but his level of writing is a thanos level of mess. Show darkling is a little better at showing afection towards Alina, but its definitely not enought, he still does horrible things and only sees her as an extention of herself. In short: he doesn't love her at all

And Alina doesn't even need Mal to not love him. In both versions she turns against him when she learns what he did, she needed almost nothing to stop trusting him. Even if you erase Mal´s existence this still would happen, in fact

-book version, Alina had a big fight with Mal and against her heart , choose to be done with him (only reconcilied when Mal´s virtues proven to be bigger than his flaws) so could as well be out of the picture. Mal didn't play a part, she turned against the darkling because she deemed him as untrustworthy despite his better attemps to make himself Alina´s most important person

-Show version, Alina by this point doesn't even know she will find Mal so he doesn't play a part either

To make an emphasis, i honestly think Alina suffers from tons of inconsistent writting on the first two books BUT i will pretend she doesn't: compare how she instantly choose to believe Genya had a good reason for lying to her, this is someone she actually loves (and yes, i have complained about this issue, i still do, but its canon so the point has to stick)

All of this to say: she is so not in love with him, the attraction is undeniably there but there is no love that isn't born of the false affection the darkling tried to build and failed (also, Alina´s natural compasion probably played a part) this girl choose death before being with him.

thats the conclusion to me: they are not in love

And sure i am probably biassed but i will still defend my case: other grishaverse ships that are on my notp territory along with darklina would be nikolai/alina and kaz/jesper.

I really wish i could say nikolai was not in love with alina (alina IS not in love with him, thats canon) or that Jesper was not in love with Kaz so the narrative works on my favor, but i can't, they were , thats canon regardless if i like it or not.So you can say i am at least trying to get bias away and at leas on my mind the statement that they (alina and the darkling) weren't in love makes sense

[aihoshiino]

what are your thoughts on kana and if aka will actually let her find out about the revenge plot eventually

kana my love

Imo, it's pretty inevitable that Kana is going to find out about Aqua's revenge plan - it feels very intentional that the movie arc is pretty much the first time he's been willing to actively involve and manipulate Kana specifically for his own ends and I don't think it's a coincidence that this is only happening now Aqua is at his lowest point. Involving Kana to such a degree really feels like Aqua choosing to cross a line he had previously drawn for himself in terms of involving Kana directly with his revenge.

After all, I don't think it's accidental or due to a lack of focus that Kana has largely remained ignorant to this side of Aqua - rather, I think it's representative of the fact that Kana and his friendship with her is, in a lot of ways, a sort of refuge for Aqua, a window into a life as a normal teenager. As he himself put it all the way back in chapter 30, Kana is one of the few people in his life Aqua feels he can talk to without any manipulation or ulterior motives and it's clear he deeply values this aspect of their relationship. Through Kana, a lot of Aqua's worst traits are sort of filtered through a brighter, kinder lens and she brings a lot of his better traits out of him - his playful sense of humour, his sense of care and duty to the people around him, that sort of thing. Even the parts of himself he hates are softened a bit. For the like, five of you who occupy the middle of the "Oshi no Ko enjoyer" and "Umineko Enjoyer" Venn diagram, through Aqua and Kana's friendship, we (and arguably Aqua) are able to see him with love.

It's why I think it's not just inevitable but outright necessary that Kana find out about everything going on with Aqua. Aqua's arc during this stretch of the manga has been about him desecrating all his most important relationships and finally crossing the line in actively manipulating and involving Kana is part of that desecration. It's such a big shift in the status quo of their relationship that it necessitates Kana being given the information necessary to join everyone else in shaking him and going STOP RUINING YOUR LIFE, DIPSHIT!!!!

Anyway uh as you can probably tell by all that, I really like Kana! She's probably my favourite member of the cast who is not Ai and I think it's partially because her arc hits on a lot of similar beats to the ones that made Ai so compelling for me. She is definitely not on the same level of Brain Melting Blorbo as Ai obviously is for me lol but she touches on those same issues of lingering damage caused by childhood abuse, exploitation and abandonment and the kinds of things that pain does to you as you grow up. She engages with these themes in a way that is distinct enough from Ai to feel refreshing and honest while also, imo, being in conversation with it enough that it all coheres quite nicely.

I also just think she's fun and cute! The anime in general and its handling of the material is what finally made me really click with Oshi no Ko and Kana is, imo, second only to Ai in being the best served by the adaptation. She's plenty fun in the manga obviously but the anime puts a really tangible amount of love and care into its portrayal of her and does so many fun and cute things with her character acting it's really hard not to be endeared to her. I liked her fine during my first pass of the manga but it was definitely the anime that turned me into a card carrying Arima Kana Enjoyer. A big part of what has me so excited about season 2 is knowing that some of her best moments after going to get that same loving treatment and I can't wait to see it!

[autisticbokutoenthusiast]

ok @thatgirl4815 reminded me of its existence so now i need to revisit ray being called a burden in episode 1 for the millionth time but this time from a post episode 7 lens

(also yes i can read the room and am aware now is not the time in this tags history for a ray sympathy post but wtv) (also i already made a post about this??? i don't really remember august was years ago at this point and i have new thoughts apparently)

to start off, i think the only times ray's been called a burden is by boston and sand. in episode 1, boston is the only one to actually say it but i also think this moment could say a lot about the friend groups reaction to ray in general and how it hasn't really evolved.

boston: in general a lot of the time if boston is addressing ray its to hurt his feelings [see my other post about it here for more in-depth up to episode 5] (episode 1 see below, episode 2+7 boston provokes ray about mew, episode 3 bostonray conversation at the pool party about how much boston pities ray's shitty love life, episode 5 saying rays whole ass is owned by mew and telling sand about ray's crush after seeing them be happy, episode 6 ray confronts boston about whether he really slept with top while top and mew were dating and leaves believing he's a bad person and crying) and i wonder if we'll ever find out why.

but anyway boston calls ray a burden specifically because (in my opinion) he KNOWS it will hurt rays feelings at a time ray is already upset about top flirting with mew.

ray upset = boston's bitchmode activated

and while we don't know how much boston knows about ray's suicide attempt, and its fair that me might not even have known it happened let alone why, the conversation afterwards implies that the friends all know feeling loved or believing he's lovable is something ray at least struggled with if not still does (in their minds they may not know how he feels in the present about it, we as the audience know these feelings remain for him)

so that just feels like a cruel jab at ray, but like what else is the bostonray dynamic if not this.

cheum: cheum not only doesn't say anything when ray gets called a burden but she gets confused as to why he gets upset at it (i believe she specifically says "he gets so emotional when drunk"). my thoughts on whether or not she knows about ray's attempt is the same as i thought about boston, she probably knows something (she's the one that says "screw those who don't love you, i love you", but then also lists qualties that would make him desirable in a relationship and not really as a person, so she either doesn't get what ray's self-worth issues really reflect or wasn't told).

i don't want to say she's oblivious to ray but it kinda feels? that way. i think it would be interesting to look further into her relationship with april for this, the way she values having a happy relationship over an honest one, chooses lying over telling a truth that could potentially hurt.

i don't think she's purposefully ignoring ray to keep her peace, but i think it would be interesting from a character perspective to know if she's so desperate to keep the friend group together she tries to underplay threats to it or to her friends (very different context but in episode 7 she says the group should "throw away personal issues" which lowkey makes the most sense in terms of finishing a project but still feels relevant to this) or if she doesn't look for underlying issues within the friend group while they're all pretending to be ok, and instead waits for something to blow up. like how in episode 7 she realizes ray was upset more then just being drunk and pissed off only after she knew about top and the tape, which reveals she didn't think there was a deeper reason why ray was up on that stage screaming crying and self-sabotoging in the moment it was happening. or earlier on in episode 1 when ray is saying he loves his friends as their dragging him home and boston says "i know what he's gonna say next" and cheum says "he will keep saying he loves us" but boston says "he'll say guys don't leave me", which is a small moment but i wonder if it was intentional for boston to acknowledge a sad truth about ray (especailly since he only does it when hes drunk) and cheum just repeating the much more positive thing.

i also am thinking about her telling ray "why wouldn't you think to call us" after finding out days later he was in a car accident, when her and mew talked about ray before but they decided he wasn't responding because he was just drunk and then didn't check up on him.

[side not im obsessed with her saying "im mad you told april about me, but i get that you were trying to tell mew about top and ton" like does she 1. not know mew already knew about the tape when ray got on that stage and 2. think that ray was airing EVERYONE'S issues just for the topboston reveal?? like is it just me or were there obviously A LOT of reasons ray started yelling everyone's dirty laundry out to the bar while crying and trying to fight people, also 3. ray never apologizes to cheum for it, which maybe they don't feel like he has to, but like cheum says im angry at you and ray responds to something else she says and then the conversation shifts, like it feels like both of them are not addressing tension within the group purposefully]

I wonder if she is naive about ray and his issues, if she's the kind of person that needs someone else to reach out before noticing someone's issues, or if she doesn't want people close to her to be in pain, or leave her and so she chooses not to acknowledge problems (hoping for a cheum arc pls pls pls)

(i am not a mew hater i don't know why i kinda come across as one here im not criticizing him im just interpereting his actions through the lens of someone predisposed to be hurt by them)

Mew: when it comes to hearing ray get called a burden by boston, he doesn't do anything, which maybe he just doesn't remember what ray said to him the night from the flashback (which fair i was in a similar situation and i've completely blocked that night out of my memory), but if he does and let's other people repeat to ray the same phrases that convinced him his life isn't worth living then… yeah… (actually i am now leaning towards mew maybe not having that night ingrained in him, like if someones final goodbye to you includes them saying their unlovable and a burden and you don't react to them being called that later on in the future then maybe he's just forgotten)

i'd also say that maybe mew doesn't fully get ray's issues, like at the beginning of episode 6 he tells top that because of his moms, he never felt lacking in love because he always knew he had sources for it, so maybe he didn't fully process all of what ray was saying that night, or the role he holds in ray's life.

it could also explain his attitude towards ray in the entire rest of the series. like him commenting on ray bringing out the flask again (the fact the flask went away and is now coming back haunts me so much more than i think it was intended to)

and showing concern but also saying he can't be ray's emergency staff all the time (translated into attachment issues as: you're being a burden again, i can't handle you)

or the conversation in episode 6 where he assumes ray is in the bathroom because he's drunk or getting high (translated into attachment issues as: you're letting me down like you always do or you're not good enough for anyone me) he asks ray why he doesn't love himself (translated into attachment issues as: your letting people down or theres something wrong with you or just general confused noises at a concept you can't comprehend) he tells ray he'll die before he's thirty (im not gonna really comment on this one besides, 1. if it was up to ray and not the characters that save him then yeah thats the point, and 2. he's not only seemingly inherited his mothers addiction issues but he seems to believe he's destined to follow in all of her footsteps…) [side note, but ray then saying "don't worry about me" with a smile on his face while seeming to be somewhere else entirely… kinda reminding me of him saying he won't be anyones burden anymore in the bathtub tbh. actaully in general i can't get over how tired he looks in this scene and how determined he is to paint on a smile for mew]

[[second side note, rays face after mew tells him 'lets be friends forever" yeah….. no one talk to me about it]]

this scene in general seems to have an underlying emotion that i can't really define (if anyone knows pls tell me) but watching the scene on its own now that time has passed really does make it feel like a goodbye and i wonder if the scene feels sad because mew picks up on that too, or maybe he's just confused at ray's behaviour and ray is feeling conflicted about his own emotions, either way fucking ouch.

i guess my point with mew is that i don't think he has bad intentions but i don't think the things he thinks are helping ray actaully are, which, yeah why would mew at his big age of like 22 at the most know how to save ray. i think it shows he cares but that throughout this show so far there isn't enough communication between ray and his friends to truly get what they're dealing with here, that ray buries a lot of his feelings and that he seems to be operating on a different scale of pain. and in terms for my thoughts on how this evolves throughout the series, mew makes an effort with ray but we as the audience (especially compared to sand's scenes) see the ways he falls short, i think mew being with ray will give him the potential to learn more about ray or realize how much he doesn't know/understand. i hope it opens up communication between them, but i can't lie and say im not lowkey looking forward to them dealing emotional damage to eachother on a scale we didn't know possible.

like all my analysis posts i lost the point like 3 sentences in and just started rambling but curious on anyone elses thoughts on this now we are on episode 7

(also im not trying to be over critical of the group of 22 year olds, i was just projecting as the person in their 20s in a friendgroup who feels like a burden, i don't think any of these things make any of the characters bad ppl or anything it just creates interesting dynamics, peace and love <3)

[laventadorn]

Hi. Me again. In canon Umbridge finds out about Dumbledore's Army/Defense Club due to Umbridge giving Marietta Edgecombe (I think that was her name), Cho's friend, truth serum. But, I was speculating the nuance of actual betrayal, and forcing the younger generation to re-asses their house biases. Like, maybe b/c of the presence of a Slytherine, people just assume the worst of them. Harriet defends them. Only, for it to be a fellow Gryffindor, or Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw who sells them out to Umbridge. Whether you go there or not in your fanfic, I was just curious about what you think of the nuance of the positive/negative extremes of ALL the houses. I think it was confirmed Umbridge was in fact in Hufflepuff, which shows the fine line between loyalty and fanaticism. Pettigrew was Gryffindor; the fine line between bravery and ego. Ravenclaw can probably be so practical that they sometimes don't think about people's feelings. And through Snape (especially the way you write him ; chef's kiss) we see the nuance of Slytherine. And since you're keeping Cedric, I hope we get more POVs (however brief they may be) of the other house characters. I LOVE that you're expanding Harriet's circle of friends, slowly but surely. Hermione and Ron will always be her closest friends. But, I loved how we saw Cho, and even Fleur in 4th yr, Asteria - I hope we see more Millicent - so, I look forward to more of that goodness. I think that's one of the reasons why I keep coming back to your fics for re-reads. You've added nuance that I felt was lacking in canon. Anyway, thank you for writing such a beautiful story.

hello again! someone once said "JKR divided the human race into four groups and then ignored two of them," which i think is pretty accurate... and the older i get, the sillier the whole house system seems. my brain is not operating at its peak today, so some of this might be garbled nonsense or just repeating the obvious, but:

to me, the houses don't have any inherent value as a means of determining character. i think it would be more accurate to say that people are sorted based on how they want to appear to others or how they think of themselves. this isn't a bad thing per se -- i think it's neutral and natural. it might not even be conscious, especially when they're young.

we can read harry's experience this way, for example. dumbledore says "it's our choices that determine who we are" and cites the example of harry turning down slytherin and choosing gryffindor, but i would argue this is not because slytherin is inherently evil or gryffindor inherently good; harry made his choice based on how the houses were described to him. the sorting hat frames it differently than hagrid did (slytherin is the "way to greatness" vs. the bad people house). harry doesn't want to be bad*, so he just says "not the bad people house" until the sorting hat gives up. it's more like the house system reinforces beliefs or biases because you get 4 separate groups who establish what behavior is "the best," and then what could have been a minor inclination (or even a major one) gets reinforced into something bigger. hufflepuff seems to have the least issue with this, as helga is described in one of the songs as "tak[ing] all the rest," i.e. the kids that didn't sort into the other three houses with their prized qualities of courage, intelligence, and ambition. a person doesn't have to be smart to get into ravenclaw, they just have to prize intelligence (or want to be perceived as wise or intelligent). in her mind, umbridge could believe that she is very loyal to traditional wizard values, but in reality, she's just a sadist who loves control (fanaticism). peter probably wanted to be seen as brave because he was scared of everything all the time -- but then he wasn't actually brave, and this could've reinforced his inferiority, especially adding in james and sirius' bullying behavior and his own clearly mixed admiration and resentment.

idk, i'd like harriet to just realize the house system is so deeply flawed and largely based on pure perception as to be inherently meaningless. maybe she doesn't make a big platform out of it, but she's already pretty much decided this on a subconscious level from her interactions with asteria and snape. so if someone were to ask her, she'd say, "i dunno, it doesn't really seem to matter. just do what you think is right."

and: thank you! c:

ETA:

*it could be argued that harry doesn't want to go to the bad people house because the dursleys have always labeled him as a nasty, rotten boy etc. and he doesn't want to wind up in that position in the wizarding world. (plus, what child wants to be seen that way?) then he meets malfoy, who makes him feel small, and this reinforces his No Slytherin point of view. these are very child-appropriate concerns, so i'm not saying this is narrow-minded of the text; it feels quite honest, really. of course, this is just about Not Slytherin; the Hat puts harry in gryffindor based on what it senses in his personality. so maybe i'm undermining my own point :)

[sketchyspamoop]

Okay so I'm probably fixating TOO much on a children's show from 2012, but I'm coming on here to defend Donald and Douglas because the hate towards them is WILD and overstated.

So, let me start by saying that I totally agree that both of them had issues, specifically with responsibility and ego. However, I would like to bring up a theory I have as to why they're both like that. Which, totally wouldn't excuse their behavior if they truly WERE abusive, but they weren't.

In short, based off the fact that they BOTH are egotistic and more possessive of money, I think it makes sense that they weren't raised as rich as Adam, Bree, and Chase. It would make sense that they grew up with little money. Perhaps their parents were very possessive of what they had, or even were irresponsible with it. Now, I'm not saying that that should be an excuse for how they value money. However, it makes sense.

I'll start with Donald, because he's the one I see the most unwarranted hate for. First of all, because it's a Disney show, I think a lot of his personality was sculpted purely for the comedic aspect. I'm only about halfway through on my re watch, but other than him just not always being conscious of how to BE a dad, I see no actual abuse from him. The most common criticism I see from him is that he locked Adam, Bree, and Chase away in the basement for years, not even celebrating their birthdays. But you have to remember that in no way was Donald expecting to be, or even WANTING to be a dad so young. He was 38 in season 1, which puts him at, like, 20, when he took Adam Bree and Chase (roughly lol). He was not in any way expecting to be a father of three kids so young, ESPECIALLY in presumably the first few years of Davenport Industries existing. He was (presumably) single, now having to carry the weight of a giant company on his own that was intended for him AND his brother to carry, and on TOP of that having to keep his guard up on his own brother.

Let's actually talk about that for a minute, because that's over looked too. Judging by the fact that they opened a company together, we can assume that they must've been VERY close growing up, and up until Douglas betrayed him. Having your own brother, whom you were very close with and trusted so deeply do something like that would be heartbreaking, and also terrifying, knowing what Douglas wanted to do and coming to the realization that he was evil. And NOW having to protect three babies from a deranged maniac? That's a lot.

Even though Douglas was presumed dead early on, I can imagine Donald had major trust issues, which is why he kept them in the basement. He knows Douglas is smart, and crafty, and could've had people working with him to take back the kids that could attack at any time. The circumstances in which they grew up SUCK, but they were in no was abusive or malicious. Donald clearly loved and loves his kids, and did what a single dad in his 20's at the time believed was right to protect them from danger or evil. Plus, as another person pointed out, he likely had to hide them asap from the government after Douglas went awol.

I'm not saying his arrogant tendencies are okay, but the kids never seem to care or think he's abusive or doesn't love them from that. They clearly hold little resentment towards him, and it's shown many times how much they care about and love him, and how much he feels the same for them (and LEO!! He treated him like a mentee and shaped him into who he became).

If ANYTHING, Douglas was a worse father, and what he did and planned to do got brushed off. But I still love him and want to defend him to the best of my ability. I'll just do a part two since this is so long.

Anyway, in short, y'all villainize Donald too much and ignore that half the things you're calling him out for were not things he seriously meant/had malicious intentions for. It's a Disney show y'all not a law show😭

[archandshri]

The value in comfort characters from Shri - 11/05/2024

Hi Archie and everyone!

(ignore the late blog post *sweats profusely*)

Today I just wanted to talk about comfort characters and the values in them! (and subsequently convincing you to get one if you don't already have one!)

I also want to rant about mine briefly so... sue me!

If you have a comfortable character hopefully this should reassure you of the value in them and if you don't have one - this should convince you to get one!

First I'll explain what a comfort charater is!

Comfort characters (in drawing context):

A character (person or creature or environment o guess???) that provides comfort when drawing them. This can be your own character or another creator's character.

Personal note: I find that a lot of my comfort characters are a mix of traits I either wish I had and/or existing trains from me or other people I know.

The Value in Comfort characters:

Something to always draw:

When you don't know what to draw - you just draw your comfort character!

I also love to think about them/their world/story lines before going to sleep most nights - which is super fun!

Something to practice with:

When doing studies why don't you make it more fun by adding your comfort characters to it? Figure drawing - make the figures your comfort characters! Environment studies? Put your comfort character in there somewhere! I've done that sort of stuff for years!

Value in self-indulgent drawing :

This is something I'm very passionate about and it's the value in self-indulgent drawing. What I mean by this is drawing/sketching just for your own enjoyment!

For example, I went through a massive faze of just drawing my comfort characters having really snuggly hugs or sleepy snuggles

This was completely self-indulgent and it made me so happy to draw this - I just kept drawing cuddles for months and months! It was just so nice and comforting!

Anyway's, finally time to introduce you to my Comfort characters!

Here are their character sheets which I'm still adding to

(and ignoring the spelling issues)

And yes they are all adopted siblings - and I love them dearly

The last note is because they’re comfort characters they don't necessarily have to be the pinnacle of good character design, a lot of choices I make with my comfort characters or for self-indulgent choices. I probably wouldn't make the same choices if I were designing for client work or professional projects.

So keep that in mind! It's okay to make bad character design choices if it means you get more enjoyment from them!

That's all today peeps! I hope I have convinced those without comfort characters to get some!

Hope everyone has some lovely dinners

Shri

[whoiwanttoday]

Well guys, the Oscars are upon us. The coming days will no doubt be full of pre-party pictures, Oscars red carpet pictures, Oscars viewing party pictures, after party pictures, and so on all revolving around Hollywood's biggest award. It is a cultural event that continues to drop in the ratings and overall esteem but has an out-sized importance on the culture and the film world. It's hard to explain how something has gone from the average person going, "These are the best movies!" when I was a kid, even though they were not, to "The Oscars are a joke!" when nothing about the Oscars has much changed. It more about the pop culture landscape, as the film world narrows and grows more top heavy but also now that the internet gives more voices. It is still important in the sense that it is a bellwether of what is considered most important by the most mainstream of the film industry. It tends to always be looking back but then most things are. Anyway, the Oscars are most decidedly not the best movies of the year in my mind, as a matter of fact some of the Best Picture nominees are kind of bad actually. Not in the microbudget horror DVDs I own bad, they are competently made by professionals but also forgettable tripe that will largely just be forgotten in a decade. So here are some movies that I think are worth your time from 2022, a year that people bemoan for not being that great but that's a weird way to look at it, there were great things in this year, just not the sort of great things people are going to give a gold statue to. This list is not exhaustive nor is it ranked. I feel like ranking art is a stupid thing for stupid people. I apologize if you really like this but it strikes me as completely destructive and counter intuitive to actually enjoying art, it exists to create drama online and drive "engagement". There is a reason listicles are one of the internets most common piece of journalism in the era of click bait, they are arbitrary, a monkey can do it, and they make everyone upset so they tweet about it, thus bringing in more eyeballs and that sweet, sweet ad money. I also am not great at favorites because I find the art I like best in this moment is the one that speaks to my current mindset, that's the joy of great art, it grows with you and what you bring to it matters a great deal, it's why things shift over your lifetime. If you like listing your favorite whatever though that's great, my weird commitment issues are not your problem nor an indictment of your taste. There's a different between favorite and best I am saying. Final caveat is that I haven't seen every movie this year. I tried to see a lot, I did see a lot but you know, some stuff falls through the cracks. Or I know it's not for me so why bother? I knew I wouldn't like the Fablemens but got pressured into seeing it because it was important and you know what? It kind of sucked. A totally mediocre movie made by a great director. Who cares. So that said, the movies I saw this year that I think are of real value are as follows: Aftersun, After Yang, the Banshees of Inisherin, RRR, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Pearl, And X. Honestly, it was a strong year for horror in general and Pearl and X might not even be the best horror movies of last year but they are the most interesting and most compelling to me. Aftersun was probably my favorite movie of the year and really was magnificent top to bottom. Two strong performances and an examination of both depression and memory and how our relationships with our parents shift over our life as we can see things differently and understand them in a different light as an adult. After Yang also has a lot to do with memory and how we remember and what makes us. RRR is an amazingly fun action movie that is pure joy if you can ignore all the Hindu Nationalism and let's be honest, most of you are Americans so I bet you can. The Banshees of Inisherin is a difficult movie about a lot of things that I still think about. Everything Everywhere All at Once is a wonderfully joyful and emotional movie that manages to be hilarious, action packed, and beautiful and in a just world will win the Oscar tonight. Luckily, win or lose it's also a movie that makes us realize being a loser isn't so bad if you keep trying. So those are mine, feel free to make recommendations my direction if you want, or to talk to me about any movie you saw this year. I probably have thoughts, I am very opinionated. Anyway, getting on to my opinions, let's talk about who I want to fuck today, the main opinion that drives this blog. I am posting Mia Goth for lots of reasons but the big reason she's in my brain is we may not see her anywhere this weekend and that's a real shame because she should have been nominated for an Oscar. I will preface this by saying I don't have the same issues with a lot of the acting nominees that I do with the movies, in that it's rare to see a truly terrible performance get nominated (though there are quite a few life time achievement nominations I spy this time out) but they are often safe and predictable ones. Performances that seem to have been created to win awards rather than to illuminate and empower in the way only art can. Mia Goth hands down gave the best performance I saw last year of any woman. Her role in X was very good and you know, she played two parts and that could be seen as gimmicky. Much more of a "give me awards" sort of thing if that was the performance I wanted to talk about. It was very good, most telling to me is we are told early on in the movie her character is someone with an extra something. That is often a curse because if we don't feel it from the character then it's tell don't show and can hurt the entire thing. But by the end I got it, her character, when the spotlight is on, lights up in a way that you could just feel. So she was good in X. I am not here to talk about her in X. I am here to talk about her in Pearl which would have been an astounding character piece no matter what. It's basically all her, the movie is her and the pieces the come in and out of her orbit. They are people but for her character they are accessories. Obstacles or facilitators to her own happiness. Mia Goth played someone with some very serious mental issues and managed to make that person sympathetic and monstrous. She was a monster and I knew it but the performance was so good and so powerful you could still feel her sadness, her desperation, her need for whatever it was that was missing inside her that she just could not seem to fill with anything. That alone would have made this a really good performance. It's just that I also saw X, where she was someone so radically different if I didn't know it was the same actress I never would have guessed. Which is why Mia Goth's performance really should have gotten her award nominations but these aren't the kind of movies that get awards because these aren't the kind of movies you can brag about yourself with nearly as easily. The movie where Mia Goth fucks a scarecrow doesn't quite signal the prestige and bring about self congratulatory masturbation the way giving an award to a movie about say deaf people would. So the world is what it is but I am going to recognize her today. She is amazingly talented, I hope to watch Infinity Pool soon and I am very excited for what she has coming down the line. Oh, she also helped write Pearl, feels important to explain what a complete artist she is, she really did built the character from the ground up. Today I want to fuck Mia Goth.

[sanguine-inkwell]

I think I want to write about self care today.

The thing about being a sanguinarian is, it’s not as… straightforward as a normal need? It’s easy to understand that a human being needs sugars, fats, and proteins to survive. Your brain needs those things. It is rational to conclude that not being able to feel hunger, or not eating, is a Bad Thing with Bad Consequences.

Blood is hard to get, and I end up mentally filing it under “luxury goods” like chocolate and bath bombs. Iron pills don’t really do it, my usual pomegranate juice helps a little, but even pomegranate juice is ludicrously expensive and I have bills to pay. So, compared to the necessary value of chicken and bread and milk, blood should be a sacrifice I can justify not making for months or years. I only have my favorite chocolate on holidays, you know? It should be simple.

I still don’t know why I crave blood. It’s not a bit or an aesthetic choice. If it was, I’d be thrilled buying red candles for the evening and messing with my makeup to make blood drips down my jaw. If it was an aesthetic choice, I wouldn’t be facing the war between my social anxiety and my genuine need. The need definitely wouldn’t be winning. Blood is in people, you can’t really get it any other way consensually. It’s not like I keep farm animals in my apartment.

I’ve been running with the assumption that it’s psychological, but it’s such a niche psychological want that I thought I could gloss it over, or maybe classify it with the impulses like touching hot stoves or throwing my phone out a window. But I don’t feel worse after successfully ignoring those last two.

The thing about being neurodivergent, though, is that by hook or by crook you end up being really good at ignoring or not registering your own needs, be they physical or psychological. Nature, nurture, however the cards fall. Especially if you’re prone to dissociation- I’ve got a friend with ADHD I meet up with for DND, and he frequently doesn’t eat all week because he just forgets to. I’ve got a friend with autism who sometimes goes Angry Werewolf Mode out of nowhere and asks to be left alone for a day, and then comes back saying they might have had some emotions they were ignoring.

So maybe it doesn’t matter what blood does for me, whether it’s rational or irrational. What matters is this want has stuck around for over a decade, and I feel healthier after taking care of it.

But I know myself. There’s a nonzero chance I’ll forget I even wrote this! And I don’t have the cash to help myself anyway. The electric bill is more important than the water bill, both of those are more important than groceries, groceries are more important than getting my oil changed, and pomegranate juice isn’t even on the list. I can buy so many hot dogs for the price of a bottle of expensive juice. Hell, even if I had a willing blood donor, my usual honorbound payment is pizza. Or at least dinner. I can’t afford that.

Can I afford to start caring about this lacking area of self care? I don’t know. I can at least acknowledge that I need to take better care of myself, which is something. But after that we get into the universal issue of a lack of local swans. If I wanted to complain about that, I can think of at least three Discord servers full to the brim with equally desperate vampires. It’s easier to ask a friend, but the friends that would be willing are an expensive plane ticket away. So!

Is there any benefit to recognizing I have an unfulfilled need right now? There probably should be, on principle. I’m not sure what it would be. At the very least there’s value in recognizing what’s real and what’s not, and treating myself kindly according to that. The brief impulse to throw my phone out a window? Not a real need, does not have lingering effects if I ignore it. The need to drink blood? There are consequences if I don’t, even if I’m really good at ignoring those consequences. I won’t die, but I also won’t die if I don’t take my meds, and I definitely function better with them than without.

So I suppose… the most I can do is recognize that the need exists and accept it, but if I can’t respond to the need, is there value in recognizing it?

I feel like my therapist would say yes.

[clini-calia]

It's tough. It is.

I'm a 30-year-old transgender man. From ages 16 to 23-ish, I was stuck in the alt-right pipeline, as well. I watched all that stupid bullshit with "feminists getting owned!!!1!" and what the fuck ever else. I think what pushed me towards it was how people on Tumblr used to be upset over EVERYTHING and would belittle me for my masculinity. I remember seeing a post that had a gif of a scene from some anime, I dunno which one, and it was of a naked girl laying down. People were complaining about her breasts not being realistic - it wasn't the size, it was that they weren't sagging or drooping, and that men need to be portrayed with rock hard dicks that never soften or whatever. But I was just sitting there thinking, "She's laying down... lol. Gravity is literally pushing her breasts against her chest, not pulling them down."

Anyway. Posts like that, but they got worse. I've had a lot of people on the left question my gender. "Why would you want to be a man? Women are the better choice." "I don't know why you'd want to do that, why give up your femininity?" I got into a small argument with a woman once on it, basically saying that it felt like trans men weren't really counted much and were largely ignored in the trans community, along with non binary people, who are usually just treated as "Women Lite." She got so angry that she told me, "You probably just wanna be a guy because you're too ugly to get one for yourself."

That's what tipped me over to the right for a bit. Until I realized they cared even less about me and that if given the chance, well. What happened on November 5th would happen, and they'd look for any excuse to strip me of my rights.

For cis, straight, white men it's not so easy to get out of. They're welcomed with open arms, there's no looming threat of having their rights taken away. So the pull of some "brotherhood" is more enticing. I was groomed and sexually assaulted by a man, but I was also sexually assaulted and groomed by a woman. I'll always believe that, no matter what, humans are just humans. White, black, gay, straight, trans, cis, man, woman - humans. And humans can be good, and they can also fucking suck. So I'll never say "all men are trash" or "all women are garbage" or anything like it ever again.

I see men's issues with mental health. I wish they would understand that it's the patriarchy that ultimately fuels those issues, and I wish some women would see how they also contribute to it. I see a lot of younger women these days placing men's entire values on their income, their careers, their appearances, what they can buy for them... I've seen a tweet of dudes just chilling and playing video games, showing off Pokemon cards or some shit and a woman quote retweeted it and said, "Men used to fight in wars. 🙄" Yeah. That'll stop toxic masculinity - tell men they're not real men unless they go to war and give up what makes them happy. Nice...

The patriarchy hurts women by enforcing the idea that they are to submit to men's wishes, stay at home, clean, cook, have babies. That's all women are allowed to experience.

The patriarchy hurts men by enforcing the idea that they are to overwork themselves, abandon any non traditional masculine interests and basic human emotions in favor of that work, and go to fight and possibly die in wars.

These ideals were put into place as soon as different tribes, races, countries and so on realized that, "Oh. There's OTHER types of people, and I want to be the most powerful and rich so they don't take what I have. Hmm. Better make sure women can only spit out plenty of babies and that plenty of those babies are men to be my soldiers and workforce."

If you're a man that supports any of those ideas, fuck you. If you're a woman that supports any of those ideas, fuck you, too. I'm sick and tired of generalizing people. I'm sick and tired of having to give up pieces of ourselves in order to put more money in billionaire's pockets. I'm sick and tired of men being told they're "too feminine" to be a man over being into stuff like sewing, baking, dolls, fashion, cozy games and I'm tired of seeing women being told they're "too masculine" to be a woman for being into coding, mechanical work, FPS games, science and I'm tired of seeing non binary people being told they're too much of one or the other to be non binary.

I'm tired of seeing men put down other men for having a fucking emotion other than anger or goddamn numbness. I'm tired of seeing women put down other women for being more attractive or not attractive enough. Just... stupid, petty bullshit that should have been over and done with decades ago, why the fuck are we STILL here?

It's tough. Because I love men and care deeply about men. But I also don't think we need to baby them and pat them on the back and say, "It's OK that you joined a fascist group of people that openly and proudly call themselves Nazis." And if a man ever tells me or any woman or AFAB person that it's "your body, my choice," I will grab the nearest blunt object I can get my hands on and beat the snot, shit, and blood out of them.

But I do think we need to work harder at not alienating our CIS, straight, white, male allies. We need to stop generalizing everybody and correct our language when talking about people. And we especially need to make it clear that the alt-right only seeks to divide for their own benefit, not for anyone else's. It's money and power that they want. Men, unless you are wealthy, you are just a vote and a pawn to them, nothing else. We need Democrats in the USA to stop rolling over and blowing kisses to Republicans in the hopes that they'll play nice and cut us some slack. It's not going to happen, not in meaningful numbers. And we NEED to crack down harder on alt-right online spaces. I don't give a fuck no more, get rid of that shit, I don't care if it's seen as too extreme or censorship, if you give these dangerous people a place to commune and feel safe with their harmful ideologies, then it WILL spill over into other spaces. And parents of young children: you need to BE BETTER at monitoring what your kids are seeing and doing online. Take it from someone who no-lifes online games: they are going into these spaces and saying heinous, horrible shit. They are being groomed, they are saying slurs and sexually harassing women, they are even seeking sexual attention and guidance from adults and strangers, and some of those adults are sick enough to take them up on their offers. One little trip into a few public instances of games like VRChat will be all the proof you need. I love the Internet, I really do, but I also see how its anonymity has done harm to us and has severely damaged how young people interact with each other, online and offline.

Anyway, sorry that was so long. I've been pissed the fuck off since I saw that Trump "won" the election and this shit has been on my mind for years, just even more so now.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[libertarian-druid-ny-separatist]

It's insane to me that some anime icon having weirdo, who's now blocked me, can accuse me of being someone else (for legalities sake I am New here) and make up something I didnt say, and then a swarm of rightoids can come out of the woodwork with anon hate again. At least you're being reasonable...

But no, your situation doesn't give more weight to anything cause anecdotes are rarely useful or relevant when giving ones opinions on public policy, especially regarding ones rights to ones own body and pregnancy from you, a man. Framing removing a brainless clump of cells as "murder" is pretty christian, to my mind, at least culturally anyway. Since most people who study the human body don't consider it murder. But thats neither here or there rn.

originally, I was speaking to a maga delulu cultist, who finds it ok to force other women to have children against their will, but shrieked and started a whole stink when I said that they should face the circumstances they so easily and casually were willing to force, legislatively, on others. Hypocrisy. From christians? par for the course, lol.

If I had been arguing at the time with someone against say, what I consider common sense gun control, I would have said "I hope you have to live through a shooting event that makes you reconsider". Or on a different track- I would hope some anti-public transit person, Id wish them nothing but traffic and exhaust fumes, because the empathy free dont realize they could be wrong or change their minds until something effects them personally.

And Im not offended when someone says to me "I hope your support for democratic socialism gets you (insert rightoid holocaust fantasy about evil denmark style socialism)" because I understand thats just words on a screen, not a "wish" or a "threat" lol. Could my wording have been better originally? Probably? Who knows or cares though?

This is only still going on cause some rightoids and neonazis keep bringing it up so they can pretend to be offended by me, as fascists do, to ignore reality. And also to pretend to defend a white chick and her virtue against a mouthy jew who sources stuff. Its all clownery and mostly from maga cultists 😂.

I can appreciate you being reasonable about it though, which is why I bothered to reply at all. Sorry for the rambling.

Okay, this is a long one, so I'm gonna kinda break it up a bit for ease of reading.

Thank you for being reasonable in return, just because we disagree doesn't mean we can't be civil, which is a thought process I wish both sides of the aisle would be more open to. There are admittedly people on both sides that agree with that sentiment, but not nearly enough.

My point is that it's still a life, snuffing out innocent life will always be murder to me, whether it's a year old, a decade old, a century old, or a second old. Every life has inherent value so long as it retains innocence. I appreciate the honesty in saying that it's because I'm a man and that your original points about rape and Christianity were more or less just repeating talking points (I know that's going to come off as sarcasm, but I assure you it isn't).

I don't tend to care much for the religious portion of the issue, if you're having unprotected sex, there can be consequences. One of those consequences can be impregnation. I can agree that being forced to carry the child of your rapist is wrong, I don't believe it should be forced, so much as deregulation of adoption so that abortion isn't the go-to solution. I think you can probably agree that despite the circumstances, the child is still innocent of their father's crimes. So while I wouldn't force it upon anyone, I would say it would be wrong to end a pregnancy, and continue to disagree with that portion of the decision. If being brainless is what makes it okay to you, then it stands to reason that upon the third gestational week, abortion should be off the table, as that's when brain tissue begins to develop. If not, feel free to correct me.

Yeah, I can agree that the phrasing could have been better, it comes off like you're wishing pro-life people would get raped in the post. And honestly, the modification to the scenarios you present isn't much better. But it also doesn't help the situation that I'm in full support of all natural rights, self defense being one of those. I actually offer to teach anyone how to shoot in a defensive manner, especially my Romani "family" and Jewish folks given the situations regarding those groups internationally and here in the US. That said, if you're more comfortable having to look your attacker in the eye while bludgeoning or stabbing them in defense, then more power to you, I can almost relate. As far as public transit goes, I support opening the market to private competition, partially to lower costs and partially to improve the services. I'd also avoid calling them "empathy free" just because they disagree. I assure you, in most cases, they're not sociopaths.

My issues with socialism arise from family history, and how many times socialist economies have failed/converted to capitalist ones. While it makes tyranny an easier goal to achieve, that's less of an inherent worry for me than the fact that it seems to fail so often. I'd hope you'd consider that it's largely only a good system on paper given how things actually work, but your views are yours to hold, and possibly change, on your own.

Can you honestly say that the people arguing against (what they view as) murder (to which you disagree) are fascists though? Is it possible that they simply don't want to have a society in which the murder of children is acceptable? I don't think the government should regulate it, so much as it should be deregulating alternatives such as adoption. If an adoptive parent wants to help take care of the child as it is developing in the womb, and then raise said child, I see no harm in that. However, there is already a wait list for adoptions, and not really much going into helping to shorten that wait. If the government should be doing anything that would actively use tax dollars, it should go towards helping out adoptions and adoptees. As someone who was adopted (I know, I've got a whole lot of skin in this) it generally works out for the best for all involved parties. That said, I understand that "generally" is different than "always" and the concern some have if it's not something with a 100% success rate. Most folks are a lot less willing to take risks than they were 20, 30, 50 years ago.

If you're interested in continuing the conversation, or if I skipped something you feel is relevant, my dms are open, asks are open, and of course, reblogs will remain available.

I ask that you use reblogs if any are applicable, but won't demand it. Just helps to keep things organized.