#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.

[literatureloverx]

Just a quick question, do you really think Fyodor likes the idea of having children? I mean, I've always thought he doesn't really like children in general,,, But I want to know what you think about that mainly because I've seen many people paint him as that kind of father who forgets even his children's names (that or abandons them) I know it's out of character for him (as far as I know??) but I find it a bit hilarious… and sad at the same time (maybe because that reminds me of my father) anyway, that's all I hope I'm not bothering you bye! 🤗💝💕

Love, you are not bothering me at all. And I’m very sorry for answering this so late—time management issues on my part. Though, I should probably stop apologising so often; I feel like it might throw people off, haha.♥️

Dad!Fyodor, an analysis (kind of)

I actually find this question quite interesting because Fyodor is often mischaracterised when it comes to topics like family and children.

To answer your question—no, I don’t think Fyodor dislikes children in general, nor do I see him as the type to abandon his own or forget their names.

That interpretation is, in my opinion, entirely out of character for him. The idea of him being an apathetic or negligent father is more of a joke or an exaggeration rather than something rooted in his actual characterisation.

If anything, Fyodor is far too controlled and intentional in his actions to have children by accident, and if he did choose to have them, he wouldn’t simply ignore or discard them.

It’s important to remember that Fyodor is not a man who does things without purpose. He is methodical, calculating, and always several steps ahead. If he were to become a father, it wouldn’t be by mistake or as something he passively accepts—it would be a conscious decision, meaning he would be fully aware of the responsibilities that come with it. And given how much he values intelligence, discipline, and devotion, I don’t see him taking a careless approach to raising a child.

However, that doesn’t mean his approach to fatherhood would be conventional. Fyodor does not love in the way most people do. His love is not warm, nor is it entirely unconditional—it is something that exists within his own framework of control, value and purpose.

He is not a man to indulge in sentimentality. Even if he were to have a child, it wouldn’t be because of an emotional longing for family life but because he saw a reason for it.

He wouldn’t be a father in the traditional sense—he wouldn’t coddle, nor would he offer affection in the way most people expect from a parent—unless his darling comes into play, the one who gently coaxes him into becoming more of a traditionally “good” father to their child.

Even then, that does not mean he would be absent. If anything, he would be deeply involved in his child’s life, though not necessarily in a way that others might consider healthy. His manipulativeness would be ever-present, not out of malice, but because control is intrinsic to who he is. His child would not be left to navigate the world freely; he would guide them, shape them, ensuring they align with his ideals (because he is always right, obviously). His influence would be inescapable, woven into every aspect of their development.

That being said, Fyodor does not waste his time on what he does not value. If his child is his, then they are bound to him in a way that ensures they are never forgotten or overlooked. He would watch them closely, ensuring they do not stray, subtly (or not so subtly) moulding their thoughts, their perspectives, their very sense of self. He would demand excellence, not just in intellect but in loyalty. Love, to him, is likely all-encompassing, possessive, a quiet but undeniable force.

So no, I do not see Fyodor as a father who would neglect or abandon his child. That is far too passive for him. His love is not about distance or disinterest. It is about control, influence, and an ever-present claim. A child of his would never be forgotten.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Having the statue scene be what caused Adrien to fall in love with Marinette feel like one of many spite moves from Astruc. Like once again, he saw how much people hated that scene but instead of addressing the criticisms he instead just point blank tries to force us to like the scene.

I'd go with arrogance over spite. I don't know much about the man, but the quotes I've seen and my limited knowledge of the industry are why my standard take is that he and the writing staff are genuinely trying to tell a good story. While we think they're failing at it, they don't. They think it's good. You're not going to sway me to their point of view, but I do understand how they could get into that mindset.

It's incredibly rare to get professional writers who want to punish the audience. It's incredibly common to get writers who are so far up their own ass that they think they shit gold and anyone who disagrees is just a hater who can't understand their vision. While that viewpoint isn't ideal, it's not a terrible trait for a creative. You're unlikely to succeed in a creative field if you can't get into some version of that mindset.

Speaking as a writer, if you want to succeed in a creative field, then you do genuinely need to be your own biggest fan and learn to ignore criticism. Not because you're above criticism, but because:

Issue 1: A lot of people struggle with the difference between personal taste and actual flaws, leading to some really shitty "criticism". That doesn't mean that it's bad to talk about a thing in terms of personal taste, it just means that your criticisms maybe be highly subjective opinions and not objective flaws that the creator needs to know about. It's why things like book reviews are for the audience and not the author. I know people who have found great reads based on negative reviews because those reviews talked about the book in question in an objective enough way for those people to realize it had things that they loved. That means that those were excellent reviews, they let people know if they'd like the book or not, which is what a review is meant to do! It also means that the reviews were pretty worthless to the authors because there was nothing that needed changing. It was all a matter of personal taste.

Issue 2: Taking point one a step further: more objective, "good" criticism isn't necessarily valuable to a creator. Sometimes creators are willing to include "flaws" because their creation doesn't fit their vision without those "flaws". Creators can get away with that because different audiences will care about different things and you're never going to be able to appeal to everyone. This is not the greatest example, but I think it gets my point across, so I'll use it here anyway. As someone who prefers reasonably healthy couples, if I were to read a story with an awful romance, then I'd probably hate it and have very clear, logical reasons why. But if the author is totally aware that the couple is awful and needed them to be such for the story they wanted to tell? Then my critique has no value to them. It's why good critique is so hard to get and give. Good critique is not about shaping a story into what you'd call good, it's about shaping the story the writer wants to tell into its best form. It's super hard, but also fun and a good learning experience.

Issue 3: A lot of criticism is highly situational and public feedback will only ever come after a work is done and available to the public. That makes it questionable how much value you'd get from reading feedback at that point. For an ongoing work where only a part is done, you might get something useful, but for a finished one? It's questionable if there's any point in reading negative comments. For example, I've received unsolicited critical feedback on fics that are several years old. I have no idea what the goal of those comments is. Even if I agree with them, I'm not going to rewrite the fic for them. I even asked one of them what their goal was and they couldn't tell me. They just wanted me to know and the button said "comments" not "positive comments."

Issue 4: You're never going to be perfect, so even a great work will have flaws, but it's unhealthy to dwell on them. Listening to a thousand people point out what you got wrong is not going to help anyone improve. That's why good creatives are open to feedback, but they tend to have a select group that they go to for feedback during the creative process. They then ignore most other feedback. In most cases, that is the healthy way to approach the creative process. It's why I don't agree with those who complain about someone blocking critics on twitter. Block and move on isn't just advice for the plebs. Successful creatives are allowed to prioritize their mental health, too.

Of course, there is a double edged sword in action here. Because creatives need to be their own fans and develop that ability to ignore criticism, they are always at risk of forming echo chambers that lead them to create lesser works because everyone in their core team thinks the same way they do. They may not even have a core team! It takes a lot of humility and luck to find people who give you good feedback.

The echo chamber issue is especially true when creatives are successful as it's hard to want to change when you're making money off of whatever crap you put out. Once you reach a certain level of success, there will be a whole lot less push back on your terrible ideas. If it's going to make money either way, then why worry if it's total crap? (This is a major problem in the publishing industry, btw. People with large social media followings can get a book deal with relative ease and publish almost anything they want because the publisher knows it will sell and it's not their name that's going to be looked down on.)

Generally speaking, this is what I think happened with Miraculous. The show is incredibly successful so there's no reason to listen to criticism or expand the creative team. Until the show stops making money, it doesn't matter how bad it is, so there's no reason for the writers to question if they've become blind to their own flaws. And by the time the show goes too far and stops making money? It will probably be too late to fix the problems so the show will just die. That's just how this trend works.

In summary, I would not be shocked if the writers genuinely think they're writing wonderful stories and that the critics just can't see it because we're the spiteful ones, not them. People can develop really weird standards for what is good, especially when they're immersed in the industry. For example, it's not like Disney wanted to ruin the Star Wars brand or have their 100th anniversary film - Wish - be universally panned. Studios want to make money. Writers want to tell stories people like. Spite it's rarely the answer when they fail to do those things.

The one caveat I will give to the above is if you're referring to the kind of spiteful arrogance where someone creates a thing, people criticize said thing, and so the person makes more of said thing in retaliation because that's 100% spite. But it's not the kind of spite where they're making a thing bad on purpose. It's them saying, "no, this was good and I'm gonna make more of it because you're wrong and I'm right." People do that shit all the time and, once again, it's not an inherently bad thing. Like all emotions, spite is a neutral force and a powerful motivator. It can lead to great things and terrible things. I can think of spite projects that were wildly successful and spite projects that totally flopped. (Relevant Tumblr post)

If that's the argument you're making when you say "spite", then I could totally see the statue scene choice happening because the writers heard people dunking on it and they went, "No, you're wrong, that scene was awesome! In fact, to show you how awesome, we're going to have that be when Adrien's crush started!" Spite? Yes. Ruining the show on purpose to get back at haters? No.

[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).

[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 :)

[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

[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)

[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

[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.

[lunarsilkscreen]

"Wests fundamental weakness is Empathy"

[Elon Musk] said this on [Joe Rogan Podcast].

I hate having to translate to both sides...

Anyway; if it sounds like some [Russian Propaganda] that's because it is.

How can [Empathy] be a weakness?

Well; there's several ways... And despite the addage "What's good for my community, is good for me" Empathy can often be the way we overlook the more difficult decisions we have to make.

"Wow; Look at all those poor starving children in [War Torn Country]! I know we caused this issue; but here's a donation of [20$] so you can eat and I don't have to feel bad about voting the same policies into effect!" - One of the more benevolent MAGA probably

The second is that well .. let's use the Telecom companies as an example here; they say "There's no way they can stop robo-callers" and then, while knowing which robo-callers are spamming their systems, and how to stop them; Allow those robo-callers to take advantage of the elderly and whomever else.

[Nigerian Prince] scam be damned; my Grandparents were tricked into believing I was in jail and needed 3000$ for bail WHILE I WAS DEPLOYED!

my seething anger about my family's ignorance of me; while showing genuine concern; has put me in a kind of [black sheep] position as they believe I've been in prison several times over by now.

That's not all.

When somebody asks for assistance; if they appear on the up and up, maybe even a neighbor; They can fall to scams and canvassing. My Mother had somebody stop by her house with a clipboard; so he looks official "Doing House Calls" on the "Department of Energy's" behalf.

Such concerned for my mother. I'm sure.

It doesn't end there; people can adjust your own opinion of someone [you've probably never met] by abusing that concern and simply saying [But look at ALL THESE BAD THINGS"{That that person maybe could have done where they the things I said about them.}

That Game theory playbook of "Everybody forgets your mistakes, and remembers your correct statements"

Meaning trusted officials can take advantage of you in that way as well; and there's nobody there to really do anything about it except [Journalists] and the [News Media]

In fact; It's Marketing, Politics, and Propaganda 101 these days.

The last one is; Just because I'm concerned about your welfare, doesn't mean I'm going to give you [whatever] if you'll just waste it.

Jeopardizing a lot of our Nation's Global Ties.

And pretty much each one of these is what certain pundits think about when approaching anything.

Here's what I think though;

I'm a very skilled expert, especially at Large-scale Systems Analytics and Troubleshooting; check my service history; I have an SEI {Special Experience Indicator}.

There's a definite lack of empathy with what our technical experts are capable of doing; and a lack of concern for *our* communities as a whole.

This means that *fear* permeates our political systems to such a high-degree; everyone is worried about making decisions based on what makes them look good or bad.

This isn't about "cancel culture" that was started by the paper media and propagated by TV Heads. It's not new.

And by that; I mean they don't ever stop to think about value moves; or improving the board state for anyone.

Because it's always "Why do you benefit more than I do?" When looking at a level playing field.

Never at the playing field, or the board state itself. Which is a mess AND we have the power to make it equitable. Or Level.

Those on a downward slope fear climbing back up it; and are upset when those at the bottom no longer have to climb up to the heights they've been at before; to achieve what they've already achieved and are free to achieve even more.

I dunno dudes... You wanna make my service history make sense? Because I worked hard enough and studied hard enough to be higher than I made it when I was pushed out by anti-trans Magats thanks to Trump's "Fire the Transgenders" speech.

If you can make that make sense; you wouldn't be so afraid of losing.

[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.

And woe be unto you if you're sapphic and she's latched on to you. IDK who her sapphic friends were in the past but I have deep suspicions about her insistence that they were definitely in love with her, too. So understand that this boyfriend surrogate thing with her is probably a repeat; I can't imagine it's restricted to just me.

Now to the meat of this: 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.

[sunflowersandsapphires]

beautiful gif set!!

And i have so many feelings about this so I’ll put them below the cut in case anyone wants to be unhinged about this with me.

Like a lot of people, I have had my issues with Karen. Recently though, I’ve been trying to understand her? (Rather than just ignoring her or explaining her flaws away as bad writing.)

Karen and Frank both value honesty, above damn near everything else. The two of them understand that hard things sometimes need to be done, but they’d rather someone do them and admit to it than pretend not to.

For Frank, this is obviously trauma related? Like he probably valued honesty before the Carousel but now it’s A) something he still has that can’t be taken from him (the ability to tell his story or not), and B) he’s so sick and tired of being fed bullshit and he knows first hand how dangerous it can be.

Karen is the same way. Her traumatic events in S1 and S2 of Daredevil all center around being lied to or people manipulating the truth. I haven’t watched her background eps in a while but I’m sure her own history with lying and such contributes to that as well. Plus there’s the whole conversation between her and that heiress in S3 where she admits that one of the primary reasons she escaped to NYC was because people were lying about her.

Anyways, my point is: lying for Karen and Frank means people get hurt. Their experiences with lying make them equate honesty and goodness/morality pretty closely.

Matt on the other hand has been conditioned to think that lying saves lives. His dad lied to him regularly to spare him from the criminal underbelly he was caught up with. After that, Stick made it very clear that he was supposed to lie to people to protect them. Not to mention, any time he’s been honest with someone it’s had consequences. The first person he was honest with after Stick was Elektra, and she left him. Telling Foggy the truth led to the disintegration of their law practice. Telling Karen everything caused him to lose her as well.

As the audience, WE know that these consequences are because Foggy/Karen were mad at him for hiding things. They both value honesty and expected it from him. But to Matt? It’s just reinforcing the idea that lying means people stay and telling the truth means he’s alone.

So yah, Karen is kinder to Frank. But it’s because their values are more similar. Matt and Karen do not value honesty in the same way and therefore will always ALWAYS struggle to communicate.

Karen with Frank v.s Karen with Matt. 

The Punisher s1e02 | Daredevil s3e06.

[homophobicgerardwayau]

Probably a bit late to this one but I have opinions. lol

I think a good thing to keep in mind regarding this 'women in rock' discourse is that this whole discussion is super myopic. I think we should consider that this is a bit of an autism argument, where on one side we have mcr fans (like myself) that are hyperfixated on music in general and are frustrated by the idea that other people don't find value in the same things that I do. And on the other side, we have people that are just as hyperfixated on mcr, but enjoy the band for reasons primarily other than the music itself. I think a lot of this honestly boils down to a bunch of passionate people arguing about how best to enjoy the thing that we collectively love.

I get it, I can't understand for the life of me why a person would seemingly limit their music taste to MCR, FOB, Panic and Paramore. For me, one of the reasons why I've revisited My Chem over and over for the last 15 years is because they were my big 'springboard' band that introduced me to a wide range of artists that continue to inspire me to this day. Everything from Hardcore to Proto-punk to Britpop to Glam and P-funk and Americana all because I was a kid in a small town with an obsession with this massive new band called My Chemical Romance.

Finding new things to be passionate about takes time and natural curiosity. When I was 16 I was probably listening to like, 5 bands. MCR, The Misfits, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana and Led Zepplin. Not many women in those bands.

Here's the thing, we should all know (even if you are very young), that the issues of gender inequality and racism are ten thousand times bigger and more complex than what fucking rock bands you listen to. When we are talking about 'the ideal rockstar and what that looks like' we are talking about the patriarchy. When we are talking about 'why do many rock fans disparage rap and hip-hop?' we are talking about white supremacy and colourism and how it impacts every facet of our lives, including the art and media that we consume.

If someone wants to make a zine or playlist that centers women and POC in rock, that's fantastic. If you take that as someone on the internet saying "You are ignorant and here's why" you may want to pause for a second and consider that this isn't about telling you off. It's an opportunity to engage, if even on a tiny scale, in the sharing of knowledge. And that's always a great thing!

It's super annoying when old-heads and the like seemingly wield their "vast musical tastes" like a weapon of moral superiority, and there are people out there that absolutely do that in order to alleviate their own feelings of white guilt for example. But in this context, I think that all of this shit should be engaged with in good faith. It's not that deep.

The more diversity the better. After all, isn't that why we are all still foaming at the mouth about Gerard wearing dresses on stage? Because we feel represented as GNC people?

Anyway, listen to Artpop by Lady Gaga, now streaming on iTunes.

Just a joke for the millennials there. Seriously though, listen to whatever brings you happiness, but try to ask yourself the question "What about this speaks to me?". Always a helpful question.