#but they're also trying very hard to like Discuss Social Issues and it end up very funny because they're bad at it but GOD It's so sincere-

[soubiapologist]

i don't expect any of you to understand the reference but alice cooper. from riverdale. is a little like if a loveless character was really really really fucking funny

[max1461]

Right, right. I keep refining my thoughts on tumblr culture. By "tumblr" I of course mean my own circle of tumblr, whose exact bounds are a little hard to demarcate. I suppose I would call it "serious discourse tumblr"; it's the space in which various groups —chief among them rationalists, rationalist-adjacents, communists and anarchists, and LGBT activists and folk philosophers—come to discuss the issues of the day. Some discursive undertones which strongly characterize this sphere: an affinity for "big ideas" or grand narratives, a tendency to abstraction (particularly of the social world), a radical rejection of normalcy-as-good and a deep affinity for subversion and deviance for their own sake, a certain "megalomaniacal" tendency which positions "shaping the world in one's desired image" as quite a central to the point of human life, and an overriding sense of justice and moral seriousness.

I am, as I think my description makes evident, ambivalent on this culture. I feel very fundamentally like an outsider to it. But I also appreciate it very much, and I do ultimately think I have been greatly enriched by my engagement with it, even if there are parts that trouble me. I find its moral seriousness admirable but exhausting. I find its love of deviance truly beautiful, but at the end of the day not for me. I find its megalomaniacal tendency frustrating.

I don't know what I'm really trying to say. This place is so strange and fascinating, and I want to mark down for posterity how strange and fascinating I really think it is. It also troubles me a lot lately, but this is ultimately "my problem". I think I'm just a cultural mismatch for this place. My perspectives are valuable and the tumblr perspectives are valuable, but they're going to grate on each other with too much contact. It is what it is. I want to continue to be involved with this place but I think for my own sake it is important that it make up a smaller proportion of my social interaction.

[serpentstole]

Hey I was wondering what your view on luciferianism is? I know a lot about theistic satanism (as one myself) and the horned god but not much on Lucifer.

That's a bit of a complicated question! I'll try to keep things brief so I don't end up writing you an essay, but I welcome any follow up questions if there's something I didn't go into/cover/explain.

My view on Luciferianism as a whole is that it's a very vague label. It can encompass a lot of beliefs, both theistic and atheistic (as with Satanism). In the past, I made myself this working definition.

Luciferianism is a religion or system of belief held by those that appreciate and strive to embody the traits typically associated with Lucifer as Lightbringer, such liberation and rebellion over blind faith and obedience, and a pursuit of knowledge or enlightenment. It can be theistic or atheistic, and typically involves an equal appreciation for the arts and science. Incorporating the occult or some form of magical practice is common among theistic Luciferians, but not a requirement.

How people then choose to put those concepts into action can vary wildly. For example, I'm personally of a belief that a focus on liberation, rebellion, a rejection of dogma, and a pursuit of higher understanding of the world around us should lead people to be more socially minded and aware of how many bigotries and biases are built into our cultures and our day to day exchanges. Meanwhile, many people who fall under the vague LHP umbrella (Luciferians, Satanists, etc) will regurgitate militantly evangelical talking points with a coat of black paint, use their animosity towards Christianity as an excuse to be Islamophobic and antisemitic, have incredibly homophobic or transphobic attitudes, so on and so forth. Everyone wants to think they have the actual enlightened truth, you know? I don't think Luciferians are any more or less immune to conspiratorial thought and systemic bigotry than the rest of the population.

I'll also give a quick list of what I (personally) think Luciferianism is not, or at least doesn't have to be, since there's some trends I see in discussions about it that I don't particularly like.

Inherently better or more thoughtful than Satanism. I often see the two described in contrast/opposition to each other, with the idea being that one focuses on the philosophical while the other trends towards being more carnal. I feel like the way they're compared gives an overly simplified view of both, and I don't like that I tend to see it written with the implication that Luciferianism is the more noble set of beliefs. I have my quibbles with LaVeyan Satanism especially, but they're far more to do with the writing that helped inspire it and how I see that put into practice by the Satanists I've known.

Automatically hostile towards other religions. This truly exhausts me. I think the harm that religious groups that have a massive amount of political or social power can inflict on individuals, communities, and even countries cannot be understated. However, I far too often see this devolve into animosity towards the very concept of that religion or the religious individual instead of examining what this says about power, control, corruption, the protection of abusers within their communities, and other important aspects of the issue.

Inherently demonic, infernal, edgy, and so on. I know this is a bold claim coming from me, given my personal aesthetic, and I have often been quietly irked by the Luciferians who try to push too hard in another direction and reject the concept that anyone should approach Lucifer as anything but a love, light, and knowledge Jesus alternative. However, I think a lot of people cling to the idea that a concept, deity, or style of magic needs to be appropriately "dark" enough to be incorporated into Luciferianism. The end result is a lot of appropriation from closed practices and very samey books or talking points.

If you wanted to take a look at some of my thoughts in great detail, I have a bunch of posts tagged as 30 Day Luciferian Challenge. Some of the links between them don't work since they were written before I changed my blog name, but I try to keep the tagging as coherent as possible. I stand by what I wrote (so far as I can remember) so they're a closer look at questions like who Lucifer is to me, what drew me to Luciferianism, my thoughts on the community, advice I'd give, that kind of thing.

[rainbowrocketquotes]

💔 for Cyrus?

okay i have a few but i'll only go into detail on the one that irks me the most, because if I didn't limit myself, it'd be a whole charcater analysis.

edit: i've accidentally written an argumentative essay. whoops.

Before we start I want to really quickly iterate that I am not a psychologist. I also highly encourage debate on any of my intepretations, so if you feel like there's a point to be made against this one, please feel free to send a counterargument!

There is a difference between Cyrus not liking or caring about people, and Cyrus being fully antisocial, which is a personality disorder. The way people portray Cyrus bugs me often because a lot of fic writers give him Antisocial Personality Disorder, and I do not mesh with that at all.

I got into a big argument with someone on this before, where the main argument was me being insensitive, and I am not trying to be. I'm trying to be informational.

One of the main symptoms of ASPD is hostility and cruelty. Cyrus isn't actually very hostile. His main showcase of hostility is when you attempt to stop something he's spent years of hard work moving towards. In my mind, that's a pretty expected reaction. Think about it, if your entire life you were working towards something like curing a disease, for example, and when you were on the verge of breakthrough, a 10 year old kid came along and wrecked your lab? You're probably not going to be like "Ah, I see. This is fine, you are a child." You're going to be rightfully angry.

Another main symptom is impulse issues and lack of self-restraint. Cyrus doesn't have that. He's actually really calm and collected, and his entire thing is that he's ominously calm throughout times of disaster. He's highly intelligent and calculated. He doesn't make very many impulse decisions.

It's not a good argument if I don't discuss the other side of the debate, so I can think of a few reasons why people think Cyrus is antisocial, and some arguments against them.

1. Cyrus is described on his Bulbapedia page as "asocial".

Asocial ≠ ASPD. Asocial is an aversion to social interaction, not a disregard for others and human life.

2. Cyrus wants to create a world entirely for himself, and doesn't care what happens to other people.

While I don't have a concrete argument here, I do know that personally, I would have wanted the same thing before I learned the coping mechanisms to accept that the people that forged me into a wreck don't define me today. Cyrus most likely never had access to the resources necessary to develop coping mechanisms. He doesn't want to hurt all of these people, but instead sees it as a necessary step in finding comfort in himself, albeit in a messed up way.

3. Cyrus manipulates his team for the end goal of only helping himself.

This isn't in doubt. He's definitley psychologically disturbed, but the manipulation is a product of his environment. He rarely interacted with people as a child, so the majority of his interaction came from his family, who were, as we already discussed, not the best. He most likely learned this behavior from his parents. Also, he's not the only villain who lies to his team to benefit himself. They're all manipulative liars in their own rite, so using it as an argument doesn't really mean much to me.

I think it's good to remember that many people with disorders like Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), PTSD, and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are misdiagnosed as having ASPD.

I personally think that Cyrus has a combonation of mental problems that elevate each other to extremes. In my eyes, it presents this way because the adults in his life didn't care enough to help him learn the coping mechanisms he needed to combat the adverse symptoms.

I see him having Depression and C-PTSD due to issues with his family during his childhood. I think there's one mention of his parents in the entire series, where they're described as being consistently dissapointed in him and uncaring, which is enough for it to be mentioned on his wiki as a keystone in his past, and a turning point to why he is the way he is. From this, I think I can safely assume gamefreak is referring to, if not alluding to emotional abuse, which during key years of a person's brain development, can have lasting consequences on a person, such as the symptoms of C-PTSD, anxiety, depression, social withdrawal, loss of sense of self, and admittedly, ASPD. I personally don't see him having Anxiety as the level of social ability he displays seems adequate enough that he wouldn't qualify for a diagnosis.

I do also see him having ASD, as it's commonly overlooked for children who have advanced intellectual ability at young ages, yet delayed social and emotional development. As someone with ASD, my actual medical charts, above ASD, say "Delayed social and emotional development", as they are, to my understanding, 99% of the time a package deal.

To conclude, my biggest Cyrus pet peeve is when authors give him antisocial personality disorder.

NOTE: While I'm not anti self-diagnosis, diagnosing yourself or strangers on the internet, let alone using information from strangers on the internet, is a bad idea. Please don't do it in the replies to this post. This is purely about a fictional character, and if you think that any of this applies to you, talk to your therapist before you make any hard statements regarding your psyche.

[gorgugplushie]

(paceplace) / honestly ttcc writing is very messy i agree. i love the game to bits and dissecting it but the flaws in it are as enriching to pick apart as it is frustrating to discover. it really, truly does break my heart that toons aren't as appreciated as the cogs and i wish there were toon characters you could focus on in the same way the mgrs are. the NPCs you meet along the taskline are charming and i adore every single one of them but as much as i personally like them i don't think its enough to capture people's attention in the broad sense.

irt my qualms w/ how ttcc handles its game i think one of the many main issues boils down to the fact that they're disorganized. their issue w/ how lore has been distributed has been addressed twice by the team itself iirc (once in th same tweet where they confirmed fire\\setter as canon and once in their writers backstage post from around a yr ago). their writers backstage post helped give a little more perspective on why the lore was scattered around Like That.

as all over the place as the lore is, i do feel it's important to mention that they said in their backstage writers post they plan on eventually migrating all of their social media comics to the website so things like the rain\\diver comic is very likely to still be canon they just haven't added it in yet. idk why they don't add it around the same time its posted on social media my guess is maybe they're still trying to organize all the lore or redo some of it since its so all over the place (a couple of the comics we have rn on their website that are considered canon has info that was technically retconned) but yeah. i have hope that the way they handle their lore and (hopefully!) their taskline when they get around to rewriting it will improve in the later updates. i try very hard to stay on top w/ clash's lore esp since i have ppl come to me w/ questions regarding clash's story, characters, etc. but sometimes it is Very headache-inducing so i sympathize w/ how confusing/frustrating it is to a casual player. or just any lore-enjoyer tbf. i swear on my life i almost went crazy trying to make a timeline with btl

anyways you don't have to answer this if you don't want (i gen. apologize for the wall of text i really tried to get straight to the point w/ what i'm saying. and even then there's still a lot i wanted to say) but i'm really glad to see discussions on it. oftentimes criticism gets mistaken for hate and it shuts the entire convo which Peeves me. even if w/e's being criticized turns out to fall flat its better to address or talk about it than it is to not, imo.

Yes, exactly! I agree with all the points you've made here.

It's so strange to me that ttcc doesn't really lean into more how the cogs affect the toons, or toon society for all that matter, its a wonder people are so baised with cogs because we really dont get anything about toons. Their less part of the game and more set peices for this war, which sucks!

Theres obviously alot more room to write about toon lore and it would be easier to implement it in game, yet it gets brushed aside to further characterize the cogs and thats sad bc alot of the toons are cute and unique! Ttcc has great toon designs!

I also have to agree with the way the lore is handled, id even go as far to say big updates themsleves are handled in a frankly. Unprofessional manner. I mean, compare the update live streams done in jokey powerpoint slides to ttrs panles where they talk about progress on the updates. We really get little to no inside information until it's already ready to drop. Sure the game updates more regularly but all these updates are starting to feel like filler and padding. I at least can hope that hammerspace and mix and match at least come with some toon lore?

Its a shame that alot of what drew me into this game ends up weighing it down : (

Also yeah lol i didnt main tag this for a reason i do want to keep the discussion open! But all great points!

[pumpkinland]

Yo, hope you've had a good week, goodass blog, hope this isn't weird but I need some input. Do you like...find it difficult at all to make/keep trans male friends? I've had awful luck with meeting other trans guys and all my friends are now cis men, cis and trans women, and effectively anyone else who isn't a trans man. Struggled to get along with every trans man I've met, a lot of them turned out to be awful, some ended up detransitioning (but had wavering identities leading up to it), and I have no idea what the hell is going on because I do try to find other trans men to befriend, and it just never works. It's put a massive wedge between me and other trans men to the point where I've basically dropped the trans label in defeat and have been socially stealth for 5+ years both out of frustration but also out of general fears of transphobia. Have I just had shit luck or is it actually difficult in general or something?

Hi thanks so much for reaching out to me! :)

Actually yes I do have this issue. I have a few trans male friends, namely my best friend and a few younger friends I've known for years who are 18-20, but in general I do find it difficult to get along with other trans men.

In my experience, I've found that a lot of trans people put a lot more emphasis on their trans status than on their gender identity (in other words, they identify as trans first and their gender second, im the opposite - I don't "identify" as trans, it's just objectively what I am) and I know a lot of people do that because they find value in the community of being trans and talking to other trans people.

I haven't had that experience though, because what I found through a lot of discussion of our experiences and what it means to be trans and what gender means to us, I have found that for better or worse most trans people, and especially trans men, have very different experiences from mine, but they will often be so used to relating to other people sttictly on the basis of being trans that it almost feels like they get uncomfortable with not understating or relating to my journey at all and essentially try to force me into boxes they're comfortable with to try and relate to me and it gets really uncomfortable and dehumanising really fast. I'm lucky to have a few trans male friends, and a few transfem friends, but yeah, most of my friends are cis people - ironically they just tend to get it better. And I'm not saying all transmascs are nonbinary, but the vast majority of the ones I've met were, and that makes it difficult for us to relate on a lot of things and they tend to find me toxic and hypermasculine for like. Being a man I guess. But that could be part of it? Basically, I think unless you're a very specific kind of trans person it can be very difficult to relate to other trans people because they kind of create these little bubbles where they only interact with people like them and they get so used to it that when they meet any trans person they expect you to be the same and if you're not it's like... They start feeling panicked and threatened. I understand why they create these little community bubbles, and I'm not begrudging that, but it does make it hard to be an individual with unique experiences.

My best advice is I stopped trying to make friends with people on the basis of trans status a while ago. Like, I don't avoid other trans people or anything, but I don't try to befriend people with the intention of having more trans friends or anything. Trans people on this website will have you believe that cis people are the devil and all want us dead, but I have a lot of very kind, genuine, respectful and supportive cis friends, male and female, who never make me feel like an outsider or less than them, which is actually more than I can say about old trans friends.

[easyboi]

what exactly does not good with people mean? you seem pretty good at carrying on a conversation and expressing your boundaries, which seems at odds with that statement, especially since you clearly like some kinds of attention also, so its not just that you're entirely anti socializing? like, is it knowing things about your partners is unpleasant? except that seems at odds with you liking to know what people would do to you. is it something about expectations? if so I'd love to know which expectations, bc you seem honestly pretty normal to me, aside from the obvious issues, but they're hardly uncommon ones, esp among guys (the ones I've figured out, anyway)

to be fair, your main blog, a significant volume of writing, pics of your face, and explicit discussion of your preferred d/s role is more than a few things. but what you're describing is just being a good dom - I'm good, but hardly unique, P can clearly do it too. like I said, kink and non kink stuff influence each other, which means you can make some pretty accurate guesses about whatever you don't have information about, as long as you have a decent picture of at least one side. I'm decently sure I *would* like you psychoanalyzed, esp since you don't seem to want me to come out the other side desiring some sort of serious relationship, but you potentially having a bad time during is concerning enough that I'm prob gonna refrain from like, actually trying to horrify you.

anyway uh, edging lol? before you said its hard not to cum immediately if you stop and then start again, but like,, maybe there's ways around that

it means i'm good (or just okay, really) at surface level stuff, but anything deeper is Not there, and when people get to know me they figure that out pretty quickly. so yeah i like attention, and i like knowing stuff about others but once they realize it's not a two way street things end pretty fast (even if it's not like That ofc). so i guess it is expectations? i seem deep (to some) but i'm just a puddle 💀

that's fair, i don't hold back much ljkhfjhjhgsts. also fair re refraining, but i can't say i'm not intrigued despite the potential bad time, mostly bc people often get me very wrong. def better not to go poking tho lmao

also maybe not immediately, depending on how worked up i am, but with either enough time in between or being careful enough there's def a way to stretch it out. just gotta be Careful lol

[nerdfighterwhatevernumbers]

#Also people kept taking legitimate criticisms and blowing them way out of proportion#Causing other fans to go the opposite direction and deny any problems#Like criticisms of how the show didn't always handle race well (particurly with Sugilite and Bismuth from what I recall)#Some very vocal people took that and extended it to 'therefore RS is a Nazi'#Causing backlash saying that people were imagining things and it had no race issues whatsoever#Which left no room for actual discussion without people demanding you ignore problems or denounce the show entirely This was in fact a major problem. To address the second comment above, Pearl and Garnet making up was actually the final episode of that Steven Bomb so we didn't take months to see that resolution. What DID happen was we only had a week to absorb Pearl's betrayal so a lot of people felt like her being forgiven was rushed and unfair. While the show was cut short due to its queer content, the bomb style scheduling wasn't due to trying to cancel it either, CN believed serialized shows were horrible for ratings so they stopped showing reruns and started showing bombs because they were massive rating boosts for the network. CN has been pulling away from their serialized shows for years, as have other kids' networks since they're convinced the reruns are too confusing for children Hard agree on both the second comment and the tags there. People were convinced the Uncle Andy episode was supposed to be about being nice to Republicans when the show is explicitly For Children and is about Children being put into the middle of family arguments they have no power over. What's a kid like Steven supposed to do at Thanksgiving, call uncle Andy a fascist and get slapped? It's not for adults who need to take adult action in the world of activism it's for kids struggling within family and growing social structures As for the tags, yeah. The fandom was extremely polarized at the sight of any criticism. A lot of it was bad faith by the end, but people FREAKED when Black fans said they were bothered by Sugilite and were basically told to shut up and stop being haters. The fandom was very bad at discussing issues in the show or within the fandom reasonably, lots of death threats happened. The fandom kind of set itself up for All or Nothing perspectives on SU because people kept talk about it as perfect, which can make you angry, defensive, or disappointed. If you complained that a human zoo episode was Absolutely Racist you were just a hater projecting too much on a perfect soft show, and how are you supposed to react to that insult? But if you put the show on a pedestal and it crossed one of your personal lines, well then the show betrayed you and is trash for not portraying Peridot's disabilities how you thought they should have Some of the discourse was people taking flexible metaphors in the show and clinging to specifics they made up. I once saw someone say Lapis was a rapist because she forced Jasper to fuse with her. A thing she did to keep Jasper from murdering a child. Because of the sheer size of the fandom, you'd get a lot of people seeing takes like this and a lot of people reacting very strongly. by the end of the first season, bullying in the fandom had become the norm so it just got worse and worse. Part of the reason bombs weren't great is no one had time to chill out every week between episodes. Instead of getting days to process growing information, we were given a huge spew of info with months to sit in it. This could make things feel both rushed and unexplained because a lot of things were brought up in a very short span of time. People got very heated if they just spent a straight week with an arc they didn't like and they were left with that feeling for months on end The fandom's issues started well before steven bombs, but tbh the size of the fandom made it hard to mitigate toxic behavior and when everyone is screaming that this show is 'perfectly unproblematic' they're setting it up for failure.

people discovering steven universe in 2023 are always like "this show is really good why the hell were yall so weird about it"

[struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor]

I'm taking you up on giving a bts solo album review. We disagree frequently but I think that's nice haha.

6) Jack in the Box - I really really hate putting this here because this was one of two albums that I was really pleasantly surprised and gripped by on the first listen. Part of that was probably because it was the first one out, but especially More was just way different from what I was expecting which made the whole thing exciting. I think some of the albums ended up being slightly underwhelming (in comparison to how surprised I was by the sound of JitB, not in that it wasn't a good listening experience) because they sounded how I expected them to sound. Still, this just isn't my music preference, and there are a few songs that I consistently skip. It's harkening back to a particular era of hip hop that is just not my thing, but from what I've heard from people who do enjoy that style, it was impressively done, which is unsurprising because the rap line especially are such devoted students of hip hop. Additionally, imo, I don't find the lyrics that are trying to discuss broader feelings or social issues particularly compelling - for example, equal sign is nice and all but I kind of find the chorus cringey? But it's not so different from other themes that bts has had, so maybe all of those songs sound cringe in korean and I just don't know. I guess in summary I'd say that I had a really exciting first listen to the album but don't listen to it that frequently anymore. (Fav song: Arson)

5) Golden - Sorry, I know you love it! This isn't because I dislike the songs, but there is a higher percentage of songs that I don't particularly care for and tend to skip. Jungkook sounds beautiful throughout, as always, and he can make anything sound good, but I just struggle to connect with the album. I think part of my experience with golden was just so tainted by me not being that excited about this direction and a lot of the songs just not feeling like jungkook. (In contrast, even though tae didn't write anything in layover, it still managed to feel like him, in the same way that Standing Next to You feels like jungkook but some of the other songs don't.) I think because of this issue connecting with it, the album as a whole doesn't come to mind as often as others do. Because there were more songs in a style that I like, I can listen to it happily, but there are still some songs that I find kind of boring and even jungkook's voice can't pull me through. The fact that it's jungkook singing them, and bc he was so earnest in the way he approached them and has such a beautiful voice, honestly saved a lot of the songs that would have been mid and forgettable without him. It's hard for me to rank it higher bc of that - then it would feel like I'd be ranking jungkook as a singer rather than ranking the album. A lot of the songs are going to end up on a diverse set of gp playlists though, so it will have a lot of longevity. (Fav song: Closer to You and 3D ft. Justin Timberlake)

4) Layover - The next three shuffle around a bit for me for different reasons. On the one hand, it seems weird to put layover here because I think it's pretty immaculate in how gorgeous and bite-sized it is. The concept and the mvs were all very well done, and tae's voice is my personal favorite voice in the group. (Jungkook's technically a better singer, but I find tae's voice very soothing, and thankfully he prefers to sing songs like that. I also really enjoy the warbly quality to his voice - it oddly reminds me of some opera singers I've heard.) I thought tae conveyed the emotions of the songs really well, and they're the type of songs that you don't need to know the language at all to feel them. It was also short enough and had enough variety that I don't get bored listening to it all the way through, even though the songs have a similar quality to them, which is something I was afraid of. On the other hand, even though I know I just said I don't get bored listening to it, I can see how people would, and it's so much like the songs he's released before. Like mono, it's an album I think of only at certain times, which is fine and probably not a reason to rank it low lol. I somehow manage to think it's not boring while still being one-note, so idk if that makes sense oops. (Fav song: love me again)

3) Face - (Me trying to adjust for my jimin bias lol) This and JitB were the albums that I had the most pleasantly surprised initial reaction to. I wasn't sure what to expect here, and I really wasn't expecting set me free pt. 2 or face-off. The concept of facing yourself is pretty on the nose, but I enjoyed the order and direction of the album, and I thought the choice he made with the interlude 'diving in' to the internal struggles he's been carrying (even though it was long) made the album concept come together for me. I didn't find the songs confusing like you did, maybe because I spent an inordinate amount of time dissecting them, and it was the kind of personal insight that I was hoping to get in chapter 2 from all of the members. That said, certain sounds in the album can get a bit grating after too many listens, and there are a lot of hard elements, sonically, that were included which generally pair well with jimin's voice, which has a bit of an edge to it bc of it's higher, thinner tone and bc it tends sharp, that need a bit of buffer. I guess that's me saying I wish it was a bit longer, maybe between alone and set me free pt. 2. But this is getting nitpicky so I'll stop lol. Lyrically, it's not as good as the next two, but still a good effort from the member that I think is the weakest lyricist (sorry jimin). Like crazy is a pop queen and it's my favorite title track from bts or an individual member in a while. I know it's not a classic top-40 pop hit, but that's just not my listening interest. (Fav song: face-off)

2) D-Day - I both agree and disagree with you about D-Day. I think D-Day's hard-hitting songs are inferior to previous agust D songs, but I think the softer songs are superior to his previous ones. I read a tweet once that opined that namjoon is the best at talking about love while yoongi is the best at talking about relationships, and I tend to agree. I felt a lot of catharsis in listening to the album and in getting into the lyrics, though I tend to split the album up in my mind between D-Day to Huh?! and then Amygdala with the rest. Haegeum and Huh?! are both good, but I thought D-Day was kind of a throw-away for the sake of having an exciting song. The emotional heart is clearly with the rest of the songs. Even though the lyrics in Amygdala are so specific to yoongi it's hard to relate to the verses, the chorus has such an emotional impact that I don't mind. As for the rest of the album, I think it's yoongi's best lyricism to date. I love the verses in people pt. 2 especially. Also, I really am growing to love when yoongi sings. I know it's not like he's the best singer in the world, but I like the choices that he made about when to do it and it's probably my favorite part of D-Day. (Fav song: Life Goes On)

1 ) Indigo - I LOVE this album. It probably should be one of the ones that I said that I was pleasantly surprised by because I didn't expect the upbeat, danceable songs, but namjoon making good songs isn't really that much of a surprise at this point. I also thought mono was a great album (talk about catharsis) but I don't find myself comparing mono and indigo that much because they're so different to me. (I think it's much easier to compare the agust D trilogy, especially bc they follow a similar pattern.) Maybe namjoon and I are just operating on the same wavelength recently, but I really connected with this album, and I think he does a great job at explaining really interior, personal emotions. Like the tweet I mentioned in my section on D-Day, while yoongi is better at explaining relationships, namjoon is better at explaining a particular emotion. Somehow, even though there aren't that many lyrics in forg_tful and it's a deceptively simple song, he managed to convey it so well. Even though the order should have felt like it was going all over the place, it just made sense to me as I listened to it. He also picked great collabs. The only slight miss, which I think he knew was a risk, was picking Wildflower, which has lyrics and a mv that are so specific to him, as the title track - since he did that, I think he should have released Still Life earlier. However, he knew he was picking a 4+ min song as his title track, so I don't want to say it was a misstep when he knowingly made it presumably so that the could put out this personal album exactly as he wanted it to be consumed. All in all, I thought the album was excellent. (Fav songs - no. 2 and all day)

If you read this all, thank you haha.

I read it all! Thanks for sharing!

I mostly agree about JITB. I like More and Arson a lot. I also get what you mean about Golden. A lot of songs are mid, and I didn't care for them at first and still don't love them. But because I love Jungkook's voice I listen to them a lot. Truthfully I still can't hear Jungkook in the album aside from SNTY and maybe Seven and 3D. But I guess it's hard to reconcile pre-Seven Jungkook with post-Seven Jungkook. However, imo every solo album has a lot of mid songs. In Jungkook's case, I love his voice enough to listen to them.

Layover and Face are very short so I listen to them sometimes when I don't feel like listening to my Golden playlist. I used to like Slow Dancing a lot, but now like it less. I think Layover's songs are kind of forgettable but the album is too short to be boring. I kind of disagree about the emotional aspect of it. V in general has a soulful voice, and Layover was what I expected from him. I don't think any of the songs packed the emotional impact of Sweet Night, his Hug cover, or Spring Day. I also listen to Face without listening to the songs, if that makes sense? When an album flows well and the songs have a similar vibe, it's easy to listen to it without noticing the different songs? I only really tune in for LC and SMF Pt. 2. More than half of the songs in Layover and Face are mid imo, but not in a bad way. Golden is certainly much more mid and cliché. And Face has two interludes which I can't appreciate. Maybe if I dived deeper into the lyrics...

Indigo is nice but the other day I listened to it and was a bit disappointed in the album. Personally, I think RM is incredibly smart but I don't enjoy his lyrics much. I usually don't like it when he writes or sings in English, and his poetic and abstract lyrics aren't to my taste. I fail to properly appreciate his music because of it. I think my favorite songs of his are collabs, Persona, and a few songs in Mono.

I kinda disagree about D-Day. The hard hitting songs did hit less hard than in previous albums, but imo the same can be said for the soft songs with the exception of Amygdala and Snooze, which are like a kick to the stomach. I found D-Day's lyrics a bit repetitive. I actually don't love it when Suga writes about relationships. He shines when he writes about himself imo.

Anyway, thanks for the ask! And for reading my thoughts 😊

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

[1/?] Sorry for venting. I just saw some bad takes that gave me a lot of feelings. Personally, JC stresses me out every time he comes on screen, but I don't mind it when JC fans say fan-typical things like how they like JC because he wears purple, or is grumpy, or they think he's hot, or that they ship x*ch*ng because the cql actors have nice jawlines. They're harmless, fun takes, and while I don't agree with some of them, I see where they're coming from

Hello there anon, vent away as that is what my blog is open for as I love/hate on Jiang Cheng as he is in the plot, as well as all of my beef with what has been done to him for the EN side of the fanbase! I am more than fine listening and engaging with the unsavory "unpopular" discussions of his canon behavior and this goes for anyone of course that needs an open play area. I'll try to engage with what you have sent point by point as succinctly as I can.

[2/?] (some of these are obviously crack, and I am a fan of a few problematic faves). But then there are stans that just have to put other characters down to make JC look good. Like, I think some fans take their freedom of interpretation for granted because most of these takes aren't even labeled 'headcanon,' 'ooc,' or 'crack' anymore. Stans feel that their interpretations are valid, and while they are, valid =/= canon, and they're treating these takes as canon, which becomes popular fanon.

I enjoy Jiang Cheng for what he is, however as I had said it took me another reread to get to my stance of him being the negative mirror to Lan Wangji's positive and my comfort with that for the story once I realized what purpose he served. He is only insofar tragic in regards to his circumstances, but it does not absolve him for what he is at his core (no pun, but I can make a very nice metaphor that even with a piece of Wei Wuxian in him he is still forever unable and unwilling to stand by him equally all while stagnating where as Lan Wangji is able to flourish, grow and mature with nothing of import left from Wei Wuxian in a technical sense). As for ships, I am a little dirty Xicheng whore for fun and can say there is a sense of entertainment for me making it work with two people where one is wildly ignorant and the other wildly rabid. But that is outside of what is established as canon in the work and I always try to keep the two strictly separate due to the skew fanon perpetuates.

3/?] And now, it's not clear what part of the fanon references canon JC or the canon events of mdzs. JC is an asshole; I don't like him as a person, but I do think that he's a complex character motivated by many issues (sup, YeeZY), which makes him fascinating to explore. Unfortunately, erasing his culpability also removes his agency. JC should be allowed to be an asshole character who makes his own decisions even if they're the wrong ones. He has made his own tragedy by constantly casting Wei Wuxian as the villain of his life.

Now thanks to you I will be using YeeZY to forever and now to acknowledge Madam Yu (this is your fault for the new tag). From a standing from storytelling I agree that he is complex in the Jianghu for MDZS. Where in the usual political intrigue of Wuxia, he would be the mustache twirling villain that is outright unforgivable in narration, it is by favor of Wei Wuxian's narration that has an early steeping of empathy for him. And he is not meant to be seen as ultimately sympathetic, the work builds up his hate against Wei Wuxian who tries to rationalize it all several times until he is finally unable to. Jiang Cheng is the antithesis to Lan Wangji and the false bait to get attached to in Wei Wuxian's first life. I will make the note their meeting in Yiling is lukewarm between both as they exchange nothing really in terms of conversation and all pleasantries are left in terms of Jiang Yanli for Wei Wuxian. By this point Wei Wuxian has already switched his yearnings of platonically wanting a part of Jiang Cheng's life, to subconscious romantic inclinations about Lan Wangji and the perceived loss of being in the other's life.

The very point of Jiang Cheng as the deconstruction, is that he has no passion in life despite his apparent exploits because he put a shadow to hang over himself as an excuse to say others think he is not good enough. He has no deeper motivations than pure selfishness by the end of the work and is pure frivolity that he has built up losing the meaning of his sect as a tradition. He had his agency (more than anyone I might add in the work due to his social position) that he used to build his reputation as a passive rich sect leader that has little to do with civilian problems.

4/?] And I think a JC, somehow, that realizes that he did something wrong and is working hard to change for the better and gain self-actualization to become that UWU best jiujiu the stans want him to be, who is ready to talk (not yell at) with WWX, apologize to him, and create a better, healthier relationship with him is a much more powerful reconciliation and happy ending than 'everyone is wrong and mean and they all apologize to JC, which magically gets rid of all his issues'.

He is forced out of culpability in reconciliation because simply put, his audience do not like the reality that relationships fray and dissolve with no further resolution other than we as adults both need to move on for safety and good health. It is not acceptable in real life and fiction is allowed to place that also in it's thematic relationships. He has a small, small spark of recognition at the end of the main story, however he himself seems to choose to ignore it, as change is hard and he has never taken to that well as was foreshadowed with his dogs and the idea of sharing a space with Wei Wuxian. To write this is an awful lot of work into his psyche which is not a nice place, he is a terrible being and downplaying that to make a sugar sweet person does not work instantaneously. He is the one responsible for the entire fallout with Wei Wuxian and he hysterically realizes that even as he tries to continue to blame Wei Wuxian.

The issue that I have with his current stan culture, is that they already view him as something he is not. They play at bicycle with all of the other protagonists that have positive traits that they strip as they see fit; Good affirming loving to children adult Lan Wangji, Self-sacrificing ultimately did it all for love and care Wei Wuxian, Hard exterior but softened to who they consider an annoyance Wen Qing, Loyal as partners in their exploits on the field and always have each others back Wen Ning. They even take Jin Guangyao's persona of playing damsel and using that as a positive to soften up Jiang Cheng into something he has never been for anyone for ships.

[5/5] Also, making WWX/WN/LWJ apologize just makes them look better than JC. Like, stans supposedly love JC, so they ahouldn't be lazy and work hard to give him actual character development. Again, I'm sorry for spamming your ask. It just really baffles me about where they get these 'hot' takes (All I'm going to say is that JC was ungrateful, and WN had a reason verbally dismantle him).

They see this, but, they will spin it in any way to excuse Jiang Cheng due to the story itself showing that he was in the wrong to everyone he flung accusations at and his hate. No one but him is at fault for his spite as he had gotten his revenge on the ones that had ruined Lotus Pier and killed his parents. His own resentment pitted him against good and well meaning people that he refused to help as he mimicked his mother's words about raising their heads higher out of goodness instead of keeping low and staying self-centered. There is the underlying criticism of taking individual arrogance as self-care at the cost of others. Each point that Wen Ning makes is exactly what Jiang Cheng himself knows as he hated Wei Wuxian for being something he could not be or even wanted to be. Jiang Cheng wants kindness but does not understand that kindness to others needs to be selfless and accept the hurt that can come with that in life. He encompasses the fall from the path of buddhist lifestyle, "The Three Poisons" to Wangxian's "Without Envy" at the stories end.

[6/5] P.S. I'm not saying I want reconciliation fics, but I just feel that if stans want JC to have a happy ending, then I think that he should actively work for it. I think it would be interesting to see what force of nature would push him through a character development because throwing a therapist at him would result in a murder.

"I'm not saying I want reconciliation fics, but I just feel that if stans want JC to have a happy ending, then I think that he should actively work for it."

They do not think he has to work for it, they say his tragedy is enough, while heaping accusations against Wei Wuxian and saying his own are not enough to absolve him. Something Wei Wuxian has never denied and told all present they are allowed to forever hate him for what he had done in the past, but that they need to find a way to live in a life that is always moving on. He learned that grudges do nothing once they are absolved and it leaves you with hate with nothing else to do with it once that object is gone. In terms of reconciliation, I do not ever think that either want anything other than a distant peaceful out of each other's life set up. Jiang Cheng does not need Wei Wuxian in his life to be satisfied and never has since he used him as the handicap to hide behind to stay angry and miserable. Being without that fallback opens the world far more for him to change than him ever interacting like an old friend with Wei Wuxian ever again, if he ever had the guts to do that.

[omnipah]

re: your tag - tell me more about why D&D is a bad ttrpg! I get so frustrated with people trying to mod D&D for different settings & campaigns when there are so many other systems out there that might do exactly what they're looking for and better!

Okay so first of all, disclaimer needed: I’ve only played dnd before, all my experience of other systems is from actual play (please I’m begging u to listen to Friends At The Table), but even that level of exposure is enough to see how dnd is, uh, Very deeply flawed and only gets by on the fact that people don’t know that better stuff exists (or, they do but they don’t wanna try it on principle, I guess).

My main thing is, and this is a matter of both the mechanics and the culture surrounding the game, that dnd is very bad at doing what a ttrpg sets out to do. Which is, a ttrpg is supposed to be a way of generating story in a way that’s spontaneous and collaborative, and of course there are a lot of ways to do that, but everything about dnd is designed to resist that drive. The amount of power the dm holds (both socially and mechanically) automatically sets them against the character players, and creates a space where the other players are encouraged to be completely passive and allow the dm to essentially have final say on what does and doesn’t go. Obviously this is partly an issue of who you’re playing with and whether they know how to be respectful, but the game leans into it by encouraging the dm to do all worldbuilding work themself and often hold secrets about it, and also through the way the dc of a roll is always the dm’s discretion. It doesn’t matter how well you rolled, at the end of the day, they can just say you failed, and if they’re smart they’ll just never tell u that they changed the dc behind ur back, but they’re perfectly capable within the rules and culture of the game to just change it based on what they like. This, needless to say, does not exactly cultivate good faith.

This is what I was saying in my tags: the issue of character players being passive and expecting to have a story told at them is a real problem, yes, and those players should engage and take responsibility for their part in generating plot and characterisation, but it’s an artefact of an extant (and now cyclic) problem, wherein the players with different roles aren’t encouraged to communicate or work together.

Like, one of the other things that feels really overlooked in dnd circles is the idea of consent and negotiation, the idea that the players should be able to, at any point, say to each other that they don’t want to touch a topic, or that they’re uncomfortable with where the story is going; a lot of people seem to implicitly think that it’s just not a big enough deal to actually talk about those things, or, at best, they assume you’ll say something without encouraging you to. There’s this assumption that if you don’t like something it’s your problem, rather than a collaborative effort to create a space in which everyone feels secure, and trusts the other people at the table enough to speak up without fear of getting dismissed.

That also leads into the issue of excessively built-out combat mechanics, with disproportionately little by way of anything else. It’s never encouraged by the rules to set boundaries for what kinds of violence you’re willing to see or commit in-game, or discuss the implications of depicting those things; and it’s assumed that combat is the main thing you’re there for. Combining that with the shocking level of bioessentialism in the lorebooks (whether overt fantasy racism or subtler stuff), it makes for a very narrow, and colonial, band of stories available to tell without excessive hacking, and hacking is excessively difficult because of how number-crunchy it is, in that, if you change anything or add anything, it’s very possible you’ll just break the game statistically.

The crunchiness also is something which can work and I’ve seen work well in other systems, but the way dnd does it actively discourages creativity on the character players’ parts. Other systems codify types of actions, and types of success and failure, which deliberately have wiggle room so that the mechanics can be massaged to take whatever weird and wonderful thing u wanna try to do, and they do it in a way that makes failure an interesting outcome that drives plot forward; dnd wants every single possible action to be codified in one specific way, or else not be accounted for at all (see previous, you also then can’t hack it in without several hours of work), and failure, as I’ve said, is a matter of dm discretion and whether they personally want to hinder you, which is something that’s honestly terrifyingly prevalent.

Also, in terms of longer campaigns, there’s no real structure to the game other than just an assumption that the numbers will get bigger, which is an incredibly false and boring way of attempting to raise stakes. Like, if your health has increased, AND your damage has increased, AND your ac has increased, AND all of those things have also increased for your enemies, what has actually changed in terms of how it feels to play the game? This is why so many people end up multi-classing, because it’s the only codified way to force some kind of lateral progression out of the game. Even then, nothing changes as you progress, except you’re maybe more terrified about killing off your own character in a way that you still have no control over, because again the character players have no control and are expected to just take it when they’re told something they don’t like. The attitude of ‘well, the dice said so’ is not a bad one, as long as you’re careful, but it’s acting as if the matter is out of the players’ hands, which is patently false; it’s a narrative that YOU are constructing, and you can and absolutely should make it a narrative that is safe for the people making and consuming it.

This comes back to the idea of ‘spontaneous and collaborative’. Dnd is viscerally opposed to any kind of actual working together, either between dm and character players, or between members of the party, but it’s also forcing the worst kind of spontaneity, in that ‘the dice said so’, while still codifying in advance everything you’re ‘allowed’ to try to do, and encouraging the dm to prep so hard that there’s nothing going on in the world that they don’t know about, which again puts all the onus on them for story- and world-building. You literally cannot do real collaboration if you have this attitude, and vice versa, you cannot have real spontaneity if you insist on setting yourself against the others.

Tl;dr: dnd is a game which goes out of its way to be hostile to the people playing it, and even when those people actively resist the competitive mechanics and culture, the story they end up making is just plain boring, and has a ton of unaddressed, unanalysed colonial baggage.

[dannyphantom-rewrite]

Character ref for; Jack, Maddie and Jazz,

Art by @gally-hin / @gally-hin-phantom

Okay so first off; in terms of Actual redesign, I didn't change a whole lot. I'm actually very fond of Jack and Maddie's design's, my only real issue was with their proportions. Like...look as a lady person who is also thiCC I do not have a fucking wasp thin waist and I'm sure I'm not the only one, lmao. As for Jack? Godamnit he looked like a brick on toothpicks. Just Let him be a fucking Bara man! Anyway of course I asked Gally to do this one bc they're fucking great at drawing different body types

I also cannot and will not take credit for Jazz's outfit. I didn't have any issue with her canon clothes aside from them being a bit plain, so what she's wearing here was literally pulled straight off of her original concept art, which I will link here.

Anyway, getting to the Actual character lore now, let's start with

Maddie Fenton

-Full name is Madeline (I haven't decided on a maiden name yet)

-Born and raised on a farm in Arkansas, had a southern accent that she trained herself out of in college bc it was just one more reason for people not to take her seriously. Still sometimes uses "y'all" completely unironically bc old habits die hard.

-She has a really big family, and they're proud of her accomplishments but feel like she's wasting her talent studying ghosts, because really, up until the Fenton portal was up and running there wasn't even any solid proof they existed. Her sister Alicia is the one outlier there, and even if she doesn't understand, it she completely supports her.

-She majored in engineering and minored in psychology at Wisconsin EDU. Her, Jack and Vlad were all in the same engineering class, and that's where they met.

-Maddie is particularly interested in how ghosts think, analysing their behavior, their motives. Not only that, but they aren't just dead people with unfinished business, they've built an entire culture in the Ghost Zone that is completely seperate from humanity, and she wants to understand all of it.

-skilled marksman and 9th degree black belt, (which is. The highest fucking level there is holy shit? I looked it up after I saw it on her wiki page.)

Jack Fenton

-He's from Minnesota (Amity park is in Illinois and him and Maddie didn't move there until after they got married) 

-okay, "but why minnesota specifically" you ask? Because. I crave. Foot ball discourse. 

-minnesota vikings vs green bay packers guys do you UNDERSTAND WHERE IM GOING WITH THIS 

-The funny thing is that Jack only watches football casually while Vlad is a fucking die hard so when these two got together to see a game it was like....

-Jack: Here to chill and have a good time.

-Vlad: Primed and ready to start a fist fight at any given moment.

-I am never not going to be salty about how Canon Jack was portrayed like a complete moron 99% percent of the time. Like no...theres a difference between Actual Stupid and ADHD induced dumbass-ery.

-Am I saying Jack Fenton has ADHD? Yes. why? Because I also have ADHD and I have always vibed So Hard with his Character.

-Jack is loud and easily excited about things that interest him. He's impulsive and fidgety and yeah, a bit absent minded. He has a mouth that clearly runs so much faster than his head. His train of thought doesn't get derailed so much as it stops and takes several different detours on the way to it's final destination.

-and that's only the tip of the iceberg, really, I'd need an entire essay to get into this completely, but I just really relate.

-Jacks skill-set / interests regarding ghosts vary a bit from Maddie's, most notably in the sense that he doesn't believe that they're static entities already set in their ways, completely incapable of change.

-Jack majored in engineering and minored in Biology at Wisconsin EDU.

-Jack's work with tech is a bit hit or miss. He definitely HAS the engineering skills, but the intrest isn't always there and he's constantly jumping back and forth between different projects. He tends to focus on the concept work and schematics and leave most of the assembly to Maddie as a result. It's an arrangement that works well for them, and has drastically decreased the number of unintentional explosions in the lab.

-A lot of Jack's work tends to revolve around ghostly biology and Ectoplasm, figuring out how ghosts are made, what makes them tick, what the hell Ectoplasm Actually Is, how it's used as an energy source, ect.

-and yes, that does also mean he handles the dissections.

-See that facial scar? Yeah, that's not actually there at the start of the series rewrite but it's very important for plot reasons so I had to include it. Can't say much more on the subject because SPOILERs owo.

Jasmine Fenton

-Jazz is a 18 years old, and a senior at Casper high.

-Which means she prepping to go away to college and won't be around to keep an eye on Danny.

-Obviously that doesn't mean I'm just writing her out of the story, oh no. Know why? Because she's also gonna go to Wisconsin EDU. ya know who else is in Wisconsin? Fuckin' Vlad.

-Jazz is autistic, Although she passes for neurotypical in part due to symptoms being completely over looked in girls due to gender stereotyping and also the fact that she doesn't have any special interests that are considered " "too weird.""

- Her hyperfixation with psychology started at a young age in an effort to better understand people, and social/emotional cues and all that.

-Jazz is well liked at school but she's not popular or apart of any specific group or clique. She's very kind and compassionate to people, and just about everyone knows her, but you'd be hard pressed to find someone who actually Considered her a friend. Except maybe Spike.

-I'm gonna have to give spike his own Character ref at some point, but he's this scary looking goth kid that's been held back twice. He's actually super sweet, just really fuckin' quiet and anxious. Him and jazz kinda ended up gravitating towards each other. She might do most of the talking, but they look out for each other.

-its not like jazz doesn't try to socialize, but it's difficult and she's found it much easier and less stressful to just. Keep to herself and let her interactions with her peers stay shallow and superficial. Sure, it's lonely sometimes but it's better than constantly worrying about saying the wrong thing or making some other misstep.

-One of Jazz's other special interests is football, and it's not so much the players or the game as it is the strategy of it? Started out as one of those things you do to bond with your dad, and she ended up getting really into it.

-She absolutley winds up getting into stupidly intense discussions with Vlad about it, too, lmao.

-Her and Danny probably bonded over SBNation bc that shit has both sentient satellites and ridiculously complex football mechanics.

-She's completely oblivious to the fact, but Dash has a massive crush on her bc holy shit this girl understands football (hey bud your toxic masculinity is showing put that shit away)

-I mentioned that Danny was in Cheer for a bit in middle school so it makes sense that she'd also be pushed into doing some kind of extracurricular activity.....so.....she was in a martial arts class for a bit thanks to Maddie and has a good grasp on self defense.

I think that's everything? I feel like I'm leaving things out tho? Idk if I did I'll come back and add on to this later and also pls don't hesitate to ask questions bc it really helps me flesh things out better.

[mikami]

If in a argument someone tell Light that he's wrong do you think Light is the type who would talk that person's head off until they're convinced with his opinion? Or if Light was in a situation that he didn't agree with something would he force his opinions on the other person? I have the same questions with Mikami's character as well.

Light has a lot of social grace. While we see in canon that he’s very good at convincing others of his position with calm arguments and that likely translates into general discussion as well, Light knows how to cut his losses. 

What he’s truly invested in is appearing socially perfect, not being right. He can absolutely see when debate is pointless if someone doesn’t agree with him and agree to disagree. Other people’s opinions don’t matter enough to Light that he’d really be desperate to have the last word. In the end, it’s their loss if they don’t wanna look at things from the correct perspective? He’d smooth it over so there are no hard feelings and leave the conversion - depending on the subject, he might wind up thinking less of the person but they wouldn’t know.

People are REALLY desperate to present Light as some guy who is so stuck-up that he’s unpleasant to be around, but that is very far from the truth. Light’s special skill is blending in by being all-around pleasant - he generally does not cause offense, he does not get into huge arguments, he just presents the mister perfect that people want to see from him. 

The issue with hanging out with Light is generally not that you’ll hear too much of his opinions, it’s that you’ll hear too little - Light keeps his true feelings close to the chest and his relations generally stay shallow for it.

Mikami meanwhile... He also does not care extensively about convincing the other person of his point of view, but that’s because he generally dislikes other people and doesn’t think their opinion is worth enough to be worth changing... 

If Mikami thinks you are wrong, you will know it, certainly, but there is only so much time he has to waste on actually trying to argue with you. It’s more likely he’ll tell you you’re wrong and leave the conversation - and if Mikami leaves you this way, it will be very clear that he thinks much less of you now. He does not have the same investment as Light in being generally liked and is pretty blunt with his views. He isn’t downright rude unless he thinks you’re an awful person, but with him you can tell very clearly that he doesn’t find conversation to be an inherently worthwhile activity. 

[one-abuse-survivor]

before i start, thank you so much for doing what you do;this blog has given me good advice countless times and i really have to thank you for that.

my issues with my parents are that they don't take me seriously. i can literally go up to them and say: "mom/dad, i think i might be autistic or have ADHD (both would be quite likely) can i get that checked out" and list a bunch of examples why i think that and they'll just be "nah, that can't be, you don't seem like that at all" as of i didn't break my mind over it researching it and talking to people who have it to see if we've had similar experiences just to get some kind of reference as to why i feel the way i feel and why i struggle so much with things that so many other people find so easy.

but then, in the following weeks and months (after talking w them) they just randomly point out things about me that kinda annoy them, like me talking out of turn a LOT or me not looking at people or me having trouble focusing if there isn't also music and a movie going at the same time or mom saying that i seem hyperactive to her because i'm always moving my legs or pacing around or rubbing my hands or drumming on the table with pens. things like that (plus a lot more) were the exact things i was telling them about and they just put it off like it's nothing but as soon as it affects and annoys them it's suddenly very real. at this point i'm struggling to talk to my parents about anything even remotely more serious than generic smalltalk and i'm having a hard time believing myself that my struggles are in fact real and i'm not just making them up.

and also on a less related note; the thing i hate most about my parents: if i'm wearing headphones and couldn't understand what a parent was yelling from somewhere else in the house then it's my fault. but if it's the exact same situation but i'm the one calling and they couldn't hear me, then it's obviously my fault too (i kinda get the first one but srsly how could i not wear headphones when they're constantly arguing with my brother in the room next to mine) (either way if one of the scenarios is clearly my fault, then the other shld be clearly their fault bc that's how logic works)

hhhh, this got quite long. i would love to hear your thoughts about this

a continuation from the other ask about my parents not taking me seriously even when i ask them for help with my hardest problems. that ask didn't really go in the direction i had planned but there is so much going on between my parents and me that i really need to talk to someone about

background: i'm around 15-16 rn and have a brother who's 18. primary school was academically very easy for me (lots and lots of great and even perfect grades) but my brother didn't have it as easy (lots and lots of mediocre and meh grades) so my parents really just kinda let me do my thing while they were constantly busy with my brother. so i got really independant and did all of my stuff on my own bc a) i always had done it that way and b) my parents were already busy and stressed. but after my brother got his first computer and got into video games his grades dropped and my parents started constantly arguing with him and taking away his computer and stuff like that so there was always a lot of tension (and i got to a point where i can't handle people yelling; that's what i was referring to with the headphone thingy at the end of the last ask) i don't know if i can go that far and say that my parents kinda neglected me and my emotional needs in favour of saving my brother grades but that's pretty much the way it feels.

i'm now a sophomore (school works a bit different here but i'm the equivalent of a highschool sophomore afaik, here it's just 10th grade) and starting from about mid 8th grade (end of 2018) i've been struggling a lot with self care and upkeep of my already minimal social circle and academic stuff (i'm at the academically highest level of school you could be at my age without skipping any years) and also mental health.

i got quite depressive and started isolating myself and casting away friends and my grades went down a lot, which really disappointed me because my great grades were kind of my trademark thing. but i didn't feel safe talking to my parents because of the huge distance that we built by me "never" needing their help with stuff.

in that time (almost a year ago, our anniversary is in twenty days or so) i got a girlfriend and i'm hella glad that i can talk to her about everything but i feel like i can't just go dump trauma and parent issues on her forever

about last november or so i was at a pretty low point and was suicidal and that's kind of when i snapped and went to my parents to talk so being cast away and having my issues invalidated really really hurt then and made me spiral even deeper and my gf was the only thing keeping me afloat.

i'm kind of a bit better now but i have rebuilt my view of my parents from "idk we never really interact" to "trying to interact or talk is not worth the energy" and needless to say i don't like them that much

oh and i forgot about all the times i got panic attacks and sensory overloads @ school because there are so many people there (1700 students + 200 teachers) and it's loud everywhere and of course asking my parents for what to do if suddenly everything is too bright and too loud and you can't move or talk because of it didn't get me anywhere (and since i didn't know what it was called or how to describe it properly, i didn't really find any Information online either

and just typing this makes me think of so many more things that they did that aren't okay things to do (a lot of gender identity stuff for example because i'm also neck-deep in that) . but writing this has also helped a lot right now. thank you for being there and listening.

and just in case i'm ever gonna pop back in to say something i'm gonna drop a name for easier identifying

sincerely - 🌌 milky way anon

Hi, nonnie! Thanks for the kind words, I'm really glad my blog has been of help ❤️

I'm sorry your parents are making it hard to believe your struggles are real :( you deserve to be taken seriously and to get access to all the help you might need. Just the fact your symptoms are there and you're noticing them and they're interfering with your daily life is enough to get them checked, regardless of if you need a diagnosis/meds/anything else. No one deserves to live wondering if their struggles are worth discussing with a doctor or professional.

And you're right: if one of those things was your fault, then the other should be theirs, logically. But I don't even think it's "your fault" you didn't hear them because you were wearing headphones, to be honest. I think it's just something that happens from time to time and that doesn't warrant getting mad over; I think it's the kind of thing that simply needs to be talked about so everyone in the household knows how to communicate with everyone else without getting frustrated. It's as easy as saying "hey, whenever I put on headphones I'll just text the family group chat to let you guys know I won't hear you. If you need anything in those moments, just text me instead". I do this with my girlfriend sometimes—if we're wearing headphones and we're in the same room, we simply pat each other when we need something and wait until the other takes off their headphones to talk. It really doesn't have to be an issue where anyone is to blame. You're allowed to take steps to feel safe and comfortable in your house without getting punished for it.

But, of course, this doesn't work if the people around you choose to prioritise "being right" and proving you're wrong over a peaceful and healthy cohabitation, which is what most toxic and abusive people do.

As for your second ask, I would say if it feels like your parents neglected you and your needs because they were always focusing on your brother, then it's okay to say that they did. The fact alone that those feelings are there makes you deserving of talking about it and wanting to heal from it; the cause of those feelings doesn't have to be something major, or sound deeply traumatising when you say it out loud, in order to "count". And people whose emotional needs were consistently met don't feel like they weren't.

I've already shared this video before, but if you want some resources on identifying and healing from emotional neglect, I really recommend watching it. Please bear in mind, though, that the video says it's important to not blame parents for emotionally neglecting you, but I don't think that's the message a lot of people need to hear and I think you should allow yourself to feel angry at your parents for not meeting your needs and causing you trauma. That's pretty much the only thing I'd criticise about the video.

I'm sorry to hear you've been struggling with your grades and mental health lately, nonnie. I had a quite similar experience when I was in high school—I used to always get great grades, but my mental health and trauma put a lot of strain on them (as well as on my social life; I lost a lot of friends in those years) and it was really distressing to see the only thing that made me "worthy" crumble between my fingers like that. I'm still trying to unlearn this idea that your grades define your worth, and it's been really hard.

I'm so sorry your parents weren't there for you when you hit that low 😔 I'm glad your girlfriend could help you stay afloat in that moment, but they absolutely should've been there for you all those times you reached out to them for help with your struggles, and the fact that they didn't is emotionally neglectful of them.

I'm glad you're in a better place now ❤️ I really hope you can find out all the information you need on gender identity and sensory overload and any other issues that might be affecting you. Know that you deserve for your parents to be there for you. You shouldn't have to face any of this on your own, or even with only the support of other people your age. You deserve for them to care. You deserve to have your symptoms checked out. You deserve adult guidance to find resources to help you better understand and manage your struggles.

Sending all my virtual support your way ❤️ and happy belated anniversary to you and your girlfriend!

[chronicbatfictioner]

Exchanges and Compromises - Chapter 16

Just as Tim predicted, a week later, Bruce Wayne requested to meet him at work. While the request itself - sent through proper channels that is Tim's secretary - it specifically requested Tim by name. It had made a little stir with the other members of the company's Board of Directors, as they all thought that 'little Timmy' shouldn't be meeting the 'big and scary' Bruce Wayne by himself. "What if he manipulated Tim into a merger??" some had asked. It wasn't until Tim assured them that he would not make any corporate decisions without prior consulting - and stating that he 'doesn't like Bruce Wayne at all. He's a doof,' - that the rest of the BOD relented.

Bruce came in accompanied by Alfred Pennyworth, the family's butler. Bane, Tim knew, was accompanying Dr. Thomas and Mrs on a trip overseas. For some reason, the Waynes did not promptly send Bane away, even after he literally and physically got tossed out of the Wayne Manor's living room's bay windows - courtesy of Jason - when he tried to attack Damian.

"If this is a business meeting, Bruce, I would appreciate it if you wait for the rest of my BOD members to come up here," Tim hinted.

"No, no, no it's not..." Bruce seemed a little thinner than when Tim last saw him in person, a little disheveled and worse for wear, which would be odd given the fact that Alfred was right by his side. No self-respecting butler would have allowed their masters to leave the house looking like Bruce then - Tim knew, his dad had one since Tim was very young. Tim might not opt to keep the butler when his parents passed, but he knew the tenets fairly well.

Yet, Alfred just looked mildly disapproving but had walked into the office in the same eager speed as Bruce did.

Tim briefly wondered to whom Alfred's loyalty lies.

"I need... I need to know that there are no recording devices in here," Bruce stated.

Tim took a few blinks to choose an answer, "I'm not of the habit of having recording devices in my office. You, however, came with a tracking device," Tim pointed out.

"What?? I've left my cellphone in the car! Is it... can it listen? Record?" The shock on Bruce's face was more prevalent than when Damian came out of nowhere and called him 'father.'

Tim checked his monitoring system, courtesy of Harper Row, which can detect the type and model and broadcast type of any gadget and displayed it on Tim's cellphone. "No, it just tracks your location and is GPS-based. Why...?"

"Oh thank god..." Bruce slumped in his seat. "Alfred, can you make sure that no one would come here until I'm... until we're done?"

"Certainly, Master Bruce," Alfred bowed lightly and walked out the door.

"Wow, okay... whatever this is has got to be... better be important. I mean, you sent your butler out the door..." Tim commented.

"It is. It's about..." Bruce still hesitated. "Look, I don't usually do this. I don't know why. But you, your work-- your company and its line of business would make you-- would get you in touch with your end-clients, right? The common people who used social security benefits to get their meds, Doc Leslie Thompkins' patients and all that..."

He paused, so Tim shrugged. "I do try to personally meet my end-client to figure out what kind of medications they would need more; and Dr. Thompkins is one of my clients, too, whose assessment I can quite trust. You're not planning to get into the generic meds business also, are you?"

"No, no, no... This has nothing to do with WE. I mean... it should be, in the long run. But in the short run... Look, this would sound odd. But when you talk to your clients, have you ever hear of the Birds of Prey?" Bruce asked. Tim studied the man before him for a good long while. Before he could answer, Bruce continued, "my cousin Kate... she has just gotten kicked out of the military academy. She said she thought of donning a costume and joined the Birds of Prey to fight crime, so she could feel useful again, you know? I told her they're criminals, vigilantes. She said I should go down to meet the common people of Gotham and ask them what they think of the Birds of Prey. And then I thought of you."

"Yeeea... I'm not following..." Tim feigned - but only partially. He could already tell where the direction of Bruce's conversation was trying to take.

"Do you think they're criminals or heroes? I mean, does anybody ever mention them doing like, extortion, murder, stuff like that...?" Bruce insisted.

"Are you like, worried for your cousin Kate or... is there anything of significance that I should know about?" Tim finally decided to just bite the bullet and ask right out. There is no recording device in his office, all right. But his tiepin doubles as a camera that would send to Barbara as soon as Tim turned it on. And he had turned it on the instant Bruce walked in.

"As far as I've heard, the Birds of Prey -- ooh, I hate the pun, but it's right there-- preyed on criminals. Those who take advantage of the weak and all that jazz. I've experienced their... service if you will; when my delivery trucks were hijacked by some supposedly-metahuman group. They stopped the hijacking and arrested the group. They even found out that the group had an inside man right here." he elaborated.

The case was widely publicized, after all, when three trucks in succession that contained generic medications to be delivered to Gotham General and several free clinics were hijacked. The short version was the Birds of Prey stopped the hijacking as it was happening, then the glorious GCPD arrested those men, and they also discovered the inside man within Drake Industries - one of the Directors who had planned to jump ship while sinking DI along with it.

In reality, it had been Tim's work. The Birds - Dinah and Helena - helped with physically stopping the hijacking; while Tim dug out the paperwork and discovered the traitor. Barbara had then sent the evidence to the police, along with video footage of the man talking to a competitor of the company.

"Oh yeah, I've heard of the case. So you don't think they're bad people?"

Tim slow-shrug, just for the sake of dramatization. "I won't say they're totally good people - I mean, them hijackers looked like they've gone 12 rounds with Ted Grant the boxer. And they supposedly have like, superpowers or something. But I'm not gonna say they're bad people - they knew exactly where those shipments were going and who'd be using them, and they worked hard to stop the hijacking, you know. Financially speaking, DI might be able to weather like, a dozen hijacking. But for those people who needed the meds..." he let the sentence trailed for Bruce to fill in the blanks. He knew that the man has the same metaphorical bleeding heart as Martha Wayne, his mother.

"Okay..." Bruce actually looked a little more alive after the explanation. "Do you know how to contact them? I need to ask them for help."

"Oh, wow... Heh. It's not like I have them on my speed-dial... I think they maybe have an inside man in GCPD? They showed up right after I made the report of the third hijacking." Tim hedged, internally cursing himself for not finishing his project of the Birdcall app. The cellphone app would have made it easier for anyone to call the Birds or to alert the Birds of crimes. Alas, the whole issue with Jason and Damian's appearance has delayed its development. Tim made a mental note to assign Harper on it.

Bruce looked disappointed. "I see... then I will need you to relay this to the GCPD for me, Tim, can I trust you? I mean, it's... crucial," he said.

"What is this about, the kid and his guards?" Tim tested, just for kicks.

"Oh, no. The kid... Damian and his guards were actually a kind of reprieve in the household. They made sure that everything would be... proper and in order." Bruce smiled thinly. "It's about Bane. I have evidence that he has murdered a lot of people."

"Oh my," Tim gasped earnestly, really. Jason and Dick, and even Damian, have reported that aside from Bane's obvious animosity against them, he had tried nothing - yet. They were also the ones who told Tim that Bane has placed nanotech trackers on all three Waynes' clothing. Unfortunately, they were not able to actually snoop around - as there would always be one of the Waynes in the house.

Bruce handed him a small USB drive. "It's all here. Please, Tim. I mean, before this, I couldn't care less if that brute would leech all of the family's fortune. But now I have a son to think of... Talia might have made sure he's physically well-guarded. But Bane is a long-con kind of person and is really patient. He came to Gotham specifically for us after so many years. He..." he paused. "I believed my father when he told me that he had not betrayed my mother. But without a shred of physical evidence, there is nothing either of us can do. And how are you going to ask for a DNA sample from someone like Bane?"

"Spoon? Toothbrush? Hairbrush?"

"He's bald," Bruce replied dryly. "I'm not even sure he'd showered. Alfred said his bathroom has always remained tidy."

"Ew. No. Okay. Uh... I can't promise you that any bird would come your way, but I'll figure out a way to let this fall to the right hands, yeah?" Tim replied, putting the USB drive into his suit jacket - where Barbara could remotely access it through the circuitry in said pocket.

"Okay," Bruce looked relieved. "And now, since Bane is tracking me and I'm sure he knows what this building is, how about we come up with a stupid cover story?"

A proposal landed in Tim's sight just as Bruce finished talking. He grinned mischievously. "How about we collaborate to expand Leslie Thompkins' Free Clinic? Everybody's happy, and neither of us won't lose sleep over it."

"You'd have made a great corporate spy, do you know that?" Bruce grinned back, looking a thousand times happier than when he walked in.

"Oh yeah, but I already have my own ways to get secrets," Tim winked as he handed the proposal over. "Have a look at this, and let me know what you think. I think we can spend the discussion over lunch. Would Alfred mind if we ask him to acquire our lunches?"

"I'm sure he would be delighted if he hasn't already..." Bruce replied, getting up and opened the door. Alfred stood there with several paper bags in his hands. "He has already, it seemed," Bruce reported.

"Indeed, sirs. It is most rude to visit an associate without bringing anything. I daresay a quick lunch is sufficient for you, Master Timothy?" Alfred replied as he entered and set up the contents of the bags - several types of sandwiches and salad mixes.

"Oooh, more than sufficient, thank you, Alfred!"

"Not a problem, Sir. Please indulge, gentlemen." Alfred smiled. "Might I remind you, Master Bruce, that the Doctor and Mrs. Wayne shall return in two hours? It would be prudent to conclude your discussion by then." he hinted.

"Definitely, Alfred. We're just talking about what needs to be done to expand a hospital." Bruce grinned triumphantly at him, showing him the proposal. "Mother would be delighted at this."

[nothorses]

So I have a question/something I'd like your input on, since I feel like you'd have something interesting to say about this.

Anyways, some background: i'm in a child and youth care program in a rather left leaning, relatively progressive college, in a rather left leaning/progressive city.

It's actually been a very validating experience so far--I feel so much more accepted here then at my last school, which, while it was located relatively close to the city, had a rather more conservative student body and faculty. I had to fight for accomodation and acceptance, and I didn't end up going to my convocation since, when I had asked, they said they wouldn't call my prefered name when I'd get the certificate at the ceremony, or use the right name on it (they made it seem that their hands were completely tied, even though I know of other schools who've done this exact thing, incl the school I'm at now, without needing proof of a legal name change).

Anyways, at this school, i'm even having instructors I don't even know well going to bat for me and using their connections to get the help I needed when I was having trouble with my name being displayed wrong in the online classroom. Like, thank god for having CYC's as profs, right?

So, to my point: one of our classes is all about inclusion and anti oppressive practices. It's literally the name of the class. I actually enjoy the class a fair bit--despite classes being virtual, my class is sharing a lot and there's a lot of bonding and openness going on in the virtual lecture space. It's encouraged me to be open about my own troubles as a trans person, and people have been v supportive.

In a recent lecture, we start talking about the different terms of discrimination against various groups that face oppression (like, racism, albleism, etc). So she asks us: what is the term for discrimination against trans people? And I say Transphobia. Because that's the term I see most often, and the one I say myself. Apparently the Proper term now is cissexism (or cisgenderism?), and I got chided for saying transphobia.

I went and turned my mic on and basically said that I feel like transphobia is the term the general population is only Just started to take seriously, and the instructor argued that as we're in an academic circle, and as CYCs, it's our job to use the most progressive terms to move things forward, and that we shouldn't be conflating the discrimination trans people face with a phobia. Since, not only does it validate the fear of trans people, but it's not fair to those that have legitimate phobias.

I dropped it there, but I was brave and I asked to speak with the instructor after class.

During that talk, I pretty much said that it's hard being probably the only trans person in at least first year, and being visible and open as one, and having to be told the "right" term to use for my own experiences. She could relate, she said, as she's a black woman, and have faced probably similar experiences from white people correcting her on terms she uses for her own experiences. She did say though, as she's in the role of an instructor, it is her job to educate herself, think on what they're saying, and potentially make changes to her language.

But, she also said she can't speak for my experiences, and she won't make me change my language.

I was appreciative, and I talked about things I've personally faced, and how, even just 10 years ago, trans people were treated so frequently as a joke. Even on screen deaths were funny in media. I brought up that the trans panic defense was still considered a valid defense to use in court not long ago (and still probably is in some places), and someone won a case recently that way. Even just the term "transphobia" is only just recently been taken seriously, in my eyes, while before it was often brushed off as not a legitimate concern. Even when I was first coming out, I was told I was just confused, or trans people were just doing it for attention. I still face open glares sometimes, purposeful misgendering, fights with my sister about some of her transphobic views she refuses to question... And while it was hard to be that vulnerable, the conversation ended on a very good note.

I personally don't feel ready to change this language. But I don't really know if I was in the right to argue all of this. I'm only one trans person, I don't want to talk over those who've probably fought to switch the language away from "transphobia" as the valid term. But, i'm in an awkward position of being an unofficial spokesperson as the token trans guy in the class, talking to a lot of folks who've admitted I am the first trans person they've met. So, i dunno, i'm weird with conflict and I was wondering what you're thoughts were on all of this.

This is kind of a tricky one for a lot of reasons, tbh? And I have... a few thoughts. This is already super long, so under the cut it goes!

The first thing is that “transphobia” and “cissexism” aren’t actually interchangeable; they’re different concepts. “Transphobia” refers to bigotry against trans people or transness in general, while “cissexism” or “cisgenderism” is appealing to (or is) the wider system of oppression. (x)

That’s not to say those words are actually used that way in practice, because they’re not, and I certainly don’t use them that way every time either. Like you said, “transphobia” is the word people more often understand. When I’m writing for or talking to audiences that don’t already have a strong background in trans theory, I stick to “transphobia” for clarity’s sake.

But if you’re positioning yourself as an educational authority on the subject, and even going so far as to correct trans people on those terms- you should know that. If your question is “which term refers to discrimination against trans people?”, your answer is reliant upon how you choose to define “discrimination” in that context.

It’s also reasonable to assume people would answer with the first term if they don’t know both of them, and what she’s set up sounds like an unfair “gotcha!” meant to cow uninformed cis people.

And tbh, I take issue with that. There’s a great essay on this- The Cycle of Socialization by Bobbie Harro. The core of this cycle, which allows oppression to continue and encourages its perpetuation, includes confusion and insecurity: oppression is complex, and big, and people are afraid of taking a stand and doing it wrong. They are insecure in their knowledge and position, and afraid that if they try, they’ll get it wrong, and they’ll be punished. So they stay silent. What is that “gotcha!” moment doing except enforcing that fear and silence?

The other thing here are her reasons for using “cissexism” instead. She’s absolutely right that there is dialogue about what terms to use, and her listed reasons are informed and well-educated. I don’t know how I feel about the discussion myself, honestly, as I’ve seen it from the start and I’ve watched it play out for multiple years.

I don’t know if I agree that it’s ableist, part of that being that the “-phobic” thing was originally created as a “compassionate justification” for people’s bigotry against gay people (though there is the “-misic/misia” replacement for “-phobia” if you prefer). That’s still problematic for different reasons; like she said, it might validate bigotry as “fear”. “Cissexism” illustrates bigotry as enforcing a system rather than being honestly rooted in feelings, and that’s generally a good thing, imo.

But, y’know, “transphobia” is what people readily understand, and punishing people for using it is counterproductive. Using “transphobia” as a starting point for a discussion and an understanding is helpful, too; it connects these ideas back to what people already know. It meets them where they are. If you want to add “cissexism” to their vocabulary from there, please do! But that shouldn’t be rooted in shame.

I don’t know if any of this is helpful, but I thought I’d throw out what seemed to be the core of the issue to me, in case it resonated with you. If you still feel weird about the interaction, it might be worth it to address that with her again; she seems like she’s genuinely trying, and cares, and like she’s open to making changes. If nothing else, you might be able to sort out what’s still bugging you and address it as a feelings issue, rather than a language one, if that works better for you.

Good luck! And sorry for the super long answer, lol.