#coming from someone who used to have a lot of arguments regarding my own mental health with my loved ones not even romantic just friends

[olivsie]

I believe with my whole chest that if haley was Suicidal Instead of a Stereotypical mean girl at the start. Everyone would flaunt around her And speak of her as if she Ascended from heaven itself. Because for some fucked up reason we associate suicidalness and depression with a sense of honor/purity/excuse. And As somebody who used to Really struggle with that kind of stuff. I think it's very disgusting. These are not things that make you Honorable/ Excuse you for bad behavior. Sure they can be EXPLANATIONS for bad behavior, excuse? Maybe sometimes but.,still. Let us Not forget that Many people will Try to use Their daily struggles as Excuses; ex, "The only reason I screamed at you was because I had a bad day And I don't want you to talk to me"

Now to be fair, I don't think that Shane himself is using it as an excuse too much. Sure he is Being extremely rude But if I Remember correctly, He never tries to use it as an excuse. It's the fanbase doing that, not him.

honestly love that in the sdv community there will be judgement on who you marry except if you ‘marry’ Krobus

You marry Haley? Humiliation fetish

Alex? He’s sexist

Krobus? He’s a shadow man who lives in sewer and will give you hugs why wouldn’t you be roommates with him

[adragonsfriend]

Use this one trick to instantly fix all childhood trauma (Jedi Masters don’t want you to know this)!!!!!

That is what every “if Obi-Wan had just— *adds one extra scene to canon* —then Anakin would’ve had perfect mental health and never listened to Palpatine at all,” sounds like to me. Look I am not an expert on any kind of psychology at all let alone early childhood development but,

It is possible to do your very best to help or raise someone and still have bad or imperfect outcomes, especially when you have someone actively, secretly working against you (cough cough Sith Lord of the month cough), (for many reasons, but in this case particularly), because unravelling the mindset built in early childhood is hard, actually.

Coming at this from the “raised in a safe and loving environment” side of things, it took me years to figure out and internalize that my friends whose parents weren’t as great as mine were functioning in an entirely different landscape when it came to their interactions with adults.

Many years ago when I was in middle school a friend (acquaintance? idk I think most people thought I was annoying) told me that her ankle kept giving out and causing her pain. I asked if she'd told her parents so she could rest or go to the doctor. She told me she had, but her mother either hadn't listened or refused to help. My (approximate) responses?

"So it's not actually that bad then?"

"You should tell her again."

"Are you sure you explained it right?"

The only explanation I could comprehend at the time was that there must have been some unclear communication about the situation or its severity--if her mother had understood she was in pain, she couldn't possibly have just not done anything about it? Adults are responsible, caring, etcetera! They wouldn't do that?!

With more experience, I've come to understand better, and learned to respond in kinder, more helpful ways, but the shift in mindset was not and is not intuitive.

And I had the luxury of figuring all that out whilst being safe myself. Coming from the other direction, being in danger and trying to figure out why other people act like the world is safe? I can't say for sure, but I imagine it’s a lot more complicated.

Point with regard to Star Wars being, it really is harder for Anakin, coming in later, to acclimate to the Jedi ways and thought processes than it is for his peers who grew up in the safe environment of the Temple. And whatever arguments people want to have about how much psychology and therapy exist in the Star Wars universe, or how much “Jedi just do cognitive behavioral therapy” (not totally inaccurate, but reductive on several levels), no matter what the answers to those questions, it will still be harder for Anakin.

There is a reason the council changes its mind on training him only after he is suddenly famous and the Sith are proven to be back. When Anakin was not in significant danger of being snatched up by someone else, it was genuinely probably the easier and safer option—for him and everyone else—for him to live a different life.

The Jedi are not necessarily fully prepared for a child with Anakin's history, and, there is nothing bad about living an ordinary life. Anakin would not have been somehow unforgivably robbed by living life as a mechanic or an engineer or something, rather than being a Jedi.

Anakin is a victim of many things in his life—Sidious, Watto, Gardulla, Tatooine’s everything, his own conscious choices—but he is not a victim of malice, incompetence, or idiocy by the Jedi just because they couldn't—in only a decade or so—help him fully and perfectly unravel the mindset he developed in his early childhood. If there was any lack of qualification on their part, it was one they were aware of—but which was outweighed by the danger of little Anakin getting kidnapped out of normal-kid elementary school.

Being brought up in and around slavery absolutely made him more vulnerable to Sidous and became the basis of their dynamic as master and apprentice. Acting like the trauma that affects his mindset and actions for his entire life can be obliterated just by making minimal changes to the plot is wild to me.

And don’t get me wrong, fics and headcanons can do whatever they want, not everyone wants or is trying to write a deep psychological character study (also fanfic and even fiction in general cannot and should not be held to any standard of realism if it's not serving the story and the author)—simple fix-it’s (my love) are fun and an excellent short-cut to other things like happiness and fluff (my other loves)—but don’t act serious about the idea that adding one conversation about his feelings or one extra explanation about Jedi philosophy would automatically lead to Anakin having perfect mental health outcomes and always making good decisions.

Disclaimer (if the ones throughout weren't enough) : please go forth and do whatever you want. the moral of this post is actually just that (1) you won’t convince me, (2) I wanted to talk about this, (3) the clickbait title was too funny not to post, (4) i literally can't open my mouth without phrasing things like i'm in the middle of a heated debate, and (5) i continue to not be an expert in early childhood development—my evidence is very literally anecdotal

[etoilesbienne]

re: boundaries

I've made many posts previously on this subject already, so people are already aware of my stance regarding disliking the way "boundaries" as a concept are used by the mcyt fandom, however I want to have a brief meditation on why this is the case, and a look at common arguments about them.

however i do want to make clear that i don't mind boundaries as a concept, actual boundaries. as in "if you do x, i will respond with y" kinds of boundaries. I think cc are completely fair and understandable in this kind of perspective. if someone makes a kind of content they dislike, they're free to block that fan or express discomfort over it. That's normal.

my critical eye is turned toward the fandom's perception of "boundaries" as a sort of fandom ruleset, either you follow them with the in-group, or you're thrown in the out-group and labelled all sorts of insults, anywhere from a criminal offender to just having people be plain nasty toward you. this in my opinion, really feeds into the fandom habit of having "cliques" as fandoms are social networks that are voluntarily joined. i find it juvenile at best.

at worst, on the other hand, is the concept of mcyt having mixed in kpop stan culture around 2019 with smplive (great server. horrific fandom at the time it was run. all of the smplive fans still left are veterans worthy of respect for surviving that.), which caused a very explosive mixture.

kpop fandom has this outlook and parasociality toward idols because these idols are borderline unreachable. even in smaller groups, companies generally (not always.) discourage idols from talking one-on-one selectively with fans. there deserves to be a more thorough examination of kpop fandom with stan culture, that i believe i am not fully qualified for. my point is that kpop idols are a hell of a lot harder to reach for english fans, whether through language barrier or through professionality done by companies.

the explosive mixture is bringing this same mentality - the mentality that these people you look toward as the main source of the fandom as being untouchable, perfect people. it's dehumanizing in its own right, but aside from that, it creates a dangerous fandom situation. as best shown using smplive with CallMeCarson from before.

CMC is the origin point of boundaries within the MCYT fandom, having held a live in fall of 2019 talking about how a popular danganronpa themed wattpad smplive fanfiction was upsetting for him to read. CMC had an intense fanbase that could and would look up to him no matter what. of course the fanbase would go after and harass this author off of the internet and deleting their work (which remained lost media until this January of 2024. Almost half a decade.) after this situation, only months later it comes out that CMC had in fact been manipulating women aged 17 to early 20s, into sexual dms and sending him explicit photos of themselves for around a year. i am of the opinion CMC would have done this behavior regardless, however, the fact he had access to so many women who put him on a pedestal without considering he could exploit them was exacerbated by the stan culture mentality of mcyt's fandom at the time. this is not a criticism of the women, it is a criticism of the fandom culture of the time for failing to treat carson as a human being who had every capability to treat people like this.

no cc is exempt from that mentality by the fandom. carson knowingly used his position within the fandom to make the choice to do that to those girls. no cc should be exempt from the real possibility of the consideration that they can fuck up, not always in the way that they necessarily need to be cancelled or deplatformed, carson is an extreme example that is absolutely not representative of cc as a whole, but there needs to be a healthy level of doubt and separation between creators and fans.

to reiterate: cc are not your friends. cc do not need you to speak for them. you do not know these people personally. to present your defense of them and their personal opinions like you spoke to them directly and are close friends is dangerous, both for yourself, and for other fans in the community.

everything i have listed is why i always will be critical toward any fan group or clique that presents themselves as being pillars of the community, and why i am critical of any page or resource that tries to list "boundaries" as hard fast rules to be self policed by the fandom. not only is that punitive mentality, it's careless and poor understanding of how communities at large work.

i don't think a "boundaries" list is necessarily a bad idea in the long run either, if these lists were, like, compilations of streamers' twitch chat rules, that'd be cool! but generally these lists lack any nuance of why and where some boundaries may apply. like a ton of streamers hate ships being spammed in chat, but could give less of a fuck about people making ship fanart. or like wouldn't care as long as the ship art isn't put in their main tag.

as well as the general ignoring of regular boundaries, we all remember the horror show of people dono-ing to cc in 2020-22 asking for their boundaries right? like just so we're explicitly clear, walking up to someone and asking what someone's opinion of making adult content of them is very much sexual harassment. that's objectively something fans should not be asking to cc. if they want to say something, they can speak up on their own. they do not need your prompting. if you wouldn't ask it to your boss in an office, don't ask cc it. tangentially related is the ignoring of boundaries based on disliking fans harassing each other or other cc. those boundaries never get to be prioritized for a reason, as those behaviors feed into the stan culture mentality of pitting sources against each other in fan wars.

parasociality and stan culture turn mcyt fandom into a power vacuum where fans who like to self-police to a dangerous extent try to take charge. this makes the fandom worse.

[jackattack20writes]

So this might’ve been mentioned before or someone else might’ve realised years ago but since I’ve never seen it mentioned in regards to WDKALY I’m gonna pretend it’s my own original idea. But uh Rukia’s wedding is the third time Ichigo has one of his depressive separations from his friends when Rukia leaves it’s just this time it’s more metaphorical.

So the first time is of course Rukia’s kidnapping at the end of the Substitute Shinigami arc where Ichigo feels off because he’s the only one who remembers and by extension cares about Rukia’s disappearance. This also sets the scene for how Kubo portrays Ichigo’s depressive episodes as it’s the first time he’s beaten so ruthlessly and fails to protect someone.

The next time is after the loss of his powers and battle with Aizen. Again Ichigo feels separated from his classmates they are all making plans for the future while Ichigo is just trudging along with lower grades than he had before. Again in this situation a large part of Ichigo’s struggle is his inability to protect the people he cares about anymore as well as the loss of Rukia. However the loss of Rukia aspect is something that gets disputed with some claiming that he is actually missing Zangetsu and the loss is just another facet of his protectiveness. However that is where the third example in WDKALY comes into the picture.

The rule of three is a common thing in writing and used as a baseline here allows for interpretation to fall more favourably that the seperation in WDKALY while more metaphorical is still intentional. In regards to Rukia’s wedding in WDKALY Ichigo has two main acts, first he sews the strawberry flower pattern onto Rukia’s veil (which is a whole other thing since Rukia specifically has a western veil rather than a Japanese wataboshi which each have their own associated meanings to them) then his second act is to be the photographer after Orihime can’t anymore. And this is the third depressive episode I was talking about.

So being a photographer separates someone from everyone else, it’s why normally people are hired. Because the photographer is outside the celebration, rather than participating they are instead documenting. Now it could be argued that this isn’t Kubo and Matsubara’s intent with this but there isn’t any reason for Ichigo specifically to be the photographer. Any other side character could’ve been given the camera or the camera could’ve just not been there to begin with, and Ichigo explicitly spends large parts of the ceremony not experiencing it but seeing through the viewfinder of a camera.

Just like Rukia’s disappearance and the loss of his powers Ichigo is physically present but mentally and spiritually seperate from his friends. But this time there isn’t his powers disappearing nor is he failing to save someone from a physical threat. All that’s happening is Rukia is marrying Renji. Now this is where the rule of three comes into again. Because the three events not only repeat but act as a triangulation of what affects Ichigo to this extent and while the failing to protect people is present in the first two the loss of Rukia is in all three and the only thing present in the last occasion. Meaning that by itself the loss of Rukia can send Ichigo into a depressive spiral. Meaning that any argument that his spiral pre fullbring arc is actually just because of zangetsu is wrong.

Because of this WDKALY is not actually set up for why the end result of bleach works and makes sense but is actually the reverse and is external content to hammer home how the ending is a tragedy. (which like people bring up and say a lot but as I said before I’ve never seen mention of the photography stuff)

So yeah basically WDKALY is actually the ultimate propaganda for why IchiRuki is the main ship in bleach and why the endings a tragedy.

[thevulturesquadron]

Ok so this is me sorta headcanoning, so take this with a grain of salt, but one of the reasons why the infantilization of Rogue always bothers me is because I always felt like her powers were a metaphor for disability/chronic illness and fandom police act already like disabled women aren't capable of being in their own villain romances, example being Entrapdak antis denying Entrapta her own agency in her romance with Hordak in the She-Ra reboot.

Oh! But you make a really good point! It’s one of those subtle perspectives that can be dangerous just because of how easy they are to integrate into someone's view of the world. I'm not as vocal online as I used to be. I feel like there are people out there far better equipped to talk about it than I, while I grow old and cranky. But, you brought up a really important aspect that kinda sent me into a 'hold my beer' moment so apologies for the long answer! To start with, I wouldn’t call this a headcanon, not at all, clearly not in the context of X-men, and Rogue in particular. It’s a very apt analogy. The reason why these characters become relevant to us is because we recognize something from our personal journey in them, and the comparison you made for Rogue is a very strong one. Her inability to touch can absolutely be read as a disability! In so many of her stories/arcs it is often portrayed as a struggle, as an obstacle to a ‘normal life’. Her difficulties with gaining control over her powers and dealing with other personalities that are trying to take over her mind can also be a strong metaphor for mental health struggles/disorders. Rogue is a fantastic hero in that regard and seeing her be her own person, learning how to work and be proud of what she can do, can feel like a personal victory for so many people. It’s why it’s important to see her happy, to see her winning her battles and use who she is and what she can do in a positive and impactful way. There are many reasons why fans end up taking away her agency or attributing her choices to a different (often male) character. And, to be fair, a couple of comic-book writers have done this exact thing to her, so I can see where this skewed perspective might be coming from. Within fandom this happens mostly because it serves to support their arguments for whatever thing they prefer or project onto the character. If they don’t like a certain narrative or can’t accept that it might’ve be written for someone else, they have this to fall back on and point to. Or, sadly, one of the simplest reasons for doing this is the age-old turning their ship preferences into ‘I’m right, you are wrong’ arguments. But these things can hide some internalized misconceptions. Unfortunately I haven’t seen the reboot of She-Ra (shame on me) so I don’t have the full picture for the take on Entrapta, but now I have one more reason to invest some time in it. In this situation with Rogue, I believe that what you mentioned applies very well. The argument that I’ve seen going around a lot is that Rogue was manipulated/swayed by being presented with the opportunity to ‘be normal’. Because she wanted to be able to touch and as a result she was taken advantage of because of her ‘disability’. Which is entirely false. In no version of the relationship between Rogue and Magneto in the comics, and not even in the reinvented take in the animation, has he ever abused that. Her attraction to him has always, always, come first, and the ability to touch, second. He was never the first one to act upon it. Even in the animation, every shot in the flashback was carefully considered to portray that - she is shown as the initiator every time (my favourite scene is when she’s trying her very best to pose in a suggestive way and he just paints her as he sees her, lively and sincere). But some fans don’t want to see that. They don’t want to acknowledge the authenticity of her decisions because it doesn’t serve the narrative they want of her/for her.

I read your message and it hit like a hammer how much deeper this problem can actually go, because it’s masked by those surface-level justifications. Removing agency and responsibility from someone just because they operate differently than one’s expectations is damaging in and of itself, and within a fandom it perpetuates an idea that can stifle people’s perspective and critical thinking. (This whole topic actually reminded me of Madison Tevlin's “Assume that I can” commercial. I think it's relevant to the conversation) Thanks a lot for sharing this!!! We need to talk more about these things and if I misspoke on something or missed something important would love to hear it. 💜

[pulaasul]

Delusions VS. Ideals.

@66thpitstop​ Your responses to my post deserve to be a post on its own because damn you seem to be confusing delusions with ideals.

First let us define both words. 

Delusion -  a false belief or judgment about external reality, held despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, occurring especially in mental conditions. (source: Oxford Dictionary)

Ideals -  a standard of perfection; a principle to be aimed at.  (source: Oxford Dictionary)

Now, let’s place all your responses into this post.

When people proclaim about themselves, something that they are not, then they are no different than those delusional & egotistical villains. Both Daiji & Keiwa hate reality, because it affects their egos. They're no different than the likes of Kusaka, Mitsuzane & Kaito, in that regards, even if they claim the opposite.

When I'm seeing both Daiji & Keiwa claiming that they are saving people, when the situation proves them otherwise, then yes. They're delusional. When Keiwa claims that he will revive everyone who died in the DGP, while blaming Ace's mother at the same time, what does he have? Delusions. When Daiji says that joining Giff is the only way to go, when it was already proved that humanity can fight back against him (Ultimate Revice), then he is just as delusional.

Not only that, but let me remind you a quote from Takatora to Mitsuzane : "While the others faced their futures and moved on, you clinged at where you thought you found safety, and stayed there". The same goes for both Daiji & Keiwa. They didn't want to face their futures, straightforward, but instead, they got stuck to their own made-up world, built inside their heads.

and then my response to you for your first response. which got me your responses two and three:

Where did you even get them being delusional from their characters? In fact where did you get a lot of your claims in canon? Did either Keiwa or Daiji proclaim that they will be heroes to save everyone, they just declared that they're going to save people. By your logic, Emu is a villain, Sento is a villain, heck freaking Eiji Hino and Gentaro Kisaragi are villains. "hate reality because it affects their egos?' seriously where is this coming from?

Le’ts get to your responses now.

Keiwa’s ideal was for there to be no sacrifices for happiness, and naturally he wants for those sacrifices to be brought back, so his wish becomes reviving the DGP casualties. How is that a delusion?

So when someone fails to achieve their goals for one reason or another they’re delusional now? How is that a delusion, they simply failed at what they set out to do. In militaristic terms they failed the objective.

Academically speaking they got an F, it’s like you’re saying students who did not pass are delusional people and are villains.

Or are you talking about blaming Ace’s mother?  Let’s dissect that bit, shall we? I don’t have the time or energy to make an elaborate essay on dissecting that argument so here are the bullet points.

Keiwa learns how the wish system supposedly works from two shady sources: Daichi and Kekera.

Ace learns how the wish system actually works from confirming it himself, by which Keiwa is dead at this point.

Ace shares what he learned to Michinaga.

Ace does not share what he learned to Keiwa.

Keiwa is operating on the information he got from both Kekera and Daichi.

That information being the goddess uses the lives of the casualties, as fuel to rewrite the world. (the punkjack special debunks this, and Tsumuri confirms it in 39)

How is Keiwa to know that Mitsume is not to be blamed before the events of 39? The plot doesn’t even let Keiwa process what he learned from Win about how Mitsume probably isn’t at fault.

Keiwa is half right that Mitsume is not blameless in the whole wishing system but he’s wrong to put all the blame on her.

That is not delusional, that’s just called operating blind.

Now we go to 39, the post you replied was about Keiwa’s hesitation, how exactly does his hesitation paint him as a villain, the fact that he thinks there’s no point in joining the game when the goddess cannot atone for her sins?  How does that paint him as a villain exactly? How is that delusional of him.

If Keiwa was delusional, he’d have grabbed Ace’s collars and forced him to atone for his mother’s sins, but he doesn’t because he’s not delusional, as you claim him to be.

Let’s go over Daiji quickly, I did mention that Daiji was manipulated in the post that you replied to, its curious that you left that part out, when that was the whole point of him joining Akaishi’s side. He was manipulated because his factchecker, Kagerou, is absent from his life.

In short you’re confusing the word “ideals’ with “delusions”. Keiwa is an idealistic person, not a delusional person.

thoughts @rainixdra @acequinz @narashikari

[cwenvs3000w23]

Unit 10: Where do I stand?

Before I decided to take this class, I had never really heard the term “nature interpreter”, nor would I have ever used such a term to refer to myself. However, throughout my journey in this class, I have learned a lot about what it means to be a nature interpreter and the multitude of different tools one can employ to help educate and spread our shared passion for nature. With each blog prompt, I have been challenged to critically think about my own experiences and how they have influenced my journey in regards to studying the environment. During the various blog posts, I have learned to unpack my “invisible backpack” of unearned opportunities I’ve had that have helped guide my value for nature, and see how different circumstances may have led to a different outcome (McIntosh, 1989). Through analysing my own life and experiences with nature, I can better understand why I have gained a passion for connecting to the nature around me. Keeping that in mind, it further enables me to think of how someone with completely different life experiences may not share the same passion as me, and through this understanding I can better learn how I can educate and spread my passion to people of all walks of life. 

Of the many topics the units of this course have covered, a common theme that has been enforced throughout the units is to understand your audience, how they learn, and what they may best respond to. Whether it’s through a simple engaging conversation, stating fun facts, or using aspects of art such as music or visual art; all these serve as different tools that can help engage an audience and perhaps ignite the same sense of passion for nature that we have as nature interpreters. When I first heard the term nature interpreter, the only thing that came to mind was the stereotypical guide at a conservation park, but after 10 weeks of this course I know there is so much more to it, and that educating others about nature is very crucial when it comes to protecting the environment for future generations.  For me personally, I grew up going camping trips with my family, and doing things such as visiting a provincial park, or going out hiking or canoeing was a crucial part of my life that defined the value that I have for nature at a young age. This helped me define my interest for nature, and helped aid my decision to study Environmental Management here at the University of Guelph. However, hundreds of millions around the world do not have access to nature in the same way that I did, and due to this most of their views when it comes to nature are guided by the media and the plethora of different arguments when it comes to things like climate change or habitat conservation. Due to this, it can create a sense of disconnect to nature for many people, which can lead to the mentality that human civilization is so separate from nature. However, I personally see us as a part of nature, as not only do we rely on it to provide us with necessary resources, it is also a crucial part of the human soul. Due to this view, I believe that it is my role as a nature interpreter to share the values I have to as many people as possible so those who didn’t have the same opportunities as me can truly feel the same sense of connectivity to nature that I was able to discover through my life experiences. 

Thinking about where I stand as a nature interpreter still leaves me with a bit of uncertainty when it comes to what form of nature interpretation suits me best. When I try to think about where my future stands I find it important to think through my past and what brought me to study the environment in the first place. One of the major conclusions that I found throughout high school as I thought about what I wanted to do in university, I knew I was the kind of person who wanted to avoid spending my career sitting in an office chair. I have always been more of a hands-on learner who enjoys actually going out into nature, and experiencing the sights, smells, and sounds so I can better gain inspiration in a way that a computer screen could never provide. So this is why I think I can best educate others on nature in a setting that allows me to guide others through the same physical experiences that ignited my passion from a young age. Through guiding others in hands-on experiences and using some of my knowledge, and storytelling skills to instil a sense of connectivity and passion in nature is currently where I see myself as being the most effective as a nature interpreter. The people who receive your nature interpretation will be able to sense how passionate and genuine you are pretty quickly and this will influence how much they take your message seriously. It is for this reason that it is best as a nature interpreter to be in a role that you are truly passionate about, as passion is one thing that can’t be faked.

My ethics in regards to nature interpretation has changed, and been redefined as I learn more about environmental issues and some of the misconceptions I had before beginning my studies. I have always valued nature, and seen it as something that is worth preserving, however my values in regards to what the current losses in biodiversity means to us as humans, and how we can best go about protecting nature has changed quite a bit through this course. I have learned the importance of educating others not only so they know facts about nature, but so they know more about the spiritual and cultural aspects around nature that make people feel a stronger connection to nature so they will view it as something worth preserving for future generations. In my view, losing nature is much more than just losing pretty landscapes or important resources, it is akin to losing a part of ourselves. It is very important to guide the general population into understanding why we dedicate our lives to protecting nature, and why its importance is much deeper than what's on the surface. This is because it is only through a better-educated populace that we can influence political, and business decisions regarding the environment, as with more people advocating for nature with a passion, decision makers will be more inclined to move towards more sustainable practices. Given the current state of the world, it may seem like a very uphill battle for us as nature interpreters, but through reading everyone’s discussions throughout this term I have gained a lot more confidence in the future by seeing how passionate many others are in this class are for protecting the nature around us so future generations can enjoy the same passion and awe we find in mother nature.    

References

McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knapsack. Peace and Freedom, 10-12.

[tacticalhimbo]

i dislike fandom-centric arguments but i'm watching some we happy few related stuff again and the narrative that sally cheated on arthur with his father will always be fucking wild to me.

ranting under the cut because i'm having feelings and seeing people talk shit makes me upset.

sally was a minor. arthur's father was an adult. he groomed her and raped her.

and the second she tried to come clean, the narrative was twisted, and she was painted to be some villainous whore. and she, years later, still apologizes for being raped. she apologizes to arthur when he starts screaming at her for it and recounting the event as "fucking my dad on my mother's bed"

before anyone comes at me with that "but she was 16" bullshit... would y'all say that about your sibling? your own child? that because they're almost an adult (and the technical age of consent in some areas), or because they happen to be a "troublemaker" (which it's hinted at through sally's own arc that she may have been a rebellious teen) that they deserved to be raped because they could have said no? because they may have had a conscious choice? because they might not obey all the rules, such as curfew or modest dress?

nobody deserves rape. plain and simple. no exceptions. if you disagree, go die i guess <3

also. not to mention the statutes around the age of consent (re: it being 16 in some places) only apply to small gaps and other minors, not someone who's probably in his 40s or 50s.

granted, we know jack shit about arthur's father and the dynamic that was had... but he was an adult. she was a minor, who was struggling with her own shit (e.g., mental illness, the whole narrative plot, the implementation of joy and drugs and withdrawal, watching her fucking family die)...

he fucking knew better. in any regard. you as an adult simply do not proposition a minor for illicit activities. that makes you, surprise, a bad fucking person. a disgusting fucking rapist!

but i just... hate that people are so quick to accept the game's narrative on this, especially since we see everything in that regard from arthur's perspective. and i think a lot of people forget that. we see what arthur wants us to, to an extent.

we never get that full context, until we take a step back and think for ourselves. but that's just too much to ask in regard to a female character, i guess.

tldr:

not that accepting a rapist's solicitation is a mistake, because it isn't, but the general vibe of this screenshotted post is so accurate and i hate y'all (nobody here, hopefully)

[cosmossystem]

@zain-syscourse: can i ask why you are a psych abolitionist? /gen q, i dont know much about the anti psych perspective but ive been looking for people to ask. my immediate reaction to seeing anti psych/psych abolitionist people is "what about the people who really need psychiatric care/therapy/meds?" because i fall into that catagory, and im curious how the anti psych stance handles that.

in a reblog because this got too long lol

so i've currently got a rager of a migraine and i'm not going to explain every detail as to why i'm a psych abolitionist cuz it's a lot (ask again tomorrow. in the meantime, read this post) but ultimately it boils down to the fact that the psych & therapy industries, like the larger medical industry that they fall under the umbrella of, are tools used to further oppress minorities such as the neurodivergent, mentally ill & homeless on a government level. that, and that they treat the mad and insane like absolute garbage, lmao.

i can answer that latter half in more detail

idk about other psych abolitionists (i'm kinda new to all of the lingo/theory after years of believing in it from coming to my own conclusions) but i don't personally want to eradicate the prescribing of medication to people who need it, i'm just critical of how disorders are diagnosed & treated, which is what "psych abolition" means: the restructuring of psychiatric systems. (kinda like prison abolitionists.)

mainly, the way disorders are currently treated takes a "scientific" approach to the brain. for example, there have been years of false claims that depression is a chemical imbalance caused by low serotonin, so the primary way it's treated is through SSRIs/SNRIs. however, this is largely based in outdated/untrue research--so while they may work for some, for someone who is depressed but not lacking in serotonin, it would actually be worse for them to take SSRIs. similarly, drugs are not usually prescribed for one singular thing--i'm on cymbalta for my presumed fibromyalgia (it doesn't help me, lol) but fibromyalgia is not a mental disorder and yet SSRIs/SNRIs are one of the most common treatments for it, etc. also take into consideration that not everyone's bodies will react the same to a certain med due to genetics.

in that regard, it's moreso about finding the right combination of meds that help you, and treating you individually vs categorizing all medication as being able to one-size-fits-all every disorder. so really, psych meds aren't any different from other meds, so there's no point in limiting it to "this treat mental illness and nothing else" when all it does is provide your body with different chemicals, which may or may not alleviate your mental illness -- finally, considering most mental illnesses are not caused by genetics or Bad Chemical but rather by some outside factor (such as trauma), there's a high likelihood that those medications will not work. does that make sense? sorry if it doesn't.

i'm reminded in discussions like these of how marijuana, the drug that is Known to make you High and Happy, is often prescribed to trauma patients... because it makes you High and Happy. not necessarily because it actually fixes your symptoms or anything. like it won't make you stop having flashbacks it'll just make you high temporarily. it’s less of a cure and more of a coping mechanism, similar to therapy. (also: have you noticed how many addicts are also people who have another mental illness, namely ptsd? yep. that's the connection) anyway..

therapy is a broken system too, and that's another can of worms, but my argument there boils down to, like i mean... come on. it's a person. you think every person is going to be helpful and not carry their own bigoted beliefs or baggage? ultimately with talk therapy, all they can do is help you help yourself. (this differs wrt other therapy methods like EMDR but i'm not about to go into that. Please. i cannot. at that point it's 'Which Pseudoscience Do You Like Best?' which is fine and some of it works. but again. yknow. figure out what works for you, etc.)

i think if therapy is something that benefits you, that's great, but by and large therapy does not suit everyone + not all types of therapy are good / should not be treated equally + therapy is seen by society as something that can fix everyone (which it cannot do) due to years of pro-psych propaganda.

if you want a blog to reference, my favorite is the aptly named @/psychabolition ESPECIALLY their pinned post. good stuff on there.

another aspect of my abolition, which i briefly mention in this op, is how society & current psych inherently views systems and plurality as being "disordered" in some way when really it's just another way of existing, but if you'd like me to explain that more please ask because this response is long enough.

i hope this helped somewhat. again, migraine, so please excuse any errors. i can clarify if something doesn't make sense, but this is my perspective on the whole thing.

tbh regardless of the fact that we are technically traumagenic and technically have osdd we don't like to use those labels because it centers the trauma/disorder aspect of plurality in conversations where it is entirely irrelevant (and, quite frankly, none of anyone's business) and i don't understand why so many people demand that they have a right to "know" as if it fucking matters. what relevancy is my origin to any conversation surrounding my experiences? we don't ask c-section babies to distinguish themselves from loin-birthed babies now do we? right

[starastrologyy]

Astrology Observations 🖤

Please do not repost any of my posts on any other social media platform 🖤🖤

What I’m about to say is quite controversial, and most people actually don’t come to a consensus regarding this topic. But, In synastry, I believe that both people will feel certain house activations. However, I ultimately believe the house person will always feel it ‘more’. This is especially true if you have planets in the house that is being activated. This is because the planet person is activating a certain part of your chart. It’s like someone knocking on the door of your house, and coming into your space. You are always aware of what other people are doing in your space. However, I am not saying the planet person doesn’t feel anything (especially in the case of 8th/12th house synastry) I just believe that when someone is activating a part of your chart, it is likely to stir up feelings within the house person, that are related to the house that is being activated.

I feel like a lot of people forget that cancers (sun,moon & risings) are a cardinal sign. I have never met an outwardly sensitive Cancer placement. They are actually some of the most confrontational and straight to the point people. This is especially true if they have other cardinal placements, or prominent fire in their charts. However, what I will say is they won’t go out looking for a confrontation unprovoked, but they certainly are not these crybabies people have stereotyped them to be.

Jupiter in your Solar Return chart can show you the area of life in which you may be attracting more luck and abundance over the next year. For example, Jupiter in the 3rd could manifest as an increase in short distance travels, and an improvement in the relationships you have with your siblings or cousins. Alternatively, if you wish to write, learn, or publish, this may be a year in which you are mentally sharp, and thus you may see success related to writing, speaking and learning. If you own your own business you may see an improvement in sales or clients over this next year.

If you have an Aries Moon, you may have experienced your mother as someone who was argumentative and somewhat aggressive growing up. You knew she loved you unconditionally, but you did not want to get on her bad side. She may have also had to go through a lot to make sure that you were taken care of. It’s also possible that she was your only caregiver. If you had both parents, your mothers influence and role in the household was the more prominent energy.

If you have a Leo moon, you may have experienced your mother as someone who was very competitive with you (and everyone else lol). She may have really loved the limelight, and being noticed by others. She likely taught you that confidence is what gets you far in life. Alternatively, you might find that your mother always attracted a lot of attention. From strangers, family members, etc.. everyone always had some type of opinion about her.

I’ve found that people who are mars dominant or have prominent Aries or Scorpio placements in their charts really enjoy fitness or some kind of physical activity/hobby.

People who have Chiron conjunct Venus have the potential to become great healers through art, or anything that involves beauty & what we value. These people could literally be make up artists, or they might use their art & talents to empower others, and make them feel confident in their own skin.

When the moon transits your 12th house, you may feel very introspective over those 2.5 days (give or take) You may even experience feelings of sadness and isolation during this transit. Alternatively, it may be a period in which you feel an increased connection with the divine. You may start meditating more, practicing tarot, or anything that connects you to the spiritual realm.

Saturn in the 7H of a composite chart, is actually a great placement for Saturn. I know that Saturn gets a bad rep, but it favors maturity, responsibility, and commitment. Thus, Saturn in the 7H of a composite chart can indicate longevity and commitment between two people (if other factors support this of course)

People who have malefics (Saturn & Mars) in the 7th and 11th house, are often hesitant (closed-off) when it comes to close partnerships or friendships. As they get older they may realize that they’ve experienced many unpleasant situations in these areas, and thus they may avoid making new friends or getting into relationships in general. After their first Saturn return (if the malefic is Saturn) their perspectives are likely to change, and they may be more open to new experiences in these areas of life. People who have Chiron or Pluto in the 7th, or 11th may also resonate with the feeling of not being able to trust certain friends or partners.

[soul-dwelling]

Do you think Okhubo regretes making Kid be a charachter everybody just found out about a few days into the story and not someone who had prior history with any charachters besides his dad, patty and Liz?

I am way too mean to Ohkubo for a lot of things that are me overreacting. 

(That doesn’t include how he handles girls, women, and fanservice, because, LOL, no, that fucker has that criticism coming.)

(Oh, and spoilers below for Soul Eater and Fire Force. And a content warning regarding potentially disablist representations or arguments.)

It is hard for me not to look at how he handled Kid and not think, “You passed up so many storytelling opportunities.” 

Some of this, I think, is just out of his sense of humor, the equivalent of saying, “I could do this kind of story–but it’s funnier if Lord Death just one day made another child out of nowhere and based it off of the guy from 800+ years ago that brought him into existence.” 

There are at least two reasons why that “joke” doesn’t work for me. 

First, if you keep having joke after joke without moments of sentimentality or just honest affection, the jokes drag, and the serious moments fall apart. We are supposed to care about Kid when he sees his father has died. I don’t ignore that, yeah, that moment of Lord Death dying, and Kid learning about it, both land. But I think those moments would land better if you had more there to make us think Kid and Lord Death had a deeper relationship–which is harder when Kid seems like he barely had a childhood. 

(There is a counter-argument that I will address, as all of this does explain how Kid turned out how he did, and how Kid and Lord Death are just not human–but I’ll get to that in a moment.) 

Second, I get little sense Ohkubo knows how to represent varieties of parenting in his story, or a refusal to show them. It’s not as if there aren’t untraditional families in his all of his works–but those are either ones fans read into (Blair as more of a parental figure to Soul and Maka instead of…whatever the hell that last chapter was about) or ones that Ohkubo confirms in the story (Sid took in Black Star) but doesn’t pay off (Has anyone felt any sense of a familial bond from Black Star to Sid? I don’t mean whether Black Star has parental regard for Sid–I mean, has there ever been any sense that Black Star sees Sid as anything other than just another teacher at the DWMA?). 

This isn’t to ignore that there are parents in his works, whether literal (Spirit is a well-developed parent, and I do find Maka’s regard for him to be earned in-story given what was shown to us) or otherwise untraditional (although some of it is either like a “big brother” like Yohei in B Ichi, or just confusing and underdeveloped, like Akitaru’s role towards Shinra in Fire Force). 

This leads to my counter-argument. I am convinced by fans who say, “Kid being introduced so late, and then Fire Force showing his origins in the finale, explains how Kid turned out how he did, and how Lord Death just screwed up as a parent to him and Asura.” Like, Lord Death just makes a child–and skips past baby stage, maybe even preschool stages, so that Kid is formed as more of a little adult rather than an actual baby and an actual child who has to slowly learn about the world and develop mentally and emotionally. Given how Kid behaves in the manga, and how Lord Death regards him, all of this checks out: regardless how much Lord Death did love Kid, and how the story insists he was making him to be his own person, there is still all of this other content that emphasizes that Lord Death saw Kid as his heir, and did handle his creation and development as preparation to be the next shinigami, not to be a human being. 

Which is also part of this counter-argument: if there is any good in Ohkubo’s choices, it lets him show how a shinigami like Lord Death and Kid differ from other people–because Lord Death made choices that a human wouldn’t typically make, and maybe that explains how Kid turned out, both genetically and socially. That being said, while it lets Ohkubo _show_ it, it all still feels half-baked and reliant more on what readers bring into the story than what the creator clearly shows. And I think this all raises really uncomfortable questions (given how Kid has been read as having obsessive compulsion and maybe other mental and behavioral conditions, writing all of that off as “he’s just not human” seems disablist). 

So, no, I don’t think Ohkubo regrets making Kid be a character everyone just found out about a few days into the story–because, sorry, I don’t think he planned much well. He avoided storytelling options: just as we don’t get to see Black Star’s regard for Sid after he dies, we don’t really get to see how the rest of the DWMA, and the world, views Kid. It helps with worldbuilding (if you suppose that Lord Death kept Kid’s identity secret to avoid him being a target, and out of his own desire to focus Kid on training to be a shinigami rather than having a, ahem, “normal” childhood as a student). But then we don’t get canon stories about, say, how Spirit regarded little Kid, or the other Death Scythes, or whether people who were involved with the DWMA since they were babies (Maka and Black Star) may have encountered Kid. Even when he gets the chance to “fix” any of this with the ending of Fire Force, he just doubles down: “Lord Death made Kid a small child at birth, there was no baby kid, all your fanfics are ruined–oh, and I’m going to pretend Kid always looked like Shinra when, no, he fucking doesn’t.” 

[mercurytrinemoon]

Another post on Moon signs you can drag me for

Before we get into the actual thing, I'd like to say this post initially started as something else but ultimately, what I tried to put across is, sometimes Moon signs aren’t that easy to decipher. It’s easy to grasp overall characteristics of the signs and then learn how to identify their specific traits. But what people seem to forget it that Moon represents the deepest side of us & our inner world - it’s uncommon to really see someone’s side of it unless you really pay attention. Sometimes I’m surprised to see what someone’s Moon sign is even if I know this person well. Meaning, people usually hide that part of them - or they just simply process it internally and others can’t see their emotional reactions. It’s also uncommon for folks these days to fully express their emotional needs so it gets even trickier to pin-point their Moon characteristics. I don't think I have to mention this but, of course, your entire chart should be taken into account, as well as house placement, aspects. Personally, I like to also look at Moon's dispositor.

Let’s start from my friends, Gemini Moons, who, I feel, get a bad rep for not showing their feelings and scanning every emotion like an AI. Nah-ah. I know this one Gemini Moon whose immediate emotional reactions aren’t very cerebral in the sense of processing everything in the mind and intellectualizing it aka, what people like to label as being un-emotional. Instead her reactions are often fast (air energy) but physically expressed through Mercury (Gemini Moon’s dispositor) and Sun (overall identity) – she has them both in Aries. She’s a crybaby who can burst into tears in a matter of seconds. So she’s not something that would stereotypically be assigned to a Gemini Moon. But what I did notice is that all Gemini Moons tend to have this weird look on their face when they’re processing stuff. As if they were about to have a brain malfunction; they stop and have that specific worried look. They also like to either gossip or tell stories (either real or made up lol); they’re great with words - they can talk for hours if they feel comfortable with you. They just crave interaction and mental stimulation. Their quick reactions tend to make them effortlessly witty. Even if they’re a withdrawn Gemini type, they make up for it through social media and technology or just a quiet exploration. My shy Cancer pal with Moon in Gemini is now a brand/website designer and an instagram queen who travels the world. This is great energy for content creators in general. And don’t forget that Geminis need to have their fingers in many pies. It’s because they always have a backup plan… and they get bored easily so they need that chaos around them to feel at home. They like to have options in everything, which is kind of funny cause it’s hard for them to make up their minds and actually choose something. And they store a lot of information in their brains… I feel like it must be exhausting, no? 

On the other side of the axis, whenever I see someone with a Sagittarius Moon, I can immediately say “yup, a Sag Moon indeed” (probably thanks to my Sag stellium), meaning, they all seem the same to me. Sag Moons often find comfort in exploration - best if it’s literal travel. They always seem to need to free themselves from their surroundings, family, roots or their own culture to discover something new and exciting, even if it’s only in the imaginary words - through books, movies and other medias. Their happiness always lies somewhere else from where they currently are. Like, I think all Sagittarius Moons that I know have left their parents and went their own paths early on. And they have this yolo attitude. Just like Sagittarius Suns, they’re massive dorks, probably also obnoxious… sometimes in a REALLY annoying way. They’re either a) very wise and curious b) lil preachy and stuck up c) just plain dumb clowns with no filter. But they’re all funny. And they take things lightly, with a natural ease. This means sometimes they may offend other people just because they assume everyone’s as chill as they are; „relax! I was just kidding!” - that’s a phrase you’ll hear from them often… I mean, unless you’re a jokester yourself and you’re unmoved by their sarcastic or teasing words. They have somewhat spiritual or philosophical nature so besides making you laugh, be prepared for deep monologues. They want to believe everything will eventually fall into place. It’s also hard to bring them down - or I should say, it’s hard to make them acknowledge that they're feeling down - they always try to distract or cover it up with a joke, usually a self-depricating one. If Sagittarius Moon (or Sagittarius in general tbh) is telling you that they’re unhappy, then it’s serious.

I’ve noticed there comes a point in life for a Libra Moon where they just have enough. They’re too nice for everyone and one day they wake up and yell about how they have to do everything for everyone and everyone wants something from them and bLah bLah. Makes me think of when Bieber was this overly nice kid and then he was like “I’M NOT TAKING PICTURES WITH FANS ANYMOREEEE AAGhJFJFUWIUq”. Yup, a Libra Moon, everyone. They know how to charm and appeal to people, I think overall they’re easily liked by others. Sometimes it’s simply because they like to kiss people’s ass just to avoid being rejected. That’d be a Libra Moon’s nightmare. They like other people’s company too much. And they thrive in relationships and in a big circle of friends. What they hate is confrontations (like every other Libra placement omg). They may be good mediators when it comes to other people but if they’re involved in an argument they get sooooo passive aggressive. They just don’t know how to handle conflicts - it’s as if their nervous system wasn’t designed for emotional outbursts (because, you know, everything needs to be peaceful and harmonious Venus-style). A fussy or angry Libra Moon will suddenly get loud as they blame someone for something… and then they’ll leave the room cause they’re scared to even hear the other side of the argument. Or, alternatively, they’ll make a doormat out of themselves just to stay quiet and avoid causing any rift. And making decisions? I think it’s common for them to have two different romantic interests and feeling so dramatically torned between them *Alexa play Agony from Into the Woods*. Then when they decide, they have problems breaking the bad news to one of them.

On the other end we have Aries Moons. *deep breath* Listen, I think I’ve said enough about having Moon in Aries (or rather purely dissing it) but last time it made a bit of controversy so why not wreak even more havoc. I have a good description for this one: I will punch you but be gentle with me cause it’s easy to break my fragile heart. So basically, imagine putting Buttercup and Bubbles into one person. And honestly, I need to say this, women with this placement are just hot badasses, look at friggin Angelina Jolie. The queen of badass. The queen of hot. People say because Aries folks move quickly (literally and figuratively lol), they often get bored with whatever got them excited last week... or yesterday. Ha, yeah, right. You get their heart to open up and they’re going to have their eyes for you ONLY, like a lil puppy. Give us treats and we’ll build our world around you. But NOT in a clingy way by any means, we need our space and independence after all. My lil niece is an Aries Moon and ever since I started playing guitar with her, she became my #1 fan or something. That’s the energy. But we get easily bored with day-to-day stuff so yeah, there’s that. Innocent and clumsy yet raw in their emotions - so there’s potential to make mistakes sometimes (or a lot of times) or having this tunnel vision, like „I want this and I don’t care about anything else!”. And then excusing it with some „but the heart wants what it wants” crap (looking @ ya, Selena Gomez). They experience constant inner movement and turbulence that needs a physical outlet in order to feel satisfied. WE NEED PASSION IN OUR LIVES, OKAY?!?!?? now leave me alone

Aquarius Moons aren’t as cold as you might think. People like to describe them as if their Moons actually disappeared from their charts: dEtaCheD, uNeMotiOnaL, tHey fEeL nOtHinG. It’s just they don’t sit and dwell on things, they find solutions to the problems. If something doesn’t make them feel right, they just leave that situation. They do care about other people’s well-being, they’re very sensitive in that regard, they’re humanitarians after all. Yeah, they detach, but from their own emotions - in order to make sense of them. They may seem like snow queens sometimes (and this comes from an Aqua rising) but they’re really friendly and if you pique Aqua Moon’s interest, they’re going to be curious about you. They like new exciting things so if you’re cool enough, you have their attention. Usually they’re pretty progressive as well and can’t stand injustice. That’s why you’ll see them standing up for those who are in need. Uranian energy gives them a specific type of sharp intuition and wit. Idk they’re just cute in a quirky way. But this buzzing, fast energy is a great recipe for anxiety, over-thinking and frequent changes of heart. Similarly to Sadges, they need constant exploration and stimuli. Intelligent, people-oriented (but not people-pleasing! Look to Libras for that), individualistic. They definitely need their own space and independence. Their decision-making is fast and it’s easy for them to just say „screw it, I’m doing this”. My Aquarius Moon friend just casually decided that she’s moving to Turkey cause nothing in our city (or even country) seems interesting or helping her expand… So she was like, see ya suckers, I’m leaving.

Leo Moons shine from within. You’ll spot them from a mile away even if they’re on the shyer side. They’re all lil stars no matter their profession. Very expressive people & easily excitable. Art galleries, live shows, theater - they love a creative environment even if they don’t pursue that lifestyle themselves... One of my Leo Moon friends is an art junkie – suggest taking her to an obscure play at the local bar, a music festival, a weird museum – she’ll say yes in the blink of an eye. And she loves discussing these things. A Leo Moon may not see themselves as artistically inclined, but usually sooner or later they at least try dipping their toes in music, arts, acting, dancing... you name it. They’ll learn a simple 3-chord song on a ukulele and then play it to you in excitement. Imagine a lil kid making you a puff piece and being super proud of it. Sometimes they just need some encouragement. Remember, Leos feed off of praise, that’s their fuel. Doesn’t mean they’re all proud, egotistical people but what it does mean is that they need a lil assurance to gain their self-confidence. I lived with a Leo Sun/Moon for almost 15 years (who’s a musician btw so yeah, a classic creative Leo type) - he did have some issues lol but ego wasn’t one of them. Drama followed him everywhere but I’m pretty sure he disliked it himself. BUT, with that being said, I feel like Leo Moons tend to dramatize themselves internally. People say it’s something Virgos or Geminis would do - because of their tendency to overthink, but Leos can just go straight to a worst-case scenario in their heads simply because they exaggerate everything. So don’t be surprised to see a Leo Moon feeling down and anxious. On the bright side, be their cheerleader and they’ll give that to you in return. They need sparks and dullness kills their upbeat spirit. They need to feel their own heartbeat so the feeling of excitement is crucial for their well-being. Romantic, giving and kind. They’re fixed fire so once they’re set on something or someone, they give their all and are rather loyal.

I feel like my chart low-key tells me I should dislike Taurus Moons but I just want to melt in their arms and just stay there? Like, forever? Low maintenance but a bit slow-moving and stubborn. They won’t settle easily, at least not officially, so you need to have a lot of patience with them. They need 3 things to feel secure and at peace: physical stimuli, time and a stable place they know they can always come back to. And it’s not like all of them are total lazy homebodies, they may be active spirits & travellers but they are going to have a reallyyyyy nice cosy flat somewhere near their childhood place (gotta be be close to their moms, you know). Not necessary materialistic but they may have one thing that they collect throughout their entire life and they won’t. ever. get. rid. of. it. There needs to be at least one constant in their life - like you know when Elton John decided to go to therapy but one thing he stuck to was shopaholism? Very Taurus Moon of him. Also, they’re very affectionate. In fact, may have issues differentiating between affection and passion - this is actually something Taurus Moon and Aries Moon have in common. Pro tip - and this is in regard to all Taurus placements - don’t smell bad when you’re around them (I mean, don't smell bad in general, no one likes stinky people lol). They have a sensitive smell. Doesn’t help that they like to smell everything. EVERYTHING. I swear, Taurus, stop sticking your nose in every single thing!!! You don't need to know how that piece of utensil smells like. Jeez.

Scorpio Moon (shoutout to those who remember me accidentally calling them sporpio last time I made a post on Moons lol). I honestly don’t know what to tell you... I feel like all you hear about Scorpio Moon is 100% true, there’s nothing to debunk here. It’s the Moon of extremes. Prone to jealousy and surpressing emotions; severe trust issues; they’re instigators. I was low-key bullied by a few Scorpio Moons when I was in school so there’s that. Very secretive and private. Scorpio Moon will be like “I’m in control of the situation!!!!” and you’ll just look at them and think, yeah, right, looks like the situation is controlling you. But keep being in denial, sure. Like, don’t get me wrong, Scorpios in general can be TOTAL SWEETHEARTS OMG but ya’ll have issues. Even celebrities who have this placements... Think Beyonce or Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus... I feel like they have issues lol, especially with control and the need for everything to be perfectly the way they want it to be. To be fair, that’s probably why they’re all so influential and high status: it’s either their way or highway. They need constant reinvention; they’re the ones to wake up one day and decide they’re going through a spiritual awakening blah blah. They also like to talk about dark and shocking topics while having casual lunch with you... So like, be warned that you may end up with a depressed mood after talking to them for 10 minutes. And their mood swings... don’t even get me started on that.

I don't know where to start with Virgo Moons... I feel like they're very calculated and nit-picky but they're a lot warmer than Virgo Suns. I think I called them softies in my last Moon post. Very sweet people but prone to anxiety. You gotta experience seeing them having a heart attack over someone mixing bananas with milk or messing with their stuff that’s been put in a perfect arrangement. I saw a Virgo Moon once literally squealing shouting "YOU'RE GONNA RUIN YOUR LAPTOP WITH THAT SUPERGLUE!!!" Highly entertaining to watch, not gonna lie. Gordon Ramsay has his Moon in Virgo - it’s conjunct Uranus and Pluto so that’s an extreme but I think him being fed up with people over small inconsistencies in their food prep is a perfect example of this energy (btw his chart is hilarious, it literally explains EVERYTHING). They're VERY picky with their food as well, just as Virgo Suns tend to be. Like, they’ll only have a specific type of single origin coffee or they’ll be vegan or something. Self-critical over their work, which is a plus... except for when finishing a simple task takes them a few hours because they want to make it perfect. They take everything seriously. This of course doesn't mean they're total bores - on the contrary, Mercurial energy gives them witty approach and a talent for choosing the right words at the right time. Tho they can be a bit awkward or shy with it. Can be as bubbly as Gemini but the grounded earthy energy gives them more practical and almost nurturing nature - earth signs are providers after all and Virgo is the sign of service - helping others is like their second nature. I’ve noticed they often find comfort in devoting themselves to a choosen task - this is why if they pursue something, they’re really good at it. They’re also very likely to dissect their emotions.

I’m not a fan of water Moons in general but Pisces Moon is the best water Moon in my opinion. Maybe because I like Pisces overall. I think it’s like a tweaked Sagittarius Moon - just more internalized, withdrawn & gloomy. But unlike Sag, who has a tendency to be an adventurous optimist, Pisces likes to focus on the negatives instead. Obviously, they can be very upbeat, they’re Jupiter-ruled after all, but there’s somehing whiny about them lol. Just like Sadges, they dream big and have their standards put up sooo high but if there's not much active energy in their charts, they’re often too passive to actually fullfill any of that - or I should say, they’re stuck daydreaming about it, believing it’ll just magically manifest for them... OR they do everything with an apathetic approach. What I do like about them is that they’re funny. And really chill - sometimes to the point of coming off as confused or hazy. I feel like a lot of them would just love to sleep all day... or sit by the lake and just think about the world. Most of them are also compassionate folks - again, maybe a bit too much. Hey Pisces, you don’t have to take everything to heart, it’s okay. On the bright side, they have big imagination and the ability to disconnect and just create. I have a few Pisces Moons in the family: one’s that sleepy artistic type with grand visions, one is an asshole-ish but funny entrepreneur with a questionable work ethic and one is a witty IT guy who’s actually a workaholic and likes to shut in his own world of computers and numbers or whatever he does there... So there’s this factor of tunnel vision, escapism and, on the more negative side, being kinda iffy and almost addicted to the way they want things to be. Once they set their eyes on something it’s done deal…

My issue with Capricorn Moons is that they're often trying to be sooooo mature omg, like, loosen up a bit. It usually starts when they're in their later teens... They can be the most rebellious kid that likes to have fun and suddenly they'll be like "I'm too old for this ugh grow up" *judgmental stare*. My 18-year old niece once literally roasted my sister that she's in her 30s and still doesn't have her own place (well so do I so I guess she also indirectly roasted me as well???). And she was SO deadpan with it. Because she herself wants to be independent and start a family before turning 25. This is classic Capricorn Moon energy. They suck out joy out of everything lol. Of course, OF COURSE, it depends on the whole chart but I feel like worst-case scenario is that at one point in their life (or maybe even a few times throughout it) they go through a massive shake-up that makes them change their attitude and re-evaluate their structures. There's this multi-instrumentalist Yvette Young - she's a sweet, funny Cancer/Leo mix but her Moon is in Capricorn. She used to be a competitive pianist but the pressure that was put on her has led her to severe health issues. Like yes, she’s now an extremely talented musician - thanks to family’s expectations & a rigid schooling system (Saturn) but it did cost her a lot. She has recovered since then but I think it's a perfect example of this energy. It’s very ambitious and hardworking but emotionally demanding in the sense that you have to actually put your emotions aside in order to deal with the rest. Another thing, because Moon can be associated with family, there's often a weird dynamic surrounding this topic. I don't think I've met a Capricorn Moon that had a completely healthy and happy relationship with their fam or one of the family members. Or, alternatively, there can be a strong bond between one of them but usually created in the atmosphere of hardships.

Last but not least, Cancer Moons. I had three school friends with this placement and all of them made this sad, whiny face as they said „oh I don’t knoooow anymoreee”  when they were feeling torned or frustrated. To be fair, two of them are water Suns so for them, it added to the mushyness. All Cancer Moons I know are family people or better yet, baby people. One of those school friends is now a guidance counsellor, working with kids; the other turned her instagram into a gallery of her own child after she gave birth. So much kid content, omg. There’s also something very indecisive about them… or I should say, hesitant. They’re not very fast at making decisions. Also, what’s interesting, they’re kind of like walking libraries, they remember a lot – so they store a lot of information in their brains just like air signs but they process it in a completely different way – emotional, obviously. I think this also makes them hold grudges a lot. For them it’s more of a question of „how does it make me feel?” rather than „how valid is it?”. There’s certain stubborness in them in that regard because they don’t keep their minds open. It’s also hard for them to walk away from people and situations, like a crab pinching you with its claws – it won’t let go. Sensitive but not easy to open up; very protective of themselves and their loved ones & they tend to shut down in their crab shells. But they may crave connection and the feeling of belonging. Also very caring and with a big imagination. They’re very receptive of their environment so mood swings are a thing for them.

[feral--bog--witch]

As a devil's advocate argument here because I'm curious, do you have that thought process about secondhand smoke?

We have a lot of regulations in regards to smoking and where you can and can't smoke. If people have the right to make choices about their own bodies, then allowing them to smoke and less regulations makes more sense using your argument. It's their body. It doesn't matter if they could be causing harm to others because what they choose to do with their own body matters more than the potential harm it can cause. Same with drunk driving, your logic could open up the line of thinking that it's their choice about their own bodies.

For more in-line scenarios with body autonomy. Should we police organ donations then? We don't allow people who smoke or drink, who are unvaccinated, too old, too obese, too much neurological deficient, HIV postive, have cancer, and on and on. All of these things disqualify you from getting an organ transplant, even if you need it. And some of them will actually disqualify you from donating organs if you wish too.

If we go based solely on your argument of body autonomy then we really shouldn't police who gets them or not, we shouldn't care that a liver transplant reciever is an alcoholic or not, or a lung transplant reciever is a smoker or not, that the kidney transplant doner is 90 years old or not. We should actually take organs from people if they are willing, even if their choices have lead to that organ being damaged. We shouldn't throw out that heart that came from a severely obese person or that super old person, or that drinker or the smoker, or drug addict.

But we all know there is a line, even when it comes to body autonomy. We know that people can smoke but it doesn't give them a right to force other people around it. We know that people can drink but it doesn't give them a right to drive, even under the CHANCE they can hurt someone else. We refuse to put certain people on transplant lists and we refuse certain organs because even though it is their body, their choices with that body can cause them to be denied things that they might need, in some cases, they may need or they die. We willingly allow people to die who need organs because of their choices and how we know that the organs should go to people who haven't made those choices.

Do you believe that your line of thinking should be applied in other cases like those above?

End of the devil's advocacy.

I believe that if a woman chooses to stay pregnant she is taking on the burden of care. The fetus is a baby when she decides it's a baby but if she is willingly continuing the pregnancy, that burden of care is placed on her. She should do her best to minimize harm. She made the choice to bring that fetus into the world, she should minimize harm to that fetus.

We are in a world where legally she can drink, where she can legally smoke, we are all discussing morality and we all know its morally wrong to willfully cause harm. To argue morals is redundant, you think she should be allowed, and for the most part they are. There is very little 'punishment' other than having to raise a child with disabilities.

We could get into it about the addictions and what not but that, in my opinion, is very much a seperate issue surrounding mental health and the lacks of resources and help that some people get to help them through more than likely mental issues or trauma that brings them to that point.

For the removal of care, the states seriously needs to stop being so harsh, especially towards WOC. Even with super high maternal mortality rates, WOC have to basically prove they are fit mother against the default assumption that they aren't. Ive seen far too many cases where their babies are taken away for bullshit reasons and they struggle to get their babies back. That needs to change, absolutely.

In cases where babies are born addicted, I believe that the burden of care of the infant should go to the hospital while the infant is actively requiring medical care. Especially in situations where the judgement of the mother is severely impaired or she is herself is not in a condition to approve or ask for that care. If she is strung out, I do believe that the hospital should have most of the say over caring for that infant if it requires medical attention.

From there they do need to investigate her to see what type of home she is capable of providing for the child before it is released into her care. During that time, I believe the child should remain with the hospital, not the state, continuing to get medical care for whatever may be wrong with it.

But outside of all of that, we are arguing morals only and that's redundant.

Can I ask a question from a feminist point of view that’s going to sound anti-feminist in the premise

[phoenixyfriend]

Uncle Ben and Little Luke

AKA we combine several types of time travel for maximum Soft Chaos, let’s go

EDIT NOW THAT I’VE WRITTEN THIS UP: jfc this ended up much angstier than initially intended uhhhhhhhhhh sorry

So a common enough thing I’ve seen in time travel fics is characters getting de-aged when tossed back physically, to neither the age they should be in that time, nor the age they were from the time they left, but whatever is most convenient. This is usually de-aging OT Obi-Wan into his TCW self, for reasons relating to, chiefly, removing the damage of Tatooine absolutely destroying his body alongside PTSD-driven alcoholism, but also because fic writers are horny, and Ewan McGregor playing a late-thirties negotiator is on average more appealing to people than Alec Guinness playing a vaguely feral desert hermit.

So, here’s how it plays out:

We take Luke and Ben from some point in the OT. There are a variety of options depending on how angsty we want it to be. My first instinct is ‘right after Owen and Beru die’ but I want to have that sweet angst where Luke knows that his dad is Vader and that Obi-Wan was trying to convince him to kill his own father without telling him that.

We’ll go with shortly after Bespin, and then they end up significantly before TPM. The Obi-Wan of the timeline proper is, eh, let’s say eighteen. Not really ready to be a knight, but old enough that we don’t have to worry about “if we go save Shmi, do we somehow wipe out Anakin?” which is absolutely a worry. Anakin is a toddler, and is in no place to be evil, on account of being literally two years old. He can’t even explode people with his brain yet.

Now, Ben finds himself mid-thirties, as is traditional. He’s not upset at this, because his joints hurt so much less than they used to! His knees aren’t exactly teenage-perfect, but by the Force are they better than they were in the years before he died! His hair has color! He doesn’t have arthritis! And, goodness, no physical withdrawal symptoms! The psychological aspect is still there, but nonetheless, he’s in much better shape than he last remembers being.

Luke looks like he’s about six. He was recently twenty-two. This is not an upgrade. Ben keeps having to carry him. He can’t see over the counter when they enter a bar for information. He can’t enter the bar in the first place. He’s very annoyed by all of this.

Ben is not annoyed. Ben is having a lot of emotions, actually, but annoyance isn’t one of them. He didn’t get to help raise Luke the way he might have if Anakin hadn’t lost his shit, okay, he sees a small Luke and he wants to hug him and cry.

Luke would like to be able to purchase a speeder part without the lady at the stall asking him if he needs his “dad’s” permission.

Once they figure out when and where they are, they need to decide where and how to leave. There are general shenanigans to gamble their way into enough money to hire a ship. They are in the ass end of nowhere, but definitely not Tatooine. There appears to be a jungle. There appears to be a significant variety of man-eating creatures. There appears to be a temple to the Force of questionable origin. None of this is actually helpful, except for the moment they find a “baby’s first lightsaber” in the temple.

Luke only has one hand and, being a six-year-old, his body is growing too fast for him to bother with getting a wired-in prosthesis the way he could as an adult. He can get a more basic prosthesis, but nothing that attaches to the neurons. He’ll outgrow it too fast.

He’s tiny and he’s not used to doing things with just one hand. He uses the Force to do what one hand can't, and every time someone tries to tell him he's misusing the Force he whaps them with the empty sleeve.

So, you know, they find out what year it is. Ben has a breakdown. Luke is upset that he left behind his friends. Ben admits to him that Leia was his twin. Luke stares in horror because dude, she kissed him, you couldn’t have mentioned this earlier???

Ben points out that Beru and Owen were keeping Luke away from him for nineteen years, and then they had about three days of awkward travel to find Leia in the first place, and then Ben died. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to figure out how to tell him.

(This sparks an argument that lasts several days. All onlookers assume that Ben’s son is throwing a tantrum. He doesn’t correct them, even though this is a very valid reason to be upset, because the truth is much harder to explain.)

Sooooo they travel. Mostly, Ben plays Sabacc, cleans house, and pays their way towards Coruscant. Luke still really wants to learn to be a Proper Jedi, even though Ben is pretty sure that Luke would have... a lot of difference of opinion with the Temple, but sure. Coruscant. They can at least stop by, and see Qui-Gon, and Mace, and Quinlan, and Bant, and everyone else that’s still alive and not tragically deceased in the horror following the start of the Clone Wars and then the birth of the Empire, and Ben can have a nice sob over all his dead friends being alive again.

Ben is only barely holding it together while Luke is in the room with him at any given point. But it’s fine! It’s fine. He’s fine. All of his loved ones have come back to life! It’s great! HE’S FINE.

He is not fine.

Luke is also grieving all the people who haven’t been born yet, but he’s... significantly more okay than Ben is.

The closer they get to the Core, the more often people just assume Ben is Luke’s father, and then look shocked and uncomfortable when Luke flatly calls him by his name, and they just... compromise. This is the point at which Luke starts calling him “Uncle Ben.”

Ben cries in his bunk later that night. Luke overhears it and wonders how the HELL Ben is more unstable now, when there’s a chance to fix things and no Vader or Empire trying to kill or capture both of them, and all his friends are alive.

(Luke will later learn a lot about PTSD and realize this is actually a fairly normal situation, to process significant events and emotions only after gaining safety or catharsis.)

(Twenty years on a ball of sand with an alcohol addiction and debilitating fear of the man you raised as your own brother is not, in fact, safe or cathartic.)

At any rate, they’ve settled into that pattern by the time they reach the Inner Rim. The Inner Rim is the part of the galaxy at which they’ve collected enough money (and mental stability) to travel a little better, and to take a few more risks.

Risks like “manipulate people with those baby blues.”

Ben tells Luke that he’s a menace, after he pouts so cutely that he gets a free scarf added on to a purchase that Ben makes. Luke responds that Ben has no room to talk, since he flirted a free breakfast out of that one inn owner.

Also, Luke is currently physically six. That is objectively a situation that sucks. He deserves to use it for all it’s worth if he’s stuck like this.

“You know, if you keep wearing all-black and looking longingly at the velvet cape and Space Chanel boots, the temple is going to worry that you’re a darksider.”

“Uncle Ben... you told me, yesterday, that I sparkle so brightly in the Force that it’s almost blinding.”

“Yes, but the gloves--”

They don’t agree on this, but Ben relents. He does actually understand good fashion, unfortunately, and he’s not unaware of how much Leia taught Luke about such things.

Luke’s about forty years ahead of the curve, of course, but Skywalkers are prone to such things. It’s usually in regards to technology, granted, but...

They get to Coruscant. Ben is very obviously a Jedi. He knows all the right words and walks like a Soresu master and feels warm and comforting in the Force. They let him in with minimal questions. They note down “my first padawan left the order to have a child, but died shortly after; I consider Luke here to be my nephew, and have raised him as such,” and move on.

Luke is vaguely annoyed because he already had an uncle (and aunt) that raised him, but he admits that a person can have more than one uncle. He can live with this. Ben was more family to Anakin than Owen was, in some ways, so it’s kind of true. Luke is even working on feeling more childish affection for Ben instead of the complicated mess of emotions that come from being lied to about some very large and important subjects, and then seeing the person saying those lies have regular emotional breakdowns due to something as small as Luke saying he likes the curve of the hull on that freighter.

(Apparently he sounds just like his father did as a child. This is almost heartwarming.)

The thing is! The thing. The thing is, they almost make it to the Halls of Healing to get looked over for weird viruses, or Outer Rim Parasites, or whatever the hells needs to be happening. They almost make it without Ben having a flashback to dead younglings or brainwashed troopers or the declaration of a Sith Empire. They almost make it without incident.

Then Ben sees Qui-Gon, and freezes, and does not move again.

Luke cannot get him to restart.

People are staring.

They haven’t even made it to Medical, Uncle Ben, come on.

Young, local Obi-Wan comes over and asks if there’s something he can do to help. Or maybe this “Ben” knows Qui-Gon? Master Jinn doesn’t recognize Ben, but maybe Luke knows more?

Luke does know more, but what Luke actually says is “he probably needs a mind healer.”

(Ben will not appreciate this.)

(Ben is unfortunately standing in the middle of the hallway and completely unresponsive, and is unable to argue with this assertion.)

(Ben is pretty much proving this assertion entirely correct, actually.)

Obi-Wan is helpful, if a little bitchy in the manner of most late-teens individuals, and offers to help get Uncle Ben down to the Halls of Healing. It involves Obi-Wan gently pushing on Ben’s shoulders, and Qui-Gon offering to carry Luke so he can be in Ben’s sights (because Ben is a Mystery, and Qui-Gon is quite fond of those, so he wants to stay involved). Ben kind of just... shuffles on down.

There are medical tests. They ask about how Luke lost his hand. He refuses to talk about it. They ask how Ben got all his scars. Luke says he doesn’t know. They ask if he knows why Ben looks like he’s been through a war. Luke says it’s because he probably was.

They check for foreign viruses. They find evidence of thus-far-unpatented vaccinations. They ask Luke if he knows what he’s vaccinated for.

“How would I know? I’m six.”

They agree that this is a good excuse.

(It is not. He’s lying. They do not know this.)

They do some more tests. They find a lot of questionable medical bullshit in Ben’s body. Most of this is from the clone wars, but they don’t know this. Someone realizes they haven’t gotten a ping back from the Shadow Network regarding “do we have permission to pull the medical file of a Jedi that isn’t in the normal database? We’re assuming you know who he is, since we don’t.”

The Shadow Network does not know who Ben is.

The healers, of course, go “huh, that’s weird, but maybe the name he gave his nephew was fake. We can’t exactly ask ‘Ben’ for more details right now. We already had to sedate him. Let’s check the DNA!”

The DNA pulls up as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The padawan who brought this guy in two hours ago.

“Huh, that’s weird. Let’s call in Kenobi and ask if he knows what’s going on.”

Obi-Wan absolutely does not know what’s going on.

They ask Luke.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, lying through his teeth and not even pretending otherwise.

“You’re not a very good liar,” teenage Obi-Wan tells him.

“I’m not trying to be,” Luke says. “Can you get Master Yoda? I feel like we’re going to need him.”

They normally wouldn’t get Yoda on the request of a six-year-old, but they also normally don’t have a catatonic thirty-something Jedi who looks like he’s been through a war popping up in the medical database as the pimply teenage padawan that broke his pinky trying to do a Badass Ataru Flip last week.

Or... whatever Luke i... is... oh dear.

“Young one,” Qui-Gon asks, while people whisper-shout behind him, not realizing he’s cutting the Correlian Knot and just asking the kid himself. “Do you know why your midichlorian count is so high? It’s almost unheard of.”

“Uncle Ben said my dad was the Chosen One,” Luke says, because he is capable of being a little shit and is actually really eager to let Ben deal with some of the fallout. He feels for the man, really, but he’s also tired of being the one to field every single question.

Also, the expressions that pass on Qui-Gon’s face are hilarious.

(Luke may or may not be more affected by his six-year-old brain than he would like to admit.)

“Thank you,” Qui-Gon says, sounding more than a little strangled about it.

It takes another three hours for Ben to wake up.

He listens to the questions. He hears what they say his ‘nephew’ said. He looks at Luke.

“Is this revenge for not telling you about Leia?”

“It’s not revenge,” Luke does not lie. “I just don’t know how to explain it.”

“It’s pretty easy to explain.”

“It’s not my secret.”

“This is revenge for the Leia thing.”

“No,” Luke says.��“Revenge for the Leia thing was when I ate a live frog in front of you.”

This is the point at which someone interrupts and points out that they appear to be stalling.

“Oh, he is,” Luke tells them. He gestures at Ben. “I can’t tell you more, because it’s more his story than mine.”

“I’m afraid, Master, that I am very likely to have an emotional breakdown if I allow myself to consider the reality of this situation for longer than the fraction of a second I already have,” Ben reports, full of false cheer. “Suffice to say, I am far from stable and have only held out this far for Luke’s sake.”

“Can you explain why you have my DNA?” Obi-Wan asks, as the person who’s most concerningly involved in this situation.

“You can,” Ben says, smiling like there is absolutely nothing wrong in the slightest, ever. “I’m you, from the future. I actually died and spent a few years dead before coming back. I’m not sure why I’m younger than I was when I died, but I appreciate being able to put on my shoes without my knees attempting to mutiny.”

“He needs a mind healer,” Luke reiterates, in case the strained grin hasn’t made it clear. “So do I, but not as much.”

“I have felt literally every person in this Temple save for Luke and Yoda die,” Ben reports, looking a shade more manic than a few seconds earlier. “It’s very overwhelming to feel you all being alive again. I may be approaching a mental breakdown, and I’ve been rather strictly advised against using alcohol to treat my traumas again.”

Luke kicks him in the thigh. It’s not a very hard kick, because he is very small, and he does actually like Ben. “I’m not letting you turn into an old drunk again.”

After several seconds of silence, a healer quietly suggests that everyone clear the room, and asks if someone could fetch Master Yoda as the youngling requested.

(THIS IS ALMOST THREE THOUSAND WORDS. I started it less than two hours ago. Why am I like this.)

[ruby-whistler]

There are three types of misinterpretation of c!Dream in my opinion; and by that I mean anyone's take ever, whether it's a c!Dream anti or a c!Dream apologist or a c!Dream enthusiast. That's right, I'm making an essay about how in my mind everyone is wrong. This is how I lead debates please don't unfollow me-

1. misunderstanding or overdramatizing evidence

c!Dream apologists; g-guys. I'm not saying he isn't traumatized, but look. I really used to believe he was just everyone's victim and hurt and mentally unstable, and I'm not saying he isn't at all, but I changed my mind because I feel like the evidence doesn't,, point that way at all. Your emotions are valid, but your takes are very removed from what the rest of the fandom thinks because you take little hints and try to make them into some big angsty point within canon.

The evidence we have proves he is more ruthless than anything; even the content creator says that. He doesn't say why he does progressively more ruthless things, and he does say it's for his ideals and out of good intentions, but he doesn't say anything about him being hurt into doing it.

I'm not saying he isn't hurt. But making analysis of an entire character based on something that is barely supported by canon isn't the way I roll and I feel like it's one of the reason why people assume all c!Dream apologist are going to woobify the character,, because some of them really do that.

I don't mind portraying him as hurt by what's happened in canon, because that is a completely safe conclusion, but jumping to the victim side of the scale seems a little bit like painting a completely different picture than what actual canon says. (Note: talking about pre-Pandora c!Dream here.)

There is tragedy in someone being driven by the environment, circumstances and themselves deeper and deeper into corruption, but it feels like by only considering that the entire character is limited to one side of the argument.

I like to also see the side of him that will hurt people because he thinks he has to, because he wants to succeed above all, the side that will ruthlessly murder and manipulate and be calculative and clever and even self-destructive about it because he believes that'll get him towards his ultimately selfless goal.

That's my morally complex bastard.

A lot of people seem to be mistaking or ignoring that for the sake of saying he is just... hurt and that that is an explanation of his actions, and even though they don't use it as an excuse, it feels a little cheap.

And here we come to the core of the problem: an emotional vs. rational explanation for the character's actions.

Because the thing is, with enough evidence, you will see that nearly (we'll get to that in a bit) everything he does can be explained rationally. Everything is connected, everything is the most logical and efficient and merciless route straight from point A to point B, because c!Dream is fascinatingly smart when you look deeper into it.

He knows what he's doing. He knows his actions are awful, and he doesn't care - not because he would be some evil person, but because his mindsets cause him to justify such things, and mindsets are more complicated than feelings.

There is a lot to explore in that direction of the character, but that is material for another essay.

In short, people seem to enjoy removing all of his agency in favor of explaining his actions emotionally rather than from a rational standpoint which results in inaccurate analysis.

Do I think it is completely understandable he attacked L'Manberg?

Absolutely.

Do I think c!Wilbur painted him as a villain to benefit his own power?

Yes.

Do I think he utilized the villain persona as an intimidation tactic and often went overkill with no regard for anything but accomplishing his goals and that he slowly became more and more willing to do bad things of his own accord because he became determined and distrusting of the world to the point of committing horrible actions?

100%.

Analysing that part of the character is the most interesting part, when you consider it - and an important one as well.

2. ignoring evidence

c!Dream antis; please. Stop saying he doesn't care or explaining his actions with obsession or assigning him personality traits or motives that he literally doesn't have in order to demonize him I beg of you.

It's so many basic and easily debunkable assumptions that can be explained with what we actually know of his motives. People will ignore both canon and the authors' words to paint him as some monster with no nuance, which he is not.

We only know so much about him, but people will ignore and deny even the little bit we have for the sake of making him the literal personification of evil and erasing the fact that he is a complex and human character. Just accept he can be accurately analysed beyond hate and let people do it if you don't want to do so yourself.

3. assuming the evidence we have is everything you need to determine a final approach and that nothing outside of the presented evidence exists when certain details prove otherwise

c!Dream enthusiasts; this was the only and biggest problem I've had since being introduced to much more rational interpretations of the character - which is emotions, and one of the biggest reasons why c!Dream gets dehumanized in the first place; the fact that we have little to no showcase or explanation of them in canon.

You see, c!Dream is a reserved character. He likes withholding his plans, withholding his feelings and information from the world.

However, since all we can really get out of watching his actions alone is the rational side (and that is deliberate by both the writer and the character, narratively and personality-wise) people slowly begin to assume there is no emotional side to his actions at all.

Which I find,, untrue. Between the people who erase the rational side of the character and those who erase the emotional side, there is little middle ground, but I don't really find either of them right either.

Because neither would be an accurate representation; just because he doesn't actively showcase his feelings doesn't mean he doesn't have them, and the few inconsistencies that are too small a detail for us to put everything together show that he does have an inner emotional world beyond what we see.

The character does work beyond what we know, and expecting that everything can be explained purely by rationality because that's all we see of him seems a little bit jumping the gun.

It leads to a less person-like view of a character who in reality simply doesn't like showing people the way he feels, and I don't really find that fair to him. It is best to accept there are things we can't say for sure, or to say an emotional interpretation can also be valid at times.

It is both important not to deny him agency and not to deny him the ability to be genuinely hurt by others or changed by his environment.

Both of these can coexist, especially in

the correct interpretation

Ok this is a joke.

I have literally no idea. I'm just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks - he confuses me beyond belief. The only person who knows about both the emotional and rational side of the character enough to have their interpretation unquestioned is cc!Dream - but when we do try to find answers, it is important for us as well that we do not ignore any aspects or possible aspects of the character, because that is the only way to get useful results out of our analysis.

Sorry this was crit of basically every take about the character I have ever seen but I needed to get my thoughts out.

[mar-im-o]

(Sorry in advance for any typos)

Hi! Just wanna say I appreciate the reply. I've had a lot of people come to me without actually providing sources and it makes it really hard to have a legitimate conversation regarding this stuff.

So this post was in response to an anti-endo post I had seen. I wasn't interested in starting an argument hence why I made my own post instead of replying. I referenced the DSM-V specifically because that's what they were claiming stated that DID is definitely caused by trauma.

Also I do understand the meaning behind the word association as well as its implications for discussion of disorder origins. It's not at all something that can be dismissed as illegitimate, but there's a ton (not all) of antis that keep insisting plurality can ONLY form from trauma per the DSM-V's description. Which I was moreso highlighting isn't true.

We cannot prove causation due to ethical reasons, which is exactly what you said. But we DO need to be conscious of the fact that in the field of psychopathology there is no proven origins for DID. If people want to cite the DMS-V as proof that trauma is the only cause of DID, they need to acknowledge the limitations of the source and at the least use similar language. A correlational claim, while significant, cannot be treated as complete fact and truth, which is what I wanted my post to acknowledge.

I also do want to push back against the claim that recognizing non-trauma based DID as a possibility illegitimizes the reality of its existence as a disorder. At no point did I say DID isn't caused by trauma. Just that we cannot say for certain it is solely trauma based. Not only that, but like. Realistically I'm having a conversation with the community on tumblr, not preaching my beliefs to a panel of psychologists. Me saying "the DSM doesn't say DID is 100% trauma based" isn't going to do anything but make other community members reconsider their perspectives. The truth is there is a massive divide between the psychological vs lived experiences of ALL disorders. Acknowledging how the lived experiences differ doesn't equate to advocating for a change to diagnostic criteria. It's just a discussion of like. Well ARE the psychologists right? And how do we know?

Overall, you're entirely correct! And reviewing the information you provided, I don't disagree with anything you said. I simply wanted to acknowledge that the people citing the DSM-V as a bible are failing to consider that psychopathology is a scientific field that doesn't make overarching "this all is 100% how it is" claims. It's a resource that outlines what an average presentation of a disorder may look like. The boundaries between disorders are often unclear and diagnostic cut-offs between normal and abnormal are arguably arbitrary.⁴

Psychopathology as a field simply isn't as cut and dry as other scientific fields (I say speaking as someone who has worked intimately with psychopathology and has studied diagnostic criteria and methods). The DSM-V¹ and DSM-V TR² were both developed by panels of only ~200 experts, most of which were strictly psychiatrists whose only job is diagnostics. There was limited reference to actual mental health professionals who have worked with DID patients and therefore a very shallow understanding of how DID actually presents and exists.

Not to mention the DSM is developed based on literature review, which is a whole other rant about corrupt publishing practices, falsified data, and an over-reliance on "shocking" science.³

Ultimately, my point in this post was to just be like "hey! Stop treating the DSM as gospel! Notice how there isn't causation language used!" I do appreciate you adding to it though! I think it's important to acknowledge that DID-based plurality IS understood to be trauma-based, so long as we also recognize the flaws in over-reliance on the DSM as a determining factor of what experiences someone can or cannot have.

(I apologize for my formatting of references in this post. In-text links weren't working for some reason)

¹ https://www.psychiatry.org/File%20Library/Psychiatrists/Practice/DSM/APA_DSM_People-Behind-DSM-5.pdf

² https://www.psychiatry.org/getmedia/5635958b-ee71-4352-b02a-fb24ecab86c6/APA-DSM5TR-ThePeopleBehindDSM.pdf

³ https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/06/psychology-literature

⁴ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2802383/

Because I entertain myself through discourse I went back and reread the DSM-V's section on Dissociative Identity Disorder looking for the paragraph on causation being linked to trauma

And! While I was SURE it was there, it's NOT??

Association claim (not causation based; does not claim trauma causes DID) while acknowledging alternative means of formation outside of trauma

Acknowledgment that trauma can be a source of identity disturbance, but doesn't claim causation

Specification that traumatic factor increases risk of DID. Doesn't claim it as a cause

It's really interesting! It's days like these I'm glad I have a background in psychopathology

Read it for yourself :D