#deviance studies

[bookwyrminspiration]

the criminologist urge to completely ignore and restructure the dracula gang's understanding of dracula's motives and behavior because the idea of biology as the root of deviance--and specific to Dracula, Lombroso's theory (published in 1876) that criminals were primitive, ape-like, and an earlier stage of evolution--has been widely abandoned as incorrect and stereotyping criminals and replace it with more modern theories for Dracula's behavior

[gravitascivics]

AVOID THE EITHER/OR

On February 13th, with the posting, “Early On,”[1] this blog began a series of offerings that argue American society has higher levels of deviant behavior than one finds in many other societies – particularly advanced countries.  This claim is hard to define and measure.  Here is what Statista reports:

In the United States, violent crimes are defined as incidents involving force or the threat of force. … Comparing the number of committed crimes in U.S. by category, property crime far outnumbers violent crime, while aggravated assault accounts for some two-thirds of all violent crime. Over the last two decades, the number of violent crimes in the United States has fallen dramatically; there were 1.93 million violent crimes in 1992 in comparison to 1.2 million violent crimes in 2022. A similar story is told by looking at the violent crime rate per 100,000 residents, which factors in the role population growth plays in increasing the overall number of crimes.[2]

Or as Data Pandas reports:

Despite being one of the world's most developed countries, the United States ranks 52nd, with a Crime Index of 47.81. The relatively high index in an advanced nation like the U.S. underscores the fact that crime is not merely a problem of underdeveloped or developing countries but a universal challenge.[3]

While there are other nations with higher rates of crime and other forms of deviance, the above amply reports levels that should capture the nation’s attention. 

Of course, there are many factors involved in this state of dysfunction.  Using a historical approach, recent postings described the effects of various constructs, e.g., transcendentalism and perceptual psychology, in the development of this deviance.  The postings have attempted to explain how the claims of these constructs dispose their advocates to champion meaningful degrees of individualism and self-centeredness, mental dispositions one can see as disposing people to engage in deviant behavior.

          Consequently, such socialization has even led to problematic levels of other anti-social mindsets, even nihilism.  Of course, all of this can’t help affecting how civics education will be conducted in American schools.  A good deal of those effects are underlying factors and not conscious to the educators who man those classrooms.  But before describing what these forces mean to curriculum, it is important to keep in mind that this is a societal problem.  In no way can schools be given the task, single-handedly, of definitively solving the problem.

          While this disclaimer might seem obvious, it has been the practice of societal decision makers to dump many components of the above situation in the “laps” of educators.  Of course, this is counterproductive and only serves to stretch the limited resources schools have at their disposal to try to meet the educational responsibilities cited in these earlier postings.

          What this blog will describe is limited to how the curriculum can, from its perspective, consider the forces causing the dysfunctional elements of this state of being, i.e., a society full of deviant related strife.  This blogger hopes that interested parties understand the central source of these problems has had a long history and goes to the core of American attitudes. 

Again, it’s a cultural problem.  Only societal wide changes can shift these attitudes.  That aim is surely beyond the ability of schools to accomplish.  So, given all of this, what are the implications for social studies – that portion of curriculum most relevant to societal concerns emanating from its culture.

And here, a bit of context is in order:  The general custom among people, this blogger notes, is to think dichotomously.  In this case, either a person is authoritarian or democratic; either loves children or is indifferent to their needs.  These are lazy reactions.  The problems these postings address and the problems they have caused, place educators on guard against the easy, sentimentalist answers to those problems. 

In that vein, this blogger is not against many of the sentiments expressed by those expounding the virtues of individualism – often mistakenly treated as being synonymous with liberty.  The concern here lies in the fact that reality does not exist only in the domain of one’s own house and family, but also in the communal parameters individuals and families find themselves.

          The overall described conditions this blog has reviewed have implications for the social studies curriculum but also curriculum in general.  With a more contained ambition than is usually expressed by curriculum writers, what follows are adjustments that can allow a more useful posture given the challenges.  That is, a functional curriculum should adjust in certain dimensions:

There should be a heavy emphasis on the concerns of communities – that in which a school’s students live and, in the nation, generally.

Knowledge, as an element of a curriculum, should be treated beyond sets of facts to memorize, but as functional, useful elements in solving societal problems or addressing societal concerns.

Curriculum proposals should be in the form of options that a teacher can manipulate, tweak, or otherwise accommodate the students and/or social conditions teachers face.  And …

Discipline, beyond the prescriptions from perceptual psychology or any other strategy, should be treated by teachers in a realistic manner – avoiding simplistic generalized approaches (either too lenient, ala perceptual psychology, or too demanding, ala “I take no guff” approach).

These dimensions are suggested by the pioneer work on deviance by Emile Durkheim and Robert Merton.[4]

          While a formal development of an argument suggested by Durkheim and Merton is beyond the purposes of this presentation, these sociologists’ collective work presents a social model for explaining deviance.  And this marks a good place to end this posting and invite readers to click onto this blog’s next posting for a description of these giants’ contribution to addressing deviance.

[1] See Robert Gutierrez, “Early On,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 13, 2024, “Representations of Reality,” February 16, 2024, “The TV Effect,” February 20, 2024, “The Perceptual Angle,” February 23, and The Ongoing Factors Affecting Nihilism, February 27, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.  Use archives feature to access individual postings,

[2] “Violent Crime in the U.S. – Statistics & Facts,” Statista, December 18, 2023, accessed February 28, 2024, URL:  https://www.statista.com/topics/1750/violent-crime-in-the-us/#topicOverview.

[3] “Crime Rate by Country,” Data Pandas (n.d.), accessed February 29, 2024, URL:  https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/crime-rate-by-country.  Out of 136 countries, the US is ranked the 56th most crime ridden.

[4] Marshall B. Clinard, “The Theoretical Implications of Anomie and Deviant Behavior,” in Anomie and Deviant Behavior, edited by Marshall B. Clinard (New York, NY:  The Free Press, 1964), 1-56.

[beguines]

As a significant "feminised" category of mental illness, however, HPD [histrionic personality disorder] was superseded in the DSM-III by the introduction of the controversial BPD, a label which has been increasingly applied to women, with around 75 per cent of all cases estimated to be female. Seen as a milder form of schizophrenia and lying on the "borderline" between neuroses and psychoses, the concept has been used in psychiatry since 1938. Like other personality disorders, BPD has a notoriously low reliability level even by the generally poor standards of the DSM, and even within the profession is considered by many as yet another "wastebasket" category (though as Bourne ruefully remarks, the ambiguity of such personality disorders makes them particularly useful in policing deviance in the new century). One member of the DSM-III task force stated at the time of constructing BPD that "in my opinion, the borderline syndrome stands for everything that is wrong with psychiatry [and] the category should be eliminated". The chair of the task force, Robert Spitzer, admitted with the publication of DSM-III that BPD was only included in the manual due to pressures from psychoanalytically oriented clinicians who found it useful in their practices. Such practices have been documented by Luhrmann who describes psychiatrists' typical view of the BPD patient as "an angry, difficult woman—almost always a woman—given to intense, unstable relationships and a tendency to make suicide attempts as a call for help.' Bearing significant similarities to the feelings of nineteenth century psychiatrists towards hysterics, Luhrmann's study reveals psychiatrists' revulsion of those they label with a personality disorder: they are "patients you don't like, don't trust, don't want . . . One of the reasons you dislike them is an expungable sense that they are morally at fault because they choose to be different." Becker reinforces this general view of the BPD label when she states that "[t]here is no other diagnosis currently in use that has the intense pejorative connotations that have been attached to the borderline personality disorder diagnosis." A bitter irony for those labelled with BPD is that many are known to have experienced sexual abuse in childhood, something they share in common with many of those Freud labelled as hysterical a century earlier; a psychiatric pattern of depoliticising sexual abuse by ignoring the (usually) male perpetrator, and instead pathologising the survival mechanisms of the victim as abnormal.

By the mid-1980s, the hysteria diagnosis had disappeared from the clinical setting while BPD had become the most commonly diagnosed personality disorder. BPD is now the most important label which psychiatric hegemony invokes to serve capital and patriarchy through monitoring and controlling the modern woman, reinforcing expected gender roles within the more fluid, neoliberal environment. Nevertheless, as Jimenez (emphasis added) reminds us, the historical continuity from hysteria to BPD is clear: "Both diagnoses delimit appropriate behavior for women, and many of the criteria are stereotypically feminine. What distinguishes borderline personality disorder from hysteria is the inclusion of anger and other aggressive characteristics, such as shoplifting, reckless driving, and substance abuse. If the hysteric was a damaged woman, the borderline woman is a dangerous one."

Bruce M.Z. Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness

[hirofightcr]

( i'm experiencing things FAR beyond ANY level of violent anger & despair i've ever felt right now. )

[methed-up-marxist]

"The study that had the most direct impact on the psychiatric profession— as well as public consciousness—at this time was David Rosenhan’s (1973) classic research On Being Sane in Insane Places which found that psychiatrists could not distinguish between “real” and “pseudo” patients presenting at psychiatric hospitals in the United States. All of Rosenhan’s “pseudo” patients (college students/researchers involved in the experiment) were admitted and given a psychotic label, and all the subsequent behaviour of the researchers—including their note-taking—was labelled by staff as further symptoms of their disorder (for a summary, see Burstow 2015: 75-76). This research was a culmination of earlier studies on labelling and mental illness which had begun in the 1960s with Irving Goffman (1961) and Thomas Scheff (1966). Goffman’s (1961) ethnographic study of psychiatric incarceration demonstrated many of the features which Rosenhan’s study would later succinctly outline, including the arbitrary nature of psychiatric assessment, the labelling of patient behaviour as further evidence of “mental illness,” and the processes of institutional conformity by which the inmates learned to accept such labels if they wanted to have any chance of being released from the institution at a later date. Scheffs (1966) work on diagnostic decision making in psychiatry formulated a general labelling theory for the sociology of mental health. Again, his research found that psychiatrists made arbitrary and subjective decisions on those designated as “mentally ill,” sometimes retaining people in institutions even when there was no evidence to support such a decision. Psychiatrists, he argued, relied on a common sense set of beliefs and practices rather than observable, scientific evidence. Scheff (1966) concluded that the labelling of a person with a “mental illness” was contingent on the violation of social norms by low-status rule-breakers who are judged by higher status agents of social control (in this case, the psychiatric profession). Thus, according to these studies, the nature of “mental illness” is not a fixed object of medical study but rather a form of “social deviance”—a moral marker of societal infraction by the powerful inflicted on the powerless." -Bruce Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony, 2016

[1eoness]

professor!re4r leon fucking u.. i think (or at least wanting to fuck u)

cw content : leon size kink kennedy (jk) | sub-afab-fem-reader and dom!leon kennedy | age gap(ur 22 he's 27), leon masturbating, penetration, slightly weird ooc leon ♡

[to clarify, i am 18. anyone <18 and anyone >18 uncomfortable with interacting pls dni]

authors note bc i love rambling; btw i'm writing this in public at some boba cafe can u believe that lol im literally supposed to be studying but hwatever fuck it leon make me go blaahhhhhh. btw what do i call this? a fic?blurb?drabble? idklmfao by the way i have NO idea on how to write professor x reader shit so im sorrhy if this sucks ass.

synopsis : conflicted and flustered professor!leon kennedy of your local college struggles to improve his class' average because students like you—incompetent, airheaded, spoiled and klutzy— make it difficult for him :(

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ - - ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

you heard the rustling of laptop bags and stationery as leon's students left for that morning lecture. though, they moved slow and drowsy; for leon is sure nowadays this generation can't afford to wake up at 6:00 in the morning to prepare for a 7 a.m. lecture on "deviance and crime control."

especially you.

kennedy is a sharp man. he harps on students even if they get a B on any assignment, but he swears it's on his tough love (to which a lot of students aren't really aware of, just that they know this stoic pretty-face of a man has high standards.)

he is also keen on attendance. something girls like you seem to take lightly. it was absurd, really. most professors don't give a shit, do they?

it would've been fine with leon if you missed lectures even twice a week as long as you emphasized your understanding of his lessons through putting stellar effort on your schoolwork. but the best you've gotten on his class was a B- drawing close to a C+.

so, he needs to have a chat with you. urgently.

"l/n, i need to speak with you." leon spoke, confrontative as his black jeans peered from your right peripheral vision. he stood tall beside the edge of the table where you sat. jesus, was he trying to give you a heart attack? (he always had this habit, he'd just pop out of nowhere. he has silent feet.)

yes, you may have missed his lectures from monday to thursday to go to macedonia with your family: but if leon were given the opportunity for a vacation he would snag it too, right?

you looked up at the young professor, wide-eyed and a bit intimidated. what the hell did you do this time? you closed your laptop, gave leon your full attention. leon has also noticed this about you; you're quick to pay attention but you have the memory span of a dumb rabbit. maybe even the IQ of one too, if leon was rude enough.

so you sat there, hands on your lap as you fiddled with the pleats of your blue plaid skirt. the color makes his heart beat a little—he loves the color blue. and the way it looked on you... wait, no. what the hell was he thinking?

"you couldn't even spare the few minutes to e-mail me that you'd be missing four- four, of my classes in one week." he emphasized with a slate tone, and the way his eyes peered down at you added that he needed your reasoning of the situation. he'd love to hear what you had to say for yourself. "i had to talk to your friend, ashley, for some clarification. even the president's daughter has the dignity to show up to my class with a verbal apology." leon scolded as his fingertips met the pages of your notebook. did you even care about his classes? :(

much to your chagrin, your lips were pressed in sheepish silence. hopeless, even. you didn't even have anything to say for yourself? how pitiable.

you simply can't miss class, that wasn't right! just because you thought you could hide in the shadows amidst leon's collective of 73 students (yes he counts), you aren't out of his eyes. in fact, you stood out to him even if you were just an incompetent scholar.

he sighed at your silence. "fair enough, an apology can't compensate for your lack of presence or decorum." he then placed your paper on the desk, you had gotten a D. you were never a bad student but this was your first D ever! your eyes widened and he caught on even though he could only see the crown of your hair. "surprised? because i'm not." leon uttered flatly while his pale fingers flipped through the papers right in front of you. you even spotted a few contractions— when did you even pass this?!

but you weren't a bad girl to him, no. you were capable of shame and guilt. you looked sideways, unable to meet his eyes and training your vision to the floor. you felt low, disappointing a professor that gave you numerous chances to break out of your awkward shell.

"you're a smart girl, you know that?" he finally sighed softly. he wanted you to look at him, make him another promise that you'll start putting effort in his class. he needed to maintain his class's average or else he'd prove he was an inept professor, and he can't do that when he lets 'students like you' get away with shabby attendance and subpar schoolwork. "i don't just give students chances. but that doesn't make you special." and it was true—he's voluntarily failed 6 of his students before. "you'll do something about this, right?"

"yes, professor kennedy.." you muttered modestly.

"hmm?" he hummed inquisitively as he took your paper back. he was willing to give you a chance. "listen to me. i'll give you the chance to redo your paper. i know when students rush their work and if i see even a hint of redundancy in it—i will take all my chances back. and you are never taking absences from my class. i don't want you entering even a minute late, or leaving a second early. i hope we're clear, l/n."

naturally, you were scared. so you nodded up at him after countless confirmations that you will do you work and that you'll show up to class no matter what. he has to use your word against you, he's sorry but it's for your own good.

once he was satisfied, he gave you a nod and turned his side, dismissing you. after all, leon was a busy man. you're not his only student.

it was when you walked out the building and then 20 minutes away from it that you felt like crying. you hated being scolded by him :( but just when you were about to go through your bag for your handkerchief, you were stuck with an inconvenient realization. you forgot your handkerchief.

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ -♡- ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

leon just stared at the table where you sat from just now, backpack strap over his shoulders since he was just about to leave. he gripped onto either of them slowly as he stared down at your handkerchief in contemplation.

a twofold baby-blue hankie embedded with a subtle floral print. tentatively, he picks it up with his hand and examines it. for a minute his mind went blank, conflicting between chasing you and just returning it to you or to leave it by the lecture podium for her to retrieve tomorrow (when you hopefully attend his lesson again.)

..but blue was his favorite color.

"damn it." leon, with a barely audible mutter, shoved the handkerchief in his jacket pocket. he felt like the most guilty man in the world, poor boy.

...

leon sighed.

he wasn't celibate.

his hormones were in shambles once he got to his place. perhaps part of it was because he knew he hasn't graded the recent tests yet.

manspreading, tie loose, shirt stuffy and jeans undone while his hair wisped in slightly disheveled directions. cold breaths followed out his pretty mouth.

"nnn..fuck.. uhh-" leon whimpered into the baby blue cloth, laced with your perfume. he felt so guilty, so perverted. he shuddered every time he could see over the edges of the cloth, seeing his cream-leaking tip from previous orgasms spurt teasingly. "ahh- fuuuck, p-please-"

his grunts were high. he was close to crying, staining your pretty handkerchief with guilty-pleasure-ridden tears. spilled milk, it trailed down his pretty shaft as he pumped it over and over. his motive was you— you were just so fucking stupid and had so much naivete, it absolutely vexed him knowing how endearing you were.

until a slip of leon's mouth surprised him, earning a small squeak from him as he accidentally muffled your name in your cloth. "fuck, y/n- a-ahh.. u-uhh..hmfff.." he was frustrated; whining and cumming while his mind stirred with the thought of you and your pretty eyes and the photographic memory of your dumbstricken face.

he gave out a tired whine into the cloth, so, so close to crying his frustrations out. he just wanted to eat you. christ, and he was so hard for you it made his head ache..

he could only watch his girth that pulsed with white. he pried the sweet handkerchief off his lips, breathing roughly and wiping his tears. he felt so, so sorry for you. the color of the cloth looked exactly like the skirt you wore yesterday. and yet to top it off, he (ashamedly) wiped his cum off with your dainty cloth. oh, he's so sorry..

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ -♡- ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

he didn't want to come to this point. or maybe he did and god was force-feeding him with culpability (he's atheist). he offered once to tutor you personally. one-on-one, no distractions. and so suddenly, someone's skirt was on his clean carpet floor..

your blouse draped over your shoulder and was pulled above your bra carelessly. he handled you with so much ease, squishing you into position while he tried to slowly push his thick length into your syrupy hole. you bit the knuckle of your thumb, and whimpered timidly that he was too big. but look where you were now.

"fuck- you're so- you feel so good.. shut up and take it all, yeah?.. hmmff-" there leon goes, harping you again. you were so loud but it wasn't even your fault, not when he was pistoning his cock into you and paying no hesitation to his pace. you were simply too sweet for him not to please. "sweetheart, hold onto me.." he mutters.

he was pushing every squeak and cute little wail out of his pathetic student, rutting his tip into that spot. "n-nnghh- aah!~" you were running low on words.

"yeah?- mhmm...ffuck, right here? huh?" the feeling of him thrusting against that spongy part more and more sent your mind further into autopilot. you were past squirming around and pushing him away, you just had to take it.. and take it.. and you were doing so good ♡.

"l-leoonn.. m-mm!- fffeels t-too good-" you babbled, mind stuffy with the pleasurably-shameful feeling of being gorged with your professor's thick girth. he shuddered at the way you uttered his name so adoringly. to leon you were so dirty but so, so cute. he had you puddled into tears beneath him while he fucked into your cute little hole with fervor. he just wanted to stuff you full, make you his, adore you forever.

he whined softly into your shoulder. you kept clenching down on him and it made him impossible to think. his phone was ringing on his bedside but he doesn't even give a shit—if anything he tried to drown it out by thrusting into you faster, to which made him lament into your skin. he even adjusted your hips up impossibly further.

"l-leeonn, n-no..— n-no more, please!!-" you blabbered adorably, voice mumbly and whiny as you clawed at his shoulders or back— you didn't know anymore.

"shhh shh.." he cooed over your cries with a quiet and honeyed voice, planting a soft kiss to where he could reach on your face or head. "i know, i know, it feels so good, hm?.. just let it feel good, baby—ahh, fuck-.. uhh..." he moaned lowly into your shoulder, unable to stop the way he rutted his cock into your creamed-up cunt. you seemed to be enjoying it, so why were you complaining? leon thinks to himself smugly but he knows he can't act on his pride. after all you made him like this—submitting to his carnal urges...

you didn't wanna cum a third time, huh? silly little girl.

leon growled quietly into the crook where your neck and shoulder met. you've never heard that sound from him. he held you down, constraining you, and squished you further into his mattress. a helpless and surprised yelp lolled out your tongue as he went impossibly quicker while he cursed like he was about to break down in tears. leon was mercilessly grinding his cock into all your sensitive spots, not letting your pleas of retort contest him. "fuckfuck- u-uhhh, take it, baby, c'mon... do it f'me, it's gonna feel so good-.. ahh!-"

he couldn't even finish his sentence—just piping his cum in you roughly as if he were proving a point, growling whinily along the way. he even kept fucking you shallowly while you were a dumb, sniffling mess with no sense of self-assertion as you creamed all over his shaft uncontrollably a third time. consecutive and quiet whimpers could be heard from you while you soaked in your overstimulation, needing him desperately to reassure you again through the overbearing pleasure of being pushed past what your cunny can handle.

"poor baby." he muttered to himself breathily as he gave the last of his tired, frustrated thrusts and pulled out of you; giving you the time to breathe while he pats your hair down comfortingly. his fluttering eyes finally closed as his head found refuge in your neck, slightly limp with exhaustion as he huffed cold breaths on the wet patches of your skin.

he pulled his head away after a minute of regaining what's left of his strength. leon looked down at you with subtle puppylike eyes, like he was sorry for ever being so harsh on you; even before he fucked the shit out of you. you quietly took your handkerchief to wipe some sweat off his neck— and his cheeks went a little rosy, remembering what he did to it that day you "lost" it ♡.

seems detergent can't wash something like lust away!

[danswideslit]

slime video analysed thru horror with a queer pov

kay it gets its own post because im stil aaa bout it

This is just what I remember/was able to brush up on, since I studied this in 2019, so if anything is outdated I apologise, feel free to correct me, I love to learn!!

also I realized it has all become a lil rambly as I couldn’t contain my excitement soz

So this is my essay on the parallels of queerness in the horror genre and how DanAndPhilCRAFTS - Slime (2024) could be analysed in this light, especially given the creators’ personal history with the topic.

Among the classic tropes of the horror genre, is the topic of losing ones innocence.

Most emphasised is the loss of ones virginity, as a synonym for the innocence, although the innocence as such has many forms. As mentioned in Scream (1996), you may not survive if you have sex, if you drink/do drugs, or if you claim to “be right back” or in other ways investigate to satisfy your own curiosity.

The parallels to the christian church and societal norms are already obvious. If you deviate from the path of purity, it will lead to death and suffering. The only way to survive the night, is to stay pure. Do not be tempted by mere curiosities, for they will be the death of you, essentially.

In the same light, Baphomet is most often portrayed with characteristics from both the male and female human anatomy, and can be used as a metaphor for the inherent evil of gender expressions beyond the societal norm.

In the same light, monsters in various movies are often shown with a deviance in gender and/or sexuality. This role of ‘sexual outsider’ has, for years, been a symbolism that queer people have connected with. The has only further skewed the ‘stay pure’ narrative, as it brings on an ambience of kill or be killed. An either/or of sorts. But it has also made monsters and villains walk the line between sexy and terrifying, which naturally leads people to be enticed. We are sexual creatures afterall.

Often the monsters have an aura of masculine energy, as they make people cower, and the stereotypical jocks abandon their hardcore exterior. This, on one hand birthed the “the boyfriend is the killer” trope, but it also gave way for diving into morality, how many crimes can a villain get away with, as long as the character resonates with the audience.

This is demonstrated in Jennifers Body (2009) which was, at first, marketed to the male audience, making the monster Jennifer an attractive young woman, essentially getting the film marked as “Twilight for boys” by film critic Robert Ebert.

The ratings, however, were lackluster and claimed the movie was neither funny nor scary and thus was unsuccessful. Jennifer wasn’t “as hot as you’d hope she’d be” and essentially the “lesbians-for-the-male-gaze” marketing to boys 17+ failed. 

However, many women and young girls between 17-25 saw the character of Jennifer as empowering and resonated with the film. My theory is that the men did not like being the victim, being killed my something that they are supposed to be worse than. But the women saw a strength in the conflict between what is essentially two sides of the same existence - on one hand the rage of the injustice and gender inequality, and on the other hand Needy, who follows every character trope connected to the “last girl standing.” Except even she is tainted in the end, killing Jennifer and losing her innocence. (more talk about innocence, murder/virginity bla bla bla, okay but this essay aint about that)

All this plays a role in how the queerness of DanAndPhilCRAFTS - slime (2024) can be interpreted. Throughout all four installments of the narrative, Dan is seen being guided by Phil and scolded when he doesn’t do it right. Phil seems not at all surprised when Dans glitter face turns satanic, and by the third video, Phil hands the control over as he gives himself away.

Essentially, the indoctrination of Dans role in Phils devotion is cult-like. Cults are often hidden behind a facade of “found family” before the true behind-the-scenes terror is revealed. Dan is evidently comfortable in letting a more experienced person guide the way, despite his own hesitance. He knows that he cant do this halfway.

also the idea of Phil rising from the dead, during Easter… Jesus Christ, where would we even begin (lol)

But beyond that symbolism, It is the hesitance in Dans nature that seems to point to the “purity being tainted” horror trope. Phils devotion to Him is evident, but Dan seems more so to be devoted to Phil. A follower. Believing whatever Phil believes to be true. A Billy and Stu, Scream situation, if you will. The subtext of two lovers and the blurred lines of love and death, which has been analysed and discussed a whole while by smarter people than me. 

Dans hesitance to follow Phil guiding him to the other (queer) side. The penetrative stab and the menacing disarray of emotions on Dans face afterwards. This was anything but a selfish act, but he gave into the curiosity, he is not the last survivor, he has joined Him. This ritual was giving into love, without trying to contain, rationalise, or diminish any part of it. 

(Kind of how like dan, selfproclaimidly, would still be a ‘Daniel in denial’ if Phil hadn’t come into his life, because Phil ‘led him astray’ but he’s very okay with it and he has embraced it, and he’s happier giving in instead of fighting it?? Too far??)

[butch-reidentified]

I've spoken before about psychopathy, particularly my own, and the importance of recent research and demolishing the stigma and absolutely absurd past conceptions and measures of psychopathy, which were exclusively based on studies of male prisoners convicted of violent crime.

Just to reiterate - psychopathy is not being deranged and uncontrollably violent. Villanelle from Killing Eve is actually an excellent and well-researched example of high-EQ female psychopathy, and the first fictional portrayal I can genuinely see myself in. Psychopaths with high EQ are entirely capable of cognitive empathy, and many (like myself) are actually very gifted in it, and can even make excellent counselors/therapists as a result of this combined with a lack of strong internal biases and the fact that we won't be emotionally impacted/drained by patients. This presentation of psychopathy is becoming more and more recognized and studied, and is distinctly more common in women. We retain the core defining traits, obviously - boldness, deviancy, disinhibition, very high fear threshold, a tendency toward meanness (self-control is a thing, though), reduced capacity for remorse and regret*, and of course lack of affective (emotional) empathy - but are much more able to moderate ourselves and prioritize social functioning, and tend to view the sadistic behavior of low-EQ psychopathic males as wasteful. My wife calls it "prosocial psychopathy."

Anyway, I just kind of wanted to touch on this again since it's been a while and there's a fair few new followers out here. I encourage you to read the above links and check the tag - it's a pretty interesting topic, to me at least.

Edit 4/25/2024: *Regarding the reduced capacity for remorse/regret: I firmly believe this sounds worse than it is. For people like me, at least, it's not that I'm going around doing terrible things and incapable of feeling bad about any of them. The truth is that remorse & regret most frequently occur as a result of intensely emotion-driven behaviors, which as a concept is largely foreign to me - I don't tend toward remorse/regret because the way I interact with the world, analyze situations, and choose to behave in response, is inherently from the very beginning done with the acceptance of potential consequences actively held in my mind. I'm not prone to regret/remorse because I know myself extremely well and make choices as consistent with my understanding of self as possible, having already prepared myself for the possibility that things could go wrong. It's more about being prepared for what might happen and able to cope when things do go wrong, rather than being a piece of shit and not feeling anything about it.

This doesn't make me better or worse than others; it's a neutral fact that male supremacy has made seem otherwise by constantly claiming that "logic" or whatever is superior to emotions. Fuck that. Loads of the best people I've ever known have been very emotion-driven (what non-shit people identify as a form of being passionate) and some of the shittest people I've known would waste their dying breath insisting they're 100% logical creatures, as if that's even a real thing. To me it feels very simple: if I'm making the best (most internally consistent, most reflective of my personality and values, etc) decisions I possibly can with whatever information I have at the time, then I've done my best, acted with integrity, and don't need to regret my choices. This is very challenging to write/talk about bc of the stigma & connotations involved, but again, this is a completely neutral fact to me in the same way I describe being a woman as a completely neutral fact despite the stigma & connotations involved there. Does any of this make sense?

[grandeoatmilklatte]

Kinktober #2 🎃 - Ominis x Stealing

This might be the naughtiest thing I've ever written. 😂 Enjoy??

Warnings: NSFW/18+ | m4sturb4t!0n (male) | fing3r!ng (female) | p4nty sniffing (consensual!) | characters are aged up, 18+, and in 7th year!

Ominis Gaunt x Panty Stealing (F!MC) (1274 words)

The Slytherin common room was silent as Ominis passed through the snake entrance. He needed a quiet spot, and now was the perfect time, since most of the student body would be at dinner. His destination was his dorm room, but he needed to make a pit stop first. 

As he entered the dorm room he knew to be his girlfriend’s, he internally thanked Sebastian for teaching him how to bypass the enchantments that normally would have prevented him from entering. Her leftover scent led him directly to her bed, and with some help from his wand, he found what he was looking for, a shiver running up his spine when the coveted item was in his possession. He shoved it into his pocket before darting off to his own room.

Once he was secure and alone in his room, he made quick work of his clothes and laid on his bed. He took his cock in one hand, already hard and wet, and in his other hand was the item he had stolen from her room - a dirty pair of her panties. 

He’d never admit it to anyone, and at any other time he’d find his behavior shameful, but he had a naughty little habit of stealing and using his girlfriend’s underwear for his own pleasure, especially when they were stained with the remnants of prior activities. As he felt the garment between his fingers, he remembered their fun in the library only an hour ago. 

“It was just supposed to be a normal study break.” Ominis remembered telling himself. But her perfume smelled so divine, and her voice as smooth as honey. He couldn’t help but lean in, snaking his hand under her skirt and under the waistband of the panties currently in his hand. Her soft, muffled gasps as she tried to keep quiet were music to his ears. As soon as her release hit, he pulled his fingers out, ensuring that she’d ruin her underwear.

“Oh Ominis! You naughty boy! Now I need to go shower before dinner. I’ll meet you later in the Great Hall!”

But Ominis didn’t meet her. Instead he waited until he knew she wouldn’t be in her room, so he could claim his prize for a job well done. 

That’s how he found himself here, stroking his cock as his thumb ran over the gusset of her panties, soft moans falling from his parted lips. It was still slightly damp from earlier, which made his cock twitch. He brought the garment up to his nose, inhaling deeply. Her scent was intoxicating, and he let out a groan as he began to pump himself harder as he continued filling his nose with her. 

Ominis always made sure she never found out about his habit, always returning the dirty garment to her laundry basket afterwards. His deviance didn’t come from a place of dissatisfaction or unhappiness with her either. They had an extremely loving relationship, and a healthy sex life. But there was something about this that made Ominis crazy - knowing how easily his fingers alone could bring her to orgasm, and then knowing that he could hold something soiled with that orgasm was heavenly. It was a reward for him, a piece of her that he could have when he couldn’t have her in front of him. It awakened a dark, feral part of him that he never showed to anyone, but that he loved to indulge in privately.

He pressed the underwear into his face, practically suffocating himself as he stroked his cock faster, moans of her name being muffled by the garment. Every inhale was nothing but her scent, and it brought him closer to release with every second. Once he knew his release was moments away, he removed the garment from his face, switching hands so that the hand he was using to work himself was now holding the underwear. He then brought his hand back to his cock, using the underwear to continue stroking himself. 

Ominis was grateful no one was around as his noises became louder now that they were no longer muffled - deep groans fell from his mouth as the friction from her panties provided a delicious sensation. He was lost in the feeling, addicted to the depravity of the act.

He released with one last cry of her name, spilling into her panties. After cleaning himself up with them, he laid on his bed in a state of pure ecstasy trying to catch his breath. Once he had come down, he sat up and got dressed, stuffing the now extra dirty panties back in his pocket when he heard a voice that made him jump. 

“Ominis?” 

He turned in the direction of her voice, his face neutral, despite the panic he was feeling. How long had she been there? What had she seen? How did she even get in here? Didn’t he lock the door? He hoped she hadn’t seen anything. “Oh, hello dear. Everything alright?”

“You didn’t show up to dinner, so I came to find you. Are you alright, darling?” Her voice was soft and there was no concern or disgust in her voice. She hadn’t seen anything. He internally breathed a sigh of relief as he heard her approach. He placed his arms on her waist and pulled her in. 

“I’m fine, my love.” He said as he kissed her softly. “Better now that you’re here.” He gave her another kiss, which she deepened as she threw her arms around him. Within a few moments, they were on his bed, lips still locked, and Ominis’s hand once again slipping below the waistband of her underwear. 

He wasted no time slipping two fingers in her wet entrance, knowing they had a limited amount of time before students would start trickling back in after dinner. The sounds of her moans filled the room and his ears as he alternated between pumping his fingers inside her and rubbing her sensitive clit. He curled his fingers the moment he felt her walls tighten, and within seconds she was whimpering his name as she released. Like earlier, he pulled his fingers out of her immediately, sucking them clean.  

“As much as I’d love to keep this going, we should get you out before anyone finds you here.” Ominis said as he climbed off the bed, taking her hands and pulling her up with him. 

“Yes, let's go get you some dinner! Oh, but first, I have a gift for you!” 

Ominis’s ears were met with the sounds of shuffling  He wondered what she was doing as she approached, placing something into his hands. Ominis studied the item with his fingers. It felt like a small piece of fabric - soft, with a bit of lace to it. Ominis’s jaw dropped slightly as realization hit him, feeling mortified. 

“You look surprised! You really thought I wouldn’t notice?” Her voice had a playful tone to it, which surprised Ominis. He always worried she’d be upset if she ever discovered his peculiar kink. 

“Figured I’d save you the trip of having to sneak into my room later for it. Just give me it back when you’re done washing it. And don’t forget about the other pair in your pocket as well, you naughty boy!” She giggled as she brought her hands to his cheeks, pulling him into a kiss. The kiss relaxed him, his fears of her being upset having been quelled. 

They walked hand in hand out of the common room. Ominis smiled to himself, happy that she was accepting of his naughty little habit, and looking forward to receiving more gifts from her.

[slut4thebroken]

Spencer Reid Ao3 fic recs

Smut - no emoji

No smut - 🚫

Fluff - ✨

Angst - 🖤

Dark content -❗️ (noncon elements)

Personal favorites - 💕

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

my masterlist

Ao3 fic rec masterlist

Updated: 8/4/23

༺˚ʚ Spencer Reid ɞ˚༻

Protégé

Thermal Energy

Tease

Lessons in Deviance

Say You’re Sorry

Bro Code Be Damned

Opposing Counsel

Little Help From My Friends

Blush

Big Bad Wolf 💕

Dark Side 💕❗️

Study Session

Teacher’s Pet

Ice (Spencer Reid x Reader Smut)

Fight Or Flight

the femme fatale 💕

Never Have I Ever

Truce

In The Bar Bathroom

Out of all The Words in The English Dictionary

[gravitascivics]

THE TV EFFECT

This blog has been sharing an overview of American history to provide a summary account of how the US has become a nation of people disposed to deviant behavior.  Starting with the posting, “Early On,”[1] that account has reviewed those aspects of America’s past that have encouraged too many Americans to deviate from laws or norms.  The focus of this review has been the nation’s culture.

It began by describing how in its origin, the nation struggled through the clash between Calvinism and transcendentalism.  It then described how the individualism of transcendentalism was reinforced by pragmatism as the basic ideas of William James were reviewed.  That posting, “Representations of Reality,”[2] left readers with an indication that the advent of television solidified a self-centered sense of reality among the American people.  Interested readers are encouraged to read those two prior postings if they have not done so.

On the topic of TV, this blog counts on the work of the late Neil Postman.  “I believe the epistemology created by television not only is inferior to a print-based epistemology but is dangerous and absurdist,”[3] wrote Postman.  Written exposition, which was the major method of communication coming into the mid-twentieth century, demands analysis and inferential thinking skills.  By way of a historical note, Postman claimed that the beginning of the end for exposition began with the invention of the photograph but surely was accomplished with the effects of TV.

By what means?  The image media of television demands passivity as the viewer is presented with a discontinuous, trivial reality.  This is highly congruent with the philosophical disposition left from the nation’s historical development.  America was ready for the worst effects of this newer media.

One can compare that to a previous time when information was expressed through written words; this previous state demands a culture which promotes a reflective and useful presentation of information in its discourse of reality.  Postman related how America was different in the nineteenth century despite its transcendental biases.  In fact, America was a book and pamphlet reading nation.

Public business was channeled into and expressed through print, which became the model, the metaphor and the measure of all discourse.  The resonances [defined as the power of influencing thought and action] of the lineal, analytical structure of print, and in particular, of expository prose, could be felt everywhere.[4]

As opposed to that level of reflection, the television culture is bombarded with a constant stream of useless, disconnected information.  This “peek-a-boo” form of messaging or discourse is ubiquitous with “only one pervasive voice – the voice of entertainment.”[5]  It also seems alive and well in the age of the cell phone. While Postman gave in his cited book many examples of the pervasiveness of this entertainment outlook, the example most relevant here is in the chapter entitled, “Teaching as an Amusing Activity.” 

As elsewhere, the character of the media in classrooms determines the character of the activity.  In terms of schooling, that is, the activity is formulating the curriculum.  What is most frightening about Postman’s argument is that the cited dangers seem to be accepted as innovative education.  He argued that educational television follows TV’s commandments:  no prerequisites, no perplexity, and avoidance of exposition. 

More generally, within that media, this approach renders it impossible for any instructional messaging to look at any issue responsibly either within classrooms, or at home.  There are the cable channel news networks, such as Fox, CNN, and MSNBC, but their viewership is best measured in the hundreds of thousands of viewers (Fox leads with over 2 million), [6] a fraction of the adult population.

To the argument that TV allows educators the ability to present studied materials dramatically, Postman cited research that questions the notion of that advantage – that is that learning takes place when material is presented in dramatic style.  He summed up the effect of curriculum based on TV as follows:

And, in the end, what will the students have learned?  They will … have learned something about [the subject matter].  Mainly, they will have learned that learning is a form of entertainment or, more precisely, that anything worth learning can take the form of an entertainment, and ought to.[7]

This blogger can only add that during the course of his career (1972-2007), his experience demonstrated an ever-shorter tolerance among students to engage with plain verbal communication.  And in addition, the prevailing disposition that students expressed seemed to be, as they walked into the classroom, “entertain me or what you have to do or say is illegitimate.”

By illegitimate this blogger does not mean only boring, but that the experience is an unjustified waste of their time.  And of course, the relevant standard of entertainment is defined by the prevailing media forms, such as TV, which are multi-million-dollar media productions. 

At best, only a relative handful of individual teachers, in the multitude of classrooms across the nation, can compete with that level of entertainment.  And that is to say nothing about whether those teachers who can are actually teaching anything of worth.  One can suppose the answer is no, given the general estimation as to how effective American schools are – mediocre at best.[8]

But TV is not the only agent legitimizing this dysfunctional cultural bias.  Educators themselves have adopted certain concepts and paradigms that further complicate the situation and compound the prevailing individualism, anti-intellectualism, and temporal view of the American people.  Educators have not been immune from the above-described historical forces.  And to boot, these forces met their “scientific” foundation in perceptual/humanistic psychology, a turn which this blog will next address.

[1] Robert Gutierrez, “Early On,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 13, 2024, accessed February 15, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.

[2] Robert Gutierrez, “Representations of Reality,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, February 16, 2024, accessed February 17, 2024, URL:  https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/.

[3] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death (New York, NY:  Penguin Books, 1985), 27.

[4] Ibid., 41.

[5] Ibid., 80.

[6] “Dominick Mastrangelo, “Fox News Top-Rated Cable Channel for Eighth Straight Year,” The Hill, December 14, 2023, accessed February 17, 2024, URL:  https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4360708-fox-news-top-rated-cable-news-channel/#:~:text=Fox%20News%20took%20the%20crown,to%20Nielsen%20Media%20Research%20data.

[7] Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 154.  Emphasis added.

[8] Julia Ryan, “American Schools vs. the World:  Expensive, Unequal, Bad at Math,” The Atlantic, December 3, 2013, accessed February 19, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/12/american-schools-vs-the-world-expensive-unequal-bad-at-math/281983/.

[beguines]

Yet problems in the legitimacy of psychiatry's vocation have remained, and reached crisis point at the cusp of deinstitutionalisation in the 1970s. At the time, a number of significant studies demonstrated the profession's inherent tendency to label people as "mentally ill," to stigmatise everyday aspects of a person’s behaviour as signs of pathology, and to make judgements on a person's mental health status based on subjective judgements rather than objective criteria.

The study that had the most direct impact on the psychiatric profession—as well as public consciousness—at this time was David Rosenhan's (1973) classic research On Being Sane in Insane Places which found that psychiatrists could not distinguish between "real" and "pseudo" patients presenting at psychiatric hospitals in the United States. All of Rosenhan's "pseudo" patients (college students/researchers involved in the experiment) were admitted and given a psychotic label, and all the subsequent behaviour of the researchers—including their note-taking—was labelled by staff as further symptoms of their disorder. This research was a culmination of earlier studies on labelling and mental illness which had begun in the 1960s with Irving Goffman (1961) and Thomas Scheff (1966). Goffman's ethnographic study of psychiatric incarceration demonstrated many of the features which Rosenhan's study would later succinctly outline, including the arbitrary nature of psychiatric assessment, the labelling of patient behaviour as further evidence of "mental illness," and the processes of institutional conformity by which the inmates learned to accept such labels if they wanted to have any chance of being released from the institution at a later date. Scheff's work on diagnostic decision making in psychiatry formulated a general labelling theory for the sociology of mental health. Again, his research found that psychiatrists made arbitrary and subjective decisions on those designated as "mentally ill," sometimes retaining people in institutions even when there was no evidence to support such a decision. Psychiatrists, he argued, relied on a common sense set of beliefs and practices rather than observable, scientific evidence. Scheff concluded that the labelling of a person with a "mental illness" was contingent on the violation of social norms by low-status rule-breakers who are judged by higher status agents of social control (in this case, the psychiatric profession). Thus, according to these studies, the nature of "mental illness" is not a fixed object of medical study but rather a form of "social deviance"—a moral marker of societal infraction by the powerful inflicted on the powerless. This situation is summated in Becker's general theory of social deviance which stated that "deviance is not a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an 'offender.' The deviant is one to whom that label has successfully been applied; deviant behavior is behavior that people so label".

Bruce M.Z. Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness

[billskeis]

RAHH could you make a tom kaulitz fluff like how the female reader is younger 2 years so like hes 17 while shes 15 and he helps her with her homework 😅 they ARE together btw :)

2006 tom :)

ᡣ𐭩 tom helping his gf w math

“i’m back!” you turn to look around at tom who enters his bedroom with drinks and snacks. you were currently staying over at his place so he can help you tutor. “hi tom…” you sigh heavily as you stare at the paper beneath you, many questions, but it remained blank.

maths wasn’t your best subject, but phew! could the tom kaulitz do his algebra.

“still struggling?” he sits down on his seat next to you as he leans on the desk with his head resting arms that fold on top of it. “thank you, and yea.. i just—it doesn’t make any sense to me!”

“hey hey, no need to get frustrated,” as you slam softly on the table, somewhat shaking the coca colas in the iced glass cups. “just break it down, okay..? can you do that for me? the way i taught you.”

despite his deviance as a junior, tom does quite well on his academics. which maybe, is why he chooses to prioritize fun over school. he never really required the effort in doing well because he was just naturally born with it.

you on the hand, not so much.

and it wasn’t like this for every subject, luckily. it was just math. whatever you did and no matter the amount of effort you put into it, always ended with you failing. it’s getting tiring and overwhelming at this point.

which is why your math teacher had assigned you tom as a study buddy, a tutor. none of you really fought against this, that being that you were together.

“now y/n, i don’t know if you know mr. kaulitz but he is quite the troublemaker.. don’t want you in the wrong crowd now eh?” your math teacher asked you sternly, to which you could only nod to.

little did he know that this little troublemaker was your boyfriend.

“okay y/n, so just take it from the top.. you do this.. and then,” as tom continued to explain the strategies in solving the equations, all you could do was stare at him.

the way his lips move as he addresses the concepts, how he writes his letters and numbers, the eye contact? you swear you couldn’t focus.

“tom, i can’t do it…” you bring your head down. it upset you. he was going out of his way to help you, even though it was a punishment from the math teacher despite being his best student, you felt as you were being ungrateful and totally useless.

“schatzi, it just takes time.. i don’t expect you to automatically be good at math just from this one night.. we’re just getting started!”

and although he makes the effort to comfort you, it wasn’t helping much. you just lacked the motivation.

shifting, he leans his body toward you, leaning his head down to face yours. his eyes fluttered beneath his lashes. he puts your hands in his as he caresses them softly.

“how about this, you do a question, i’ll give you a reward,” your head perks up in curiosity, “a reward..?” “mmhm! just a small one though, for each question. how about that schatzi?” you contemplated, but anything from tom would be good! so you agreed.

finishing the equation, you place the pencil down to revise your work to ensure that everything was correct. you turn in the office chair a bit to face tom who was already paying attention to you. “all done?” “yep!”

tom’s eyes scan the paper, blinking. you bite your lips in nervousness worrying about if the hard work you’ve done was all for nothing and it ended up being wrong or incorrect, worse, none of it made sense to the point where tom couldn’t even see where you went wrong.

“good job baby!” tom places a kiss on your cheek that leaves you stunned, all you could do was look at him, eyes and mouth wide open, “your reward of course..” “do it again,” “what?” “tommmm, please?” he just giggles and pushes you away softly when you want to kiss him again.

it made you feel all bubbly and fuzzy again, you don’t know what it was.

was it tom’s scent that wafted your way for just a second that made it so addicting for you to get a sense of him close again? was it how soft and gentle his lips were on your cheek that tickled you slightly?

or was it just, tom?

“no baby! finish another question and you can get another one,” ruffling the top of your head to mess up your hair. pouting, you look down. a part of tom feels bad, so he just leans closer to you. little did he know this was all apart of your plan to place a quick peck on his lips once he was caught off guard.

he backed away so quick, face a beet red. he wasn’t the only one who was able to fluster you, “you little..!” “can’t blame me, you wouldn’t give me what i wanted!” “now you’re in for it..” tom tackles you to tickle you onto the ground.

laughter and giggles filled the room, you and tom play fought for some of the night. eventually, the two of you got tired and worked up an appetite, leaving the bedroom completely empty to go eat.

the homework was completely forgotten, but that can wait.

(you guys never got the homework done and both were scolded by the math teacher)

[panicroomsammy]

Okay I think I’ve started to understand something about sex in Supernatural. The comments that Sam and Dean receive from people like Hendricksen’s comments about assuming their father sexually abused them are not just about sex but about class. Though instead of just being about class I would argue they are about Sam and Dean being coded as rural or as belonging to a peripheral space than solely about them being poor. Despite how many rural places may seem on the surface, sexual deviance is higher in those places than in more urban ones. This was demonstrated in the Kinsley study finding higher rates of homosexual activity in rural areas and in the (well known on tumblr at least) queer history of cowboys. This is because there is less enforcement of social rules in peripheral spaces and individuals can find a greater degree of freedom. This also applies to more harmful deviant sexual practices. Isolation also means that physically abusive sexual relationships and sexually abusive familial relationships are more likely to go undiscovered. The way that rural communities become close knit and refuse to see any flaws within themselves means that it’s easier to hide these relationships within the community. These sort of abusive relationships are associated with the rural poor in part because those social conditions do foster these things and in part through reinforcement when we see them in media. So when other characters make comments about assuming incest, sexual abuse, or homosexuality this is innately tied to the coding of Sam and Dean as rural and poor. The sexual microagressions are classist microagressions.

[flutterflora]

Whenever I see people say things like "Pinkie Pie should've been a pegasus" or "Fluttershy fits earth pony more" I get a little frustrated because TO ME the mane six have always been a really good example of "societal expectations" VS "societal deviance" of the three pony species within equestria.

Earth ponies are almost always expected to be providers. Like the Apple family for example or the Cake family OR even the "flower trio". They provide necessities, often food or they often provide hard labour (note how "background" jobs like construction and taxi pulling are most often done by earth ponies too). Applejack is obviously a perfect example of this! She's the head of her family, she's extremely hard working, shes incredibly physically strong, she's known and relied on by most of Ponyvill. Applejack very much lives up to the expectations that pony society has of earth ponies.

Pinkie Pie on the other hand is not one bit concerned with hard work. Her whole thing is having fun and throwing parties. In a way she is also providing something very important and necessary, socialisation and relaxation, however these are generally not deemed as valuable as strenuous labour and food production. Pinkie Pie is always written off as "childish" or not taking things seriously enough. She isn't deemed as very reliable a lot of the time and has to work very hard to prove herself, more so than someone like Applejack.

Ponyvill was founded by earth pony farmers, and is densely populated by earth ponies. Earth ponies are expected to work hard and grow food and provide for everyone, their roles are incredibly necessary and their work is highly appreciated. However, without someone like Pinkie Pie who deviates from those expectations, Ponyvill would be a miserable place (as seen in the episode Magical Mystery Cure). She may not be a farmer or a construction worker but her divergence from earth pony "standards" is what keeps everything in balance.

The same can be said for Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy too. Rainbow Dash is an exceptional athlete, she flies like no other pony and she almost always has her wits about her. At the end of the day, Rainbow Dash is truly a performer at heart, she wants to be in the Wonderbolts and show off her skills to all of Equestria. Pegasi are expected to be fast, agile, eager, always cool, proud and quick witted just like the Wonderbolts, and just like Rainbow Dash. She is a peak performance pegasus.

Fluttershy is Rainbows exact opposite. She doesn't care for speed, adventure or displays of athleticism, she truly doesn't even care for flying. She is, in both a literal and metaphorical way, very "down to earth", however her role is still very important and her being a pegasus is still very integral to who she is. If it weren't for her experiences of being ostracised for being different she would never have the empathy and dedication to her animals the way she does (and on more practical note, being able to fly does aid her in her work a lot the time). Fluttershy slows down, she's quiet and she gentle which something that other pegasi (and earth ponies honestly) struggle with. It was alway right for Fluttershy to be a pegasus who could soar the skies, because if she never fell down to earth she would have never found her true calling. Without ponies like her, many important things, creatures and events would go unnoticed and unchecked.

Rarity and Twilight Sparkle is kind of a funny one because I think a lot of people may expect Twilight to be the prime example of unicorns, but that's not really true at all. Twilight, despite being our mane character, is actually the deviant one here.

This is illustrated for us almost immediately in the first episode, where she's invited to a party by three other unicorns but ditches it to go study instead. Magic is merely a tool for most unicorns, but for ponies like Twilight or Starlight, it is their whole existence, it's what they were quite literally born to do. Twilight does not value social status at all, she doesn't have time to and growing up so stuck in her studies I'm not even sure she aware that it's such a big deal to others, especially within Canterlot. It's also worth noting that to Twilight, Princess Celestia was always her teacher and Princess Cadence was her babysitter so their status as royals never really mattered to her and she's able to see them more are regular ponies for that reason also.

Most Unicorns are socialites, they value "social currency" and monetary gain more than they value magic. They don't care that the Princesses are very powerful magically, they care more about their political powers and their social status as royals. We see this clearly in the season 2 episode "Sweet and Elite" where Rarity gets swept up on the high society life of Canterlot, when she mentions being from Ponyvill to two random snobby unicorns they look down on her, yet once it's revealed that she's staying at the castle for her visit, things change, mostly notably: her status. Rarity is a prime example of a unicorn, she's stylish, she's ambitious, she's concerned with image, she's social, she has very fine tastes and she's a businesswoman.

As the series progresses we she both Twilight and Rarity gain some fame. Twilight is mostly inconvenienced and troubled by this whereas Rarity, like most unicorns would, relishes in any sort of limelight. Unicorns are expected to be professional, they're most often more modern or "ahead of the curve" than other ponies and tend they to be the primary business owners of Equestria. However without ponies like Twilight, magic would become just an afterthought. Without powerful wizards like Starswirl, dedicated students like Subburt or magic obsessed freaks (affectionate) like Twilight Sparkle, pony society would crumble.

Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity are prime examples of what is expected of earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns, respectively, in Equestrian society. However without ponies like Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle there would be no balance and no progression. In fact in the episode "Hearts Warming Eve" we literally get canon lore telling us that if it wasn't for three ponies who deviated from the rules and expectations of their respective tribes, that Equestria wouldn't even exist today.

I think the mane six are a great small scale example of how pony society functions and I really appreciate this aspect of the writing <3

[trans-axolotl2]

Fuck the DSM. Seriously, fuck the DSM.

The DSM is and always has been used primarily as a method of rationalizing mistreatment of the people it labels as "deviant." When you look at the history of psychiatry, it becomes clear that things like drapetomania, protest psychosis, hysteria, and homosexuality as a disorder were not just thrown into there randomly. Rather, it showcases the power of the DSM: labeling and categorizing ways of being as mental illness opens up new paths of incarceration, social control, and curative violence. I need people to understand that the modern DSM still works like this: these classifications of madness/mental distress/neurodivergence into psychiatric labels encourage society to treat madness/mental distress/neurodivergence with the apparatuses used to eradicate "deviance." Diagnosis is not neutral.

As mad/mentally ill/neurodivergent people, we deserve access to more explanatory models of madness/mental illness/ neurodivergence than what the psychiatric language of normalcy and disorder offers us. Whether this looks like rejecting diagnosis, embracing varying cultural understandings of mental experience, or any million different ways of interpreting our bodymind, we deserve the option to move beyond clinical language that tries to convince us not to trust ourselves. We deserve to view ourselves wholly, leaving room for all our experiences of madness/mental illness/neurodivergence--the meaningful, the terrifying, the joyful, the exhausting. We deserve to have our own relationship with our madness, instead of being pushed to view ourselves as an inherent "danger to self or others" simply by existing as crazy.

Here's another truth: I hate the DSM, and I still call myself bipolar, a diagnosis that came to me through psych incarceration. While I wholeheartedly reject the DSM and the system intertwined with it, I simultaneously acknowledge and believe that many of the collections of symptoms that the DSM describes are very, very real ways of living in the world, and that the distress that they can cause are very very real. When I say fuck the DSM, I don't mean "Mental distress, disability, and neurodivergence aren't real." Rather, I mean that the DSM can never hold my experience of what it is like to be bipolar, the meaning I derive from experiencing life with cyclical moods. The DSM can't hold within its pages what it's like to see my mood cycle not as a tragedy or disaster, but instead as an opportunity, a gift, to grow and shift and go back to the same place over and over again, dying in winter and blooming again in spring. The DSM can't hold the fact that even though I experience very, very real distress due to those mood cycles--they're still mine and I claim that as something that matters to me. I call myself bipolar as a shorthand to tell people that I experience many things both extreme high and low, but I do not mean the same thing when I say "bipolar" as a psychiatrist does.

When we build community as mad/mentally ill/neurodivergent people, I want us to have room to share, relate, and care for each other in ways that isn't calling to the authority of a fucked up system with strictly defined categories. I don't want us to take those same ways of thinking and rebrand it into advocacy that claims to fight stigma, but really just ends up reinforcing these same ideas about deviance, cure, control, and danger. I dream of the day when psychiatry doesn't loom as a threat in all of our lives, and I think part of that work requires us as mad/mentally ill/neurodivergent people to really grapple with and untangle the ways we label and make meaning of our minds.

ok to reblog, if you want to learn more about antipsychiatry/mad studies check out this reading list.