#even tagging for engagement... who am i

[playablekairi]

only this, only this is gonna be the death of me

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[qcomicsy]

Lately I've only been wishing to grab a comic about my favorite character and just have a genuinely good time reading it.

[mellotronmkll]

Wverytime I sit down at a computer to make music I get so scared

[kyliafanfiction]

I sometimes feel like characters who do truly monstrous things while also having been victims of some pretty insane shit themselves are sort of an exercise in empathy. Or at least, should be seen as such.

Like, in real life, if a person who has been horribly broken by their experiences and failed by society than proceeds to rape someone - it's hard to feel the justifiable sympathy/empathy for that person (without excusing their rape, never do that) because well, you can look at this actual human person they hurt, or worse, and it feels gross and disrespectful to the rape victim.

And this is understandable. (And applies to more than just rapists/rape victims of course, that's just the most visceral one and thus picked for that reason)

But a fictional rape victim is... fictional. You can't 'disrespect' their trauma, and while obviously rape/whatever else is real, and people may related to the rape victim and thus see your comments about the rapist also being a victim as somehow being about their experience...

Well, it's not.

Because the rapist here, didn't actually hurt a real person. Fictional characters are objects. They're objects that often grab us by the throat and refuse to leave our fucking heads, yes, but they're objects. They are tools used by writers to tell a story, and readers to tell a story.

And one of the things fictional characters are good for is allowing us to consider experiences we never had, and imagine ourselves in other circumstances and lives. (Also just fun and fascinating and interesting to watch their stories).

It's very easy to feel for the rape victim in fiction, and rightly so. That's Level 1 Empathy there. Granted, some people IRL fail that, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Advanced Empathy, hard Empathy is feeling for the rapist. Not for the rape, of course, even if they feel guilt about it, but if someone really was failed on multiple levels and was broken and damaged and went through the sort of psychological wringer that would leave most of us here on tumblr catatonic - they do deserve the same Empathy any human (any person) who went through all that.

Even after they also do the bad thing, critically they still deserve Empathy. And that is fucking hard. I very often have a hard time feeling bad for truly awful people who also deserve empathy and sympathy, real and even fictional (despite all this, yeah, I'm not perfect on this) for what they (separately) went through.

It also becomes even harder when what they went through is utterly bound up with what they did. How what they went through and experiences is in part responsible for what they did - because they still made a choice. The circumstances may have left them not in their right mind, may have left them feeling without choice, may have driven them to things they normally might not think of or do, but they still chose to do that bad thing. And that's not okay. They still hurt someone.

And yet - one cannot remove the action from the circumstances. So you can still feel empathy, and elucidate all the factors and circumstances as to what led up to their choices and why, and it doesn't change that they did the horrible thing. The rape, or the murders, or whatever.

But circling back - with a fictional character... they didn't hurt a real person. There's no one who is real that suffered. The things the character did IRL are bad because they hurt real people.

So you're not being disrespectful to the victim by feeling that empathy, or sympathy. By exploring the things that they were a victim for. Even by wanting to focus on those things - fictional characters should be compelling in all their aspects, if they're written well.

And yet, of course, if you do that empathy and do talk about what the bad person went through and all that context, people come at you. They call you evil, just as bad as the (again, fictional) character, or they say that you're treading dangerously close to the arguments people use to defend the real people who do these things in real life. Or you're disrespecting all the victims of these crimes IRL. Especially of course, if the person coming at you has a reason this comes close to home.

But again - fictional.

In an ideal world, we'd all feel sympathy and empathy when it's called for, regardless of what the person did. Even the worst most monstrous people deserve human treatment in prison. And if you don't have empathy, that's hard. Even if you do have empathy, that's hard.

So if you look at a fictional character (who doesn't hurt a real person by virtue of being fictional) that does horrible, vile things, but went through so much, and you still can't empathize or sympathize with them... I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, not even close, this is still fiction, and there's people I should empathize with in fiction that I don't, but...

It's still a failure of your ability to be empathetic. And we're all humans. We're all failing at that, among other things, all the time. But... it's good to be aware of that. at least?

At the very least, bear that in mind when other people are talking about that context, and that victimization. And please, for the love of god, don't fucking pretend that the victimization didn't happen, that this person who did do terrible things (in fiction) suddenly didn't also (in fiction) experience awful shit, as if doing a bad thing erases all the bad things done to you.

Again - it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but like... the horrible state of prisons in our society is a real, actual problem. The way we as a society dehumanize people who do bad things is a real actual problem for a lot of reasons (not least because it creates an incentive for authority that wants to dehumanize a person or a group to expand the definition of 'did bad things' to make their dehumanization now acceptable, among other things).

So yeah. Fictional character who suffers but than also makes others suffer - that's a useful exercise in Empathy. And doing that doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person, or actually defending the sorts of crimes, IRL or Fictional, that this character did. Contextualizing is not whitewashing, empathy is not erasing, and humanizing is not disrespecting the victim(s).

So yeah, they fictional character did bad things. But there's more to them than that. And you can say but and talk about what comes after but without disrespecting the fictional victim. Because the fictional victim... is just as fictional. Just as not real.

Is it possible for this to end up being taken too far? Yes. But that's a reason to be mindful of yourself when it comes to real people, not to never do it. And when it comes to fictional people - again, fictional. Nobody was actually, really hurt.

(I really do want to make clear, before people read the tags, that this applies to all crimes these sorts of characters do, rape was just picked as the one to use as the example.)

[deepseawave]

obsessed w the tags on ur last reblog

Omgg, thank you haha, it was a quality post so I just had to appreciate it in full force 😂❤️

Can‘t believe someone would actually enjoy my yapping :,D

[tmae3114]

NOTHING makes me feel as much like I might somehow be living in a different reality than everybody else than seeing the way some people talk about A Certain Specific Animated Webseries That I Like

"it has so many female characters and yet hates women" "it's terribly written" "it's a shambling corpse of what it once was" "how does it keep getting made" "nothing in it makes sense!" "it's completely shallow and exists only to service shipping"

I have NO EARTHLY CLUE how they are getting these things out of the incredibly well made science-fantasy epic I've been watching for the past decade

[metanarrates]

@ anon: there is a real difference between "particular take I dislike makes me think more broadly about the treatment of motherhood in fandom and how it frequently ends up following misogynistic patterns, and so I make some posts about the fan culture around motherhood" and "going on a rant about how the op of that take is specifically a huge misogynist who I hate"

[hood-ex]

bro. i’ve been following u for like 2-3 years and for some reason i just can’t believe you’ve been in this fandom for so long and how active u r lmao, so just wanted to say thank u for feeding me with dick grayson content all these years 💗💗💗

[trans-leek-cookie]

Thinking about geto because I want to pour milk on him and throw him against the wall. Imo his beliefs are inconsistent and self serving (which makes sense because he developed said beliefs at age 16/17 while his mental health was at an all time low). Because while he seems to have the primary motive of "only sorcerers = no curses" taking into account how he treats Maki, who has no cursed energy, it shows that the "no curses" thing isnt the main focus- bc while he decided on tbe "forced evolution" thing, theoretically he should not be Opposed to ppl w heavenly restriction bc. They still fuckin. Don't contribute to curses from what I can tell. Also heavenly restriction is pretty obviously something that is punished by uh. Is it just the Zenin's who have it. Anyway they hated Maki and they Hated Toji so he clearly isn't standing for "oppressed sorcerers" bc if so Maki should be like. The kind of person he wants to help more, as someone who would be oppressed by ppl who aren't sorcerers as well as the powerful clans.

Anyway. While getting rid of curses is for sure part of his motivation, as well as helping sorcerers (see Nanako and Mimiko) id honestly argue that his main problem that lead to him spiraling was. How do I put this. Being knocked off a pedestal

Because he was one of 3 people given the ranking of "Special Grade", and he and satoru are grouped as "the strongest". And consider that satoru comes from a powerful clan and literally has some weird omniscience and invincibility shit going on so that's a whole fucking. That's gotta be a wild ego boost, especially for someone who comes from a family of ppl who aren't sorcerers. Like you spend all this time being a fuckin weirdo and then someone finds you and it turns out you're actually incredibly special and strong, given the same rank as a fucking God Child? You're gonna have some wild self perceptions after that

Anyway then you get to watch your invincible friend get stabbed, watch the girl you became friends with and feel shitty about kinda ruining the life of get shot, and get your whole shit rocked by some guy who can't even use the magic power bullshit you have. (Though he's got a whole physical thing going on because of the trade off)

Also writing all of this out actually makes me understand the Cult Leader progression more, like besides the fact they killed ur friend and you want em dead. You're probably struggling with your ego (especially since your weird God like friend got a whole power boost from the situation) so you create a fucking eugenicist cult where you can consistently prove your superiority to yourself (surrounding yourself with people who will agree with everything you say).

Anyway in a similar vein I wholely believe in "a loving father is not inherently a good father" Suguru + Nanako & Mimiko dynamic

Final thought is roughly I feel like looking at Suguru thru the lense of "this character had a level of privilege that they felt they truly deserved, and after experiencing events that are genuinely traumatic and horrific for any person, they develop reactionary beliefs to try and regain a sense of superiority and control" rather than "oppressed minority who killed oppressors and wants to do eugenics"

[94erz]

so hobi was the only member nominated for the FAN VOTED award on mama not to win the award (mind you, there were 10 winners). i simply have no words left for this fandom. armys were too busy fighting about which maknae line member should get a daesang to care for getting the award for the only nominated member who is out of the military and who we KEEP failing Every. Single. Time. he's literally never won a fan voted award. i haven't cared too much about such things in quite a while but mama awards have always seemed important so this actually got to me. can't say i'm disappointed because i stopped expecting much from armys long ago but hobi has just got out and there were 10 winners so i thought it might be different this time but of course not. the fandom is FULL of ml solos i fear. and of course now they're celebrating and saying how they did so well. sorry for ranting, i know you don't really care about these things now either but aghhhggggfggg

All I can think about is how he didn't go to that fuck ass event (except for TXT's performance they were amazing), didn't speak about it, didn't post a single thing about it, nor will he since why should he? This year he wasn't (and I hope isn't at any future point) forced to go and collect anyone's awards and there was no benefit to him as an artist since he didn't perform, and instead did something HE loves to do and I'm so happy for that.

No fake platitudes to a fandom that fails him over and over again.

I really have stopped giving all fucks what the fandom does, I watched ONLY for TXT this year and prioritized MOA spaces and watched as they put on a good show. It was so positive and supportive and it reminded me of why I used to like being in ARMY spaces and now I know I'll never return to them 'cause they aren't as supportive and positive. They've made it all perfectly clear j-hope is not someone they care to support and they have made the fandom extremely toxic and unbearable for j-hope biased fans so why should we stay? Why should I return? They don't want us there and so fuck it and fuck them honestly.

[bunnyboy-juice]

honestly. being able to be honest with my loved ones about when i am Mentally Unwell but also Dont Want To Talk About It has done wonders for my mental health

[exmeowstic]

ive stayed up till 2 am and unlocked some secret hater energy 😊

[what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me]

more of an observation than anything but it’s kinda fascinating to me that most Kirby fans I see only talk like they have one set “interpretation” or verse that they settle into, and (typically) ONLY engage with things through that specific custom lense.

[batsplat]

By that time Marcos Hirsch, Jorge's physical trainer, had also become an important figure in the young racer's life and they built up a particularly strong professional and personal relationship. Together, Dani and Marcos formed Jorge's strongest pillars of support during the worst of the conflict, but there had been happier times in the gym for both Lorenzos with Marcos. In fact, one of Jorge's more amusing anecdotes comes from those days: 'My dad used to say that Rossi was a clown. He said he was a great rider but that he always had the best bike and that was why he won. So when Rossi moved to Yamaha he said, "Pah! He's not even going to finish in the top six. There are too many factory Hondas and the Yamaha is nowhere near as good." Marcos and I said that Rossi would win races. Not only that, but that he would finish in the top three in the championship. So we made a bet. My dad had just come back from Thailand and he'd bought this ridiculous Thai hat, with little balls dangling from it on strings. We said that if Valentino finished in the top three at the end of the season, he'd have to wear the hat for a whole week. Of course, Valentino won the title and my dad turned up at the gym wearing the hat. He looked so stupid that we felt sorry for him and after a couple of days we told him he could take it off.'

Riveras Tobia's Jorge Lorenzo: My Story So Far

[killjoygem]

I think the problem with doctor who fandom is people don't move on when they don't like it. In other shows people watch something, they don't like it, they complain for a while but eventually they find something they're more interested in and stop complaining, leaving everyone else who enjoyed it to just hang out on their own

But every new season/era in dw there's new stuff that people hate and nobody ever leaves and they never stop talking about it. I think the only way to have peace in this fandom is to cut off huge groups of people. It's impossible to like everything bc engaging with all parts of the fandom means standing in the middle of a constant battle