#i don't understand what this ask is implying

[ssentimentals]

Woozi + #21 (hurt) prompt plss? Tq!!

hi hun! thank you for requesting, hopefully you will like it! 💜

hurt prompt: 'are you ashamed of me?'

it can't be it. your mind refuses to even entertain this thought even though all signs are there, pointing directly on the conclusion that you reached. it's not a nice one, so you try to brush it off. everyone can be wrong and you hope that this here in the moment, when you are very, very wrong.

'they said you couldn't bring a plus one?' you ask, doing a good job of keeping tremor from your voice.

'hm?' jihoon is trying to decide between two belts, going for the black one in the end. 'no, no one said that.'

you bite your tongue. god, jihoon can't be that dumb, right? he can't not understand where you are going here, what you are implying. you're watching him carefully as he gets further dressed, cleaning up really well for the gala evening. jihoon ignores your stare and says nothing else, leaving you to press on the issue: 'so you just chose yourself not to invite me?'

jihoon pauses with his watch dangling on his wrist. because you're watching him so attentively, you notice the way his lips purse into a thin line for a moment, indicating his annoyance. 'i figured you'd be bored there,' is his reply, which does not nothing to settle rising panic in your chest. 'that's why i didn't ask.'

words are out of your mouth before you even think them through: 'are you ashamed of me?'

sound of jihoon's watch clicking, now sitting snugly on his wrist is very loud in an otherwise deadly silent room. you're hoping he'll turn around and at the same time you're scared to have him turn around, because then you'll be able to see his face fully and what if there you'll be able find the truth? that you are right? that this question hit the bull's eye? you're barely breathing and your head swims, when jihoon finally turns, his eyes cold and distant. 'don't be stupid,' he says but his tone lacks warmth for it to sound nice. 'i already explained why i didn't invite you.'

'but-'

'i have to go now.' jihoon cuts off, grabbing his jacket. 'don't wait up for me and go to bed, i'll be late.'

he doesn't even come close to kiss you goodbye. he doesn't even- god, he doesn't even wave. he simply turns around and walks out. with a shuddering breath you can't help but think that he's walking out not only of this house, but out of your life, too.

a/n: request your own here! <3 - nini

[theredch3rry]

Sigh *sits down while looking at her own ten month old notes* (srry im just a girl who spent too much time analyzing sl!shinyduo) the reason why gem is holding a grudge against pearl isnt because pearl killed her. in fact, gem never refers or implies that pearl killed her, but that she played a part on her death (wording is important here, because what she says is "she 2v1'd me!" nothing more, nothing else). which she did, both directly and indirectly: directly in the "yes she started the attack and swung two times at her, and before that hit her with bow shots" way and indirectly in the "pearl attacking gem send her dogs to target her, dogs that made considerate damage and restricted her movement"

gem doesnt care about who killed her; she doesnt hold anything against scar. she cares that pearl choose his side at the end, and this is were the "gem is actually emotion-driven" little thing that some people are realizing takes part: yes, gem killed pearl two times, the first one was a complete accident because the trap was meant for scar, and the second one is special for multiple reasons. despite them arguing in front of the secret keeper about it, gem doesnt try to hide that she feels guilty about killing pearl, and i believe this is the sign that makes pearl trust her enough to get on the camel.

the experience they had together with the camel made them closer in lengths it shouldnt have. by the end of session 8, pearl stopped caring about her death, she had fully forgiven gem. gem, on the other hand, probably felt closer to pearl than with her own alliance.

and in session 9 it's made clear the lengths that gem was willing to go for whatever-tf they had together. gem doesnt resent pearl for choosing the mounders, gem chose scott and impulse. gem, just like pearl did for her, avoided hitting or attacking pearl for as long as she could; pearl knew that, of course she knew that.

at the end it’s all about perspectives: gem thought that pearl would choose her because of their special bond, after the mounders were gone. ofc that doesn happen, and all gem heard as she was dying was pearl cheering for scar after pearl had swung against her (she doesn’t hear pearl asking in the middle of the battle for more time to think, or her request for a sword fight), after she had asked pearl directly "what are you doing?!" in regards of going against her and all pearl answered with was "i don't know". in her pov pearl betrays her because gem didnt attack until pearl did it, it’s a betrayal in her pov because she thought their bond was one that they could return after trying their best with their alliance. she never gets a better understanding of pearl in the finale because, well, pearl didnt provide her of answers. gem dies and she never knew of pearl's side, so now she harbors a grudge born from the actions and missing words.

(pearl isnt bad for doing what she did, just like how gem is in her rights for feeling hurt over what happened. they were just trying to do what they thought was right)

I love this

[sokkastyles]

Got into an argument with an Azula stan who said that Azula foregoing revenge against the Fire Warriors in "Azula in the Spirit Temple" for "betraying" her was Azula learning a lesson after Ty Lee's "betrayal."

And while I do think Azula did learn something from Ty Lee's defection, and that that did influence her decision not to seek revenge against the FW, I don't think she necessarily learned anything about morality or treating people better.

The main lesson Azula takes from Ty Lee's defection is that she can't control people through fear the way she had previously thought she could. Her relationship to the Fire Warriors is similar in that she does control them through fear, but she also uses other manipulation tactics to keep them in line. Specifically, she convinces them that they are better off working for her than they were before, and what better way to do that than to target women who were institutionalized, who she can easily convince that she is saving? That way, she has people whose obligation towards her she can leverage to ensure that she stay under her control.

But then she runs into the same problem she did with Ty Lee, not predicting that the FWs would be more loyal to each other than they are to her, especially when she puts one of them in danger and asks them to disregard one of their own for loyalty to her alone.

There's that tragic scene at the end where Azula is looking down on her former Fire Warriors, and realizes that they, just like Ty Lee and Mai, have with each other something that Azula utterly lacks, and that's companionship and genuine caring for one another. And on some level, I think Azula decides to forget her revenge because she envies that. But if Azula has learned a lesson about truly caring about others, it's only on a subconscious level, because her conclusion is that she can just find new followers. Presumably, ones that she can control better, instead of trying to fight against those she can't control.

So what has Azula really learned? Ty Lee and Mai's betrayal came as a shock because it was the first time someone had ever really stood up to Azula. And as Mai says, Azula failed to understand people in the way she thought she did. But now, Azula knows she can't control someone through fear when friendship and love exist as stronger forces. If anything, she lets the FWs go because she's learned more about when she can control someone, and what kinds of circumstances make someone easy to manipulate.

We don't know very much about how Mai and Ty Lee became friends with Azula, bit their backstories imply that both of them had an emotional void that Azula was able to fill. Ty Lee because of not feeling like an individual in her family, and Mai because of feeling repressed. But that changes when Ty Lee and Mai find something else to fill that need, Ty Lee's being the circus, and Mai's being Zuko. Azula had to take those things away to keep her friends loyal, but that loyalty would not last, because she no longer had that emotional hold on her friends.

So when Azula seeks out new followers in the Fire Warriors, she picks women who are especially vulnerable, whose families have cast them aside, who are desperate. She convinces them that they need her. When they finally realize that they don't, that's when Azula has realized she has lost her main advantage.

This is why a lot of manipulative people end up becoming worse in therapy. Understanding people better can teach a person to empathize, but it can also teach a manipulative person how to manipulate better. Where Azula goes from here is up in the air, but the choice, as it has always been, is hers, whether she chooses redemption or just finds someone else to fill that need for control.

[exeggcute]

I hope you don't mind me sending this ask, feel free to ignore it, but I am trying and failing to understand your point about (trans-)misandry.

In my understanding, "misogyny" is a name given to a collection of negative attitudes and prejudices towards women (and femininity). It plays a role in the structural oppression of women, but it is not synonymous with it. Accordingly, "misandry" just denotes a collection of negative attitudes and prejudices towards men. Misandry does not play a role in structural oppression, because men are not structurally oppressed as men, but claiming that negative attitudes and prejudices towards men do not exist just seems silly to me. Just because misandrists are not a huge societal force does not mean they don't exist.

I think it is quite useful for thinking clearly about the matter to keep the words for attitudes and prejudices separate from the words for power structures: Even if tomorrow, every man on earth stopped being misogynistic, women would still be structurally oppressed, because the laws and social structures and unequal distribution of resources would continue to exist. Likewise, if we ever do get rid of the structural oppression of women, some men will probably continue to be misogynistic.

"Transmisogyny" as I understand it also started out as a word for specific negative attitudes and prejudices towards trans women (and in the original conception also towards feminine boys and men and drag queens and transvestites afaik), so using "transmisandry" (or "transandrophobia", already a concession) to mean certain attitudes and prejudices seems uncontroversial to me. The attitudes and prejudices on display in "Irreversible Damage" do seem to me to be rather distinct from the attitudes and prejudices targeting trans women, so it is useful to have a word for them, no? I find it quite fascinating how typical misogynist attitudes are in a way split up on the issue of trans people: The infantilisation is reserved for trans men and the demonisation for trans women, while in traditional misogyny these two go hand in hand. Why are you against using the words "transmisogyny" and "transandrophobia" to talk about this phenomenon?

hey, I appreciate you reaching open a discussion about this. also apologies for the delay, today was a little busy lol. typing on my phone rn so bullet points:

I am obviously not the Keeper Of Language (as much as I would love to be), but in my opinion one reason "misandry" is not a useful word is because of the implied false symmetry to "misogyny". you correctly recognize that one is underpinned by structural opinion and the other is not... but many people do not, lol. and a personal/professional axe that I've been grinding for a while is about reducing ambiguity in the way we talk about stuff, like generally speaking, so I'm of the opinion that "this word means different things to different people and causes a lot of confusion" is a solid reason to avoid using it when possible.

similarly, I think the fact that misogyny is a structural oppression and a major societal force is what makes having a specific word for it so useful. there are a lot of types of non-structural prejudice that basically boil down to Sometimes People Are Sometimes Mean To You, but we don't have a particular word that means "the thing where people are mean to redheads" or "the thing where people are mean to theater kids." maybe that'll change, but as it currently stands I just don't think having a single word for these things is useful or necessary, hence why there isn't one.

to your hypothetical about "if structural misogyny 100% ceased to exist but sometimes individual men were still mean to individual women," maybe not everyone would agree with me on this, but I kinda think that "misogyny" would no longer be the right word for the situation. like if someone with an innie belly button was mean to a person with an outie belly button, we'd just call that "being an asshole," ya know.

also part of me is curious about the origin of the word "misandry" now and like, whether the first people to use it were the bona fide men's rights motherfuckers who think men are structurally oppressed. totally speculating though. further research required

(I was gonna say another thing about how a lot of negative prejudices and attitudes around men have roots in cissexism and to some extent misogyny, like the idea that men shouldn't do X because only women do X and if you're a man who does X that means you're basically a woman, which is bad, because women are bad. or just plain old biological essentialism. but I don't know if I'm articulating this well so take it with a grain of salt.)

re. "irreversible damage" and similar panic about "oh no our precious innocent daughters are turning into men," I would argue there's a couple reasons that "misandry" isn't the word for what's happening here. one is that these transphobic parents don't categorically hate men or think badly of men; they love and accept their cis sons. the other is that I'm reasonably confident that parents who are transphobic about their transmasc kids would not be ANY less hateful about "son" who came out as transfem. which is all to say, their problem isn't just about having a transmasc kid. their problem is about having a trans kid, period.

and that also ties into the "infantilizing vs demonization" thing, which a lot of people have pointed out basically comes down to... transmisogyny. there's an element of both cissexism and misogyny in the way transmasc people are cast as victims (because they're "really just girls," and girls are weak and easily influenced), AND an element of both cissexism and misogyny in the way transfem people are cast as predators! because what's happening here puts transfem people in a sort of limbo where they're not recognized as women, but not exactly recognized as men either: the accusation is that by virtue of their birth assignment, they can't truly be women (cissexism), but also that by eschewing maleness and seeking femininity they've become something "other," a failed man, who will always be marked by an unacceptable affinity for womanhood (misogyny).

the "predator" part of that is informed by a number of factors, including the way that people assume Being A Girl On Purpose must be a sex pervert thing because they think womanhood is inherently about sex and sexual availability (misogyny!), but I don't know if I can articulate it very well and I don't have any good quotes handy. if someone reading can explain it better or has a quote to throw in, please do!

[itsawhumpsideblog]

The Safehouse, pt. 20

CW: for institutionalized slavery, mentions of abuse, treatment of people as things, broken bones and treatment of same

Advice from the Box Boy Liberation Movement:

Especially at first, rescuees see the world exclusively through the lens of their training. You will need to develop the habit of being extremely careful in your wording choices. Words like "good" or "better" are often misunderstood, because rescuees are accustomed to having these terms applied only to their behavior. Saying things like, "feel better" implies, in their understanding, that there is a correct way to feel and they have failed to achieve this standard. Instead, focus on speaking literally and clearly, using wording like, "I hope you're feeling well" or "We are giving you this medicine so that your body can heal."

It wasn't rough right away- certainly no more difficult than anyone's recovery from such a surgery would be. Mikey napped on the couch, his left arm in its cast sticking straight up in the air, while Angie and Tim began dinner. It was an excuse for them to speak privately under cover of the noise.

"We can get him through a couple of days," Tim said, "But he's going to need stronger painkillers than we can get over the counter and I have no idea where those are going to come from."

"We'll ask our contacts when we call tonight. We owe them a check-in about the surgery." Angie tried to sound confident, but she knew as well as Tim did that even their Network contacts could not work magic.

"Yeah, maybe they'll have some ideas." Tim sighed and went back to chopping vegetables. When they were done, he brushed them into the pan with unnecessary force and pushed them anxiously around.

"It'll be okay," Angie said, patting Tim's shoulder. "One way or another- he'll get through this. And we'll help."

"Sure, but-" Another sigh. "Being here was supposed to mean he won't suffer anymore."

"I know. I don't like it, either. But we're going to do our best. Only thing we can do."

Tim nodded and they finished the cooking in silence, saving their energy so that they could put on cheerful faces for the rescuees.

Nathan seemed to notice that something was wrong. He raised an eyebrow at Angie when she handed him his plate, but she just shook her head.

Later, she mouthed and he nodded and tried to even out his expression.

"Hey, buddy," he said gently, reaching over to rub Mikey's shoulder. "You want to eat? Angie's got dinner for you- she'll help you, or I can if you want."

Mikey surfaced from the kind of deep, dreamless sleep that could have been either the last of the anesthesia wearing off or the beginning of the deep exhaustion that meant his body was trying to heal. He took a deep breath, pulling air down into his lungs, and tried to remember what had happened.

His hands looked funny. One of them was wrapped in something hard and blue- a cast. Mikey turned his head very slowly and traced it along his arm and up to his shoulder, where it seemed to stop. When he tried to wiggle his fingers, they didn't want to move. The other hand was wrapped up in bandages that looked like a mitten, except for his fingers peeping out the top. He held this arm up closer to his eyes, inspecting it. He tried to turn it, to look at the palm, but hot pain shot up his arm and he lowered it back to his abdomen, cradling the arm, and tried to rock back and forth to soothe his racing mind, if not the pain in his hand. Sometimes the rocking helped him calm down when he wanted to cry. Master didn't like it when he cried.

Had he been crying? Was that why he was being punished like this? Maybe he had done something Master had said not to and that was why his hands had to be hurt and bound up, so that he couldn't do it again. Maybe Master had to hurt his hands to teach him this lesson. He tried to remember what the lesson was, so he could be better next time and Master wouldn't have to hurt him.

Mikey's lip was trembling and Nathan reached out again, gently rubbing the good shoulder.

"Hey buddy," he said again, "You're okay. You're just waking up. It's fine."

Mikey knew that voice. That was the indoor pet, who was kind to him. He could trust that voice, and it was telling him that he was safe. He blinked his eyes and the room faded into view. There was Nathan, smiling at him in a worried sort of way. And Mistress, holding a plate with steam rising from it. He sighed in relief.

"That's better," Mistress was saying in a cheerful voice. Her voice was always like that. She was kind. She had put a belt on him in the car, but she had worn one, too, as if they weren't so different.

"Now, I know you might not be too hungry yet, but if you can, try to eat at least a little. Your body needs the energy so you can start to get well," Angie explained. Mikey nodded a little vaguely and opened his mouth, looking rather like a baby bird. Angie fed him and nodded reassuringly at Nathan, who sighed in relief and turned to his own meal.

Across the room, Tim had helped Francis sit up and prop himself against the side of the couch. He blinked sleepily and stared at his meal for a few moments before reaching slowly for the fork and beginning to eat, one small bite at a time. Francis didn't need help with the act of eating, but Tim stayed by him for encouragement. Francis made it halfway through the meal before he set his fork down wearily and closed his eyes, curling up into the couch.

Tim performed the usual cursory check of Francis' forehead and smoothed his hair.

"It's been a long day, hasn't it?" he said. Because it would have required him to express an opinion, Francis didn't answer. "All that worrying about Mikey was rough on you," Tim went on. "I think it'll be early to bed for everyone tonight. Me included."

Francis felt that some response was required and he nodded wordlessly.

"What time is it?" Tim asked.

"Almost 8," Angie replied. "But as early as we were up, I don't think I'll have any trouble sleeping." She caught Tim's eye and gestured to Nathan with a questioning look. Tim nodded.

"Why don't we go ahead and put these two to bed?" he suggested and Nathan could hear in his tone that Angie's "later" was probably imminent. "Then we'll come back and help you," Tim added. Nathan's palms started to sweat. He hoped Francis and Mikey didn't notice this change in routine that clearly signaled they were being left out of something.

But they seemed not to and perhaps that was not surprising. Francis seemed limp in Tim's arms as he was scooped off the couch and when Tim came back to help Angie get Mikey upstairs, Mikey was staring tiredly into the middle distance and swaying as they helped him walk.

Nathan could hear footsteps above his head and the murmuring of voices that were just slightly too far away to make out the words. The light in the front hallway dimmed as two sets of footsteps came down the stairs and turned off the light in the upstairs hallway, and finally Angie and Tim sat down on the couches.

"What a day," Angie said to nobody in particular. Nathan had noticed that they were a little different when Francis and Mikey weren't around. They were less careful in their speech and... he searched for a way to characterize their behavior. It was less determinedly cheerful, perhaps. Not less kind- the kindness seemed to be completely genuine- but there was less intention behind their smiles. They even complained sometimes, or bickered companionably. Tim had once told Nathan that they had never met before coming to the safehouse, but it was clear that the two of them had become fast and true friends.

"What's going on?" Nathan asked, looking from one of them to the other.

"Everything's going to be okay," Tim said, which wasn't an answer and also wasn't terribly comforting.

"But?" Nathan prompted him.

"The hospital didn't give Mikey enough pain medication," Angie said bluntly. "Not on purpose- they can't take more than a certain amount before they'll get caught. But the upshot is, he won't have enough."

"I'm going to try to get some more," Tim put in. "We have to call our contacts tonight and check in, so I can ask. But even if they can get it for us, it's not going to be right away."

"Shit."

"Yeah," Angie agreed. "It's gonna be shit."

"Poor Mike," Nathan said. He remembered how his leg had felt, before they had gotten him to the doctor, when he was en route for delivery and there had been a speed bump, or rumble strips. He winced just thinking about it and shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"There's not much to do," Tim went on. "Except figure out how to ration it and do everything we can to get him some more. I think... we should probably prioritize nighttime, so he can get some sleep. If we have to, we could go light on it in the mornings and just give him a ton of over-the-counter meds. Then the prescription stuff to get him settled down for at least one good meal and sleep."

"But first we're making that phone call," Angie said.

"Sure. Maybe they'll be able to help."

"Anything I can do?" Nathan asked.

"Not really." Tim shook his head. Angie added, "I just thought you should know. Since you guys are so close."

"Are you going to tell him?"

"We're going to try. I don't know if he'll understand," her voice faltered slightly. "Or if he'll be able to believe us. But he should know, I guess. He has the right to."

"Agreed." Tim didn't sound any happier about it.

"He'll probably think he's being punished," Nathan said gloomily. Tim and Angie just nodded and Nathan sighed. "Well, I'll try to help you explain it to him, if I can. Thanks for letting me know."

Next Time: A very difficult day for the whole house.

Master List

Notes: Shortish, but I've missed writing this.

Tag list: @pigeonwhumps, @cepheusgalaxy, @i-eat-worlds

@honeycollectswhump @taterswhump, @starfields08000

@whumpsday, @fruitypinapple00, @currentlyinthesprial

[themoodyestj]

Jensen is a white, rich, straight, man, living in a country that favors people like him over everything else, he controls the finances of his family, he has a squeaky clean reputation.

he's so strong that he can lift Jared over his head with no trouble.

do you seriously think Danneel has a chance against him? if there's a inbalance of power in that relationship, Jensen is clearly not the one with a disadvantage.

so if there was a problem with their marriage, why should i asume that Jensen is the one being abused? when all evidence suggests that it's most likely to be the other way arround.

i mean, he is the one who gets to go out there to shine and expand his career while she stays behind taking care of the kids, with seamingly no life of her own. for all we know, he could be shamelessly sleeping around and D just having to shut up and endure for the sake of their children.

Why do I have the feeling that an anon that writes awfully like you sporadically comes into my or my mutuals inbox asking the exact same question?

And if that's the case, what's the issue? Are words hard to understand?

But in case it's not, let me provide the answer, prefacing that whatever I write here is pure speculation based on my personal and professional experience.

No he doesn't. Unfortunately for him, Jensen has the reputation his fans let him have. And opinions on him will differ depending on which part of the fandom you are addressing. If his wife wanted to start a rumor, all she would have to do would be to cry wolf. Unfortunately, there are many people that still think like you and fabricating something to tarnish his image, especially coming from the wife, would be super easy. The justice warriors of this world would have a ball defending the poor defenseless damsel from, like you put it, the mean white rich straight man.

Strength, power, money mean nothing in an abusive relationship. Violence is rather a consequence than a form of control (although it can become control later on). I've seen cases in where the abused makes more money than the abuser. I've seen cases in where the abused had more power, did more around the house and the abuser was, in reality, completely dependent on them. Abuse is not black and white, it's an ocean of gray with many specs of many colors.

What is the real key here is how easy the abused is to manipulate. Take someone, for example, who is already somewhat fragile from abused suffered in the past from a parent. Add a few mishaps that make them feel less worthy, uncapable of seeing their real value. And then put them with a narcissist. That person can have all the power in the world, but the narcissist will make them believe they can lose it all in a blink of an eye, and only with the narcissist they can keep it.

It's not about having power. It's about whom the victim believes has the power.

If he held the power in this case, he would be home a lot more frequently to exert said power. If there is something abusers like is to see the fruits of their manipulation. He wouldn't say his wife "runs a tight ship", he would praise himself. He wouldn't call her a strong woman, he would imply he is the strong man. Abusers don't give away power. They take it. They like to be the good strong heroes for their audience.

On the other hand you have a paraphernalia of instances in which she implies he doesn't help at home, he's messy, he didn't cry when his kid was born, she was the one helping him with his acting, etc. All things she says to make herself look good. I'm yet to see a true compliment towards her husband. Most often that not, she is putting him down," playfully". And she would do a lot more if she thought it would stick/not ruin her meal ticket.

Furthermore, if she was the victim, she would not make jokes at the abuser's expense, for fear of retaliation. She wouldn't initiate contact, she wouldn't try to touch him or kiss him.

He's the one who gets to... Probably run.

She stays behind "taking care of the kids"... do you count ordering nannies around to take care of the kids? And she does have a line of her own. She did "charity", initiated a jewelry line, became the "power producer"... The thing is, she's incompetent. All she touches turns to shit. Her lack of a life is not due to her husband, she only has herself to blame. Besides, she's not alone. She made sure to surround herself with people she trusted while simultaneously trying to drive him away from the people he trusted.

And maybe she isn't the one having to shut up for the sake of the kids. There are two parents in this equation, did you forget? She could be staying for the kids, but so could he.

Anyway, there's a lot more but my time and patience are limited.

[liquidorcard]

Lily Orchard is very politically opportunistic and her posts on Palestine show how blatant this is. She presents herself as militantly anti-fascist and anti-hate, she claims to hate centrists who try to give fascists a space to speak (instead implying she'd be willing to use violence to stop them). But like, as soon as it comes to electoral topics, she aggressively, AGGRESSIGELY insists that the liberal centrist parties are the only viable option. Like, the guys she pretends to hate. To the point where she's victim blaming activists for Democrats losing the election and telling people not to listen to activists when they call for a boycott against the liberal centrists who are upholding the right for fascists to speak and politically act. She pretends to be a leftist, but it's blatantly performative, the reality is that she is centre right and she seems to hate herself for it. Kind of sad, honestly.

I've said something before here that Lily and I grew up in similar environments? Well, I honestly think that has something to do with it.

I grew up in a very right-wing household in a very right-wing community that like, I knew I knew from a very young age I wasn't ever going to be accepted in. Assigned Reject at Birth. You know, it's one of the many ways religious and right-wing spaces just tare apart interpersonal connections important to the human psyche. That makes a wound in people. I won't go into detail, but my home life was bad to begin with. Being queer just made it that much worse.

Before moving away for college, I very much believed I was the most left-wing any human being on this earth could possibly be. I thought I was going to be met with open arms and the unconditional human acceptance I had always wanted, even though I wasn't fully cognitively aware of that.

I wasn't. And I feel people were even less forgiving of my lack of leftist literacy because I was a queer AFAB and concluded there was no excuse for me to be as ignorant as I was.

Now, I know the discussion of the social policing and virtue grandstanding gets flattened of any nuance online so the right can use it against the left, so I want to make sure I'm clear with what I'm about to say. No, the left should not be tolerant of bigotry. No, not every right-wing nut job can be deradicalized by hand-holding them through their own come to Jesus moment. Nor is anyone owed that emotional energy from you. But when you were raised right-wing, even if you grew to resent it, a person needs time to be deprogrammed. And, I know this might upset people to hear, but you won't understand how much of a privilege it is to be raised in a more liberal household unless you weren't. People who were can sometimes be, what I feel is unreasonably hostile to those of us who don't know any better because we haven't had the chance to learn.

It also just so happens I started college in 2015, right when gamergate went down. And it was an art school. Really, it was a uniquely not very ideal environment to rid myself of right-wing brain worms. And in a very real way, it retraumatized me getting rejected for not having the sociopolitical context to understand everything I was expected to. I'm not blaming anyone in particular for that-- that is more an unfortunate symptom of the anti-social rot the right causes, but it wasn't a good time. I think some people could have been kinder, and to this day I do my best to be charitable with meeting people where they're at myself. And I do think there is a problem in the left, especially online, failing to read between the lines and respond appropriately-- especially when it comes to vocabulary choice. You know, sometimes people use dogwhistles without the proper context to understand they are dogwhistling, sometimes people are just genuinely misinformed and lack the language to ask the questions they have, and vocabulary does shape perception. Right-wing ideology only can survive on the basis of rigid, strict, conceptually or literally divine hierarchy. Right-wing language is shaped on the premise of that hierarchy. The reason why a lot of social progress doesn't make sense to right-wingers and is almost impossible to communicate properly in right-wing language is because it disregards the premise of that hierarchy. Right-wingers don't literally live in a separate reality, but they kind of functionally do. Mentally. For people who are more on the right, but open minded enough to genuinely learn and want to, it's better to use as their language as much as possible to explain to them things that can ease them out of the premise of that mental trap of explicit social hierarchy in a gentler fashion.

With all that said, the root cause was still that right-wing upbringing.

I feel I have more than enough reason to very confidently say Lily went through a very similar experience to me. A shitty childhood for a lot of reasons, but one of them for sure being a queer person in an extremely right-wing household. She has a hypersensitivity to feeling shame and will go to extreme measures to avoid it, she feels isolated and desperate for acceptance in an extremely unhealthy way. In one regard she was knee-capped significantly in her ability to function socially that I wasn't, in that her parents decided she was a simpleton when she was very young, basically wrote her off and conditioned her to never take accountability. Though being overly critical of children is equally harmful (though in different ways), dismissing a child of all agency because you think they're too stupid to handle it can result in a lot more damage to everyone around them aswell as themselves and is a form of emotional neglect.

Online I think she searched out for a community that would accept her, and when that did not work out for her, when she experienced that retraumatization again of rejection . . . She took some very interesting lessons away from that. The wrong ones.

And, glass houses, it took me a whole journey aswell to get where I am. But I was conditioned to internalize social rejection, for better or worse. Lily was not. She is aggressively, profoundly, depressingly incapable of self-reflection, in healthy or in unhealthy amounts-- and even though that's not wholly her fault, she's a big girl now, and she's the only one left to accept responsibility for that. As someone myself who feels deeply angry at the ways I was psychologically damaged, I'm speaking as someone who has accepted that dwelling on how unfair it is that I have to be held accountable for that isn't going to improve my situation.

Believe it or not, I don't think Lily is inherently stupid. I think she was treated like she was stupid since she was young, and has put a lot of energy into pantomiming intellectualism instead of actually learning stuff. Again, glass houses, I also learned how to pretend I am smarter than I actually am out of an extreme aversion to shame-- but I can tell I have more actual knowledge, interest and curiosity to learn than Lily does.

I don't think Lily has any interest in learning about left-wing politics, and I don't think she has actually deprogrammed herself from the right-wing environment she was raised in. She has no motivation to care, and likely still is deeply bitter about the social rejection she's experienced in left-wing spaces. However, she has a lot of social capital to gain by PRETENDING she is.

And pretending is enough for the people she courts in her audience.

[osterby]

Here's another really bad one I saw recently

This is especially bad when the image being described is a screenshot of a comment. Someone who can see the image easily will just read the text in it the same way they read text in an actual comment. Someone who can't see the image at all or who struggles with reading the font or resolution in the screenshot itself (it me! This is why I turned on the xkit thing!) wants to just get "a comment from [user] (optionally, on [external platform]) saying [transcript]".

This example is so egregious it almost feels like it's mocking people who use alt text. There's an implied (likely unintentional, but still implied) air of malicious compliance in the extravagantly pointless detail going on in a formal citation for the source of the commenter's avatar.

If the avatar was relevant in context (eg if their comment was funny because of the avatar, or if the screenshot showed comments from multiple people with the same avatar), you'd just say they have a Jigglypuff avatar. Since it's utterly irrelevant in context, you *don't say it*.

But never mind that, here's an example of useful alt text.

This one is great! In two short sentences, it tells me what it's a picture of and it lists the elements that convey the emotional tone and meaning of the image, which is relevant because the purpose of the post is to convey that meaning through art. If I have images turned off in my browser, I can read this post and understand it in the same way and in about the same amount of time as when I have images on and alt text off.

And here's a link to that post, because good things deserve credit. I also realise the irony of having not included alt text for the image in my initial ask, but I'm not going to add it in the reblog because anyone who got through the text of the ask has already figured out that it's a screenshot of an unweildy and horrible description of the "I GUESS' meme, and if they don't know what that meme is, they're on knowyourmeme looking it up just like someone didn't recognise the meme from the image would be doing.

I turned on an xkit thing to always display alt text, and it's been an even split between meaningful descriptions and.... this.

This is a great example of how not to deploy a reaction gif for users who can't see the image.

Alt text for images, like closed captions for audio, should strive give everyone the same experience. A meme used as a reaction like this is quickly understood by the audience, that's the point of it. When you use one, you expect the audience to already be familiar with it and to understand it in under a second.

The fact that the guy is wearing a tie is irrelevant. The fact that this is the "I GUESS" meme that we all know and recognise is relevant. I'm hardly one to talk, since I use ten sentences where one will do, but don't bog down people's screenreaders like this.

--

[number-two-tournament]

tvtropes dot org has a dark mode fyi

Cool? A lot of websites do?

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[daisywords]

\

[phantom-chirp]

Hesitantly posts this and then runs away

The black line above some of the ships is to indicate that my personal (current) queer headcanons for one or both of the characters in the ship means the ship wouldn't work in a romantic sense, which is an aspect of things that does influence my opinions of ships a bit but that's a more personal potential discomfort thing with ships so I disregarded that while actually ranking them but that's still an aspect. I might've missed adding it to some of them because there's so many ships on this but you get it. I sorted the ships in the individual tiers based on game as well so the order in each tier doesn't mean anything

Any of the ships that are on this tier list maker that I didn't rank were either because they were with characters I didn't know, I just didn't feel like ranking it, or they were ships between the teen characters and adults which is ew

Some of the ships in the "I'm particularly fond of their dynamic as friends", "I can understand this", "Okay", and "Not fond of" tiers can go back and forth a little bit as well, it depends

[riot-control-camp]

OKAY NOT DONE TALKING ABOUT THE LITTLE GARDEN ARC

ESPECIALLY THE NARRATIVE PARALLELS BETWEEN ZORO AND SANJI AND DORRY AND BROGGY??? THE FACT THAT THOSE PARALLELS PARTICULARLY IMPLY THAT THEY HAVE A SPECIAL BOND THAT WILL LAST LITERALLY FOREVER???

THE VISUAL WHERE THE AUDIENCE REALIZES THAT THE MOUNTAIN RANGES WERE SKULLS?? PAIRED WITH THEM LYING IN THE SAME POSITION AS ZORO AND SANJI'S TWO DINOSAURS LEFT BEHIND ON THE BEACH?

average tumblr user notices single instance of symbolism, more at 11.

but usopp getting more moments of bravery!!! WE STAN HIS ARC!!!!! I LOVE HIM!!!

zoro getting to laugh and tease people this arc was beautiful, i love that stupid cunty bitch

sanji getting his part of the arc done through cunty trespassing, lying through his teeth, and beating up animals? FANTASTIC THANK YOU FOR MY LIFE (specifically thank you for that twisting move he did with his heels around the vultures head. how does it feel to live MY. D R E A M)

LUFFY WAS SO SHAPED. I WOULD KILL FOR HIM. HE'S SO FERAL.

and calling it now, nami is absolutely going to get malaria girl is the QUEEN of "it's nothing [2 episodes later it is in fact a resonant Something with excruciating plot relevance and emotional stakes attached to it"

almost simped for crocodile but miss all sunday was Right There MA'AM. MA'AM. RESPECTFULLY AND ASEXUALLY, TILL THE BED FUCKING BREAKS--

also he has a giant gold pet which i don't fuck with. also his rings remind me of redd white from ace attorney who is Unfuckable as he is a murderer of a mentor figure (other forms of murder have not detered me from simping in the past. in fact it is typically a point in a character's favor)

also oh my god tumblr makes so much more sense now that i am attempting to use it while high, my fluency rate and understanding of how every person on this platform is distressingly and hilariously comfortable assuming their experience is universal

okay but the still of the giant's weapon shards thrown over their head in victory? makes me insane, will never be over it cannot fucking handle it will be crying forever and ever

[hoshanti]

some old lady was so rude to me and i had to be "rude" back

[theghostofashton]

.

[bibiana112]

I remember on the radio Waters was asked about the male gaze-y stuff in the Handmaiden and she just completely avoided the question

Which I think is pretty telling about what that movie is like (also lowkey side eyeing her)

From what I understand the opinion she holds of it is neutral towards positive, she felt uncomfortable too but shrugged it off because younger queer people are allowed to enjoy that if they want, seemed to hold her tongue on specifics because she respects the guy regardless and vibed with it, but honestly I personally don't care regardless I just want to read about hairy women instead of watching something a guy made while thinking of queer liberation as just a risque trope with a fun crime flick twist to it but hey I'm just cynical