#i really need people to understand what basic human empathy is bcs we do not need any gloating or that kinda shit | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

five-thousand-loaves-of-bread · 5 months ago

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uh hi. got some few followers because that LSN post. some points of housekeeping:

this blog rare contained little space where actually safe when wider autism & disability community very hostile to people like me. n whenever people follow me because of posts not about severe disability / level 2&3 HrSN nonverbal autism, some new people don’t know what going on & sometimes do stuff that make this space feel unsafe. you’re more than welcome to stay as long as you follow housekeeping & have general respect

1. not written by me but read this

& do search in blog for intellectual disability too

2. use stuff like autism levels & nonverbal & impairment & deficit language & severe autism & severe disability & visible autism here to describe self & have friends who also use them. while not use for self, also have friend who been called low functioning & also call themself that. you not have to like all that for yourself but don’t police what we call self don’t tell me “um actually this is ableist… but of course you call yourself whatever!” uh. we know. basically if you uncomfortable to even see these language my blog not for you.

eventually will have actual post about this instead of respond to someone rude who blocked me after this n so blocked back… but for now this will do (probably used to have one but too tired find right now)

3. 99% time post about above topic. n blog center people with those experiences & decenter LSN level 1 mild whatever language use. reflect on your experience n who you are n your privileges n your advantages bc we all have some yea even me

4. because do experience stuff post about they not just words… no empathy, can’t mask, have very bad theory of mind, often don’t understand other people exist not to mention have different thoughts feelings knowledge experience than me. am bitter a lot, mad a lot, angry a lot. think in extremes, n immediate write what think, immediate post what write. can be angry aggressive without realize n even if do realize, can’t really do anything about it. basically have level 2/3 autism have big communication struggle have big cognitive struggle & act like it

5. don’t tell me you relate to what am saying unless am know you. keep have problem of people think they experience same thing am talking about but actually turn out very different whole other world n am wish can be like them. sorry to people am not familiar with who genuinely understand n relate but please understand need this

6. am just one random nonverbal person with level 2/3 autism & higher support needs & severe disability online. human. so make mistakes. n have bad takes like anyone. don’t treat me as write universal truth never wrong

7. oh something important. no “going nonverbal” “nonverbal episode” “sometimes nonverbal” etc

should update all this on pinned

tone sound annoyed pissed off because kind of am… but not because of this so not at any of you all not personal

#🍞.txt #long post

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aspd-culture · 3 months ago

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sometimes i feel like how i am just makes more sense. how do you think the world would be different if everyone "had aspd" (but in this world, it would just be being normal)?

Hmmmm.... Damn I'm really unmasked right now so this is probably the most honest answer I could give you (based on my opinion of course, none of this is fact and for all intents and purposes this answer is entertainment value only not educational bc who knows if I'll agree with myself once we find wherever that mask is hiding).

First and foremost, society is kind of gone in this case. Or reverted, I guess. That's a major point with ASPD is that we didn't develop the way everyone else did to be a part of society, desire to be around people, fear people disliking us (because in the wild that could mean dy*ng), etc. We still have the understanding of the need to congregate and therefore would likely still have settlements nearby, but I'm guessing everything would be a lot more spread out. I'm sure there are plenty of pwASPD who don't feel this way, but all the pwASPD I know personally hate the concept of neighbors that can perceive them while standing in their own yard or worse their own house. So firstly I think that houses would likely be further away, and that things like trailer parks and apartments would be significantly less common.

I also think that laws surrounding where you can build a house and the safety stuff involved like permits would be more lax - leaning towards a "if you didn't do it right, you'll be the one to have to deal with it" mentality, and in that I think more people would be housed but probably significantly less safely. I don't think this would extend to things like basic building stability and electricity and such, because that would cause issues for more than just the idiot who didn't do their research, but for things like lead paint, proper insulation, and such like that.

In general, probably a lot of things would lean that way - with more overall protections for people because we A.) don't like to hear people complain and will sooner do the right thing to shut them up than continue to allow their whining in a lot of cases and B.) we understand that the entire purpose of humans living near each other is to help and C.) in a world where ASPD was the norm we know that if I (general I) don't help you (general you) when you need it, there will be no empathy or anything making them feel bad if you don't help when *I* need it. Everyone takes what they need and gives what they need and I doubt people would bother to abuse the system because we are smart enough to know that gaming the system is actually screwing all of us over bc now when people need help that isn't there, they will have no qualms about coming to the house of the person who stole all the resources for themself and asking what that person intends to do to fix the problem they made.

See, a lot of the reason that pwASPD who manage to go on to be your high-profile wealthy CEOs do that is because it's easier for them than a prosocial. Stepping on people to get to the top, knowing that those people will likely barely see it as you doing something wrong. They feel for you and they understand you were taught greed and all that, so they're easy to manipulate. Give them a bonus check that doesn't even bother a percentage of your profits every year around the holidays and you're considered a great boss doing better than most. Let them call out every once in a while and only give them a little heat about it and they'll worship you because it's better than most of what's out there.

But other pwASPD see through that, so I don't think hyper-selfish people with ASPD would manage to thrive in this type of "society" the way they do with a majority prosocial one.

I think that we'd also help to establish better things for people with ASPD - more stuff like wreck rooms and such - that allow for the easing of those symptoms without breaking your sh*t or hurting anyone, while also getting rid of laws that are, well, stupid in our eyes and help decrease the annoyance that causes our symptoms to flare in the first place. You're stealing baby formula? Go at it. I don't care. If we notice because you're stealing a bunch of shit then you did a shit job of stealing and then there's probably consequences. Maybe. If the dude on shift feels like dealing with it.

I think only the big things would continue being illegal by any degree, and I think the system would probably be much more collective rather than things like managers, politicians, etc. We're not a fan of people telling us what to do more often than not, so I think all of us having a turn would be the way it would work. I think most everything would go to majority vote.

I honestly wonder if money would even survive in a world entirely set up by pwASPD or if we'd just make all the transactions by association like the old barter system. People say that the reason we can't go back to that in today's world is because we wouldn't be able to decide what services were worth what other services but that kind of removes the point of the barter system in the first place. It's not about the services having a "value" it's literally just about "I need this and you have it, you need that and I have it, let's trade". This is already how we view our relationships - not caring if the give and take is equal as long as we both are walking away cool with it - so it makes sense we'd extend that to a general rule.

In a weird way I just feel like we'd be less connected but more collaborative. No I don't want to have small talk but I do have bread I'm willing to give to someone who can get me antibiotics. And no one would take offense to that because *none* of us want to do the small talk.

Plenty of pwASPD do enjoy friendships and relationships and so I think in those cases, you'd see people who want that finding that and people who don't just not participating.

I don't think everything would change, because to a degree there is some ASPD influence in how things work atm, but it's a prosocial lens on it even for the things that have that influence.

There is also the solid possibility that it could just be anarchy tho :/ It depends because honestly all of this is coming from the place of "us all developing ASPD knowing what the world is like now and what isn't working" but if it wasn't like that who really knows what would happen. (apparently my use of emoji means that sentence has to be in bold on this font)

I refuse to re-read and edit this rn and I won't want to do it later so RIP if this is a mess of a post to read or contradicts itself, etc. But I promise I do care about this blog and the content on it/gen - the reason why I'm being selective about which asks I'm willing to do while in this state - I'm just impaired by the low mood stabilizer levels so I'm honestly worse than just unmasked rn. Like me normally without a mask and without any mood stabilizer at all is more composed and gives more of an f then I do rn but god guys Lamictal withdrawal will kick your *ss. Idk why I'm explaining this like I would to a group of prosocials tho XD I more often get questions on this blog about why I *don't* act like this.

Plain text below the cut:

But other pwASPD see through that, so I don't think hyper-selfish people with ASPD would manage to thrive in this type of "society" the way they do with a majority prosocial one.

Plenty of pwASPD do enjoy friendships and relationships and so I think in those cases, you'd see people who want that finding that and people who don't just not participating.

I don't think everything would change, because to a degree there is some ASPD influence in how things work atm, but it's a prosocial lens on it even for the things that have that influence.

#I vote we start tagging people who come in asking how I can be like I usually am if I actually have ASPD in the stuff I posted today/j #aspd-culture-is #aspd culture is #aspd culture #actually aspd #aspd #aspd awareness #actually antisocial #antisocial personality disorder #aspd traits #anons welcome #a rare unmasked aspd culture

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erithel · 2 years ago

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Klancers who hate canon lance are so weird and I don’t know why they’re even here. I feel like they just saw allurance, hated it, and projected all their hatred onto him. I saw a klancer say they hate him bc he’s canonly an unempathetic and self centered jerk. Unempathetic?? Lance who stuck up for the Blade of Mamora in canon, the one who everyone looked to give Keith the feelings talk, stuck by Pidge about her dad, and the only character to call out Lotor for not freeing the planets he colonized? That lacking empathy character? And self centered when he was willingly to give up Red and Blue to Allura and Keith? Ready to give up his desire to pilot black to encourage keith to take the role? That self centered selfish asshole?

Canon and fanon Lance gets treated badly by the very fandom who ships hims with keith sometimes and we need to talk about this.

Is...is that a thing? Why would someone like a ship that included a character they hated? I’m actually asking, here, because I’ve never come across someone who ships klance who dislikes either one of them. It’s always the opposite in my experience, where they really enjoy finding good and bad qualities in both characters to make them more relatable and human.

I know that people can ship whoever they want, for whatever reasons they want, but I just feel that if someone actively dislikes Lance then maaaaaybe they should find a ship that they actually enjoy?

But okay... if we wanna talk about how empathetic Lance is...he is.

The impression I got of him is that he is very aware and sensitive to how others are feeling around him (aka empathetic). Honestly the only character he is unwarrantedly, legitimately mean to is himself.

And okay, it’s been a while since I dug deep on a post, so here we go.

Lance was the youngest of his siblings (I believe that is actually canon in the paladin handbooks?). Being the youngest, he would have wanted to stand out, which is the most likely reason why he is loud and abrasive, and butts into conversations in an antagonistic way at times. This doesn’t make him self-centered, it just means he has learned that in order to be heard, he has to make himself heard.

The most relatable thing about Lance in my opinion, is how basically all of his behavior can be explained by how others have lead him to believe he is stupid. (This honestly hits on a very personal note for me so it’s something I noticed in Lance quickly.)

He notices everyone around him, and he wants to stand out from the bunch - but he believes he can’t do it with his own intelligence so he finds other ways to stand out. He makes sure others know he is there, even if it means he is the butt of the joke.

It’s easier for him to cope with feeling stupid if he is in control of the narrative.

This, again, doesn’t make him a self centered jerk, it just makes him desperate for a place among his peers, while battling the feeling that he doesn’t deserve that place.

Because emotions are complicated.

The instance where he stood up for the Blade of Marmora is possibly the best example of empathy and lack of self-centeredness.

Lance noticed the scene playing out. He noticed the disdainful looks the Galra were getting and he put himself in their shoes, because he knows what it feels like to be looked down on and he doesn’t want that for anyone else when they don’t deserve it. So the minute something even remotely negative was said toward the Blade, he jumped in and made sure everyone knew that he, a paladin of Voltron, was recognizing and acknowledging the Blade members for their assistance.

If he had been a self-centered person, he would have taken all the praise for himself and not thought twice about it. If he had been an unempathetic person, he wouldn’t have even noticed the way others were treating the Blade members.

In my opinion, Lance is the most selfless and empathetic character of all of them.

And one of my favorite tropes with klance is having Keith recognize this; having Keith understand how much Lance contributed to the team just by being himself and being there for others.

That’s the kind of potential that makes klance a good ship to me, and if people are ignoring those traits in Lance then what’s the point of shipping them?

#klance #lance mcclain #asks #VLD #erithel's hot takes

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a-purely-objective-frog · 11 months ago

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Everyone Sokka posting is is really starting to piss me off - y'all're so mad about hypothetical changes to a character when the show isn't even OUT YET. Acting like him not being daddy's little misogynist is a critical blow to the bones of the show when it's just. Not. Spoilers ahead

Sokka is a boy playing at warriorhood who becomes a leader and learns to trust his instincts and capabilities. Sokka is a non-bender in a group of the most terrifying bender motherfuckers on the planet who learns that his value lies in other places, but is not less than theirs. Sokka is a kid who lost his family to a war against an enemy presented as faceless and unambiguously evil, who learns that war is complicated on all sides, that no one side is perfect, who meets evil waterbenders and good firebenders and everyone in between and learns about the complexity of the human experience. Sokka is an abandoned child with responsibilities that weigh heavily on him, who learns that people really do come back, and he can lean on them, he can trust them to carry their own weight and to help him when he needs it. He is a southern water tribe member navigating his relationship with a world that forgets him, a brother navigating his complicated relationship with his sister, a boy navigating his journey to manhood. He is all of this way more than he is a misogynist.

Sokka's misogyny is so little of his character in my opinion, Suki beats it out of him early on and it's hard to maintain a "girls suck" attitude in a universe where the most terrifying motherfuckers you could ever make the mistake of crossing are girls younger than him (azula, toph, katara). I think it makes sense for him to be less misogynistic, in fact, I generally think the water tribe misogyny plots are tired and wouldn't be sad if they got cut.

Sokka's revelation that "I should respect women bc they can kick my ass" is so 2000s feminism for children. Very basic, reductive, good for children's media (which atla is, yay) but the new show is obviously aiming for people who enjoyed the show as children, and now we're older, we can understand complicated concepts like "you should respect women bc the are people, all of whom you should respect". And personally, I always hated the "misogynist makes a 180 after getting his ass handed to him" trope, I'm a physically very small girl, youngest of my family, with all brothers. To this day they could pick me up and throw me with ease. "Respect me or I'll kick your ass" doesn't work when the smallest of your brothers is twice your weight and 6" taller than you. I shouldn't have to beat you in a fight for you to treat me with basic human decency. Basic respect applies to everyone, regardless of martial arts skills.

Honestly, mild tangent here, the Pakku conclusion also bothers me. Katara loses and then he sees her necklace and... what? "I'm going to be nice to you bc I have a crush on your grandma" is uncomfortably adjacent to "I respect women only if I find them to be attractive and available". Are you serious? Anyways, back to Sokka, why does he need to be a misogynist? Is that really an essential character trait?

If you need an "in universe" explanation for why he wouldn't be, my man was raised in a village without men. I understand that women can be misogynistic and can pass those ideas on to their children (hi mom) but Sokka only noticing women are capable when one beats him up seems dumb even for him. They run his entire village. Women are in charge of everything bc all the men are away for basically his whole childhood. Either Sokka has literally never practiced warriorhood, or he has practiced with girls. Breaking news: local idiot notices the sky is blue

He doesn't have to be perfect or unproblematic. He can be inconsiderate and stubborn. His invasion plan fails, and he is manipulated by Azula. He parentifies his younger sister. He minimizes the importance of Katara and Aang' empathy as weakness. He blames himself for everything. He's an impatient complainer. He has plenty of other directions to grow.

My main worry is that the show is going to suck. They're gonna go full disney live action and make changes that they don't explore in any way just to have it be different so people watch it. I don't see the spark. I worry it's being made to capitalize on how beloved the show is and get those nostalgia dollars, not because they have anything interesting or important to say.

This has the potential to be a good change - in a well run show. I worry this is not gonna be a well run show. If you're one of the people mortally offended at the removal of your emotional support misogyny - consider why that specific aspect of that character is so important to you. I, too, have emotionally charged opinions about pieces of media that are important to me. I think it's good to self reflect on why. Is this about Sokka, or about change? Is this about the fear that something you love is going to be mistreated by corporations who don't love it, and that the things you love will be ruined by time?

Nostalgia is a helluva drug, and I think it's reasonable to be emotionally attached to your childhood media. I think disney has set a precedent of making really shitty remakes, which makes people understandably nervous for remakes. I love atla too. I worry about this show. I want it to be good. I fear it won't be. I understand seeing changes to the show as a threat to its integrity, if they change this, what else will they change?

Anyways, I'm always looking to broaden my horizons, if you have any in-depth opinions on this topic and are willing to discuss, hmu

#sokka #atla #avatar the last airbender #long post #frog thoughts #atla sokka

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fxirybun · 3 months ago

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are there really multiple physical versions of ourselves? not just dopplegangers but u could be different to how u currently are but this version of me seems the only version and it sucks cause i feel like people dont know how to reciprocate what i expect them too if im upset at them they dont like it if im happy they also dont like it if i remember something someone did guess what? they dont want to remember their past behaviours.

so i feel like sometimes this is the only version of reality there is because I havent seen anyone be any different and I have kinda been stuck in this reality because ppl dont want me to thrive cause no matter what I try nothings been a success for me thus far. so im wondering now if theres another reality where I mightve had more success or maybe different type of parenting where they couldve had more empathy lmao it seems a common theme in people lacking basic understandings of problems they cause for others that still affect others later on. i often am told to just "get over something" yh bc they have such a great social circle but i dont. sorry for ranting but im stuck and i dont feel comfortable reaching out to people in current times cause i feel like many folk are mainly fragile egoists who only want to benefit themselves. they dont care if they hurt someone or prevent an opportunity or make it about themselves. have u had such experiences?

that reminded me of the egg theory that i stumbled upon on tiktok. we can't expect someone to treat us fairly these days since most of the time they'll usually focus on themselves whilst they can and would do anything to take advantage of someone in order for them to gain something.

i came to a realization back in middle school that people will only treat you poorly if you degrade or underestimate yourself. i remember letting myself be secluded from my peers due to my low self-esteem and how it reflected it based on how i showed myself outside. this led others to assume that i'm shy or weak which was considered a "bad image" during that time. because of it , i ended up receiving poor treatment and just like you i feel frustrated since i didn't do anything wrong to them.

when i decided to change myself and did it the other way around that's when i'm receiving the treatment that i've wanted: to be respected. there would be an instance wherein i cannot keep up with the persona i made outside my small bubble since i'm an introvert at heart and i tend to be an awkward person. when i'm with someone alone it would be dead silence unless there's another person around who knows how to start a topic. it bothered me at first but i got used to it due to me embracing this side of myself.

did i regret doing it ? not at all since i know how to balance it + i get to recharge my social battery once i'm in my room. humans are known to be social creatures and cannot stand alone , i learned it the hard way. this is one of the reasons why i socialize with everyone because it's hard to be by yourself especially in times when you need help. moreover , you also get to meet other groups of people who are on the same vibration as you along the way ^_-

to conclude , there's still a way to change the version of yourself in this reality ! if i can do it , then so can you ⸜( ◜࿁◝ )⸝ there's a trial and error on my part but that didn't stop me from committing it because i don't want to live in this vicious cycle. i also learned back when i was 14-15 ish that i'm the only person who can help myself and that i cannot rely too much on someone in other situations. it is my problem that i need to face , not theirs since they're not obligated to it + they have their share of problems too that they need to take care of.

i ended up not giving a fuck as to what people may think of me because , at the end of the day , i'm the only one who knows myself better. thank you for sharing how you currently feel anon and hopefully my food for thought made you feel valid or provided you some kind of comfort or such ∩(´∀`∩)

#fxiry talks

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troph4eum · 1 year ago

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ik its been a while since I've posted anything. that's my fault I get distracted easily and forget things. recently I've been feeling insanely misunderstood. it's become a craving to have someone understand me. to hear what I say and know what it means without me having to explain it 12 different ways. I'm not good with words. I have a good vocabulary I'm just not good at picking them. maybe the words for what I feel don't exist yet. I wish we lived in a world where neurodivergency wasnt looked at as a disability but just a difference.

idk. everything in life seems cater to people who arent like me. idk if there is rlly anyone like me. I don't relate to anyone that much. no one's into the same things as I am. and if they are its never as much as I am. no one goes through the kind of problems I go through. not because I'm going through something unimaginably bad. it's just so unique and I've never even heard of anyone dealing with these issues the same way I am. maybe I'm just treating my limited knowledge of things people feel as absolute fact. there's probably someone on here rn feeling the same way I do and talking about it. we both just don't know it. and we'll probably never meet.

idk I just hate being the way I am. if I could be like everyone else I would do it. even though I love being different a lot of the time I realize the more unique you are the less people understand you. I relate to gojo bc of this. not bc I'm so far above ppl that I can't relate to them and they can't relate to me. it's not like that at all. it's just that need to be understood for who I am not for what people think about me.

it makes me reconsider the idea of trophaeum. if I reach this pinnacle that won't make other people understand me. my inner balance won't change that no one gets what I'm saying and I can't express my thoughts in words because the words I need don't exist. all I can do is get progressively more frustrated with the people around me until I do something destructive. I think my dog understands me. he empathizes with me more than people do. I love him he's my best friend. it just sucks because I know he's not going to be around forever. it's like being a parent who outlives their kid. its a sad thought. that the life you raised from such a small age doesn't get to succeed you and carry on into it's own.

I've been thinking about death a lot recently. the idea becomes more appealing over time. maybe I've already lost my mind. I thought I was losing it earlier but maybe I'm already gone. sometimes I feel like a husk. like a nobody. I always really enjoyed roxas' character even though I've never played 358/2 days of kh2. I watch plot synopsis' and playthroughs though. he's such a complex character in comparison to others like sora. his fight for individuality is really moving.

back to being understood and understanding others I think about the human instrumentality project a lot. I realized that I couldn't understand shinjis actions for a lot of evangelion because not only am I not in that situation but I'm also not him. my brain isn't the same. the way we process different events is completely different. and that's why it's basically impossible for people to understand eachother. unless you find someone who's just like you. which is highly unlikely. but that's what the project is for. the third impact. the merger of all humans into one collective consciousness seems like the only way for people to understand eachother. but at the same time I think things like bigotry and the lack of value placed in empathy is what's really causing this. maybe we can't understand eachother because we don't live in a world that promotes understanding. if you're not like everyone else you're seen as a failure. a waste. someone who's not even worth the air they breathe everyday much less all the resources they take up by existing. I guess all problems do source back to supremacy and capitalism. but what can I do about it. propaganda has shut down most talk of anti capitalism and whenever the idea gains popularity the people speaking about it get assassinated so there's no chance for any sort of success. maybe this world just wasn't meant for people like me. and that just makes the idea of death that much more enticing. but ig I can ride this life out for at least a little bit longer. just to see what happens.

#neurodivergent #vent post #tw vent #neon genesis evangelion #nge #evangelion #eva #kingdom hearts #philosophy #trophaeum #life #death #existential thoughts #:p

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dreaminginvelaris · 3 years ago

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A Response to a Feyre Anti

I made a post recently explaining the dread of having to watch Feyre be abused by her sisters and father, in the Tv adaption. And a Feyre anti made a response, to something that should not be criticized at all considering what I said was just the truth? Feyre was abused. Not only that but they went on and completely twisted the narrative to fit their own ideas and in the process made Feyre out to be cruel and Nesta a saint. complete bull.

I will not be tagging the anti bc they have me blocked (shocker), but also I do not want anyone to go after them, if you come across the post, I don't want it to be through me. it's as much respect I can give to them.

I usually do not respond to those who have something to say with a post of mine or are blatantly talking about me on their blog, unless they're just spreading absolute lies about me or what i "said", it's usually a waste of time to do so. but this post attacked Feyre with outrageous lies and a complete backward interpretation of what actually happened in acotar, so as respectful as I can be, I will be analyzing the anti-response and what truly happened in acotar.

"the audience will only see two sisters fighting-not abuse" "it’s not Nesta you need to worry about. It’s audiences calling Feyre a big dumbass and a bitch" -from anti

if the audience has basic human compassion and empathy for humans IRL or fictional, they will see what's obvious from the start. Feyres abuse. how is it going to look, when they see Feyre walking through the woods, shaking from the cold, starving from hunger, and struggling to find food for her family? only to later see Nesta's treatment of Feyre?"

in the anti's post, they said Feyre was just as "heinous" to Nesta.

is Feyre the one calling Nesta a pig? a smelly pig? ordering her to take her clothes off?

no, it's not, it's dear Nesta. the text goes as "I took my time, swallowing the words I wanted to bark at her" oh yes... how cruel of Feyre. how heinous of Feyre to...stay quiet... at the verbal abuse.

in the same image we see Feyre ask Nesta to do something (kindly might I add) and then inquire why she didn't chop wood like she needs to.

what does Nesta do? acts like a brat and insults Feyre...once again.

considering I'm going off by the story and not the actual screenplay, and assuming they stay true to the story; will the audience not be disgusted by Nesta's behavior? I mean they just saw Feyre struggle to find food and they expect Feyre to go home to a family happy and appreciative of Feyre but instead, they get this familial abuse.

the anti said Feyre basically tells Nesta this:

"If you keep bitching at everyone like this no one will want to be around you or you can’t marry this guy because you’re a waste of space to me"

but what do we see?

"Believe me... the day you want to marry someone worthy, I'll march up to his house and hand you over. But you're not going to marry Tomas."

the word worthy, did that not catch your eye? Feyre said Nesta will have to marry someone worthy, someone, who will treat Nesta kindly and give her the life Feyre thinks her sisters deserve. bc Feyre does think that IDK why anti feyres think Feyre despised Nesta so much, Feyre loved her sisters.

what the anti fails to realize here is that Nesta marrying Tomas would have been actually pretty great for Feyre. in the sense that, Feyre would no longer carry the burden of her sister. Feyre would not have to worry about feeding one more mouth. or worrying about Nesta's constant stealing of Feyre's money. Feyre does not think Nesta is a "waste of space" to her, if she did, it would have been easy for Feyre to discard Nesta, and allow her to marry Tomas. the anti has that twisted.

but that is not even the worst part of the scene. did you see the shameless slut-shaming that came out of Nesta's mouth? how will the audience take to that? do you think most of the younger generation will take it lightly to see a sister slut-shame a sister? a woman putting down another woman? in this social climate? where the feminism movement is alive and flourishing. will they be okay with it? will they still blame Feyre and be mad at her the way the anti says they will be? I hope not otherwise I'm losing faith in humanity.

Lovely words Nesta spews at Feyre. I admit Feyre should have told her then and there that Tomas is abusive. but let's think: Feyre is 19 years old, the youngest, has never had any raising by a parental figure, has been neglected by her whole family, where would Feyre learn to calmly talk to an overgrown brat like Nesta? Feyre telling Nesta who Tomas truly is the duty of a parent, not a sister. I will not condemn Feyre for not knowing that was the perfect time to tell Nesta who Tomas is. especially when Feyre is being tormented and verbally/emotionally abused, its kinda hard to think about something else while you're being told all these horrible words. to us its easy to see where Feyre went wrong but unless you're in the exact position Feyre was in. no one has any room to talk. and even then, every person is different in situations like these.

this part was me analyzing the interactions between Feyre and Nesta since anti had reasons to believe Feyre was just as bad to Nesta and that the audience would see that and hate Feyre. I am now going to respond to the second part of the Feyre Anti's response.

"How will an audience of non-fans react to her not reaching out to her family to tell them she was okay after the reconciliation between her and Nesta? Or not inviting them to the wedding?"- from anti

moving onto acomaf now.

Idk maybe the audience will see Feyre, a depressed, lonely, individual in an abusive relationship while being manipulated by other individuals she called friends, and understand and empathize with her. all throughout the beginning and half of acomaf, Feyre is in critical depression. she wholeheartedly believes she should not be alive. that she is not worthy. she doesn't eat, all she does is sleep, self-care is not important to her or others so why would letting a family know she's okay, a family who BARELY ever cared about her, be a priority? it doesn't seem like Nesta or elain or her father was really fazed by Feyre's lack of communication. her father left on a trip, elain got engaged and Nesta, well we didn't see a tearful welcoming to Feyre on Nesta's part did we?

anti, where is the outcry of her "family" not even really caring if Feyre was safe or not, of what happened to her? it's not like they thought she had died, otherwise, where was the mourning or funeral? no, they just didn't care.

see this is where I know when anti is just full of bullshit. why, WHY, would Feyre invite her family to wedding full of fae? the creatures elain and Nesta fear and hate? for all the talk many anti's spew about Feyre being inconsiderate to Nesta, to her family, you would think Feyre maybe just knows a fae wedding would be the last thing they would want? even then, does Feyre owe them an invitation to her wedding? does she owe them an update on her life? nope. Feyre owed them nothing.

"How about her shit-talking Nesta to a bunch of strangers then having the audacity to ask her to get involved in a war. Oh! This is after she comes into her house and insults their hospitality." - from anti

I hardly think Feyre confiding in individuals who she learned to care about and laying out all the trauma Feyre endured with her family is "shit-talking" but for argument's sake, let's say it is. I still don't see what's wrong? after years of pent-up anger and hurt, would you not let go of everything you withheld inside and explain what was done to you? how you felt? Feyre telling the IC her life story, which contains Nesta's abuse and her family's neglect, was a form of therapy for Feyre. I never read a line where Feyre calls Nesta a "cold-hearted bitch" or called elain "a lazy ditz" she just said the truth. no added embellishments. Cassian was the one who shit-talked Nesta during the dinner scene, never Feyre.

I still don't understand why antis are so against Feyre asking her sisters for help? like the war didn't involve them? they're humans, and you know what the war was about? Hybern wanting to take control of the human lands like they once did and turn them into slaves. those humans included Nesta and elain.

"They could have left the continent" correct, except elain was engaged and refused to leave Grayson. which meant Nesta refused to leave elain. but even so, isn't it the duty of humans to band together and work to overthrow a race of people who want to torture and keep them as slaves? the queens certainly weren't doing their jobs. Feyre asked to use "their" house to meet the queens bc where else would they do it? the queens trust the fae less than Nesta or elain did. but even so, Feyre asking to use their house was a courtesy, that house is rightfully Feyre's. she is the one who sacrificed herself to leave with Tamlin. she did it bravely, courageously, and they got that house thanks to her. they owed Feyre everything. and the only one who acknowledged that was Elain.

that war involved elain and Nesta whether they or Feyre or the anti's liked it or not. not even considering that Nesta and elain are Feyre Archerons sisters, yeah, their family name alone puts a target on their back.

How did Feyre or the court insult Elain's and Nesta's hospitality? You mean when Feyre realized human food differed from fae food? something she did not know about bc she's barely been turned to fae and only had eaten fae dishes? Feyre's grimace towards the human food was an involuntary reaction to someone who is still learning their new body. or was it when Cassian called out Nesta for her cold treatment towards Feyre? if that's the case then fuck decency, I would call out a fake bitch in my presence from minute one. you cant call what Nesta did "hospitality" when all she did was insult Feyre when she didn't even care that Feyre had died, or lost her love bc of abuse, or that her body was changed against her will.

hospitality: the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.

did y'all read something different bc this for sure was nothing Nesta gave to her guests?

----

the rest of the anti post moves towards Rhysand and his actions UTM which I won't go into because I'm mainly just addressing the false interpretations this anti had to say about Feyre and her family.

I'm not sure how to sign off now lol, but I guess just that I hope this was enough to show how this anti's arguments were completely ludicrous and have absolutely no compassion for Feyre, and instead all the compassion for Feyre's abusers. This anti had a real spin on what the actual story was, and I hope the evidence I provided was enough to show that. Anyways yeah my brain is fried, and I'm done arguing with Feyre anti's for a while now, I need to go praise my queen Feyre so I can receive some semblance of peace.

anyways, stan Feyre for clear skin xx

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no-droids · 4 years ago

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Ch 17 was so, so, so good (thank you!!) 🥺 i am still processing. ((Edit: this turned into an essay so i Am Very Sorry in advance, there is a tldr at the end though))

First of all. We get to see Din going through it the same way sweet girl was a couple chapters ago and I love it! She’s been so clear from the start that she doesn’t want to run away from him and now Din’s getting to the point where he doesn’t want to chase her anymore because he just wants her to be physically there with him again. The second night of comms while she’s camped out at the orphanage?? “I thought this was going to be alright, but I hate it.” ??????????? i am a Puddle of Emotions no one look at me 😭

And then the way he’s so unsure about whether she hasnt begun to reconsider wanting to keep up with his bounty-hunter life now that she’s finally gotten a break if being forced to outrun a mandalorian can be really even be called a break for the first time in a year?? And he can SEE all the places she’s stopped to talk to people on this planet (his comment about the number of times the blond guy turned around to talk to her in the line? 🥺.) Din knows she’s enjoying these small encounters with people, getting to interact with a new planet and learn new things as she’s making her way through each place, and since they’re only talking at night he gets to think about it literally all day long as he follows her trail and tries to figure out what her plan is. This is truly an exercise in Din thinking nonstop about sweet girl (which ofc he does already, but like, thinking critically about what she thinks/wants/does/needs and why) and I feel like that’s causing him to slowly start to second guess himself in terms of where he would put himself on sweet girl’s list of priorities. And I wonder how much of this he’s actually considering for the first time? because it’s always him who leaves and comes back when he gets jobs — this is the first time that sweet girl has left him instead of the other way around. Sweet girl has had tons of time to think about these things, whereas Din hasn’t really had to... because it’s not the one who leaves who feels the absence most, it’s the one who’s left behind (even if just temporarily).

I can just picture Din’s increasing doubts as the chase keeps going, whether he’s worth putting up with his lifestyle and whether sweet girl wouldn’t rather have a life like the people he sees in the footprints around hers? because he knows her, knows she likes soft beds and meeting people and fresh fruit and beautiful scenery, which are all things that living on the razor crest can’t always provide except for the last one bc Din Djarin IS beautiful scenery let’s be clear and just. the ANGST. I cannot. ( a n d meanwhile sweet girl is having a breakdown thinking he wants to STOP looking and LEAVE her? As if)

So when she shuts down his tentative doubts about it on the second night she’s at the orphanage and Din starts asking questions about favorite animals and flowers and things?? 🥺🥺🥺🥺 I lost it. Din is mirroring the love and care he receives from sweet girl (and learning to tap into those emotions as he does) and I am just in awe of both his character development from ch 1 to here and your ability to show that gradual shift in your writing.

Tl;dr thank you very much for this latest chapter! I will continue to be a soft emotional little puddle for the foreseeable future, or at least until I can figure out to scrape myself off the floor and function like a human being who has not just read rough day ch 17 and promptly dissolved as a direct result🌻

okay

okay first of all ma’am/sir/friend, please do not put tl;dr’s on a fucking MASTERFUL DISSECTION LIKE THAT like I genuinely hope people read every word of what you have written because you’re so spot on about everything that I was almost taken aback JEJFJJDJFJF

I would like to say, and I need to do this in list form because you have presented so many beautiful points that I’d like to address them one by one,

1.) Din Djarin is used to being alone. Full stop. Like even with sweet girl helping out with the baby and agreeing to stay on the ship while he goes and grabs quarry, he’s gone for weeks sometimes. He is used to being by himself, to fending for himself, protecting himself, patching himself up, EVERYTHING by himself. He is the most independent self-sufficient driven bounty hunter Karga has on the payroll and he’s reliable, which is why Karga would give him four pucks at a time. Giving anyone else four pucks would mean that if they happened to die during their hunts, then more than one puck would be lost and that’s money down the drain. Din doesn’t die, he always comes back with all four bodies and he’s fucking quick about it. Him telling sweet girl “I thought this was gonna be alright” is apt, because he’s been able to exist without her and do good work while he knows she’s safe on the Crest. In fact, the only time he EVER didn’t do good work is when a) she was attacked on the Crest on Corellia, or b) when he desperately wanted to get back to her as quick as possible and he pushed himself too hard and put himself in danger (aka frozen on Hoth scene). And actually c) when he stole Grogu back from the empire and had Karga and the guild on his ass about it. Those were the only times Din had trouble doing his job. The only times he stopped looking and gave up. “I thought this was going to be alright, but I hate it” means that YES ABSOLUTELY DIN DJARIN DOES NOT LIKE STAYING PUT WHILE SHE LEAVES, even though he’s okay with going out and doing his job when she stays. Even though he’s still hunting, it’s like the roles have been reversed. She’s understanding his side, and he’s understanding her side. It’s been 4 days and he hates it, so imagine weeks or months of that. Not being able to move or chase after her either, just hanging out on the crest with Grogu and waiting to see if she’ll be able to make it back. Which

2.) makes it hurt just a lil more in that wonderful delicious angsty way when he actually asks if she wants this life. On Naboo, he didn’t know where she went or where the kid was—he didn’t know if they were in danger, if she was safe. He said he’d rip the galaxy apart to find her if she ever disappeared like that again. But... she’d be safe on Sanctuary II. This is different, and just like you said, he’s had multiple days where all he did was try to think like her. Get in her head, predict her. Understand her more than he’s ever attempted to do before, in a NECESSARY capacity, like he would a bounty he’s hunting. Din Djarin is used to being alone. He’s used to being silent and that’s how connections are severed before they can even be established. His only practice at empathy was through his job, a job that he is very very good at, but it was never enough to get him to stop looking. He would never be able to empathize enough to ask if the bounty wanted him to stop looking for them. Even with the baby, he turned him in at first and then let the guilt eat him alive before going back to save him. So, if you couple that with his true connection to sweet girl, the natural empathy he has for her and the kid (him immediately following her after he accidentally snapped at her on the Crest and apologizing) and Din is now TRULY beginning to understand her on a level he’s never experienced with another person

3.) BUT!!! Even though he “needed to ask” (meaning he understood enough to know that asking the question was necessary) he started out the entire conversation by admitting he doesn’t think he could do it. Before ever telling her what specifically he doesn’t think he could do, he already knows this about himself and says it flat out. I don’t think I could. Even if you asked me to, even if you said you’d be happier if I did, even if you told me right now that it’s what you wanted, I don’t think I could ever stop looking. And a lot of the turmoil he experiences is because of that. I make you sleep on the floor. I teach you to fight when you just want to look at waterfalls. I do all these things that you’d never willingly do yourself, and I’m a bad person BECAUSE I still want you to always be here with me in spite of all that.

4.) Meanwhile sweet girl just has no fucking clue all this is happening and it seems to come out of nowhere, all she knows is that he’s been in the city when he should’ve caught up to her days ago. She’s out experiencing things and meeting new people and yet she always comes back to Din and the baby and how much they should be here with her. She tries to come up with clever ways to outthink him but she also offers to give her coordinates to him practically every single night. Her wanting to be with him so bad but trying to hold out (“ask me again tomorrow”) while Din is also wanting to be with her so bad and also trying to hold out (“find her again tomorrow”) 🥺

So yeah basically in conclusion I love them together and they’re so different but they make each other somehow both stronger and softer in so many ways and yeah u mighta heard of DD/LG u kinky fucks but lemme present to u DD/SG

#ask #anon #I am so sorry I rambled so long jshdjdjdjddh #rough day spoilers

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burningarchitecture · 3 years ago

Text

My interpretation of L's character

I've been meaning to write this for a very long time because of how extreme the takes in the fandom can get. Sometimes I see things like "L was a terrible person who only cared about power and establishing dominance in the detective world " and I go 'eh, not entirely'. Then I get out of my little curated part of the fandom bubble and see something like "L was right and he deserved much better than Light. He is justice" and suddenly I want to shove the first take into this person's face because even though I don't entirely agree with it, it makes way more sense.

Anyway, this is a result of me reading to many things I don't entirely agree with and wanting to solidify my own ideas for myself. It's basically a summary of the version of L that lives in my head.

So the first thing we need to discuss is motivation. We hear L himself say he solves cases for fun and not for justice. It is the only way he can keep his mind truly challenged. The detective expressed this as a child and Watari essentially helped him make the hobby his career. The way L was removed from humanity and his intellect never made him care about the justice involved. However the first interpretation I mentioned will go even further and say that he solved cases to maintain his dominance as 'The best detective'. I think that it was a factor but SECONDARY to the challenge element.( Not to be cliche but yes, cases are a GAME to him. And the thing most important about a game is THE PROCESS. L hates losing but he loves playing.) It's also important to mention that the reason he became such an influential entity (and not like, just some private investigator) is most likely Watari who provided him with funds, and encouraged him to do so since childhood. So yes, while I'm sure L enjoys having his best detective status(bc of the freedom and power he gets ), I don't think it was what he would originally strive for. If not for Watari, L would probably have been some well-respected eccentric british detective, not very known outside the UK (and maybe a few other European countries), and he would be more or less content.

Okay, now let's move on to how he views people.

First of all, to be a detective (you have to know which spoon to use ddhjfjajdh) you have to be good at profiling & understanding people. Cognitive empathy, if you will. We see that L's manipulation tactics FROM 2nd episode and onwards rely heavily on the biases of the person he is targeting. This seems to be key to how he goes about his job (which he chose himself) so I assume psychoanalysing is interesting to him.

I think L views people a bit like puzzles, but most are sadly very boring to solve.

He looks down on dumb / naive people (Matsuda for instance) because of their ignorance.

When it comes to individuals who aren't stupid in his mind , he doesn't personally dislike or judge them for their qualities that are different from L's. Usually only gets annoyed when they don't cooperate or are working against him. A good example of this is the rest of the taskforce, whom L somewhat respects.(Even if he is super rude to them at times)

As for his social skills, L's good at psychological manipulation so I don't think he's actually really akward and bad at them. There are several reasons he acts abnormally:

1) autism that he doesn't want or need to mask.

2) manipulating others to believe he is more clueless/harmless/trustworthy then he actually is.

(it can be either depending on the specific interaction we're looking at)

Morality

People have pointed it out that L doesn't seem to view criminals as human, and we see it demonstrated in canon. It's similar to Light but I believe it's for a (kind of)different reason.

While Light is genuinely disgusted by criminals and essentially inherited this belief from his father's strong sense of justice ™, L probably took this belief from the system itself. It essentially doesn't matter what he does to people he is trying to catch, because when they get caught they'll be imprisoned or executed anyway. He doesn't really care enough to change this narrative so he joins it. L is pretty apathetic to the concept of justice anyway and just accepts the world as unfair.(unlike Light who actually tried to change it even if his goal didn't really work)

I've seen people call L utilitarian but I would argue, he doesn't really apply morals to his actions that much. He could see Kira's killings as an actual problem but if it is a factor, it's not a big one for his character. After all, He just went along with the fucked up justice system we already have(esp in some specific countries), even if he might recognise it as problematic. I do think that he *slightly* cared about the deaths of FBI agents tho. (he shows a lot of distress in that one panel. Most of it is bc he lost the round but still. L didn't have any reason to dislike these people and they wouldn't have died if he hadn't asked them to go stalk kira suspects. The responsibility here is not on the system but on him, and the people are capable smart FBI agents )

Conformity

Due to how detached he is from society, L doesn't need to conform to most norms. He doesn't need a perfect facade like Light does. This allows L to be unapologetically himself. Because of his status as The greatest detective he also doesn't even need to follow certain laws(which is kinda fucked up) . This freedom allows his actions and appearance to reflect L's wishes overwhelmingly well. So while he often lies, the detective still expresses many more aspects of himself, then the average person. L is allowed to go further with his ruthlessness, when ordinary people can only think of it. That's why I don't think he's fundamentally evil and very different from other people psychologically, he just has the power and detachment to express his darker side.

Ego

L's pretty self-centered, arrogant and very confident with his abilities. He does not need approval of the masses or status to prove it. Because of this, he is first and foremost driven by his want to win, to solve the puzzle and establish dominance in his mind, rather then increasing his popularity or showing the world a pretty victory.

L might also be narcissistic but I don't know enough about the subject, and I'm not narcissistic myself so I don't think I have any authority to speak on this matter. (And I can't form a solid opinion yet bc of my lack of knowledge) If you want to talk about this/have any relevant information, my ask box is always open. I really need to research this topic more...

Opinion of the two kiras(yes I am making this an actual section):

Misa: L finds her motive and actions as the second kira pretty dumb and naive. He's also irritated because she is a more boring enemy to him(but at the same time more dangerous) then the first Kira who is more intelligent, has a more complex motive, and tries to maintain a reputation by not doing literally anything to achieve his goal. However later L is surprised to see how obsessive, weirdly strong willed& loyal to kira Misa is around the start of the Yotsuba arc. Then his opinion shifts from complete resentment to also finding her extreme personality vaguely intriguing and useful. Although he's still often annoyed with Misa's presence.

Light:

L's first impression was probably something like: " Kira's morals are pretty annoying, however the case seems interesting and challenging bc of the murder method and scale. Not a fan of the killer so far tho. "

Then he gradually learns about Kira's intelligence, arrogance and will to play mindgames/taunt his enemy. Things that make L more interested in who kira might be because the detective has found someone potentially similar to himself. He doesn't like Kira in any way at this point but he is curious about this person and enjoys their rivalry.

When he meets/first sees Light on surveillance, L decides he wants the student to be kira straight away. It's the most fun option to him. He is judgy of Light's social performance at the ceremony, but I don't think he openly hates Light for it. In fact, he stops having any strong personal hate for kira/Light after several days at To-Oh. They're still enemies but he doesn't despise or look down on Light anymore, sees him as a worthy opponent etc. L essentially acknowledges this in the First ever friend scene. They're both lying here but the subtext is them saying telling eachother interesting enemies.

In the Yotsuba arc, L is dissapointed and annoyed with Light. He's generally frustrated with the case because he should have caught the Kiras but there's somehow a new boring one. Everyone wants to dismiss L's deductions and move on and Light's a constant reminder of that. His change in personality makes everything even worse, because now L has to consider the option that Light was only controlled by kira, second guess his deductions etc.. Also there's now an offended police chief's son complaining about L's methods and talking about his innocence. L is bored and pissed. He tries to taunt Light because he has nothing to do anyway. Petty bitch.

When the taskforce finally get their breakthrough, he calms down a bit and works more comfortably alongside his suspect. At this point he still tries to trick Light into admitting he's kira, but he isn't so openly pissed at him and actually appreciates Light's intelligence as a partner sometimes. Maybe he tries recreate Light's thinking as kira, and understand if he lost his memories etc.

(This is a generalisation. I attempted to make it non-shippy. Might write a proper analysis of them later but it'll probably be more shippy and biased)

Final thoughts:

I know most of these things have been talked about in more detail by other people. However I wrote them to form a more solid picture in my own mind.

I would love to discuss some of the mentioned topics with other people in the fandom. You are free to disagree with me as long as you're polite, I try to be open to new ideas. L is a very interesting character to me, and he can be interpreted in so many ways it's scary.

My fave adaption version of him is probably the musical one. It's similar to the manga, but we get a lot more insight into his thought process/emotions because of the genre. He also isn't molded to be the "hero", like in a lot of other adaptions.

Anyway, this is my first attempt at writing meta. I spent way too much time on it, so I would love to see some feedback!!

#this post is a mess but I tried.#death note #dn #l lawliet #meta #death note musical #death note manga #death note meta #misa amane #light yagami #death note analysis #I'm afraid this will either get too much negative feedback or noone will see it #I hope I didn't make to many mistakes..

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hamliet · 3 years ago

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u are so weird for glorifying tsukikanae and shipping them thru glasses so rose-colored that u made them have babies despite them being cousins, esp when tg actively condemns incestuous infatuations by showing explicitly how inbreeding creates mentally damaged individuals and making those who have incestuous obsessions bring nth but tragedy on themselves bc of it (hairu, furuta, mutsuki (sasaki was a parent figure) and esp kanae herself LMAO??) .. not only is it proshipping but it's doing so when the story itself condemns it, make it make sense

EYE.

I'm sorry I've been laughing at your ask. I mean, I know I'm weird, but like, I'm not sending indignant messages to people I don't know.

(Actually that's not true, I'm currently haranguing my representatives in a desperate attempt to try to get people I care deeply about out of Kabul with a ticking clock. If you live in the US, or if any followers who do see this, please contact your reps with this here and that specific request.)

In response to your question(?):

These were written in 2017 and 2018. I can offer you many more problematique ships, you didn't have to dig so deep! Really Jonerys would have been more relevant to your point.

Side note: I have no idea what proshipping is--I've seen the term around but I'm guessing it's not "just liking the concept of shipping as fun," so I have no idea whether I am or not and frankly I'm too old to care.

Listen Anon if you are actually interested in learning, I've written answers to all this before, which you could find if you searched my blog like here or here or here. You'd be surprised, such as:

In my AUs they’re not cousins because clearly I’m more comfortable with them not being cousins,

I’m personally from a culture where my first reaction is ick, but there are cultures where that’s the norm, or at least isn’t strange,

I don’t have the right to pass judgment because there are some uncomfortable ethnocentric implications there.

I didn’t know Karren and Shuu were cousins when I first started shipping them

Once I found out I hesitated, but was ultimately like whatever, it’s fiction.

If you're interested in further contemplating, consider:

nuance,

history,

the fact that you--yes, you--are certainly the product of intermarriage if you go back enough generations,

science and statistics,

the kinda ableist hint to your words,

the concept of an alternate universe and historic literary symbolism such as those associated with alchemy,

critical thinking about what makes something morally wrong and what we mean by that (hint: power dynamics and harm),

and finally, ethnocentrism and the colonialist mindset of western liberals who think their values are 100% applicable throughout all time and space.

EDIT: I’m not posting their latest response, which was... lawd. But here is what I do want to say:

1) I talked to someone who showed me their final scene together *before* reading the manga (it was one of the draws for me to read it) and the basics (Karren being a servant who disguised herself as a guy, etc). So I went into the story shipping it.

2) I never mentioned or made any assumptions about your race or religion, only your broad nationality and politics.

3) Not everyone's experiences are the same as yours, and yours should not be prioritized over others. The world doesn't revolve around you. It's fine for you to have a trigger or a squick caused by personal life. It's not fine for you to demand everyone in the world cater to you.

4) You're clearly a teenager (I hope) or at least have a very immature perspective on yourself, the world, and experience.

5) You don't understand the nuanced relationship of reality and fiction--it is part of reality, but it is also not a 1=1 equivocation, and one's fictional preferences do not reflect one's own desires IRL. There have been numerous studies on this.

6) I'm not saying "cousin marriage is good and you must ship Tsukikana"; the opposite. I'm just saying to approach with empathy and humility, which you aren't.

7) I'm not going to say "die mad" because I hope(d) you were reasonable and actually would listen, but I see I was wrong. Still, I hope you mature throughout your life.

8) You know what's a trigger for me? Black-white thinking and a lack of an open mind, even one fenced in as a way of protection. I know purity culture because I was raised in a cult. I know you cannot see it now, but someday you might realize that it does not protect you to have fenced yourself in with wolves.

9) Purity culture in fandom may offer you direct meaning (even if you don't realize it as a conscious level) because it makes things simple and offers something you can presumably do as opposed to the numerous other issues in this world where we are borderline helpless to do anything at all in an increasingly out of control environment, pandemic, wars, political landscape, etc. It's all for naught.

10) You have meaning and worth as a human being just because you exist. You do not need to save the world to earn those rights; you do not need to police or control others (aka style yourself as a god) to be worthy of existence.

#that final bullet point is something that's been irritating me a lot lately #not even related to fandom #but to other far more important things #american liberals in particular want simple solutions to complex systemic issues that just do not exist #anyways #incest tw #tw #just in case #tsukikana #ask hamliet #i really am laughing

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thebibliosphere · 5 years ago

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Hi bibmum, I tried to start watching the witcher because its all ive been seeing on my dash lately but i could barely get through the first episode. The witcher character telling a rape victim that she's the bad guy for killing her rapists? The "if i have to choose between a greater and a lesser evil, i refuse to choose"? Just. So nasty. But you seem to really love it so im just wondering if it gets better bc the first episode sucks.

I’d need to watch it again cause I don’t remember that particular line with Renfri (not doubting you, I just don’t remember how bad it is), but I think one of the key things about understanding Geralt’s character dynamic is that you’re not actually supposed to like him as he is at the start.

He’s someone carrying a lot of trauma and with that a whole heaping side of depersonalization which can often come off as inexcusably cruel and callous from the outside, and we really don’t get into the whole “being a Witcher has something like a 99.999% fatality rate and that’s just how many die as children in training” thing for quite a while yet.

The whole “witchers have no emotions” thing isn’t just some throwaway line meant to make them seem “othered” from humans or the “strong flawed silent” type we often have for heroes in popular fantasy media. He’s legitimately been conditioned to have zero emotions by his training, and part of his survival instinct is to maintain that facade by ignoring his own emotions because the thing about trauma is once you open that box and start trying to unpack it all, it’s impossible to put it back. And in Geralt’s case, opening up to things and becoming attached and caring is going to get him killed. (Not to even mention all the people that will die if he’s not around to slay monsters.)

That doesn’t make any of the shitty things he says or does right, but as someone who deals with depersonalization as part of my own trauma, I thought the show actually handled his development quite well as the episodes progressed. You see him coming to terms with the fact that, shit, he can’t be impersonal anymore, he can’t stick to just his training because his training isn’t enough. His training got that girl killed. His training makes him the monster. And he knows that. And he’s determined to never let it happen again.

Thus begins his arc of growth, showing that Geralt is someone who does care, he does have profound compassion for those around him (if not always empathy) and he wants to help people so badly, but other than being a brute for hire, he��s not sure how to do that.*

And then because fate is nothing if not a laughing trickster, Geralt suddenly finds himself flung into things that demand more emotional energy and depth than a teaspoon and oh boy, does it never rain but it pours. Like the shiny, shiny bard who is basically ten people’s worth of emotions in one body and is determined, nay, decided to be friends and keeps following Geralt around like a lost puppy singing that fucking song. Or the witch who is seemingly hell-bent on her own destruction in the pursuit of what looks like power, but is actually just a desire to be in control of her own life after centuries of abuse, gaslighting and manipulation (and who, like Geralt, doesn’t know how to be “normal” and perpetuates the cycle of her own abuse because control and manipulation is all she’s ever known). Or the child who by the law of surprise is suddenly his. He is for all intents and purposes a father now, the one thing Witchers are never supposed to be, and just what the fuck is he supposed to do with a child?

So he does the whole “run away thing” for as long as possible, because Christ, that’s a lot of scary emotions right there. That’s more emotions in the span of about 10-20 years than he’s dealt with in the some near 100 years he’s been alive. But he can’t keep running, he knows that. Destiny is an active force in this universe, and it will come to find him. It will hold his feet over the fire and hold him accountable for his actions, and worse yet, it will go after the people he loves if he doesn’t.

So yeah. There are lots of things all the characters in the Witcher say and do that are Problematic. No one is an unproblematic fave, everyone is messy, ugly, broken and sometimes just outright cruel. Some parts of the show made me deeply uncomfortable (I’m thinking of the orgy scene with Yen in Episode 5 which is big yikes for a lot of us, though I have more thoughts on that than I have room for on this post) but there were other parts that made me realize that if the writing keeps up as it is, and we get to move beyond the “meet the characters” stage we’re currently in, this show has the potential to be phenomenal.

So to finally answer your question? Yes, it does get better as the episodes go on. But there will still be moments that raise the yikes meter, but those moments are, I believe, intentional. The show wants you to have strong reactions to things and to throw your hands up and go “come on man! do better!” because we know they do get better. We know from all the other source material we have, that what we are seeing in the show right now is just the messy beginnings of a very complex story.

And also just because the hero says or does something in the narrative, doesn’t mean the show is promoting the bad things as “right”. If anything it wants you to question it more because it’s the hero doing the thing, and heroes are supposed to be better than that. And we know they do, because deep down at its core, the Witcher is a story about a trained monster killer, who goes out of his way to help the monsters. Sometimes he can’t help them and death is the only option. But we’re all faced with things we’d rather not sometimes. Including the reality of our own actions, and Geralt is someone who is wading knee-deep in them.

(*As an aside: we see him at his best when he’s dealing with monsters and animals because they’re not complicated in the way humans are. He talks to his horses because he’s able to show Roach love and affection and care, and it just comes off as good horsemanship, and likely wouldn’t have been discouraged during his Witcher training. And he’s able to help monsters, because, well, he likely sees himself in them.)

#the witcher #long post #meta #mintedpotters

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autisticandroids · 4 years ago

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hey so you know how you said a while back that cas doesnt really have a moc/demon dean or soulless Sam equivalent but if he did he would act the same bc hes horny and loves dean?? I agree and he would just do it WAY more unabashedly. my question is, in the version of spn where the writers are smarter AND more homophobic, how would they justify cas's actions? bc they cant use the cloak of humanity bc cas doesnt give a FUCK about humanity. so what would they do

okay the thing is that cas doesn't have a demon dean/soulless sam style arc because it wouldn't... do anything? the thing about cas is that he doesn't have inhibitions in the traditional sense. like he doesn't... feel the eyes of god or society watching him.

i had a long conversation with @pietacastiel the other day about whether cas has the capacity for "should" - and he really just... doesn't. there are two things that stand in for "should" for cas - one, "if i do this, [insert other person (usually dean but not always)] will like me," and two, "[insert person who i trust and obey] has told me to do this, and i will obey their command blindly because i am a good boy."

like, basically, number one is an essentially machiavellian calculation. he's trying to be someone that other people want around, so he makes himself useful to them or enjoyable to be around or likeable or what have you. it's entirely self-serving and probably wouldn't change if you took away his inhibitions or his empathy or his conscience or whatever.

number two is like... it's too intellectual to count as inhibitions, exactly - it's explicit rules that he has set down for himself, without internalizing. to give an example, cas knows that he's not supposed to watch porn in a room full of dudes, and he's not supposed to talk about it, but he will never understand WHY those things are true. he will just obey those commands.

in terms of other ethical behavior that cas demonstrates... the thing about cas is that he's just a nice person? he's highly empathetic, he likes to make other people happy, he likes to be friends, he's a sweetheart. he genuinely wants the best for people. he particularly wants the best for his nearest and dearest. this is what's going on when he heals babies, or decides that he's not gonna kill kelly, or sacrifices his life for dean. he is fundamentally doing what he wants. he wants dean to be alive more than he wants to not be dead, you know?

this is actually one of the things that makes cas so dangerous: empathy is fickle. if the only thing that's standing between you and murdering somebody is you liking that somebody and wanting to be their friend, you might murder them once they piss you off. or once something comes up that makes them being dead more valuable to you than you being their friend. and this is why cas is kind of a terrible person! this is why he's constantly doing war crimes. he doesn't really have a system of ethics.

now, here's the thing: cas does carry around a lot of guilt, but it's deeply ineffectual. it doesn't really change his behavior towards other people. it only really does two things: first of all, it convinces him that other people hate him and don't want him around. this intensifies his desperate need to be liked, and therefore his trying to be liked, but isn't the root of it. second of all, it makes him punish himself, stuff like trying to stay in purgatory.

now, if we did a demon dean/soulless sam situation on cas... what would that look like?

well, he would certainly lose all that guilt he's carrying around, but how would that affect his behavior? the main two effects, i think, would be to make him more confident and therefore bolder in terms of trying to be liked, and make him stop punishing himself/deciding that he deserves bad things.

the confidence boost might lead to him, say, throwing himself at dean a bit more than he does, but i don't think the change would be radical. i think it would just be kicked up a notch. but it's an issue of rational judgement more than inhibitions so i think he would stay basically the same. now, cas' judgement isn't the best, and in the context of relationships at least, if nowhere else, his guilt complex does semi-effectively combat his natural tendency towards total overconfidence, so it might have some serious effect, but i still argue it's rather a matter of degrees.

and him not punishing himself so much might lead to him doing things like getting more mad when dean treats him poorly, but not that much more, because fundamentally the reason cas doesn't get mad when dean treats him badly isn't because he thinks he deserves it - he does think that, but mostly he's just scared that if he gets mad or sets boundaries dean won't like him anymore. again, it's a matter of judgement. he's probably less scared that dean won't like him anymore if he sets boundaries because the elimination of the guilt complex makes him less convinced that everyone hates him, but the anxiety is still there - it's just less intense.

in terms of cas' other sources of ethics and inhibitions - wanting to be liked, obedience, empathy - these would be affected differently if he was like soulless sam and if he was like demon dean.

if cas lost his inhibitions the way soulless sam did... he wouldn't change that much, at least in terms of his personal relationships. he would lose his capacity for empathy, which means that he would be more likely to be a dick to randos on the street, or commit war crimes, but it wouldn't really change how he conducts his relationships, because the inhibitions he holds in relationships are intellectual, they're a matter of judgement anyhow. honestly i think he might still, for example, happily die for dean, if we're arguing that soullessness comes from a lack of empathy or conscience rather than a lack of all emotion, because his desire for dean to be alive is entirely selfish. he likes the world more with dean in it and that's that. so i think soulless cas would be more likely to be a dick behind the scenes - maybe pull some godstiel arc ass shit again - but it wouldn't necessarily change his treatment of those closest to him that much.

now, a demon dean style loss of inhibitions would look different, because demon dean's basic emotions weren't dampened - he was made more selfish and hedonistic and rebellious, and didn't care about other people. interestingly, demon dean didn't seem to lose his capacity for empathy - remember in black when he punched that guy who was abusive to that girl? he didn't do that because it was the right thing to do - he did it because it felt good, because he empathized with her situation and it gave him a rush to get her out of it. so a demonized cas' empathy is intact. but his "shoulds" - those are all out of whack. he's actively rebelling against them. obviously he would simply no longer obey the ones that are like, "follow this rule and you will never know why." but he would also stop trying to be liked. i think demon cas might in fact tell dean that he's been in love with him for years - while screaming an itemized list of every fucked up thing dean has ever done to cas in his face, and telling him to never speak to him again. hell, we've seen cas throw a temper tantrum like this before - "you're not my family, dean, i have no family" in the man who knew to much. demon cas would be like that except without it then causing him to have an immediate mental breakdown.

i would argue, however, that cas has had his own loss of inhibitions comparable to demon dean and soulless sam - crazy cas. it even follows the alliteration pattern, heh. this is because cas' inhibitions are far more in his brain than his heart, and to get rid of them you need to impair his judgement, not fuck with his feelings. like, his shoulds are entirely intellectual. i want to be liked, therefore i should do this, which will effectively cause other people to like me. i want to be a good boy for god/dean, therefore i will obey this rule they gave me. if you fuck with cas' judgement, you fuck with those inhibitions. so arguably crazy cas is cas' equivalent to demon dean and soulless sam.

anyway, to answer your question, i feel like soulless cas wouldn't necessarily need a cover, like, he might, oh, i don't know, covertly arrange more opportunities to be alone with dean or stuff like that, but he's not going to try and sleep with him because he still has most of his inhibitions in tact. demon cas they might have to admit is in love with dean and then kill, because i think demon cas would probably kiss dean and then punch him and leave. you know. and crazy cas we saw in canon.

#spn #asks #anonymous

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atinycupofpositivitea · 3 years ago

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This is such a great page. Thank you for sharing so much of positivity here ✨

If you don't me asking, how do you separate all the what if thoughts and other thoughts/images they bring from reality?

Since I have health anxiety, I tend to get anxious over health conditions (both physical and mental) and just worry over having any of them now or in the past or in the future. My therapist says its just the illusion that's scaring me and that I don't have the actual condition. But my anxiety makes me question it. "What if its something more? Something else? What if its that xyz illness?"

Its like somewhere inside that I'm okay bcs I can do every activity without any problem except the overthinking problem. I know its nothing but I can't believe that I actually have nothing to worry about.

Its like the mind can't fathom the idea of being "okay" so it goes...."okay that was solved but then....what if xyz?" And "what if these thoughts are not just anxiety but some other problem?"

Sorry if this doesn't make sense :(

Hey Anon, thank you so much for your words. It makes me really happy that you enjoy the blog as much as I do! 💞

No need to apologise, it's totally normal that our mental struggles feel difficult to explain to other people, mostly because they are hard for us to understand in the first place.

Before I go ahead and answer your question, I just want to hightlight the fact that what I am going to say is 100% personal thoughts and I am not a qualified mental health professional. A trained therapist is going to give you much more insight that me, a humble blogger, will ever do. (I still will try my best to help you! 🧡)

I personally separate my intrusive thoughts (the "what if" anxious thoughts you mentioned) from all the other thoughts in my head by writing them down as a list of thoughts in quote form. After I write down five, ten or fifteen of them (I try to empty my mind completely, so that every single thought is laying on paper in front of me), I look at the anxious thoughts and try to:

1. rate their real chances of happening. 2. challenge them through reality checks.

The thoughts that arise from anxiety, that make me feel unsafe and in danger, have usually a chance of happening of 1-10%.

Example: "What if I go get groceries but I don't have any change on me and the cashier gets angry?" Well, the chances of that happening to me, or anybody else, are around 5%. It never happened to me before, and even if it happens it's going to be even more rare that the cashier actually gets angry at me. This is my mind trying to protect me but I'm not in a situation of danger and there is no reason to not feel safe. Everything is going to be fine and I need to help my mind accept it.

I feel that this personally works for me BUT it takes a lot of mental effort to separate what we rationally know from what our mind wants us to believe, because of our mental issues. It's like a fire alarm that goes off at random times, it can and will be confusing and scary if you don't know what to do about it. As soon as you can reality check the mental emergency, it will start to get better.

Just remember: most of the time this is an old way of your brain to protect you. You might have experienced real danger in the past (abuse, traumatic events, accidents) and your mind is really just trying to comply to your basic instincts, aka surviving. These thoughts are no longer helpful if you are not in a situation of real danger (this is true in my case).

I match this coping technique with relaxation (guided meditations, yoga, soothing activities) and repeat this as much as needed. It does get better and your mind will give you a break. The human body and mind are not designed to keep you in an anxious state for long periods of time, so don't lose hope and work through it.

You have my complete empathy, Anon. This is hard and your struggles are valid. If I may suggest, try to talk about effective strategies to cope with anxiety and negative thoughts with your therapist. I will be here if you need a place to write down your thoughts and get some supportive words.

Lots of love! 💗

#tea asks #tw anxiety #tw mental illness

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echodrops · 4 years ago

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I’m obviously late to the tumble party... but I stumbled across your Notagami Essays posts and they are absolutely Fabulous! Love your writing and the amount of detail you go into :)

So I figured you may be a good person to ask - if you just had to guess (bc as far as I know it’s never been officially confirmed?) but if you had to take a guess or give a rough estimate, how old do you think Yato was when he first met Sakura? We know he’s estimated to be at least a thousand years old, we know he’s - from the start of the series to present - estimated to be somewhere between 18 and his early 20s (physically)... but I can’t find a single thing/discussion/post/stickynote/whatever where it talks about how old he might have been when he first met Sakura - let alone the emotional/psychological effects of Sakura coming into his life and introducing healthy mindset/morals/maternal-influence etc. etc. (obviously no mom and Father’s neglect played a big role in him not knowing how inappropriate it was for him to ‘accidentally touch’ and yell “boobs!” but you can also just say he was so young he didn’t know how inappropriate that was?) My point is: how old do you think Yato was (physically anyway) at the time of their meeting? and Do you know of any discussions or care to share your opinion on how being the no more than the age of blank affected his mental/emotional understanding of Sakura teaching him a new narrative?

Sorry this is a random out of the blue ask 😅😓 if I rambled on and you don’t feel like answering, I get it, just figured it was worth asking :)

I fell down a serious rabbit hole trying to see if I could figure out the answer to this question about Yato’s age but unfortunately I’m mostly coming up empty-handed.

The answer to this question actually depends on two different pieces of information which--as far as I can remember--we’ve never actually been given for certain.

1) We would need to know when Yato was actually born.

The manga has kind of hinted at a total (not physical) age for Yato in the flashbacks which showed him as a young child during the Heian era (putting him somewhere in the vicinity of a little over 1000 years old) and Father not making masks before ~1100 years ago, but the problem is we still don’t know how many years might have passed between this scene (the youngest we’ve ever seen Yato):

And the next flashback scene, where Yato meets Nora:

If gods age normally when they are children, these two scenes might be only a handful of years apart. But if gods don’t age normally, then these two scenes could be decades or centuries apart, which leads to the other missing piece of information (under the read more to save people’s dashes):

2) We would need to know the aging process for gods who are just born/reincarnate.

Up to this point in the manga, we’ve only seen two gods reincarnate--Ebisu (who reincarnated too recently to really help answer this question) and Takemikazuchi. The implication of Takemikazuchi’s backstory is that his shinki forced him to reincarnate and then hid his reincarnation from all of Heaven. The only way they could have kept other gods from noticing that Takemikazuchi had reincarnated would have been by not allowing him to go out at all until he had grown enough to match his previous reincarnation in appearance. This seems to suggest that gods probably do age normally when they are children--hiding Takemikazuchi away for ~20 years seems a lot more likely than being able to hide him away for centuries, after all... (I also feel like I have very vague recollection of some scene in the manga where someone comments on Takemikazuchi not having been around for a “few years,” but it’s been so long since I reread I can’t recall if this is a real moment from the manga or just me misremembering.)

Overall, however, based on what we’ve seen in the manga, my guess would be that when they’re young, after just being born or being reincarnated, gods age pretty normally. This would suggest that, for the first few years at least, the physical and mental ages of reincarnated/newly born gods actually overlap; baby Ebisu acts like a little kid because he is, in fact, both mentally and physically a little kid.

That would mean that, for all intents and purposes, Yato’s physical and mental ages lined up when he was young and meeting Sakura, and he acted like a little kid because he really was just a little kid, god or not.

(Detour for a second though:

This line always struck me as interesting in that it might, just might, give us a more specific timeframe for Yato’s “birth”: although the constellations, of course, are visible in the sky every single year, this particular combination of concepts (kanoto-tori, yin metal rooster) is known much more commonly as one of the sixty years on the cyclical Chinese calendar, also used in Japan. Counting back on the calendar, 961 A.D. was a yin metal rooster year and would align just about right for what we know about the timeframe in which Yato later met Sakura (~970ish). Just referencing constellations doesn’t mean Adachitoka was pointing to a specific year, but it might have been another hint as to the timeframe of the flashbacks.

Okay, detour over.)

Anyway, without 100% confirmation on either of those pieces of information--when Yato was born and whether gods age at the same rate as humans after reincarnating--I don’t think it’s really possible to pin down Yato’s “real” age (physically or mentally) at the time he met Sakura. We mostly just have to estimate.

Personally, based on his size and behavior at the time, I’d put him somewhere between seven and maybe up to ten, but the way Adachitoka draws characters kind of makes it impossible to judge their ages by appearance; Yato is about the same size as Nora when he meets Sakura, implying that he and Nora were around the same physical “age” at that time; meanwhile, Nora is later portrayed as being roughly the same age as Yukine, suggesting she was maybe 12-13ish years old when she died. So, despite being drawn tiny, it’s possible Yato was meant to be anywhere from a little kiddo (6-7) to all the way up to Nora’s age by the time he met Sakura.

But all that said, I think what you were really asking about was more the mental state Yato would have been in when he met Sakura and how his young age would have impacted his ability to change his world views, right? The answer to that is... complicated and could be approached a lot of ways. Coming from a background of working with and educating social work students, there are several common psychological theories of child development that might apply here, for example.

I’d recommend checking out Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development, though.

(Pulled from here.)

I don’t have time to explain the entire theory with the complexity it might deserve, but the basic idea is that, as children develop, they experience a series of crises or challenges that they must overcome. Successfully overcoming each challenge results in successful psychological and social development; failing to overcome a challenge in childhood will result in long-term negative impacts later in the child’s life. (There are plenty critiques of this theory too, so don’t take this as gospel or anything--just a theory worth thinking about!)

Given Father’s lack of interest in teaching Yato basic concepts of humanity, I would put Yato at approximately the “Initiative vs. Guilt” stage when he met Sakura. At this level of Erikson’s theory, children struggle with asserting themselves and developing a healthy sense of how their personal desires might conflict with the expectations and rules set out by others. In this stage, giving a child positive feedback for their actions teaches the child that those actions are “right,” while giving negative feedback teaching the child that their actions are wrong. In order to overcome this particular challenge, children need to begin taking initiative and aligning their actions with social standards; the child acts, and the parental figure reacts--through this process, children learn “I can do X thing but I cannot do Y thing.”

When you hear things like “Children are cruel,” most often what people are referring to is that it takes time for children to learn empathy and to experience guilt when they cause harm to others; children do not natively understand the repercussions of their actions. It’s only through a process of testing the boundaries, of receiving praise or punishment, that children define what is “right” versus “wrong,” and begin to feel bad when they do something deemed wrong.

And this is pretty much word-for-word what we see Sakura teaching Yato.

If they have healthy role models and caretakers during this phase, children develop successfully. Successful children in this phase get their first taste of personal responsibility; unsuccessful children are (supposedly) plagued for years afterward by a sense of guilt and shame when their actions produce disapproval from everyone around them.

Yato... doesn’t exactly make it through this development stage unscathed, because he receives conflicting definitions of right and wrong from his Father an Sakura:

Which ultimately results in, years later, the Yato we know and love who still does his Father’s bidding to kill humans even though it fills him with a horrific sense of guilt:

Through his time with Sakura, I think it could also be argued that Yato moves into the next stage of Erikson’s theory as well, getting into the “Industry versus Inferiority” crises.

Meeting Sakura brings out Yato’s true, deep down desire as a god: to help people. (I think it’s important to note that this isn’t something Sakura teaches him--it’s a quality Yato already possessed; it was explicitly Yato’s desire to please people that led to him murdering in his father’s name.)

Once he learns what makes people happy, Yato immediately pursues that with intense focus:

The primary goal of this phase of psychosocial development is to experience a sense of confidence in one’s actions. When children practice their skills, pursue areas where they are praised, and gain new skills and aptitudes through mentoring from healthy role models, they gain confidence in their ability to excel, to fit in with peers their age, and to create meaningful things. By encouraging Yato to pursue positive behaviors--playing peacefully with other children, appreciating natural beauty, and creating useful things like boots for the needy--Sakura moved Yato toward successfully completing this phase and developing a sense of confidence in his actions and his ability to achieve positive things in the world.

Of course, Father cannot have that (because confident children with a sense of self-worth are much more difficult to abuse), so he puts an immediate end to Sakura’s influence over Yato in the most insidious way possible: although he clearly manipulated the situation to achieve Sakura’s death, out loud, he blames Yato, implying that Sakura’s death was all Yato’s fault, the results of Yato taking unwanted action “industry” and yet failing--creating a sense of “inferiority” instead.

This, of course, haunts Yato all the way to the present, as he--again and again and again--blames himself for things outside his control or failing to live up to expectations that no one in his situation (still being manipulated) could possibly hope to get “right.”

Finally, you could say that Sakura’s presence is Yato’s life is ultimately what sows the seeds of the manga’s main plot up to this point, with Yato’s quest to create an entirely new identity for himself as a god of fortune instead of a god of calamity. Personally, I would say that Yato is currently still in this phase of development, still working out how to define himself and who he will ultimately become once he is finally free to decide on his own path in life. It was Sakura’s gentle influence--his desire to become the kind of god who could make her smile--that eventually sparked his conflict and finally led Yato to the brink of catastrophe. If he wishes to become the god Sakura told him he could be, he can no longer suffer his father to live.

So, long story longer, I think it can be argued that Yato meeting Sakura at such a young age is EXACTLY what made it possible for him to change, and exactly what has led to his crisis in identifying himself and redefining his sense of right and wrong.

Uhhhh... I hope that answers your question!

#noragami #noragami meta #noragami spoilers #noragami manga #psychosocial development #Yato #Sakura #Father (Noragami)#speculation

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incurablehumanist · 4 years ago

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Humanism and SPN: a match made...on Earth?

so i think it’s time i explained this blog’s whole idk theme. it’s raison d’etre, if you wanna get fancy abt it. like, it’s prolly pretty obvious (it’s literally in the name) but i still wanna break it down and make sure people really get where i’m coming from. this is also something i wanna talk abt a lot during my Great Rewatch so i think it would help to have something to refer back to when this topic inevitably comes up in future. let’s dive in, shall we?

despite Supernatural being a show about, obviously, the supernatural, I wholly believe that it is, at it’s core, a story about Humanism (the philosophy). or it’s a show based on the same foundations as Humanism (the philosophy). or it’s just very, very, Humanism (the philosophy) friendly. either way, as a humanist it gives me ALL the feels and I really, desperately want to talk about it, so that’s what i’m gonna do!

to get specific, I’m talking about modern Humanist philosophy, frequently referred to as “secular humanism”. you can find a good overview of what that means on the American Humanist Association’s website, especially their 3 Humanist Manifestos (available to read here, here, and here. the last of those is the current manifesto as accepted by the AHA, but all of them provide good context of what Humanism means as a whole). this is as opposed to Renaissance or Religious Humanism, which have notable differences, though tbh a case could be made for religious humanism bc of the whole “god is canonically real in SPN” thing. When I talk about Humanism though I’m almost always gonna be talking abt modern “secular” Humanism. also i can literally never decide whether humanism should be capitalized or not so expect lots of waffling on that. now tbh I'm not super educated on Humanism as a philosophy beyond the manifestos and what can be found with a cursory google search, so I'm gonna be learning more abt it as I go, but i understand it enough (and have considered myself a secular humanist for long enough) to have Opinions. I’m hoping that as I examine the show through this lens i’ll both gain a better understanding of Humanism as a philosophy as well as how supernatural relates to it. no promises that anything good or coherent will come of it but I'm excited to see where it leads me! also if you too have Opinions on this topic I would absolutely looooooooove to hear them. seriously. hit me up. finally, for context, i’m gonna include some quotes about Humanism which I think best exemplify its ideology and will hopefully give people unfamiliar with it an idea of where I'm coming from/why I think SPN is such a perfect representation of it. I also highly recommend reading the manifestos on AHA's website, since they’re basically the horse’s mouth when it comes to the modern (Western) Humanism movement. beyond it’s relevance to SPN as a narrative, it’s also just a beautiful perspective on life, and it always makes me happy to read about it. like you’re about to do right now! here we go: "While there is much that we do not know, humans are responsible for what we are or will become. No deity will save us; we must save ourselves." – Humanist Manifesto II (1973) "Humanism is the light of my life and the fire in my soul. It is the deep felt conviction, in every fiber of my being that human love is a power far transcending the relentless, onward rush of our largely deterministic cosmos. All human life must seek a reason for existence within the bounds of an uncaring physical world, and it is love coupled with empathy, democracy, and a commitment to selfless service which undergirds the faith of a humanist." – Bette Chambers, former president of the AHA "Humanism is an approach to life which encourages ethical and fulfilling living on the basis of reason and humanity, and rejects superstition and religion. The most immediate impact of living as a Humanist is that we believe this life is all there is - so what we do and the choices we make really count." – Stephen Fry "Humanists recognize that it is only when people feel free to think for themselves, using reason as their guide, that they are best capable of developing values that succeed in satisfying human needs and serving human interests." – Isaac Asimov "Does religion fill a much needed gap? It is often said that there is a God-shaped gap in the brain which needs to be filled: we have a psychological need for God -- imaginary friend, father, big brother, confessor, confidant -- and the need has to be satisfied whether God really exists or not. But could it be that God clutters up a gap that we'd be better off filling with something else? Science, perhaps? Art? Human friendship? Humanism? Love of this life in the real world, giving no credence to other lives beyond the grave?" – Richard Dawkins "There is nothing new about humanism. It is the yielding to Satan's first temptation of Adam and Eve: "Ye shall be as gods." (Gen. 3:5)" – Billy Graham, Christian evangelist (lol)

#my meta #humanism #secular humanism #narrative meta #gonna have as many different meta tags as i have posts on this blog lol #the great rewatch

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