#i started this blog when i was like 16 years old and i cannot believe it

[macgyvermedical]

My Experience in Inpatient Psych

So I know a lot of people on here have talked about their experience in inpatient psych facilities, but I'd like to add mine just to give all you writers out there a writer-focused one. It's below the cut just in case you have to sit this one out for your own reasons.

To give you some background, I am 30 years old and have had hallucinations since about 16 and bizarre intrusive thoughts (someone living in my house that wasn't supposed to be there, somebody poisoned my walls, etc...) for about a decade, as well as very severe anxiety since I was about 3 years old. This is something not a lot of people know about me, even people I am friends with IRL.

The only thing I am actually diagnosed with is anxiety, which I'm starting to think is a failing of the psych systems I have been a part of. I have had counseling off and on and prior to this hospitalization I took escitalopram, aripiprazole, and gabapentin prescribed by my primary care doctor- all for the severe anxiety.

Quite frankly, I should have been in inpatient psych at least a few times before this, and it's by sheer dumb luck that I've survived to continue this blog.

On Friday, I was at home alone and made a few pretty bad decisions. I wont say what they were because frankly they're embarrassing, but they have to do with self-harm. I was scheduled to work Saturday and at about 9pm I realized that if I drove myself to work I would crash my car. Since my wife drives me sometimes, I figured I would just ask her to.

I told my wife and she asked- even if she drove me to work, since I was a nurse, would I be able to keep myself safe around insulin or other potentially dangerous drugs? I couldn't answer that question. We talked for a couple hours and came to the conclusion that I probably needed to go to the emergency department.

At this point I figured they would evaluate me and release me because I couldn't possibly meet the criteria for inpatient. I was wrong in this assumption. After telling them the decisions I had made that day, the feelings of wanting to die in a car crash, plus about a previous attempt, they recommended inpatient. Turns out, when you're a nurse, you can make some really bad life choices with the knowledge you have, and they didn't want to take any chances.

I was given paper scrubs to wear (so I couldn't hurt myself with my clothing or a hospital gown). I was also given a patient companion (someone who sits in the room and makes sure you don't hurt yourself).

They gave me the option of signing myself in voluntarily, or putting me on a writ of detention. A writ of detention is a piece of paperwork that allows a medical professional or law enforcement officer to hold someone for 3 days in a psychiatric facility against the person's will for the purposes of psychiatric treatment. Whether you sign the voluntary or get placed on a writ, you cannot sign yourself out. You need to wait until the psychiatrist taking care of you thinks you're ready to go.

I didn't believe at this point I needed to go inpatient, but I took the voluntary option because there are some perks, like being able to leave within 3 days if appropriate. At this point I was convinced I was probably going to have to call off work Saturday and Sunday, probably be out of the hospital Monday, have a few days to rest and be back at work on my next scheduled shift after that, which was Thursday.

Well, that's not what happened.

Because of some of the decisions I had made, along with bed availability, they wanted to keep me in the observation unit overnight before they sent me to psych. I stayed overnight in a unit that shares staff with the unit I work on, so I was taken care of by my coworkers. This was surprisingly not that bad. I like my coworkers and they were really professional about it.

Saturday I felt like I was in a fog all day. I couldn't watch TV. I couldn't color or write. I worked out some in my hospital room and paced the halls once or twice. Mostly I hung out with my wife and occasionally talked with my companion, but even talking was difficult. I had refused ativan because I felt like I had no hope of finding a medication that made me feel better, and I figured I didn't want to take the one medication that might actually work and then not be able to get it ever again.

Around 7PM I took a 45 minute ambulance ride to the facility. Getting my blood pressure taken is a big anxiety trigger for me, but my brain felt so scrambled that I couldn't express this well. They took it every 10 minutes on the ride there and by the time I got there it was in the 170s/100s (BP goes up when you're having severe anxiety). This was not their fault of course, but no matter how much I thought about telling them or refusing the BPs, I just couldn't do it.

When I got to the facility I was greeted by a tech who took my BP again (150s/90s this time), showed me around and looked through my personal belongings (basically just the clothing I came in with since my wife took my phone and wallet knowing I wouldn't be able to have them on the unit) to make sure I didn't have anything I wasn't allowed to on the unit. She showed me around my room and was really thorough with telling me how things worked, what the rules were, etc..

The rules included:

No patients allowed in other patients rooms

No personal belongings that had strings, belts, or laces, or that could be used as a weapon

No caffeine after lunch and no free access to caffeine

No personal electronics (including eReaders and watches). There was a TV in the day room and 2 phones mounted to the wall for patient use

A little later my nurse came into my room and asked me a ton of questions. Here's the thing about any hospital- you get asked the same questions over and over. By the time I'd gotten there I could give my story in under a minute. Or at least, that's what it felt like. There were only 2 clocks on the unit, at the nurses stations.

The unit itself was laid out in a "T" shape. There was a main nurse's station at the place where the two hallways intersected. At the end of the long hallway there was another smaller nurses station, a cafeteria/day room, and a "comfort room" which was a small room off the day room that had a collection of the oldest and worst donated books that have every come together on a bookshelf.

I did some pacing that night and then went to bed, but didn't sleep particularly well.

On Sunday morning the tech woke me up to take my blood pressure, which was, not unsurprisingly, still high. It was about 5 AM so I got up and paced the longer of the corridors for about an hour. Breakfast was served at 8 and the food wasn't that bad. The coffee was about the worst I'd ever drank, which I suppose helped with the no caffeine goals.

Just after breakfast I met with a psychiatrist on an iPad for about half a minute, and I'm not exaggerating there. The only questions he asked were whether I was suicidal and whether I would be fine with tripling my dose of aripiprazole in light of the hallucinations. I had had a 50-lb weight gain in the last year so I asked to switch my med. He switched the med to cariprazine. That was all.

I had a much longer meeting with my nurse later. All the nurses did an excellent job of assessing me, asked tons of questions, and it seemed like they really tried to figure out what was going on. That day I also met with a social worker, and a therapist, and a nurse practitioner. Each of them did an assessment to see what my needs were while I was there.

There was also a music therapy session where I cried my eyes out to Because of You by Kelly Clarkson.

I was really tired by the end of the day but I also didn't think I could sleep so I asked for trazodone. I should clarify that when I say "I" in this piece I really mean my wife convinced me to ask because I legitimately didn't believe I needed or deserved any of the things I asked for at this point. To my utter shock and surprise, they gave me the trazodone.

My first night on trazodone was amazing and I realized I hadn't slept well in a long time. With trazodone I fell asleep and stayed asleep until the blood pressure cart came rolling down the hallway at 5am. The second I got up on Monday morning I was wide awake.

I paced a lot Monday. I went to a goals session in the morning where I gave a goal to write 3/4 of a page. I didn't know if I could do it or what I was even going to write about, but I know I like to write and it might be a reasonable introduction to getting back to life.

I also was having kind of a rough day brain-wise. My brain was coming up with all the ways I could hurt myself in my room. There weren't a lot of them, but it was trying. I told the nurse during her assessment and she asked if I felt I could keep myself safe. I asked her what she would do if I said no. She said they could move me to a more secure part of the unit and give me more supervision. I knew what part of the unit she was talking about, and I didn't want to go there (no space to pace, and pacing was keeping me alive right then). So I told her I could keep myself safe (if anything, the idea of moving was good motivation to do stay safe in itself). I hallucinated some black and white blood cells falling from the ceiling and music coming out of my vents.

I also had another meeting with the social worker to figure out discharge plans. I voiced in the meeting that I wasn't sure that I could trust my wife, since it felt like at the time she was the one who exaggerated my symptoms to get me in here. The social worker said we had really good communication skills, since this was something I felt needed to be said in front of both of them and we both stayed really calm through the whole thing.

I finished the day with an art therapy session that really helped me turn a corner. The prompt was to draw the emotion(s) you felt right now on one side of the paper, and to draw the emotions you wished you could feel on the other side. For the first time I realized that my emotional state was actually really bad and that the suicidality hadn't come out of nowhere, and that I needed help.

When my wife came to visit later that night I was able to tell her about my breakthrough, even though I still felt a little bit like she had done something to get me in here and I still wasn't sure I needed to be inpatient.

Tuesday was a lot better. I felt like I had woken up out of some kind of fog and I had no idea how long I'd been in it. I went to goals group, a spiritual group, and group occupational therapy. My goal was to be more social and I made a friend and we paced together and worked out. I read a quarter of The Martian by Andy Weir (my wife brought it for me because the best thing on the bookshelf was Louis L'Amour). I wrote about how good I suddenly felt. Turns out, I thought, a few days of good sleep, lots of therapy, and a new medication or two will really change things.

A quick side note about The Martian. I highly recommend it to anyone who is chilling in a psych hospital but has the ability to read while they're there (I sure didn't the first few days). I don't really know why, but the first few times I read it, I felt like they had created this superhuman character in Mark Watney just so they could throw a ton of wild things at him for the story. This time reading it, as a suddenly not suicidal person, I realized anyone with Mark's skill would have done the same thing and not just died on Sol 7 to get it over with.

Wednesday I woke up not feeling nearly as good as Tuesday, but still like the fog had lifted. I was a little disappointed (I hallucinated my cat (thanks for coming to visit me, Corina), some spiders, and just felt kinda meh. But I remembered how good I felt the day before, and that really kept me hopeful about going home.

I saw the psychiatrist again and asked to go home. He joked a little about me staying till Christmas, but ultimately he said as soon as his note was in I could go. I ended up leaving at about 12:30 with my wife.

In the time since leaving I have required a lot of support from my wife. The medications are all locked up, so are the blades and anything I could use to hurt myself. My wife has me in eyeshot at all times. I can't drive due to intrusive thoughts, so she does all the driving now. I quit my job because I feel like it was a big part of why I ended up as bad as I was. As someone who has been a pretty independent person this is a big change of pace, but something that is really necessary to my healing.

Ultimately at the end of my hospital stay, I was prescribed escitalopram, gabapentin, trazodone, cariprazine, and then a few days later propranolol. I'm currently on a total of 5 psych meds and honestly I don't care one bit because its so much better than being not on them at this point in my life.

[mbti-notes]

Anon wrote: Hi, I’m a 22 year old INFP in college. I’m at a point where I am deeply unhappy with my position in life, and I’d like your advice for how I should proceed. I want to change so badly and have been trying for so long, but somehow my efforts seem to never amount to any substantial change. I’m really sorry, this is going to be long and contain a lot of backstory. I have a lot of respect for you and have been reading your blog for years, and you seem incredibly wise; however I understand if you do not have the time to answer this. But if so, I appreciate it more than anything.

I come from an extremely dysfunctional family, whom I still live with. My mother is truly a narcissist, and I believe she’s an xSFP. She’s extremely dysfunctional and can hardly handle herself let alone her children. She has extreme nonconformist opinions (anti-vax, total disregard of modern medicine, arranged marriages, etc) and has instilled so much self-hatred into me. She cannot handle anyone who thinks differently from her. She blames me, my dad, and my younger brother for everything wrong with our household. For the past few days she’s been especially horrible, constantly berating me and calling me a failure. She’s extremely toxic but believes herself to be a saint.

My father is an ISFJ who is a total enabler. He suffers at the hand of my mother too yet will throw us under the bus whenever and never stick up for me or my siblings, even though he too gets treated horribly. I believe if he married a better woman he would’ve been salvageable, as he seems to just adapt to my mom’s views, although he gets so much shit from her too.

I don’t think I’ve experienced genuine love from my parents, ever. They’ve always wanted me to be something I’m not. They never approved of my interests (arts, humanities) or valued my opinions. When I was 17 they discovered that I was self-harming regularly, and instead of helping me, my mother shamed me for months and called me evil, a child of the devil. My father cried and asked me, how could you do this? What did we do wrong for you to end up like this?

I have a whole lot of pain in my heart. I’ve worked on myself to the point where I, when needed, can speak relatively objectively about who I am and my strengths. I no longer self-harm. But in my darkest moments, I have completely adapted the label of “evil” and beat myself up over it.

Despite being 22, I do not have my driver’s license. I’ve had my permit since I was 16, but cannot legally drive on my own. I think I could pass the test if I practiced more. However, that would require spending time with my mother, who’s temper stresses me out to no end while on the road. Its because of this that I’ve put it off for so long. I am too unwilling and fragile to deliberately put myself in a situation where I know I will get yelled at and degraded.

Despite being 22, I am not allowed to dress in anything “revealing”, nor get my nails or eyelashes done, I am not allowed to drink, I am not allowed to date, I have a curfew, and I am not allowed to move out.

A few months ago, I tried to take control of my life. Despite all of my misfortune, I am lucky enough to have a lot of genuine friends who care for me. My best friend and I decided to move out together. We leased a place, made payments, and started packing our bags. Right before our plan to move officially, without even knowing, my parents decided to go on an impromptu road trip to our hometown. I decided not to tell them until we were driving back from the trip… huge mistake. I was mentally tortured for the entire drive back (3 days). They degraded me to no end, guilt tripped me, cried, acted like I had murdered someone. My mom even accused me of being a lesbian for moving in with another girl, which is not only disgustingly homophobic, but also makes no sense!!! At one point my mom screamed so loudly and banged on the car door in anger while my father was driving, and he ended up pulling over on the highway. She blamed me and basically said if we died it would be my fault. Scared me and my younger siblings shitless.

In the end, it was more trouble than worth. Me and my friend called it off easily, having not signed a real lease and only giving a verbal agreement. We paid the rest of the month off and continued to live at home. I had felt like such a failure. I didn’t have a job or anything, but I was so confident that after moving out and being away from all the horrible shit at home that I’d be able to get ahold of my life, develop good habits, and become my own person… but my dreams of independence and freedom were ultimately crushed, and I remain in jail.

Because of that same trip and failure to move out, I became even more depressed. My parents had overstayed by almost a week despite my protests and their apparent dream of me doing well in school, and the school work and feelings were so overwhelming that I dropped almost all of my classes that semester. They don’t know of course, I’d be dead.

I truly wish I could get my life together, learn to love myself, and move so far away from them. I never want to speak to them again, as cruel as that is. They want to marry me off one day. I can’t handle it. But I have no money, no car, I’m struggling in school… I am always thinking about how I can improve or turn things around, and I always take one step forward and then fall 5 steps behind. I hate my body, I hate my incompetence, and I hate my life. I’ve been trying for so long, reading, writing, thinking, yet I can’t seem to get anywhere.

And then there is the matter of my little siblings. 17 and 8 years old. My younger brother (17) told me during that trip that if I moved out he would kill himself because he wouldn’t be able to handle them on his own or deal with them potentially getting even stricter once I left. It made me so sick, that I wanted to throw up. Luckily, he is most likely moving away for college next year after he graduates… which they are okay with, because he is a boy I suppose. My baby sister is a trooper and understood why I wanted to move out and even pretended to be on my mother’s side. However, when I tried, my mom said she would forbid us from talking because I am a horrible influence. The thought of abandoning her with mother makes me want to cry. I thought that maybe I would secretly buy her a phone before I move out and let her keep it a secret to talk to me with. But if me moving away and living my life the way i want to made her life worse, I dont know how I’d forgive myself or make up for it.

But either way, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to move out. I hate my body and my bad habits. I try to get clean and become healthier all the time but I can’t stick with it. Something always happens with my mother having an episode and it depresses me to no end and I lose it, try again, lose it. Then with driving. I keep thinking I’ll get my license soon. I never have motivation to practice with her. I need to be able to take my self places to get a job. And even if I do get a job, I know based on my old ones that the stress of home life, my self esteem, and fragility will make it so hard to hold down a job without breaking down constantly or just giving up. And then there’s school. I want to be educated and do well so badly, but it’s so hard with how things are. What should I do? How can I change? I want to escape this nightmare and live for myself more than anything. I want to be content with who I am and comfortable in my body and in my life decisions. I want to be able to voice my opinions and follow my values without being punished, stifled, or suffocated. If I don’t figure out things soon, I fear everything will come crumbling down and the life I long for will never be realized. I promise I try to be positive and appreciative of what I do try. I try to do things that will make me happier and take steps towards a better life. I try to deconstruct my mind so that I don’t fuss over everything and accept even horrible things as they are… But I always get shot down. It always becomes too much, and my progress always becomes undone. It’s like I’m trapped and can’t get out. All I want is the basic right to be myself, unapologetically.

----------------------

You are a young adult and it's an important aspect of young adulthood to establish an independent mindset. I believe you have it already, but your environment is not allowing you to express it fully. This is not your fault, so there is no reason to blame yourself for it.

Blame is a distraction, and it can even lead to problems like self-harm. Blame keeps you hyperfocused on the negative aspects of situations, which drains the precious mental energy you need for moving forward in positive directions. The sooner you can let go of your blaming mindset, the better you will feel and the more rational your thinking will be when tackling problems.

Remember: The blame you direct at yourself is an echo of your mother's way of blaming you. Do you want to internalize her negative attitude? If you truly have an independent mindset, you should be able to separate your own thoughts from someone else's. Where will you find the truth about you: her words or your heart?

With regard to confidence: Most people experience times in life when it seems that problems or obstacles are too big to surmount. The best approach is to break them down into very small steps and manageable goals (requires proper use of Si). By doing this, you allow yourself to feel a relatively continuous stream of small wins that gradually improve your self-confidence. Believing that you are capable is half the battle, isn't it?

With regard to motivation: You say you have good friends to support you and that's a great resource to draw from. Whenever you're feeling down, reach out for some emotional support. Whatever it is you're having difficulty with, get input or assistance from someone more knowledgeable than you. For example, is your mom the only person in the world who can help you with driving instruction? Getting encouragement and support at crucial stages of your path helps keep your motivation up.

Failing to achieve a goal doesn't make you a failure or a bad person. If you believe it does, you are still thinking like a child and it is yet another manifestation of an unhealthy blaming mindset. Failure is really an opportunity. It helps you learn new things. It helps you improve your knowledge and skills. It helps you find a better direction. What mistakes did you make last time? What do those mistakes tell you about how to do better next time? An important aspect of personal growth is learning how to turn failure into something educational, edifying, or valuable.

For INFPs, Ne development is necessary for learning how to be resourceful and making the best use of what you have, rather than always getting lost in thinking about what you don't have. You've spent a lot of words telling me how your situation sucks so that I can understand where you're coming from. But I wonder: What is good about your situation? What resources, both internal and external, are available to you? What's the best way to use those resources to achieve your goals?

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

You know how every like 5 years or so you remember the cringe things you’ve done and for sure grown out of? Like when you embarrassed yourself at 12 or something and now at 16 you’re like what was I thinking?? Anyway I can’t wait until you’re 27 looking back at this blog one day or remembering it at work or something only then to finally realize why people make such a big deal on protecting minors (you) from smut. You’re just a rebellious teenager like we all once were, but I promise you will have your moment of clarity. Everyone I know has experienced it including myself. The only thing I can ask you politely to not do is further advocate that age 17 means nothing when 18 is right there. I know you’re only referring to it here on this blog but that alone is a dangerous rhetoric, it’s what predators use to justifying preying on teens (“I’ve been waiting for you” “You’re so mature for your age” “You’re practically an adult, no one has to know”) and it’s what teenagers up to 19 even use to justify their behavior (“I’m almost an adult, so what if a 33 year old likes me that’s legal!” “I’m not like others my age, I’m mature enough for this”). You’re only thinking about your blog which is fair and understandable but I wanted to help provide insight as to why what you’re saying can ultimately be harmful in the grand scheme of things. The wrong person, the wrong reblog, and someone might get hurt. Be careful on the internet, it’s way more dangerous than we typically think about.

Okay, rude.

And yes, I do know that. I've had that happen many times because I was a very troubled and lost child that has gone through some shitty fucking years. And guess what, I lived.

"Man, I can't believe I wanted to kill myself a couple of years ago, how cringe."

AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN, I'm turning 18 in less than 3 months.

If I look back and regret this, that's a me problem, Bae, and not something you need to be concerned with. Worry about yourself.

You do not know and have no right whatsoever to make assumptions about me.

You only know what I choose to show.

I was talking about myself specifically in the regards of writing and posting smut. I started writing and posting smut when I was 17, so not even for a year.

I'm not responsible for anyone but myself on the internet. Not once did the topic of grooming come up.

I'm not a mother to the children on the internet.

I'm not responsible for how people (*cough* you*cough) interpret my blog, my posts or anything else.

This is my blog, on which I share my writing and my ideas. If a random child chooses to live by what I say, that's not my fault nor my concern.

You cannot keep children away from the internet. It's literally impossible nowadays.

And if I hear one more person say wE'rE tRyInG tO pRoTeCt yOu I will actually vomit.

You are not responsible for me.

Because where were you, O holy savior and person of everything righteous, when I discovered porn at the age of 12.

Where were you when that has happened and will happen to other 12 year olds?

How about you fucking concern yourself with problems like this that actually matter, instead of terrorizing me for having a hobby that occasionally includes tame sexual themes.

You can talk to me again when porn sites stop popping up when you put "sex" in the search bar.

And guess what, someone who's 22 now can look back in those revelating 5 years and also think they're blog wad a bad idea or cringe.

Now get out of my fucking inbox.

[atrirose]

back when enhablr used to be full of fics, headcanons and reaction. but now i see people wih the aesthetics, small texts but less works if i am not wrong.

when i see vissit a new enha writing blog, i see the themes, small texts. it's so irritating :( like how can you even see the small text... plus, the amount of symbols and other fonts they use, tsk

i am not blaming you :( but telling that mosot of enhablr has become aesthetic or something like top notch. everyone only focuses on how the blog themes, texts are but not the works.

but can i also know like what is suggestive?? isn't it like suggesting a sexual thought or something that leads to sex?? since you are an adult, i am asking you this.

but no, i literally see 15 or 16 year olds writing about suggestive stuff for enha, then telling mentions of fwb :0 i cannot believe when enhable used to have fluff fluff fluff where ever we searched.

i still remember you in my dash back in 2021, you wrote so much fluff istg, i used to wait for your works :( i wish we got that enhablr writing community back but literally wherver i see it is suggestive.

after all, this is my opinion...

hii ! at the start of the ask i thought you were shading me but ㅠㅠ yeah i understand what you mean , the fonts, themes, and small text usages has become more common now instead of the actual matter, i do use small text too but its only for the decor purposes, and my main focus (fics or hcs) are all large text with no fonts bc it is insensitive to use fancy text for those stuff and deprive people who cant read them, and i get that blogs do focus on their appearance more than the writing, bc let’s be honest people only see what they like to and if you look around if a blog ‘doesn’t look aesthetic’ people tend to ignore it even if the content is good. so bc of that many people have adopted the whole persona, i didnt change a lot except the fact i started posting a lot less and have not been active here, i think its a lot to do with adulting, all of the older members of enhablr now either have jobs/uni/exams or are just not feeling like doing this anymore.

and it’s totally fine for you to feel irritated by that, so u can js avoid those kind of blogs but you also need to remember that it’s their blog and they can chose what to do with it and how to decorate it, we can’t control that bc people have their own choices, but yeah the content being less i have seen a lot and i do agree with even tho i don’t read often i too get annoyed by the tags being flooded with nsfw content which is super creepy bc js few months ago it was all fluff as you mentioned and i hoped that the space stayed wholesome. i cant really control that but i hope people dont js see boys in that light.

suggestive to me is js a little bit more kissing/ implication of or suggestive jokes but i am not sure since i do not interact with those kind of content i might not be the best person to ask this, im sorry. but it is very uncomfortable when minors write nsfw.

HELP NOT YOU SAYING I POSTED A LOT 😛, jk anyways aww that is so sweet that i had someone waiting for me, i did post a lot of fluff and it will be a train ride if i read all my work, i will probably cringe 😔, i will always write fluff if that makes u happy if i do post in the future .. , sorry it’s js not the same anymore so i might not be the same atrirose who use to post every week. i am in touch with someone of my moots which were their with me since the start of this account or enha writer who use to flood the tag with tooth rotting fluff and well .. busy , busy , busy so i cant promise anything but hey we still have their old works you can binge. 

your opinion is totally valid.

[badgirlcovention]

Bleach x TOH AU

This started out as an idea I had for my RP blog but then I got down deep and I started expanding and wanting to do art for it, so I’ma just talk about it here. Also, while this is based on Bleach, I will be stepping away from the terms of “shinigami” and the Japanese roots so it fits better with the TOH setting. Gravesfield- a city in Connecticut, USA; hometown of Luz, her family, Hunter and his uncle; a town with an usual concentration of people with impressive spiritual pressure

Boiling Isles- home of the deceased, witches and demons, who are governed by Grim Reapers 

Grim Reapers- witches with higher spiritual pressure and the ability to cleanse Ghouls and send human souls onto the afterlife

Ghouls- Human souls that were unable or unwilling to move on after death, ultimately becoming corrupted and turning into monsters that devour both the living and deceased souls 

Witch Hunters- humans with an unusual sensitivity to spiritual pressure and the supernatural; they believe that once a soul is corrupted and becomes a Ghoul, it cannot be cleansed; consider themselves mortal enemies of Grim Reapers and witches in general

Luz Noceda- 16-years-old; average high school student with an odd talent for seeing/talking to ghosts; ends up becoming a substitute Grim Reaper after a run-in with Amity after she tries to save her sister and mom from a Ghoul; her Scythe currently has no name 

Amity Blight- roughly 16-years-old in Reaper years but nearly 100 in human years; an unseated officer in the Second Squad, which is headed by Lilith; part of the noble Blight family; her Scythe is named Ghost

Hunter Wittebane- 18-years-old; a young Witch Hunter that attends the same high school as Luz and her sister; while he may be a Witch Hunter, he has a begrudging respect for Luz after they take down a Ghoul together

Eda Clawthorne- over 200-years-old; formerly the third seat of the Third Squad, which was headed by her father, Dell; had a playful sibling rivalry with Lilith until they graduated Reaper Academy and joined separate squads as unranked officers; part of the noble and ancient Clawthorne family; her Scythe is named Owlbert

Lilith Clawthorne- over 200-years-old; Captain of the Second Squad and Commander-in-Chief of the Covenant Militia; she’s very serious about her job and has a deep hatred for people who neglect their duties; part of the noble and ancient Clawthorne family; her Scythe is named Revas

Emira Blight- roughly 18-years-old in Reaper years but nearing 100 in human years; 20th seat in Seventh Squad; her captain is Adrian Graye Vernworth; she has been learning healing magic on the side and would like to join Fourth Squad when she ranks high enough for a promotion; part of the noble Blight family; her Scythe is named Reyna

Boscha Volkov- roughly 16-years-old in Reaper years but nearly 100 in human years; an unseated officer in Ninth Squad; her captain is Vitimir; while unseated, Boscha is climbing towards the 20th seat quickly with her tenacious and somewhat brutal attitude; her Scythe is named Maya

Skara Maina- roughly 16-years-old in Reaper years but nearly 100 in human years; an unseated officer in Thirteenth Squad; her captain is Raine Whispers; her Scythe is named Viola

Alador Blight- over 200-years-old; Captain of the Twelfth Squad and Head of Research and Development; the future patriarch of the noble Blight clan, which is currently headed by his father; his Scythe is Romulus

[savelonkar]

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" (Mark Twain).

"You think you know a story, but you only know how it ends. To get to the heart of the story, you have to go back to the beginning" (Tudors, opening scene).

You see, when one of Cherrie (my ex-wife) best friends read my blog, she said this was all too much, and questioned the fact that Cherrie never had cancer. She said that she's a science person, and that "the burden of proof lies with the accuser." See, I wholeheartedly do not agree. If someone tells the world for seven years that they had cancer, then I believe the burden of proof lies with the accused. Besides, how would you "prove" someone never had cancer? Cherrie told the world she had cancer, and she NEVER HAD CANCER. She cannot provide proof that she had cancer, because she never did. It's not like I can call up her breast surgeon, and ask for medical records. If anyone would like to give her breast surgeon from 2016 a call, here is where she currently practices: https://www.elliothospital.org/website/pr-Dr-Emese-Kalnoki-Kis.php

Recently, there was a teen in Iowa that told the world she had cancer, and she never did. That teen is in prison now, and the courts subpoenaed her medical records. I believe that is what should happen in the case of my ex-wife.

For today, let's go back to Cherrie's claims of her childhood. She said that at one time, she was homeless after her mother divorced her father. THAT never happened. Her mother went back into the workforce, and provided a nice home for XW and her brother. They lived in nice middle class neighborhood and had a nanny. Her mother got a nanny, because she did not trust Cherrie alone with her little brother.

Cherrie has told the world that she graduated high school early at 16. FICTION! Cherrie started kindergarten in 1985, right before she turned 5 years old on October 31, 1985. She went to kindergarten, and then did all 12 grades from 1st to 12th. Below, I will provide a link that shows her ID card from sophomore year of HS, and also I have included her HS diploma, which shows she graduated HS in 1998, just months before her 18th bday.

Cherrie told the world that she lived in London for a year. In the document below, I have provided her flight itinerary, that shows she was only in London for about 3 weeks.

Do you know people that are habitual liars? Well, Cherrie is a habitual liar. Her stories tend to morph over time, and they are altered here and there, according to her audience.

These untruths are just a few examples of her lies. She lies lies lies her way to get what she wants. She lied about graduating early, she lied about her time in London, she lies about EVERYTHING. Oh, and yes, she lied about having cancer. A liar's worst enemy is the truth. Cherrie is a liar. I am the truth.

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" (Mark Twain, no relation to Shania).

Here is a link to the documents referenced above:

[tetherfans]

sometimes i see some nsfw themed posts if you liking it or something like that

your paw patrol villain fat fetish nsfw post, you joking about having a fat fetish with your partner, even the post where you were talking about adults making nsfw and people harassing adults for it.

i’m fine with the third one but aren’t you 15? you aren’t supposed to be looking at the kind of stuff.

If you aren’t that’s good but i’m just wondering

thanks ♥️

10 years buddy. I've been knowing about this stuff, for 10 years. Keep in mind that YES I am 15.

Give or take yes maybe maybe I shouldn't be looking at that, HOWEVER.. I do. Matter of a fact, just because there may be an 18+ logo there, doesn't mean minors can't just make their own shit. In order to grow up to become an artist like that, you would need to be exposed to it when YOU were younger.

I don't know how old you are, because this is an anon ask. But I am assuming you are an adult, and I don't mean to disappoint but minors do that stuff. Minors draw nsfw, talk about nsfw, some minors are sexually active. Like myself;

There shouldn't be an age range to where you get to start knowing about nsfw material. Even If I don't look at other peoples nsfw, what's stopping me from just drawing my own? From writing my own, from in fact just roleplaying with my friends about it?

What's stopping me from just being sexually active and what not? Is it because of the age range of me inherently being a minor? I don't understand where the mentality cut off is. Is this a question on morals and ethics, or are you implying minors cannot be involved with nsfw, even if its their own. Or engage in sexual acts with their partner?

In fact, when you turn a teen and start having different hormones kick in, and hit puberty doctors will ask if you are sexually active. The 18+ rule is, only for the age of consent. As in when you are a legal adult, not for when you are allowed to explore yourself, and become comfortable with yourself. Whether it be your platform, your life, or even in your own skin.

An adult I talked to back in August last year, who is 30; mentioned how adults and minors should have their own spaces. Including nsfw, if that's what it leads to.

In hindsight, you need to take into consideration that years ago back in the 2000s - 2010s, minors drawing nsfw and talking about nsfw was so common. Some of the biggest artists, creators and animation meme artists got a career off drawing nsfw on tumblr.

Believe it or not, minors can look at nsfw. Even if it's hard for you to understand why they would want to. Even if that is their own nsfw, or even their own bodies. I wish I had nsfw to turn to back when I was younger and more gullible. Maybe I would have known what to do when I was used for things I couldn't even mention here.

But besides the fact; I don't see where the issue is here, this is my tumblr blog, I'm not actively posting porn on here, and this account is meant to be just for dumb stuff. If one day I do decided "hey fuck it let's post something suggestive or make a sex joke" why should it matter. My biggest platform is youtube, and that's the only platform where young kids / teens are following me. I turn 16 in July as well.

I'm sure my moots can take a little joke or two on here, I don't recommend this account for anyone, it was supposed to just be an alt account. If you have any further arguments feel free to dm me or send me another anon ask.

[peachpitss]

realized people on mobile can't see my "about" page, so! Abby she/they lesbian 25+ yrs old anti-TERF, pro-BLM mexicana based in california i'm honeynpeaches over on my cringe ao3 i like video games & manga and i’m incredibly sorry

cult of the lamb sideblog: peachapotheosis

[homo-sex-shoe-whale]

Online shipping, the fetishisation of gay men, and the romanticisation of queer trauma

An essay by me!

Word count: 2.8k

A link to the Google Doc version of this essay.

A big thank you to my friends Nathan @themeerkatnate, Mav @not-mavv , and Duke @dukedark-ness for reading this essay and giving me their thoughts as mlms on the topic. Make sure to check out their blogs and give them a follow!

So I was on a lovely website by the name of Twitter.com yesterday, just scrolling through while having my afternoon cup of coffee, when I saw that viral post of a girl reading a Larry fanfic through a classroom projector. I'm sure most of you have seen it. It's gone viral on Instagram, TikTok, and likely Tumblr too, and if you haven't come across it I'm positive you will soon.

Now, after getting through my initial reaction to that post which was, holy fuck, that's so embarrassing, I had a second reaction of... wait, this ship is still around?

And after I had some thoughts on the incredible permanence of some online ships and the weird obsolescence of others, I did get to thinking of how lots of these popular ships seem to stem from the same types of perceived relationship dynamics and homophobic stereotypes.

These online fandoms often seem to have an obsession with objects of queer trauma, such as having to hide a relationship, lying about sexuality for self-preservation, and even social rejection. So, after some opinions from my followers and the great archive that is the internet, I've decided to discuss some of the most popular examples of online shipping and the particular nuances they came with.

NOTE: Out of respect for all these people, I won't be sharing viral images or videos of them in perceived romantic proximity (or even kissing, as is applicable for some examples), but I will be describing certain moments I deem to be relevant. So even if you're unfamiliar with them, you won't be confused as to what I'm talking about.

NOTE 2: Although not all people within these fandoms were/are toxic, this essay is focused on the overall toxicity of the fandoms, and how they are toxic more so as a "hive" than as a group of individuals. When I refer to a fandom I don't mean every person involved in the fandom, but rather the collective impact of the group.

 1. Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson 

This is arguably the most popular example of online shipping. The absolute permanence of this ship, and how its fandom never seems to fully die off even beyond the lifespan of One Direction as it once stood, is downright impressive.  

I'm going to be the first to admit I was never in the loop with this fandom. My childhood best friend was actually a massive Larry shipper and asked me to beta read one of her fics, but that was before I even knew who tf Harry and Louis were! Not because I avoided the fandom or even because I rejected the online shipping, but just by coincidence, I delved into the world of pop punk music right when One Direction began gaining its popularity. I bought my first ever album, Riot by Paramore, in 2011- only a year after One Direction made their X-Factor debut. So, this fandom just bypassed me by a sort of weird coincidence.

But I don't need to be in the loop with this fandom to know the astronomical obsession with these two men, no, these two BOYS, was extremely toxic. In 2010, when One Direction made their debut, Harry Styles was only 16 years old. And Louis Tomlinson wasn't much older at 19! This made the two of them incredibly young when this unprecedented wave of shipping hit the internet, and although that must be traumatising for anyone, I cannot even fathom how overwhelming it must've been for two boys that young.  

I'm 18, almost 19 now, and I cannot begin to imagine how scary it was for the two of them to have their every interaction nitpicked within an inch of its life by thousands upon thousands of people online. I do not know this myself, but from numerous recounts by some of my followers, this massively impacted Harry's and Louis' nondescript relationship in real life, seemingly driving the two previously close friends apart. 

Now, before we move on, there's something we need to talk about. And that is the obsession with the dominance/submission dynamic within the world of gay shipping. 

With almost every popular mlm (an acronym meaning man-loving-man) ship based on real people, it seems that fandoms have a particular fascination with power imbalances in these relationships. You don't even need to look at the insane amount of fanfictions based on BDSM to figure this out. In almost all of the examples I'll be citing today, there is an age gap within the perceived relationship and a person the fandom has seemingly decided to be the top/dominant figure. 

Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson are 3 years apart in age. Although it isn't all that relevant now, an age gap of 3 years when you're in your late teens is a lot more significant. In 2012, for example, when this shipping really started gaining traction, Harry Styles was 18 and Louis Tomlinson was 21. That power imbalance, albeit not that significant, is enough for a fandom to latch on to. We'll see this a lot more in the coming example with Dan and Phil.

 2. Dan Howell and Phil Lester

It's impossible to have a discussion about internet shipping without talking about Dan and Phil.

 Dan Howell and Phil Lester, although being popular YouTubers individually, are arguably one of the internet's most iconic duos. The two creators published their first videos together in 2009, and while their relationship was already a motive of speculation back then, the peak of the "Phan" shipping definitely came in the 2013-2016 era of Tumblr.

Now, I'm going to admit… I was actually on Tumblr when that happened. 

The 2013-2016 period perfectly aligns with my middle school days (I started middle school in 2013 and high school in 2016), and I was not only on Tumblr back then, but I was on Wattpad too! Again, this wasn't a fandom I had much contact with as I had a huge anime phase in middle school and I was on Tumblr posting mainly photography and Soul Eater content more than anything. 

But I did watch some of Dan and Phil's videos! And the occasional "Phan" content did not completely evade me as one of my closest friends in middle school had a fanchat for them. I wasn't involved in the fandom myself but they were actually one of the few English-speaking YouTubers I watched once in a blue moon (back then I watched mainly Brazilian YouTubers). One thing I did in fact notice over the years, around 2014ish perhaps, was that the two of them seemed to grow increasingly "awkward" around each other, in a way that many folks on the internet thought was reminiscent to Markiplier/Jacksepticeye, two YouTubers who also dealt with extraordinary amounts of shipping.

I'm not the only one who thinks this. The change in Dan and Phil's relationship, at least to the outside world, was clear to almost anyone who watched their videos for a while. I cannot blame them at all. The shipping was nuts. Between the countless fan videos, speculative comments, and insurmountable number of fanfics, there's no way the two of them didn't feel the weight of the shipping. The term "demon phannie" made its way into internet vernacular and there it stayed for years. Even Shane Dawson, who was one of the largest creators on the platform at the time, made several videos speculating on the nature of Dan and Phil's relationship and their sexual orientations. 

There was even porn made in which actors with similar appearances to the creators were made to have sex on camera. 

Now, this is actually a rare example where the two people involved in the ship actually came out as gay once the shipping seemed to die down. I'm incredibly happy Dan and Phil both reached a point where they were comfortable being publicly out, but I hate to say I'm shocked this day ever came. If I'd gone through what the two of them did, I don't know if I'd ever trust the internet. 

And again, this ship's fandom definitely had an obsession with the power dynamics they thought existed between the people within the ship. Dan Howell is 4 years younger than Phil Lester, and was only 18 in 2009, when they started making videos together. From my personal understanding, the shipping was often quite focused on this dominant/submissive dynamic especially in discussions from their early relationship. And this is in no way exclusive to Dan and Phil.

This general fascination with the older man/younger man dynamic, in my opinion, plays into the homophobic stereotype that gay men are predators. The idea that gay men usually seek younger men, and somehow "convince" them to engage in homosexual relationships, is popular homophobic rhetoric. The popularisation, exaggeration, and fetishisation of these power imbalances, in age and/or in relationship dynamics, is directly harmful to the mlm community. 

Not only that, but the romanticisation of a "hidden/forbidden relationship" is also detrimental not only to gay men and the mlm community, but to queer people as a whole. Queer people face huge trauma having to hide their relationships; queer attraction is already a societal taboo. And acting like this is good, or even desirable, is harmful to queer people as a whole, regardless of whether or not it's actually applicable to the people being shipped. It normalises this trauma not only to cisgender, heterosexual people, but to impressionable queer youth who grow to believe this type of trauma is to be expected. 

3. Frank Iero and Gerard Way

This is another example where the perceived power imbalances between the two subjects of the shipping were directly exploited online. Now, this ship did precede the others mentioned above. If we're looking at this topic chronologically, this particular ship did come first in the shipping timeline. It's closer to the origin of the shipping extended universe, if you will.

In case you aren't familiar with them, Frank Iero and Gerard Way are both members of the American emo band My Chemical Romance. This ship is the first one here of which I don't recall the full popularity. It really peaked in popularity around the late 2000s, circa 2008. And I don't remember this moment online as in 2008, I was only 6 years old and believe it or not, I wasn't really all that concerned with rumoured homoeroticism as a first grader. 

However, the popularity of this ship did carry over into the 2013-2015 Tumblr shipping boom. The emo fandom (or "bandom" as it was called) involving not only My Chemical Romance but other similar bands such as Fall Out Boy, Panic! At The Disco, and Pierce the Veil, found its hub on Tumblr. 

During this time, I did in fact listen to this style of music, but was focused a lot more on the anime side of Tumblr as mentioned earlier. Of course, I wasn't 13 years old like, "hey, this type of content might be harmful and can inadvertently perpetuate homophobic stereotypes," I just happened to care more about my silly little anime and ended up not getting involved. 

This ship does involve a discussion that the others don't, however. With Frank Iero and Gerard Way, there is quite often a certain sentiment of, "Oh, they brought this upon themselves!" as the two band members very famously kissed during a show in 2007. In my opinion, though, this doesn't really justify all the obsessive shipping. If you look at Green Day, a band often grouped in with MCR as another famous pop punk group, the members don't follow too different of a trajectory. Billie Joe Armstrong has, on numerous occasions, kissed both of his fellow band members onstage- particularly Tré Cool, the drummer. And Billie Joe Armstrong is openly bisexual, which none of the members of MCR seem to be but some, or even all of Billie's bandmates, are too. 

You'd think Green Day would face a lot more shipping as the more persistent onstage homoeroticism and Billie Joe's openness about his sexuality would warrant more "substantiated" speculation. However, Green Day faces nowhere near as much shipping as My Chemical Romance. Why is this? I actually don't know. It might've been because Green Day has been around for over a decade longer and generally has an older fandom, but I really am not that sure. 

 It could also be because of the lower lack of potential for forced relationship dynamics. The members of Green Day are all less than a year apart in age and are even similar in height. However, Frank Iero is 4 years younger than Gerard Way, who is not only the frontman of My Chemical Romance, but also considered to be the group's intellectual and creative "leader". Even beyond that, Gerard Way is quite visibly taller, and the perceived power difference between the two of them definitely did not elude their fans. 

This difference could even be partly due to the lack of a "mystery" with Green Day. There's not as much to speculate as, well… the members of Green Day are already open about their sexual orientations. It might be that shipping in the Green Day fandom has less of a forbidden appeal for most people. 

Of course, I won't just keep repeating myself, but my previous points about forced relationship dynamics still stand.

4. Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch

Better known for their roles in BBC Sherlock as Sherlock and Watson, Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch unfortunately had their roles follow them well into real life. This is the example I know least about, so have these thoughts from a follower by the name of @indubitably-a-goblin, who had the following to say:

"the main issues i had with it were:

a) they were both married at the time, freeman to amanda abbington and cumberbatch to sophie hunter (in which both had children)

b) the main reasoning for it was their chemistry in the many projects they've done together. which is, shockingly, their Whole Job. They're actors! That's what they're supposed to do! if they weren't good at interacting then they wouldn't be good actors! i don't know how people can't understand this.

c) they're real people. we don't know them. we aren't friends with them. we aren't their family members. we have zero right to be pushing this onto them and ruining their friendship by doing so. (this one relates to most of the ships you've mentioned though)

d) healthy friendships between two men are ignored so plainly in most medias and in fandom. its obvious that these two men have a relationship, but that doesn't mean it's a romantic one.

e) its fine to ship their characters, but actors shouldn't be treated as less-than-human or some sort of prop. they're doing a job, and once they are off-screen, they aren't here for your entertainment."

I believe she did a great job of summing it up on her own, and for the sake of avoiding redundancy, I'll leave it at that!

5. Corpse Husband and Sykkuno- an emerging yet subtle example

I am absolutely positive you remember how popular the game Among Us was a couple of months ago. And with the popularity of this game, some of its most prominent content creators became the targets of online shipping- as is the case with YouTubers and streamers Corpse Husband and Sykkuno. 

Although the shipping involving these two creators is nowhere near as strong as it was/is with the examples above, I do think there is once again a reemergence of a common theme here. Whilst Sykkuno is known for his happy-go-lucky, almost "innocent" persona, Corpse Husband is the antithesis of this, known for his much darker and moodier personality. 

Do I even have to mention what the common theme seems to be?

Again, although the popularity of shipping - at least with real people - seems to have died down a bit since the Tumblr shipping boom of the early to mid 2010s, I do believe this example is worth mentioning. Even though the creators are still close, they have in fact expressed discomfort regarding the shipping, and I can only hope the internet as a whole lets their friendship blossom and exist naturally without obsessive speculation. 

My final thoughts

As explored in the essay:

The romanticisation of objects of queer trauma as a part of online shipping normalises queer trauma to both cishet and queer youth. 

Online shipping, especially at a high intensity, can end up negatively impacting the very relationships they pine over. 

The relationship dynamics often forced on mlm ships perpetuate homophobic stereotypes about non-heterosexual men. 

If anyone else has thoughts on this matter, do share! This essay is moreso an opinionated observational piece and isn't meant to be taken as fact but rather just as my thoughts on the matter. I hope it was useful as a reflective piece regardless!

Date of posting: June 16th 2021

[sirenalpha]

I posted 570 times in 2022

That's 220 more posts than 2021!

259 posts created (45%)

311 posts reblogged (55%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@goodsticklehky

@staalsparkles

@sirenalpha

@emletish-fish

@staal-eric-archives

I tagged 302 of my posts in 2022

Only 47% of my posts had no tags

#asks - 16 posts

#for the writers - 14 posts

#rurouni kenshin - 9 posts

#atla - 9 posts

#ao3 - 7 posts

#star wars - 6 posts

#meta - 5 posts

#yes - 4 posts

#long post - 4 posts

#darth vader - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#could not rememeber what the title was for a hot sec and thought i might accidently put the title of thebruno mars song of the same subject

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

So Kaoru Kamiya is a character I have complicated feelings on and not because she's a complex character, she really isn't that complex

but because Nobuhiro Watsuki is a pedophile who has been fined for possessing cp and no you cannot separate the art from the artist because Kaoru starts the series as a seventeen year old girl who gets together at eighteen with the protagonist, a man eleven years her senior

I don't know why 12 year old me decided to get overly attached to this one character and it would have been nice to have stopped caring when the news about Watsuki came out but RK material keeps getting released that makes me even madder about Kaoru so here we are talking about it

now that that's addressed, I want to start with how Kaoru as a character came to be

Watsuki has noted that he had not decided for Kaoru to be the main love interest when he started the series and I believe that because just looking at all the characters in the manga, he seems to be good on setting up characters, but can't always follow through on them or knows ahead of time what he wants to do with them

and I do think Kaoru is well set up because her initial purpose in the manga is to be someone who is interesting enough to Kenshin that he stops wandering as Kenshin staying in place is the inciting incident of the manga, everything before that point is just the same old same old that Kenshin has been experiencing for the past ten years

so what does Kaoru have to be for her to be a character who is interesting enough for Kenshin to stay?

first, she has to be a swordswoman, it's non-negotiable, being a swordsman is the basis of who Kenshin sees himself as, it's central to his character arc as it is the site of his guilt, and the manga itself is asking what is the purpose of the sword (violence) in the New Era, there is no way Kenshin stays unless he sees a potential answer for his guilt for what to do in the New Era

that means she has to have a privileged background to have been able to learn to be a swordswoman, naturally that means samurai as it was the warrior class of the Edo period even if most samurai at the end of the period were bureaucrats it's still the class Kaoru would have been most likely to have received martial training of any kind

it also means she would have also had to be old enough to have been born samurai and to have enough mastery that her word on what wielding a sword means has some kind of weight of experience backing it

second, the fact that Kenshin will only stop if someone has a potential answer for his guilt on how to use a sword or stop using it and live in the New Era and that Kenshin has taken a vow to not kill tells us what kind of swordswoman Kaoru has to be, she has to have not killed and also have a fighting ideology against killing which now means she can't be too old

she has to be young enough that she didn't fight in the Bakumatsu or any rebellions after it as well as young enough to not remember any of the fighting well for it to be more realistic that someone who is a swordsman and also supposed to have some mastery hasn't killed anyone when a war was going on

third, she has to be in need of help because that's how Kenshin meets people, he either rescues them or fights them and if he is to stay she can't be too antagonistic towards him

so her privileged background is now tragic which I think is part of how Watsuki ended up with 1878 for the setting, it has to be after the last episode of violence of the Bakumatsu which is the Seinan War in 1877 anyways so then you just have Kaoru's father who is also her teacher fight and die in that war so she's now vulnerable to attack/manipulation due to her landownership and naiveté which Kenshin can defend her from and she's also grieving and lonely which is a reason for her to ask him to stay

and that's how you sort of have to have her at 17-18, if you push the setting back farther to age her up it becomes a problem as when the manga is set is extremely important to the story it's telling, it can't be that far away from the Bakumatsu, Kenshin also starts getting very old + wandering for a longer time compared to 10 years which is a nice round number and 28 is already pushing it for the protagonist for a shonen manga, and if you leave it in 1878 if you start pushing her towards 19, 20, 21, you start getting to her being 8-10 at the end of the Bakumatsu and being old enough to remember it better and getting too close in age to other characters when part of the point with the differences in ages in the protagonist group has to do with what age they were when they experienced the war

it's all fine in my opinion for Kaoru's character set up until the plan changes and she becomes the love interest

beyond Kaoru and Kenshin's age gap being creepy, changing Kaoru into the love interest causes narrative problems both for Kaoru as a character based on the set up she was given and for the narrative as a whole because of what the character in the position of Kenshin's love interest would have had to fulfill for it to be a satisfying narrative vs societal and genre conventions

I think Watsuki decides to make Kaoru the love interest during the Kyoto Arc and finalized it by the end of the arc

my reasoning for this is because Kaoru changes from the Kyoto arc to the Jinchuu arc and not in a good way

the change is obviously not how much interest Kenshin and Kaoru show in each other though Kaoru's is far more obvious, she was shown as crushing on Kenshin from the beginning of the series and Kenshin sticks around because of her and they have their hug when Kenshin leaves for Kyoto, that's why she's the obvious option to become his love interest for the third arc, she's the only one important enough to Kenshin for the arc to work

the reason I say it's not finalized until the end of the Kyoto arc is because that's when Kaoru goes from a fighter or at least a potential one or in addition to being a damsel in distress (because I'm not saying there isn't any defaulting to misogynistic tropes common to media where boys are the target audience when it comes to how she's written in the first two thirds) to just a damsel in distress

her only real battle is in the Kyoto arc against Kamatari, but she's introduced with a bokken in hand and attacks both Kenshin and the Hiruma brothers, and by the time the battles start in the Jinchuu arc, Kaoru either isn't there or she stands in the back with Megumi doing color commentary, and she never really even attempts to fight off Enishi

this is a problem thematically when you take Kaoru's set up as a character into consideration

part of Kenshin's choice in atonement and the theming of the manga is that you have to help the people in front of you and part of how Kenshin does that is by making them better people in the sense that he encourages them to improve the skills that they use to help other people

Megumi is the outlier as she's the healer of the group, but getting her away from Kanryuu so she can go back to working as a doctor and get better at it is how she helps people and what Kenshin encourages her to do to atone and be a better person

for Sano and Yahiko, however, they are fighters so their fighting improves so they can better defend people from harm so that is what should have happened with Kaoru, but it doesn't, Kaoru's skills never improve over the entire course of the manga because she's set up as Yahiko's teacher which I actually don't think should keep her from learning more and improving, but does so anyways so her peak as a fighter hits in the second arc when everyone else's correctly lands in the third

it weakens the message of the manga to have a major character, the literal second character introduced in the series, regress like this on one of the manga's central themes

what's worse is that a peak achievement set up was given to her, to use a Kamiya Kasshin Ryu succession technique in a real battle as she admits she's never done it, but instead it's passed over her to be given to Yahiko which just feels like misogynistic insult to a poorly written theme injury

and if you argue as I have seen that she wasn't set up to be a fighter maybe she was set up to be a teacher so Yahiko using the technique is her triumph, I once again point you to the fact she was literally introduced bokken in hand and attacking Kenshin

being an assistant master/instructor could be taken away from her character and still make the inciting incident work but taking away being a swordsman could not, and it's actually worse for her on a thematic standpoint to say her talent was teaching and not protecting others, at least she goes from needing Kenshin to rescue her to defeating Kamatari without him before regressing but as a teacher she never progresses, never has more than one student

See the full post

18 notes - Posted April 5, 2022

#4

the missions in ac1 are good actually

yes I get that there's only like 4 types of missions, and yes the eavesdropping ones are really nothing to write home about and I do kinda wish they dropped out even more than they do in the game

but they're maybe my favorite part of the game which is good because they're the majority of the game

I just think making you check in at the bureau to get suggestions of where to go and then having to go to viewpoints to then find the missions and then pick which ones and in which order you want to do them in is an extremely good set up and it's just never used again

it's not perfect like the missions are pretty much anywhere and not right where the rafiq/dai at the bureau says they are creating some but not much narrative dissonance and it doesn't help that nothing on the map ever gets labeled so you can't really find your way around based on what you're told

but it gives a lot of autonomy to the player without creating any narrative dissonance and really encourages you to explore and become familiar with your surroundings and it does so with the gameplay unlike later in the series where it feels like it relies on graphics and set dressing to encourage exploration which is a much more shallow and superficial motivation

mostly because it's not really as important to explore and familiarize yourself with your surroundings for game play or narrative in the later games even in ones that take place in only one city as it is in ac1, just for side quests and collecting things

ac1, however, doesn't show buildings on its minimap and having missions and viewpoints and citizens to save spread throughout the city is a good way to make sure the player learns the city, so they know where ladders and hiding spots are when they need them while being chased after assassinations whereas all the later games show buildings on the minimap making escaping and free running easier

maybe the lack of buildings on the minimap is a technological limitation of the time but between it and the spread out missions, it gives a purpose to the open world and exploring it within the cities rather than the open world being a mere spectacle or tedious ground to cover it feels like in some of the later games which is why they give you horses and fast travel and so on

like you don't need or miss fast travel within the cities of ac1 because they're not overly large (in fact their size is controlled so the focus is on the mission and narrative at hand) and you need to learn them to play the game better which is definitely not how it is in later games

and beyond teaching you the city, the missions actually do have good level design

the missions do scale up in difficulty aside from the eavesdropping ones, but with the informers you start with tasks like please capture all these flags which isn’t hard at all to please kill these three templars without raising the alarm and with a time limit, if you choose to go through and do them you actually do get better at the game as you continue which helps with assassinations (tho not the boss battles which is a different issue)

the missions also give you information for the narrative and/or for game play, this part is less perfect, sometimes the information you get is a map that shows where archers are positioned and you never see the map which isn't helpful, but other times it actually tells you very useful information that makes the assassination easier, or it gets you information on the Templars or how Altaïr is seen and treated by the other Assassins

the more effort you put into the missions as in doing more than the minimum number required and the more difficult ones, the more you get out of them, you as the player get better at the game and have an easier time with assassinations, and you get more bits and pieces of the narrative to put together

this is how you want your games to work and in ac1 it's done without making you search around for papers or logs to get additional scraps of information on the narrative

that said, I think the reason the game has as many eavesdropping missions as it does and only ever gets up to 3 out 6 required missions is because it wants to give an easier alternative since it doesn't have an easy mode

and I think that's part of what makes the missions as good as they are, there are ways to make the game easier for yourself or brute force it if you're not good at stealth without compromising the game play or narrative (you just get a little less detail)

I get why people criticize them as repetitive but like they're still good game design and I'm still kinda annoyed the series left them behind

35 notes - Posted August 16, 2022

#3

I just watched a vid on plot armor and it said Legend of Korra was good on stakes/Korra's character arc because the question wasn't whether she would die it was

does she get to keep her bending which makes up a core part of her identity?

does she keep her connection to the old avatars which is also a part of her identity?

how badly will this mercury poisoning hurt her?

but that's only on paper not in execution

she gets her bending back immediately which is just plot armor for bending not death idc if it was because they thought they weren't getting another season it would still be a shit ending for a single season show

how she loses her connection to the past Avatars is contrived batshittery to begin with and I'll be honest that was something that was lightly used in atla like it did happen but even less so in lok it really didnt feel like she'd lost something and the insane giant spirit monster power up kind of cancelled it out and made it not the focus

The one the show tries the hardest on is the mercury poisoning because that takes at least several episodes in the next season to recover from but she still totally physically recovers even if she doesn't psychologically

and ultimately the issue I have with describing this as creating a character arc for Korra is when you look over the show it doesn't feel like an arc where Korra grows and becomes a more well rounded person and a better Avatar especially when she decides to just leave on vacation to the spirit world at the end

every season the show sets up Korra to be taught a lesson as painfully and psychologically damaging as possible for being arrogant and wanting to be the Avatar unlike Aang when she starts out

it was like she had to be forced one step back in her growth at the start of every season except for season 4, and I don't mean like Zuko where Korra makes a reasonable for her decision that the audience sees is actually wrong for her/the world, but a step back that happened because that was what the plot necessitated so the show-runners could punish her appropriately

and the show's treatment of her feels very stark compared to Aang's treatment as he was the show-runners' self insert and basically got to get away with everything from sexually assaulting the girl he liked to not actually completing his character arc or actually being a good person despite being put on a moral pedestal by the show

and I get that lok is supposed to be a show for a more mature audience, and it's not like I don't think it could have been interesting for Korra to deal with losing her bending or connection to past avatars because that wasn't something atla had the time or scope for, those questions just aren't relevant to atla but lok could ask all of those questions under the larger narrative question what is the point of an avatar in a modernizing world and then Korra finds an answer to that question to become a fully realized avatar to complete her character arc

but she literally leaves the world for the spirit world, that's the last thing she does it's basically capitulating to the idea that there is no place for the avatar, it's a negative character arc literally a tragedy with a metaphorical suicide by leaving the human world for the spirit world in a show that's supposedly optimistic and positive because they defeat all the bad guys

which in hindsight makes everything she went through over the course of the show so much worse, it's just torture that doesn't make her a better person or a better avatar, it just grinds her down until she accepts she has no place and leaves

it just reeks of racism and misogyny because Aang was never and would never have been treated so poorly

38 notes - Posted September 9, 2022

#2

I think there are two aspects of the first Assassin's Creed that I like about it that are kind of unfair advantages it has just by its nature as the first of the series

the mystery aspect of its plot and the cleverness of the framing device when it comes to narrative dissonance

something I've noticed over time as I've played more and more games is that I prefer games with a mystery aspect to the plot, for other mediums like books or movies it's enough if I'm like I need to know what happens next, it doesn't have to be a mystery, but with video games, the ones I enjoy most are the ones where I'm like something is up and I'm going to find out what

and ac1 has that to its advantage as you don't know anything about its world at all, it can make the Templars into a mystery plot you have to unravel assassination by assassination while hunting around as Desmond to figure them out in the modern time line as well as trying to figure out what the Piece of Eden is

and once that info is out there you can't take it back for later games, like yeah you have new Templar plots to figure out and there's more about the Pieces of Eden to discover but you still already know who the Templars are and what an Apple is

and frankly the rest of the series doesnt really try to have that much mystery not to the extent the first does with the big bad reveal

as for the framing device, I like when games at least try to tackle the narrative dissonance of dying and coming back to life again, like you can have a good game if it doesn't and you just live, but I like it

and the animus is a pretty good one in my opinion, I think it's clever and takes advantage of video games as a medium

why can you come back to life? Because all the combat is being performed by someone who is already dead, they just didn't die here, you did it wrong and have to do it over

so your health isn't health it's how closely you follow what they did in real life so if you go back to doing what they did of course you recover

and the heads up display isn't what they actually saw in real life it's because you're using a machine, and there's no display outside of it

it's not perfect because you do get button prompts as Desmond outside of the animus and it should probably be first person rather than third or actually use the security camera angles the game uses occasionally but it covers a lot of the dissonance the stuff that is most game-y and you see most frequently

as it's the first of the series a lot of effort and care was put into making it work and be believable whereas later in the series it can be taken as a given, it's no longer clever because it's not new

and that's why it annoys the shit out of me when they added medicine you can take to increase sync like I get if they wanted it so Ezio could be injured and it is acting as hp but fucking hell don't break your own game logic immediately with the sync actually acting as both health and sync, that was an opportunity to be clever that they didn't take if they wanted to have both injuries and keep the synchronization rate, they could have found some other solution but didn't they just break one of the things that resolved narrative dissonance because it's easier and convenient to the player to easily up sync

42 notes - Posted August 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Six the musical is actually super fucked up

I went in without knowing anything beyond it being about Henry VIII's wives and that the music would be pop inspired

I assumed that it would be not that serious but try to talk about who these women were outside of their marriages

and I was wrong on both accounts it was almost entirely about their marriages and worse tried to bring up extremely serious topics and I don't mean that two of the wives were beheaded I mean they were bringing up miscarriages and repeated sexual abuse

instead of using anachronisms to make these women more relatable to a modern audience, the show uses the trappings of modern female celebrity and pop idol-hood and singing competitions to further trivialize and mock these women's trauma and oppression and in fact mock them for the same reasons they had been mocked during their lives and ever since like for promiscuity or miscarriages or dying in childbirth (the show even jokes that dying in childbirth is dying of natural causes like wtf)

like I get they have a song that pulls the rug out and goes oh wait actually what Katherine Howard is singing about over a catchy tune is sexual assault and she's traumatized by it and she ends up beheaded for it

but the show didn't EARN it, like she's singing this song within a framework of a singing competition to be named the best queen and the measure by which you win is how much you suffered, the display of genuine emotion and suffering is undercut by the format and tone

the woman singing is still ultimately presented as a caricature of the actual Katherine Howard and not a full person because there isn't time for her to be portrayed as more

because the show is only 9 songs long, that's barely an album let alone a musical, there are concept albums by pop bands with more narrative depth than this show and the dialogue between the numbers can't save it either

because again they set up the format of the musical as a singing competition between the women (half the dialogue is actually dedicated to setting this up over idk giving these women depth) so the tone for all of the women's dialogue is in the style of pop stars causing drama and feuding so it's all one upping each other and going for the ooh burn reaction from the audience

like right after Howard's song about her repeated sexual assault is finished it's joked about as having a lot of verses BY Howard to prove that she wins

I get that the show ended with Catherine Parr being like we shouldn't be in competition with each other and them all agreeing not to compete

but it's at the end of the show after the majority of the cast has sung and after Howard's song specifically, like it doesn't retroactively change WHY these characters sang those songs or how they were portrayed in treating each other up to that point

it's literally the writers coming in and going wink wink nudge nudge to the audience hey we know what we did was super unethical by portraying these women in this way and having them compete over their suffering but don't you forgive us for knowing what we did was fucked up?

no because acknowledgement doesn't magically make what was just presented ethical especially because the tone is still wrong for it, it's still not earned

like they try to rescue their shallow and lazy portrayal of Anne Boleyn as a ditzy party girl by having her quote what I think is actual feminist theory (not that I can find the quote to confirm it) to support ending the competition

except again because the show's tone is not serious enough and didn't earn this conversation there's a moment of silence so she can joke and say what I read

the show literally discourages the audience from taking this ending of reconciliation between the queens and any feminist messaging with it seriously because of its tone and immediately back pedaling from any seriousness by going actually lets rewrite history to make things nice and pretty don't look at how bad things were, don't look at how bad we were

and it worked, I've looked at the tags and reviews, fans describe the show as a fun pop singing competition despite the competition being cancelled in show

it's honestly pathetic that this show won any awards especially for original score when it only had 9 fucking songs and they weren't even good

like say what you want about Hamilton but at least it felt like Miranda read an actual book on the dude and put effort into the songs

Six makes me doubt anyone involved read a book on any of these women and the songs feel like bad and lazy copies of pop songs trying to cash in on what's trendy

Like trust me I get the desire to see more musicals written by women and to have a cast of women and be about women's stories, I want to see it and support it

but profiting off the real suffering women endured and perpetuating it yourself and then trivializing it isn't the way to go

60 notes - Posted August 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[nefskullcritique]

Bones, DID, and the Military

Hey everyone! If I wasn’t fully convinced that Bones is faking DID before, I certainly am now. I’ve asked around for any mention from Bones about their DID, or, “multiple personalities” in general, and I was sent some screenshots from when they first “learned” they had DID. 

Before we get into anything, I’m referring to “psychopathy” AS psychopathy for the pure reason of, that’s how I’ve known it while I’ve been studying it for the past couple of years. I genuinely don’t know if there’s an alternate “medical” term for it. I understand that it is not a diagnosis on the DSM. 

It started off because Bones implied that they’d known about their DID for years to me, saying they “masked” to hide it. This is false. Here are the screenshots I find most interesting.

There’s a lot to unpack here. The first screenshot holds nothing significant, so let’s go to the second one.

“He said that my psychopathy is so bad that it developed into BPD and DID.”  .... Psychopathy cannot develop into another disorder. It’s a chronic genetic disorder that affects the structure of your brain and gives you a total lack of empathy. It can give you a loose sense of reality, but it does not develop into another disorder.

Bones later says that they developed DID through trauma, from the time they were a child soldier. There’s a few things wrong with this. Firstly, it’s very hard for a Psychopath to become traumatized. It’s possible, but incredibly rare. Like I said, the structure of their brains are different than someone who isn’t a psychopath. They can’t process fear, stress, and panic like someone who is not a psychopath. 

Secondly, there is NO POSSIBLE WAY Bones fought in a war.

I’ve done my research, and even got help from a friend who lives in Malaysia. Here is a list of wars that Malaysia has taken part in. The war that lines up with them being a child, is this. 

Here’s a little fun fact. Bones was born in 1998. They were 8 years old in 2006. Here’s another fun fact: The Malaysian armed forces only recruits 18+ year olds, and anyone younger (say, 16-17) have to have their parents agree to send them off to war. Here’s some information I found about the Malaysian armed forces. 

Now, hypothetically, let’s say that Gerard, Bones’ father, gave consent for Bones to be in the military. WHY would they accept a literal 8 year old? And said above, people 16+ were chosen and recruited. NOT EIGHT YEAR OLDS. NOT NINE YEAR OLDS. 

This contradicts the general age where people develop DID, as well. They weren’t in a war when they were 8-9, and the war ended in 2013, when they were 15. We know they were in school during this time from the many posts and friends they used to talk about from the rebornica blog in 2013. We also know that they weren’t in any war or military AFTER this time as well due to the sheer fact of how active they were on tumblr. 

As a side note, there was a brain scan experiment for DID. But it was nothing more than an experiment, and is not used in common medical practice. A ct scan cannot detect mental disorders 100%.

Later, Bones decides that the reason they were abusive in the past is because of DID.

Bones still didn’t quite understand DID at this point. I don’t think they ever have. Back in the nifaux days, they said she was “faking her multiple personality thing” and treated their DID-based oc (the personification of it, and someone I talked to believed they used to refer to the oc as multiple personality disorder) as being as simple as pulling off your head and replacing it with another. 

Bones had to be literally “convinced” that DID didn’t make them evil. They insisted that the reason they’re abusive is because they had DID. 

Bones is very insistent on not sharing their body with their alters. I’m sure learning at first can be very confusing, but they’ve kept this mindset even now. I don’t understand why they’re so insistent on people with DID being evil. Friends I’ve met and grown close to with DID are some of the coolest people I know. That is also, most likely another lie to get the validation they want.

 Moving on, Here’s the bunch of screenshots I started posting the other day.

Bones literally does NOT understand DID at all just from these screenshots alone. They still refer to alters as separate personalities, not as their own people.

I’ve gone over some of these screenshots so I won’t waste much time on them, but, Alters can form at anytime. It doesn’t have to be tied to Trauma. They can form over the smallest things. There are also dormant alters, and they never really seem to refer to other alters as fronting. They’re not nice to their alters, and they bring back the “this is my body” point. 

THEY DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT PERSECUTORS ARE. Persecutors don’t protect the body, they harm the body and terrorize other alters. Some can even be an introject of a person’s abuser.

I don’t know what doctor they’re going to, if they’re even going to one. They’ve thrown their doctor around before like a weapon, and he doesn’t seem to be good at his job if they keep throwing these ideas and labels in Bones’ direction, because they clearly take things too far.

I fully believe Bones just googles a few things and takes the first result, and the CT scan comment proves that.

I believe Bones tries to find excuses for their actions. They believe that something needs to be the reason for why they act the way they do. 

[writingwithcolor]

Hi, thank you all so much for running this blog--I was hoping I could get your feedback on a Jewish MC. The crux of my question is whether I, a gentile, would be out of line depicting her experiencing internalized discrimination from her own father (who in my first draft was Catholic, but I think that will be changing to a TBD protestant denomination).

The backstory I have for her right now is that her mother is Jewish and places great value on the history and culture of being Jewish, but is not a particularly religious person. Her daughter refers to her as having sometimes attended events at a local reform synagogue and making note of the high holidays but she is, overall, not someone with strict religious observances of any kind, and for a long time she and her husband (raised Christian but deeply agnostic) raise their daughter on the idea that it's important to understand where she and her family come from but that how she ultimately pursues faith--whatever that faith may be--is up to her. Both parents introduce her to the stories and lessons they grew up with but don't pressure her to attend religious events, etc. unless she has a personal, independent interest in doing so. For the first 16 or so years of her life this is how she's raised and her family is stable and her parents seem deeply in love. So far beta readers from households with one Jewish and one Christian parent have told me this backstory seems fine to them, though I welcome any feedback you have, too.

What I'm most concerned about, though, is when she's a teen and her parents divorce. Right now I have the reason for their divorce as being that they fell out because her dad becomes a bit of a Christian zelot and becomes less and less respectful of his wife's religion and background as he gets deeper into this mindset. The reason he becomes like that is essentially that when 9/11 happens MCs mother, who grew up with the story of how her grandparents fled from the Soviet Union because of religious discrimination under Stalin, only narrowly managing to immigrate as far as the US before the breakout of WWII, powerfully empathizes with the people suffering from the horrible rise of Islamophobia we saw in 2001-2002. Her husband, on the other hand, does what I saw a lot of people in my family and community do and becomes increasingly religiously conservative as a reaction the percieved "threat" of the Islamic world. (This is all clearly identified in the book as his being in the wrong.) One of the ways this manifests is that he starts pressuring his daughter, the MC, to attend church services with him and become Christian. His rationale is that he just wants what's best for his daughter--to be "saved."

MC's mother has no tolerance for that crap, as she shouldn't, so they fight quite a bit going forward and eventually separate. Mom gets custody of the MC.

While her father never says anything openly antisemitic--implying those ideas but never stating them explicitly--he does respond to 16 yr. old MC basically asking him if he would still love her if she pursued her mom's faith by saying some bullshit along the lines of "well honey I just love you and want the best for you," as his answer. She never says to him that she's cutting him out, but after this moment she's never close to her father again and by the time the main narrative takes place 10 years later, she hasn't spoken to him since she was 21.

This backstory helps build a foundation for a lot of themes for the MC in terms of different ways alienation manifests in her life, how she trusts, and what we can and cannot forgive our parents for, so I like it from a narrative standpoint, but I would deeply appreciate your feedback on whether writing this kind of experience for a Jewish character is inappropriate for me to be doing. And, if not, do you have any suggestions on ways to modify this backstory, or would you recommend scrapping it entirely? Thank you so much.

Interfaith family broken up when Dad becomes a jerk and a bigot

A difficult situation definitely but I don’t have a problem with the setup. If this isn’t based on your own observations, it’s probably a good idea to get a beta reader with experience around bigots of the same stripe as Dad to make sure the awful stuff Dad says uses word choices and ideas that feel authentic. If that IS your experience I am so very sorry and I hope you have other wonderful people in your life to make up for it. 

--Shira This seems very well planned, and thought out. It's also very real, and will be an emotional read I'm sure. As long as your character isn't forced to give up her Jewishness because of her father, and provided that you are careful during fight scenes between the parents earlier in the work (to ensure that the mom doesn't end up seeming like the Shrill Jewish Woman stereotype), I think you are on solid ground. Good luck!

--Dierdra

Also, I just caught that you said "internalized discrimination" from her dad -- that's not what internalized discrimination means. Internalized discrimination is when someone is feeling negatively about their own group, because they've absorbed bigoted ideas from outside. Discrimination from someone who isn't yourself isn't called “internalized” even when it comes from someone as close as a parent. But that's just a little language correction.

--Shira

Oh no, this backstory is so sad! I hope your MC has a happy ending with some very mutually supportive relationships.

I agree that this shouldn't be a problem as long as you take care to avoid stereotypes on a more micro level in specific scenes. As for the overall idea, nothing jumping out at me. You've clearly put so much effort into creating a believable background for your character and its influence on her current psyche - that gives me confidence that you will write humanised characters rather than falling back on tropes!

Also, don't know if you knew this but something to note with interfaith families: if MC's mother is Jewish, she is a Jew in Jewish law. It doesn't matter what she believes or practises or how she was brought up. (I don't say this to invalidate patrilineal Jews or oppose anyone self-identifying the way they want, but just halachically. You should be aware that many more religious Jews will consider her that way.)

Good luck with your story! I would read this 😌

--Shoshi

[barnabyleeofslytherin]

Now I know this one'll come as a shock to everyone(haha), but I don't post on this blog much anymore. And I know very well that I don't owe any of you apologies or really explanations for that manner, since, as I'm sure you're all aware, JKR isn't a very good person, and it's reasonable to assume that, many people would wanna distance themselves from her and her work after some not-so-recent thing's she's said and done.

But I would still like to simply come out and generally share the reasons why I'm not quite as active on this blog as I may once have been. I'm on mobile and I haven't slept for about 24 hours(it's around 6am), so I apologise for mistakes and formatting;

First and foremost, I, the Mod, am a gay man. I had started this blog almost as soon as Hogwarts mystery came out (some time around May of 2018 iirc, when I was graduating highschool), and back then I was maybe one of a small handful of gay men in the entire fandom. Back then, being what felt to me, like the only gay man surrounded by a sea of heterosexual and bisexual women felt very alienating to me. I had wanted to interact with people who, like me, were also gay men. I was happy to interact with people who viewed themselves to be women too, of course, but I was often made uncomfortable by these individuals due in part to them being very pushy towards me about how they wanted to date Barnaby.

Second, I'm a Trangender Man. Regardless of if JKR really actively despises my specific group in the transgender community or not, isn't up for debate. She's expressed her opinions on Trans Women, and I stand with my trans siblings(the transgender version of TERFS excluded, I believe they're called Transmeds?) Because of this, I cannot in good conscious, continue to support JRK or the Hogwarts franchise as a whole.

Third, I'm in my early 20s now. When I made this blog, I was a few months off of graduating high school, and a whopping 17 years of age. I'm going to be 21 in less than a month, and I wholeheartedly believe Barnaby and Co. to be children. Hell, they're around 16 in the game now last I'd heard, and while the legal age of consent in Alberta Canada states that 16 year olds can date up to 5 years older, I still cannot force myself to see these children as anything but children. I've lived a lot more life since I first played the game, there's such a gap of life experience between me and an 18 year old of today. These kids are barely older than my little brother. And with there being so much focus on the romantic aspect of the game(again, from what I've seen), I can't comfortably continue playing. (<- Read through it again and I wanna add on to this, I just do not find children attractive in the slightest, as I'm a normal person, who rightfully hates p*dos, and I will block anyone who claims it's okay to be romantically attracted to a child. From a survivor of childhood s*xual ab*se, it's not okay.)

Fourth, my interests and life have changed a lot since I was 17. I'm not interested in Harry Potter anymore, I'm not interested in working with animals anymore. I still love animals, but it's not a career path I want to work. I'm hoping to be a Certified Embalmer within the next year and a half. I just want to pursue adulthood, and become healthy again. I'd even started seeing a therapist before the pandemic to work though my survivors guilt and more. There's a new addition to my family coming later this July(child of my cousin), and one of my Uncles was found dead at 35 literally yesterday (June 20th 2021). I need to be here for my family, and running this blog when I was still active had become a chore.

Sometimes when I get a new notification from this blog, I'll consider deleting it, but this blog was a major part of who I was for about a year. I don't want to just delete it and act as though Harry Potter and the blog weren't major parts of my life, because they were, but they aren't anymore. I plan to leave this blog up, but not use it anymore, as I'd been doing for however many months by now. I will still follow some of my old friends who I'd met through the fandom, because I appreciate the friendship they provided me.

Thank you for bearing with the bone tired, and likely nonsensical ramblings of an almost 21 year old ex-RPer. I mean no harm nor offence to anyone with this post (except jkr) and I genuinely wish everyone still here all the best.

I will be scheduling this post to repost every 6 hours for the rest of today and tomorrow (June 21-22), sorry if it clogs your dashes, I'll tag it with "Scheduled post" for you to block.

~Mod Bennett, the only mod of this blog.

[thedannyfinn]

The Story of Absolute Power, Deceit, and Manipulation

This is going to be quite an interesting read for many. I encourage bookmarking and taking breaks. It is out of the request of those involved to bring awareness of the patterns of manipulation, deceit, and absolute power that I delve into my knowledge on this subject as supported by the words of Ashley Purdy, backed by my own experiences and opinions. This will be a very important lesson for many younger musicians as well. This is in part based on my own personal experiences, opinions, and recollection. The sources of the information that will be detailed in this post will be coming from myself alone as an individual and my personal observations with supporting relevant media links.

An Anonymous Warning

This story starts way back in 2012. I remember distinctly researching Black Veil Brides and the making of, when I came across a blog post from a third party detailing the band’s relocation to Los Angeles and its creation from a business perspective. This post which I cannot recall the source platform, nor whom had posted it, to my knowledge had been removed shortly after I had read it. In the post it detailed a young Andy Sixx, around the age of 16, visiting Los Angeles, most likely for acting / modeling where he first met Ashley Purdy. It was said that Andy and Ashley had remained in communication throughout Andy’s return home to Cincinnati, OH. Roughly two years later, shortly after turning 18 and relocating to Los Angeles, Andy had what was said to be a second run in with Ashley Purdy, who was around 31 at the time (yes, nearly twice Andy’s age). The Knives And Pens music video was already out and it had amassed an iconic acclaim overnight. During this time Ashley had used his tactics to manipulate the young Andy into signing away half of the rights to the name Black Veil Brides in a contract that he, and I would presume to be an attorney, had created behind the backs of the others involved. However, in this contract it was said that Ashley had made it so Black Veil were run more so like a business than a band, giving 50% of the creative direction and rights to the band name and brand as a whole to Ashley, but most importantly in this reallocation of power, it had made it near impossible for Andy Biersack to remove Ashley Purdy as a co-business owner for the band, regardless of circumstances. It was also said that this contract had a duration that was indefinite. What this means is that Ashley and Andy were both in equal power meaning no matter what, one could not remove the other and this contract would never expire. This contract were most likely signed by a young and naive Andy with false promises that Ashley had many resources that would help the band grow. At first I had considered this to be some strange fanfic from an anonymous source, nonetheless I had read this post myself and had always kept it in the back of my mind, questioning what level of validity it held.

Intent To Steal

In an interview (2014) with Ashley Purdy, he discusses how Andy Sixx and the Black Veil Brides already had debuted the Knives and Pens music video in 2009 (which had launched Andy and Sandra Alva into international fame nearly overnight) before Ashley had found out about Andy and the Black Veil Brides. Ashley discusses seeing an ad (most likely craigslist) where Andy had listed his influences and was looking to recruit more members. Here Ashley had noticed them being along similar to his and has verbatim said “I was actually looking to STEAL players from there to put in my band, you know?” His intentions most likely had changed into intent to infiltrate once he saw the success tied to Andy as a frontman as he admitted in this interview that he liked Andy as a frontman and was going to continue in the direction Andy and Black Veil Brides were currently on. In a conversation with an outside and anonymous individual whom was living with some of those involved at the time, I personally was told “Ashley didn’t play anything, it was just a given that he were to be in the band someway or another.” Another anonymous individual who was present around this time confirms this to be true.

The Victimizing Narrative of a Manipulator

Let’s fast forward to 2019. At the end of the year we see shockingly that Ashley Purdy and the Black Veil Brides have separated in a mutual agreement. It was said that this was beneficial for both parties and it was a positive thing. However, shortly after in the beginning of 2020 we start to see words from Ashley Purdy in an AltPress article saying “Technically, I didn’t leave; I’m just not in the band anymore. I have to talk in those terms right now” and “Black Veil Brides is a corporate business, and there are legal rules,” he explains. “It’s like a divorce, and we are working it all out.” What we know from this is that the terms of the separation are not yet 100% agreed upon and settled, however implying that there are legal rules and “having to talk in those terms” implies that there is indeed a nondisclosure agreement between the parties of Ashley Purdy and the Black Veil Brides. With that being said, he 100% admittedly shared that he was removed from the group as to be supported from the next time he goes on record with the press.

Following said AltPress article, we had seen a more honest article with the words of Ashley Purdy saying “I guess I can say this because it is the truth. On Feb. 26 [at] 1 p.m., I still currently own half of Black Veil Brides right now. The realization is like it’s a corporate buyout. It’s like me and Andy [Biersack] — 50% each. And they still have to compensate me for them wanting me to depart. But that hasn’t happened yet. And we’re still in negotiations about what that is. I don’t know how to approach it because it’s not finalized yet.” This right here is huge. This 100% backs the warning message that I had come across in 2012 in regards to a 50/50 corporate ownership split between Ashley Purdy and Andy Biersack. Here he also further admits. that not only was he removed from the group, but they actually wanted him to depart which in my opinion implies intent before the 2019 actions. This new narrative is 100% against the initial statements of a mutual parting by both parties and seems to be a direct violation of a rumored NDA as implied by Ashley and it also appears to be a blatant attempt of assuming the role of victim against Black Veil to any interested in the split.

Non-Disclosure / Non-Defamation Clause

During a controversial Crowdcast that Ashley Purdy had done himself on March 26, 2020 titled “Spring Fling” at the minute mark 31:59 Ashley discloses “It’s not like it’s a non-disclosure, it’s just a non-defamation clause..” Which both fall under the non-disparagement umbrella and are similar with a stark exception of non-defamation clauses protecting the entire history of the relationships in any way that could make either party look in any way negative. What this means is that in short, Andy nor anyone else in the band could make a single comment that would in any way show a lack of support of Ashley Purdy at any point in the entire relationship between Ashley Purdy and Black Veil Brides, regardless of validity. I would bet the one whom would want such a clause in place would be Ashley, protecting himself from Black Veil exposing him for his manipulative and deceitful ways which is assumed to have started since his days of first involvement.

At this point the truths according to statements made by Ashley Purdy goes as follows:

There had been a 50/50 split contract between Andy and Ashley

Black Veil had wanted Ashley out of the band

There is a NDA in place regarding the separation

There is a non-defamation clause regarding the relationship

Black Veil Memebers / Crew cannot legally comment in any way that would make Ashley look bad

Breaking The NDA / Non-Defamation Clause

Based on my own knowledge backed by research, in a similar scenario when a NDA or Non-Defamation Clause is broken, one party seeks grounds for lawsuit for the entire capital of the brand of the other party. What this means is that if Black Veil or any member of the Black Veil Brides Brand were to breach the NDA by sharing details of the separation or by making any statements that make Ashley Purdy appear in a negative light, whether true or false, Ashley Purdy would attempt to assume any and all financial capital of the brand and destroy the entire band as an entity. The band would completely cease to exist and Ashley would be in a financially advantages position to ruin the lives of all members under the Black Veil Brides umbrella, suing them for damages and voiding all future gains of profit from each member of involvement as well. This is what happens in cases similar to these where previous business owners insert on separation agreements of non-disclosure / non-defamation and when they are breached it is essentially a “Hail Mary” to reclaim future and previous profits made by the entire brand.

Ashley’s Intent to Manipulate, Groom, Profit

Now, at the time of the contract agreement as supported by the acknowledgement of its existence by Ashley’s statements in the press articles supplied above, it’s safe to assume that this contract were put in place back when the band first started their involvement with Ashley. Ashley would have been 31 years old and Andy would have been 18 at the time where the creative direction of the band would legally rest between two parties for the first time in the band’s history. As proud of a person as Andy is, I can’t help to believe wholeheartedly that Andy as a teen was persuaded and manipulated into signing away half of the rights of the name Black Veil Brides to a man nearly double his age. This is how corporate splits typically occur as to restrict of the brand at its sole genesis, the name. By extension, one could assume that this manipulation had stemmed back from Andy’s first rumored run in with Ashley back at the age of 16 years old. If you had been following this band for awhile, you would have seen an extremely different atmosphere of the band in its early days in regards to the relationship of Andy and Ashley from its later days. I follow this up later with my own personal experiences as I had toured with them multiple times. The TLDR is I never once saw Ashley in the same room as a single other member of the band to my own observation, and it had appeared to me that the majority of the band were not even on speaking terms, nor wanted to associate with Ashley in the slightest and it would not have shocked me if that had been the case for awhile. My first time touring with them was in 2014, which suggests the dichotomy between Andy and Ashley had become apparent in the years prior.

What a 50/50 split means is that no matter what, there would be no way for Andy to remove Ashley at all unless there were some discovered loophole. Andy had committed legally and indefinitely that even if the two parties had hated each other completely, it would be near impossible for Andy to reclaim 100% of the rights to the brand Black Veil Brides and rid the project of Ashley. I strongly speculate based on tonality in interviews, live performances etc that there was a specific time where the manipulation and deceit of a teenaged Andy Biersack had turned into a matrimonial nightmare with no means of an end. It is of my opinion that I trace the flip of naivety to suffering back in 2012. At this time it has become extremely rare to find interviews shared between Andy and Ashley both. Also, this is the time that it had appeared obvious that Andy was severely suffering from a multitude of psychologically destructive antics. Now I by NO means am implying that Andy at this time was a weak person, I am insinuating that he however was another human being who is victim of manipulation, abuse, and with no escape has found himself in a world of suffering.

Andy Black- a Project Born Under Pressured Circumstances

With the assumed unescapable borderline abusive relationship between Andy Biersack and Ashley Purdy, this would be the complete explanation for the existence of the side project, Andy Black and the side projects of the other members of the band. If Andy refused to continue working with Ashley Purdy, he could assume his own project and if the members were reliant on Andy to perform as Black Veil Brides the other members of the band hopefully would share the same ability without conflict of interest. 

Why Was Ashley Not Removed?

This is highly speculative however, with an ownership balance of 50/50 split over the name Black Veil Brides, the only events by which Andy could separate ways from Ashley would be if Andy were to surrender all current and future financial capital of the brand and ownership of the name to Ashley, find a loophole to default ownership back to Andy, or drive the entire brand into bankruptcy along with an indefinite hiatus and find a means of separation. What the last event means is that if there were no current capital (money in the bank) that the band possessed and no speculated future profits by means of indefinite hiatus, Ashley could not sue to take what isn’t there. It’s my guess that this is exactly what had happened and that the band cared so much to remove Ashley that they had driven themselves financially bankrupt. My guess is that the band assumed indefinite hiatus, had absolutely no capital or perhaps was even in debt, had no speculative future profit, and it was on its last leg that a strategy or loophole was discovered that provided means of creating a case for separation where the band would most likely refuse to be active and Ashley would no longer have any income unless he were removed from the band, where the band would then continue and Ashley would be entitled to a cut of profits and for future profits. This is directly supported by Ashley saying “And they still have to compensate me for them wanting me to depart.”

I Am Your Boss

With a 50/50 split of power between Ashley and Andy, this event would then place Ashley and Andy both to be the literal bosses of every single member in the band and every single member of crew as well. Management, Tour Managers, Security Guards, Performing Members, etc all are employed by those in power of the band; Ashley and Andy. What this means is that at any time, Ashley could fire any given member under the Black Veil Brides employment umbrella on the spot at any point with the exception of Andy. This is very important to note as per one of the victim’s case having taken place on the last tour that the band had ever performed in alongside Ashley Purdy. His claims against a proven 17 year old minor walking off of the tour bus late at night that he assumed complete ownership of, were as follows:

There are many issues with this statement. Having toured with them, it is 100% false that Tour Managers and Security guards hold responsibility over band members for checking identification of the guests that the band members bring from the crowd, to back stage, and thusly on to the bus.

Even if in some arrangement Ashley claims that responsibility rests on the shoulders of Mr. Y**** (Andy’s long term personal security from threats of physical harm) and Mr. S******* (The tour manager of the resurrection tour whom held responsibility of resources, travel arrangements, finances etc) The Tour Manager and Security would be in employment positions UNDER Ashley Purdy, meaning they could be fired at any point for any reason and it would be absolutely likely that they would be removed on the spot had there been any confrontation at all for any reason. Based on this, I am absolutely confident that this deranged imposition of power would be held over the heads of all employees under Ashley Purdy which would speak as to the complete avoidance and disassociation that I had personally payed observation to on the multiple tours I had shared with Black Veil.

Another point of error in this statement, is that at this time Andy, head of Security Mr. Y**** and the Tour Manager Mr. S******* had all lived on a completely separate bus from Ashley Purdy at all times during this tour and all tours around this time. It would be extremely unlikely for Ashley Purdy to cross paths with any of these individuals with the exception of the show and sound check alone.

My Experiences

Below are a collection of experiences I had witnessed firsthand along with some backstory on my involvement and where the grounds for my opinions and speculation can be based on. I had only witnessed one event with Ashley that I consider to be inappropriate that took place before 3 years of hiatus from the band before they embarked on one final tour in 2018, the last tour before Ashley was removed from the band.

Black Mass Tour 2014

This is where my personal observations begin take place. I had been touring for a few years in many different roles and in 2014 I was invited to join alongside Black Veil brides mid-tour. When I had joined the tour, I was never approached to sign a NDA because the tour was already in progress, henceforth why I am able to come forth with my own observations. 

During this tour I spent many nights hanging out with various members of Black Veil with the exception of Ashley Purdy. Every night that we had gone out to bars, clubs, restaurants etc several of us would formulate a plan before our early morning bus call (often 4:00 am). Often we would make a group event out of it and invite several other musicians from other bands and/or friends. However, I remember finding it odd that Ashley never once came up in conversation and never was present at a single night out which is why I don’t have many shared experiences between Ashley and myself. Most of the nights I spent socially out at bars with Jinxx and CC heading out with some friends from another band. Some nights Andy had joined us along with a few other crew members where we would sit at a table in a quiet bar or hang out in the front lounge of the bus and often talk about wrestling and/or movies. Or he and I would talk outside the bus late at night, in the venue about Batman, Misfits etc. It was quite clear that Andy was not drinking often at this time and neither was Jake due to health reasons. I remember whenever I were with Jake it was always just for one drink of vodka as it was a “healthier” option to whisky and we never got more than a social buzz to help with out anxiety / social awkwardness. It was also my impression that Ashley would be off doing his own thing away from everybody before the show, and it was almost as if he had vanished after every show until bus call. Honestly, I had never seen anyone in the band talk to or about Ashley at all. It had seemed to me as though no one in the band had associated with him in the slightest bit and they didn’t seem to be on speaking terms at all aside from business obviously. It also would not surprise me if this had been the case for awhile. The only time this tour that I had ever seen Ashley present with any other members was on Thanksgiving day where we had all gone to Hometown Buffet (lol) where Ashley sat away from Andy and Jake near the other end of the table with crew and band members between himself and Andy.

Los Vegas, NV 10/30/14 The first night that I had gone out with other members of Black Veil where Andy, Myself, CC, Jinxx and I believe Jake all went to the Foundation Room with the band’s merchandise manager, various crew members, most other musicians on the tour, and a few friends of the band as well. While we were there, Ashley was somewhere else completely on what he considers to be a “Spring Break” when he tweeted a picture of himself sucking on the chest of a girl at another bar and appeared to be on a multitude of different substances. We had taken an entire group photo where Ashley is not present which I believe was taken on a friend to the band’s phone by another friend whom is a video director. 

Houston, TX 12/11/14 I watched this entire show side-stage. Earlier this Day Ashley was running around in his black boxer brief underwear mid afternoon clearly wasted throwing around a football. I was quite interested in how he were going to be able to perform. As the show were about to start, I stood side stage with Mr R**** (another musician present, not to drag you in my boy) when during the show, Ashley appeared immensely disheveled and sported stubble, no makeup, and a trucker hat and was having troubles walking about the stage. Throughout the show he slowly stumbled around, often missing his own bass when strumming. Early on my parter side stage pointed at Ashley and exclaimed “DUDE HE DOESN’T EVEN LOOK LIKE HE’S PLAYING!” by which I responded with a mere glare out of the corner of my eye. He then responded with “I know, I just wanted to see if you knew.”

Throughout this entire show Andy clearly was frustrated with Ashley and if I remember correctly, at one point Andy brought a barstool from side stage and sat in it during the performance, clearly frustrated. Towards the resolve of the show, Ashley could barely stand up on his own, where Andy held him upright for a moment.

Warped Tour 2015 - Second To Last Black Veil Tour Ever

I had caught a flight out last minute to start Warped Tour and was living with another band at the start. I believe, because of this I had also not been approached to sign an NDA. There was not one night that I recall Andy, Jake or Ashley in attendance to the Warped Tour BBQ, an event that happened every few evenings after the tour was broken down. Later on during the tour, it was 08-02 at the Denver show where the Warped Tour “Prom” was to be held. This is simply another Warped Tour BBQ except with a bit more festivities as usual and having a “date” is somewhat of a normal event.

It was this night where I was on another bus that Ashley was not living on where some important events occurred. I was inside the bathroom on the bus and our singer Zero was in the back lounge. The bus would have appeared empty and quiet to any outsiders. It was extremely unlikely that you would ever see any Black Veil crew member or band members on the bus unless I had brought CC on the bus to hang out with and play Superfight, a card game similar to Cards Against Humanity that Zero and I commonly played with other musicians. I was walking out of the bathroom when I saw Ashley walking on with two girls immediately making a reach for the alcohol on the bus until I had stepped in his way. Zero (whom was quietly working on his Macbook Pro in the back lounge) noticed the event and walked up to the front quickly. Zero who is bigger and older than I had yelled at Ashley to get off the bus and told me to stay back. It is my opinion that Ashley was attempting to sneak behind the backs of his own band and crew at this point.

Later that night I had heard from one of my crew guys that the girls were under the age of 21 and that Ashley had gotten in some serious trouble and the girls were sent home. There were only 4 days remaining on this tour.

This was also the second to last tour that Black Veil Brides had ever done. Between the dates of Warped Tour 2015 and today, Black Veil Brides had only embarked on The Resurrection Tour which had lasted a total of less than 5 months which is where the event’s regarding a minor on Ashley’s bus had taken place, very shortly before his removal from the band.

Closing Statement:

I consider this to be the most complete and detailed composition of relevant events and experiences and I truly believe this has been made in attempt to educate to the best of my ability. I have not posted here besides the typical share from IG in quite some time. This post by no means has been created with any aforementioned dialogue to any involved and is a collective of my sole efforts as an individual and my ability to research and speculate based on my own experiences. I believe with my given perspective, this is most accurate and I hope this can be referred to with intent to answer many questions regarding this troubling subject. I truly wish the best for all parties and victims along with the families affected by this decade long reign of manipulation and abuse. I hope the internal struggle of many that I’m seeing on various socials can be absolved. It is my intent that this will be my last public statement regarding these events and I truly hope I’ve done right by those I am attempting to answer to and have not belittled nor offended any in any way.

Suicide Prevention 800-273-8255

Substance Abuse/Mental Health Helpline 1-800-662-4357

Sexual Assault Hotline 800-656-4673

Domestic Violence Hotline 800−799−7233

Crisis Text Line: Text HELLO to 741741

Thank you kindly for reading my post. Feel free to redirect / share as necessary.

Danny Finn

[screamingtome]

Letter to my future lover

Hi.

Welcome to my Tumblr blog. This is where 16-17 year old me spent a ton of time depressed that my straight friend didn't like me back and I was too afraid to tell anyone I was gay. I mostly reblogged stuff, so a ton of stuff must be gone by the time you read this, if you even exist.

Once I started college this was mostly abandoned. I came for a few hours and there I went off for another few years.

Right now it's 03:41 AM, 10 October 2021, so, (hopefully) as the pandemic is finishing. My bedroom is still serving the 2018-2021 horrendous mess, but I bought new furniture that will fix it and make it look real nice. It just needs to be assembled. I'm on that expensive laptop that I bought with my own money. The rain stopped for a bit I think, but it's cold, and despite that my fan is on (low setting but still), Sofia is sleeping under my blankets, Gatinho is sleeping on my dirty clothes basket and I'm wearing some lightweight pajamas, so I'm bit chilly.

I was just watch Schmigadoon, and the couple just broke up. I unpaused my Spotify to write this and a playlist that went from The Climb to All I Ask is playing.

I'm writing this because I'm pretty heartbroken right now (but you guessed from the songs). I wish I could talk to you because in my mind you will be able to understand me but I don't know who you are or if you exist or if we're meant to meet in this lifetime.

The other day I was telling a random person online about when I was bullied, and it dawned on me that it was right at that time that I got into Disney. If you're reading this you probably know how much I love Disney.

Despite all the things that I was made to believe believe about myself, Disney taught me hope. Perhaps a little too much, but it was always despite the heartbreaks and suffering, they came out happy in the end. So I clung onto that, perhaps a little bit too much.

And instead of giving up I went out there, and made the friends I never thought I was gonna have or that someone would want to be to me. I made crazy stuff. I became a lawyer. I had a boyfriend that made me believe someone could want to be with me and even if he ended up manipulating, breaking and destroying my self-worth, I guess I learned something.

I also learned to like myself. Despite my amazing friends, one of the things I miss the most during this pandemic is going out alone. To the theatre, to the movies, to eat, to shop, anything. I love my own company. I love when it's just me and the silver screen.

But I've been also looking for you. As Hedwig would say, "there's no mystical design/No cosmic lover preassigned/There's nothing you can find/That cannot be found". I believe that. Love and relationship should be easy but it also means work. You won't fall of the sky on my lap. You won't find me in my room waiting for you.

I've been talking to this guy. For months. I think since January. We didn't meet yet (pandemic), but at first we hit it off really well like you know it's hard for me. I didn't drop the ball (well, I did at first but then we matched on Tinder and I decided I wouldn't), the conversation keeps going but a few months back he said he went out with some other guy, and realized he wasn't interested in a relationship with anyone and that he wanted to be honest but didn't want to stop talking. I knew I liked him, perhaps as a friend, perhaps as something else, so I kept it going. I decided that if this failed, it wouldn't be my fault. He's really cute.

His replies started taking days to come and I never minded. Sometimes I also take days to reply him and it's not on purpose, although most of the times when I see his notification I just want to reply him immediately.

I think he likes his straight friend. Or maybe it's someone else, He made it pretty clear from his stories that he's suffering for love and wished he wasn't. I asked him if there's something happening and if he wants to talk about it. He'll probably play it off or maybe he will tell me all about it.

(Liability plays)

I'll pretend it's not breaking my heart and that I don't like him. I'll try to meet him in person, but he'll probably refuse. But I do like him quite a lot. And I don't know what to do. I want to get mad at you for taking so long and make me get into these crazy feelings.

Sometimes I pray, because if I pray and there is a God above, he probably won't listen to me asking and crying and do nothing, right?

People tell me I gotta enjoy my own company and they never understand that I do, but I want more. I have all this love that I just want to give away, and all this couple stuff that I want to live and I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. Guess I just want to think that you exist even if for a moment.

At least Adele is coming and Taylor is re-releasing Red so I'll some new stuff to suffer to. Promise you'll make me laugh about this.

<3

[trutimeline]

idislikecispeople, The Most Infamous Dyscourse Blogger: Part 1.0, Rumors

idislikecispeople, also known as many names throughout her time on Tumblr (such as Adele, Kat, Mami, Samantha and Sayaka), was a former Tumblr blogger who became infamous for coining the term "tucute", among many other controversial things she has posted on her blogs. This was supposed to be one, very long masterpost about her, but Tumblr's post editor is a bitch and won't let me do that.

In this post, I'll be debunking or confirming rumors commonly spread about idislikecispeople. The rest of my posts about her will each be dedicated to a specific controversial belief she held or situations she got into. For simplicity's sake, I'll be referring to idislikecispeople as Kat for the rest of this post and future ones.

Rumors

Kat Coined the Terms "Truscum" and "Tucute"

Verdict: Partially True

Kat coined the term tucute, but she did not coin the terms truscum or transmedicalist.

Here's a screenshot of Kat's original definition of a tucute:

Transcript:

What is Tucute?

What does tucute mean?

Tucute is basically just the opposite of truscum, it’s a term and community for trans, nonbinary, and/or non-cis individuals created to separate anti-truscum from truscum and to serve as a safe place from truscum and from cis people, where they believe that being trans requires dysphoria, we do not,where they think that being trans is a medical condition, we do not,and where they deny numerous gender identities on the basis that it “discredits the trans community” we do not.

What are the prerequisites to be a part of the tucute community?

You have to be trans, nonbinary, and/or non-cis in general

You have to accept all pronouns and gender identities

You haveto believe that dysphoria is not necessary to be trans

You have to dislike truscum

You cannot side with truscum or believe in their ideology

You cannot misgender anyone no matter how mad they make you

You cannot be an ableist whatsoever

Did you invent the tucute community? Why?

I indeed did coin the tucute term and community and anyone who says otherwise are creeps who are trying to steal it from me and redefine it for their own nefarious doings. I started this community so anti-truscum could separate themselves from truscum and cis people who are a part of the truscum community, it serves as a safe space from both truscum and cis people.

I’m cis, can I be tucute if I believe in your movement and want to help?

No, you can’t be tucute if you’re cis, you can only be a tucute ally, and you need to be sure to never speak for or over a trans person.

I see a lot of tucuties being just as harmful as truscum, what will you do about it?

There isn’t much I can do to them other than ask them to stop aligning with the tucute community, and of course, that doesn’t mean they will. Also be noted that truscum and cis people will pretend to be tucute just to tarnish the name of the tucute community, so tread lightly, you might be talking to a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Spread the word, use the tag #tucute and join the army today!

[A digital drawing of Sayaka Miki from Puella Magi Madoka Magica in her magical girl form, with a banner underneath her reading "Tucute 4 U!"]

(source) (source)

Kat Was a Cisgender Woman Who Lied About Being a Transgender Woman

Verdict: False

This rumor primarily comes from a post on Kat's oldest known Tumblr blog, chromaghost, where she claims that she wasn't MTF and only tagged a selfie as such because she thought that transgender people were "cool".

Transcript:

Anonymous asked: are you a mtf? i seen it tagged on one of your photos.

No lol. I wanted to post it to the tag because transgender people are cool :3

(source) (source) (source)

However, Kat addressed this post and made it clear she very much was a transgender woman multiple times on her later blogs. This claim can also be confirmed with nude photos Kat posted online, which I don't feel comfortable spreading, so you'll just have to trust me on that one. I also don't feel comfortable directly encouraging you to go and dig up those nudes, as most of her nude photos were either taken when she was a minor, spread without her consent and/or were uploaded because people pressured her into posting nudes to "prove" she was a transgender woman.

Transcript:

Anonymous asked: you bound with ace bandage in one of your selfies. i don't know what to think about you anymore. according to some people you're a 27 year old cis woman scamming us, but you say you're a 22 year old trans woman. i want to trust you but i don't know if i can. i'm sorry.

Rest assured I’m not 27 years old lol. What you’re referring to is a less than graceful ~art piece~ we did (”Playing a Boy” or something) on deviantART when we were 16/17 (?) and really ill-informed. I ask you to not take that as how I stand currently – as I have learned so much more since, and I have a penis and I was designated male at birth because of it (feel free to purchase a passcode to our nsfw blog to see for yourself). At the time we were developing breast tissue but still had to appear as a ‘boy.’ Don’t bind with Ace bandages, kids, it can damage your rib cage, something we didn’t know at the time.

(source) (source)

Transcript:

[A picture of two prescriptions, estradiol and spironolactone, both prescribed to Adele Sheffield.]

grandtran still gonna think I photoshopped it or what

(source)

Transcript:

Anonymous asked: In other words, you aren't gonna cough up the pics because you know you can't fake that shit because you're actually cis. Cool. BTW why do you keep changing your story about the blog, and if the blog was run by you when you were in denial about being trans because of self hate, why were the pics tagged mtf and you were constantly saying trans people were cool?

Yeah I’m not gonna do something for y’all and get nothing in return except more doubt from you, you see how one sided that kind of request is? Also its technically considered sexual harassment, just because its on the internet, you’re a coward (whats your username btw?), and you think I’m cis and you want me to prove time and time again to you that I’m dmab doesn’t justify sexually soliciting someone when they’re not comfortable in being solicited – for free no less.

At first I genuinely had no memory of that blog, it was only active for all of 2 months and for some reason I moved onto a new email and new tumblr, and I haven’t the foggiest why. As for the whole “me claiming to not be ~mtf~” I don’t have any memories from that time, I can only assume it was a lot of dysphoria fueled self-hatred and wanting to be seen/pass as a cis girl lesbian.

If you’re really gonna solicit nudes from a trans woman (a second time) as they do sex work to try and stay on their feet without offering anything in return just so your transmisogynistic ass can get off to trying to tell me my dick is fake isn’t classy at all. I perish the thought of what you’re parents would think of this behavior from you. But yeah, feel free to send some money to my paypal so I can get the gender markers on my records changed because that’s gonna cost a lot apparently, and I’ll definitely send you the dick pics you want. :)

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Transcript:

[A picture of a a hospital bracelet on Kat's wrist. The patient's name is Adele Sheffield and her sex is labeled as "M".]

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Kat Lied About Having Diabetes To Get Money From Tumblr Users

Verdict: False

This doesn't need much commentary from me, just view the screenshots below.

Transcript:

To the people who keep harping on me buying a $15 video game for my mental health 7 MONTHS ago “with my donation money,” well, here you go, some proof, links and screenshots provided

So for everyone spreading misinformation about me spending $15 on a video game for my mental health, here’s a full list of reasons why there is no way, shape, or form I spent my paypal money on it:

Yes, I spent $15 of my own money after selling one of my possessions, not denying it:

[A screenshot of a Tumblr post by Kat where she shows off a copy of Fall Out: New Vegas, marked with a price of $14.99. The date of the post is marked as July 21, 2014 at 06:28.39 PM.]

Be sure to look at the date, July 21st, 2014 6:28 PM. Now lets look at my first donation post asking for help:

[A screenshot of a Tumblr post by Kat where she asks for donations to be able to afford insulin because she has no insurance. The date of the post is marked as July 20, 2014 at 08:14.00 PM.]

Hmm, one day before the purchase of said game, July 20th 2014 at 8:14 PM. Now, I’ve never heard of a video game store — much less a non-chain video game store accepting payment for video games in the form of virtual Amazon gift cards, have you? Oh, but you’re gonna say, “well you bought the game with your paypal donations anyway!” Well, here’s exhibit C:

[Another screenshot of a separate post made by Kat where she is also asking for donations to be able to afford insulin. The date of the post is marked as July 23, 2014 at 12:27.46 PM.]

Again, looking at the date of this posting which is the original donations post, you can see it was posted on July 23rd, 2014 at 12:27 PM, a full 2 days after I had bought the game. Now, if there’s no way for me to use Amazon gift cards for a real life video game store, then how can I go back in time a minimum of 2 full days to give past me $15 to buy said game, hm? This isn’t even accounting for the fact that I didn’t even have my own bank account associated with it until over a week later, and it surely doesn’t account for the fact that it takes up to 5 days to transfer from paypal to your bank account. All the dates are linked to the original unedited posts so you can see for yourself, and for added measure my first deposit was on August 14th, 2014:

[A screenshot of a deposit made by Kat. The date is marked as 08/14/14.]

Oh but yeah, anti-sjs, truscum, and the like took damniwishidthoughtofabettername’s postthey used to gaslight us with misinformation and you all bought it. Tell me how I could misuse donations that I could not use outside of Amazon and money I didn’t even start receiving until a full two days later, let alone the fact that there’s no way I could have transferred said money and used it two days prior as of the date of the paypal donations post.

I hope some of y’all could reblog this and get the word out, I’m sick and tired of people buying into that misinformation that person did solely to gaslight me as a means to try and disrupt my donations drive.

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Transcript:

[A selfie of Kat holding up a vial of Novolin to the camera.]

Hey anon, I don’t feel comfy giving you my receipts (because doxxing is a thing) but here you go, a selfie with my most recent insulin purchase. 👽

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Transcript:

Anonymous asked: Getting desperate for money again I see. How is your fake diabetes lately. I bet your blood sugar is like 800 this time and you're still able to be alive somehow.

You got me, I’m ~totally faking~

[A selfie of Kat. In the background several items used by diabetics are seen such as insulin syringes, glucose tablets, a blood sugar tester and test strips.]

[A picture that gives us a closer look at the background of the previous selfie.]

[A selfie of Kat holding up two vials, one of Lantus and the other of Humalog.]

Gee, must be one dedicated faker, right? To have hundreds of dollars of insulin equipment and insulin itself. Hmmm… Insulin syringes, glucose tablets, a blood sugar tester and test strips.. oh and insulin, hmmmm….

Oh and because you didn’t learn from last time you don’t die instantly when your blood sugar goes over 600 lol, something anyone who studies endocrinology can tell you, and I would know, being a diabetic, having to be hospitalized numerous times for ketoacidosis where the blood sugar has been too high for too long. Things you clearly do not know and you’re just jumping on the disableist bandwagon. I have an idea of who you are anyway, just doing this for future reference.

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