#if it’s not your thing that’s totally valid

[nothingspecialherern]

Just a little more on this too:

Op is right-- go read the whole executive order. Look at the first damn section:

Did you see it? It's the age-old conservative call to arms-- protect the women! Poor women! Our sad, defenseless women! They use this call to invent a villain. The invented villain is, of course, trans women, noted several times as 'invading men' for this EO.

In blue is the real reason for doing it, coined better than I could have said it: "policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to... trust in government itself." Now our villain has an MO: they don't like the government and question the system. They're dangerous to everyone, and need to be stopped. By the way, if you are trans and have pictures of yourself protesting, consider retiring them, especially on social media. You may want to consider keeping them for yourself and print them out if you want to look back, but know that's what they're looking for. Be safe about it, please. Still, if you want to live unashamed of it, by all means do. This is complicated, and please make your own choices.

And thirdly, in red is the real impact: trans women are about to be barred from many government programs, and several women's homes or abuse shelters will now be told to refuse trans girls at the door. Later in the EO, it states that trans inmates will be moved to prisons based on sex, so incarcerated trans folks are about to have a much harsher time of it. And lastly,

Transgender discrimination is no longer protected by Title IX or Title VII. For those of us too young to be familiar, Title IX is usually what people use to defend themselves at jobs or schools. Trans folks no longer have a right against discrimination under this statute.

Now, let's calm ourselves a bit. Take a breath. We're here. We're alive. We're going to be alive tomorrow. There are trees outside and dogs to pet and hobbies to do. Take another breath. It's not okay, but we're okay right here.

Now, the Title IX thing is immediate. But compliance is not. Most 'plans' for addressing these changes have 30 days to be given. Past that, total compliance either takes 90 or 120 days-- 3 or 4 months, respectively. Which means we've got 3-4 months for lawyers to take this to court and fight it.

Luckily, Lambda Legal is on the case already! Of course, court cases take forever, and likely, these effects will happen before they win a case. But the fight is ongoing. Things will get worse before they get better, so prepare. And please, take care of yourself-- fight discrimination in whatever way you can. From the article:

So please pay attention. The knee-jerk 'make trump look stupid' is fun, but still a surface reaction. Take it seriously. Take time to let it sink in. Be safe out there.

everyone trying to own trump about the "he doesn't know sex isn't determined at conception" thing really fundamentally does not understand what the point of that was, and learned basically nothing from his first term. he is not invested in science, biology, or any rational discussion where his provably false beliefs would be subject to scrutiny. he is signaling to everyone in the country that it does not matter what you say, he will never care and he will take every action to enforce these views and embolden his followers with the same rhetoric. you cannot logically talk to a person like this when they are reasoning with emotion, not logic. you cannot dunk the transphobia away. someone post the vonnegut quote.

[glossykissies]

clark and his gf who’s all sad because her friends keep ditching her and he’s trying to make her feel better.

love you so much on both blogs!

i like this as bsf!clark who’s in love with you so he hangs out with you and all your girl friends and is basically apart of your group — just so he can be near to you.

you’d planned a girls night, and clark was fine with that because… well, he had stuff to do around the barn anyway. you’d been excitedly rambling about it all week — buying facemasks, ordering pizza and pulling out the best girly romcom dvds to ensure a perfect night… until they all cancelled.

you were a sweet, sensitive soul who didn’t take well to disappointment, so clark’s heart sank when the phone rang, your best friend picking up only to be met with your snivels.

“look, hey, don’t cry — i’ll come over, okay?” he coo’s, his natural instinct being to coddle you and just hope it didn’t come off as patronising. you usually seemed to like it.

“what— what about the barn? ‘said you were busy with it tonight—”

“ah, the barn can wait.” he blows it off. you can’t see him but you know he waved his hand as he said it as if to convince you even more of its unimportance. “my old man’ll understand. he thinks you’re a total angel. infact i think he’d be more mad at me if i didn’t go to see you.”

you sniff, twiddling pathetically with the phones curly wire. “well… if you’re sure…”

“completely sure. i’ll be over there as fast as i can.”

clark was a little too excited, having to convince himself not to use his super speed.

he didn’t expect you to be so upset however, ending up beside you on the couch with a hand on your back as you cried. he knew it would be rude to ask if your emotions had anything to do with your menstruation cycle, he wanted to slap himself for even thinking of it — but he wondered if that had a part to play.

“i just feel like i always put in effort with people but there’s always something more important.” you rant, swiping beneath your eyes in frustration. clark shuffles closer, tentatively placing a hand on your back.

“mhm?” he urges you on in a gentle tone, hoping to ease you into a more relaxed mood.

“i was excited.” you pout, turning to face him — seeming to be at the end of your meltdown. he presses his lips together with a sympathetic smile.

“yeah, i figured. i mean, look at all this effort you went through setting this up.” clark validates you, lifting a hand to gesture to the way you’d decorated the living room with snacks and movie options, blankets strewn across the couch creating a comfortable atmosphere. “i suppose we’ll have to enjoy it just the two of us.” he grins, mindful of his tone — not wanting to seem like he wanted to take advantage of this situation, even if he secretly did.

“you’ll even do facemasks with me?” you let a smile slip, peering up at him through wet eyelashes. he grimaces like he’s pretending to think about it as you giggle, now being the one to shuffle closer to him.

“you gonna put cucumbers on my eyes?”

“oh yes, the full spa experience.” you tease, and clark can’t help but reach up and brush the final tear off your cheek with a fond smile. you lean happily into his hand, which doesn’t go unnoticed.

“i’m lookin’ forward to it.”

clark effortlessly takes your mind off things, a natural at distracting you with dumb dad jokes, debating over pizza toppings and lastly making silly observations about the rom-com you’d landed on.

you’re sleepy — clark had noticed you always got sleepy after eating a big meal, and after tearing through copious amounts of pizza you’d allowed yourself to lay on his chest, tired eyes glued to the screen as he strokes your back, afraid to even breathe wrong incase you come to your senses and crawl off him.

you couldn’t help it, he was just so big and warm — it would be a waste for him to take up all that space and for you not to use it. you figured you were close enough to cuddle anyway, thigh cocked up in a half straddle on his lap, sleepily giggling at a point he made.

“i just don’t get why the main love interest is being played by a forty year old.” he shrugs and you chortle harder against him.

“y’so warm.” you muse out of nowhere, drunk on tiredness. it had to be nearing 2am at this point; and you’d totally let your guard down. you feel his heart skip a beat against your ear.

“uh— really? oh, well… thanks. i think?”

“s’a good thing clarkie.” you shift until you’re looking up at him, faces inches away, body to body. clark licks his lips, brows furrowed slightly as tries (and fails) not to glance at your mouth. “thank you for hanging out with me.”

“y—eah.” he rasps, voice breaking at the low volume. he clears his throat, and you take an extra second longer to look at him before dropping your head back down, body getting heavier over the minutes that pass as you slowly succumb to sleep. clark stays awake, unable to sleep a wink, too consumed by the feeling of you on top of him.

[lightseoul]

a/n. i really don't know where i'm going with this, y'all. but getting to role-play as a therapist and explore bakugou's psyche has been lots of fun, so bear with me. please let me know what you think and/or would want to see! maybe that'll give me an idea lol. (1.1k)

navigation. part 1, part 2, (you are here)

“n-no.”

at that, the woman’s eyebrows shoot up, disappearing underneath her fringe. “no?”

“you heard me,” bakugou spits instinctively, immediately regretting how hostile that sounded not even a second later. “i mean, no, i didn’t.”

his therapist, apparently unfazed by his show of aggression—she must’ve gotten used to it by now, although he still feels bad when he gets testy—only jots something down in her clipboard before looking back up at him, an inexplicable expression etched across her features.

“do you have any ideas, then, why, for the first time in seemingly forever, you’re fixating on a particular social encounter?”

bakugou barely manages to bite back a scowl.

he hates it—this part. the part where his psychologist obviously has theories as to why he’s acting a certain way or how he’s actually feeling but chooses to ask him instead, in an attempt to draw it out of him.

as if talking about difficult shit in the first place isn’t already painful enough.

and isn’t that what he’s paying her to do? give him answers? why’d he have to be the one to wrack his brain for uncomfortable answers to uncomfortable questions?

“do you?” he then challenges, emboldened by that train of thought just now.

“yes,” she responds truthfully and without missing a beat it somewhat surprises him. “but as i’ve explained to you before, i think it’ll be helpful for you if we try a more active approach on your end so that any insights gleaned from our discussions become more personalized and stick with you longer.”

well, then. fuck.

the lady’s got a point.

“so,” she continues when he doesn’t reply, annoyingly aware her little spiel got to him, “any ideas? working hypotheses?”

“uh,” he starts begrudgingly, eyes roving over the bookshelves lining the room’s walls as he struggles to come up with another angle. then it dawns on him, and he looks directly at the woman. “i didn’t expect to see someone in here, and when i did, it caught me off guard.”

“that may be because most of our clients opt for virtual consultations rather than face-to-face ones.”

“yeah,” he piles on quickly, admittedly thankful for the validation, and for the fact. the absolute last thing he needs is to bump into some extras before and after therapy. “that must be why.”

“but how does that explain your, and i quote, ‘dumb as shit reaction’?”

bakugou instantly feels himself flame. he clears his throat, “i told you, didn’t i? it caught me off guard. how the fuck did you expect me to react?”

that must’ve been a reasonable point, thank the fuck, because the woman pauses in thought before nodding slowly. “i suppose you’re right.”

he narrowly bites back an of course, i am.

but then she’s spouting off again.

“although it’s interesting to me how your immediate reaction was to say hi, when that’s not really…how should i say, your style, based on our prior sessions and your personality test results.”

a pause.

bakugou scrambles for a bulletproof rebuttal. he comes up short.

the lady cocks her head to the side, curious. “how often would you say you mull over social blunders?”

never, he thinks to himself. because they never happen.

“i figured as much,” comes her unexpected reply, and only then does it dawn on him that he said the last bit out loud.

“can we talk about something else?” he finds himself suddenly asking, totally over this entire conversation. he can worry about being a loser and pathetically begging for an out some other time. right now, he just needs a break.

“actually, you’re in luck,” she checks her smartwatch, “the session’s just about to end.”

at that, his shoulders almost instantly sag in relief, which makes the woman laugh. he shoots her a half-hearted glare.

they spend the next few minutes summarizing what has been discussed, as well as the arrangements for the following weeks, with bakugou eventually throwing his bag over his shoulders and bidding her a mumbled goodbye. he tosses her a nod over his shoulder as he crosses the threshold of her office, mind already drifting to what he’s going to cook himself for dinner.

and that, for a typical session, he’s walking out relatively unscathed.

but then he does the stupid thing of looking up from where he was studying his trainers when a door creaks open, and he freezes.

because standing a few feet away from him, right beside the entrance to the restroom, is you, equally frozen.

he doesn’t know how much time passes with him just staring at you like a motherfucking idiot, and you, strangely enough, peering at him back, but it’s you who eventually takes a hammer to the silence.

“h-hi,” you offer, voice soft and quiet, just like how he vaguely remembers it from two weeks ago.

“hey,” comes his gruff reply, which would’ve been immediately followed by a wince at how rough his tone was just now had he not stopped himself in the nick of time.

at least he didn’t stutter.

“…b-bakugou, right?” you ask after a moment of neither of you saying anything, confirming his earlier suspicions.

“right.”

you nod, a polite yet somehow stilted smile on your face, and suddenly he’s mentally slapping himself. since when was he fucking bound to one-word sentences?

he decides then and there that this shit won’t do.

in an attempt to convince himself that no, this is just a weird outlier of an encounter for him, and that no, he’s not a fucking idiot like dunce face, and that yes, he is and is being perfectly fucking normal, he resolves to ask you for your name.

and he was just about to do that—he swears he was—when someone from the other side of the door calls out a name, and you whip to face their direction, breaking eye contact.

“yes, doc!” you holler back, and he watches you as you hesitate in place for a second, before turning to face him with an awkward smile.

“nice meeting you, bakugou-san.”

and then you’re off and shutting the door behind you.

he stands there for what feels like a few minutes, just blinking at the door in front of him, what must be your name echoing—again and again—up to the far recesses of his mind.

then: fuck.

he may or may not have just lied to his therapist.

˖⁺‧₊ as always, reblogs, replies, and tags are appreciated <3 feel free to drop an ask, too—i'd love to chat with you. have a nice day!

tagging. @bunnysaursushii @yawnzzzzzzzz @cholios @kashee-h @iluv-ace @lotuslovers @elarakive @sugurusmoon @napbatata @k0z3me @h0ngh0ngh0ng @honeyoru @yoongiwithglasses @hellokitty-doll @lilsebnem @tetsuukuroo @crangrapel0ver @syrhra @qyuin | @kalulakunundrum @cheezemanz @gold24fish @lunaryasha

[ghostkingirl]

An analysis/rant about Alexis Ness and fear of abandonment

Seeing all the Ness hate (mainly on TikTok) is genuinely making me feel like his trauma and fears of abandonment aren’t being acknowledged enough so here’s my analysis rant about Ness because I am a Ness glazer and I feel like he has the potential to have the saddest or most important arc in NEL.

Obviously Ness is extremely insecure and sees himself as having no inherent value as a person. Especially for kids coming from toxic households, it can be hard for them to see that they are important and valuable as individuals.

Ness believed his only value was in soccer, and Kaiser was the first person who believed in him whenever he was at his lowest point. Kaiser (in a sense) acknowledged his value and helped him develop it further. Even after that, Kaiser opened up to Ness and developed a level of trust in him.

For someone like Ness, who was abandoned by the people closest to him, it’s understandable why he would attach himself to Kaiser. He saw his only value as being something for Kaiser to use to achieve his dream, and Ness probably got absorbed into that. I can see how Ness probably got so involved in Kaiser’s dream that he lost his own sense of identity, and I don’t think he realized that until after Kaiser broke things off with him. He wasn’t inherently trying to suck up to Kaiser, he was probably trying to reach that level of closeness he felt when him and Kaiser first started playing together, and he genuinely never thought about himself as an individual. When you hate every aspect of yourself because of what others have told you, having someone acknowledge even the smallest part of you means the world. You keep searching for more of that validation that they gave you, but in searching for that validation you neglect other parts of yourself and lose part of your identity until you only put value in that part that was validated in the first place. It’s honestly a tragic cycle of dependency and reinforcing toxic behaviors that I think is really well developed.

The complaint I see a lot is that Ness just hates Isagi, when i think it’s more complex than that. I don’t think Ness originally hated Isagi, he just went with what Kaiser said because (as I mentioned before) I don’t think Ness sees himself as a full individual. His attempts to only be what Kaiser wants/needs are what drives what he says and does for the first part of his involvement in NEL. I think Ness only hated Isagi when Kaiser “chose” Isagi. Not only did Ness only hate on Isagi at the beginning because it’s what he thought Kaiser wanted, when Kaiser chose Isagi I can see how Ness felt threatened by that. Until then, Kaiser had never tried to truly connect with anyone except Ness (that we know of), and Ness probably felt like his relationship with Kaiser would be sacrificed if Kaiser started working with Isagi.

I don’t think Ness is just a “Kaiser glazer” I think Ness is a deeply complex character whose abandonment issues and trauma are driving his every thought and decision making. He went from feeling totally worthless to having any part of himself validated and acknowledged. It makes sense that he put all of his self worth into that one part of himself so that Kaiser would keep him around. It also makes sense that he would be angry at Isagi considering the fact that Ness probably sees Isagi as being the one to affect his relationship with Kaiser. Ness just hasn’t realized how severely dependent he is on Kaiser’s attention and validation, and even if he has I don’t think he’s acknowledged it as problematic (yet). This is not to say Ness is perfect, he is a DEEPLY problematic character who is reinforcing his own downfall by constantly seeking validation from Kaiser (who in turn keeps pushing him away which only makes Ness try and seek MORE validation).

My hope for Ness is that like all us kids who have been abandoned and found our self worth in another person only to be abandoned again, that we find love and value for ourselves as individuals and not side characters in someone else’s world.

Anyways your local Ness apologist, out :3

[daisyelixir]

this is a great and very valid question.

i remember my former counselor once said "you cannot think your way to a new way of acting; you can only act your way to a new way of thinking." so, in the same way, you kind of have to "fake it til you make it" if you genuinely have 0 hope whatsoever for the future.

even if it hurts, and even if it feels totally wrong and stupid, you have to learn to hear terrible news and instead of saying in your head "i give up," try "this is absolutely horrible, but we have survived more horrible things in the past." or "this is a serious problem, but we are capable of surviving serious problems."

source: i used to say things like "we're cooked" all the time a few years ago and i was so so miserable and in the depths of my depression, and when i changed what i say in my head (and out loud), i slowly began to feel less miserable.

"guys we're so cooked" "it's wraps" "the end is near" shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up. i say that with love because you are probably saying it out of distress and hopelessness, but for your own well-being and for everyone else's, please stop saying this shit.

no we are not "cooked." and by saying that, by the way, you are giving more power to the neo-nazi oligarchy in charge.

they want you to abandon all hope of a better life. they want you to believe "oh well, it's over, we might as well stop trying to fight back and just resign ourselves to despair forever."

every time you get on tiktok and comment "guys we're so cooked haha it's over," you are feeding into the mindset of hopeless compliance. you are, unknowingly, spreading this infectious idea that just because we've lost one battle, we've lost the entire war.

your words matter. i am saying this out of love and concern for our future, but please stop choosing words of defeat.

[sophfandoms53]

Ppl getting upset about Leo’s crush on April in MM and blaming the 2012 series for it as if the boys having crushes/finding April attractive hasn’t been a thing since the mirage comics, like guys c’mon😭

[frownyalfred]

Things you might not realize are affecting your ao3 readership:

Putting unrelated fics into one compilation instead of series or collections

Not tagging your fics/“haha I’m so bad at tagging!”

Tagging all of the ships in a fandom instead of the relevant ones to the story

“This is my first fic ever”/ “I’m really not a good writer” / “sorry if this is crap”

Summaries that say “sorry don’t think I will update much” or “might be abandoned idk”

Tagging “r@pe” or “unaliving” etc instead of the actual tag so people can filter/exclude

NOT tagging major, relevant tags or kinks without using the “creator chose not to use archive warnings” option

Telling people how bad your writing is and how you hate it so much and how they shouldn’t even be reading your fic (self deprecation)

Weird punctuation: not starting new quotes or descriptions on a new line, and/or putting extremely long blocks of text on the page without a break

[vidavalor]

You never know but I'm pretty sure that there is no Great Plan, other than for all to live freely by making their own plans.

I think that Armageddon is not just the Biblical, end-of-Earth kind but the idea that a person is a planet of their own, too. The big, global/Biblical war types of Armageddon are metaphorical for a person's own mental health struggles-- their own personal Armageddons-- that, if unchecked, could cause the end of their worlds aka themselves and the world they've made out of their life and the people in it.

The Nice & Accurate Prophecies seem to me to really be all just a series of well-observed, realistic, and empathetic life advice and notes on how to unfuck yourself if you get stuck. You can break down the prophecies and apply them to the different plots in the story but you can also just take them as good advice for living your own life, too, as needed.

I think that one of the big messages in the story overall, though, is to always think critically about what messages you internalize. It's to not blindly follow the words of another but to be open to listening to viewpoints, thinking critically about them, and then crafting your own world view.

It's just like the horoscope in The Tadfield Advertiser that The Voice of God brings up. There's nothing wrong with reading a silly horoscope on a bad day and allowing its intentional vagueness to feel applicable to your life in a way that you might need or want in that moment. What would be wrong would be blindly believing it to be some kind of Divine Sign in such a way as to not think critically about the sources and the validity of the advice.

As The Voice of God points out, many things in the horoscope can be correct... but not all of it is always correct. The horoscope in question, for instance, says that you should avoid salads... and we all know that it's not actually healthy to do that. It's showing that if you put blind faith in something without thinking critically about it, you're actually putting yourself on a very unhealthy path.

The Voice of God is talking about a horoscope, yeah, but... she's also not just talking about a horoscope.

She's also talking about the bullshit, manipulative kind of life guidance like that of influencers like Famine, about different forms of propaganda, and, more than anything else, she's talking about all religious texts... especially, The Bible.

It's a warning to people to be open to the ideas of others and curious, always, but to also think critically about the motivations of those behind and pushing those ideas, instead of blindly following them. It's a warning to not blindly follow the words of another but to read and study everything you can get your hands on and then make up your own mind on what you believe is the correct path.

It's perfectly fine to say 'there's some good stuff in here that I needed to hear today but the bit about the salads was totally incorrect' and move on. Whether it's a silly horoscope or any other secular thing or whether it's The Bible that we're talking about doesn't matter. Resist thought control and groupthink through being curious and learning everything you can and thinking critically about everything you take in.

I've got some quibbles with Agnes Nutter's writings, even though I like many of her prophecies quite a lot, and I'm amused by the fact that my main issue with them is the vagueness of what she wrote and how some people might mistake the meaning of it by looking at it too literally and... do I now not actually sound like I might as well be describing The Bible? 😂 Pretty well-played by this religious satire, no? *giggles*

Books Can Go Up Like...

...paper.

The expression is: "[x] can go up like paper."

It's used as a warning to be careful in having certain, highly flammable materials around open flames. The simile is in how, of all materials, one of the easiest to catch fire and go up is paper.

Something on fire is something that is going up or burning up... but what is the end result of that fire?

What goes up in flames is really something that is burning down.

During S2, our visiting angels to the bookshop help to teach us a recurring metaphor: books = people.

When Muriel asks Crowley for a book, they describe books by saying that "books are like people, only portable." For much of the season, Jim works hard to group the books together in a way that is thoroughly illogical when applied to literal books but actually brilliant if applied to those metaphorical books known as people. He's grouping books together by the first letter of the first sentence of each book. By their shared origins and experiences. By the things they have in common so that they feel less alone.

Books, written by people, are a metaphor for people.

So, when Nina says during the bookshop attack where they are trying to keep literal demons at bay as a metaphor for keeping Aziraphale's own inner demons at bay: "Why all the fire extinguishers?", Aziraphale recounts when the literal books went ablaze in S1-- at the same time as when he went Up-- when he explains:

Aziraphale points out that, as is often the case with metaphorical books, there was once a fire that burned down every book in this bookshop. In a moment of Aziraphale's own going Up, so, too, did the thing metaphorical for himself-- his bookshop and all the books in it.

The literal books all went up in flames and then fell down, charred into ash, all around the fallen angel who lights the good kind of fire in the book known as Aziraphale and whose trauma from this particular, literal fire is such that he needs a fire extinguisher within reach in every room, in hopes that that might be enough to keep the bookshop, its books, and the metaphorical book who owns it from ever going up in flames and burning down again.

Fires start, though, and there's another idiomatic expression of note, too: What goes up must come down. It's just gravity.

[g0nta-g0kuhara]

I think I've gotten to the point where I'm just gonna not interact with or even block blogs that post v/3 fan art while aggressively and needlessly harping on it in the caption

[thesoulsofthedarned]

So I finished the Rimet Cup Event

It was really good! I enjoyed the event story a lot, mostly because of the characters and how they moved the plot along. Nothing felt boring or dragged out longer than it should, plus the character interactions were funny and wholesome.

Melania was a queen, I thought she was cool at first but seeing her in action was amazing. I also liked her dynamic with Ms. Acey, and her plan to steal the Rimet Cup was interesting to watch unfold. Pickles was cool too, though what really got me invested was his relationship with Charlton. Regulus and Mr. APPle’s side plot was funny, I’m glad I got to see more of them.

The character who really stole the show for me was Diggers. I already liked him because prior to this event I thought he was a typical chill hippie dude that was just a little in over his head. Then I found out that apparently people hated this guy because it turned out he was lowkey a terrorist??? Bro was stealing documents, disrupting the peace, drugged a whole BLOCK of people to throw an improvised block party, and apparently in a scene I haven’t seen yet, kidnapped Pickles because he got more attention than him?!

I thought my opinion on him would shift watching these events unfold but no, I love him all the same. He’s just this chaotic, silly lil dude who wants to spread peace (by doing it in the worst way possible)! This man was honestly hilarious, and the fact that he may or may not have joined the Manus Vindictae in 1.4 is just insane to me. Bro really thought the best way to spread peace and love was to join a literal terrorist cult, that’s actually hilarious.

TL;DR: event rerun was great, Diggers was the best character, I love him 🥰

[letherightonein]

"Whether they don't put any effort to socialize with women doesn't matter."

The majority of the time, men get partners by approaching the opposite sex. So, of course it does matter if they put effort in dating women.

"Male initiation of dates, which aligns with the initial stage of traditional dating scripts, represents 89.1 percent of the total analytic sample while female initiation of dates, which aligns with alternative dating scripts, represents only 10.9 percent of the total analytic sample." (study)

"It's most likely a symptom of their incel condition, not wanting to try because they know nothing will come of it."

How do they know that nothing will come out of it if they don't even talk to women around them?

This is a thing I constantly see on young blackpillers, they claim that since no woman approach them, they are incels. Or since they were rejected in high school or a relationship just didn't happen to them as teenagers, they are doomed to a life of isolation. One of them claimed to know that approaching would be useless only out of "vibes" from women.

Ironically, those exact same men who tell me that, question my loneliness asking me "oh, how many times have men approach you? and why don't you approach first?" That's why I'm asking what I'm asking to begin with.

I'm holding them as the same standards people hold women when saying they are lonely. You don't approach, you are not lonely. You choose to not approach, your loneliness is a choice. And when saying this, the excuses come. "Well, but if I approach and put effort and pay for dates, women may use me, or not really desire me, women only desire men they themselves approach", bla bla bla. Meanwhile, if women refuse to open a dating app and get treated as a fleslight by a stranger, they are not lonely. Bo-hoo, poor me, I have to do the same thing the majority of men do to date women! Cry me a river.

I don't think it's part of the incel condition to be brainwashed by a dumb ideology and downright thinking that your life is over because a woman doesn't fall on your lap when you are a teenger/young adult. Plenty of men in the past were single and celibate past their mid twenties, because marriage -where men had to work and pay for everything- after a couple weeks of courtship was the norm.

Not having sex as a young adult is perceived as a crisis nowadays because the social script changed, and men's expectations of their sexual lifes changed.

"So they can still be valid truecels."

According to incel standards, female incels don't exist because they can open a dating app and have painful orgasmless sex with a stranger. By the same bar of measure, incels don't exist because they can pay for it.

The main traits of the "incel condition" seems to be poor agency, external locus of control and autism.

Autism delays your normal development, and most autists would reach young adulthood without milestones that teenagers achieve effortlessly, they may even reach adult age without being completely aware that they lost vital opportunities for their development. Their lack of agency/attempts come from low awareness.

Low agency and external locus control leads to beliefs like there isn't such thing as a personal choice, that one is victim constantly of people whims and circumstances. That leads to adopt ideologies like the blackpill and reject any attempt to improve or change their lifes.

Another trait seems to be mental illness or personality traits like neuroticism, and that leads to negative beliefs about oneself and other people, making you perceive as threats things that are neutral or easily to overcome.

That makes, at a level, the "involuntary" label useless. By normal standards, they are not even trying and sabotaging themselves. But also, validates it. They just happen to have a less effective personality/mental health/neurology. But again, remains ambiguous since those conditions can be treated/worked on, and, after all, most men have to approach women to date them.

Testing a male bullshit story #1

[mrs-theirin]

i'm thinking about it so you're gonna have to deal with it but like twc's narrative push to have a good relationship with rebecca is just not what should be present in an interactive fiction. if you are giving the player a choice you should not have the book itself trying to convince you that your choice is wrong, otherwise what is the point of choosing.

for example, mind blind does a much better job of a CHARACTER trying to sway you rather than the AUTHOR. nick is sad you have a poor relationship with your parent(s) because they're his parent(s) too and he wants a happy family. he understands your anger and fear and while he tries to convince you to forgive, he absolutely accepts if you say no, because he's your loving brother and doesn't want to push it, but wants what's best for you

twc's entire series (idk about book 3, i haven't played) is trying to convince you to forgive rebecca. not just with characters, but with the narrative itself. the book is constantly frowning at you for choosing a negative route with rebecca. meanwhile, again, with mind blind, nick, john, and hope all WANT you to have a good relationship with them, but there's no narrative push to forgive john or hope or both

i just think in a game literally all about choices, there shouldn't be outside pressure to make a specific choice

[thegreatyin]

How did you manage to handle not one, but FOUR separate accounts in fl? I recently made the account for my HD little guy but having to do the tutorial again just seems miserable

there's... weirdly several answers to that question, actually??

a HUGE part of it is due to the way FL is structured. the 10-minute action timer is a core part of the game on a fundamental level, and the fact that i can very easily run out of stuff to do on one character and thus have an excuse to quickly and easily swap to another is just... convenient? satisfying? i'm not entirely sure how to explain it. the fact that i can make progress even while i am fundamentally simultaneously Not Making Progress is like pure dopamine for my freak insane awful little brain. there's just something really pleasing about spending all of my actions pursuing The Goal Of The Day™ on one account before casually swapping to another and doing the same without feeling like i'm wasting time or acting to the first account's explicit detriment. the downtime helps! the recharge time helps! the structure really really works!!

i'm technically only actively playing three, maybe two accounts minimum. the only reason the fourth (the one that'll be my future BaL playthrough) currently exists at all is so i can get his earlygame completely out of the way now and not have to waste time running through it all later, when what i actually want to do is play the ambition i've made myself wait a full year to play. and also getting free goodies as seasonal stuff happens,, something something surprise tools to help us later. the only two accounts i'd say i'm really "actively playing" at the moment are caeru and lark- and of the two, lark takes the most priority, since his ambition is the one i'm currently pursuing in earnest. for a couple months now- despite being My Main FL Character- the scoundrel has actually been pretty inactive on a gameplay front outside of the occasional progression in TLC and discordance content. purely by virtue of having Very little left to do outside of Very long-term grinds and vanities. they're in their "now what?" "now you can start playing the game" era. they've graduated to previous protagonist background cameo in a sequel anime series. they're like the yin FLPC equivalent of red at the top of mount silver. they're Literally just vibing rn. i only keep posting about them regardless because i'm insane and i will never ever ever ever ever let that bat go. but yeah, big TLDR, outside of doing the bare minimum to keep making waves/notability up every week, i'm not actually spending that much time on accounts i'm not currently actively interested in playing. and that accounts for way more gaming spoons than you might think.

i have a virtually lifelong history of playing MMOs, especially and specifically world of warcraft. i was born in the endless grind for useless video game pixel vanities and/or bragging rights. molded by it. you all have merely adapted to doing the same piece of content a pointlessly excessive amount of times for literally no reason besides whimsy and folly. me? i've done my time. i've served my sentence. i've spent weeks doing the original burning crusade netherwing dailies. i've devoted days to running praetorium over and over and over again, back-to-back, nonstop, long before square enix cut it in half and made it NOT take at minimum an hour and a half per run. i've perfected my silverwastes + auric basin goldfarming strategies. i've (almost) crafted dragonwrath tarecgosa's rest. i've killed the sha of anger so many times its dying scream of agony is embedded into the very fabric of my being. ""only"" doing making your name content four times over? that is nothing to me. it means nothing to me. it is so infinitesimal i can do the persuasive seduction quests in my sleep. it's not a matter of handling misery, or having the capacity, or even sighing as i remember the brass embassy raid segment of the watchful questline seriously i don't know why i keep forgetting that exists or what even is my problem with it i just am so consistently mildly inconvenienced by it and its highly specific resource requirements and it is the worst thing ever. maybe i'm just so used to the scoundrel's near-infinite money and troves of disposable items that i've completely forgotten what being poor is like. despite having done that step 3 fucking times now. ahem. anyway. i have transcended the feeble mortal bindings of my resistant-to-grinding flesh and ascended to a higher plane of enlightenment, they may call me insane but they will be the ones left laughing when they see what that "insanity" has wrought, i've usurped them, i've usurped them all-

hacks and coughs and awkwardly clears my throat. i mean. uh. um. Ahem.

the empress' court artistry + tales of the university nerfs helped too.

[wildfairies]

“if you were really creating for yourself you wouldn’t be posting on tumblr” …????????????? idk about you but my blog is my little mermaid grotto of treasures. this is my collection of cute posts funny posts pretty posts fun posts shitposts my own posts. look at this stuff isn’t it neat.

[trashmancer]

writers who intentionally leave major emotional beats of their stories "to the imagination" are cowards! COWARDS! commit to your story!

[rainbowtvz]

*grits teeth*

i do not want to discourse here or anywhere anymore but it does kind of affect me as a transmasc bi person when i see shit that indirectly misgenders me and implies that bisexuality is an icky no good word and identity and you have to be bi and gay and bi and lesbian and bi and straight at the same time or support them or you're an evil stinky stinky terf like... hello where am, i