#im so stressed about posting this

[theodore-lasso]

All this current talk about fic and pseudonyms and the Ted Lasso fandom has really brought up something that happened to me last year and I feel like it might be useful to talk about it openly. (Heads up this is long so start scrolling if you don't care abt this fandom wank)

CW discussion of sexual assault and rape in fic

I wrote a fic last year that just based on the pairing being Nate/Keeley, I knew would be controversial. Here is that fic. I didn’t want any drama that came along with it associated with me or my writing and I wanted to feel more free and less confined by (what I’ve found to be in this fandom) very strict rules about how you portray sex, kink, and consent in fic, so I made a new AO3 account to post it. By the way it is tagged as Nate/Keeley (I would assume you wouldn’t read a pairing you weren’t interested in), and it’s Explicit which means you have to consent to view it.

The first couple of replies I got were pretty disheartening but not unexpected, you can still read them on the original fic, but even when I clarified that as the author I didn’t intend for this to be sexual assault, and therefore why I didn’t tag it as such, I got this comment (I’m keeping everything anon in this post)

And tbh this comment was pretty devastating to get and at this point I already didn’t want to bother writing any more rarepairs or “controversial” pairings, and I didn’t want to write anything that might stir the pot at all. I wanted to hide behind the pseudonym. Also - I don’t really think it’s about the content of my fic but that this is considered an appropriate response at all. But y’know what we’d agreed to disagree (even though it sucked) and I was moving on with my life and logging out of that account.

But then, like the next day, I woke up to find this. Which I’m not going to link because it’s not mine

But yeah look getting a response fic posted and having it be a post-rape comfort fic written on anon so there was no way for me to discuss this with the author, it was maybe the worst fandom experience I’ve ever had. You ask why people don’t write kinkier or darker or more challenging fics and why people stick to light genre-appropriate tones. This is what happens when people step out of line. If the fandom would actually learn “hey this isn’t for me, I will leave it alone” maybe we would have more expansive types of fic, but until we learn that I think we’re unfortunately going to stick with the fic we have. The comments alone? They sucked, I personally thought they were a little out of line, but I was happy to just get over it because people who did understand my intent read it and commented too. But having a whole fic written on a pretty harmful misinterpretation of my fic? That’s new

I know this was a long post, but I just think that this is a good example of why people Don’t write certain things, and what actually is happening when they do, because I know a lot of people don’t see what’s happening. If I *had* been a completely new author to the fandom like everyone thought when I was posting on a brand new account, there's no fucking way I would've come back.

[inkskinned]

the thing about some men is that they want you to remember, at all times, that you are underneath them. that with one word or look or "joke", you will stay beneath them. that even "exceptions" to the rule are not true exceptions - the commonly cited statistic that one in eight men believe they could win against serena williams.

women's gymnastics is often not seen as real gymnastics. whatever the fuck non-euclidian horrors rhythmic gymnasts are capable of, it's often tamped down as being not a sport. some of the most dominant athletes in the world are women. nobody watches women's soccer. despite years of dancing and being built like a fucking brick, men always assume they're faster and stronger than i am. you wouldn't like what happens when they are incorrect. once while drunk at a guy's house i won a held-plank challenge by a solid minute. the party was over after that - he became exceedingly violent.

what i mean is that you can be perfect, and they still think you're ... lacking, somehow. i hope you understand i'm trying to express a neutral statement when i say: taylor swift was the possibly the most patriarchy-palatable, straight-down-the-line woman we could churn out. she is white, conventionally attractive, usually pretty mild in personality. say what you will about her (and you should, she's a billionaire, she can handle it), but a few things seem to be true about her: 1. she can write a damn catchy song, and 2. the eras tour truly was a massive commercial success and was also genuinely an impressive feat of human athleticism and performance.

i don't know if she deserves the title of "woman of the year," i'm not debating that in this post. what i am saying is that she was named Woman of The Year, and then an untalented man got onstage at the golden globes and made fun of her for attending her boyfriend's football games. what i am saying is that this woman altered local economies - and her dating life is still being made into a "harmless" punchline. the camera panned, greedy, over to her downing a full glass of champagne. congratulations taylor! you are woman of the year! but you are a woman. even her.

fuck, man. write better material.

a guy gets onstage at a college graduation and despite the fact like half the crowd is made up of women, he spends a significant proportion of it warning these people - who spent possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars on their education - that they were lied to. that the "real" meaning of femininity is motherhood. that they shouldn't rest on the laurels of that education-they-paid-for but instead throw it away to kneel at a man's heel. imagine that. sweating in your godawful polyester gown (that you also had to pay for!), fresh out of 4 years of pushing yourself ever-harder: and some guy you've never met - who knows nothing about you - he reminds you this "win" is a pyrrhic one at best. you really shouldn't consider yourself that extraordinary. you're still a woman, even after years of study.

god forbid you are not a pretty woman, but if you are pretty, you must be dumb. god forbid you are not ablebodied or white or cis or straight or good at swallowing. you must be beneath a man, or else they are not a man. the equation for masculinity seems to just be: that which is not a woman or womanly (god forbid). anything "feminine" is thereby anathema. to engage in "feminine" things such as therapy, getting a hug from a friend, or crying - it is giving up ones manhood. therefore women need to be put in their place to ensure that masculinity is protected.

this is something i have struggled to explain to radfems - they are not doing the work of feminism, but rather the patriarchy. by asserting that women and men must be (on some secret level) oppositional and in conflict, they also assume that being a woman is akin to being another species. but bigotry does not stem from observational truths or clarity - that is what makes it bigotry. there was nothing in my childhood that made me fundamentally different from my brother. we are treated differently nonetheless. to assert there is some biological drive that enforces my gender role is to assert that women have a gendered role. men do not see women as equal to them not because of biological reality - but instead because the core tenant of the patriarchy is that women aren't full, realized people.

we are told from a very young age to excuse misbehavior as a single man's choice - not all men. it is not all men, just that one guy. all women are gold-digging bitches who belong in the kitchen - but if a man is mean, bigoted, or violent to you, it's just that particular guy, and that means nothing about men-as-a-whole. it is only one guy who got mad when you gently rejected him. it is only one guy who warns her this trophy is heavy, are you sure you can hold it? it is only one guy who smashes her face into the cake. it is only one guy talking into a mic about hating our bodily autonomy.

i have just found that they often wait until the moment we actually seem to be upstaging them. you sit in a meeting where you're presenting your own findings and he says get me a coffee? or you run to the end of the marathon and are about to finish first and he pushes your kids out in front of you. you win the chess game and they make some comment akin to well, you're ugly away. we can be the billionaire and get the dream life and finally fucking do it and yet! still! they have this strange, visceral urge to say well actually, if you think you're so great -

it's not one just one guy. it's one in eight.

[thegreendiamondart]

Hihi!!! Get hit with a post with a bunch of meme doodles.

Sorry for not posting that much as of recent, but this is not me saying I’m gonna be posting more right now. I’m actually gonna be taking a small hiatus so i can focus on my upcoming finals (helppp the stress is killing meeee). I will be potentially lurking and drawing stuff in the background, but no posts until finals are over!

[napping-sapphic]

I just want to fall in love with someone who makes me feel safe like even when we’re angry or sad or upset i just want to know that both of us are still going to be okay

[turrondeluxe]

always happy about the fact that in 2012, mikey often asked donnie questions if he didn't understand something and donnie always answered no matter what

this can be seen in a bunch of episodes but my favorite example of it it's the one in half shell heroes where mikey is extremely excited to be in the museums and is the one actively asking donnie questions about the exhibits they saw and also actively listening to donnie's explanation (before raph got silly lmao). he was very excited to learn!!!

And while it's true that mikey would lose interest quite fast if the explanation got too lengthy with too many technical terms, it doesn't change the fact that he does retain the info donnie is always rambling on about different things!!! (even if mikey himself doesn't notice he's doing it lol) and also i find it very sweet that no matter if donnie himself got annoyed, donnie would always answer the questions. no matter what. he would always try to explain if he didn't understand something

This is prob because mikey is the one brother who is often seeking out donnie to pass time around him Meaning that donnie might have used mikey as his rubber ducky whenever mikey hangs out with him while he's working (explained him a lot of his experiments and theories while trying to solve them himself and in this way mikey also learnt in the process WHILE spending time with his brother! win win!)

it also helps donnie because accompanies him while not letting him get lonely in his lab 24/7, sometimes explaining things to someone makes it better to understand it yourself AND it's shown in the comics that donnie is quite used to his brothers just Living as background noise and literally cannot function without it lmao

They are literally the two smart kids in the family even if none of them notice it and it's all because mikey looks up to his brother and is like an sponge with donnie around. donnie is actively teaching mikey and mikey is learning! even if they have no idea they are doing it

[dreamsy990]

some of the less nice thoughts about being aroace

extras below the cut

sketch

closeups on my favorite panels

bonus: adios

[arom-antix]

I bring to thee some quick late night Viktuuri sketches because I think we could all use some fluff

[noxious-fennec]

C!Q + vylette's fit from Jawbreaker

(aka an idea I've had for every conceivable holiday for months and decidedly couldn't put out on an appropriate date)

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

im so Normal. totally not shaking and crying rn

[polin-erospsyche]

Are they married here??? Because it’s their flat ad I’m pretty sure they have spent the evening there. And if they are not married then

1) these two are truly wild, disrespecting the rule of society this way

2) don’t tell me we’re getting divorced Polin before we’re getting married Polin 😫

ALSO

When does this take place???? Like are we getting several scenes of him just following LW in the middle of the night? Because if not, you really mean to tell me that these two have an argument, have a heated kiss, then they go home, he goes out for a walk and then spends the rest of the night on the couch???

Like let me kiss you real quick before going back to being mad at you and needing space. That just seems weird 🤨

OR we’re actually getting divorced Polin at the same time as married Polin?? Because there’s something that some people have noticed and I find it strange. Married Polin on the day of their wedding are not smiling like they usually are when they’re around each other

Like weird right??? So it’s either the shots we got and we have a feeling they’re not in absolute bliss (I won’t say they’re not happy because I’m pretty much convinced they still are) or it’s that there’s just too much going on for them to be completely blissed out.

I know people have said it’s a happy wedding but what if we get a happy exchange of vows and the rest is bittersweet? What if the wedding is the end of ep7 and this scene

Is actually the start of ep8? It would make more sense why they’re sleeping in the same flat. It’d just be that much more angsty, because what do you mean they get married and they’re still not on great terms so they spend their first night as a married couple separated??? He offers her the bed, the bed they’ve already slept in together might I add, and he takes the couch. It would also explain why no one is talking about a wedding night in all the sex scenes we will get

[averlym]

fairest of the fair

[aromanticannibal]

btw talking about character reactions to bkg dying (i wrote the deku post several hours ago but shh) Aizawa :

The absolute disbelief on his face. And then the widening eyes. Horikoshi really had fun with that close up like my mans was really like nuh uh you are not ignoring Aizawa. The eyebrows? The wrinkles? The absolute panic and despair in this man's eyes? When he sees his student (one of the most promising and one of the best and one of the most reckless) dead on the floor?

And then the anger? The handhold, the grip on that other student that very much should not be here, that should be safe and not in the middle of a warzone with him, the panic and the sweat and the clenched jaw? I'm still and forever going insane

[oddthesungod]

fuckin…. im a bit grouchy today, but reading “omg someone who draws, draw this extremely complicated and time consuming idea I had for free teehee just throwing this idea out there” makes me want to chew concrete, this isnt cute, you arent coy. just the flippancy of it rubs me the wrong way, “teehee im not asking for artists to draw for me for free, im just throwing this idea out there teehee”

Drives me up the walls, you want your ideas drawn, animated, whatever? Fucking pay an artist

[santeria]

last meal

twitter

[shellem15]

Thinking about the Dawnfather. A god of light, a god of harvest, a god of the sun itself. Good but not nice, kind but not soft. Life-giving but also scorching. Protective, warm, and kind, but also stern, harsh, and abrasive. His light can foster growth, can protect and guide, but it can also scorch and burn. The sun is warm and nurturing but don’t stare at it too long, child, it’ll blind you.

Was he always so hard? Did he always hide his face with the harsh light of the sun? Or was there a time when he smiled and laughed, let others see him as he truly was?

Thinking about the Schism. Was the Dawnfather close to the Betrayer Gods before they turned? He must have been, Asmodeus wouldn’t be so hung up on him if he wasn’t. Speaking of Asmodeus, he was once a being of light, like the Dawnfather and the Everlight are now. Were they closer than the others? When the Gods came to Exandria, did they come from the same place or were they scattered, a ragtag group of survivors fleeing from predators seeking to devour them? And if the latter is true, did these three beings of light come from the same place? Siblings, born from the same stuff, forever tied to one another?

If this was the case, then, what was their relationship before the Schism? Did they call each other “Brother” and “Sister”? Did they hold each other when they were scared, dry each other’s tears, laugh and joke and tease and fight and make up because they were siblings and they’d always be together, and they loved each other with every fiber of their being and they only had each other. When Predathos came, when it devoured two of their newfound siblings, did the Dawnfather hold them both and promise them that everything was going to be okay because he was their brother and he was going to protect them, all of them. The gods, mortals, the world itself, they would not be devoured, they would not be destroyed, because he was there and would fight until his very last breath to keep them safe.

Wondering then, was that the moment when Asmodeus truly grew to hate their creations? Seeing his brother and sister and siblings risk their lives just to protect some mewling mortal wretches when they could just leave it all behind and start somewhere new. Was that the moment when he realized that mortals had done something to them, changed them when they were not supposed to change. Why else would they risk being devoured by Predathos, why else would they suffer through war with the Primordials? Why else would they choose them over him!? Was this the moment when he decided to conspire with the Primordials and the other Betrayer Gods? To destroy this world and the mortals on it so they could finally leave. And they would leave, of course, because the Dawnfather was his brother and the Everlight was his sister and the Gods were a family, and at the end of the day, they would always be together, and once the corrupting influence of those mortals was gone, they would surely all see reason.

And when the Dawnfather discovered this betrayal, when all the Prime Deities did, he must have been furious. How could they!? His kin, his brother, who had always been by his side through everything, how could they turn around and destroy their creations, their children. And so he and the other Primes took up arms and fought against their own family to protect this world they had created, and their children who inhabited it. Those battles must have been brutal, bonds of comradery broken, kin clashing against kin, screaming curses as they tore each other apart.

During those final battles of the Schism, when the Dawnfather clashed against Asmodeus, did they scream at each other in rage? A twisted reflection of previous squabbles, different because this time it was real, this time there is no forgiveness, no making up. When the Dawnfather knocked Asmodeus down, crushed his throat under his foot and banished him to the Hells, was he yelling when he disowned him? Or was he quiet when he did it, his voice going into a low growl, deadly calm as he told him that he was not his brother anymore. And moments previously, when the Dawnfather could have easily killed him, did he look into Asmodeus’s eyes and see his brother? Scared and hurt by his hands, hands that once held him and swore to protect him. In that moment, did the Dawnfather realize he couldn’t kill him? Because that was his brother and despite everything, he still loved him, and hurting him brought him more grief and pain than he could ever imagine. So instead, he banished him, locked him and all the other Betrayers away because he and the other Primes couldn’t bring themselves to kill their family, but they also couldn’t let them free.

Was this when the Dawnfather obscured his face? Hardened his heart because otherwise he would break, and he cannot break, because the other gods need him to be strong, because Exandria needs him to be strong. And so he stayed strong, despite the grief, despite the guilt, despite the pain of heartbreak, of hurting the ones he loved to protect the ones he loved. And this hardening must have continued, running himself ragged during Calamity, beating back Tharizdun, protecting Ioun after she almost died, sheltering the Everlight after Asmodeus once again betrayed her, stabbed her in the back and left her broken and weak when all she wanted was to do was get her brother back, to save him from his own wrath. Failure after failure after failure to protect those he cared about, to protect his siblings and mortals and Exandria itself. The guilt of his failures must be overwhelming, and these are his failures: Predathos devoured his siblings under his watch, his siblings betrayed them under his watch, Calamity ravaged Exandria under his watch, and even now, the threat of Predathos has once again returned under his watch.

No wonder he is so harsh now, so controlling now: because every time he has failed in his vigilance the world has suffered for it. He can’t fail again; he can’t lose any more siblings. And so, he continues hardening his heart, continues fighting, because the sun must always rise again in the morning, no matter what.

[butchspace]

I guess I kind of just use this account for PSAs now, and this has been on my mind a lot lately.

I figured out that I have OCD a few years ago, and recently I’ve seen a lot of bad advice around dealing with intrusive thoughts and obsessions.

There’s that post that goes around occasionally about “taking pictures of your oven knobs before you leave” or other things I’ve seen that say to “make a weird face when you lock your door.” THESE ARE COMPULSIONS. If you have/suspect you have OCD or you often struggle with things like that, please do not follow this advice. Instead, try to accept your intrusive thoughts and move on, not argue with them. Over time, they will get easier and easier to deal with. Ruminating, stressing, or arguing with them just makes them worse in the long run.

If you think you might have OCD and want to seek a specialist, the IOCDF’s home page has a lot of resources under the “find help” tab, including a locator.

I’m going to put the rest under a read-more because I’m going to talk a bit more in depth about intrusive thoughts and compulsions. This mostly because good OCD info is so sparse on line, and I’ve spent many hours compulsively researching OCD lmao.

Content warning:

discussion of unreality/doubting one’s own perception

discussion of specific compulsions

I’m not going to push this point too hard or shame anyone who doesn’t want to follow it, because OCD doesn’t really just go away. It’s a constant struggle. I give in to compulsions regularly, even though I am medicated and have seen a specialist to learn actual coping skills. It’s hard to resist sometimes and you don’t always have the energy, the awareness, or the power to ignore them. You do what you have to do to get through your day. The main difference is that the right medication and the right therapist make it easier to stay out of the spiral and to leave a spiral when you’re in one. They still happen. You still kind of have to play everything by ear.

Similarly, it is super fucking hard to get help or even get diagnosed. No regular therapist actually knows what the fuck it looks like, and specialists are few and far between and often don’t take insurance. It’s not fair or easy or necessarily productive to try and do exposure response prevention on yourself. Your “good coping skills” can even turn into an obsession or compulsion, where you’re constantly worried about what is an intrusive thought and what is not, or if you’re responding to them properly.

What I want to do is try to give at least some useful advice to people who are struggling with intrusive thoughts.

The best way to respond to them is not at all. This is especially true with OCD, because the response to them is sort of the root of this disorder. Sometimes, it’s recommended that with depression or anxiety you challenge your thoughts. In OCD, it’s the opposite. Challenging them can so easily lead you down a compulsion spiral. (More about that cycle from a professional.)

Compulsions can be entirely mental, but I’ll use a common behavioral one to look at how engaging with compulsions can go:

You start by taking a picture of the your stove knobs to make sure they’re all off. That works for a few hours or days, but then you start wondering if the knob is ever-so-slightly in the “on” position. You wonder if the picture proves they’re off enough. You forget to take the picture at all, and have to go back in to check anyways. You check your phone a few times before leaving to ensure that the picture is still there. You take several pictures because you can’t tell if you actually took any at all. You start to wonder if you can even trust what you see before your very eyes. What if you’re just imagining that the knobs are set to off? What if you’re just imagining the whole picture to begin with? The picture allows you to engage with your checking compulsion throughout the day, strengthening the connection between the intrusive thought and the urgency to do something about it. That means it gets worse. That means you find new ways to doubt your perception or your memory or whatever.

It can eventually get really bad. It’s hard and awful to try and deal with this on your own, but sometimes you have to.

It’s so shit. It’s so fucking shit how long many people suffer with mental illness without even knowing what’s going on. I didn’t know that my constant, overwhelming guilt over almost everything I’d ever thought or said or done or maybe did and couldn’t remember was the result of a disorder. It was so freeing to realize there was actually something that might help me, and I could learn to just live with myself and my weird ass thoughts that don’t necessarily mean anything at all. It’s so shit that OCD-awareness is so low among therapists. I was never going to get diagnosed until I found an OCD SPECIALIST (bold, italicized, all caps. Don’t trust people on psychology today who just put OCD in the list of what they treat.) and went over the Y-BOCS with her. It’s all so shit that several therapists I came to with textbook examples of OCD either ignored me or didn’t have the tools to help. I told one of them I “didn’t feel connected to reality” and he kind just went 🤷.

I just want everyone who is in that/a similar situation to at least have this information available to them.

If you want to learn more, these blogs from Sheppard Pratt were the best discussion of OCD I found online that really described what I was going through. They’re written by licensed therapists, several (all?) of whom live with OCD. They’re very healing to read if this is something you’re struggling with, or something you think you might be struggling with, and great in general if you want to learn more about OCD.

Whatever’s going on, OCD or not, have some grace with yourself. Take a few minutes today and do something kind for yourself, even just think one nice thing about yourself. You’re doing the best you can.