#is it my fault that I got bullied?

[ben-talks-art]

Kindness, Strength, and Morals

This is probably going to be a very messy post since my thoughts and feelings towards the topic are kinda all over the place and I don't think I have the necessary amount of maturity and insight towards the subject to provide a satisfying conclusion... But I still wanna try talking about it anyway cause I feel this could be interesting to discuss.

So, basically, I've been thinking about how certain pieces of different media try to showcase depictions of bullying, abusers, victims, misuse of power, the consequences of one's actions on others, and so on, and all the different ways they each try to offer a, quote on quote, solution to the problem, and which of these solutions I, an outsider who really hasn't suffered THAT much abuse through life, like more or like less and why.

Naturally, my perspective is probably not gonna be as helpful as that of an actual victim or someone who closely studies these things as part of their job, but I still would like to take a moment to go "This is what the media I'm consuming is making me think about" and wonder if they're doing an actual good job and talking about these things.

So the first thing that kinda sparked my desire to discuss this was the movie Encanto.

For those who never saw it, Encanto is a movie about this one teen, Mirabel, who's the only member of her super-powered family who doesn't have powers, and due to that, her and certain members of her family tend to make her feel like she has less value than them.

Through some shenanigans, personal journey, and magic events revolving around helping their magic house that got sick, she ends up accepting that she has as much value as everyone even if she can't do all the stuff they can do, and by the end, she becomes closer than ever with her family.

Now, this is a nice message and all, to teach people who feel like they're less that they are just as much as anyone else, and that even if you feel powerless you are still strong enough to do what matters most for those that need you, be it your loved ones, or even just yourself.

The things is... This story brings up a small problem that I often see a lot for these types of plots, that being, the victim of the situation is usually the one that needs to save themselves.

Mirabel fighting to prove her worth is great, but it kinda bothers me that she has to fight basically alone. There isn't a lot of focus on her family members realizing how destroyed she is inside and how much they're indirectly hurting her. She literally has a whole song around the theme of "I'm not fine."

Red from OSP went into great detail about this in a Twitter thread and addressed how the victims of the situation basically had to do all the work of healing herself while the family basically just stood there watching and going "glad you finally feel good about yourself!" *thumbs up*

Now, the message still works because at the end of the day, you are the only person in your life that you can fully control, so it makes sense that stories will try to show that most of the work to begin self-healing lies in yourself, but not everyone has that inner strength to want to help themselves.

Many people are dealing with a lot of pressure and expectations of real life that are engraved into our minds from an early age, constantly being told "this is how good you need to be if you want to be happy!" and constantly comparing ourselves with others.

It's great that Mirabel decided to go on her journey to save her magic house and that resulted in her happy discoveries, but what if she hadn't? What if the house hadn't gotten sick? Would Mirabel just be miserable forever? Because nobody else was really doing anything to help her.

This made me think that, while I like these stories for addressing the pain of the victims to make us understand and sympathize with them, I would like to also see more stories that show how others could help them in case they can't help themselves.

Two stories that come to my mind on that are the manga "Is It My Fault That I Got Bullied?" and the webtoon "Get Schooled."

The manga tells a story about a former bullying victim that became a teacher in order to help out other victims, and through some twists of fate, ends up becoming the teacher of the daughter of his former bully, and now needs to decide if he will help her or not.

meanwhile, the webtoon tells a story about a government system that tries to directly fight against bullies at school and protect victims of abuse by openly infiltrating problematic schools, finding out who the oppressors are, and basically bodyguarding the victims from the abusers with brute force and lecturing them, and us, the readers, on why their actions can cause so much harm.

I like both series a lot. They both address the struggle of the victims, and what outsiders could to to help them, while also bringing up the fact that sometimes the priority should be in taking away the oppressor's ability to oppress.

In the manga, the main character devises a plan to record the actions of the bullies through multiple hidden cameras in order to expose them in the media and allow everyone to be aware of their actions so that people learn that if they become bullies everyone will know. On the webtoon, the main leads are given authority to punish the bullies as much as they see fit under the notion that they're doing it to protect someone, so if anyone hurts someone, they need to be ready to be hurt too.

The reason I like these is because, quite often in stories the focus is "forgive and forget, being happy is the best revenge, they don't know any better, they're just kids being kids" and so on.

They underplay the harm and lasting damage of being abused, while in these series, the idea is "being abused can scar someone for life, so let's do all we can to make sure the abusers won't want to abuse anyone."

It works under the premise that some people should be given more power and freedom so they can protect the weak and that bullies should have bigger consequences to fear.

That sounds very effective at first, but once you stop to think about it, you notice that a lot of these ideas heavily rely on the goodwill of those in a position of power for it to work.

Even the characters inside each comic point out at some point "Cool idea bro, but that's not exactly a practical solution."

Yeah, I would feel safer if I knew a good person was watching over me all the time and ready to freely beat up some bullies if I was in danger, but what would happen if all this power was given to some prick who's just waiting to use it to take advantage of others? Or what if they make a mistake and think I'm the abuser for some reason?

The liberty to beat up students or the implementation of cameras to invade people's privacy at school... This is just begging to be exploited.

The risk in putting too much power and freedom in the hands of someone to be responsible for our safety is that we might think we have a Superman when in reality we have a Homelander.

Superman works because he's a man with all the strength and all the kindness to safely protect victims from harm. He's a symbol of the best of the best because he can help and he wants to help.

It's not just about the power to help, it's about the sense of ethics and kindness to use that power well. But, again, that's still not a perfect solution to deal with situations of abuse because... How the heck do you make sure that you have a good person behind the wheel making these decisions for us? How do we guarantee our own Superman?

Each one of these stories does a good job of addressing parts of the problem and parts of the solution, but still not the full picture.

Encanto addresses the struggle and pain of the victim and the lasting impact that bad actions, even unintentional bad actions, can have on them;

The two comics address the need of those who are in a position capable of helping to actually help and the need to incapacitate the abusers' ability to abuse;

And Superman addresses the need for kindness behind your actions so you can use all that power responsibly and that maybe too much power isn't always a good thing if it goes to the wrong hands;

While trying to think of what would be a good way to mesh all these things together, I started to think about one of the comments I saw once regarding and Episode of Invincible focused on Atom Eve.

Basically, the comment was talking about a scene where Eve's friend ends up becoming afraid of her after finding out she had powers and starts distancing himself from her, and what they said was pretty much "Wouldn't it be cool if we had some sort of way of teaching civilians that they don't need to fear super-powered people at schools?"

I saw that comment and thought, "Wouldn't it be good to have this anyway, even without the superpower aspect to teach kids how to be morally good people, shouldn't we?"

This brings me to the last two series that kinda encapsulate a good compromise between all these points, "School Back" and "We Now Begin Ethics."

School Back is about a lady janitor who often notices that some of the kids in her school are dealing with a lot of stuff that they can't tell either their parents or teachers, so she talks to them herself... And that's it.

It shows the struggle of the kids, it puts just enough power of action in the hands of someone older and wiser, and it helps nurture the importance of kindness, all by having a story where children have someone to talk to about their problems who can help them, and she talks about these things in very clever ways that makes the kids themselves reach their own conclusions.

We Now Begin Ethics is very similar in that it is about a wise adult in a moderate position of power who simply gives classes about ethics and morals. And again, that's all it needs, just showing that these people in need have someone who can help them.

He gives out lessons for them to think about (all while posing sexily to the camera every now and then because the artist of the manga really wants to drive home how attractive this man is), tells stories and describes situations so at the end he can ask them what to they think, inspires them to communicate with one another and to try to be open to new ideas without forcing his own ideas on them.

Basically going "This is what I think. Do you agree?"

And again, that's all there is to it. Just an adult talking with kids and helping them become better people by teaching them how to think about what really matters and not about what society wants us to think matters.

Now you might ask, "What about preventing the abusers from abusing?"

The idea in these cases is more about preventing these kids from ever becoming abusers to begin with. We get rid of bullies by teaching what's right and wrong from an early age and making so they never consider the idea of hurting others to begin with.

Teaching how to sympathize, how to listen, how to be patient, how to be humble, how to not put your needs above others, how to use your words and think about your actions, how to properly value yourself and how to be honest with your feelings.

It's not a perfect solution, especially for those who are already too far gone, but just being there for someone who needs to talk honestly does wonders to help one another.

A lot of bullies are just people with many negative thoughts who never had someone to help them properly deal with these thoughts, mostly because a lot of adults really struggle to understand kids and teens, and in both these series, the protagonists are great examples of adults who know exactly how to use their words to reach the point they need to reach for those that need to listen to it.

There are a lot of stories about people wanting to help out others, but they kinda make it look easier than it actually is, which is not bad as it motivates you to be more open to the idea of being selfless and more being there for others... But you need to know what you're doing so you won't cause more harm than good.

If I was in Encanto and were to try and talk with Mirabel to convince her she's as special as anyone in her family, what would I say?

If I was one of the teachers fighting bullies in Get Schooled, how would I know when to hold back and stop fighting? How would I know which resources are going too far?

If I was Superman, how would I make people know they can trust me so they can come to me for help?

It's not just about understanding the victim's struggle like in Encanto, it's not just about being strong enough to protect the victim like in Get Schooled, It's not about having enough kindness in your heart to want to help, it is about being mature enough to know what the situation needs, being kind enough to want to offer it, and being good enough to able to offer it.

I'm sure there are a lot more to learn when it comes to abuse and being abused, about offenders and victims, about having power and being powerless, being mature or immature, about helping those in need, and so on... These were just my quick thoughts based on a couple of pieces of media that made me think about each respective case and how much I like the way they tackled it.

Encanto taught about the struggle of the victim

Get Schooled and Is it my Fault taught about the need of empowering those that can help and depowering those that can harm

My Adventures with Superman teaches about the significance of real good intentions when wanting to help

And School Back and We Begin Ethics taught how even something as simple as just knowing how to talk to others can have a great positive effect on others

This is all very surface-level discussion around each topic, of course, but it's still interesting to see how writers try to talk about it at all.

(Edit, these were all feelings I had before learning about the recent events regarding Get Schooled 😓 I'm deeply sorry for having promoted a series that carried so much ill will inside of it. This post literally aged like milk in a matter of days...)

[redninjaoutfit]

LENORA HARKER POSTING!!!!!!!

HERE'S THE BEAUTIFUL DAUGHTER OF THE ONE N ONLY @calciumdeficientt my sweet girl Lenora (who could definitely not break me in half if she so desired)

I had so much fun with her SHE IS TOTALLY THE TYPE OF GIRL TO SIT AROUND AND GAWK AT THE CHEERLEADERS, THINKING SHE HAS A LEGITIMATE CHANCE (she doesn't womp womp) (Burton is yelling at her to get back to work)

A complete and utter menace to Bullworth's LGBTQ+ population. She makes them look bad and she's proud of it!!

[horsefigureoftheday]

This video is 10 years old now. Btw.

[peterbwatsonparker]

things that annoy me about fanon portrayal of peter parker #1265

inability to properly portray his superpowers and also skills. guys. guys. why is he getting knocked around by like. 5 run of the mill crooks. guys. why did he break his arm falling a grand total of two stories. guys. how is he actually getting beat up getting hit by sir normal ass man. guys. why is he seriously out of commission for over a week.

just say the only powers you remember are wall crawling and spider sense and go

[bullied-and-traumatised]

my old secondary school got a surprise visit from ofsted in 2022 who scored them as "inadequate" and they required immediate improvement or they would be shut down. The main thing mentioned in the report was rampant bullying and staff not doing anything to stop it.

🖕 FUCK YOU BITCHES I WASN'T CRAZY!! 🖕

[unproduciblesmackdown]

"normal" meaning "unquestionable" & the embrace of that cropping up anywhere such as an aim to be on the unquestionable side of a Normal / Weird binary, thus surely being a comfortable effortless indelible version of Good that stems from "just be normal"

ppl out here like freud 2.0 where well they had the sufficiently normal Nuclear Household family(tm) experience so they're sufficiently normal for it, versus the weirdos who had the Questionable family times so as to end up with Issues, surely unlike all those who are Family Issue free, i.e. normal, no question. like how also Going To School is Normal, so of course there's that idea that anyone who didn't go to school normal style or did but Did That Wrong are the people made Weirder with Issues. & when what's Normal is what's Good is what's Unquestionable it's like why would i need to question it when it's so normal? why wouldn't some rando asshole nepo man be Meritous & Good at business when he's so Successful at it. speaks for itself, same as Your role of being treated entirely differently does, this can't be questioned, blame it on your own failures; again how the supposedly "questionable" experiences (unlike other ones, which need no Legitimate questioning) are pathologized like. people talking about disabled ppl's lacking "social skills" being this meaningful Driver of ableism just like poor people's lacking "financial literacy" being that darn cause of classism & resource extraction, the already Questioned vulnerable [you're just doing it wrong / failing] people are the cause of their own mistreatment, Normal people who are so socially & financially successful are helpless, this victim blaming (can't question it. Normal) sure totally doesn't speak to abuse being "normal" as well

which, good thing abuse totally isn't Normal i.e. in the territory of unquestionable things (with, obviously, the idea that Abuse (Real abuse, if you like) must be Exceptional in addition to, if not to Really be, "obviously" questionable) since if something can't be questioned then surely it's also How Things Were In The Beginning, Are Now, & Ever Shall Be (catholic prayer paraphasing re: god, for referential context) & there's just nothing to do but invest in & play into it For Success & resent / punish / try to eliminate disruption, like people just existing but doing it Weird, c'mon, be a better person please, obviously....meanwhile people out here approaching queerness in a way that accepts & acts according to the unquestionable normal of abuse of queerness, such that oh the "abnormality" of being queer (that is, "normal" people's abuse in the face of awareness of queerness) is unquestionable, such that Oh No, investment in that abuse now & forever world without end amen, & now punching down on the people who are just Being Weird & Disrupting this embrace of the norm: radfems invested in "all bodies will be classed as men & women & the former abuse the latter" & hate women who already disrupt this premise; pointing out ace exclusionism as terf logic just applied in the different context where queer vs nonqueer binary is neatly detected just as the gender binary is & people who already prove that & the way it's defined is not the case are the real problems, infiltrating Unquestionable (Normal) Queerness & delegitimizing it i.e. being The Cause of e.g. homophobic abuse, which will also unquestionably exist, so if we're gonna blame someone as Needing To Change it'll have to be uhhh already also affected Weird people who are ruining things, they're the Real causes of this abuse, so they're basically men, basically cis, basically straight. boooo to trans ace bi pan aro nonbinary gnc people....hardest to be binary gender "same sex" "romantic" "visible" Truly Queer couple currently holding hands in public or in front of family, & it's You Mfs who make it harder, not, yknow, the people who were already always embracing & perpetuating the abuse bolstering Normal(tm) Cishet Just Being Normal. and of course don't forget going after poly people & others disrupting / not accepting premises about Unquestionable Relationship Structures/Requirements. so not just being normal

also the beloved concept broken out that, of course, Being Normal = Being Good, b/c hello, unquestionable?? where it's like meaningless ideas that abuse is Abnormal like ":( hurt people hurt people" (inherently a framing to counter any response to [person is hurting me] that's not silent secret sympathy forever i guess. nobody's using this catchphrase to argue for Hey Quick let's all intervene to stop someone being hurt, lest they go on to hurt anyone themselves) like & yet everyone is hurt, yet not everyone is doing shit where these arguments are broken out after they're already getting away with nonsense & we're telling others to just stop complaining, while also not everyone isn't getting shit on for being "disruptive" & perchance the real hurtful problems for trying to Stop being shitted on, or just have a little more breathing room to day to day live while it happens. everyone's hurt bitch let's get you some "what's the actual patterns & context of supported power imbalance made emergently evident by whose choices & life are constrained & undermined & made smaller" like. or the expanded idea as that well all abuse comes from Being abused, i.e. the Cycle, never mind that abuse is everywhere as per its being Normal, & nobody's intervening every time it manifests despite its supposed exceptionality thus rareness & supposed indication that someone's Being abused to cause it. just gotta roll with it, wow. & pathologize being victim to it, abuser in the making, Vulnerable People are dangerous, those insulated & given more access to systemically backed power in an oh so Normal way are surely oh so Safe as well. the very rich families are all lovely havens. the abused people are treated so well & embraced & supported by all the more Normal people they encounter, certainly not Also isolated, bullied, victim blamed by these Normal friends family coworkers new partners randos in public randos who are "professionals"

but yknow uh literally just be normal lol. aaand post. and like "lol being Anti Being Normal? just like a weirdo" like yeah of course. and what, i'm gonna try to win the heart & mind of someone like "of course you have blue hair & pronouns" & convert them, as would definitely happen if only all transgenderists were Normal about it? and the perspective of "what Unquestionable Good is ever actually coming from striving to get to point at Others as Weird" involves going like "nooo i wanna see myself & be seen as Just Being Normal" instead of like having ideas / arguments about how to be considerate towards people which can be articulated in any other way & involve effort & said consideration (ft. anything able to be questioned)

[leafpool-loves-ashfur]

my favorite thing about my Generations ocs is when i start mapping things out and suddenly Poppystar has gone from Bitch-ass Leader who is Mean to the Protagonist for No Reason into Oh My God Give This Woman a Break, Moonpool Christ.

literally all in the span of 3 moons she: has an apprentice, is made deputy, becomes pregnant, goes on a quest to save her dumbass leader while pregnant, leader decides to RETIRE and she becomes leader, GIVES BIRTH, decides "fuck this" and makes her apprentice into a warrior despite him not having finished his apprenticeship

like YEAH no WONDER she's a Bitch(tm), she literally had to train an apprentice WHILE pregnant WHILE being a new leader WHILE the dumbass Main Protagonist pisses StarClan the FUCK off and suddenly its HER problem and she DOESN'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS

AND she had a bad mom

[coridallasmultipass]

I am once again begging online shop payment processing companies to allow me to enter a separate name for shipping and separate name for billing!!

It's the same address, I'm just trans and have not legally changed my personal name, but I still prefer to receive mail as my preferred name! Like it's literally my professional name, I do business as my preferred name.

Annoying as fuck, and I don't want to chance my bank rejecting the payment (though I'm sure someone at my bank has put a note to allow it on my account by now, since I've contacted them a couple times before when I realized too late that the billing section didn't let me input another "address/name" section, and they said the payment was fine in those cases.)

Anyway, legal name changes should be free and non-advertised for everyone. Tbh, you should get a free name change every time you file your taxes on time as an incentive for good citizen behaviour. Once I am elected pres-

[thefandomenchantress]

I think I get what that person is saying about people shrugging Ace off and being hypocritical because there is the part where Ace opens up to Teruko about him being basically afraid of everything and being in a constant state of panic and she kinda just laughs/shrugs it off which is so not cool, it was even before her whole going emo thing /j (sorry that was a bad joke, you get what I mean).

People are constantly shrugging off Ace whenever he opens up or attempts to open up to Ace and I don’t know about most people but me personally in a situation like this, if someone opened up to me and talked about their fears, how they can’t control their anger, or anything like that, the last thing I would do is shrug it off.

This cast just has a lot of teamwork and empathy issues as far as I can see. I do get your point of the characters not seeing as much as the audience has seen but at the same time it does feel like whenever a character does see one of Ace's breakdowns or explanations they just shrug it off altogether.

It is a very complex issue and I just hope at some point someone besides Teruko can hear what Ace is feeling because I think this situation with Ace could be solved/helped with just one empathetic person in the cast hearing him out.

I hope that all makes sense and isn't just a bunch of repeated information and points.

Sorry this has been in my inbox for…a few days, I think? I’ll be honest, the reason I put off responding to it was because I couldn’t really think of anything to say. I’m pretty sure I agree with all your points, for the most part.

I mean, if I thought that Ace was just a jerk who deserved all the treatment he got, I obviously wouldn’t be as obsessed with him and his writing as I am, haha.

Honestly, I do think Teruko shrugging off Ace’s sorta-trauma-dump when he tries to open up to her in the first chapter does say a lot about her and her past, (honestly I can’t believe I wasn’t enthralled with her as a protagonist at first I love her so much). Like, now that you pointed it out I can’t unsee how he’s actually trying to open up and Teruko’s literally like:

I mean I can’t stay mad at her for it because her ‘are you fucking serious’ sprite makes me laugh every time I see it, but still. She is just dismissing him, which isn’t very nice. She’s obviously judging him and not taking him seriously, which Ace probably noticed as his next sprite is one of his angry ones.

Honestly I think almost everyone in the class gets too caught up in their own issues (which is a very human flaw for them to have). I mean, every time one of the characters has a breakdown, I think someone in the cast is finally going to realize what that person is going through and help them through it…And then they just…don’t?

I mean. J is being harassed by Arturo for four days straight and we only see someone try to stop it once, Eden, and she doesn’t do a good job. Can someone please help this this poor effects artist?! I get that maybe someone tried to help off-screen, but since we don’t see it I can’t be sure that happened and honestly I don’t think it did. J has to force Teruko to help her because no one else is trying to, and she almost gets stabbed in the process. And I already rambled about no one helping Nico last time.

All this is to say that the more I think about it, the more I think you’re right. Almost everyone has had a mental breakdown at some point in DRDT (or in Whit’s case complete emotional detachment) and almost none of them get any comfort from others afterwards. Arei did, but David’s motives are…Questionable. Nico did too, but only after things got so bad they threatened Ace’s life.

I should clarify that none of what I said is meant to criticize the dev’s writing. If anything, this shows just how much I love it because can’t think of many other pieces of media where I would have this much to say. DRDT is just so INTERESTING! Every character, every character dynamic, every location and visual and piece of dialogue! Every time I rewatch a scene I find something new to overthink about. I love it so much. :)

Damn. Apparently I did have a lot to say after all. But yeah, I agree with you and you made great points, thanks for your input!

[alaskan-wallflower]

current mood

[candyn-gutz]

i give nana too much material to bully me with

[pensiveant]

I cannot even begin to explain how much I hate this post

[amarantoestrella]

Giggling about an interaction I had with a man today. Yes, that man.

[uhode]

coming home after spending a week living with your closest most beloved friends is so soul crushing i’m just sitting here trying to say something for the last ten minutes and they keep talking over me and interrupting like i’m not even there

[blurryface-never-left]

Gunna be real with yall... Im a lil worried about the Twitter migration. I know not all Twitter cliqqies are toxic assholes with their heads up their asses, but like... Twitter is kinda known to house the worst of the worst in terms of fanbase toxicity. Toxicity that used to be very much prevalent on here before everyone left for Twitter back during the Mass Porn Ban of Tumblr. I had to leave Tumblr during the Blurryface era because the toxicity was horrible. But after seeing pretty much the majority of it migrate to Twitter, it allowed me to finally come back here. I only got two sites that have clique spaces that isn't overwrought with people sending death threats over the littlest disagreements, or people competing for the title of "#1 best fan".

All I'm saying is that if we get a mass migration of Twitter cliqqies, we can be a bit more stricter on how we behave as a fanbase. I don't want to see this space devolve back to the 2016 era of "if you don't know X amount of facts about TOP your not a true fan", or "if your fav is this you suck/are problematic" or "Ive spent more money on this band than you therefore Im better" type shit. We don't and shouldn't worship the band here, we don't and shouldn't brag and put other fans down, and we don't and shouldn't be making being a fan a competition. I want us to continue viewing each other as equals. We don't need to see eachother as friends or family, just have a level of respect for one another and understand we all are allowed to enjoy this band and the music in our own ways without shitting on eachother for it. Please.

[snekdood]

if words are not enough to get a manipulative person to leave you tf alone and hit the road, wtf are ya supposed to do? maybe throw a small toy at them to send a message