#it's the self-righteousness that makes you So Sure it's work it because you're right. you Have to be right

[fakeoldmanfucker]

...the way that Andrew Garfield in Tick Tick Boom is playing Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network...

[artbyblastweave]

A few years ago, there was a thread on r/asksciencefiction where someone was fishing for a superhero story with an inverted Omni-Man dynamic, or a setting where Homelander's initial presentation is played straight- a setting where the Superman figure actually is the paragon of morality he's initially presented as, but no other superhero is- a situation where you've got one really competent true-blue hero standing head-and-shoulders in power above what's otherwise a complete nest of vipers.

Someone in the thread floated My Hero Academia; while I haven't read it, my understanding is that that's not really an accurate read of what's going on with Stain's neurosis about All-Might being the only "real hero," that the point of that arc is that Stain's got an insane and unreasonable standard and that taking an endorsement deal, while bad, isn't actually grounds for execution. My own contribution to the thread was Gail Simone's Welcome to Tranquility, where a major part of the backstory involved the faux Justice-League's Superman analogue having a little accident because he's the only one who thought they were morally obligated to go public with the secret life-extending macguffin that the rest of the team is using to enforce comic-book time on themselves and their loved ones; while only a couple members of the team are directly in on it, the rest are conveniently incurious. And Jupiter's Legacy gets tantalizingly close to this- The Utopian, a well-meaning stick-in-the-mud, ultimately gets blindsided and couped by his scheming brother who creates a superhero junta staffed by a Kingdom-Come-style glut of third-gen superheroes, who are framed as fundamentally self-interested because only came onto the scene after most of the situations you legitimately need a superhero to handle have been neutralized. (The rub, of course, is that the comic is also highly critical of the Utopian's intellectually incurious self-righteously 'apolitical' approach to superheroism- if for no other reason than that it left him in a position to get blindsided by a coup!) While Jupiter's Legacy gets the closest, all three of these are only loosely orbiting around the spirit of the original idea, and there's something really interesting there- particularly if the Superman figure isn't hopelessly naive in the same way as Utopian. Because first of all, if you're Metaman or Amazingman or whatever brand-name alias the writer goes with, and you really earnestly mean it, and you put together a team of all the other most powerful heroes on earth in order to pool your resources, and then with dawning horror you gradually begin to realize that everyone in the room besides yourself is a fascist or a con artist or abuser or any other variant of a kid with a magnifying glass eyeing that anthill called Earth- What the hell is your next move?

Do you just call the whole thing off? Can you trust that they'll actually go home if you call the whole thing off? I mean you've put the idea in their heads, are you sure that they aren't going to, like, start the Crime Syndicate in your absence? Do you stick around to try and enact containment, see if getting all of these people on a team makes them easier to keep on a leash? But that's functionally going to make you their enabler pretty quickly, right? Overlooking "should you kill them-" can you kill them? You're stronger than any individual one of them- are you stronger than all of them? The first time one of them really crosses a line in a way you can't ignore- will that be a one-on-one fight? Are they the kind of people capable of putting two-and-two together and pre-emptively ganging up on you if you push back too hard? Do you just start trying to get them killed, or keep them at each other's throats so they can't coordinate anything really nasty? Can you squeeze any positive moral utility out of them, or is that just a way to justify not doing the hard work of taking them down? There've been works where the conceit is to question the default assumption that Superman in specific would be a good person, and there've been works where the conceit is to question the default assumption that superheroes in general would be good people. Something to be done, I think, with questioning the default assumption that everyone Superman becomes professionally close to would be good, and to explore how he'd handle it if they weren't.

[o-sachi]

Orter Madl Relationship Headcanons

ᯓ character; orter madl (mashle) ᯓ tags; fluff, sfw, gn reader, no y/n

[🐟]: Ngl, I had a hard time trying to make rs hcs for this guy because he's literally un-romanceable in reality SOB.

— I'm not sure how you managed to bag this guy. But... congrats. Like, truly, you deserve it. Up until dating you, this guy has never shown an ounce of interest in romance AT ALL. Perhaps you could say that his type is simply "you"?

— But maybe he gets into a relationship since it's transactional; he gets something from you and you get something from him. He has always been a rational person, so this is the only way he can rationalize something like "love" if he even believes in such a concept.

— Perhaps he'll give more of his time to you than any other person. Not that he expects you to feel special because of that. Though, somehow, the transactional relationship is able to blur some boundaries and help both of you ease into spending more time with each other.

— You don't know it, but he does look out for you, especially if he gets something from you that's really valuable. He'll always be on the look for anything that's bound to threaten your safety. There have also been instances when he butts into one of your fights.

— There isn't a day when he doesn't question you or your motives. Again, he tries to rationalize everything. So he can't make sense when you do things selflessly for him. What's the point if you don't get more in return? You confused him plenty and those thoughts plague his mind more than he'd like them to.

— One day, while spending time together, he'll be staring holes in the back of your head. What's he thinking? Well, let's just say he's having the biggest crisis of his life (having thoughts/feelings that cannot be rationalized). He'll be in a pissy mood for the rest of the day, but he takes it out on everyone else but you.

— The change of heart happens excruciatingly slow, but there will be signs. Perhaps you won't notice it at first, but certainly everyone else around the two of you can see it—clear as day.

— Eventually, he starts to see your values—not as a wizard—but as a person. Your strength, unwavering determination, and goal oriented mindset all seem quite alluring to him. It just never occurred to him before that these things could mean something else out of a fight.

— Through time, he'll just let himself be drawn to you. After all, there's nothing wrong about respecting someone who upholds justice and righteousness like he does. You're strong and can hold your ground. If anyone will take up space in his life—it might as well be you.

— His idea of softening up is showing you his tough love. He knows the types of things you get yourself into as a wielder of magic, so he reminds you to get stronger everyday even if it kills you. He'll practice with you and show no mercy. In his mind, he's thinking of wanting you to become self-sufficient to the point that you can handle yourself even without him by your side.

— He hates it when other people talk about you, even praises annoy him. But if he hears anyone insult you... they'll find themselves buried 6 ft. deep under sand. Without knowing it, he thinks so highly of you now—that if anyone were to utter the mere thought of you pisses him off. At this point, he lets you walk closely by his side so that everyone knows you are not to be messed with.

— You'll never hear him say the words, "I love you." But on a special occasion—like your birthday or your anniversary— he'll do something sweet for you (much to your surprise). You walk into his training grounds, a vast space with a bunch of sand. In the middle is a big heart made out of sand with him standing right beside it. Then he says something like, "Today's a special occasion hence the shape," or something unromantic like that lol.

o-sachi © 2024 pls do not translate/copy/reupload my work on other platforms.

[simplepotatofarmer]

some real talk from your local anarchist and activist:

one, as long as you've changed and worked/are working to be a better person, no one cares about your past! actual activists will work with former neo-nazis and kkk members because we want people to change. if they want to be better, we want to give them a place to go! so many people get stuck in the alt-right because they don't think they have anywhere else to go! but our goal as leftists is to reduce the numbers of the alt-right and so we welcome people that want to change because it's the only way to make the world better. constantly berating people with their past, making them self flagellate all the time, does nothing - nothing - to make the world better. this doesn't mean that people who have been harmed have to forgive them or feel comfortable but y'all white activists have no room to act like that!

two, fucking online discourse isn't activism. neither is retweeting threads on twitter or posts on tumblr. heck, this post isn't activism! you can do activism online but i promise you it isn't harassing fans of a creator or content you've deemed problematic or slur discourse or policing what memes people post. like sure, we should try to be aware of making others uncomfortable but holy crap these things really do not matter! you are not a good person solely because you consume things that are 'morally right'. consuming media is fucking NOTHING. it means NOTHING. yes, it can matter when it funds actual bigots like JKR but i promise watching steven universe or the dsmp or whatever literally doesn't matter.

please, drop this moral purity stuff and attacking other people over their pasts or what character they like because y'all are just doing the work of the alt-right for them! you're getting into slur discourse and kink discourse and attacking other queer people like, yeah! that's what they want! they want words like 'groomer' to mean nothing so it's easier to throw at anyone they want. they want 'queer is a slur' shit because putting people into strict labels makes it easier to say 'these are the good ones and these are the bad ones' later on.

people are good. people can change.

your kindness matters more than your righteousness ever will.

[arttrampbelle]

Shang tsung isn't evil but a product of corruption and the environment that surrounds him. He's not evil in the sense of black n white thinking of morality. Especially from a western,psuedo Christian American perspective that so many people wanna shoehorn him into. (No shade here but im calling it like i see it nrs)

How is he evil when everyone in mortal kombat kills?

Also shao kahn quan chi and shinnok has arguably done worse

And even more so he's worked more with them,and under them(shao Kahn namely) and had no choice but to follow orders. Namely some things sure were aligned in benefit. But truly can you really argue that it was all his doing? No to say so is ignorant and undermining the other villains and antagonists of the series and their own contributions to the story narrative in opposition of protags and other characters.

The most evil is those who hide behind self righteousness and say they are for peace when they are being manipulated by promises of a better realm or timeline(cough fire god liu kang. COUGH)

Like nah guys mk12/mk1 don't make sense even for the narrative they are trying to pull. Shang is wonderful but yall missed the point even tho the storymode sucks and everything about it makes me nauseous, shang tsung shines thru because of what he represents. The story,It falls through the crack simply because of the fact

In mortal kombats chaotic and cruel world. You kill or be killed. You do what it takes to survive. Or be food for the gods. As you are nothing but entertainment for them.

Everyone kills in mortal kombat. So shang tsung killing means fucking nothing and is a moot point. He does it,everyone does it,how is he truly any different than anyone at that point. Thru mortal kombat,a supposedly Divine system,he's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing. And what his character is designed to do. Period. So killing,moot point and argument.

Im not talking about. MK12/MK1 specifically. Tho that grinds my gears for many other reasons. Im talking shang tsung,overall as a whole as a character thru the 30+yrs the games and mk has been around. These are common arguments for that shang is "tHe EVil OnE" when there's no such thing in mks world. Truly. It's posturing and posing flowery words at that point. Period.

Stealing souls? He has to,to survive. He is cursed by the very gods and mentors that once swore to protect him. But did nothing.

Climbing for power? He does so because he wishes not to rule over. But so he doesn't have to worry about going to bed hungry,to suffer. He wants stability,comfort,and most of all security. A thing that long ago was robbed of him.

See you can't say shit about my man without having many reasons why he's not.

Could he be evil,nasty,and dowright fucking cruel? Oh you bet your ass he could. But does he enjoy it? Not really. He takes no pleasure unless it's out of necessity or you're considered an enemy.

He is no different than a hungry hunter. Trying to find his next meal or the next place of dwelling. Until he finds his true place of being and achieves a stable life.

Like ffs people it's right fucking there fine print and that still,STILL GOES OVER YOUR HEADS!

Like y'all who don't understand nuanced villains WANT him to be stereotypical,y'all want him to be easy to pinpoint. Because that means you dont get to critique your beloved "Heroic" characters. And use your brains,and critically think that maybe,just fucking maybe. Your nice dudes were wrong for once.

In mortal kombats world (if you can call it that because the world building sucks)

It's kill or be killed. Morality be damned. Shang tsung found that out long ago. Hiding behind morals in a world that could care less than about you. Gods that only see you as food,throw away entertainment,etc.

He may have respect for someone who despite all that crap,has some moral backbone. But isn't blind to the truth,it's survival. Dont be a pushover boot licking lapdog. As long as you don't hide behind your self righteousness and "goody goody" attitude. He'll respect that you have a noble heart. In fact,that may make him actually enjoy your company. But dont be a condescending jackass about your morals. And he'll be fine.

Shang tsung is just playing the game that the world is built upon. The rules,the gods,the empires,have made. And plays them well into his advantage.

And y'all pissed he plays it better than you. 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

That my dears is a truly well done villain,antagonist,and just a beautifully complex character.

That's how you do or are supposed to do shang tsung. Period.

*slams hand down on table and leaves*

🔥💯🔥

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[ladyluscinia]

On a slightly more serious note, "It's just... I'm disappointed in the writers, man. They drank the canyon kool-aid" is exactly the kind of take you get at the end of a 1.5 year hiatus when a very vocal section of the fandom decided a few weeks in that there was one major character in this black humor romcom who was too problematic, too unquestionably bad and wrong and villainous that even attempting to look at the series from his POV or expressing any sympathy / willingness to evaluate his actions in good faith was mostly taken as proof of fans embracing their internalized bigotry and defending it in ways that caused real, active harm to every POC and queer person in the fandom (except, of course, the many of them on the wrong side of this divide). Like it's a very straightforward line from "you are morally suspect for even considering reads of this show that do not take the S1 antagonist's pure self-aggrandizing, bigoted hatred of our good guys into account" to the kind of reinforced bubble discussions that leave people absolutely baffled when canon doesn't follow the elaborate web of interpretations and headcanons and symbolism that they and their friends have mostly made up whole cloth in their heads.

And this isn't a new problem! It's as old as fandom and will last as long as fandom does. And, however clever you are, you are liable to end up on the wrong side of interpretive discourse at some point, and then you will be the one double-taking at new canon and trying to figure out where did they come up with that?!? I've been totally wrong before. A good reason to check in with yourself every once in a while and make sure you aren't going off the rails.

But I do think that fandom - ALL fandom - is getting worse regarding this, especially with all the increased roving anti culture working double-time to tie having right or wrong opinions about the TV show into moral purity / corruption and people's stances on social politics, and the continued and frankly disastrous skewing of the aired content vs hiatus time ratio giving people so much longer to build up their fandom bubble and less canon content to base it on.

So like... general reminder that fandom thrives best on multiple interpretations existing, and any serious attempt at meta / predictions benefits from understanding how to weigh multiple interpretations and decide why you think yours is strongest. And you can't do that if you try to banish one entire branch of thought and all its fans into the sun because you disagree with it. And then you look really bad when those fans were right and you're reduced to bitterly complaining they "got to the writers, too" instead of acknowledging that those Big Blogs you follow weren't righteously dunking on bad, bigoted takes and were, in fact, just being bullies to fans with a valid interpretation that liked a character they didn't for the whole hiatus.

[eighthdoctor]

You made that post about the D/s mechanics inherent to quel'dorei relationships, then gave us a firsthand example with Alleria just subbing so hard for Calia. You're a Windrunner, and an actual recognized faction leader. Aren't you the one who is supposed to be deferred to while oh so tenderly clutching your partner's chin?

(Context)

I am so full bore insane about what I'm doing with Calia/Alleria you have no idea.

So like. On the one hand, yes. On the other hand, Calia claims to be totally is the legitimate ruler of Lordaeron, which would put her ahead of someone with a splinter group of Void-infested elves. Which is what Alleria tells herself to get to sleep at night.

Way, way more important is that this precisely mirrors her relationship with Turalyon: Light-touched, deeply passionate, not super interested in Alleria's interests, sure that they're right, convinced that if there's a disagreement it's because Alleria is in the wrong, Alleria is the one corrupted by a powerful, unknowable entity, not them, they're the one trying to fix things. Etc.

There's a point where like, "someone in the relationship is the partner who makes the final call" becomes concerning, where it's starting to shade into weird dependency and control issues. For sure that's what Alleria had with Turalyon and is developing with Calia.

Part of this is because Alleria doesn't trust herself:

Here, alone, she can find herself again. Alleria Windrunner. Whoever that is. But she can center, remember what it feels like to be herself in her own body, remember what it smells like, and gradually add sight and sound, the camps behind her, the vultures circling above, until she is one person, whole and real. (And the Void says: Are you sure?)

So she keeps seeking out relationships where she doesn't need to be the one in charge, where someone else can take off the load. Which wouldn't be a horrific approach except that her taste in partners is appalling. She keeps ending up in these imbalanced relationships trying to redeem herself for [checks notes] taking a survival approach to getting out of prison, and it's just not working.

One thing I like about WoW characterization (which is almost entirely accidental lmao) is the realistic contradictions it presents for certain people. Alleria is both someone who is self aware enough to realize she would make an atrocious Ranger-General and who steps down to avoid that happening, and the person who creates a small army of ren'dorei regardless.

She has a very, very weird relationship to her own authority in particular, which is EXTREMELY fun. And one of the ways she handles this is by subconsciously deferring to people who are very good at looking competent. (You may note this is not an ideal way to find someone who actually knows what they're doing.)

And Calia is just, infested with Terminal Monarch Disease, she is so sure she's doing the right thing, she's convinced that the Forsaken want her as queen, and she'll justify most things in the course of that.

The combination of righteousness between the two of them is why they've talked themselves into torturing Forsaken. It's obvious to both of them that Sylvanas is irredeemable and the Forsaken (as a whole) need to be liberated, equally obvious that as a Menethil and a Windrunner they're the right people to do it. So given those points, anyone who disagrees is clearly wrong and either (if Alliance) misguided or (if Horde) actively hostile. Alleria has always thought the best defense was a good offense, so there we are.

After BfA, Alleria does canonically torture Forsaken to find out where Sylvanas is, which I read as like. If the alternative is the resumption of war or destruction of a country, and people are not answering her (to her POV) extremely simple questions, torture in order to get answers to prevent war becomes justifiable.

Which does, of course, backfire spectacularly here--one of several problems with torture is you have no way to tell which answers were lies, so if you're convinced that one was a lie and are WRONG, oops.

I have gotten slightly off topic.

tl;dr: BOY are they fucked up.

[teaveetamer]

How much of the Edel backlash/discourse is rooted in fandom misogyny and how much of it is rooted in having opinions soured due to people justifying her actions and doubling down via harassment/stalking and spewing out hateful rhetoric? Cause I've seen people saying the dislike towards Edel proves that the fandom can't handle "female characters who are evil or flawed and make mistakes " when I think it's moreso "people are justifying her bad/villainous actions and saying it good actually and doubling down on it."

This is going to be two things.

First:

Was/is there probably misogyny ingrained in some parts of the fandom that don't like Edelgard? Sure.

Would they have been dicks about Edelgard and women in general regardless of anything Edelgard fans said or did? Probably, yeah, that's how shitty people work.

Was it the majority of people who didn't like/criticized Edelgard? Probably not.

Did it help anything to just blanket accuse everyone who didn't like her of being misogynists? Absolutely not.

There are absolutely valid criticisms of her writing and how some of her fans treat her, but lumping every criticism together as "misogyny" fundamentally lacks nuance and exists to shut all criticism down, valid or not. And it does so in a way that is not only designed to say "I don't agree with you", it's also meant to say "therefore you are a bad person." You're attaching a moral dimension to media critique that was not necessarily present, nor did it need to be. Most of us can recognize the coded insult there.

That's obviously going to make things more heated right off the bat. Cuz, you know, most people don't like it when you come out the gate saying "I think you're a horrible person". So the people getting shit on by Edelgard fans get annoyed and push back, which causes the fans to push back harder, on and on and on.

The second point here is where I maybe risk being controversial.

I'm going to preface this by saying this isn't necessarily something I think is good/agree it's an okay thing to do, it's just my observation from my time in the fandom and knowing how internet culture works.

Second:

You have to acknowledge to some extent that Edelgard diehards are primo troll targets.

Like okay okay, hear me out.

You know why Edelgard discourse continues to fascinate and amuse despite everything? Cuz most people don't take this shit that seriously, but they think it's hilarious to make fun of people who do. Edelgard diehards just do not know when to quit, and they've been identified by 99% of the fandom as people who are easy (and occasionally entertaining) to poke at and incite a reaction from.

Their obsession with co-opting the language of social justice just enhances that further by making them come off as incredibly oversensitive about something that actually doesn't matter that much.

It's the heady cocktail of misplaced self-righteousness, the way they're so sensitive and easily hurt/offended, the obsessive need to argue every point, and categorical refusal to stop until they are 100% agreed with. It basically makes them PRIME troll targets. It's like. God it's not even fair. Edelgard fans are like those tech support scammers and arguing with them is like being one of those youtubers that gives the scammers the run around for hours on end just to fuck with them.

And like? It perpetuates itself because where an individual might come to the realization that they're arguing with a troll and they look fucking ridiculous, the Edelgard fandom is a community that consistently reinforces reacting to every single situation about Edelgard in the most terminally online manner. I mean go on their server they pat each other on the back constantly and congratulate themselves for "sticking it to the haterz" for stalking and harassing people, not realizing that at BEST 95% of the wider community is laughing their asses off at how ridiculous they look, and at worst 95% of the wider community growing increasingly hostile toward them every passing minute because of their behavior.

I mean. I didn't exactly advertise this but last year I got some amusement out of posting Dimitri-positive meta to my main blog. Because I noticed every time I posted anything positive about Dimitri in the tag it would get a responding anti-Dimitri screed from Raxy within 2-5 business days. And I was posting those because I genuinely like Dimitri and wanted to spread positivity, but I will not lie. It was fucking hilarious. I laughed my ass off watching him get so mad over just the concept of someone saying something nice about Dimitri. It's ridiculously easy to set these people off. Every time someone they don't like breathes they feel the need to write a screed and flip out.

Which like, it's not fun to be on the receiving end of getting stalked and harassed and having screeds written about your every opinion... but yeah if I were detached from the situation I can see why it would be amusing. I mean even typing this out I find it kind of darkly amusing.

And I'm not saying everyone that dislikes Edelgard is a troll (I'm certainly not in it to poke bears and get reactions) but like? I wouldn't be surprised if there were trolls who just jumped on the discourse as soon as they realized how damn easy it is to get Edelgard diehards riled up. Think of how many 3H discourse posts have some variation on the "don't mind me, just getting some popcorn" comments.

So the discourse gets perpetuated, by some actors, purely for amusement. It doesn't just happen to Edelgard fans either, but I'd say in general they're significantly easier to bait and rattle. I mean there's literally a dozen blogs on Tumblr no one gave a shit about that managed to do it without even trying. Just by like. Existing and having opinions they didn't like.

Like, genuinely, the more I think on it the more absurd it gets. There's so little you're actually required to do in order to piss them off. It's kind of amazing.

I'd say you can see a microcosm of this every time Edelgard loses a voting gauntlet in FEH. There are dozens of characters who have lost numerous voting gauntlets, but Edelgard is usually the one that gets the most energy put toward making fun of her for losing. And you know why? Because her diehard fans extremely consistently go into a tailspin whenever it happens and people find that funny as fuck.

Chrom loses his 15th voting gauntlet, there's a meme, and everyone laughs and moves on. Edelgard loses her 5th voting gauntlet, there's a meme, and then there's a full blown meltdown in the comment section and screaming about how everyone is evil and misogynistic and queerphobic for days on end. Now not only can you make jokes about her losing, you can make jokes about the terminally online fans losing their goddamn minds over her losing.

And again I'm not saying that's a good thing or that it should happen... but I feel like emotionally mature adults should also be able to recognize when maybe they're being a little too over-invested in the internet waifu war and acknowledge when it's time to write off certain people/opinions as not worth your time to care about.

And you know, some of it is that there's actual things to talk about and controversial conversations can get heated. But there's been things to talk about in every game ever released and it only seems to hit critical mass when you combine the co-opting of social justice language to "prove" the haters wrong with the need to argue your point aggressively and endlessly despite all evidence indicating that it's probably time to give it a rest.

[olipopsoda]

Hey, don't exactly know why I'm submitting this here but since people tend to ask you these things anyway, might as well try the 5¢ Molly Van Pelt psychiatric service.

I think I'm a bad person, and I don't know what to do about it.

I'm an abrasive, spiteful, wrathful, and vindictive person, getting intensely angry at anything I see as unjust, cruel, or untruthful. Someone who yells so much that their words lack any meaning to others besides being angry nonsense. Still, I tried to use my anger and vindictiveness as a force for good, use it as a way of improving the lives of others, or at least thats what I told myself. Knowing that I was too much of an abrasive loud asshole to directly change peoples ways or offer assistance, I manipulated people and made schemes to achieve my goals, telling myself the ends justified the unsavory means. I lied to my friends, mending a pair of brothers by conjuring up a fake shared enemy to unite them and stop one from going off the deep end, I held someones irreplaceable item hostage to save my own hide from their wrath after I was an asshole to them before, I tormented and tried fundamentally deconstructing the flaws of people I didn't like right to their face. Yet I still somehow believe that what I was doing was for good, that the ends justified the means.

And then someone (who I will call "Mr. E" in lieu of his real name) appeared. I HATED Mr. E, thought he was the absolute worst a person could be. The reason I hated him so much was probably because he reminded me so much of myself. The same hairpin trigger temper, the sense of self righteousness, same love of the same specific type of creature, same use of a facade to hide the cracks, same ignorance that allowed us to be manipulated. So I tried to blackmail him, to gain leverage over him so that I could try to sand away the aspects of him I so thoroughly despised. But I was stupid and careless, accidentally hurt all of my friends in the process. But instead of apologizing I dug myself deeper as another person egged me on. I wanted to completely any ties Mr. E had to my friends and others, I wanted him to suffer. Now everyone I care about despises me and its all my fault. Turns out Mr. E was a better person than me this entire time.

So now I am left with no idea how to continue. Apologies only work if your words hold weight to them, and mine don't, a life of screaming, lying, and manipulating made sure of that.

- 93e807

Hello, 93e807.

I would like to preface this by saying that I am not in any way a psychiatrist or mental health professional, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Now, onto the actual answer:

First, the fact that you're aware of your mistakes and want to make amends shows that you're not actually a bad person. You're a person with flaws, but that doesn't mean you're bad; everyone has flaws. I think very few people are truly, fundamentally bad, and those who are do not care about whether they've hurt people.

Viewing yourself as an inherently bad person can actually be counter productive and stifle any attempts at self-improvement. If you believe something like "I'm a bad person," then there's nothing you can do to change that; that's just the way you are. But if you reframe the thought, it becomes more helpful: "I've done things that I regret in the past, but I can learn from my mistakes and do things differently moving forward."

As for fixing things with your friends, an apology is a good place to start. I know you think that your words won't hold any weight, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. They might not accept your apology right now, or believe that you're being genuine, but apologizing never hurts. Are there any actions you can take that would back up your apology and show your sincerity?

Also, showing them what you've written here (or something similar) might help them understand where you're coming from.

Feel free to ask for more advice if you need it! (But remember I'm not actually qualified for this sort of thing.)

[ceeroosa]

i hate to be this guy

but i will, cuz i'm seeing it a lot a lot a lot lately:

i am begging people who have poor self-esteem and are extremely sensitive to external judgements (like, say, losing your absolute shit cuz someone made a mildly shitty comment in their public bookmark of your fic)

to work on that.

no, i'm not saying it was cool for them to say something mean about you in a public space where you could see it. i'm saying it's an extremely normal thing that you can't control, and you will be happier if you figure out how to focus on handling those things over trying to control other people

sure, make the PSA's reminding people that ficwriters have feelings too and demand that people stop making negative comments in public bookmarks because you're not wrong - it is a mean thing to do.

but it is also normal.

people talk about you. sometimes it's where you can see or hear it, and often it is "behind your back."

you cannot shame, demand, plead or tantrum your way out of the fact that people talk.

people talk about everything, and often in unfavourable terms. i have known people in my life who have torn themselves apart emotionally, have created such an obscene amount of stress in their lives, over the things people have or may be saying about them to other people.

"it's WRONG" they said

"let them be wrong" I said

because at some point you have to accept the way people can be. people can be cruel as much as they can be kind. they can be smart and thoughtful and insensitive and daft.

you, my little lovely darling, cannot control that and every attempt you make to try (and yes, I'm sorry, but the aforementioned PSA's absolutely count as an attempt to control)

the more stress and pain - disappointment, shame, righteousness, violation because i set a boundary why did they do the thing i asked them not to do why doesn't anyone ever respect me - you bring on yourself.

i don't want you to hurt yourself, i don't want you to suffer more than you have to. (unless you wanted to, i guess.) i don't want the things you enjoy and feel passion for to be tainted and ruined by other people.

i wasn't born thinking this way. i also went through stages (still do! often! recently!) of being frustrated that people can just go about life doing things wrong and being cruel and being stupid and i've experienced the way just thinking in that way increases my internal distress, it increases feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness, of feeling like things happen to me instead of being an active participant in life.

the following skills have helped me greatly in managing these feelings:

radical acceptance: practicing accepting the unacceptable, letting it happen without fighting or bargaining or resisting, relinquishing all illusions of control over this, that, or the other thing while recognizing that the only thing we do have control over in this life is how we respond - and carefully choosing how to respond after allowing the reaction to pass.

distress tolerance: radical acceptance can be under the umbrella of distress tolerance, but this is basically anything that helps ease the sensations of a distressing experience; things that are comforting and soothing, distraction, and, yes, even avoidance can be a useful tactic in the right situation.

self-assurance: this one's pretty tough. you don't have to love yourself necessarily, but you do have to respect yourself because there will be moments in your life where it feels like nobody respects you and if you can't even retreat into the sureness of your Self...well, it's gonna be hard. humans are social creatures and reliance on others is not weakness, it is nature. however, we've constructed a society that does not serve us and hyper-individualism leaves people alone. regardless of whether or not it is fair or OK, we have to accept that possibility - and figure out how to be our own champions so when those moments happen, we can survive it by saying:

"I know who I am. I know that I am (a good writer, a kind person, capable, sexy, whatever). I do not need anyone to validate my identity as (a good writer, sexy, kind, etc) because I know that my actions align with my values as (a good writer, a kind person, a capable person). Even if someone else's idea of what is (a good writer, a kind person, sexy) does not align with mine, and they invalidate my identity based on their values, I still know who I am because of my values and actions."

or something of that nature.

AND I AM NOT SAYING THAT YOU DO NOT NEED EXTERNAL VALIDATION OR THAT YOU SHOULDN'T SEEK IT OUT! OR THAT YOU CAN ONLY RELY ON OR TRUST YOURSELF or anything else annoying and lone-wolf-y like that.

you deserve engagement - comments, likes, reblogs, general squee-ing over your work, being told that you are lovely and sexy and powerful - we all do!

give and receive as much validation as you can. pay it forward. but in those inevitable moments of lowness, of radio silence, of questioning if you really are who you think you are:

it pays to have your own back, to be able to focus on the steadiness of your feet and who you are rather than what other people have done, are doing, or refuse to do.

[georgie-ssnh]

Okay so I do not want to bring any heated debate out there, I'm just an artist AND a former IT student (and still somewhat of an IT enthusiast) But I'm saddened. Because I love art and (as controversal as it seems) I love....AI. Yes, indeed, I do love this weird technology because I know how it works (roughly) and I know its full potential, were it to be used right. Thing is... What happens in the AI Art trend of Twitter is the entire opposite of "AI done right"; there are so many people that think they are getting to be good artists because they're doing the most basic input and have procedurally generated illustrations as outputs. And don't get me wrong, a bad artist is still an artist regardless. Here's how I see it through this one example: I debated with a great friend about wether or not R**i K**r was still an artist and, to my opinion, she still was. Because there was a fine grain of personal input in that self-righteousness and plagiarism puddle that was one of her books, and this one aspect is all that mattered to me.

Artists are a thing, non-artists are also a thing, but to me "bad artist" =/= "non-artist"; and AI "artists" were below Art to me because all they do is ideating art, not making it. I cannot make a precise and finite definition of Art but I sure can tell what an artist is, all artists use their head and their hands (AND YES this is quite similar to the definition of a crafter but I see nothing wrong with it, in French it's not called "Artisan" for nothing); and thus, when you do art, you have ideas and use your head and your members to have it done... So this is where AI abusers are far from it, they have the ideas but renounce developping them in their minds nor DOING them through their own research(just to remind you that researching references is entirely ok) and crafting skills. Which is a damn shame... Both as an artist ....and an AI user. You heard me bloody right. As I told you all, I know a bit of stuff about how AI is made and what are its purposes and a great teacher once told me "You don't even need that much dev skill to be a good AI dev, you just need solid knowledge in the non-IT field you'ld deploy your AI towards". That guy knew what's up because if you're an actual artist, you do know that trendy AI Art is.... bad, like actually bad, flawed as shit, stupid proportions, poses and hands that make NO SENSE, and they're only getting twitter fame because first impression is the only thing they're good at and is the only thing needed to impress the Blue Bird crowd. But beyond that ? Garbage . Could it be improved to make honest-to-god illustrations ? Totally, BUT.... Only real illustrator artists would have the wits and experience to figure out what to improve, because they know, because they practiced, etc... Anybody else would hardly have the expertise to figure out what to improve in details and this is why, my folks, AI is only good when it is assisting the main actors of its targeted field, and not in a way to impersonate said actors. All of these mistakes are due to the fact that Market/Tech nerds are hoping way too hard to become the bosses of each and every field they're giving the technology to; which is human since, when you're deep into a certain craft, you really want that field of yours to get the maximum amount of recognition and even illustration/animation artists are all about this very desire... But when you're the actual most recognized and profitable field under capitalism... capitalism will be very interested in you being the ONE field that is profitable. To uniformize is to simplify; To simplify is to optimize; To optimize is to profit; To profit is the essence of capitalism.

So in all and all, it's always about wanting to own art without being an artist; and, with all of what I said here, you are starting to realize that them being called "non-artists" isn't even a gatekeeping insult, because if they feel like they "owned" Art, they'll just be entirely proud to say that Tech was enough to surpass Art and that Art is, therefore, inherently something simple/low enough for not bothering about artists and giving them any credit/value. Cynical, amarite ? So am I, because deep down I knew that AI could be beneficial to art... only on paper (pun half intended). There could be better assisting tools in digital painting softwares, "intelligent" rendering, "intuitive" compositions, and whatnot feature a machine could do to help in seasoned artists in their decision makings. But I do not believe anymore such a day would come because as the big beared german guy said, it's all about who OWNS the means of production and as I demonstrated earlier, we already know the "easier way" towards profitable situations that is not the way led by artists. ...Wait why did I write all of this ? "End capitalism plz" was enough of a revelant statement, wtf me

[splendidissimus]

2003ish - "Being depressed doesn't make you unworthy." (Patronus)

((Content warning: depression))

Genre: romance

Romance level: high

Angst level: 3/5

Draco's headspace: low

((words: ~800))

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

Theo let himself into Draco's study, leading a glowing silver little animal with his wand. The animal skittered around, low and long, and Draco at first thought it was a ferret, and was prepared to be offended, but it wasn't shaped quite right.

"You got it corporeal?" He stood to try to get a better look at the Patronus, if it would stay still. Theo helpfully directed it up onto the desk, where it perched on its back legs, looking at him. "What is that, a weasel?" 

"Mongoose." Theo seemed pleased with himself. 

"The snake-hunter? That's such a strange form for a Slytherin. It's perfect, you rebellious weirdo." He put his finger in front of the mongoose's face and tested to see if it would follow along, and it did, seemingly curious. After a minute it playfully bit at his finger, which had pressure but felt like nothing but a brief warm sensation. 

"You sure you don't want to try again?" Theo sat down, and his mongoose playfully gambolled over the top of the desk and then off into the air. 

"I'm sure." Draco retook his seat. "It is a waste of time, of course. Unless you expect Wiltshire to be invaded by Dementors?"

"No, it's just an enjoyable intellectual challenge. And it's good to be prepared — if we're ever in Diagon Alley and someone cries out 'Oh, is there a Patronus in the building?', I'll be able to save the day." 

"I like that you're planning for all these likely contingencies. I can't tell you how many times I've been out in Diagon Alley and heard someone cry out for a Patronus and had to look on helplessly." 

Theo smiled and left the mongoose to its own devices as it decided to invade Draco's lap. "You could do it, you know." 

"It's well-known that Dark wizards can't produce a Patronus." He pet the barely-there creature for a second before he shooed it away.

"Putting aside iteration 487 of the 'you aren't a Dark wizard' argument—"

"Yes, let's. We'll call this one a draw."

"—some well-known propaganda horseshit, is what that is. I reckon Dark Wizards've got more reason to do it if they're trying to use the things; it's not like Dementors are known for being all that obedient and trustworthy. Look at Umbridge, she was complete evil, but we all saw her Patronus in the pictures of the trials." He idly held out his hand and the mongoose happily galloped back to it, then started playfully attacking it, trailing ghostly whorls of light. "There might be some merit to the idea that Dark wizards tend to look for easy solutions, and summoning a Patronus is damned hard so they're not likely to actually put in the work, but that's a matter of correlation, not causation, and anyway, I'm not even completely convinced it holds up. Some Dark magic is among the most effort-intensive I've ever seen. 

"What it actually is is some self-congratulatory elitism, arbitrarily assigning moral superiority to the ability to master a difficult spell whose success is highly dependent on factors completely outside the wizard's control. A high-quality mediaeval righteousness fable wizardkind has collectively decided not to question because it inherently validates the nobility of its supporters and invalidates its critics as envious less-thans."

Draco watched him with some curiosity, chin resting on his fingers. "I don't think I've ever seen you so passionate."

"I am passionate. I'm pissed at us. You're a better person than I am by almost any metric, and the idea that you can't make a Patronus because you're somehow bad is personally offensive. A Patronus doesn't require goodness or moral fortitude. It just requires simple joy; if you can't make one, it's not because you're a Dark wizard. It's just because you can't find a happy memory because you've had a shit life."

"I have happy memories," Draco argued mildly.

"Do you have memories that are pure happiness? No complications or regrets or bad associations around the edges?"

He knew the answer to that perfectly well. Draco leaned back to regard him. "And you have? With your dead mother and Death Eater father and no friends? What is it, a particularly satisfying bit of research coming together?"

"Kissing you." 

Draco did smile a little. "You're an embarrassment," he said fondly, going back to his papers. 

Theo banished his Patronus as he came around to his side of the desk. "Being emotionally complicated doesn't make you evil," he said, settling his arm around his shoulders, and laid a kiss on the back of his head. "Being depressed doesn't make you unworthy." 

He didn't trust himself to speak through the surprise lump in his chest, but he bowed his head lifted his hand to cup the back of Theo's in a silent thank-you.

[manie-sans-delire-x]

I think you're decontextualizing too much and talking from a privileged point of view. I'm not arguing with the objectivity of what your point is, but it's a very bland flat hill to die on, in my opinion. People can totally agree to disagree, but the whole "good luck living this way" or "it's never gonna happen" is nothing but a shrugging off problems just because they don't belong to you.

Of course trans folks have deeper issues, we've been fighting in a society that, by default, does not accept us and we're forced to explain our very existence on a daily (or whoever cares to, to be honest I dropped that one ball there). So that's why it's important to make people who are coming from said privileged spots (mind, I'm not using the word "privileged" to hop on a high horse and offend anyone) understand how some things are very easy adjustments to make to accommodate minorities. And you don't really need to know/profoundly understand /why/ it's important for them, you can simply trust it is if they say so.

It's like saying "why would I use City money to build a stupid ramp when wheelchair users can struggle a little and learn to climb a 3 inches step" or "why would I stop staring at that person's ass if it's out and it's natural for me to look at it" because you want to be better and it's not that deep.

Yet again, agree to disagree if adding "assigned at birth" is such an inconvenience. No one is word obsessed, but personally speaking I'll bend the usage of my language as much as I can to make sure everyone around me is comfortable and feels safe, I don't care and need to know why.

How am I decontextualizing or talking from a privileged point of view? I mean I suppose I am in that I am not trans? I'll give you that.

Why is my point of view a bland hill to die on but insisting on changing female/male to afab/amab isnt?

No I just truly believe and came to the realistic conclusion it will never happen, not in any of our lifetimes at least. Do you really expect that this is going to become the new normal, in every country and culture? Seriously?

Yeah damn straight Im shrugging it off, I cant help people who are determined to be unhappy over word choice. Its not my problem, as you said. Everyone elses life will go on as normal, only they will be stuck on this and being unhappy, only hurting themselves.

Changing a language is not "very easy adjustment", not at all. I mean clearly, or else all this fighting wouldnt be happening right? And ok, say English changes. What, now every other language in the world has to change? Oh boy, thats going to lead to a lot of confusion and fighting. Sounds kinda problematic too, to insist other cultures and countries have to change their languages to match the more enlightened English. Colonist vibes.

Lets have realistically attainable goals. Lets focus on what really matters- like violent hate crimes against transpeople. People who are sooo passionate about political correctness and word choice should maybe, idk, do something real to help. Volunteer or work to help transpeople. But see they dont actually care about transpeople, they just get off on the self righteousness and false sense of moral superiority.

Its not about understanding why its important to them, I understand that it is. But unfortunately, reality doesnt give a shit about peoples emotions or whats important to them. (and clearly its not ok to disagree, because then you get labeled as a terf or whatever else new acronym...)

If you want to compare it to that, its more like if people in wheelchairs insisted that all stairs should be banned- ramps only- and you cant call them disabled anymore, everyone else is un-disabled. Society will never build itself around to a minority population, and shouldnt because it makes no sense.

Its not about "doing better" or peoples feelings. This is the main difference in thought process I think- some people view it as a moral social issue, some people view it as a issue of reality and logic.

What is a female? What is a male? A woman? A man? Whats the differences between them? Whats the difference between sex and gender? Are trans people actually transsexual or transgender? Is it even possible to be transsexual since you will never have the desired sex's gametes? Can someone be a female man or a male woman? At some point we need some god damn definitions. We cant just make words mean whatever we want them to.

Why not just have females, males, and transfemales and transmales?? Men, women, transmen, transwomen. That makes way more sense. Why would the majority and a whole ass language change to fit the minority? And even with the use of "cis", "trans" is still in use so attaching "cis" is pretty redundant either way!

[gulfportofficial]

Tony is Rude About America Again

About to whack a hornet's nest here, but living in Wyoming, there is this particular (mostly white) phenomenon of mythologizing oneself as a hard worker, a self-made cowboy conquering the frontier with grit and sticktoitivness. And of doing this while half-assing your job so badly nothing ever gets done, and in fact people will confidently assert completely wrong policy at you and shame you for questioning it, because they simply cannot be bothered to ask someone or look it up. You will find out they did this next time you call, at which point the new person will act as if you're stupid for believing what the last employee told you in full confidence.

And this is not me having a go at low-wage workers. I actually observe it a lot less in low-wage workers. This is EVERYONE. And I also normally wouldn't care because I firmly support half-assing at work - boss gets a dollar, you get a dime. You shouldn't do a lick more than you're paid for.

That's if you're not seriously inconveniencing anyone over it. I kind of actually need my prescriptions to be filled and to be notified correctly about them having been filled, and to have certain blood tests in time for the USCIS to receive them, and to be called when something is ready in general instead of having to call every morning to be informed that it is ready, going there, and finding that it isn't. I kind of need to know in advance how much something is going to cost so I can make sure I have the right money, so would you please simply check for me, please. So I do notice, and I also notice that it has this VIBE, this vibe that, specifically, a given Wyomingite WOULD be a really hard worker, IF, for example, the job happened to be worthy of their interest and time, which it currently isn't. Obviously such a special person as the average White Wyoman deserves the best of jobs. And they'll have that job, that job where they are appropriately engaged and respected, just as soon as President Trump is restored to the throne and righteously kicks all the immigrants out. It's palpable. You can feel it. So here's where the hornets' nest is: I have trouble differentiating this attitude from the attitude of soft lil liberal or left-leaning folks who can't possibly be informed about culture or history or world events because the US school system didn't teach them. Who are bullied by the ableism of colleges expecting them to complete their assignments. Who make their own confident and completely incorrect pronouncements because they cannot be bothered looking anything up or waiting until they know more. They'll have their jobs that are worthy of them too, under luxury automated space communism or whatever it is. I don't know, the whole thing is just extremely fucking American, in this slack-ass entitlement way, and I am just thinking nonstop about that whole "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" thing. Which I thought was part of a quote from Steinbeck, but it's actually a paraphrase of him from author Ronald Wright. Which I learned because I googled the quote to check before I posted it and it took like five seconds.

[citylightconfessions]

He said I could write you a letter.

I've been wrestling with God, lately. He tells me to keep my distance and it would be naïve of me to believe that it's for my own good. I know it's for yours, because, well, How dare I reappear out of the pit of abandonment just to ease my own fears. Especially if I'm not going to tell you that I've gone and changed my mind. That I've rearranged my thought patterns to make room for us. I wonder if you've given up on that hope, yet. Hoping one day I'll come jaunting out of the woodwork to tell you that I've re-wired my brain. I wish that were true...But it isn't. But I will tell you what is true. What is true is that drinking from the cup of my self-righteousness contaminates the soul- So I've gone and dumped them all down the drain. There are so many words that I've said to you I wish I could take back. I've been crying over you a lot lately. I see you in everything, everyone. It's not in my nature to leave. It never will be. I'm not very good at it, you see. I hope that your hair is growing back. I hope that as the dead cells fell into your hands that you discovered there was something new hiding underneath. I hope that the memories you have of me aren't completely tainted. I hope you still eat shredded cheese right from the bag. I hope you still love people with your whole heart. I hope you've taken that dragon heart of yours on a flight or two. I hope your friends started showing up for you. A nice couple came into work today, they said they were from Virginia Beach. I hoped that they knew you, though, I'm sure they didn't. I still can't go into a petsmart without crying. I showed your picture to someone yesterday. I said, "Look at her, eating her cheese." He didn't understand when I said that leaving you was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. It was never an easy choice. So I write this letter. Because I don't get to reach out. I don't get to uncover old wounds just to see those three dots bouncing on the bottom of the screen to let me know you're typing...to let me know you're alive. I know we’re in our separate universes that we had to return to in order to maintain the order of the world but I sit on that bench we talked about. I see your little green active symbol over your name and I imagine you’re waiting with me. I Imagine we have a different story to tell. Please tell me that I did something good. Tell me that I wasn't just a stain on your pillowcase. Tell me that you don't hate me. Visit me, somewhere in my dreams, as you often do, but this time tell me that you're healing.