#its called an INTERPRETATION for a reason

[mumblingsage]

I also think it's worth being pedantic about important things...and in that spirit I've spent like an hour writing and deleting various responses to this one (I found myself over-policing my tone and stopped that, so I'll just say right off I have no ill-will toward you and appreciate the contributions, even as I disagree on interpretation in several ways):

First, your tags - "for example a book can really kick off a delusion and set something off that can be traumatic." As I've said in another reblog thread, but it deserves repeating, triggering delusions, compulsions, or PTSD or adjustment disorder symptoms is not the same as causing trauma. We should try to accommodate people with triggers, and much of this accommodation will need to be individualized because the range of potential triggers is vast and often does not include things conventionally recognized as upsetting. I had a loved one make an irreversible error because of a delusion he had that was fueled by the due date on his library card being coincidentally the same as the date of his dentist appointment. That's not a reason for us to have a cultural conversation about the format of due date stickers. Though it could call for a discussion of how we can best support people who are experiencing delusional thinking or psychosis (we are currently doing very badly).

Re: vicarious trauma. Reading the Wikipedia article, I see that the examples given are of real life events reported on in the media, primarily social media and news coverage in the wake of terrorist attacks. I'm not going to get too deep into personal experience here, but let's just say this is not my first time hearing of vicarious trauma, and the important thing is that it is a real response to real harm and disaster. I wouldn't refuse evidence, but have not seen any, that it's caused by 13 Reasons Why or The Bridge to Terebithia or Outlander. (Bellingcat has useful advice for safety and 'metal hygiene' when engaging with firsthand sources of violence. I might use similar techniques when watching clips from a horror movie, but the stakes are not the same. Also, heads up that anyone who clicks through that link will read some text about distressing real-life events.)

"Books can have a significant impact on someone’s mind and outlook and that’s why they want them to be banned." < I agree and I think when people talk about how they don't want kids (or others) to read books about death, violence, sex, etc, they are participating in this. Authoritarians want us to have very particular ideas about these topics and resist any alternative information or thinking about them. When people go around saying "Learning or thinking about something upsetting is the same as being traumatized" they are doing the work of Christofascist Censorship Attempts, and I don't care if it's accidental. We don't need to compromise with them. (I don't have room to open this can of worms fully, but I also think too many people go around saying--for example--"13 Reasons Why traumatized me, I can't believe any library would let a kid read it" and thus send a message to the people around them with real-life experience with suicide, suicidal ideation, etc. that their experiences are unspeakable, untouchable. This social stigma is incredibly harmful.)

"I think it’s more productive to challenge the idea that a book that can potentially cause harm should be banned instead of the idea that books can potentially cause harm." < This is an interesting idea. I love its uncompromising stance. It's one I would adopt if I was convinced books can cause something that deserves to be called "harm" (the two of us may just have different definitions). I definitely believe we all have the God-given right to give ourselves nightmares and anyone trying to 'protect' us from that should be kicked in the fork of the legs.

I'm wondering if, as a society who cares about vulnerable people, we could stop saying "traumatize" when we truly mean "upset"?

I am sick of hearing sad books or movies "traumatize" their readers. I simply do not believe that happens. A traumatic experience might be adjacent to books (I have vivid memories of books I was reading around certain experiences and even how the contents of those books affected my processing of the experiences). But it's not caused by the book. And, y'know. The weather is Christofascist Censorship Attempts outside.

Meanwhile from the other side I continue to be surprised at just how badly people fail to understand trauma and traumatic experiences in general. Watering down the term isn't helping. Find other hyperbole to express that The Bridge to Terebithia gutted you, chewed on your heartstrings, and made you cry your first pair of contact lenses right out of your preteen eyes.

[beautiful-basque-country]

I read in a few sources that unmarried Basque women used to wear their hair shaven? Is that true? And if so, what was the reason (s)?

Kaixo anon!

It was true! At least in the 15th-16th centuries it was an ethnographic reality of the female community of Biscay and Gipuzkoa. That is, single women and virgins kept their heads shaved, letting locks of curly or straight hair fall on each side of their face, over the temples and forehead, while married women were the ones who covered their heads.

This supposed originality lies on a clear religious precept that directly followed the evangelical mandates of Saint Paul the Apostle, explained by Juan de Valdés in 1557: “Saint Paul understands that the husband is the head of the woman, and Christ is the head of the man […] Every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered, shames his head. And every woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered, shames her head […] Thus, if a woman does not cover herself, let her be shorn, but if it is shameful for her to be shorn or shaved, let her be covered.”

It is clear that Basque society in the 16th century imposed an explicit and physically external image of the virtue of its women taking the religious precept to the extreme. In a way, virginity or celibacy was conveyed through shaving and interpreted as a symbolic castration, just like religious men would cut their hair in the ecclesiastical state. These women were called "maiden of hair", and it's also found in Castilian texts from early dates until the end of the 17th century.

Around 1600 though, Basque maidens are portrayed in paintings with their hair combed in the Castilian fashion, with curls raised above the forehead, a do called copete:

[infiniteorangethethird]

hellou hi i have a question if you don't mind :]

so, i have been considering using the loveless label for a while because i relate to y'all heavily but there's one issue. while i don't think i experience love for other people in a way loving folk seem to describe love..? i very much want to BE loved

this is probably tied to my NPD, both the loveless and the needing love parts

basically my question is - can you still be considered a loveless aro(ace, apl etc.) if you desire to be loved (w/o being able to reciprocate)?

sorry if it's a stupid question because maybe it defeats the purpose? idk. i've searched all of the internet and couldn't find anything even close to an answer tho so yeah :')

hi anon, my apologies for taking so long to reply 😭 I don't have an excuse besides a somewhat busy schedule and "I suck at replying at reasonable times sometimes" lmao

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: the good thing about the loveless label is that it's deliberately meant as a very fluid and dynamic label, defined by its user first and foremost. Some people call themselves loveless because they don't feel love at all, while others may use it because the love they feel does not seem to fit societal expectations, or even because they do feel love, but it's not as intense/special/important to them as society deems it to be.

All of these are just examples, but it illustrates the many ways one can interpret this label for themself. If you feel it is a good descriptor of your experiences and you feel comfortable using it for yourself? Go for it! (And welcome to the community <2)

As someone who works to deconstruct the romanticized idea of love, though, I can't help but make a note on the "wanting to be loved" part. (To be clear: this is NOT a jab at you, anon, nor at anyone who might be feeling similar; moreso thoughts and advice you can chew on if you'd like, or ignore if you don't.) In a lot of people's minds, there's a very strong connotation between "love" and "any kind of positive treatment", and as such I think it's worth asking ourselves: what do I mean when I say I want to be loved? Do I want them to feel a certain way about me, to act a certain way around me? What kind of treatment am I expecting of people who say they love me?

Love is a very individual thing, and knowing what you mean by love can help both in figuring out those expectations and in communicating them towards others. It also helps deconstruct the idea that "action made from love = good & action made not of love = bad". People who love you can still hurt you (hence why it's good to know what treatment you want, besides being loved), and people can still act good to you without love being a motivating factor behind it.

I hope this helps!

[mysticusfreeze-art]

My concepts for human versions of the band and otulissa plus a bonus eglantine with her big brother. These were fun and I might do Coryn and his parents at a later time. Concepts on the designs under the cut

Gylfie

Both Gylfie and Digger are inspired by desert cultures given their Kuneer origin. I gave Gylfie stars on her dress and jewelry since she is a navigator. I rlly struggled with her design and scrapped and restarted it half way through but pulled through in the end.

Digger

His clothing is mainly inspired by Moroccan clothing. His sketch took like half of the time and the hands are still messed up. I tried mimicking the long featherless legs of burrowing owls through his big boots. He's holding a burrowing owl feather to track it.

Soren

I tried mimicking the white heart shaped face of Barn owls with his design (and Eglantine). Wish there was a better way to show colliering not a fan of just giving him a bucket. At least I could give him some weather interpretation equipment.

Otulissa

I had a fun time adding all the book titles (zoom in to see them they are all from the books). I didn't rlly have a definite time in the books this is based off but with Otulissa its obviously after the 14th book. Given her interest in the Northern Kingdoms and Cleve I thought giving her more Nordic/ Viking inspired clothing would fit but I toned down decorations since she would scoff at that. And of course being a spotted owl she needs freckles.

Twilight

I couldn't stick to the owl height differences for obvious reasons but I'm still glad I could have Twilight tower over them all. Given his orphan school of tough learning background I made his clothes all rough and worn and patched like he assembled them himself. I actually had different plans for colours but after I finished the sketch I realised I accidentally drew my roommate (down to the giant size) and so made the colours match. I wish the sword looked more metalish but by the time I did that I was so done and called it.

[laughingcatwrites]

I'm going to disagree with two points in this, as I believe you have both oversimplified and allowed personal bias/pop culture to affect your response.

The first point I disagree with is the idea that there is a "class position" and a unique "psyche" for people who identify as (or are identified as by people such as your questioner) liberals. I've seen everybody from homeless people living out of their cars, to people scraping by on multiple minimum-wage jobs, to middle-class working families, to upper-middle-class individuals who work jobs with six figures called liberals. The identification of people as liberals also isn't limited to where they live or what kind of community they live in. The people right-wing pundits tend to call liberals are as diverse as any other group within the United States, spread across the same geography as any other group, and are made up of the same individuals found within any random sampling of people across the USA.

I would also argue that when you are writing "liberals," you really mean "Democrats," due to what is the second point I'm about to disagree with, which is your answer only addressing shame being leveraged as a personal weapon rather than being used in response to its history as a political one.

You may not remember this, but starting in the 90s, the Republican party was very focused on a few things: using shame as a weapon against the Democratic party, establishing the use of the term "liberal" as a double-speak to mean Democratic and as having a negative connotation, and then using both the supposed "shamefulness" of the Democratic party's "liberal" agenda and the alleged "morality" of their own to obstruct any meaningful progress in politics.

Here is a link to an except from a 1990 Gopac pamphlet called "Language: A Key Mechanism of Control" that was sent to Republican candidates to coach them on how to use language to portray themselves as the morally-superior group and the other party as the shameful one: https://uh.edu/~englin/rephandout.html

Here is a link to an article from 1995 discussing how Newt Gingrich uses the language from that pamphlet (for example, blaming negative coverage on the "liberal elite media"), as well as containing a larger except from the pamphlet: https://fair.org/home/language-a-key-mechanism-of-control/

And finally, here is an excellent article on personal vs political shaming. I'm including it because of the section where it discusses the 1994 tipping point where the "Republican Revolution" led by Newt Gingrich effectively started the movement towards partisanship and extremism seen today: https://www.humanities.org/spark/politics-shame-polarization/

So why am I bringing up political shame for an ask that, at face value, is about personal shame due to politics?

I'm doing so for two reasons:

1. This is the tactic that citizens in the United States have seen the Republican party wield effectively since the 90s. Heck, there are many articles from this election about how Trump managed to wield the personal shame of various groups into votes for him. Here's one example: https://time.com/7020792/trump-white-rural-america-shame-blame-essay/

So it's entirely possible that the people shaming the questioner are simply interpreting Republican tactics as Republican viewpoints and trying to speak to the asker in the type of language they think that person best responds to. I worked for a few years in a deeply religious area of the United States, and I quickly learned that in order for people to understand my point of view on any topic, I needed to either phrase it in a religious manner or focus on how it related to the religious values of the region.

I imagine that between the decades of preaching of moral superiority and the increasing religious wing within the Republican party, it can be an easy mistake to make to assume that speaking in terms of morality would be the best way to approach the questioner.

2. Considering the various things Trump has promised to do on the first day in office, I strongly suspect some of the people "shaming" the questioner are simply trying to figure out if that person is still safe to be around. If your questioner agrees with the values that threaten them or simply considers those values a "not my problem," they could prove a viable threat to those people if some of the more egregious of Trump's promises come to fruition.

Which brings me to my conclusion:

The person who asked the question may need to listen closer to those they believe are shaming them, as they may be misinterpreting attempts to "speak their language" or see if they're still safe to be around as accusations. Another person left tags about how when they think they are being shamed, they listen to see what the real concern is. Rather than reassure your questioner that it's some class-based "liberal psyche" thing, you may want to agree with them that being shamed can entrench a person's position, but also remind them to listen closely to what is and isn't being said to see if there are some real concerns that can be addressed or common ground that can be found with the others addressing them.

hey, can you talk about how shame doesn't really work to make ppl change views? I'm surrounded by libs who are like "if I call Trump voters stupid enough it will work" even though it hasn't worked for the last 10 years

im tired boss

Well, if we want to talk about the psychological mechanics that explain why shame doesn't work I have articles and books on that, which I'm assuming you're already familiar with. But what you're really asking here isn't why shame doesn't work, but how you can get your lib friends to stop utilizing shame, and the truth is, you can't. They're using shame because it FEELS GOOD TO THEM. Shame is reinforcing for the *shamer* because it helps them to feel righteous and correct and like they don't have any additional work to do in understanding the shamed person's perspective. And the liberal psyche is particularly attuned to finding that attractive for a variety of reasons, especially their class position in the world.

[mayday505]

I know a lot of fic writers have their own interpretations of different character dynamics (for example Mori and Dazai) I KNOW THERES POINTS OF CONTENTION OR WHAT NOT but like I wish ppl would leave others alone for having a dif take bc I got a comment on A Horse Named Cold Air (my comments were moderated at the time so I just deleted it on the spot) saying that basically my interpretation of Dazai and Mori wasn’t correct and that Dazai wasn’t abused. And now. I could go into detail on why contextually I think that that is factually incorrect in regards to canon but I won’t bc it’s not abt that.

However. What it is about is letting fic writers mind their own business bc hey yeah maybe some of the stuff is canonically inaccurate! (And again I could argue about how that’s largely because there are so many gaps w Dazais backstory anyway that it’s kinda up to interpretation anyways bc we simply don’t have all the knowledge) BUT! That’s none of ur fucking business how I intend to write MY fic. U don’t like it? Write your own. That’s the beauty of fandom baby.

And especially like bc. You never know what the author is basing those dynamics on or how much of it is projection. I sure as hell know I project a fuck ton onto Dazai and Mori’s dynamic and it’s actually rlly upsetting when ppl comment like “oh this is inaccurate he wasn’t abused” bc like cool??? U can read it that way??? However me. Being someone to relates to him thru the lens of my own abuse. I’m gonna take a certain interpretation and I’d like to have that in peace.

AAAAA the day people learn ao3 etiquette and general human decency is the day I will rest.

[francy-sketches]

rhaenyra could say 'I wish I was a man with dick and balls' and hotd twitter would still be like 'umm she just means she wants freedom and respect but otherwise she is a FEMININE WOMAN stop making her into a man you weirdos'

[annt-i]

I start school up in TWO DAYS ,, but anyways; hit this request when you can or when you want, anyway.

We need more Alex Rider in School, he’s always in school which end up in bad situations in the series.

I NEED HIM WHIPPING UP THE MOST JUICY PAINTING OF ONE OF HIS MISSIONS, ASAP !!!!

I hope this is what you meant dawg, I've got Alex painting that scene from Point Blanc where Greif was telling him he is going to be dissected. I also hope school's been alright for you so far.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Fun note of the specific pronoun situation with the translation errors between Wasp and Bugnish: under normal circumstances, Jayde would get automatically assigned he/him in Bugnish, since she uses the standard "non-queen social bug" pronouns that roughly 95% of the Wasp Hive do, which get translated to drone pronouns in Bugnish due to a roughly century-old miscommunication. She gets assigned worker pronouns in Bugnish specifically because those are what Kabbu defaults to with social bugs, and other people picked it up from him during introductions. This Will Be A Point Of Confusion For Her Whenever She Asks About It.

[petriorchard]

happy pride month

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

genuine question but is there any fandom where a character is well written by the majority. im thinking about fandom culture and the spread of frustration when people dont write characters well but. honestly in all the fandoms ive been in there's only like, a Select number of authors who i trust to write Well, let alone write Well AND In Character. character analysis and writing and getting inside characters' heads are all separate skills (all of which are trained by roleplaying fyi can CONFIRM playing pretend with your friends is good for you). there's been more than once where I've disagreed with an interpretation that others agreed with, and then I turned out wrong. or i turned out right. like it doesnt matter WHO is right it just matters that differences in character analysis exist, so even if you DO write well AND write in character, your in character is still going to be someone else's out of character

there's this sort of. vibe. that to play in the sandbox you Need to be able to make a castle, and if you can't make a castle then you shouldn't bother, and it completely dismisses the idea that youre in that sandbox to PLAY in the first place. there's this Weight of disappointing someone if you can't build something that they like, but that forgets that you aren't there to build them a castle. like, be KIND. if you disagree with someone then please make an effort to do so kindly. i dont give a shit about fandom discourse but there is a reason kids get removed from sandboxes if they keep throwing sand in people's eyes. but if they don't like your misshapen sand pile, then youre not obligated to change it. even if you yourself end up hating that same sand pile later- youre not building a legacy. youre playing. and sometimes the result of that play is out of character drivel. theres a reason there are so many authors and so few who i like to consistently read and thats because everyone is Fucking Around in their hobby space. hash tag brag or whatever but i can build castles. ive built several that im v proud of. ive also dug holes in the sand for fun and then tripped on them when trying to get up. I often dug a hole and then got up and fucking- whoops, its a castle now, and i didn't realize i'd made something to be proud of until after the fact. the whole time while creating shit i was Convinced it was bullshit that didn't make sense. and then other times i was Convinced it was bullshit and then i was Right and i can look back and go. huh. ew. but it doesn't matter what the end result was, because i had fun playing in the sandbox

this wasn't meant to turn into a ramble but i have Feelings about bad art and art that's badly perceived and how public perception can screw with your head and how making art youre proud of is fucking. it's so difficult!!! it's hard!! it's really fun, which is why i try to make it, but i promise you it is Okay to not tryhard creativity. even if you CAN, it's okay not to do it all the time. or ever, even. fuck around find out have fun etc

[nyctoheart]

as one shoots a gun in the air to keep rent low, I have to occasionally say I don’t care for s0riku to keep myself from being overwhelmed by my followers lmao

[dragons-and-yellow-roses]

I was just listening to a song I used to love while we were friends. I listened to it so often, we talked so often, it became the background music to our relationship.

I'm listening to it while I knit. I often forget that I started knitting because of you. I remembered tonight. It's strange, I never knitted anything for you. I've knitted for other loved ones, rarely for myself, but never for you. I remembered you showing me the amazing things you made, and I wished I could get to that level of skill. But at that time, you had to explain to me how to purl because I couldn't get it.

Everything reminds me of you in a terrible way. Everything I do is an echo of you. I started painting so that I could paint for you. I started knitting to bond with you. I hear your voice in the music I listen to. You're haunting the things that I love. Will I ever make a brush stroke or stitch without you on my mind?

[angelbitezzz]

Eyo check this out Angel and Sans

https://www.tumblr.com/jazze-bee/743658605332627456/game-jolt-share-your-creations?source=share

They watch for a moment. Angel's face lights up in realization, while Sans merely looks amused.

[xannerz]

semi related to lrb but i need the first person who called T N W K an incel to meet me in a cvs parking lot in 10 min for an ass kicking for the irreversible damage they did to how the fandom interprets his character!!

[lightnersdream]

ive changed my mind since i wrote that post if Swatch got their hands on that email freak they would rip his arms off and personally drown him