#literally changed my worldview

[withercrown]

I am not the same person I was before Outer Wilds

[womenstruation]

Forever thankful for that post I saw on here about how even though a gorilla can lift more weight than male humans or a cheetah can run faster than them, we don’t consider these animals superior to men so why do we consider men superior to women because they can do these things?

[kinokoshoujoart]

the sos awl development team really looked at rock and said “even if we could fix him (we can’t) he would never agree to it, carry on king”

[vitamin-zeeth]

Hold on I have to check the letterboxd reviews for the horrid henry movie right fucking now

[agnimybeloved]

regarding that last post... not that black butler's canon has to be uplifting or have dadbastian or a happy ending to be "good" (i'm actually partial to tragedies especially the cyclical kind and would love for the series to straight up end with despair and the collection on the contract lol) but i do think that toboso's largely fumbled the found-family/interpersonal,/introspective aspects of her story and sacrificed a lot of narrative and thematic meat there for low-brow and off-putting comedy.... which is really exactly all she does with ciel's trauma as well-- shallowly using it for the purposes of trauma porn and/or comedy/inappropriate fanservice.

ciel only seems to have reasonable responses to his trauma when its aesthetically convenient if that makes sense. i honestly could go as far as to say that she depicts his trauma fetishistically-- every instance i can recall of ciel having an extreme traumatic response (i.e. vomiting, flashbacks, psychosis) is represented with (imo but honestly.... i'd be shocked if this wasn't intentional...) sexual undertones. his episode during the green witch arc doesn't have one of these moments within the episode itself as far as i can recall, but certainly i think the preceding/inciting medical emergency that forces him and sebastian to bathe together contributes to the reoccurring sexualization of "sickness" (physical & psychological).

not to mention ciel's subsequent episode is treated as the dramatic peak of his ptsd and something that he "overcomes" through sheer force of will (and the threats of sebastian... neither of which are a proper/reasonable way to handle such an extreme trauma response) and doesn't really battle going forward in the story. of course a lot of stories take this "one dramatic moment and then its fixed" approach to representing mental illness, and it makes narrative sense for toboso to want to more or less settle that thread to gear up for the important blue cult arc, but i think toboso's handling of mental illness in general goes so far beyond suspension of disbelief and tastelessness that i think she should lowkey be brained for it. the way she intermittently writes ciel's traumatic experiences as something horrifying and wrong and to be given sympathy meanwhile relentlessly putting ciel in inappropriate fanservice situations that diminish the severity of csa & pedophilia as well as disrespect the complexities of trauma and turn them into comedy... mind boggling...

overall though i think that black butler shows a real mastery of narrative arcs while falling short in terms of character arcs. most of the time these arcs are shown in retrospect with the addition of new backstory, but it feels as if the characters in present have barely grown at all... not that every story has to be character driven and a static character type makes sense for someone like sebastian, but for all that ciel is a unique and mature thirteen year old due to the circumstances of his life, he is still a thirteen year old, and one that has experienced a significant trauma quite recently at that. not allowing him coming of age-esque character arcs considering all that sort of breaks the believability of his character imo.

but i think that coattails does a lot in staying loyal to ciel's character and experiences while also respecting his trauma and bringing the depth and flexibility of adolescence to his worldview and actions that toboso unfortunately seems disinterested in. i love that aforementioned chapter of coattails and its sentiments especially with how it reexamines ciel's actions at kelvin's manor and the worldview that lead to burning it down with the children inside... not that it was an out of character decision for ciel in the moment, but i think it established a lot more severe facts about his character and worldview than toboso is willing to address in her writing and therefore feels unresolved. coattails' remedy to that awkwardness by coming full circle is so intriguing and fulfilling in contrast... it shows how adolescence and trauma can work together to so completely convince one of hopelessness and yet how just a bit of hope can change that worldview entirely. literally just the honest love of a random dog and the mundane care of a guardian... there is a cure and it is this..... what da helllll....

[jes12321]

Bro imagine having your entire worldview changed by some weird kid as he beats your fucking ass

[psalmsofpsychosis]

yeah so i dont get the "wasn't that some fucked up shit? anyway i'm Rod Sterling" mentality some people have towards different narrative reads. It's all sweet and cool to want to explore all the different variations of a fucked up scenario, but i'm gonna need the reasons for it. I need the "why"; why are we exploring this thing? Why is it important to explore this story? what am i getting out of it? and no it's not about morality.

I dont need a story to teach me "good" life lessons, though that'd be lovely. I dont need it to be an exceptional and exemplary narrative even, but i need my discoveries to be purposeful and meaningful. Sometimes the aim for an exploration of say, a very tragic story, is to simply experiences the different flavours and nuances and complexities of a deeply held personal emotion; sometimes it helps us find the mirroring and connection and relatedness that we need to feel seen and heard and understood. Sometimes it helps you parse out your own bullshit by taking it out of your head and putting it in front of you– i dont care what the reason is, but there's a reason. There's a purpose for every single endeavour you take on, even if you haven't discovered the reason yet. "i just want to experience a fucked up shit" lazy superficial thinking, dig deeper. I hate superficial and purposeless shit; and no i'm not gonna explore the 863796373th trending trauma porn piece of the day because "wouldn't that be fucked up?" nah. I dont care, it's got no use to me. I will absolutely respect the endeavour and make space for it if someone tells me something as simple as "it is relevant to me and my interests and experiences and my mental preoccupations, and helps me refine my humanity and my understanding of humanity in general", that is a lovely and true statement. But if someone keeps churning out worst possible fucked up sad scenarios one after another under the "wouldn't that be fucked up?" flag, i'm out, i dont give a fuck. take your sad shit somewhere else, i have absolutely zero space for purposeless horrible narratives that positively add nothing to my life and dont help me navigate it in any meaningful way.

[starlooove]

The funniest part was the double down after deleting the reblog. The double down that was both preceded and followed by ‘i make rage bait content’. And I bet money they’re gonna be like ‘ooooh im so mysterious’ which they already kinda did in the tag and it’s like no u can’t choose if ur gonna say this with ur chest or not and u think acting sillay for saying women choose to be abused bc men can’t control themselves is feminist is gonna somehow make that less misogynistic

[holyviolence]

omg i spent the whole day cleaning my entire apartment because my family was coming to visit and 1) so so so happy my adhd is being medicated now it's literally changing my life and 2) i FINALLLY got through to my dad about how he probably has ADHD too!!!!! he finally said Yeah i think i might have adhd. and my mom was like Me too (we've had this talk privately before, she knows she has adhd too lol) And my brother is literally transferring to a different school because he can't concentrate and isn't disciplined at his current uni. adhd family.

[arytha]

i think its incredibly funny that if you look at the cast you can tell. who my ocs are and who are logan's

or at least i can because their ocs tend to change the entire narrative

[chaos-coming]

I'm annoyed and have been stewing in these thoughts for a few weeks, it's time to get it off my chest.

Despite their enthusiasm, i think i will not he working with the local marxist group here after all. Ive met with them a few times and honestly they fall into all of the classic shortcomings of white european leftist groups.

This group of upper middle class white swedes seem really and truly convinced that they will be the leaders of the great global revolution. They openly told me the first time we met that they are studying the literature to train the future leaders of the movement (the ego is just...wow). Dogmatic and enthusiastic, yes, but aware of the global currents happening right now, no. They dont see that capitalism is reliant on imperialism, and the idea that they might not be center stage when the workers of the world (most of whom live in the global south) rise up has never crossed their minds. They say they only want members who are serious and committed to the cause, but it really looks like they just want to create an echo chamber to boost their egos.

They think that boycotts and direct action are meaningless, as if disrupting the capitalist war machine is antithetical to their "great revolution". They use protests and demonstrations as opportunities for recruitment and to prosthelytize about reading theory. I watched them stand in front of a group of mostly migrants and refugees from syria, iran, palestine, and talk at them about the situation as if everyone showing up to a demonstration organization meeting wasnt already aware. As if refugees with family in the region wanted to hear this blond guy with a mustache posturing for Woke Points(tm) and say nothing constructive, dominate the conversation and ignore suggestions for action from people who have lived through the imperialist wars in SWANA.

Besides going to marxist conferences aka paid field trips, these people dont talk about any action if it's not directly about the great revolution and recruiting more communists, and place way too much emphasis on reading "the classics" (dont get me wrong reading theory is useful but its not the end all be all they think it is). And they dont read literary response/criticism to the classical theory, or modern interpretations, it's not "pure" enough. Theyre not just reading it for theory either, theyre literally and uncritically looking to 100 year old descriptions of society for instructions and methods for creating a revolution in the current day - descriptions which do not acknowledge climate change or indigenous sovereignty or the hyperconnected global economic system we live under - with no critical thought to how it must be adapted to the current epoch (i watched them shoot down all suggestions for organizing online and on social media, or provocative visual demonstrations, insisting that the only and best way to spread awareness is to stand in the hallways and pass out fliers to passersby like its still 1980 and sweden isnt already a paperless cashless society).

I made a comment about how soviet agriculture in west asia wasnt sustainable and got blank or disappointed faces in response. Which leads me to suspect that they idolize the ussr and have no intention to look at non european perspectives. I even tried to bring up the fact that we are currently on occupied sami land, sweden still has a literal actual monarch, living off of taxes and the imperial conquest of the sami people and neighboring countries. It got quiet, they did not want to have that conversation, they dont care beyond lip service about the rights of the indigenous people in their backyards (literally, theyre camped outside the city with their reindeer right now). Getting rid of the monarchy is not a priority, the concept of a monarch in the 21st century is not offensive or antithetical to their beliefs because the "great revolution" will take care of it anyway. Theyre not interested in actions, anything short of their fantasy of a total revolution is meaningless to them. These self proclaimed leaders of the revolution arent even interested in leading a push for an end to the monarchy which takes the workers' taxes to uphold an imperialistic remnant.

Like its basically a pay to play book club, theyre super insistent on the member fee being 10% of your income (even if you have no income you still pay) and it needs to be paid to participate in any of their group meetings etc. Like i get that they have a newspaper and printing press and a full time newspaper employee to pay for, but how is that not capitalistic? How is it not a class barrier, and especially when non-european students have to pay 5 figure tuition costs and they get to go to uni for free. The fact that their group is entirely 100% white and almost all swedes says volumes. And the fact that the palestine organizers have stsrted to schedule their meetings at the same time as the marxist group regularly does, almost like they dont want to work with these white guys who are trying to control the local solidarity movement.

When all you do is sit around reading literature and patting yourselves on the back for being special, when you look a refugee in the face and talk about revolution like theyre not the ones who have literally lived through it, when you are completely uninterested in taking action to fight imperialism in your own country, when you staunchly refuse to get with the times, why are you surprised nobody wants the 'revolution' youre offering them.

[dkettchen]

not me adding literal buddhist monk shaolin masters to my very short list of ppl I’ve ever strongly related to the philosophy/mentality/approach to life of oh boy

[hauntedfalcon]

god knows I’ve had my beef with Marie Kondo, but the only reason her lapse in tidying could possibly affect anyone else is if they purposefully misread her methods as somehow enforced or heavy handed, which was never the case in her books or in her interactions with people onscreen. let her live. let her and her three children go swim in her untidy pile of money

[iaminlovewithducks]

I just finished disco elysium I'll never be the same person as before O-(—(

[mikeyfrickinway]

Showing up to work after an insane concert unshowered, wearing merch bought at the show, ears ringing, headache, whiplash, and running off 2 ibuprofen and leftover taco bell is a sport and brother I'm an Olympic medalist

[lesbenson]

im delusional and unserious but at least i don’t ship liv with any of the ada men