#maybe then I'd have SOME hope of identifying which ones I'm feeling and also why and also doing something about that

[theramblingvoid]

Petition for there to be less feelings actually. Normally I’m a big fan of the complexity of the human experience or whatever the fuck but no actually there should only be about 5 or so of these “emotion” thingies, maybe 10 at MOST. Where’s the development team I’d like to lodge a complaint

[littledesertfox]

Do you have any favorite pictures of Rommel?

I do! Actually too many to decide which ones I like best, I think😅 But these are some of my favourites, I tried to kind of sort them into different categories (beware this is gonna be a long post):

Please note that the positive descriptions or "gushing" that may occur in this post refer strictly to his appearance, not his views or actions! I guess that makes sense since we're talking about pictures here, but just wanted to clarify it.

These are some of my favourite portraits of him, especially the first two are some I really like. This is probably just me talking in my own biased opinion, but I genuinely do think that he had a very beautiful face. Like, he looks so soft but still masculine at the same time? And his facial features just compliment each other very well. Somehow I also really like looking at his eyes (which is funny because I'm horrendously bad at that in real life😂), especially the first 3 pictures just have something very tender about them.

Next up, fully body photos! The second one is probably one of my favourite pictures of him ever, I don't know exactly what he's doing but he looks very funny xD But also these pictures always make me think that I can't help myself but find his body shape genuinely aesthetically appealing, and I've been trying to identify why that is. I think I just really like that he doesn't look like the "ideal" of a stereotypically masculine man, while appearing in no way less masculine because of that. Like, he wasn't built very tall or broad (I've read that he was about 1,68m, of course people were just shorter on average back then, but on photos together with others he often still looks rather small), he had a small torso and more slanted shoulders, overall just a more soft and (in my opinion) almost dainty body shape. I feel like the uniforms he typically wore just added to that, for example in the way they accented his hips quite a bit in some photos. Personally, I find this type of man with softer features like him just much more aesthetically attractive than a stereotypical dudebro/"alpha male" (I hate that word so much bruh💀) kind of guy. Plus, it also gives me an odd kind of reassurance in regard to my own gender expression. I could go on about this but I think I'll rather save that for a later post because this already got quite long.

Next a category that is very special to me🫶 Photos together with his chief of staff and best friend Fritz Bayerlein! I'd honestly love to add more of these, but they are sometimes a bit harder to find online. There are quite a few photos of them together in Bayerlein's biography, but I haven't scanned or taken pictures of most of them yet. I hope to post some of them in the future though, maybe also with some background information. I love all of these, but I especially adore how genuine and effortless Erwin's smile look in the second one. From all the things I've read about them, I like to think that he and Fritz really had a deep and trustful bond and cared a lot about each other.

I don't know how many pictures I can still fit into this post, so I'll finish it off with a few more that don't belong to a specific category:

Proud dad Rommel with little Manfred🥺 I feel like this is also a more uncommon photo where he's not wearing his usual uniform.

Young Rommel! I got to be honest, I enjoy pictures of him as a young man and I don't think he looked bad in the slightest, but I still think he's the type of person who gradually just started looking better and better as he got older. I wonder how he'd have turned out though if he got to live longer.

I just think he looks a bit funny with a Stahlhelm on😂 Not quite the way how you're used to seeing him.

I first came across this photo when I was maybe 13 or 14, and ever since I've wondered if it just had to do with the image quality and age, or if Rommel actually shaved his legs😂 Like, they look so smooth. I don't know about you, but if I was leading an army then shaving a legs would pretty much be the last thing I'd think of doing. Maybe he also simply had just very little or very light body hair though, I think it would fit in with the rest of his appearance.

I could go on for longer but I think this post is already long enough so I'll stop for now. At first I thought about making an extra category for family photos as well as for WW1 pictures of him, however I don't have a lot of them saved and was mostly using pictures here that I already had and didn't have to look up first. This was very fun though, I just love looking at all kinds of photos of him. Thanks for the ask <3

[desultory-novice]

what do you think of magolor soul’s true arena desc? makes me think he isn’t truly sorry.

I wanted to save this ask to write something MUCH more comprehensive about this but, um, serious RL stuff (it's positive stuff, no worries. I'm just kinda anxious about it...) popped up during my break so since I'm going to need to duck away for a few days to cool down (and because I'm currently super mega obsessed with True Arena Magolor) I decided to hit this one quickly.

So, in brief, this game has an excellent translation. Forgotten Land quality. I'd say even a little bit above that, since Magolor's writing in the epilogue is so good. (Biased?)

But there is a slight shift of TONE in Magolor Soul's True Arena description, the 2nd phase, where he talks directly to Kirby. (Honestly, this is probably just an issue of spacing. Magolor talks a LOT and you can see this screen is packed with text. Amusingly, spacing was my guess for the loss of a few details from Magolor Soul's pause screen in the original game.)

(Photo nicked from willidleaway)

Here is a quick "alternate" translation from me:

"Kirby, frankly, I found you a pain to deal with. And the way you looked at me with that blank stare even after I betrayed you? It irks me that I keep having to rely on you but... I've had enough. Kirby of the Stars, hurry up and destroy this thing on my head. When you do, I'll come back and... heheheh...I'll tease you plenty!"

The part TumblingPotatoes is referring to is probably the part I translated as "...found you a pain to deal with." The word in question can mean "dislike" as in "We've invited Magolor to dinner tonight!" "Ugh, I really dislike that guy!" but it really just means someone that, for a variety of reasons, you may struggle to deal with.

The fact that Magolor is a consummate liar but Kirby approaches everyone with honesty and openness is a quick and easy answer for why Magolor might feel that way about Kirby. Not to mention, as he says in both versions, Kirby is SO honest they didn't even react with shock or hurt when Magolor betrayed them. It's hard to say WHY Kirby didn't have that kind of emotional reaction, maybe they just knew better? Maybe Kirby figured, "Huh. I guess it's just time to beat the evil out of you like I've done with all my friends to date!"

The reason I prefer the Japanese slightly is because the English had to combine the "...it irks me to rely on you" and "hurry and break this thing on my head" into one line which, while Magolor is meant to be speaking from a place of pride (he doesn't want to admit he needs help. But of course, he really, really, REALLY needs help) it does sort of give him a cocky attitude in English. (The addition of "Ugh" does something similar. It does a wonderful job showing he's having to fight his own nature to admit this.)

But in Japanese, his desperation ("hurry") comes off better. It makes him sound a little bit more sad too (Something about Magolor using "this thing" in Japanese, 「頭のコレ」, even though it's the same phrase in English... but the context behind refusing to identify the Crown always gives me the feeling that at this point in the soul-consuming process, he's too frightened to even say it's name.)

...And this all hits especially hard because he uses the key phrase "Kirby of the Stars." Any time anyone invokes Kirby's "full name" you know things are serious.

His last line, his "threat" to toy with you/tease you is basically just the same Magolor you see in the epilogue. He can "turn over a new leaf" and still be a villainous & mischievous little egg. Saving his life isn't going to give him a personality transplant. It isn't going to mean he doesn't like playing pranks on people - or that he thinks that hitting a bomb with a frying pan isn't one of the multiverse's greatest games and definitely needs a space in his theme park. ^^

Again, he may also be trying to preserve some of his tattered dignity there. The long and short of it is... Magolor is being "tsundere" (I hope I don't need to explain that one...?)

Yes, he cares about Kirby as a friend. (Will he say it? No.) Yes, he feels bad for what he did. (Will he say that? Also no.)

...He CAN'T. It's not the way he communicates. But remember that Magolor has lied to you throughout the whole game. And it's the Liar Magolor that always tells you how "thankful" he is, how "happy" he is you two met. How "wonderful" and "amazing" Kirby is.

The fact that Magolor is willing to say "yeah, you kind of annoyed me" is a sign that Magolor is giving Kirby something he's potentially never given ANYONE before...

The truth.

So yes, this experience HAS changed him for the good and he absolutely, undeniably cares about Kirby.

--

Last Minute Addition:

It's interesting, in light of the very likely sounding theory that Magolor has already been fully consumed by the crown in this fight (his eyes disappear right as he uses "the last" of his ability to fight against the crown to leave you a single apple) and CANNOT be saved that the English text "...then someday..." and "...I MAY get to toy with you..." when the Japanese doesn't have these vagueties on Magolor's behalf. (I was influenced enough by it that even I included the phrase "when I come back" when Magolor just says "I will again...tease you")

Does he know it's already too late? It kind of gives you the feeling that Magolor is either lying to sooth Kirby from what the puffball has to do (kill him) or he's trying to goad Kirby on into finishing this. Really just makes the whole thing more heartbreaking.

[ratinacoat]

Sorry for this (maybe?) weird ask but. Google is not helping.

I broke some dissociation, so it’s not long (less than 3 or so hours now, averaging around 10-20 minutes). But now it’s just. Random.

I used tk be able to ‘sense’ when I was gonna float, but now it’s like I blink and the shadows are different.

Any advice? No pressure to answer, eventually I will figure it out I’m sure. It’s just bothering me.

I'm sorry to get to this so late, if you've been seeing my recent posts you'll know why. I wasn't ignoring this, just unable to respond for a bit.

This is something I can't help you fix but it's somethings I can give tips on because I understand the struggle.

Identifying triggers

This is tough but can help a lot. Try to see if you can pick up on things that have been going around when the dissociation starts. Personally, I have used a journal to log everything that happened or is happening in the moment for a while, and as I continue to write in it I look everything over and see if there are any consistencies.

Here's an example: (This is a trigger I can list because it's only an irl thing, do not list your triggers online.)

In my journal from a couple years ago I would write in it when dissociated. I wrote down where I was, people I was around, things I could see, what had been happening, etc. Over time there was a very clear consistency in each entry. I was always in a place with my dad or something that reminded me of him. Think a smell, an object, a place I associated with him. This helped me to know which things I needed to avoid or when I needed to prepare myself to be in that situation.

If there's been a change in environment or schedule it's possible that there could be something in said change that is causing you to dissociate more than before. This is a common reason I notice in people an myself. Identifying the reason you're dissociating so much is a great way to help it.

Grounding techniques

Which grounding techniques work vary from person to person. There are a lot of different things you can do and you should look into them and try different things. I'm going to name ones that seem to help a lot of people I know and me personally. Grounding helps you reconnect with your surroundings, emotions, and yourself as dissociation is the disconnect from all of that.

Engaging with your surroundings is a good way to help with this. Some people use the 5, 4, 3, 2 ,1 method. Point out 5 things you can see, 4 things you can touch, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. This is good for the anxiety you may be feeling as well even if it doesn't fix dissociation. I also like to touch things around me. I'll run my hands under water, touch whatever items I'm near (table, wall, grass, etc), or I'll use a sensory toy (definitely recommend carrying these around) and focus on the texture of that. It helps to realize that you're here in the moment, your surroundings are real, and feel more present/alive.

Sometimes dissociation can make details about things hard to remember. Try reminding yourself who you are, what day/year/month it is, what the weather is, who you're with, etc. This is another good way to ease the anxiety and be more present in the moment.

There are other grounding techniques but the premise of most is to help reconnect yourself with your surroundings. Finding different ways to do this can help lessen or stop dissociation before it gets to a severe point. If you have friends wo experience dissociation I'd recommend asking them for their personal techniques as well. If you have a therapist they will absolutely be able to help you find what works best for you too and you should definitely bring this up with them.

I hope things turn around for you anon. You're not alone in this and there will be something out there that helps you, even if it's not in this post. <3

[krirebr]

I hope you get some rest this weekend and you can recover, especially with that extra half day ❤️

And I also can’t help but wonder which boss!babe would pull a move like this? 🥺

Thank you so much, friend! I'm definitely going to crash hard tonight, so I can hopefully wake up and have a productive morning before I crash hard again as soon as noon hits. 😂

As for the babe, I know this is probably the obvious choice, but one popped into my head right away. I got a little carried away here, maybe. 🤭

Maybe you're his assistant, and you've been running yourself ragged as you both prep for a big trial. You're exhausted but you've been trying hard not to let it show. He works so hard and you like helping him, like feeling like you're taking care of him. It's maybe a crush. Possibly. You're ignoring it. It's fine.

When you bring his coffee to his desk you smile and say good morning like you always do. But you can't hide the way your eyes droop or your shoulders sag. You're about to go back to your desk when Andy stops you.

"What's on your plate for the rest of the week?" Andy asks.

"Uh," you start, caught off guard. "A lot, I guess."

He just nods. "Put it into a list for me and then come back and we'll talk about you taking tomorrow off."

You splutter and object, but he stops you with a gentle hand on yours. You stare down at it. His touch is warm and soft.

"I see how hard you've been working. You need a break. I've been asking too much of you." His voice has dropped to almost a whisper and the room feels like it's gotten smaller. You can't explain why this moment suddenly feels so intimate.

"I'm fine," you say, matching his whisper. His hand is still on yours. You eyes keep trailing down to it.

"I know," he says, "but I'd like to keep it that way. Let me help you take care of yourself."

"Ok," you finally breathe, and he takes his hand away. You go back to your desk but you can't help shooting furtive glances his way. And once, when your gaze travels to him again, you find him looking right back at you, concern and something else you can't quite identify in his eyes.

[genderfluid-info-blog]

; perhaps this is too specific, but I figured I'd ask anyways !! So I've been using genderflir, but I'm not so sure it's 100% me, and if there is a more specific / accurate term for me, I would like to use it. ( you also seem to have like a info hoard of every fluid identity ever so you're my best bet /lh /pos )

; so: I'm never 100% a binary man or woman. But I do experience feminine and occasionally masculine genders, the feminine genders are almost always mixed with something else though ( i.e. Bigender, demigirl, etc ) even if they're mostly feminine. And I've realised the masculine genders are either demiboy or masculine aligned xenogenders, and never anything else. But I also sometimes resonate with agender / feeling genderless ??

; so like never binary, never 100% feminine but still more commonly feminine, and if I identify masculinely it's either demiboy or a masc aligned xenogender. And agneder also comes into the mix .. Know any labels that could be this lol ?? So sorry if it's confusing !! /gen

First off, I am so so sorry that I took this long with your ask! /gen I don't know if you were able to find a label that fits you more in the meantime, but I'll still answer this ask :) (and yeah I do kind of have an info hoard, queer labels are one of my special interests but I love that it can help other people😭🫶)

So I have a two options that I think might fit you:

Genderfloretten. Especially since this label has two common definitions! One definition is the one I describe in my post, but there is another, more specific definition: Genderfloretten is a form of genderfluidity in which someone is fluid between genders that span from all feminine genders up to, but not including, binary woman to masculine genders that go about halfway or two-thirds of the way to binary man. (You can read more about this definition on the lgbtqia-wiki)

The only other label that I know of that almost fits this is genderfirn, but unfortunately it includes binary woman in its fluidity. Maybe you could coin a related micro label without that part? (If you feel like the label might fit you otherwise and you want to of course.)

I've personally always wondered why genderfirn didn't have counterparts for people who are never a binary woman or just never binary in general.

As for the occasional genderlessness: This is usually included in many labels! Genderfloretten for example also encompasses the fluidity between agender/other unaligned genders/a-spec genders! I personally don't really know of a label that specifically includes agender in a way that might fit you, but you could always add the prefix in front of your label to make the connection clear :)

I know this wasn't a very clear answer, but I hope it still helps you in some way, sorry again for taking this long with your ask😭 <3

[groenendaelfic]

i love YR and i love wille and simon so much but i will be a simon defender till the day i die. i can see both wille’s and simon’s POVs for how they acted but idk as poor POC simon’s actions resonate more with me. regardless, the reason why i say this is because i always see so much more wille support/simon hate online than i do vice versa. im not asking for wille hate but im asking for prepubescent girls to stop supporting wille simply because he’s an attractive white boy. i dont know—maybe im oversimplifying things but what do you think about the split between simom defenders and wille defenders?

I get it. It's not fair but I get it.

Why?

Because Simon is all of us.

I might be able to identify more with Wilhelm when it comes to many things, his personality, his anxiety, his temper... but in essence every single one of us will always have more in common with Simon than with Wilhelm.

It doesn't matter how different our lives, upbringings and the small everyday things which shaped and defined us are from Simon's. It doesn't matter how much I see my younger self reflected in Wilhelm, how much I can relate to his struggles (I mean it does, but for this specific argument it doesn't). My life will still always be closer to Simon's than to Wilhelm's.

We are Simon. Simon fucks up. Simon makes mistakes. Far reaching mistakes, and it's always easier to be self-critical and insecure than not to.

I'm Simon. But I wouldn't have done xyz! (I wouldn't, I'd either have done something worse or nothing at all, which might just be worse still.)

Simon is a teen and he makes teen mistakes. Sometimes understandable ones, sometimes stupid ones, sometimes crazy ones.

It's normal. It's relatable, it's every one of us but different. Of course it's easier to be critical of Simon. To 'hate on' Simon. He is us, but he doesn't always act like we would, nor does he act like the idealized version of the beloved character we want him to be.

He's a teenager and he's flawed and he's human. We love him and we want him to be perfect but he isn't. Of course there's Simon 'hate'. It's not okay, but I get it.

Simon is us, but he makes mistakes we, however unconsciously, think we wouldn't. We think we would do better, or at least we hope so, and so we criticize him.

It's not right, but I also get the urge to do so even if I don't approve.

Wilhelm however? Wilhelm is different.

Wilhelm is a prince. Worse, he's a crown prince and future king. He's His Royal Highness The Crown Prince of Sweden, Duke of Some Historical Province or Another.

His entire existence causes a knee-jerk reaction of defensiveness. At least it does in me.

Him being a minor who didn't choose who he was born as helps, but it's not enough. Yes, his life isn't easy. Yes he's living with pressure none of us can understand. Not the irl crown princess and not rwrb's Henry.

But he also has power and privilege and wealth the likes of which we'll never truly be able to comprehend. No matter what he chooses to do once he's an adult, he'll always have that.

Wilhelm's entire existence is a reflection of most of what's wrong with this world. I cannot in good conscience root for him and I shouldn't like him. We shouldn't romanticize and glorify royalty, not even fictional one, because all their wealth, power and privilege is built on our backs and sustained by our backs.

I should hate him, not feel sorry for him. I shouldn't empathize with him.

And yet Wille is my bb and my fav and I love him and he never did anything wrong in his life. Not ever. Wille is perfect. He deserves the world and I'll defend him and his wrongs to the very end of it and damn everything and everyone else.

Why?

Because if I start to acknowledge, in all seriousness, that any of his mistakes or wrongs are in fact mistakes and deserve (more) consequences, no matter if it's the fact that he's an objectively bad friend to Felice (I'm already getting super defensive typing these words because Wilhelm, my poor bb, had reasons and deserves to be selfish!) or that you never, ever point any gun at anyone, not ever, or any of his other numerous mistakes, then I'm opening up a Pandora's box I cannot close again.

Yes, he's a teenager and he's flawed and he's human. Yes, he makes stupid, far reaching mistakes. Yes, it's everyone else who hands him his power and privilege. Yes, it's all inherited, as is his wealth, but that doesn't make it alright.

You cannot, in good conscience, root for Wilhelm without also acknowledging or at least being aware of the inherent power dynamics at play, and I'm not only talking about Wilhelm and Simon's relationship, but Wilhelm and everyone, including his mother and the royal court and the entire government.

All three need Wilhelm more than he needs them, and once he fully realizes that he's going to be (even more of) a menace.

Wilhelm doesn't have any political power on paper, but that doesn't mean that his actions can't influence and control the entire Swedish legislature for years. That can be good, sure, at least in the long term, but it'll also take away from much needed other laws etc being discussed and passed, ones which would better the lives of many Swedes directly and immediately. That is scary, because it's real, or it could be.

Wilhelm is a minor and Young Royals is captivating, fictional escapism. But my ardent republican heart (of the non US kind) still struggles with not getting immediately defensive when talking about my love for Wilhelm, because Young Royals is also so real and realistic and a reflection of so many things which are still extremely problematic in our oh so progressive, look at how much worse all the other countries are, can't you be happy with what you've got? part of the world in ways many other shows aren't, and Wilhelm and his rank and title and entire existence are at the heart of it.

The biggest 'problem' Young Royals has is that despite the premise, it is so realistic and relatable and well done. It's almost impossible to escape into the fiction of it to a degree where you can solely focus on the cute boys falling in love and the romantic tragedy of their struggles, without also being at the very least peripherally aware of our reality being reflected in every scene.

Young Royals is romantic and hot and heart-wrenching, but it also criticizes the system and society and shows us exactly how little people like Simon, people like us, matter to the upper class, and it does so from the very first episode in which Simon tries his best to stay strong and tells everyone exactly who the country's biggest welfare receivers are. And he's right.

Simon deserves our defense, our support. But I don't feel the need to. I should, because Simon is not as strong as he wants to be, but he's also a normal teen and nothing is easier than looking down on teenagers and people we can identify with or have things in common with. We all do it all the time, willingly or not, consciously or not, thinking we're better, that we'd do better, no matter how much we love them, because not doing so would mean acknowledging our own faults and flaws, would mean we'd have to admit that Simon is doing the best he can in a way most of us probably wouldn't be able to.

Wilhelm however? I can identify with parts of him despite of everything he stands for and not because, and that is scary, because I don't want to have anything in common with a future hereditary head of state.

I don't want to sympathize with royalty, with people who can control others around them with nothing but words, worse their mere existence. People who, were I to address them in anything other than the third person and with a title, would consider me to be the rude one, as would everyone around us.

And yet I do. I do identify with Wilhelm. I sympathize with him. I think I understand him, but scratching the surface of that is dangerous, because no matter how much we need escapism in these hard times romanticizing royalty, sympathizing with them and thinking they're just like us is not only tricky but dangerous.

It's what the elites want, all of them, while they laugh at our plight and profit off of our hard work. It's what gets horrible people elected president and billionaires turned into cool, dudebro heroes. It's a slippery slope and none of them are the exception, no matter how much they try to convince us otherwise.

Of course we get defensive, of course we're so passionate to highlight that Wilhelm's mistakes are okay and are overly critical of Simon's.

Defending Wilhelm is not rational, it's not logical, and yet it is, which is why I will burn down the world in Wille's defense and serve it to him on a silver platter, because my bb deserves everything and his feelings and struggles are valid and who am I to judge. Wille never did anything wrong.

Finally, I get where you're coming from, but please don't make this about prepubescent girls. Or teenage girls. Being a girl that age is hard. Your body and feelings are changing in ways you don't understand, people suddenly treat you differently. Adults, kids, other teens no matter their gender. You are sexualized, and your intelligence and skills are suddenly only of secondary importance at best. It's scary, and even when it's good it's not safe. You always need to be wary and careful lest you have to pay a price for your joyful inattentiveness, a potentially traumatic, life changing price. Being a prepubescent and teenage girl is also wonderful and freeing and eye opening in the best way, but anything you do or say will always be reduced to silly teenage girl, even by other teenage girls, someone to be made fun of and not taken seriously, when in truth nothing requires more strength and tenacity than surviving as a prepubescent and teenage girl. So if fixating on attractive, unattainable white boys helps? Let them and don't judge, no matter your age or gender. It's not perfect, but it's safe. More, it's a safe way to explore your budding sexuality and bond with others along the way, something which is so important when nothing about being a girl that age ever feels safe, not even when you think you can do anything and know everything. That attractive, unattainable (white) boy? Be it Wilhelm or the current boygroup heartthrob of choice? He is going to reveal private things about himself (most likely made up, but that doesn't invalidate how finding out those facts makes you feel) without demanding a price, you can develop an intense parasocial relationship with him and learn and grow from it, it can help you in many ways which aren't obvious at first (I still keep up with my teenage boygroup and listen to every one of their new albums even though it's been twenty years and I've had musical anhedonia for almost as long), and he will never, ever grope you or insult you or make you feel awkward and insecure, nor will he ever pressure you to do something you're not ready for (unless it's to spend money you don't have on useless stuff you desperately need). Please don't be condescending or judgmental of prepubescent girls, especially ones having to grow up in the age of social media and smartphones everywhere. Fixating on the attractive white boy is a matter of self-defense. It doesn't mean they aren't aware of what they're doing or that doing so isn't ideal. They know. Everyone is constantly telling them and making them feel guilty about it. Please don't be one of them.

[david-tennant-wearing-things]

Okay I have thoughts on this one and I actually feel like putting them into sentences, so, without further ado: me actually writing a post without procrastinating indefinitely

My first impression, genuinely, was underwhelmed. I definitely really like it, but it didn't blow my mind like the others. (Maybe all of my anticipatory excitement before seeing it was setting the bar unrealistically high?) Initially, I assumed the designer was Mithridate—partially because I spent the past few weeks really hoping it would be—but mostly because they've designed the previous three embellished jackets and it seemed like a reasonably logical conclusion?

Some things I noticed:

1. Flowers! Mithridate's three previous looks have all been very celestial. The switch to flowers is plausible (or at least still on-theme for the Crowley vibes) but it feels a bit unlikely for them to change gears so suddenly. 2. Shawl collar, which means literally nothing aside from "a tiny bit less Crowley," but it definitely makes it distinct from the others. 2a. Sunglasses, which mean literally nothing aside from "a tiny bit more Crowley" and I think this has more to do with his stylist than anything else. 3. Where are the bugs?? Mithridate has been doing a lot with bugs (to the point that I briefly thought they might've been involved with Andrew Scott's Met Gala look. Alright, fine, Versace. You can have some bugs, too.) 4. Bead placement is a lot more focused to specific areas (lower sleeves, shoulders, lapels, and collar) opposed to Mithridate's usual all-over embellishments. 5. I zoomed in and I could actually identify the types of beads used! (mostly bugle beads) And really, credit for this should go to Shane Anthony Sinclair of Getty Images, not the designer, but on both the BAFTA Kilt and the Olivier suit, I really struggled to be able to identify specific bead shapes. This issue was also present on the suit from the Evening Standard Awards, but to a lesser extent. (if anyone has some super sharp images of any of those, I'd be forever in your debt 🥹) 6. Enter Georgia

Suddenly it all makes sense: Joshua Kane. It doesn't look like Mithridate's work because it's not. Joshua Kane shared this to his instagram story and it's really interesting to see v1! Also the images in the linked post are super sharp, so I'm definitely not complaining

Also want to note that Georgia tagged goodomensprime which also doesn't mean anything, but I still wanted to mention it 🤷

final thoughts: I like it a lot more now that I'm not trying to figure out why Mithridate suddenly changed everything. I also really appreciate the closeups of the beading on Joshua Kane's instagram (despite being a different piece) because I love the detail and I wish he'd post similar shots of David's!

[4dkellysworld]

Hi, I hope you're doing well. I'm the user who sent you the question about death and i came here to thank you. You don't need answer and i even ask you here not to answer, but if you can and want, i'd like you to read it 🙏🏻🪻

The questions of death i addressed were more about shifting into desired reality, or attaining the enlightenment of Being. I saw many concepts, sucess stories, posts and everything about "don't identify with the bodie/circumstances" and change of consciousness, go to another desired reality, void and that, that if taken in contrast attached to each different type of traumas and limiting beliefs, was very difficult. That's why i mentioned about "zombie" and attaining the Self, Absolute, through death. As if death takes us to the core of everything without illusion/traumas and any limitation holding us back not at all. Some are so tired that they want to reach the self without enduring more days and days without knowing when they will succeed; i know it may sound confusing, wrong and I'm complicating things, but i wanted to explain my point in case i confused you ((even if there's no really need to))

Maybe i'm being too impatient or we complicate things, but it's part of everyone's process. Thank you so much for your answer to my ask, i'm very grateful ((this is something me and a friend had been thinking about. We both went through this kind of thinking, she went first and i on the day i sent you the ask.. and i needed to talk about it)) but with just one post you helped with a change of perception.

When we feel welcomed, it's a blessing. Thank you very much indeed 🙏🏻💓💓

Thanks for writing back. I know you asked not to post this and I would have but I felt it necessary to address some of the things you wrote, as it might clear up some confusion and help you.

"that if taken in contrast attached to each different type of traumas and limiting beliefs, was very difficult"

I understand completely. For traumas, this was something I felt I had to address before I could let go of ego completely (I had tried before but some things are just too deeply entrenched and you need to uproot and dissolve those first). I highly recommend reading the posts under my releasing tag here as it's all based on what I personally did to release them. It's also what Lester did for his realization (he went all the way with this method actually). Honestly, the peace alone that it gives makes it more than worth it (forgetting about self-realization for a second here) but it also helped me drop a lot of ego concepts. You can apply this to any ego concepts to be dropped (including limiting beliefs) and not just trauma but I highly recommend using releasing to address and release trauma. Give it an honest try, it will help a lot.

"That's why i mentioned about "zombie" and attaining the Self, Absolute, through death. As if death takes us to the core of everything without illusion/traumas and any limitation holding us back not at all.

Self isn't something you have to attain. Ever. You already are It. Right now. Really! You can never stop being Self, even when you think you are not It. Death of ego identification is the only real solution and this does not come from death of the physical body. The ego can continue on after physical death. Only you can dissolve the illusions, traumas and limitations by dropping them.

I'm going to share some excerpts from Autobiography of a Yogi which describes the karmic process after physical death for one who has not released identification of the body-mind-ego. You don't necessarily need to believe in any of this but the understanding of the three bodies (physical, astral and causal) of a limited being is consistent from what I've read of Advaita Vedanta teachings and Lester Levenson, Siddharameshwar Maharaj and Robert Adams who are all fully realized beings have all covered this too.

“The undeveloped man must undergo countless earthly and astral and causal incarnations in order to emerge from his three bodies. The physical karma or desires of man must be completely worked out before his continued stay in astral worlds becomes possible,” my guru elucidated in his thrilling voice. “Two kinds of beings live in the astral spheres. Those who still have earthly karma to dispose of and who must therefore reinhabit a gross physical body in order to pay their karmic debts could be classified, after physical death, as temporary visitors to the astral world rather than as established residents.” “Beings with unredeemed earthly karma are not permitted after astral death to go to the high causal sphere of cosmic ideas, but must shuttle to and fro from the physical and astral worlds only, conscious successively of their physical body of sixteen gross elements, and of their astral body of nineteen subtle elements. After each loss of his physical body, however, an undeveloped being from the earth remains for the most part in the deep stupor of the death-sleep and is hardly conscious of the beautiful astral sphere. After the astral rest, such a man returns to the material plane for further lessons, gradually accustoming himself, through repeated journeys, to the worlds of subtle astral texture.” “Normal or long-established residents of the astral universe, on the other hand, are those who, freed forever from all material longings, need return no more to the gross vibrations of earth. Such beings have only astral and causal karma to work out. At astral death these beings pass to the infinitely finer and more delicate causal world. At the end of a certain span, determined by cosmic law, these advanced beings then return to Hiranyaloka or a similar high astral planet, reborn in a new astral body to work out their unredeemed astral karma.” “Just as most people on earth have not learned through meditation-acquired vision to appreciate the superior joys and advantages of astral life and thus, after death, desire to return to the limited, imperfect pleasures of earth, so many astral beings, during the normal disintegration of their astral bodies, fail to picture the advanced state of spiritual joy in the causal world and, dwelling on thoughts of the more gross and gaudy astral happiness, yearn to revisit the astral paradise. Heavy astral karma must be redeemed by such beings before they can achieve after astral death an unbroken stay in the causal thought-world, so thinly partitioned from the Creator. “Only when a being has no further desires for experiences in the pleasing-to-the-eye astral cosmos, and cannot be tempted to go back there, does he remain in the causal world. Completing there the work of redeeming all causal karma or seeds of past desires, the confined soul thrusts out the last of the three corks of ignorance and, emerging from the final jar of the causal body, commingles with the Eternal.

Now I also don't want to cause more concern by sharing this because I imagine maybe someone who reads this will be thinking "oh great, I need to go through the astral realm and the causal realm after this and work out other karma?" but it need not be so. Lester said one can become fully realized in this lifetime in the material realm here and go all the way back home to the Eternal/Absolute as a shortcut without having to go back up through the various realms individually. He also said this realm is the best for becoming fully realized because it's the worst and most hellish realm which gives us the most incentive while the astral and causal realms are a lot nicer/heavenly so there's less incentive to end the whole cycle and just go all the way Home (though there is still suffering because there are still limitations until you shed all bodies, end all cycles and return back to the Absolute).

Although this information might be comforting to someone if they don't think they can be fully realized in this lifetime but are confident they can shed their material attachments and karma since they can stop reincarnating in the physical realm at least? If anyone wants, I can share the book as some of the chapters are quite interesting although I was hesitant to share it sooner because I'm not sure if it will help or cause more confusion or anxiety about the cycles (though personally for me it gave a lot of clarity because I'm pretty sure the void state is actually being aware in the causal realm because you are still perceiving so it's not pure conciousness).

Some are so tired that they want to reach the self without enduring more days and days without knowing when they will succeed

Succeed in what? Self-realization? You are the Self right now. But I understand what you mean. No matter how much you read those words, until you have your own realization of that truth, it's not going to mean much or make much sense. You just have to surrender and accept the present moment instead of wondering when it's going to come and whether you will fail or succeed. Just give up thinking about outcomes altogether and just do what you need to do each day and it will come one day on its own without you thinking on it. Stressing about it is just feeding the ego and mind more with self-imposed limitations; it won't help your realization at all. Just stay sincere on the path and keep the faith. If you are earnest and sincere, you will definitely have your realization.

The mind will rebel in the beginning, but with patience and perseverance, it will yield and keep quiet. Here patience is wisdom; don’t think of failure. There can be no failure in this undertaking. All will happen by itself. You need not do anything, only don’t prevent it. It all comes spontaneously; you need only to hold on to the ‘I am’. It is very much like digging a well. You reject all that is not water, till you reach the life-giving spring. Nisargadatta Maharaj

[neonscandal]

Just see this in twitter by someone : "I'm starting to think maybe people should read actual BL manga. perhaps considering manga written with actual gay characters in it in addition to shipping m x m from whatever battle shounen you're into."

Like because of those subtext, there can be fanfics and fanarts, right? And then I decided to come here, your blog is really one of my comfort place....

Comfort place!? This makes me want to carve out time to post infinitely more. 🥹 Even though it feels a bit aimless, I’m glad I could cultivate that for you and hope I can continue to do so.

RE: twitter, without context, it's hard to tell whether this person is earnestly recommending people to expand their interests into BL or if they're dumping on people who tend to support and identify queer shipping across other genres.

On the one hand, heavy agree that if you appreciate queer pairings of any kind to absolutely find media and stories that shows healthy (and authentic, if possible!) representation of whatever you're into. I feel like sometimes in BL, specifically, there’s a lot of toxicity or violence passed off as romance which is why I recommend being discerning. Here are some green flag recommendations and I kind of touch on the importance of identity through engaging with queer content by way of BL's featuring fudanshi's there. Isn't always the case, but it's a storyline I appreciate.

If the poster was side eyeing queer ships in "mainstream" or shonen stories... they should grow up. I've been in and out of fandom for like.. 20 years. There have always been people who recognize and popularize queer ships. Back in the day? Characters didn't even have to share the same show, universe or genre to end up in a crossover slash fic on Fanfiction.Net.

Don't get me wrong, I've definitely needlessly explored several crack theories or made off-base assumptions about a story for the sake of trying to guess at where it’s going. But I sometimes question people's competency for reading/watching comprehension when a particularly shitty hottake is making its rounds on social media. Like are we not watching the same thing?

Subtext does exist. I don't know that all authors are as elegant or intentional in its execution but if you're not bothering to consider the possibility, you're potentially missing out on critical pieces of a story you're choosing to invest hours/years of your life into! This isn't simply as it pertains to shipping but also picking up on critical exposition (Attack. On. Titan.) or even questioning whether the information we're getting as the reader or viewer is conveyed with any sort of narrator bias. Yes, this is absolutely a My Hero Academia call out. ✨

Queer coding does exist. Tons of reasons why queer characters aren't always explicitly identified as such. More often than not, there's some form of censorship. Whether at the editing level during manga production or when it comes time for manga/shows to be approved for international distribution (re: information that's lost in translation vs outright decisions to alter the flow of the story). Most glaring example of this that comes to mind is Haruka Tenou or "Sailor Uranus"/Michiru Kaiou or "Sailor Neptune. In addition to gratuitous name changes when Sailor Moon was pushed abroad, several countries would rather portray the two as unusually close relatives despite the clear romantic undertones exhibited whenever they were on screen together. Also, IDK why, but pretty sure I'd seen somewhere that, initially the creator of Naruto did want to canonize Sasuke/Naruto but, truth be told, I've never watched the series and that could have been a fanon theory I'd seen.

Overarching messages exist. Similar to the first point, a story is seldom just a story. More often than not, you're looking at some sort of social critique or opinion that's being expressed or explored through the story. To not bother thinking critically about what you choose to spend time in enjoying is a pretty bland way to miss the point of it.

When all else fails, it's not our fault that the only relationships most shonen mangaka focus on developing is the one between "rivals". That's it. If there were more dynamic characters or literally any consideration toward the depth of intimacy between the main character and whatever tritagonist female lead the male lead inexplicably ends up with (aside from the simple rationale that "she is the girl 🎀"), then maybe fans won't have to hone in on how the only agency, equality and intimacy is between the only two characters of substance. That was a mouthful but so are the overly poetic soliloquies shonen rivals inevitably share about one another.. ✨

I'm guessing this question might be related to the last anon ask about fanfics? I agree regarding the fact that subtext allows for a richer selection of fan art and fics. I think, depending on content, the motivation for reading fics will subsequently differ. For instance, I'm less likely to read fanfics for a romance series even if I sometimes write for them because the source material generally satisfies what I wanted from them. But fix it fics, angst and romance fics for shonen/seinen series'?? I'll definitely pick them up because, 1) there are usually unexplored relationship dynamics in the source material, 2) there are alternative domestic/fluff storylines you'd never see because the genre doesn't allow for it, 3) the canon plot is usually so devastating *cough, JJK, cough* that I need a respite, and/or, 4) the developing plot tends to have a lot of holes that writers can explore to craft uniquely compelling AU's and alternative plotlines that I wouldn't imagine.

Man, it's been a while since I nerded out and really took the time to bang out a rant. I've had so many thoughts bouncing around but just zero time. Thank you for your ask and the reminder that there's someone else out there in the shipping trenches. Stay safe out there, anon!

[packedandstrapped]

Hello, I hope this is ok to send you. If not, I apologize and you can totally ignore me. I know you're not the spokesperson for butches all over the world lol, but I was hoping I could get your perspective? Advice? Insight? Not really sure, but something. So, I'm not a lesbian, I consider myself queer but if someone wanted to call me bi or pan I'd be fine with that too. Basically, gender isn't the most important thing to me. Anyways, moving on. I find myself attracted to butches, like heart skips a beat and feel flustered attracted, but from stuff I see and read, I get the feeling that most would not be interested in a bi/pan/queer woman. I know I could be completely wrong though, which is why I'm sending this. And I'm sure there definitely are butches who wouldn't be, but maybe it's not as much as I'm thinking? I'm also paranoid that people might think I'm only attracted to butches because I'm also attracted to men and butches are "like men" (I don't think this, but some might) but that's not the case at all. In my opinion, butch masculinity is very different from cis-male masculinity and I am attracted to both in very different ways. Ugh, I don't know if I'm even making sense but I hope I am. It's only been the last few years that I've been allowed to finally think about and acknowledge this part of myself and so it's all still new for me, and I'm still learning, and I guess I just feel very lost. Any feedback you could give would be very much appreciated and I apologize for the long ask.

Oh darling, this is so cute. I think most femmes I know do not label themselves as strictly lesbian. I’m not saying none do, but I find Bi and Pan labels to be far more common that straight up lesbian. So don’t worry about that piece of what you call yourself. I understand how butchness and masculinity can be attractive in folks that don’t exactly identify with our subculture but you don’t have to identify with a particular label to understand the appreciation.

To be honest, I personally would be apprehensive to enter a romantic relationship with a person who intentionally seeks and dates cis-men. Bi and Pan folks can be attracted to a wide spectrum of people within our community and I fully appreciate and support that gradient. But as a butch, cis-men are not part of my inner circle and not people I want to share my culture or my lovers with. I don’t think that’s necessarily true for all butches but it’s worth acknowledging that some of us will have boundaries there. Some of us have been told our whole lives that we’re the wrong kind of woman and not enough man, so naturally some of us are sensitive to any kind of comparison there.

One of the things I love most about femmes is the care and intention they put into the effort to channel desire directly from butches. This looks different and comes off as mildly inauthentic when it’s done in part for the male gaze as well. This isn’t to say there aren’t folks that attract both butches and men, but it’s a different approach.

I love this question and your desire to know more- I hope my honesty isn’t offensive.

[mamamittens]

You know, June is a really strange time for me.

As part of pride month, it kinda makes me reflect on my own very weird journey about my own sexuality and identity. Even now, I'm not entirely sure I have it all figured out. I just kinda ended up sliding in pieces that make the most sense.

Pieces I didn't even pick up until way later than most of my peers, though I know it's not nearly as late as many others.

I literally didn't even consider my sexuality until college as part of a preparation for possibly talking to a guy about if I was interested like I suspected he was. He was and I very much was not. Literally didn't occur to me that it was odd I'd never initiated romance or had crushes before that point. I mean, I had one. In kindergarten with my then best friend because I thought he was cute and funny.

I still remember him fondly but we didn't talk after first grade lol, so that didn't go anywhere.

Then there was the introspection and research as I realized my experience wasn't normal but also was? Like, demi sexuality isn't the norm by any means, but it's hardly crazy. Some part of me was always this way, just compounded by my asocial nature in such a way it literally never came up until one dude on the verge of taking the red pill tried smoozing me for two whole months.

And I didn't realize until near the end of that time. I just liked talking to someone new. It was nice.

Bullet dodged, he was convicted with DV charges a few years after, yikes.

Then again, summer tends to be when I do the most introspection.

Had an ongoing panic attack for June and July a few years back, which was... Something.

Realized I was very likely autistic about two years ago now, like, RAD-S score of 163 kinda likely lmao (thanks for not telling me you opted to not get me tested, mom, I appreciate the sentiment but damn would I have approached certain things differently if I knew from the start my baseline wasn't the norm).

I've come a long way from the little girl on the swings who liked the boy she considered her best friend for maybe a month. The very lost but well intentioned young college student baffled by the void of interest compared to her peers. Someone more comfortable associating with an alien avatar cause my body didn't feel right in a way I couldn't explain. It's mine, I've grown in it for so long, but I hated so much of it. It took so long to appreciate what I have. To really look in the mirror and think "that's me. It's me. Despite everything... It's still me".

I'm still not sure how much I identify with feminine aspects. I feel "female" simply because that's what I've got. And I do think I'd be a bit thrown if I suddenly was physically male (dicks sound like more trouble than they're worth, honestly). I don't think I'd hate it beyond inconveniences though.

It's just so... Casual for me? Not serious? Apathetic. If you called me sir irl I'd laugh cause it's hard to not notice my tits, but I wouldn't be offended.

As for sexuality... I like the idea of romance. Of a partner. But I've never hung my hat on an ideal partner, really. Partly because for the longest time I could never imagine anyone wanting me like that. Why would they? I'm not hideous but I'm hardly worth the trouble in any aspect. Better fish out there and all that.

Just a weird little alien looking at the stars.

But I'm working on that.

Still tooling the words to describe what it's like being "me".

It's not been smooth, this journey. I've felt silly, and stupid, and unwanted. I've hated my reflection and the numbers on a scale. Wondered what I was missing that others had and let them experience all these crucial steps to growing up.

Sometimes I still do.

But I've begun to settle in my skin like I never could before. Even the ugly parts.

Pride months is a time to celebrate and reflect on the LGBTQ+

The people, the struggles, the victories.

I'm ill prepared to do an event at this time, but I hope that you all take a moment to appreciate how far into your own journeys you are. And I hope that you all find peace in your reflections and names and labels (should you use them, change them, or even come back to them after a time), no matter how different they are from the start.

The only one who can decide what you are, what kind of person you are, is yourself. You're the one who will have to wear and walk in those shoes.

And I hope you travel far in them, and see many beautiful, wonderful things.

"...It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul."

William Ernest Henley, "Invictus", 1888

[wirewitchviolet]

Remember folks, "political correctness" is just bigotry with extra steps.

Stuff that horrible bigots love to gripe about overlaps with stuff that doesn't exist anywhere in the world beyond the imaginations of those bigots almost completely, and I could give countless depressing examples of this, but right now the one I'd like to focus on is the concept of "political correctness."

See, a bigot would have you believe that their very real, not at all made up oppressors, passed this draconian law back around, I dunno, the early '90s sometime, that says there is a Correct term for everything, and that you can only refer to a given thing with that Correct term, or you will be sent to prison. Also the list of Correct terms is constantly being changed and updated and you really have to stay on your toes to make sure you're up to date, and isn't that a huge pain?

Everything about this is, of course, complete horseshit. Nobody is oppressing them, no such law was ever passed, and there is not, I can't stress this enough, even a loose socially enforced list of "the words you're supposed to use for things." I also don't believe there's anyone out there who actually believes any of this exists, but feel free to get into it with your racist uncle or whatever and start pulling on those threads about where the list is, who maintains it, and what law it is that you break if you don't stick to it.

That said, there absolutely IS a habit held by bigots trying to look respectable where every few years they change their whole vocabulary up, generally keeping all the code-switching in lockstep with each other, and huh, if they AREN'T actually being pressured to do that by outside forces, why DO they keep doing that? And the answer is simply that it confuses people who aren't paying enough attention. When you hear people using new, more scientific/specific/cumbersome sounding language to say something, you might think "oh hey, this is someone who's way better educated on this subject than I am, because I've never heard these terms, so I should pay attention." And no, you shouldn't, because it's the same exact baseless crap they were saying before, they're just substituting whatever word it was enough people realized they were explicitly using as a slur.

Usually, to sell the "enlightened" image, the new terms they pull out tend to be initially pulled out of some actual academic/progressive sort of context. Never with any sort of actual acknowledgement of how the term was being used in that specific instance of course, just, "hey, I saw someone say this, it's the new 'politically correct' term for what I'm talking about, that means you can't get mad. See, I touched home base!" And I could give so very many examples here, but since I'd rather not step on anyone's toes, let me just stick to one I'm pretty sure people have moved away from more or less completely, then a couple recent trans things.

So, there was this period where people were constantly talking about "African-Americans." The original idea someone presumably had was that it was weird how we talk about people being "black" when for anyone else we tend to talk about in terms of the country they're from, maybe also the country most of their ancestors are from. Like you'd maybe call someone French, or French-Canadian, and wouldn't ever try to zero-in on some visible trait by which to identify people with roots in France. And like, sure, that's not a bad basis to start off a conversation about self-reflection and so on. And of course I'd like to hope the first time someone busted this out someone immediately chimed in with how Africa isn't a country and that really should have been something more specific.

But the context where the term first came up really doesn't matter. What does matter is some bigot caught it, and went "aha! There's something I can say to make it less obvious I'm a racist!" and just kinda did a quick find/replace on all their propaganda. Suddenly talking about how "65,000% of all violent crime is committed by African-Americans!" or how they took a vacation in, I dunno, Australia and "wow that whole country has just been completely taken over by African-Americans!" or whatever other racist gibberish they want to shout.

And of course this strategy DOES tend to work well enough to consistently get big swaths of the broader population on board and all pleased with themselves for keeping on top of things and being sure to use "more accurate" terms even when that leads to, you know, referring to the original inhabitants of Australia with a hyphenated term composed of the name of two countries they've never lived in nor can they trace their ancestry back to. And that in particular (along with being just too long, and completely failing to address the whole problem that caused the term to come about in the first place) is why these days you only ever see people saying "African-American" if they're particularly old and out of touch, or if they're just kinda openly being a racist scumbag and saying it with a sneer.

Here's another example. Earlier today, I saw someone who I know meant well talking about gender reveal parties and saying we should really call them "sex reveal parties," and I had to sit down and explain how no, that wouldn't help anything, and also it totally plays into TERF propaganda.

See, if you're talking about a person/animal/plant/whatever being, for example, male, you can either say "the sex of this here goat is male" or "the gender of this goat is male." These are synonymous terms, in this context. Use them totally interchangeably. The only time there's a distinction between the two is that we also use "sex" as a term for the act of banging/boning/gettin' down/getting laid/etc. etc. and you simply wouldn't ever say "see that woman in the red dress there? That's Sandra, we had gender last Saturday" and "gender" gets used to explain why like if you're speaking French and you're pointing out a particular chair you end up going "that's her." The whole language just kinda arbitrarily uses masc and femme terms for literally all nouns because neutral ones don't exist, but like you're not gonna cover a kid's eyes when someone stacks a bunch of chairs up, so it'd be weird to say the sex of those chairs is female.

But anyway somewhere over the years bigots got it through their heads that they kinda lost the fight on shouting about the pure sacred inflexible nature of gender and how impossible it is that someone might make inaccurate assumptions about it and so a lot of them just noticed this alternate term and started going "ah OK! It's sex then! Sex is the thing that's all holy and ordained by god and must never be questioned! Gender is this totally fake thing people made up to pretend otherwise!" Again, this is just complete horseshit. Sometimes they'll try and get clever and pretend they aren't just synonymous terms by shouting about genitals but like, no, I can say the sex of this tree outside that blasts me with pollen every spring is male, and I am fairly certain the tree in question does not in fact have a penis, thanks.

Others of course try to stay more current with things. They read someone talking about trans people being "assigned male/female at birth" in like, some academic context where someone was trying to explain how nonbinary people don't have one size fits all medical transtion needs or whatever and went "mwahaha! People know I'm a bigot when I point at women who happen to be trans and shout 'men' but I bet I can say this event I'm holding is for 'AFABs only' and people will think I'm enlightened!" Tumblr is full of them!

Anyway, point is there are not in fact any sort of magical words that make it OK to say bigoted garbage. Also there's no word police. Also I kinda got sidetracked but gender reveal parties suck because basically this one woman ended up getting an article written about the party she threw a few years ago when after a whole bunch of miscarriages she got a pregnancy far enough along to have visible gonads on an ultrasound, and a bunch of terrible people didn't really read past the headline and got this immediate weird competitive "keeping up with the Jonses" bug up their butts and prompted started having this weird competition to outdue this random woman's party through ever-escalating pyrotechnics displays, and those keep starting wildfires and seriously injuring people.

There's kind of a secondary concern too where they're on the ever-growing list of weird things parents do to really try and push their children into whatever boxes they want them in before they can get a word in edgewise, like how people don't let their daughters touch any toy that isn't explicitly a fashion doll, or would rather gouge their sons' eyes out than let them even behold the color pink. And, I dunno, I feel like part of the reason people are so gung-ho about the whole gender reveal thing is that they are in fact, very aware they are taking up arms in culture war there and they're pretty convinced they're somehow sticking it to trans people in doing so. But, eh, it's really more just generally being a weird creepy control freak treating children like property? There's a whole list of reasons you maybe don't want to do that before we get to the slim chance that it turns out your kid is trans, frankly.

[ticktockmyclockworkhart]

I'm perhaps one of the most easy to please Pokemon fans ever. I wouldn't identify myself as a nintendo fanboy or anything even though I love a lot of their IPs (largely because the number one prerequisite to being a "nintendo fanboy" is hating Nintendo more than anything on earth it seems), but I will be the first to admit my standards are much lower than they should be. I eat up everything Pokemon related like the blindly eager little consumer I am, I've beaten every main series game and damn near every spin-off.

All this to say I think it says something when even I haven't beaten BDSP yet, and not for lack of trying. But the game bored me to tears. I've reset my saves on that game more than any other I have in the hopes that "well, maybe the next file I'll be more attached to". I can eat my way through new Pokemon games when they first come out in a few days and never put them down, but whenever I'd put BDSP down I'd have to reset my file again when I picked it back up because I no longer cared about whatever I had going on.

I've been grappling with this for a long time, trying to figure out what it is about this remake that makes it the one Pokemon game someone as easy to please as me couldn't care enough to finish. I'll be fully honest when I say I'll happily take whatever table scraps Game Freak cares to toss me and I'm not proud of that fact lol. I love Gen 4, it's one of my favorite Gens, and I actually like the BDSP artstyle too, I think it's a fun way to keep the spirit of the original games, though it really would have been cool to see Sinnoh at full scale and free to explore in 3D.

But today after another attempted replay I think I figured it out. It's the dumb. Fucking. Experience Share.

Pokemon is a turn based RPG, battling is literally the main gameplay loop and I found that I kept putting the game down because I would get so incredibly bored by the battles. None of them felt necessary and all of them felt way too damn easy. Pokemon Scarlet/Violet had this problem too, I noticed, but what got me to finish those games was I'd never experienced the story before and I wanted to see it finished. But with BDSP I know the story, so why should I finish it if the battles are such a drag? In the original Gen 4 I'd make a point of battling every trainer on every route. I'm very meticulous about my leveling and my Pokemon all need to be within one level of each other, lol. So my incentive for fighting every trainer was to keep my team at a high enough level and also to keep my levels rounded out. But with that EXP share they're always rounded, or god forbid they have different growth rates and I have to keep putting Pokemon away to prevent overleveling which just bothers my OCD more than anything lmao.

It also makes me care so much less about my Pokemon. I cared about my team because I took time to individually raise and train each Pokemon, and if I don't care about my Pokemon then frankly I barely care about the game. In Scarlet/Violet where trainer battles have become entirely optional for the most part I barely did any of them! And in BDSP all I am is annoyed by the trainer battles. There's next to no new content to keep the game interesting and give me a reason to keep playing, and when the main gameplay loop isn't even fun anymore, why would I play at all?

I was worriedly thinking that maybe I'm just getting old and it's hampering my enjoyment of the games (Terrifying thought) but I have just as much fun with ROM hacks that I did with older games. Most notably, there's no broken EXP share. Can't we at least get the option to turn it off? I get trying to find a solution to make grinding less of a miserable drag, because grinding is always the worst part of playing Pokemon, but the broken exp share hasn't made grinding less tedious, it's just made battling as a whole feel hollow and boring.

I still want to beat you some day, BDSP, I really do. Nothing makes me feel sadder than being bored by a franchise I love and I know can do better.

[distorted-illusions]

Hi, I don't know what it means to be ‘otherkin’ or ‘alterhuman’, or an “IRL” or “DA” really. I don't understand and I want help and to find people I can talk to and relate to what I'm going through. I have tried to do research on all of these, but I still don’t feel like I understand, and what I do understand doesn’t completely feel like me. So I was hoping if you saw this, you could read my experience and give me advice.

I have maybe like four ‘others’. Others being ways I view myself, or find myself viewing/identifying as. 

I just feel so disconnected from the real world. I really struggle to feel real. Sometimes that means dulled to no emotions. And then because I don’t feel real, I'm impulsive cause I don't think of the consequences of my actions.

I sometimes confuse dreams with reality. It is a problem I have a lot. Dreams of my mother abusing me which didn’t actually happen, but affect my feelings towards her in the real world and cause me distress.. Sometimes I dream of a regular day in life, with maybe a few signs it’s a dream, but I think it’s real, and then have to be devastated when I figure out it’s a dream or wake up. Sometimes I get stuck in a loop of me trying to will myself to wake up from a  dream, and it will seem like I’ve succeeded, only for me to wake up again and again to it still being a dream.

I just feel really disconnected from life. All the time I'll just suddenly "pop" or blink and be like "oh wait yeah this is real... Do I feel real? How do I feel right now? Is this how a normal person feels? It feels so weird."

I almost 100% think I used to experience a lot more dissociation, derealization, and depersonalization, clearly from like a year ago when I was in public school, but now it feels less. Like I certainly feel disconnected, but I have had way worse. And maybe I’ve gotten more used to it that it just became a new normal. 

I'd say the best way to put it, is that I feel like I have past lives. I feel like I've been abused and tortured and all this stuff has happened to me, but that's not real life and that didn't happen. Do I have perfect memories of these past lives or whatever, no. My dad just says I'm extremely empathetic to people who have experienced things, but if thats so, then why does it feel like it hurts me so much.

For all my “episodes” of feeling like an “other” I feel inhuman, unreal, and out of place in the world. I feel I struggle to be human. I struggle to be the girl I’m supposed to be, because suddenly I’m not her, and I don’t know her, I don’t know what she would do.  I have her memories but they don’t feel like mine.  I feel like a ghost watching. I'm an NPC that's not been programmed. I'm here and awake when I'm not supposed to be.

My main/recurring ‘others’

- 1. The angel. My episodes include me feeling/believing that I am some fallen imprisoned angel that was given a job to become host of this body. I sometimes feel like I'm supposed to have wings, but that part isn't always constant. I feel like I’m supposed to ‘carry the burdens’ of the original host’s life. 

- 2. The doll. Similar to the angel, I am a doll that was chosen to become host of the body. I am a doll who is supposed to follow orders and bring joy. This one used to be much more prominent as I was a child.

- 3. The creature. This one is sort of a general descriptor for feeling inhumane. My head feels off a lot, like I'm supposed to have like anime girl cat ears, but there are none and so I feel off. I feel off in the family and more like an object or pet. Mainly object.

- 4. Weirdest one, please don’t laugh or call me cringe, but C!Tommy. It's not like the others where I feel like I've been given the mission to be host and protect. It's like I feel like I am c!Tommy sometimes. Like I can remember parts of exile and being hurt and tortured. Like my life as me was never real and that I am c!Tommy and was him in another life. I know I'm not him, but I also feel like I am. When I feel like I am c!Tommy, I like he/him pronouns. Which usually for me I feel more nonbinary-woman aligned. I know I’m not a boy/man, but part of me feels like I am. It’s like there are two me’s, one that is the actual me(host?) and one that believes she is c!Tommy (The delusion)

And I think one of the worst parts of all of these, is feeling like I have or that I have a strong connection to being abused. And like I just can't remember it. Remember all the details. But reading about stuff, it all just hits a little too close to home. I don't feel like I'm just being empathetic.

So yeah I just get into states where I don’t feel real. And sometimes during that state, I feel like I am an ‘other’. Not even sometimes, it is like always like this. It’s like “I don’t feel real right now….. What does real feel like? I am ____. I know I am not. But also I am.” These two me’s battling inside. One the believer (delusion) and me (The doubt/reality)

I don’t know how to put it, it’s like when ‘I don’t feel real’ I am waking up from a dream. The dream was whatever I was doing before I “woke up”. The experience I just went through doesn’t feel real. That doesn’t feel like real life. Now doesn’t feel real either, but at least I’m ‘awake’ and not ‘part of the matrix’. 

So yes I feel like. “Yes I am an angel. That is who I am” and then sometimes I go to’ sleep’ and feel like I’m a human. But when I “wake up” I am not human. I am usually an angel (most common ‘other’ feeling). I tell myself I am not an angel, I know it’s not true, but part of me believes I am an angel and I can’t stop believing it. 

And thats how it usually is. Usually there are the two of us. Me(delusion) and myself(reality), we’re fighting for dominance, and we feel so out of place in life. We want to go ‘back to sleep’ but even that doesn’t feel all that much better. When we’re ‘sleeping’ we still feel some level of unrealness/unreality, we’re just not acknowledging it or completely aware of it. 

Then, it’s only happened a few times, not many I can remember, when we’ll have a full episode. where me(delusion) takes over and we 100% feel like an ’other’. We don’t immediately panic like we don’t know where we are. Cause usually when this happens it is one of the other’s that believe they were tasked with becoming the new host, and so being here wouldn’t be so strange. But when it happened with c!tommy, I kinda just blinked my eyes, and was like “I am c!Tommy. What am I doing here?” and I(Tommy) was aware of a decent amount of information regarding the body, but I was Tommy. And I couldn’t stop thinking about exile enough to think about much more. just “Oh yeah I exist in this girl’s head, not really sure why, but I’m Tommy, and- Oh gosh exile was awful! I’m so happy I’m not in exile right now! And!-oh, but what about my friends…. But at least I’m not in exile!” and then when the episode ends, I(reality) wake back up and am like “what the fudge was that. That doesn’t feel like me. These memories don’t feel like mine. But that clearly just happened….”

And during some of these I don’t know how to describe them, call them, almost manic psychotic episodes, sometimes I also become obsessed with something like DID, and start thinking “Yes I must have DID. this must be what this is!” and then again, I’ll ‘wake up’ and be like. “No you don’t, silly.” or “what was I talking about? Of course I don’t have DID.” and again all my memories of when the episode was happening feel distant and not 100% mine. 

I just never feel real, and my memories always feel distant and like they don’t belong to me. And I can’t function or live my life! And I know I must be going through some sort of psychosis, I’m in the process of trying to get a doctor to talk to me, but I wanted to ask the internet. Do I fit ‘kins’ or IRL/DA ? I just want to meet some people that have an inch of understanding of what I’m going through. 

I don’t understand what it means to have a spiritual connection to something. I feel like I relate to something, and I feel like I am it, but I know I’m not. Yes I use the “past life” card to try to explain it, but I don’t actually believe in past lives, and Tommyiinnit definitely wasn’t one of them. And I also don't believe there is a parallel universe where the dsmp was real.

Thank you for any help or advice you can offer. And I'm sorry if anything I've said has upset you. Sincerely. 

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

tags for asexuality, transphobia,

this is more of a question really but I've been questioning my sexuality as of late and have asked myself questions like "am I actually attracted to women or am I just more comfortable with them than I am men?" "Am I asexual or cupioromantic?" And one thing I've kind of thought is while I know for a fact I'd probably never date a man, I've kind of fantasized about being in relationships with women or trans men. But I feel like my interest towards trans men or people that are trans masc may be a form of transphobia because, when I think about why it is I'm more comfortable with them it's because they had a woman's heart and on some level also have a better understanding of women than the average man. I'm not sure if it is but isn't this in some way a form of transphobia because I'm still thinking of them as having "a woman's heart" ? Trans men are men, I have 0 doubts about that but is the way I'm thinking about this all wrong? If a friend of mine who was born a girl and has been a girl when I knew them, decides to transition to male, then they are male 100%.

I've never really been attracted to anyone, sure I find women pretty, sometimes men are handsome, but I've never felt the urge to actually date? I think I'd be more comfortable in a queer platonic relationship but at the same time I want to experience a "first time" and to have maybe half way nude intimacy? Dating is just so difficult because I never really feel intimate connections with anyone; I want to be desired and wanted but I don't always or ever want to be sexual.

Hi anon,

Perhaps it's less that you see trans men as women, but rather that you feel more comfortable knowing that they understand what it's like to be a woman on some level, which is a perspective that a significant portion of men lack, contributing to the divide. Either way, it's good to have this kind of self-awareness and it may be useful to continue to explore this with yourself and see what else comes up for you.

It's okay to not want a romantic or sexual relationship with anyone. It can be hard to identify what it means to be attracted to someone as that can be defined differently. I wish you the best of luck in discovering yourself, your interests, and perhaps a fitting name or label to describe your experiences.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to respectfully add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help, and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun