#not using chronically online as an insult here but I'm not online enough to be involved in this conversation genuinely

[bayetea]

Are you proship or antiship?

well. is it okay if I don't care 💀 I don't know what these are and I am committed to not googling it

[the-sour-patch-crew]

"Don't you have a life?"

"Get a hobby"

"You are chronically online go touch grass"

These are pretty common insults people toss at eachother. Everyone has a life, and most have hobbies. Some people have spectacular lives, while some have the kind you run from. Some people have tons of hobbies, and some may not be able to keep one. Some people DO go outside and have active lives. Some people CAN'T go outside at all.

Some people are online because they need a constant stream of dopamine. Instant gratification from clearing notifications, making post, and even arguing. Some people are here to escape a worse reality. Some people are here because of insomnia, OCD, self-harm habits, ADHD, autism, hyperfixation...

There are SO many reasons why people are here, posting on Tumblr. Engaging with communities. Engaging in discourse.

Like right now, I'm here because of insomnia and chronic headaches. I'm here because I cannot sleep and the easiest relief I can find is to post here. Something that is distracting just enough to feel productive, helps with my exhaustion, but is also not putting too much strain on myself.

I'm an adult. The person reading this may be a teen or a young adult. You know what we all are though? Human. (To the alterhumans reading this, please understand my word choice here and you are welcome to substitute it.) We are all living beings suffering through the same things life throws at us. We don't suddenly stop behaviors because we hit a certain age. We aren't suddenly cured of ailments we had when younger. We aren't always going to "act our age" because sometimes we all just get a little bit hangry, or a little bit painful, or a little bit over exhausted and we return to base emotions. Because that's what people are. We are meat suits fueled by emotions who constantly have the check engine light on for something or another.

But we are also capable of recognizing when we go too far. We can recognize when we need to apologize. When we let ourselves get carried away through our online interactions. When we let our emotions get the better of us. When being online is doing more harm than good. We can recognize when we forget the person on the other side of the screen is a person just like us.

No, I'm not perfect. Neither are you. Yes, I'm here online, interacting on Tumblr, engaging in syscourse. But so are you. So, aren't we really all just stuck projecting our own disappointment in ourselves onto eachother? Is insulting someone about not having a life a mirrored feeling about ourselves, who are also online in that moment?

[itmeblog]

Debate thoughts. I'm doing it for me. I have until the hour is up before I have to get back to work. I stop where I stop.

I'm gonna start where I never thought to start before: What's the point of a debate? Who is it for? What is it for?

A debate, this debate, in particular tends to be for undecided voters. If you've been paying attention to what's been going on nothing any of the candidates said... almost nothing the candidates said on 9.10 was any sort of surprise. For many undecided voters this is the first time they've been introduced to Harris and her policies.

Her goal (which she was nice enough to tell us): Introduce herself and her policies, provide an overview of her vision, goad Trump.

Trump's goal: To embarrass Harris, and connect her with Biden's presidency, uhhh something something (the man doesn't really plan)

Connecting Harris with Biden isn't a bad idea, in concept. Biden's ratings are relatively low, he's been painted as incompetent and the Afghanistan pull out is a heavy chain (I will point out that what happened in Afghanistan is as much Trump's fault as it is Biden's, Trump struck the deal and decreased the troops and gave the pull out date, Biden got a bad hand and decided he'd prefer to write apologies overseas than sacrifice the lives he was charged with. I'm going to refrain from assigning a morality to events that occurred.) The raised princes the troubled economy, the housing crisis are similarly connected to Trump's policies but were not felt until Biden was in office.) Connecting Harris to that, to the feeling of things, might have eaten a bit at her lead.

However, one must be able to articulate such ideas for them to work. Shouting "She is Biden" without context will likely only serve to baffle viewers. Particularly if they have already been trained to question what you've been saying.

Trump's problems start early. There is no plan.

The plan is, effectively, Project 2025 (including fun things like defunding the Dept of Education, and NOAA [weather authority] and banning porn, and proposing a national abortion ban. It's wildly unpopular) but it's not his plan, and he can't claim it. He must distance himself from it because Project 2025 is so unpopular he's been losing voters.

But there's literally nothing to replace it. Trump talks a big game (when he's coherent) but he has very little to back it up. In short, he's a con man. He takes any shape he thinks will benefit him. So he cannot answer a question by focusing on policy because there is no policy. He has two moves, denigrate Harris and point out the flaws with Biden's presidency (Which, once again, needs him to successfully chain Harris to it in order for people to care)

His second big problem: He's too online

Yes, yes, I know we always talk about how being chronically online frays the mind and gives you brain worms. Tumblr is actually an amazing example because there's a number of in jokes here that simply don't translate well to real world conversation. But I'm betting most of us here know our audiences well enough to recognize what will hold and what will not, and even if a faux pas occurs, will likely know how to eke out a fix.

Trump does not. He isn't thinking about undecided voters because he caters to his base, the already initiated. Those who follow him on Truth Social! If you listen to the debate, and you, like myself, are uninitiated to deep right wing circles there will be times when you have no idea what the man is talking about. He uses slang J6 (january 6th) and name drops people who have bigger swing in heavily right wing circles Viktor Orban (who I had to google, he is a Hungarian Leader who has been flattering and possibly insulting Trump in equal amount). He nearly lists all the Fox news reporters who I only vaguely recognize. A lot of things he says are thus somewhat indecipherable even when he does have a point.

The illegal immigrants being subjected to forced transitioning in jail on American Tax payer dollars (or whatever the fuck he said) has a real point (for transphobes) in that Kamala indicated in 2019 that she would not be averse to letting those who were already getting government provided healthcare have access to gender affirming care in prison. But he says it so nonsensically that it comes out as more conspiracy theories.

And then there's Kamala who is goading him. And I can tell you with reasonable certainty that being controlled by a woman is an emasculating experience for men like Trump. And it starts at the goddamn handshake.

And Harris is fucking clever about it (though I don't think she imagined it'd work quite this well) but on questions where Trump did have a leg to stand on , the increased border crossing during the Biden Admin and her failure to stem the flow of immigrants would make a decent talking point for more conservative voters. Which is why she chooses that moment to not only discredit him but also bring up his crowd size.

And goddamn if he doesn't fucking go off.

DAVID MUIR: Vice President Harris, thank you. President Trump, on that point I want to get your response. FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I would like to respond. DAVID MUIR: Let me just ask, though, why did you try to kill that bill and successfully so? That would have put thousands of additional agents and officers on the border. FORMER PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: First let me respond as to the rallies. She said people start leaving. People don't go to her rallies. There's no reason to go. And the people that do go, she's busing them in and paying them to be there. And then showing them in a different light. So, she can't talk about that. People don't leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. That's because people want to take their country back. Our country is being lost.

And he just can't regain control he goes further and further off the rails and dips into the QAnon bullshit which isn't appealing to people uninitiated to his particular... brand

We're a failing nation. And it happened three and a half years ago. And what, what's going on here, you're going to end up in World War 3, just to go into another subject. What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country. And look at what's happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don't want to talk -- not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don't want to talk about it because they're so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they're eating the dogs. The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating -- they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country. And it's a shame. As far as rallies are concerned, as far -- the reason they go is they like what I say. They want to bring our country back. They want to make America great again. It's a very simple phrase. Make America great again. She's destroying this country. And if she becomes president, this country doesn't have a chance of success. Not only success. We'll end up being Venezuela on steroids.

...this is as far as I got.

[what-if-nct]

hey mate. people has been harassing my friend michael over an altercation between them that happened due to him trying to explain to someone about their tone in text. they were arguing about people putting recovery tags in fanfictions, but when someone came with a different opinion to them (even if they agreed), they would just insult and harass them with their interests before silencing them by deleting their comment or reblog.

despite my friend literally agreeing with them but speaking in perspectives such as explaining that this person may be new to tumblr and may not know that they didn’t need to maximise their tags, this was enough to rile them up to the point where he was getting harassed in dms and he came to us fed up with this app.

i really feel for the guy and i hope he’s doing well. those people are immature af. i find it embarrassing that this was someone in their 20s and me, a 17 year old, is much more mature than them. probably because they’re so chronically online that they basically have no life outside of the internet. i’m even in belief that i know people who are my age and has ptsd and yet they’re much more mature than that particular person.

this is why i don’t like talking to people like that. this was even the reason why i was very hesitant to talk to you because i thought you could be one of those people, but no. you’re quite open minded and i need to be around more people like that so i could always have faith in humanity once more. you can suggest some blogs to follow too so i could find more people like you! it would make me so happy that i would know who to follow so i don’t have to worry about going through this myself.

uhhhh my friend michael has been harassed by a stranger in this app and now he's really angry. i feel so bad for him, but i don't know what to do.

I'm sure you're two completely different people but I'll respond to both since its the same situation.

It's terrible that they're being treated like that and there is no reason for the person harassing your friend to be acting like that. It is not hard to just see something you don't like and just ignore it. There is no reason for an adult to act like that. And really the best thing to do is block them, you can block anonymous asks if they're anonymous. It's just one mean person who has nothing else better to do and maybe if it's really bad have a friend filter things and manage the blog till it dies down so he doesn't have deal with it first hand.

And I have friends here who I talk to even outside of Tumblr, I actually made one of my bestest friends on Tumblr like five years ago and we're all on the same wavelength and are chill. But I'm not sure if they want their urls shared. But if anyone is open and nice and wanting to make new friends just reply to this ask so you can make friends without fear of judgement.

[lastoneout]

Im not even going to ask about a wheelchair exactly cuz I'm too used to that kinda being a conversation ender, what I'm planning to do is phrase it like I'm dealing with a lot of mobility issues that are clearly related to my hEDS, and my current aids and physical therapy set up is clearly not enough, so I was hoping that she, as someone who is intimately familiar with EDS, could give me her opinion on my situation and perhaps suggest where we should go from here.

Cuz currently my set up is:

- Going to physical therapy for 10-12 appointments once or twice a year and trying to keep up with the exercises as best I can inbetween those appointments. This has helped as I do enjoy exercise, but no matter how much physical therapy I do I can only ever seem to extend my tollerable(not painless) standing time by half an hour or so tops.

-I have two aluminum knee braces, one that helps with standing but makes sitting WAY worse and one that I can't use because we have tried everything possible to adjust it and it still just hurts to wear. They help a little with the pain and extend my standing time by a bit, but mostly just stop me from doing further damage to my knee joints. Additionally I have to wear them over my skin or yoga pants, so they're only really viable in the summer.

- A rollator that I only use if I'm going to be leaving the house for a long time, like traveling or running 4+ errands in a day. This mostly helps me avoid standing still too much, and a little with the pain if I lean on it when I'm walking, but tbh it's not enough to actually make doing the things I want to do accessible. A day out with several errands where I need to walk a lot, even if I have my knee brace, will have me unable to walk by the end of the day, and I'll usually have to spend a few days recovering at the very least.

- Nortriptyline, which isn't actually intended as a pain medication but it does help my chronic pain, though I can't use a high enough dose to make a huge dent in it, as I have bipolar disorder and my body does not like meds that mess with my serotonin too much.

That's it. I'm just supposed to live like this. I can't go to school because I'd have to walk a lot and sit in uncomfortable chairs for extended periods of time, which means I'd probably be able to do one class a week before spending the rest of the week in bed. (I cannot do online school, I have ADHD and I know from past attempts at remote learning I would never get anything done.) I also cannot work, and I cannot spend long days out doing the things I want to do. No trips to the park to take a walk, no days out at an event with my family, no more than 2-3 short errands a day so I can't like go shopping for things I need efficiently, I basically cannot live my life.

I also have fibromyalgia and POTs so I get pretty exhausted fast and a lot of my pain is just...untreatable and far worse than it would be for someone without fibro, and I also get fibro crashes if I push myself too far, which is funny because my current rhumatologist insists I just need to push myself to regain my mobility.

Pushing myself got me in this situation in the first place, everything I have ever given up because of my disability has claw marks in it, hiking, school, my job, going on walks, spending days out with my family, museum visits and street and book fairs and farmer's markets and everything fun I've ever loved doing that involves a lot of standing and walking. I never stopped doing any of it out of laziness, I kept doing it PAST when I should have because I didn't want to give up the stuff that made me happy. My independence and self-sufficiency are VERY important to me, I used to go on long walks whenever I wanted to, now I can't even go to the park with my fiance for a short walk because if I do I won't be able to do anything else that day.

That's why I find it so fucking insulting when doctors imply that if I had a wheelchair I'd just give up walking forever and let my mobility atrophy, I will never use that thing if I don't need it, and again nothing I ever gave up was out of apathy or laziness, I was forced to stop lest I fucking kill myself doing it. I love exercise, I want to get an under-the desk bike for my house as well as some arm weights and I will have to force myself to only use them for a safe amount of time, left to my own devices I'd be using the peddles all day.

And like the only message I seem to get from my doctors is 1) you will never reach a point where you are no longer in pain, this is impossible, damage has been done to your body that cannot be undone, there is no cure, just ways to slow the damage and sort of help lessen the pain, and 2) If I get a wheelchair my legs will atrophy and my mobility will suffer until I can never walk again. They just repeat these two things whenever I say "I cannot go to school or spend time with my family or do fun things or get a job because of my pain, how do I get to a point where I can do these things if that's even possible? This is my priority, so if it answer is PT I'll keep trying, but you don't tell me what level of recovery is possible or HOW to achieve the things I want to do with my life, you won't even acknowledge them. I know I will always be in pain, I accepted this a long time ago, and I do not see disability as shameful. I know I need to work to maintain my muscles, I am willing to do that work, but I just want to know if and when I'll be able to stop staying home all the time while my life goes by without me."

All I get is "You're going to be in pain forever, there's no cure, and a wheelchair will make your life worse" and idk how else to interpret that other than "we don't care if you can do things that make you happy or not, being disabled means you should spend 100% of your time trying to get better even though we keep telling you that you can't get better, so go home now, see you next year".

I really, really hope my new doctor will help, since she called me out when I played down my hEDS as not as serious as the other kinds, and also told me she has her opinions about what needs doing but she always makes sure to pay close attention to what the patient wants and trust their instincts because we know what living in our body is like better than she ever will, and like...no doctor has ever been that cool about things before, so I really hope even if she doesn't give me a wheelchair she'll at least give me a straight answer on "should I give up on school and spending time with my family and doing fun things or is there SOME path to regaining my ability to do that" and also believe me when I tell her I'm not a lazy idiot, I love exercise, I used to hike all the time and go on long ass walks, I will do whatever needs doing to maintain my mobility and keep going to PT and using my knee braces and only pulling out the chair when I need it, I just want to be able to live my life again.

Because idk how much more time I can spend dealing with doctors who won't even answer me when I ask them why they seem to think my goals and desires are not worth considering.

My new (possibly temporary) primary care doctor used to work at a specialty EDS clinic and seems to really know her stuff and I have an appointment with her next week so I can once again preparing the Wheelchair Argument, wish me luck.

[thebibliosphere]

So I'm currently unemployed because I got fired for taking too much sick leave (it was legally sketchy blah blah blah but in the end I just can't work and take care of myself and investigate my mystery health problems at the same time). So I've been spending more time writing!

I really admire your writing and loved Hunger Pangs. I'm looking forward to the poly elements developing and I'm wondering if you have any advice for writing about poly. I've made one of my projects a snarky take on "write what you know" ... Apparently what I know is southern gothic meets Pacific northwest gothic, chronic illness pandemic surrealism, and falling back-asswards into threesomes.

I know this is a very open-ended question and I don't expect an answer, I'm just curious about it if you have the energy. As a writer, trying to write honestly / realistically about polyamory/enm, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on what's different about portraying monogamy or nonmonogamy in books, romance or erotica or otherwise.

I'm trying to read examples but it's hard to find examples that fit the niche I'm looking at. Excuse me if this question is nonsense, it's the cluster headaches.

I'm sorry to hear you've been dealing with all that and solidarity on the cluster headaches. But I'm glad you're finding an outlet through writing! And I hope you're happy with an open-ended ramble in response because oh boy, there's a lot I could talk about and I could probably do a better job of answering this sort of thing with more specific questions, but let's see where we end up.

There's definitely a big difference between writing polyamory/ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and what people often expect from monogamous love stories.

Just even from a purely sales and marketing standpoint, the moment you write anything polyamorous (or even just straight up LGBTQIA+ without the ENM) you're going to get considered closer to being erotica/obscene than hetero romances. It's an unfair bias, but it's one that exists in our society. But also the Amazon algorithm and their shitty, shitty human censors. Especially the ones that work the weekends. (Talking to you, Carlos 🖕.)

So not only do you start out hyper-aware that you're writing something that is highly stigmatized or fetishized (at least I'm hyper-aware) but that you are also writing for a niche market that is starving for positive content because the content that exists is either limited, not what they want, or is problematic in some fashion i.e. highly stigmatized or fetishy. And even then, the wants, desires, and expectations of the community you're writing for are complex and wildly varied and hard to fit into an easy formula.

When writing monogamous love stories, there is a set expectation that’s really hard to fuck up once you know it. X person meets Y. Attraction happens, followed by some sort of minor conflict/resolution. Other plot may happen. A greater catalyst involving personal growth for both parties (hopefully) happens. Follow the equation to its ultimate resolution and achieve Happily Ever After. 

But writing ENM is... a lot more difficult, if only because of the pure scope of possibilities. You could try to follow the same equation and shove three (or more) people into it, but it rarely works well. Usually because if you’re doing it right, you won’t have enough room in a single character arc to allow for enough growth, and if ENM requires anything in abundance, it’s room to grow.

And this post is huge so I’m going to put the rest under a cut :)

There's also a common refrain in certain online polyam/ENM circles that triads and throuples are overrepresented in media and they may be right to some extent. Personally, I believe the issue isn't that triads and throuples are overrepresented, but that there is such minuscule positive rep of ethical non-monogamy in general, that the few tiny instances we have of triads in media make it seem like it's "everywhere" when in actuality, it's still quite rare and the media we do have often veers into Unicorn Hunter fetish porn. Which is its own problematic thing. And just to be clear, I’m not including this part to dissuade you from writing "falling back-asswards into threesomes." If anything, I need more of it and would hook it directly into my brain if I could. I'm just throwing it out there into the void in the hope that someone will take the thought and run with it, lol.

I’d love to see more polyfidelitous rep in fiction, just as much as I’d like to see more relationship anarchy too. More diversity in fiction is always good.

Another thing that differs in writing ENM romance vs conventional monogamy is the feeling like you need to justify yourself. There's a lot of pressure to be as healthy and non-problematic as possible because you are being held to a higher standard of criticism. Both from people from without the ENM communities, and from the people within. Granted, some people don't give a shit and just want to read some fantastic porn (valid) but there are those who will cheerfully read Fifty Shades of Bullshit and call it "spicy" and "romantic," then turn around and call the most tooth-rottingly-sweet-fluff about a queer platonic polycule heresy. That's just the way the world works.

(Pro-tip for author life in general: never read your own reviews; that way madness lies. I glimpsed one the other day that tagged Hunger Pangs as “ethical cheating” and just about had an aneurism.)

And while that feeling of needing to justify yourself comes from a valid place of being excluded from the table of socially accepted norms, it can also be to the detriment of both the story and the subject matter at hand. I've seen some authors bend so far over backward to avoid being problematic in their portrayal of ENM, they end up being problematic for entirely different reasons. Usually because they give such a skewed, rose-tinted perspective of how things work, it ends up coming off as well... a bit culty and obnoxious tbh.

“Look how enlightened we are, freed from the trappings of monogamy and jealousy! We’re all so honest and perfect and happy!”

Yeah, uhu, sure Jan. Except here’s the thing, not all jealousy is bad. How you act on it can be, but jealousy itself is an important tool in the junk drawer that is the range of human emotion. It can clue us in to when we’re feeling sad or neglected, which in turn means we should figure out why we’re feeling those things. Sometimes it’s because brains are just like that and anxiety is a thing. Other times it’s because our needs are actually being neglected and we are in an unhealthy situation we need to remedy. You gotta put the work in to figure it out. Which is the same as any style of relationship, whether it’s mono, polyam or whatever flavor of ENM you subscribe to* And sometimes you just gotta be messy, because that’s how humans are. Being afraid to show that mess makes it a dishonest portrayal, and it also robs you of some great cannon fodder for character development.

Which brings me in a roundabout way to my current pet peeve in how certain writers take monogamous ideals and apply them to ENM, sometimes without even realizing it. The “Find the Right Person and Settle Down” trope.

Often, in this case, ENM or polyamory is treated as a phase. Something you mature out of with age or until you meet “The One(tm).” This is, of course, an attempt to follow the mono style formula expected in most romances. And while it might appeal to many readers, it’s uh, actually quite insulting. 

To give an example, I am currently seeing this a lot in the Witcher fandom. 

Fanon Netflix!Jaskier is everyone's favorite ethical slut until he meets Geralt then woops, wouldn’t you know, he just needed to find The One(tm). Suddenly, all his other sexual and romantic exploits or attractions mean nothing to him. Let's watch as he throws away a core aspect of his personality in favor of a man. 

Yeah... that sure showed those societal norms... 

If I were being generous, I’d say it’s a poor attempt at showing New Relationship Euphoria and how wrapped up people can become in new relationships. But honestly, it’s monogamous bias eking its way in to validate how special and unique the relationship is. Because sometimes people really can’t think of any other way to show how important and valid a relationship is without defining it in terms of exclusivity. Which is a fundamental misunderstanding of how ENM works for a lot of people and invalidates a lot of loving, serious and long-term relationships.

This is not to say that some polyam/poly-leaning people can't be happy in monogamous relationships! I am! (I consider myself ambiamorous. I'm happy with either monogamy or polyamory, it really just depends on the relationship(s) I’m in.) But I also don't regard my relationship with a mono partner as "settling down" or "growing up." It's just a choice I made to be with a person I love, and it's a valid one. Just like choosing to never close yourself off to multiple relationships is valid. And I wish more people realized that, or rather, I wish the people writing these things knew that :P

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough. I hope this collection of incoherent thoughts actually makes some sense and might be useful. 

----

*A good resource book that doesn't pull any punches in this regard is Polysecure by Jessica Fern. It's a wonderfully insightful read that explores the messier side of consensual non-monogamy, especially with how it can be affected by trauma or inter-relationship conflicts. But it also shows how to take better steps toward healthy, ethical non-monogamy (a far better job than More Than Two**) and conflict resolution, making it a valuable resource both for someone who is a part of this relationship style***, but also for writers on the outside looking in who might have a very simple or misguided idea of what conflict within polyam/ENM relationships might look like, vs traditional monogamous ones.

** The author of More Than Two has been accused of multiple accounts of abuse within the polyamorous community, with many of his coauthors having spoken out about the gaslighting and emotional and psychological damage they experienced while in a relationship with him. A lot of their stories are documented here: https://www.itrippedonthepolystair.com/ (warning: it is not light material and deals with issues of abuse, gaslighting, and a whole other plethora of Yikes.) While some people still find More Than Two helpful reading, there are now, thankfully, much, much better resources out there.

*** Some people consider polyam/ENM to be part of their identity or orientation, while others view it as a relationship style.It largely depends on the individual. 

[wisebeth]

Honestly. I tried to be civil with you during this entire conversation despite your constant attempts to insult me. Calling me dumb, stupid, stubborn, brain-dead etc. It's evident you're not educated or mature enough to have a discussion without resorting to insults.

Annabeth's judoflip was meant to be slapstick comedy, and as demigods, they're used to it. They spar with each other on a daily basis for crying out loud. Why is your reading comprehension that slow? You're completely incapable of separating a fictional world from real life? If their actions don't hurt the demigods, it's not abuse. Periodt. I remember Percy and Leo both complained that one judoflip/punches from campers terribly traumatised them and how they felt like they were assaulted....oh wait. It never happened did it? They both laughed it off and acted like it was no big deal and there was no mention of it again. I wonder why hmmm.....almost like they are demigods with proper training.

No i js have a life. Js because you don't doesn't mean everyone else doesn't have one– completely hypocritical and ironic considering you picked up a fight with me for no apparent reason and now arguing left and right lmao.

I wouldn't bother arguing with you anymore, you're incapable of disagreeing without being a petty child and throwing insults here and there. Just take your own advice. Your opinions aren't facts either. Your emotional maturity is that of an early teenager, I'm not even mad. I understand, you're in that phase where fictional characters mean the world to you so you'd resort to passive aggression over civil discussion. I had that phase too when I was 15-16. We all grew up.

I'm not the one who's chronically online. I like arguments and discussing different opinions, but you, oh god, you are simply being a child at this point. I have no interest in arguing with you because of your immaturity.

it's actually so funny to me when antis are like “oh annabeth is so abusive bc she judoflipped percy” it really shows how they have no clue how a different universe with different morals and dynamics can work. don't get me wrong im not a huge fan of that scene either but it's not abuse when the one getting judoflipped is a trained demigod-soldier who fought a war and equally physically strong as the one judoflipping him. percy carried a goddess and held up the weight of the world at fourteen. you think a judoflipp can actually hurt him? lmao. it can't do him shit, rick knew it that's why he wrote annabeth to do so. annabeth knew it that's why she did it w/o worrying about hurting him. and the fact percy's immediate reaction was laughing just proves my point. it didn't hurt him. he was completely okay. he's written to be a demigod for fuck's sake, can you stop applying the standards of real world to their fictional world of trained soldiers.

“but if the roles were reversed you'd have an issue–” no i won't. for the exact same reason. if percy judoflipped annabeth instead, i would still be okay with it because like percy, annabeth has trained all her life, fought a war, held up the weight of the world at fourteen. they're EQUAL on terms of physical strength and trained enough to know how to judoflip without the intent of hurting the other person. the only difference is if percy judoflipped annabeth, instead of laughing, she would likely judoflip him back because that girl doesn't like losing lmao but that's about it.