#self defeating

[pratchettquotes]

And the trouble with Polly was that she had a mind that asked questions even when she really, really didn't want to know the answers.

Terry Pratchett, Monstrous Regiment

[360degreesasthecrowflies]

This is honestly why it blows my mind to see terfs standing ardently protesting female spaces being for feminine people of an observable and ‘obvious’ level of femininity only... while they themselves are women with short hair, little makeup, wearing trousers and heavy coats.

The lack of recognition that in being themselves they themselves are falling foul of the purity standard they are hoping to establish is to me very reminiscent of an anecdote within Susan Faludi’s seminal book examining challenges to feminism during the 60s through 90s, Backlash. In one chapter, Faludi details early opposition to women working outside the home, on the grounds that it defied the purpose of femininity, and identifies paradoxically that several (white, Christian-led) female community leaders themselves came to take this view as well as men. Well, in pursuit of opposing women working, these female community leaders became heads of charities and organizations dedicated to encouraging women to stay at home and not go out to work. Some wrote books, some travelled across the country and internationally, talking at conferences and interview panels, some became managers and leaders of groups in community spaces in their local area, all advocating for women to stay at home in order to be proper wives and mothers.

None of them seemed to realise the irony that in taking on this advocacy, in getting paid for writing and selling the books, in getting expenses for travel and needing to hire maids and housekeepers to care for their own children while their own purpose was taken up with this mission - they were themselves undercutting the entire principle, ending up spending a large portion of their time outside their own homes, doing what could only be classed as... work... to spread the gospel that women who worked outside the home were monsters, unfeminine, and should be essentially shunned.

it's always so fucking funny to me when terfs are like "how can you say trans women and women are the same thing! being born as a man makes you different!" because like. yes. trans women and cis women are different. so are black women and white women. and straight women and queer woman. and women from different countries and different socioeconomic statuses. there's diversity in the experience of womanhood? what a wild concept

[georgiasedify]

Overcoming self-defeating assumptions.

Overcoming self-defeating assumptions. Book a Session with Georgia's Edify! Please like, share, and subscribe thanks.

Overcoming self-defeating assumptions is crucial to personal growth and achieving your full potential. Here are some strategies to help you tackle these negative beliefs. Identify Triggers: Pay attention to situations or events that trigger your self-defeating thoughts. Understanding the root causes can help you address them more effectively. Challenge Irrational Beliefs: Once you identify…

[inkskinned]

i hate to say it because i'm neurodivergent and a chronic-pain-haver but like... sometimes stuff is going to be hard and that's okay.

it's okay if you don't understand something the first few times it's explained to you. it's okay if you have to google every word in a sentence. it's okay if you need to spend a few hours learning the context behind a complicated situation. it's okay if you need to read something, think about it, and then come back to re-read it.

i get it. giving up is easier, and we are all broken down and also broke as hell. nobody has the time, nobody has the fucking energy. that is how they win, though. that is why you feel this way. it is so much easier, and that is why you must resist the impetus to shut down. fight through the desire you've been taught to "tl;dr".

embrace when a book is confusing for you. accept not all media will be transparent and glittery and in the genre you love. question why you need everything to be lily-white and soft. i get it. i also sometimes choose the escapism, the fantasy-romance. there's no shame in that. but every day i still try to make myself think about something, to actually process and challenge myself. it is hard, often, because of my neurodivergence. but i fight that urge, because i think it's fucking important.

especially right now. the more they convince you not to think, the easier it will be to feed you misinformation. the more we accept a message without criticism, the more power they will have over that message. the more you choose convenience, the more they will make propaganda convenient to you.

[egophiliac]

we were fucking ROBBED

[just-roommate-rage]

Roommate C left their job in Mar 2020 due to fear of the lack of precautions their employer was taking.

Never applied for unemployment.

Never applied for disability or any other government support despite likely qualifying.

Routinely talked about all the things that would be possible if therapy, medication, and some other factors changed. Every suggestion of any angle to help with the challenges was shot down so fast that people got exhausted.

In 2021, the whole family (6 people) moved out to a place where several of those issues were mitigated. Restrictions were lifting, WFH was at a peak, home internet was reliable, but no job was forthcoming.

When govt disability was mentioned, we were told it would take too long to be helpful (about 3 months) and that everyone gets denied anyway.

In the start of 2022, we moved into a fully new space that offered a fix for many environmental issues. Job was still not secured. No application for disability or assistance was put in.

In late 2022, we suggested that the non-working members of the household needed to be pitching in significantly more or contributing financially due to changes in bills. We suggested disability for those physically or mentally unable to work.

We were told again that everyone gets declined for disability and that it wouldn't be fast enough to help with bills. Nevermind that you've been unemployed for 2.5 years and could have been working on getting the necessary paperwork ALL that time.

Once I asked them considering a part-time job outside the home and was told that they "wouldn't be a vector in bringing COVID into the home." When I said that I would be working retail again in a day if I got fired from my WFH position, they fled and didn't speak to me for weeks.

It's now mid-2023. Roommate C has still not held any job that paid more than $80 per month; is using roommates A and B to pay their portion of rent; does not or cannot leave their room more than 1-2 times per week; is allegedly crippled by anxiety, pain, or both. This is all after the allergen-free space, therapy, and medication that were all a dream when we met in 2019.

Last time I suggested disability and sent a link to the necessary applications, I was told that I'm too pushy and there are personal reasons for not applying. Also again, it would take too long to apply.

Keep in mind that I have a LOT of the same issues that Roommate C has but have found and kept jobs through the pandemic. I have also continued and increased the amount of effort I put into housekeeping, cleaning, yardwork, child care, house repair, etc.

Roommate C has been on a steady decline of contribution to any of those things for all of the years we have known each other.

[neuro-gal-thoughts]

Self Defeating Behavior

One of my self defeating behaviors is I get a flash of creative thought brilliance and right before I can write down what I think is going to be a great topic for me to write something distracts me. I even thought to write it down on a sticky note before I would forget but I didn't

Next thing you know, it's an hour later and I had to clear my cache to log into my AO3 account and I don't even remember why I was logging into my AO3 account.

And now this is today's topic of discussion.

[starry-crossed]

i really need to give minthara more credit she joins up in camp for all of 5 minutes and wastes no time apparently interrogating and psychoanalyzing all the companions to avernus and back with devastatingly accurate reads and clear (insightful yet surprisingly compassionate) judgement of all of them

except gale.

[quillsword]

Defeatism is Self Defeating

That title, boys and girls, is what we call a tautology. Basically, it is self evident and doesn’t progress an argument. You can safely forget ever hearing that definition unless you plan to do formal argumentation or are philosophy geek already commenting on how bad that definition of tautology is. Yeppers, that title is a tautology. It’s of course a true statement. But unlike a formal…

[somewhereincairparavel]

'i hate jason grace because he thought he was worthy enough to compete with percy' I'm sorry have y'all SEEN jason. this man defeated a TITAN without weapons and his bare hands to the point the titan wanted to rise from the UNDERWORLD with the help of a GODDESS to seek vengeance over him. I think we can cut him slack for having some well deserved self respect bc I'd brag too wtf

[pilkypills]

Special shoutout to fics where Thorin is being his sad and self-flagellating self after the gold sickness and getting all mopey about how Bilbo should go home bc he doesn’t deserve him or w/e and the company is like “ok?? What about us though???? We want him here???? He’s ours too?????”

[thebaldursmouthgazette]

I think people have it in their head that solas in inquisition is his “true self” but like. He’s manipulating the inquisitor the whole time too. That’s not his true self, that’s another mask he’s using as a tool

His plan was to use the orb to tear down the veil after the conclave. He allowed corypheus to find the orb, with the goal of swooping in after the explosion at the conclave to rip open the fade from there. The inquisitor disrupted his plans as much as they disrupted corypheus’ plans, and as much as corypheus disrupted his plans by staying alive. In that moment, both the inquisitor and corypheus are the people who fucked up his plans.

He doesn’t join the inquisition out of some altruistic desire to save the world from corypheus. He joins the inquisition because he wants the orb so he can tear down the veil. Which means stopping corypheus and retrieving it from him AND either retrieving the mark from the inquisitor or finding a way to use it through the inquisitor to his purpose.

He doesn’t stay with the inquisitor following the conclave explosion to save their life. He’s there to study the mark and figure out how to remove it. He can’t, so keeping you alive to preserve it is the next best thing.

When he talks to you about stuff like blood magic, or debates on the personhood of spirits, he is not speaking as a humble elven apostate trying to convince you of his point of view, he’s gauging your reaction to things to learn about you and how to manipulate you. In one of these conversations he even brings up a hypothetical world without the veil, because he’s trying to gauge the inquisitors reaction tho that possibility (which is very much not hypothetical to him)

At the end of the game it has become obvious he’s not getting the mark from the inquisitor anytime soon, he’s not going to be able to manipulate the inquisitor to join his cause, and the orb is broken. He has no use for the inquisitor or the inquisition, so he leaves. It’s all a pretence, and it’s one he abandoned in an instant.

This image he presents of a humble elven apostate with generally good intentions who journeys in the fade and has knowledge that has given him unconventional views he wishes to debate on is not who he truly is, it’s a mask he’s put on to get to a position where he can try to manipulate things

[akindplace]

I’m not gonna let things make me feel defeated. This grief in face of loss means that there is love in me and there was once joy. And joy will find me again, in many different ways. There is pain, but it means my body is alive to feel it, and trying its best to survive. There are long nights but there are beautiful sunrises too. I’ve been through a lot, and I deserve good things, and I won’t let the bad drown out the good, I won’t let the past dictate the present, I won’t treat myself as a lesser human being because I am different than others and hurt: we all ache in our own ways and we’re all equally deserving of good, and we should keep fighting. Even when it’s hard to go on, we must go on.

[phoenixcatch7]

Like I know it's self indulgence but it'd be so funny to see a full kardashian style Brucie Wayne, spoilt playboy prince of Gotham, local sunshine idiot on the front page every other week for darwinian levels of idiocy or billionaire levels of donations.

But he gets kidnapped or something and there's illusions or mind magics that make him think he's in the bat suit and then he gets dumped in the middle of a live world broadcast arena to fight some goons.

Like he doesn't think anything of it, batman's been kidnapped and forced into gladitorial arenas for sport many times before, maybe he always carries concealed weapons so he's still got like grapples and batarangs and stuff, but he's just going full doomslayer on these guys. No cowl. No suit. Just an open silk shirt and a pair of slacks. In full view of the world.

Tell you what, what about the whole justice league. Just a group of the motleyest people you've ever met. There's about as many famous people as there are absolute nobodies.

Several billionaires defer to the guy who writes articles on outdated lead in buildings and socio economic corruption. There's a renowned museum curator flying and uppercutting aliens so hard they get tossed across the room. There's a guy who spoke in science conferences about meta containment procedures running up the wall and delivering a roundhouse kick to three enemies at once. Bruce Wayne and Oliver Queen. Of all people. Two world famous idiot ceo celebrities. And they're back to back whaling on armoured alien henchmen like a well oiled team. A ten year old podcaster shooting lightning from his fingers and no one in the group bats an eye.

Just.... Insanity.

[moonsvillain]

have been toying with the idea of an au wherein shen jiu, after burning down the qiu household and running away, comes across xie lian rather than wu yanzi poaching him immediately afterwards:

i'd imagine in this verse he runs away to town rather than immediately being found in the aftermath of what he's done. at this point, shen jiu would be too paranoid to consider reaching out for directions to cang qiong mountain even if he wanted to make it there: what if they knew what he did? or figured it out if he did know? (if he even had the mind to think of these things through his panic)

he doesn't want to end up begging on the streets again, though—too alike his childhood and last time he was in that position, shen jiu ended up with the qius in the first place

so he takes refuge in temples that he comes across, stealing food when he can before moving to a different part of the rather large town he's ended up in so there's no clear pattern of when he shows up at whichever food stall

despite not holding that same respect and unwavering belief in gods (how could he, after everything he's gone through? shouldn't they have stepped in, sometime? what god would let him suffer as he did, separating him from the only person he loved?) he knows better than to try them, and begrudgingly thanks them for the shelter (because this he did appreciate, at the very least, if nothing else)

winter hits hard when it does, and shen jiu, after spending so many years in the qiu household, forgot how the cold seeps into your skin and bones without solid walls to keep out the frigid breeze.

he quickly falls ill with nothing to protect him from the elements but his threadbare clothing, and when he grows ill, he becomes slow. shen jiu nearly gets caught stealing, running away before he can be dragged to a town guard for his offence, but earning himself a nasty wound to his leg as he retreated

sickness + the cold + the wound leave him weak and wanting: missing qi-ge, reminiscing on nights where they'd curl up together for warmth, still cold but not alone, the two of them steady against the storm that raged on ahead of them

fever-ridden and teetering close to death, shen jiu wanders into a temple late at night and sinks to his knees, falling to his side, heart-rate slowing. in his delirium, he misses the figure taking shelter from the storm in the corner, watching him

shen jiu wakes up (he doesn't expect to), warm while he hears the wind whistle. he's still in that temple from earlier, but it's considerably... cozier. a small fire warms the inside and his clothes aren't as damp against his cold skin. his fever's broken, too—he doesn't know how long it's been, but he's glad he didn't die: never realized that he wanted to live until he was close to forfeiting his right to

here is where he meets his accidental saviour: xie lian stood over a slowly bubbling pot of stew that smells heavenly to shen jiu—he'd eat just about anything at this point, starved

his immediate distrust of xie lian stops him from being truly excited about his appearance

their relationship is veryyy shaky at the very beginning: shen jiu refuses to trust him and xie lian refuses to abandon this strange child he found on the verge of death

(there's a strange sort of bond built up when you nurse someone back to life, dragging them away from the brink of death and xie lian isn't interested, but he's curious about this kid who stumbled into his temple at the dead of night on a midnight in winter)

shen jiu's torn between distrust and this desire for company he didn't know he possessed; after being alone with no one but the qiu household [before he went on his massacre] he didn't realized how much he wanted to share space with someone who wasn't actively hurting him until he was afforded the opportunity to experience non-violent company with xie lian

his distrust slowly declines when he finds out that xie lian is a cultivator. despite being arguably too old to learn cultivation to the fullest extent he could have if he started a few years earlier, he still desperately wants to learn

xie lian, perceptive as ever, slowly starts teaching him bits and pieces of the basics, teaches him to meditate, takes care to keep his distance when it looks like shen jiu's getting overwhelmed

shen jiu can't help but get attached. he hates it

shen jiu decides to test xie lian before resigning himself to this

he was snappy, impatient, and argued with xie lian, when he came over, one day, waiting for some form of punishment to come, bristling like a spooked cat.

nothing came of his experiment but a slight frown from xie lian, which made shen jiu feel almost bad—xie lian almost reminded him of qi-ge, which made him feel doubly bad because he desperately wants to find him

shen jiu came to xie lian the next day with a pastry [that he stole] as an apology. and a request:

"teach me how to cultivate so i can be a disciple at the cang qiong sect"

xie lian agrees easily enough: he's been around shen jiu to see that despite the late start, he has potential to be great [especially untouched by wu yanzi and his twisted form of cultivation]

shen jiu throws himself into his studies, working himself to the bone

xie lian is concerned by this and after trying to soften the load of his work doesn't make shen jiu slow down, he becomes stern: warns him against trying to chase too much frivolously

this leads to a breakdown of sorts—where shen jiu gets angry, dismissive, before becoming upset. the average emotional depth of a teenager but, like, 4 times worse because of the circumstances

xie lian coaxes the story out of shen jiu here; qi-ge [the first time he's mentioned aloud by name], the qiu household [only the barest of details. shen jiu refuses to dwell], and the night shen jiu made qi-ge leave, as well as qi-ge's promise to come back

shen jiu finishes by telling xie lian he needs to make it back to qi-ge, needs to see if he's still alive, he's been selfish for sticking around as long

shen jiu tells xie lian that he needs to figure out as much as he can, as fast as he can, so he can leave and make his way to cang qiong mountain with some sort of base knowledge to make it in. and that he's not sorry for pushing himself because he doesn't have time

xie lian is quiet for a while

puts a comforting hand on shen jiu's shoulder and tells him he understands; he knows someone who would do anything to make it back to the one they loved, understands the pain that comes when time and distance separates the two

however, xie lian tells him, he can't let shen jiu push himself. he'll only stunt his progress by hurting himself rather than speed things up

shen jiu is ready to argue again before xie lian offers to make the trip with him

shen jiu doesn't believe it at first—who would bother with helping him for this long if they weren't getting anything out of it? he already found this hard to believe, let alone the fact that xie lian would drop everything to travel with him for weeks on end

xie lian doesn't shake in his resolve, though. shen jiu figures out he's being serious and wants to argue, but he's just—relieved

so many people have stood as roadblocks on his path back to qi-ge; xie lian might be the first person actively trying to help them

it almost reignites hope in him; someone other than him believes in them. someone other than shen jiu thinks they'll make it back to each other and succeed in reuniting. xie lian's faith in him is like a gust of wind beneath his wings

he agrees to their road trip

[xie lian makes sure to tell his beloved he'll be away for a while]

[shen jiu doesn't notice that xie lian buys steamed buns off the same stranger in nearly every town they stop by for a night of rest in the following few weeks]

[xie lian notices, years later, when shen qingqiu doesn't recognize him upon their first meeting in decades. shen yuan doesn't know xie lian, but xie lian knows this isn't shen jiu, anymore]