#she was like 'so it would make sense that you're living in social isolation'

[teplejtrouba]

my psychiatrist confirmed that i am in fact autistic

[mauesartetc]

Have you seen vivzi's tweet regarding the mille situation?

Oh yeah. Though to be clear, it's not just one tweet; it's a motherfuckin' thread (with screenshots below for posterity).

I won't go over this whole thing point by point, but one aspect that jumps out at me is how Viv deflects responsibility from herself onto the viewers. If your audience doesn't fully "understand" your characters, that's a problem. It's your job as a writer to make them understand, and do it in the story you're telling, not on social media. Can't help but see shades of how gobsmacked Fennah was that his audience didn't get how one of his characters represented toxic relationships, despite that character amounting to a harmless, childlike pet.

While Viv's response doesn't demean the audience like Fennah's, it does come off as a tad arrogant, as if Millie being perceived as flat is the viewers' fault, not hers.

The second thing that stood out is the list of Millie's qualities: "She is resourceful, she has strong family ties and memories, she has sibling rivalry, she's excitable and hyper focused." Only three of those are actual personality traits, and I can't even remember her being "hyper focused" at any time. To me, that would suggest working long hours on some kind of project, too engrossed to notice hunger, thirst, or how much time had passed. I guess you could make the argument that she worked tirelessly to become the skilled fighter she is, but we never see that in the show. I'm not even sure how "strong" those family ties are considering Millie didn't even hug her mom when she saw her. Basically, this smacks of telling rather than showing, trying to convince us this is the case rather than letting us see for ourselves.

[Edit 6/10/23 Forgot to mention this tidbit: "we are literally on 3", meaning the third episode. Girl, no. You were literally on ten episodes total, and eleven/twelve (depending on whether or not the pilot counts) with the release of Western Energy. That's way too long to go without properly developing one of the main characters.]

Also, "we found more storylines that influenced Blitz"? You mean you created more storylines with him as the focus. You chose to follow those paths in Season 1. It didn't just happen to you. "Whoops! Tripped over this random plot! Guess I have to use it in an episode!" Obviously Blitzo is the main character so it makes sense that he'd have the most plots centered around him, but it's extremely telling that y'all gave absolutely none of the focus to Millie.

Let's look at the seven episodes of Season 1. Blitzo could be the focus of three, Moxxie could get one, Millie could get one, Loona could get one, and Stolas could get one, and you could save extra story ideas for Season 2. There ya go. Yes, seven episodes is a pretty short season with not much wiggle room to fit all the juiciest stories in, but there's definitely space to tease what's coming. Imply that there's more to these characters and this world than meets the eye. Make the audience hungry for more. This is a fan-funded Youtube series, after all; it's not like any networks or streaming services are threatening to pull the plug if the metrics aren't up to snuff.

Finally, the "this is a male-led show" excuse for female characters being underdeveloped is so weak, especially for an adult show that prides itself on social progressivism. You've got a handful of queer main characters and a trans side character, but fleshing out the women was a step too far-? Y'all are all about spotlighting LGBT stories, but anything resembling feminism that goes deeper than '90s-style "hey, this chick can fight!" girl power? Whoa, that's a bit too much, buddy.

Call me crazy, but shouldn't viewers get the impression that all of a story's principal characters have inner lives, regardless of gender? What is Millie like when she's alone, isolated from her relationships? What does she think about? How does she entertain herself without anyone to brawl with, or anything to hack into with an axe? The show hasn't given us any hints.

Honestly, if you're not good at writing female characters, you're allowed to say that. Yes, it's embarrassing to admit when you're a woman yourself, but if you grew up in a culture that promotes internalized misogyny and prioritizes masculine wants over feminine needs (which many of us did, let's be real), it's understandable. That shit's hard to unlearn. What might make it easier when it comes to characters, though, is what I like to call the Ellen Ripley method.

Challenge, Viv: Write a nuanced male character. Give him strengths and flaws, likes and dislikes, quirks and hobbies, strained relationships and happy ones.

Now make him female.

It really is that simple.

We'll have to wait and see how much that defense regarding Hazbin Hotel truly reflects reality, though if I were a gambler, I'd bet Alastor and Angel Dust will dominate the story and leave Charlie and Vaggie on the sidelines.

[eveandphyche]

Monster (2023) or How we fail our children

Yesterday I watched "Monster" from 2023 which was such a well made film, not only in the sense of how it makes you care for each and every character but keeps you on your toes almost through the entire movie.

To me the movie struck a cord bc it seems like a warning. A warning to all of us, or maybe a reminder. To me the movie showed in multiple ways how the adults in the lives of children can greatly impact, detore and fail a child's life.

I'd first talk about Minato's mom. She's a very hard-working single mother, that tries everything to support her son, both emotionally and socially, through standing up and fighting for her son to get justice. It was amazing to see how she reacted calmly and understanding when Minato fumbled his room. She knew it was an outlet for him, not a provocation. So I think his mother is a heart-warming charcater whom we've seen expresses great support and concern for Minato, as a mother should. But what she, in my opinion, fails to do is to listen to Minato more. She says to him a couple of times how he "should grow up, have a family, have children." and he says: " I can' t be like father. (argo I cannot have a wife or children in the common way bc he himself understands that he does not like women, or maybe doesn't want a family like that or some other reasons, it is open for interpretation) And so these words we are all too familiar with- living our lives as one would say as everybody else does. Which for queer kids, folks, people is somewhat of a nuance.

Then we have Hori, the teacher, which we all see after, at his pov, that he takes care of children, teases them and helps them. He IS a good teacher, bc he is a good person, but he too fails Minato and Yori. He says " You are not man enough, not manly enough." very casually to then again tease, but that in itself drives Yori away. Yori says that to Minato when Minato suggests that Yori can confide in Hori for help. But Yori says :"He'd just say I am not man enough." And this is how we alianate children. To me is the weirdest thing ever, to push a child, a boy to be " a man" when they are a child first and foremost.

We have Yori's father of course which I would rather not speak of.

We have the principle, which in my opinion is so flawed, yet so understamding towards Minato. She's the one after all uplifts him and says that everybody deserves and can have happiness in their life. She essentially says: "You're not as damned and lost as you think you are."

At the end Minato and Yori find in each other the understanding that's been missing from their lives for so long, and they allow themselves to be children. Minato allows Yori to be "femenine" and he expresses to him: "You were always normal." He accepts him completely for who he is.

All of this leads me to belive that we as adults push them into a binary, we push them into roles, and we isolate them from themselves and us. Of course we all can agree that it is a queer movie through and through. But I think it also showcases in so many different ways, how adults tend to miscommunicate or repeat bad rethoric to them, making them feel alone and with no one to talk to besides each other.

[woso-dreamzzz]

how you do the lyric things for princesse, what about you’re on your own kid for bambi 😭

Another nerdy analysis!

TW for Bambi's eating disorder

Summer went away Still, the yearning stays I play it cool with the best of them Bambi's childhood leaving her after Jaume is born and how she just kind of accepts it while still yearning for attention she doesn't get

I wait patiently He's gonna notice me It's okay, we're the best of friends Anyway Bambi waiting on the attention from Alexia or at least any idea that Alexia still cares about her

I hear it in your voice You're smoking with your boys Alexia constantly being out with the team or with Olga and Jaume while Bambi is pushed to the side

I touch my phone as if it's your face I didn't choose this town I dream of getting out Bambi wishing she could stay with Alba and Jenni rather than going back to Alexia

There's just one who could make me stay All my days But Alexia's attention and love being offered makes it so easy for Bambi to go back to her

From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes I waited ages to see you there Bambi's waited so long for the attention that she doesn't even care if it comes late just so long as she has it

I search the party of better bodies Just to learn that you never cared Bambi believing that Alexia never actually cared about her, that she was just the 'test run' so Alexia could be the perfect mother to Jaume

You're on your own, kid You always have been Bambi has always been isolated in her family, at least in her own opinion. She doesn't quite fit

I see the great escape So long, Daisy May I picked the petals, he loves me not Jenni taking Bambi to Mexico and Bambi coming to the conclusion that it's because Alexia doesn't love her

Something different bloomed Writing in my room I play my songs in the parking lot I'll run away Bambi further isolating herself further by choosing dance over football and the way it just pushes Alexia further away from her

From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes I called a taxi to take me there Bambi might as well be taking herself to dance because Alexia would never stick around and she never fully knew Bambi's schedule

I search the party of better bodies Just to learn that my dreams aren't rare Bambi can never live up to Alexia's dreams of having a footballer daughter and they both have to come to terms with that

You're on your own, kid You always have been Bambi's always been fairly by herself. She's not the best socially so she doesn't really have friends when she's younger

From sprinkler splashes to fireplace ashes I gave my blood, sweat, and tears for this Bambi worked super hard to do ballet. She's truly sweat, cried and bled for her dance

I hosted parties and starved my body Like I'd be saved by a perfect kiss Bambi suffers with an eating disorder in both versions. She's truly starved her body before and she desperately craves someone taking care of her when she's an adult because for years she felt like she didn't deserve it

The jokes weren't funny, I took the money My friends from home don't know what to say All of the Barcelona girls not knowing how to react during Bambi's hoe era and when she brings much older women home

I looked around in a blood-soaked gown And I saw something they can't take away Bambi bleeding in her pointe shoes from practising too hard and just holding onto her dancing because it's the one thing that's been with her since she was very young

'Cause there were pages turned with the bridges burned Everything you lose is a step you take Alexia burning bridges by giving Bambi up in Jenni's Version and her actions towards Bambi burning bridges between her and Alba

So make the friendship bracelets Take the moment and taste it You've got no reason to be afraid Bambi growing up and dancing professionally. Coming out of her hoe era and meeting her girlfriend (depending on the version) and everything suddenly just making sense for her

You're on your own, kid Yeah, you can face this You're on your own, kid You always have been Alexia choosing to either keep or let Jenni keep Bambi but either way Bambi actually gets attention and begins to thrive. But the trauma stays with her forever

[youremyheaven]

Your Angelina Jolie post is super interesting!

(Yapping incoming)

You briefly talked about her childhood and I think something interesting to add is that Angelina says she got called ugly when she was younger for her lips (I say that allegedly as I haven’t actually seen the og sourcewhere she says it). I was never super into the whole Claire Nakti punarvasu beast ugly to pretty video idea, as a native myself, *but* I do feel like it’s common for punarvasu to be called ugly/ experience appearance related trauma in childhood.

Either way I feel like I do see quite a few young Angelina haters who say she was ugly when young- even though us women of culture know she’s always been gorgeous- she did have a physical “awkward phase” in that sense of how she was widely perceived.

Also Maleficent is kind of a punarvasu core role when you think about it. Definitely some other major astro influence in the role as well, I’m not super familiar with her chart. However starting off kind, having someone take advantage of your giving nature, turning into a controlling and unkind leader, and then “returning to the light” by learning how to be kind again through love for a child who saw through the outer “ugliness”. Idk sounds a little punarvasu core to me

I feel like it’s frustrating to guess these things when someone has a planet in the first house which also rules one of the nakshatras, in this case saturn and pushya. It makes it so much harder to go off of appearance. For me personally I spot pushya women by their narrow but full lips (alongside the other traits you mentioned). The beautiful pushya moon native Tripti Dimri has this trait- her lips are full but their shape has a certain narrowness to them.

Going back to Angelina, as you said she has the pushya look anyway bc of cancer + saturn influence, but idk I’ve always felt like it’s a different vibe? The saturn nak women feel a bit more calm and “closed off” if you will(?)

Her having a Jupiter placement would explain this tbh. I’m kind of obsessed with her when she played “Corky”, whenever Jupiter (or mars actually) women do a masc look they eat it up every time!!

I thought Claire's Punarvasu video about ugliness was most relatable to Punarvasu men perhaps because men externalise their traits whereas women internalise them. So Punarvasu/Jupiter men playing the "Beast" made sense to me because they feel hideous and when it's projected outwards (our thoughts create our reality, when someone thinks or believes they're ugly they experience things that affirm this belief?? if that makes sense??) they are perceived as Beastly by others. Also Jupiter dominant people, be it men or women are hella intimidating as all these naks have feline yoni animals (cat, tiger, lion who are all unapproachable and intimidating in their own ways) I think if others are intimidated by you, they're less likely to approach you and if you feel socially isolated like that, you're more likely to think "oh it's because everyone hates me/because I'm ugly" and I think maybe that's why Punarvasu natives struggle with "feeling ugly". Claire did also say that being isolated was a big theme in their lives. It could also be because of how Jupiter's boundlessness means these natives contain too much substance, both good and bad, it's only with age and wisdom that an individual learns to tune out the negativity and focus on the goodness so because of all the internal negativity the natives "feel ugly". Another reason could be that having really turbulent and difficult childhoods are kind of part of the Jupiter experience, if you grow up feeling neglected or if you're abused, you're not going to feel good about yourself?? A lot of people who have childhood trauma also struggle with their self image. Kali Uchis, Punarvasu Sun, Vishaka Moon & Rising spoke about it in this interview about how being abused as a child meant that she hated being looked at or seen :(((

Angelina has mentioned that she hated modelling (which she did briefly as a teenager)

Omg 😳😮 I had never looked at Maleficent that way but damn that does sound very Punarvasu core especially since her own Punarvasu Sun daughter Vivienne was cast to play the young Princess Aurora because all the other kids were scared of her lmao 😭😭

Sleeping Beauty is closely linked to Revati/Pisces as well (She has Revati Moon & stellium)

You're right it is hard to determine bc of her chart 😭😭But Pushya natives imo have longer slimmer faces because of their goat yoni, Angelina's wide expansive face and features are giving Punarvasu 🤌🏼

But also I feel like Saturnian women are very comfortable with their femininity from the get go. They don't transform into it, like Angie did (which is a Jupiterian quality). Salma Hayek, UBP Moon, Madhuri Dixit, Pushya Moon, Miranda Kerr, Pushya Rising, Mariah Carey UBP Sun, Monica Bellucci-Pushya Moon are all Saturnian women who are known for their hyperfemininity. It's inherent to them?? They have this very exaggerated femininity (Pushya is considered the most feminine nakshatra) that I don't see with Angie. She's very poised and elegant now but I see her individuality before I see her femininity?? If that makes sense lol and like you said Saturnian women are 100x more mellow, more composed and overall chill, Jupiter is what creates a more bold/loud in your face kind of persona.

Idk what Corky is 😭😭😭😭please tell me I have no clue 🥹🥹

[transdimensional-void]

So early in the first book Jessica and Leto discuss hanging the painting of Leto’s father in the dining hall and Jessica doesn’t want it there because it’s distasteful for her but Leto gets all “he’s the great late Duke of the grand house atreides” yada yada and says this

Which I felt was a very insensitive thing to say to the woman who was always insecure that he didn’t marry her and second, he loves her. More than that, it distinctly shows the feudalism so entrenched in their society by way of the painting and Leto conveniently never marrying just to keep his “options open” and that is so… and then Herbert being a total misogynist is so on brand.

And then someone said that is an example of Leto being funny and joking with Jessica.

What do you think? because now I feel like I really overthought this lol

i think jessica's reaction makes it clear that, from her perspective at least, that was no joke:

"She held her face immobile, nodded."

throughout the passage, we see jessica suppressing and controlling her emotions several times, so it's obvious here that she's keeping herself from showing how she feels about his "joke."

from leto's perspective, i don't think he was necessarily laughing either. he's certainly being wry. but it's more a case of whistling in the dark, in my opinion, perhaps even lashing out with the intention to hurt. a few paragraphs later, he thinks this:

"Ah-h-h-h, my Jessica, would that we were somewhere else, anywhere away from this terrible place — alone, the two of us, without a care."

this is in response to the realization that she was holding back what she really wanted to ask him when she asked him about his dinner plans. she'd just been thinking about how badly she wanted to influence him to abandon the entire arrakis enterprise but that she refused to use her bene gesserit powers to manipulate him into doing what she felt was best.

there's this ongoing tension between leto and jessica. he holds all of the social, political, and economic power in the relationship, but she has these basically superhuman abilities that could fully take him out any time she wants. but she chooses to submit to him anyway, because she loves him. and the thing is, leto knows that she holds back. she forces herself into the subservient position that is required to uphold his power.

i think leto feels that he is just as trapped by the feudal societal structures they live in as jessica is. as his thoughts later on show, he knows full well that he is wronging her by refusing to marry her. but he also feels he has no other choice, due to the knife's-edge political situation they live in. leto choosing not to marry jessica is not an isolated decision but merely one link in his overall political strategy, a strategy that jessica doesn't fully support but submits to nevertheless.

i think you're right that his words in that moment are insensitive. i think they are born of the anxiety he feels from the unresolved tension in their relationship. from his point of view, he wears this albatross of heritage and duty around his neck (note how they are having this conversation about a portrait of his dead father and the taxidermied head of the bull that killed him, complete with his father's dried blood on its horns), and she won't just accept that that's the way things have to be. jessica first thinks that she could use her abilities to make him budge about moving these disgusting items somewhere other than the dining room. then she thinks that she could use her abilities to make him abandon his plans for arrakis. the two things she wants to change are, in this way, explicitly linked: symbol and reality.

jessica could make everything go the way she believes is best, but instead she does her duty as a duke's concubine and submits to his will. leto's comment hints that if he had married her, she might have to stomach even more unsavory duties. perhaps he truly believes that leaving her as a mere concubine makes her freer in some sense. but i think what his comment reveals most is that he feels hurt by her inability to fully place her faith in his decisions. he's lashing out, prodding at the sore point on purpose.

it's telling that he brings up the word "duty" in that moment. that's really what this conversation boils down to: they're both chained by the sense of duty their society has imposed upon them, and it introduces an unresolvable tension into what otherwise could have been a happy, harmonious relationship.

tl;dr: no, you aren't overthinking it. the person who made that comment is underthinking it.

[carterkeller1234]

Serial Experiments Lain 4/24/24

And here we have the final post that I'm going to make for this class, and we're ending on a work that wasn't even made in the 20th century but is as contemporary as ever with the themes that it tackles. To start off, Serial Experiments Lain is unique in the sense that it has one of the most fleshed out sound designs I have seen in any anime. There's always a constant whirring in the background, creating a constant imbalance that has you begging for silence, however, when you achieve that silence you're met with scenes of intense discomfort and surreal eeriness. The sound design truly contributes to Lain's unraveling psychologically, with the utilization of characters speaking without sound and the amplification of commonplace sounds like chalk on a board, it all works in tandem to sustain the uneasy tone as we find more about the Wired and the many subsets of it. Speaking of which, for a show made in 1998, it has the most contemporary themes I've seen, with it perfectly capturing the wonder that is the internet, where despite having the entire world at your fingertips and connections everywhere, it can still isolate individuals and contribute to loneliness. Lain is a perfect main character to tackle this theme, with her introverted nature being a relatable trait that I myself can identify with, allowing me to understand her head first diving into the internet and how that obsessiveness can affect one's understanding of identity and reality. This series is just so naturally eerie, with the world being drenched in light and the almost-brutalist architecture further contributes to the anxiety this show induces in you. Even the way this anime handles social interactions are so grounded and based in reality, with discussion of tragedies like suicides being treated as less and less significant as the series progresses. In short, the questions that Serial Experiments Lain raises about technology and its relation to identity still remain relevant in modern day, with an almost prophetic understanding of how the internet and digital communication would reshape human lives through vessels like social media, virtual reality, and even more recently the discussion of artificial intelligence.

I feel like this image captures the tone of this show very well, Lain is a just a young girl who seems to be surrounded by this indescribable sense of emptiness and isolation despite having everything she could desire upon first glance. Her also putting this bear suit on is a visual representation of this lack of control and self, as she has a greater understanding of her place as a child in a world she doesn't understand.

I found this conversation between Lain and her father to be a fascinating evolution from the previous one in ep 1. Lain has immediately become more engrossed in her Navi and is now serving as the technologically consumed reflection of her father, who now stands in her position almost confused as to what his daughter has grown into. I plan on rewatching the whole series for context but just from this few episode display, I can tell this show shall be one to remember.

[bloodiedbeloveds]

charming disaster trifecta au

thanks to @my-deer-friend for enabling us! there's more plot that isn't in this post, but this lays out the premise decently

this AU name sounds like word salad, but actually it makes perfect sense with the context that "charming disaster" is the name of a goth-folk band and this entire au is based on three of their songs. linking the songs in the section headers!

this post contains murder and bad consent practices

"What Remains": John & Eliza

growing up in a small town is hard enough without having been born as a magician. John & Eliza are bonded by their shared experiences and are very close starting in middle school. they read every relevant book in the library and spent hours at a time in the woods together, trying to shape the power inside them into something that can be tamed

they grow sideways into strange young people with wild eyes and secret, twisting thoughts. they learn to rule themselves but not how to fit in. they become steadily more distant from everyone else; no one else can accept them or their aspirations. their more mundane mental illnesses don't help

in late June, after they've both graduated from high school, John accidentally murders Francis

(that awkward moment when you're lying in the grass with your boyfriend and he begins to talk about magicians and crazies and he says he doesn't mean you but he doesn't listen when you argue back and you pull your hand away from his and swallow your sick sense of realization. that awkward moment when you meet him after a long night of ritual practice in a desperate attempt to keep yourself steady and he finally calls you a nutcase to your face and the strength of your fury chokes him)

John never meant for anything like this to happen and he spends a long time sobbing over Francis's body in a birch clearing before he goes to find Eliza

they can fix this. they know they can. they can hide it. John considers suicide but Eliza won't let him so they drag the body to the river and complete their work

they fuck up! John doesn't know they fucked up until the next day; Eliza never finds out. they are successful in making it look like an accident, in letting the river claim him and wash them both clean. John's guilt is taken from him, but so is everything else. he wakes alone in a strange room with no memory of his personal history

he doesn't know he is meant to speak to Eliza. he sits through the funeral of a stranger and disappears at midnight a week later. he intends never to return to these people who love and resent a person he doesn't remember.

Eliza doesn't know why he left her. she doesn't know anything about what happened to him. why would he leave me, she cries to the dark woods and the pale sky the morning after his departure; nothing answers. when she leaves their hometown, when she finds her way in the world, she does it with a still-broken heart.

"Sympathetic Magic": Alex & John

Alex wasn't born a magician; he's just very bad at taking no for an answer and when his local witch told him at nine years old he would never be able to imitate her, he took that as a challenge

he's not very good at magic, at all. mostly this is because he can't stick to one thing and is trying to cozy up with practitioners of every single goddamn discipline

John has by this time grown from a weird isolated teenager into a weirder, even more isolated adult who lives on a house on a hill surrounded on one side by mountains and on the other by a vast, windswept plain. he also finally has actual friends who actually like him and invite him to social events, which he attends on occasion when he's capable of leaving home. (all his friends are also magicians.)

Alex managed to get an invitation to a seance held by one of John's friends (this is mostly a social thing-- they do in fact attempt to contact some spirits, but the point of the evening is to catch up with everyone). John attends and spends the first two hours being asked by everyone he knows how his latest project is going, then locks eyes with Alex across the room and starts telling people he'll write them a letter about it later

at the end of the evening they kiss beneath a yew tree. John, giddy and exhilarated, is not as careful as he should have been; Alex, ever observant, does not disturb the strands of hair which clung to his jacket when they parted

they write to each other, but their relationship quickly turns sour, because John refuses to teach Alex basically any magic. in retaliation, Alex makes a poppet and begins to torture him. yes, this is a kink thing. no, it's not a good idea at all

eventually John, feeling violated, uses his small army of possessed birds to try to kill him

"Blacksnake": Eliza & Alex

Eliza as an adult is more well-adjusted than John, though that's not really a high bar to clear. for a magician she's relatively social, by which we mean that she lives in the middle of a desert and curses people who show up at her house unexpectedly, but is capable of visiting her friends a few times a week.

when she left her hometown she joined a secret society. after discovering that there are many different secret societies, many of which are not nearly as weirdly controlling yet impersonal as her first group, she left it and flirted with membership in a few different societies before settling on her current group. they are part social club, part study group, part religious gathering. (one of the members was john's mentor, but neither of them are aware of this connection.)

she knows that John's alive. she's kept some of his old possessions for years. she still remembers what his magic feels like. when she sees a cloud of sparrows barrelling towards a stranger on the disused highway near her home she knows who sent them and longs once again to rip out her heart

she saves Alex mostly out of spite. then, because he's pretty, she takes him home. Alex, who has no sense of self-preservation, agrees to go with her, lets her dress his wounds, has sex with her, and falls asleep in her bed. while he's asleep Eliza steals a chunk of his soul from him

she starts appearing in his home at night when she feels like it. she curses him occasionally. they have violent sex. he tries to keep her out but nothing ever works for long

(yes, Alex at this point knows one magician who he could kill (which is hot) and one magician who could kill him (which is hot). being on the receiving end of dubiously consensual magic kink doesn't discourage him from continuing to treat John as a plaything. don't try this at home)

eventually, John tracks Alex to Eliza's house to try again to kill him. he doesn't recognize Eliza. she is not pleased

[natasha-in-space]

Hi Mia, I know I am an anonymous stranger asking you this so if you'd rather not answer feel free to delete

I wanted to ask, what was it like right after dropping out of college? What did you do afterwards?

It's no problem at all, anon! I've kinda talked about it in my tags from time to time, so it's not something I'm particularly ashamed of. (usually that is)

And, uh.... fair warning, this is gonna get kind of dark and probably a bit depressing. I do occasionally mention my experiences on here in passing, but I tend to not talk about them in depth. So... kind of a CW for talks of past child abuse (I don't go in depth but it's implied) and severe mental health issues.

So, thing is, I was kind of forced to drop out. Though it was still technically my choice. But, at the same time, I don't think I had much of a choice, if that makes sense. As a teen, I hated school, and while I was a what you would call a 'gifted kid', adored by teachers and envied by classmates, I didn't put much effort or passion into my studies. I did finish school with pretty good grades, though. Got into college. It was there when I actually started to enjoy the process of learning and education as a whole. I went from being a pretty good student to quite literally one of the best once I started actually putting in the effort to study instead of just winging it by as I did before that.

But I also started off my independent life when I was in college. It should have been a good thing. And it was a good thing. (You're gonna hear lots of contradicting statements here, and that's something I had to accept). I finally got out of the abusive environment I've spent my entire life in. But, thing is, I learned the hard way that just getting out is not enough to actually get better. Once I was out, finally safe and free to do whatever I want with no danger or restrictions, I paradoxically fell into the darkest mental space I've ever been in. Now that I'm older, I know that it's unfortunately normal for abuse survivors. But I didn't back then. I had no friends because I used to be an anxious, traumatized teenager with undiagnosed autism who had no idea how to socialize, nor did she really want to. And I never got to grow out of that, despite now being an adult, living on my own and making my own choices. Thus, came the consequences of my antisocial lifestyle up until that point. I had no one to talk to. No one to help me out with the groceries, studies, anything really. I was completely and utterly on my own, and before that, I thought that that's the way I want to be.

But I felt lost, lonely, and depressed. It got so bad that I would sometimes spend an entire day stuck in bed, not doing anything, including eating, brushing my teeth or changing clothes. Basically, depression in its clearest. Like I said, I didn't have a support system. I was on my own, and it's kind of my own fault that it got like this. Yes, I was hurt and traumatized, but I was also highly avoidant and distant from everyone, even those who genuinely had good intentions. I still deal with my avoidant attachment style up to this day, because I know it's not healthy.

I had the 'everyone will hurt me, no one will understand me, so I'm safest by myself' mentality. Don't do that. Isolating yourself like that will only make it worse. Had to learn that the hard way.

Long story short, I dropped out. I couldn't handle studying, and I needed help. I wasn't attending my classes, I had no motivation to even make myself food, much less study, and I lost all sense of hope for the future. Was I happy with my choice? No, I was heartbroken over it. I felt like a failure. I still do, honestly. Most people my age have at least one degree, some even more. They have friends and connections they've made in college. Experiences I never got to have, and probably never will, because I am not getting younger. Some have successful careers that I am amazed by. Some married and even had kids. Meanwhile, I'm still stuck figuring myself out, without much to my name. Because I never really got to grow up. It's hard not to feel like I'm missing out. But I try not to think about it.

I went into therapy, I slowly but surely have gotten better. It was a long process. I've stumbled and given up many times. Unpacking all of my trauma and how it effected me into adulthood was debilitating and painful. You have to deal with the fact that you were robbed of the chance to have a normal, happy life, and you can't do anything about it. There was some morbid comfort in thinking that 'there is something wrong with me'. It gave me a sense of control. If it's my fault I felt useless and unmotivated, then I could fix it. Even if I never actually did that. But accepting that all of this misery is actually a consequence of someone else's actions that have hurt you this deeply... it makes you feel helpless and angry. Like there is nothing you can do.

But it does get better. Doesn't get perfect. I still have bad days, and I still feel pretty lost in life, to be honest. I have no idea what I want to do. Nor do I have any plans for the future. But I do want to go to college one day. I love learning and I enjoy challenging my brain with new tasks to try and overcome. I would do that right now, if it wasn't as expensive as it is. I cannot afford higher education. I would risk it and take out a loan if I had confidence that I will be able to get a job and pay it off after getting my degree. But I don't. Because tons of folks with degrees cannot find a job for months on end, and I see how miserable it makes them. And I'd much rather have some stability in my life.

I got a job that I actually find joy in, though I don't think I'll be doing that for the rest of my life. I got a lovely circle of friends that I can rely on. I got a creative hobby there to keep me happy. It's not ideal, but I'm content with my life, and sometimes I'm even happy. I have no idea what the future will bring, but, honestly, I'd much rather focus on today and now.

I guess that's all to say that... dropping out is not always pretty and freeing. Then again, there's a difference between dropping out because you have no further intention to continue your studies, and dropping out due to circumstances out of your control. But it's not the end of the world. You stumble, you fall and you even regress, but you somehow get back up again. You find new things to do and enjoy. Life goes on. And it's still worth living for.

[scnderisms]

⸻  DIANA SILVERS. SHE/THEY / have you ever heard of SINCERITY IS SCARY by the 1975, well, it describes OPHIR ‘PHE’ SPIEGEL to a tee! the twenty seven five years old, and GAS STATION CLERK was spotted browsing through the stalls at portobello road market last sunday, do you know them? would you say THEY are/is more apathetic or more PATIENT instead? anyway, they remind me of bare feet in the grass, the truth before you're ready to hear it, a nightmare dressed as a daydream, maybe you’ll bump into them soon!

the middle child of the family with an attitude to boot . phe is the second youngest of a relatively well - off family . she watched her oldest sibling , her brother levi , opt out of his parent’s wealth . he worked for everything he wanted . sometimes that seemed like the high road , other times it seemed silly not to take the only leg up you have in the world .

with parents not being around much, due to work, the spiegel siblings bared their grievances in the ways they deemed fit . you can guess how phe took it based on the fact that she resents having to share a birthday week with her older sister (no matter how much she loves her ) . zibby is the life of the party . no matter whose it is , if zibby's there it feel like zibby’s party . phe learned a long time ago to get over birthdays . phe treats it as any other day now , barely remembering to even wish a happy one to their siblings until it pops up on the calendar . 

phe got by — good grades without trying . things came naturally to them in a way that made up for the laziness they had otherwise acquired . it is probably the characteristic she gets the most grief from her family about . 

both intelligence and temper run in the family so it makes sense that phe is easily irritable . similarly to her brother , she doesn’t make friends easily . she’s pretty much stopped trying altogether . unlike levi , she wasn’t too busy . the effort simply did not match the outcome . 

she smokes because it’s comforting . she smokes because everyone smoked at the restaurant she worked at one summer . it was a good way to make acquaintances and almost - friends in school . they had met them in the smoker’s section . it was an introverts dream come true , a social faux pas to rely on for human connection . phe became as addicted to it as the isolation .

anxiety does not hinder this spiegel , but then again phe does worry about having to live up to expectations . it always felt like their parents left a very small margin for error , a line phe was left treading her whole life . they made a point to get away with as much line - crossing as they could while their parents stayed distracted by their siblings accomplishments and lack thereof . this taught them to tread lines with others , remembering that small margins for error make it hard to trust attaching yourself to anyone , especially when error feels preferable at this point of monotony . 

both levi and zibby followed clear cut paths . maggie's path was still being carved out , the youngest spiegel making ophir a part of a sandwich . it was the first time ophir remembers wondering if siblings should have to be consented upon by the siblings that came first . oh well . it was likely maggie would follow the path of levi and zibby and find a passion to pursue . ophir could never relate to that . with levi being practically a doctor and zibby being a marine biologist , how could phe even compete? zibby may have punched out a few kids on ophir’s behalf , but she still came out the other side with a degree . that made any and all previous mistakes forgiveable .

middle child syndrome

their first language is sarcasm

honest to a fault

commitment issues

bisexual, but has not come out to their family

family first, even when phe hates them

teachers will say ' would thrive with a little more effort and a little less attitude '

film professor changed phe's narrative when they wrote mind of her own

first love is film photography

second love made phe regret it

can always be found somewhere out on the grounds taking pictures

turned their bathroom into a dark room

does not share their photography (despite wishing to make a living out of it)

[trannyradfem]

You're not a bad person. You're a smart woman with a working brain. You are right and shouldn't have to feel guilty about it. Even I can't stand the trans community anymore, I genuinely feel like I don't belong, and nowadays it's just outright dangerous because if you don't agree with mainstream values, your ass is getting dog piled. At best.

I have had intense sex dysphoria (fuck gender, gender don't real) since I was 4 or 5, accompanied by phantom pains for an organ I can never ever have. I never thought I was trans until I met someone who was transmasc who described my exact experiences with dysphoria. I was so happy-- not because I wanted to live as a man, but because this endless suffering may eventually be treated. And from there, I just wanted relief. 10 years of therapy did not affect my dysphoria whatsoever. I also went to the best ED rehab in my state, the one both Ke$ha and Demi Lovato went to, and stayed for a month or two, as long as my insurance would pay for it. It was amazing, but even that couldn't touch my eating disorder, no matter how much I wanted to get better.

I forced myself to wait as long as I could tolerate, and went on low dose T at 23 years old. I tried the least amount of intervention-- hoping for enough relief to make my life livable--, as medical tends to do with literally every other condition. My eating disorder, which had me in an iron chokehold since I was 10, faded away in a matter of 3 months. After 13 years of destroying my body and my organs, I didn't have to fight back anywhere near as hard anymore, and my body and self esteem finally began to heal.

I never identified as a man, as I knew that was physically impossible. I don't envy males nor do I desire to live as one. The trans community tried to tell me I'd be happier if I did, so I gave it a try; it was dangerous, uncomfortable, and miserable. I just wanted relief and a livable life. The trans community wants a fantasy. I didn't want to be a new person or escape from myself. I wanted people to treat me the same while still loving and accepting me as a person, despite my appearance changing to be "uglier".

So I cannot relate worth a FUCK to any of these pricks prancing around yelling about their girldicks, or how they want to be REAL women/ men. I WISH reversible social gender dysphoria was my problem. I WISH I didn't have to suffer for so long and feel so isolated. I wish the sex ed puberty field trip presentation didn't feel like it traumatized me, or that my body's natural functions didn't make me feel an inescapable sense of body horror-- similar to losing a limb-- no matter how I knew that logically, my body was ok. No matter how I felt about it, which was often anger for feeling like I was a car with really faulty, fucked up sensors. And I wish I could cognitively argue with and mold my dysphoria, and pick a new gender every week to make it livable. But I can't. It's something my brain decided to have before I was even capable of speech or thought. It's something that has always been with me, and I just didn't have a word for it. That's what genuine dysphoria is like. That is what transition should only ever be used for.

The trans community is like a sick fandom of worshipping gender roles and transformative surgeries at this point, and the time I spent in and around it made my depression and anxiety 10x worse. It hurts trans people like me-- extremely vulnerable ones who desperately need the support the most-- and throws us under the bus as "evil nasty TERFs" when we talk about it. It makes us sick and teaches us to blame everyone who even dares to question it.

My baeddel trans fem ex branded me as a violent, abusive male to the trans community when I politely asked "her" to stop cheating on me. "She" said I didn't make her happy anymore, and ghosted me. "She" also apparently called my case manager on my disability application and likely told them I was lying, effectively trapping me in my abusive household with my abusive parents.

The community rallied behind "her", even though I was pre- everything and so physically weak I could not stand for more than 5 minutes at a time. I was harassed for MONTHS almost to the point of suicide. "She" coerced me into a polyam relationship, despite already previously rejecting "her" the prior week when "she" was still a cis male that told me he doesn't think he's trans at all because his (now ex) husband is trans and they've talked about it countless times.

"Her" ex husband (FTM) doesn't even drink anymore because "she" date raped him. But "she" goes around telling people he doesn't drink because he's a violent alcoholic. He, like me, is also a survivor of horrific abuse. "She" later lost custody of their child because "she" was found sexting minors.

The community defended that piece of shit and almost killed me. It's not a community anymore. It's a dangerous cult.

So don't feel guilty-- you're on the right track. It's pure insanity, and you're not a bad person for noticing that. If your friends abandon you, they are the bad people. And if not for the way they've treated you, then for screwing over and abandoning people like me by contributing to this gender fuckery nonsense.

One thing I’ve been struggling with it how the fact I even have these views on trans activism and run this blog I could lose friends.

The second thing is how even tho I do my best to find reliable, sourced, non-biased information, nobody really would allow any sort of discussion of gender criticism. It pretty much immediately gets shut down and disregarded solely on the basis I am some sort of evil person. Allegedly. For holding trans ideology up to scrutiny/ dissecting it.

Maybe the first point is rather self-preservation or selfish. But I genuinely feel like some sort of undercover Bad Person.

It’s just I’ve seen too much. I’ve read too much. I can’t just sit back and be wilfully ignorant anymore. I can’t ignore everything I’ve seen.

[kingoftheblacksun]

I am Enaree. I am Dacian yet same as Scythians, and truth is we didn't use either of those words. We were not big on words like you modern types. We are not human.

I am trans femme yet what an Enaree represents is fantastically more than merely queer. This is the esoteric secret of the age. The revelation of it could cause nations to tumble and SHOULD, for we have been lied to for centuries.

Ego consciousness is always masculine, no matter your sex. This is because consciousness is masculine, as consciousness provides form to your reality, which is precisely what masculine energy does. They lied to you about what the word 'masculine' means because they wanted to control you with shame and you're so self-loathing that it worked wonderfully.

Ego consciousness is mortal. It is the illusion of your life and no it is not saved after you die. No word or image of your life will leave with you. You must leave it all behind. I know because I've done it more than once.

The gender transition of Enaree had nothing to do with horseback riding, nor was any sort of physical castration required. Herodotus was like a UK liberal and you need to read his descriptions understanding he was ignorant and privileged. The part about HRT is true, and mare's urine is likely and ingenious.

Listen and I'll tell you the secret. Most of you will not believe it is possible. If you met me in person, you'd know I am real.

For most humans, there's nothing "behind" their ego consciousness. They cannot sacrifice it. It's good to deconstruct and meditate yet there are hard boundaries.

Enaree are born with a latent primordial awareness in their tail. Such Enaree are always born male. They will live their life using their ego consciousness up top, living as a man, yet if conditions are right after a life is lived, they go through a radical process of internalized self-decapitation, and they sever their ego consciousness, to create a vacuum to force the latent primordial awareness to rise up their spine and enter their mind.

This is a true "kundalini" awakening. The primordial awareness is always female, and being transcendental they are older than all words, so you may name her anything she likes. I call her Kali, yet she is much like Sinhavaktra. I also call her Wyrm Dog. She is my Atman.

Yet it was Chhinnamasta who first reached out to me, and she and the story of Lord Bhairava severing the 5th head of Brahma is PRECISELY to become an Enaree!

This is a "Two-Spirit" in the profoundly divine sense. I am from the "first ones" whatever name you want to call them. Elohim. Aryan. The first tribes that became "good with God" and thus we were given particles so we could have lives over and over. It's not so fun now.

People have fallen for the enemy again and again and you are driving towards a global extinction event. Why do you think they insistently declare your identity? In the west, they've made a big deal of insisting the words 'man' and 'woman' are absolute and binding - THIS IS WHY. Your governments and media are trying to betray entities who are powerful enough to make mountains of Earthling body parts, and they're doing it by feeding you lies.

I am a Wretch without Power. I'm going through a physical evolution and it is the RETURN of the Masculine Divine. I won't stop being she/her or feminine, yet the Force which takes possession of me is the King of the Black Sun, Apollo. I believe I'll prove it when I sprout wings.

I beg people to begin to listen. I'm blocked from the social world by feminists who hate everything male, fueled by intense Israeli subversion, as the liberals would destroy the whole world to put themselves on top like fat ticks.

There are NO CHOSEN ONES. NONE. We have not chosen, yet. All who say they are the Chosen are narcs, and the wrath coming for them would make a Lion blush.

I don't even know why I keep trying. My back hurts so badly. I've been in marginalized isolation for months because the LGBTQ is designed to repel diversity and only champions feminist patriarchy. You were tricked into becoming the enemies of God. Yet we still love you and beg you to stop. We want to grant mercy, yet you must surrender to it.

I am only the first. I want to help you yet none of you love me or God, so it may be that I just sit and watch you die. It's my fault for vouching for you long ago. I thought you were beautiful. Now look at what you've done. I am ashamed of you, and ashamed of my decision to save you.

Let all who live in sin turn to salt. I just want to go home. 💔

[evolvingbeautyandmess]

POST #2 USUAL DISCLAIMER: so these blog posts are big dictated are being dictated to my phone via speech to text and I typically as if it's able person do not have a spoons to properly edit them so that this going to remain as is. So heads up. Also I don't know why Google sensors curse words.

Okay so it's towards the end of the day and I'm about to start my night time routine.

And I am still adjusting to looking access to Twitter lacking access to Twitter and thus lacking access to the disability community that is on Twitter and that I was a part of.

I'm telling myself that it makes sense that it still bothers me because not only is it further social isolation in a time where there is a surge in covid cases at least here in New York City and so I have to be very careful and not really hang out with people in person and now I'm even more socially isolated

although I will say I have been adapting Instagram and blue sky so that there's more community on there and what I really need to do is start finding more community on Tumblr. It's not like I'm totally isolated from community it's just that I'm a bit more isolated from from what I knew. So I am working on that I am working on getting more involved in the communities that I do have access to because that's something within my power and ability.

So there's that but at the same time though you feel more empowered the situation and makes me feel less isolated but I think just the fact that it happened that because apparently as I was mentioning the first post a lot of accounts on Twitter or suspended who were or are rather pro Palestine so that's incredibly eerie. you know you always hear about how you know posts about Palestine are being suppressed and the algorithm is not sharing them perhaps as equally as they would other topics but I've never really seen proof of that either way.

And this is not to say it's not happening because I wouldn't be surprised if it was happening but it is to say I haven't personally seen proof or I could say this is definitely happening. But to find out that I'm not the only account on Twitter that was suspended and that one common thread of all these accounts apparently is that we are pro Palestine and quite openly so is really eerie.

I think also just the and why I need to hold space for and remember to hold space for is that we are living in very f****** weird times and not yay weird bad weird. You know right now I am part of the collective effort to fight a f****** genocide and get a sides should not be f****** happening no genocides should not be f****** happening. They should not be normal. They should have never ever happened ever and yet there are several of them that are occurring at this point in time. and to see what's happening because now via social media you're saying it you know sometimes if not in real time it's the updated everyday and it breaks your heart on a core level.

And the other thing that I'm focusing a lot on my energy towards as it activist and artist is fighting these proposed mask bans, which holy f*** I mean what the f*** is going on? Because we're literally seeing a very real proven surge in covid cases and yet and this is happening in you know including in New York and New York City and yet our governor wants to f****** ban Masks including covid masks and she's trying to say oh it's being done in the name of Jewish safety f*** off just f*** off. Many Jewish leaders in the community are not buying it and also like what the f*** does she think that Jewish people cannot get covid? Does she think that you cannot be disabled and Jewish? I can attest that you can be these things.

So it's really just two major things that are happening as - it's not the only issues obviously there's many many issues yet another black person was murdered by the police. So there's obviously there are many many issues but for me as an activist & artist this is what I've been making a lot of of my protest art about has been to fight the genocide and to fight these bans on masks and these are two things that should not exist.

And yet they do. Like we should have no need as people to have to protest these things and yet we do and yet our protests are met with oppression and sometimes violence and that being really more towards the genocide.

So the fact that towards the end of the day sometimes not all the time but sometimes I feel sad and overwhelmed and like things are just like f***** up makes sense. You know in your house is on fire and you feel like holy s*** this house is on fire but you see someone else maybe up here or neighbor who doesn't seem to realize or has not processed or is it ignoring at the house is on fire it's not act like the houses on a fire it's not like you who's Big to extra or dramatic or whatever is that you are aware that the house is on fire and what the f***? How do we put the fire out?

So there's that and then of course for myself as a disabled person who has to isolate themselves from people you know I waited 7 years I was stuck in my home for seven f****** years because I lack the proper wheelchair and then in December I finally got one enough that I knew exactly what my life would be like but one thing I wanted to do was to go to protests and see my friends in person. And those are two things that I really wasn't able to do because I mean why I had to adjust to just speak out in the world again that was a big adjustment but then also with this search and covid cases and people just f****** pretending that covid is not even a f****** thing that in itself makes your head cave in. People get sick and they go oh yeah I have this weird flu some people don't even f****** say the word covid which is just like what the f*** is going on. But a lot of these people who are pretending that covid is no longer a thing as if this was a matter of f****** belief fun fact it's not those are the people who are not fully aware or are not openly behaving like they know that the house is on fire. Those are the people who in a search of covid cases no a surge of covid cases still do not wear masks.

Anyway so the point being is that this is not how I thought my life would be and that breaks my heart.

So if at the end of the day I feel a bit sad because of that that makes sense too.

I will say that I am adapting in that instead of focusing on what I can't do what I don't have access to, I'm really starting to embrace video chat with friends and when I'm finding out chats plural and when I'm finding out is that a lot of people that I know are absolutely down to have a video chat they're just not going to be the ones to bring it up first. And I think this is common because a lot of people right now we're overwhelmed and so maybe you want to reach out to people but you're just trying to get through your life you know because and I say this because almost every person that I asked about doing a video chat I said yes and there it's and they're very much into it. And when I've realized about myself is that I need to not to say hey we should have a video chat sometime I didn't say hey great you want to do that awesome what date are you free I'm free on the 15th at 1:00 p.m. does that work for you and f****** set a time and date and put it in the calendar or it does not happen and a lot of people that I know that I'm chatting with are the same f****** way. And I realizing is about ourselves let's not say hey let's just get in 2 weeks let's say so let's do this on the 30th at 2:00 p.m. or it won't f****** happen.

So on one hand it's a very very weird and challenging time. I've been through worse times but at least personally don't even get me started about voting holy f***. I mean yes Kamala is a slight improvement from genocide Joe but just because Kamala does not have a genocide related nickname doesn't mean she's not complicit but the same time though have you seen project 2025? Holy f*** it's bad. And the orange fascist is really really bad and it sucks that basically it's like okay choose between you know a smaller house fire or a blazing much larger house fire but either way the house is going to be on fire it's just a what size and degree.

And also you know as an anti zionist Jew and in general who's a person who is against genocide do I vote for Kamala? It's a thing it's a thing and all these things way on your heart

And I'm saying this because sometimes at the end of the day I feel sad and drained even if it's a better day and I wonder why do I feel so sad and drained I feel sad and drained because the f****** house is on fire but the fact of the house is on fire has been so normalized that I sometimes forget oh right I'm reacting to the fact that the house is on fire and my reaction is totally f****** valid.

Anyway there are other things to say but I'll leave it for another time. Today here's some things that I did that were enjoyable. One in the morning after making the deposit to the bank I explored Washington Street in Manhattan in the West village and that had a lot of fun neat things to photograph. I didn't go the whole length of the street because I wanted to get home before it got too hot and my battery on my motorized wheelchair was starting to get a little low. Not dangerously low but enough for it's okay why don't we go home I do not live anywhere near Washington Street. So that was enjoyable and I took some photos and I shared them online. And as I mentioned I also have been really creating a better sense of community on the social media sites that I do have access to and that being blue sky and Instagram and Facebook. Also and this meant a lot to me is that I had asked this person from the digital community disability community on Twitter to make it tweet and share what's happening to me that I was suspected permanently and it was most likely due to the fact that I'm pro Palestine and that I tweeted about that and share some things and that I can't get my account back and I want to share that just people know what happened to me but also the warning to others. Not to say that you should not talk about what's happening in Palestine on Twitter you most definitely should but if you do this might happen heads up. And it really sold my heart that people in the community are sharing it and they're trying to help me get my account back because you know I'm not a big influencer type person but now people who have a bit more clout are sharing it and I appreciate that more than I can say. You know the other night I was having these kind of negative thoughts and I let them go because I really had to approve that they were true that's why I react to them but you know sometimes I was like well will people even notice that I'm gone and people even care and the answer is yes and that was nice. So the other thing that happened that was quite nice today was that I started to declutter be living room area of my apartment. And that felt good because I really feel like when our room is cluttered the energy is cluttered and I think you feel that more when things are more stressful so it does feel sort of cleansing and clearing to declutter so me and my home health aide who was quite enthusiastic about it which was quite nice I can do a little bit each day.

And so that's that I'm going to add some paragraph breaks but that's what's going on.

[necroangelz]

points. fellow pure/pures pronouner >:3

also 🪽 and 💌?

indeed ! points back

to be exact i use pure/purest (⁠｡⁠•̀⁠ᴗ⁠-⁠)⁠✧

『 💌 』

a quote/song lyric

" but now that you're gone i have to move on

seems like everyone just smiles staring at the sun

but what about me?

tell me how i will know where i should go?

oh gales, you sing and guide me! "

i looovvveeee this movie so much ehe...... suzu is so me and I'd like to edit it some time

『 🪽 』

infodump about an oc

I'm rather silly tonight so I'm talking about 2 ocs again :3 tbh whenever i talk about 2 ocs in one infodump it's almost always bcz their stories are very interconnected/they're both main characters and the main focuses/they're in love and i need to talk about them at the same time etc . so here we go!

links to their playlist as well as their lore doc. these are photos of Phoebe and nyxa in their regular fairy forms and their everyday outfits. fun fact last year i played their playlist on speaker during New year's Eve bc i wanted to manifest a gf n a happy sapphic relationship like theirs and guess what? my wish came true on that year

here we have Phoebe and nyxa, my winx club ocs. theyre technically royale high ocs as well. nyxa was the first one i created. i made her during the royalloween 2022 update when the autumn halo with the moon and stars was released. i was VERY VERY obsessed with that halo and i did everything in my power to get it (i never got it). i made an outfit to match the halo if i ever got it (I NEVER GOT IT) and that outfit became an oc!

i first intended to give nyxa a darker story. nyxa, as the antihero, getting swept up in a dizzying whirl of tension, spying on alfea as a secret agent from cloud tower, secretly falling in love when she shouldn't be, nearly dying a few times, etc etc. but all of that changed when i made phoebe, her love interest. so what became of nyxa's story?

nyxa is a wealthy girl from a minor aristocratic family in a kingdom whose name i forgot. unfortunately her family suffered a great tragedy. her family fought over many things, wealth, power, inheritance, rights to ownership of something, lovers, etc. she was forced to witness the fights as they escalated and escalated through the years. her parents sensed when it would no longer be safe for her, so when she was young they sent her off to the countryside to live with a family friend. she had little contact with her family and she was left in the dark about what was going on at home. when she returned many years later, she returned to an empty manor. as far as she knows, she's the only surviving member of her family. as far as she knows.

when she's older, she studies in cloud tower but on her 2nd year she gets transferred to alfea for reasons unknown (Read: I Didn't Come Up With A Reason). her formal and sophisticated attitude (she can't help it, it's a result of her upbringing), her awkward shyness, her closed off personality, and her history in cloud tower caused the other students to stay away from her. rumors were made about her (She's a spy from cloud tower, she has a horrible personality and a superiority complex, she's a princess who was exiled for being a witch and she has blood on her hands, etc.) but people were very intimidated with nyxa so no one directly gave her a hard time. nyxa was good at keeping people away from her and she'd rather die than get close to anyone

nyxa is much more comfortable hiding away parts of herself from the world, even at the cost of her happiness. her trauma with her family makes her fear conflict and mushy emotional situations. she's scared of other people, she's scared of what they could do to her if she lets them get too close. she also had a rather isolated childhood resulting in her social awkwardness

nyxa enjoys writing poetry. she has a cat made of shadows named aponia. aponia can blend into the darkness and change in size. nyxa is skilled in "boy activities" such as sword fighting, sparring, racing with windriders, and dragon taming

meiker and picrew

nyxa picrews !! (well, in the case of the left photo, it's a meiker). the meiker is more of a hypothetical, alternate non canon design of nyxa. the picrew is nyxa all dressed up. can uu tell i like that picrew maker a lot?

meanwhile phoebe is the absolute opposite of nyxa in a few ways. ngl i lowkey coded phoebe and nyxa to be autism and adhd gfs anyway

phoebe is an absolute ball of sunshine if it wasn't obvious enough by her name and design. she's a very open, sincere, and friendly person. she's extroverted and bubbly. she doesn't notice it whenever she becomes "too much" for other people. people tend to only pay attention to phoebe's friendliness and kindness, because of course that's something they can benefit from. meanwhile they ignore her less perfect characteristics or downright passive aggressively put her down for it. so she has a lot of friends and she's quite popular, and yeah she does have genuine friends who embrace the more different sides of her, but a lot of people just befriend her for what she can do for them and not for her.

phoebe is a musician and aspires to be a rockstar. she's a very light and happy person, so people don't expect that she enjoys gothic rock and metal music. but in general she really really loves music. she listens to music from her headphones wherever she goes. she regularly gets scolded by her teachers for wearing headphones in class and she can't hear anyone at all when she's listening to her music. yeah her ears are probably fine dont worry

compared to nyxa she has a decent family life. her parents had some weird history of some sort but i didn't write that shit down so i forgot what it was LMAO but basically her parents are no longer together and she has four half brothers from another family that her father had. she lives with her biological mother and she has mommy issues. she has a good bond with her half brothers. the brothers are based on the four winds of greek mythology, so from eldest to youngest there's boreas (strict, has a temper, but the most responsible and reliable as the eldest), notos (named notus at birth but he insists that people spell his name differently, reckless, gets into trouble, very self confident, the opposite of boreas), zephyrus (peaceful, looks like the most well adjusted among his brothers, easily overtaken by strong emotions that he tries to suppress, hates making even the smallest of mistakes), and eurus. eurus is around phoebe's age, just a bit older, and he studies at red fountain so they hang out often. eurus has an interest in dragons and bonds with nyxa over this mutual interest. eurus looks very different compared to his brothers and he has a much better bond with phoebe than with his brothers

when nyxa transfers to alfea she becomes dormmates with phoebe (my headcanon is that there's smaller dorms in alfea and not all students share dorms in groups of 5 like winx) the layout of their dorm is basically the royale high 2nd school dorm lmfao

things are awkward between them at first. nyxa is put off by phoebe's personality, and phoebe thinks nyxa doesn't like her very much so she gives her space. she still remains polite and friendly to nyxa, and slowly phoebe's warmth helps nyxa to form a friendship with her. nyxa realizes she actually likes phoebe a lot and starts feeling more comfortable around her too

so yeah. they became friends. i like to think that they were attracted to each other bc they were both "different" from the rest and basically alone with no one else who understood them. they were just in different situations. they don't perfectly understand each other, bc they still have a lot of differences between them, but what matters is they try. and they genuinely appreciate each other. they don't intentionally treat each other any different, give each other a hard time etc. they help each other in any way they can

and also what matters is they fall in love eventually LMFAOO

i don't have a proper storyline set out for this but I like to imagine that at the end of their 3rd/final year at alfea, a concert event is held and Phoebe performs a special song that she wrote... a song she wrote for NYXA!!!! and i headcanon that the song she performed is "she's my religion" by pale waves bc its so lunasolis 👉👈 (yeah that's their ship name. Luna for nyxa, Solis for Phoebe)

Phoebe meiker and picrew

idk what else to add so heres some more photos of them

no link to the picrew sorry!

picrews of phoebe and nyxa as adults! i like to think that phoebe is a rockstar and nyxa works as the head of a detective agency. why a detective agency in particular? I'll explain that soon.....

a few yrs ago i commissioned my friend to draw phoebe and nyxa in their fancy outfits. there's one inaccuracy and it's their height, nyxa is supposed to be taller than phoebe, but it's okay with me i don't really mind. i love it sm and it was my wallpaper for a few months

without realizing it nyxa's story ended up being lighter and happier than i intended but i think I'm ok with that. i think i subconsciously wrote the story that i needed at the time when i made it. i if that makes sense? like at the time i needed to escape into a story with a happy, wholesome relationship so that's what i subconsciously wrote.

anyway tat's all for this infodump

[ausetkmt]

NPR: Why most Americans oppose reparations for slavery

A reparations rally outside City Hall in San Francisco this month, as supervisors take up a draft reparations proposal. The growing number of local actions has renewed hopes and questions about a national policy. Jeff Chiu/AP

Local reparations programs — in about a dozen cities and the state of California — have renewed hopes for an eventual national policy to compensate for slavery. But after decades of lobbying and three years of a national reckoning over race, Americans overall remain strongly opposed to the idea.

When Tatishe Nteta began polling about it several years ago he expected money would be the biggest issue. Or perhaps the workability of such a complex undertaking. It turns out those are the smallest concerns among the two-thirds of Americans who say they're against cash payments to the descendants of slaves.

"A plurality of Americans," Nteta says, "don't believe the descendants of slaves deserve reparations."

The political science professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, plans more research to get at exactly why people think that. The other most common reasons opponents cite is that it's "impossible to place a monetary value on the impact of slavery" and "African Americans are treated equally in society today."

Nteta, and also the Pew Research Center, find about three-quarters or more of white adults oppose reparations, and so do a majority of Latinos and Asian Americans. A large majority of Black Americans support them. There's also more support among younger people and a sharp political divide, with overwhelming opposition from Republicans and conservatives.

The racial wealth gap challenges a core American narrative

On a recent sunny day on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., it was not hard to find reparations opponents willing to share their reasoning.

"You can't take what we know now and try to superimpose yourself onto 150 years ago," says Jeff Bernauer, visiting from Huntsville, Alabama. He calls racism a sin and says of course slavery was wrong. But to try and make amends at this point makes no sense.

"The generation that would be paying for it have nothing to do with what was done in the past," he says. "And then you're paying people that have nothing to do with it in the past."

Terry Keuhn of upstate New York agrees, and does not like the idea of a targeted program that would only help some people.

"We're all immigrants at some point, whether it was voluntary or forced," she says. "And nobody needs a handout anymore. Everybody, you know, pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps and works for a living and makes their way in this world."

That conviction — that hard work pays off — is a core narrative of the U.S., says Yale social psychologist Michael Kraus, and the notion of a persistent racial wealth gap clashes with it. He's surveyed people about this and thinks his findings help explain the broad opposition to reparations.

"A majority of our sample tends to think that we've made steady progress towards greater equality in wealth between families, so between black and white families," he says. "That is totally inconsistent with reality."

Most of those he surveyed thought that today, for every $100 dollars white families have, Black families have about $90. In fact, the racial wealth gap is exponentially larger. Given its magnitude, and the recent intense focus on racial justice around the country, Kraus calls this disconnect a kind of "collective willful ignorance."

Sure, he says, many people — especially white — may be isolated from those in different economic circumstances, and so find it difficult to fathom the enormous wealth gap. But he says it doesn't take much work to understand that Black people continue to be discriminated against in the job market, housing, banking, and other areas. He's come to believe that some — consciously or not — are avoiding information they may find uncomfortable.

The hope that an education campaign can change minds

Dorothy Brown is a convert on reparations. The Georgetown law professor dismissed the idea as impractical and unlikely, until she wrote a book about how even the U.S. tax system favors white families at the expense of Black ones. She decided the country's persistent wealth gap goes back to slavery, and so the only solution is reparations. Although she thinks they should be about systemic changes and not just cash.

"In 2 to 3 years that wealth would wind up in white hands, because our system for building wealth is not one designed for Black wealth," she says.

Brown is not daunted by the lack of public support. Her forthcoming book will make the case for reparations and she thinks many Americans are persuadable.

"Part of it is an education, it's a walk through history," she says. "It's a recognition that, okay, you may not have had anything to do with slavery, but ... your white grandfather got an FHA [Federal Housing Administration] insured loan. My grandfather couldn't because he was Black."

Brown sees a model in U.S. reparations for Japanese Americans who'd been interned during World War II.

Before the activist push for them, "fundamentally there was a lack of knowledge about what happened," says historian Alice Yang of the University of California, Santa Cruz. Then in 1980 and 1981, Congress held hearings in 20 cities around the country, and they included powerful testimony from people who'd been incarcerated with their families as children.

"Those hearings had a major impact on public perception of what happened during the war, how Japanese Americans were affected by it, and why redress might be appropriate," Yang says.

It helped convince some Japanese Americans who'd opposed the idea of reparations. But Yang says public opinion overall was not much of a factor. Japanese Americans at the time were only .5% of the population, mostly in California and Hawaii. The campaign for reparations was really about persuading members of Congress, and "if there had been a lot of public opinion opposing it, I think it might have affected [them] differently," Yang says.

"It's going to be ... decades"

Supporters of reparations for Black Americans consider a national program crucial. Explicitly racist federal policies were key in creating the wealth gap, and only the federal government could come anywhere close to compensating for harms that some have calculated at as much as $14 trillion. Brown sees local reparations as part of an education campaign for a national push, but others aren't sure whether they'll help or hurt.

Nteta, at U-Mass Amherst, believes some places are being mindful of the broad opposition to atoning for slavery. Evanston, Illinois, for example, is providing housing grants for residents who faced discrimination.

"It's not about slavery," Nteta says. "It's about the ways in which individuals who still are alive today were treated during a period of Jim Crow and institutionalized racism. So those people still exist."

If that or another program is deemed successful, he says, perhaps a national roadmap will emerge. But Yale researcher Kraus says they could also prompt backlash and reinforce misperceptions about the wealth gap.

"People could even use local reparations events as evidence that things are moving too fast and unnaturally towards equality, and so we need to stop and take a measured approach," he says.

Nteta already sees a general backlash. He says the debate over critical race theory and how to teach race in schools is "part and parcel of the debate about reparations," and yet another challenge to building support for them.

He says he wouldn't rule out an eventual policy, as young people more supportive of reparations replace older voters. But if it ever happens, "it's going to be, I think, decades."

In the Pew survey, even most supporters of reparations considered them unlikely to happen in their lifetime.

[redstringraven]

*stances at you*

i have five ''''primaries'''' and several ''''secondaries''''. but to avoid overwhelm, i'll just briefly list the primaries off with their blog tags.

all of my ocs meet the turtles after s4, and i'm working on making them reference sheets with full profiles because... i usually just draw them doing things. i am a bad and irresponsible oc haver. oTL

text/info under the readmore so as not to clog.

left to right: cassia dubois, nyxram, gwyneth and aislinn.

cassia is a 3rd-earth human and she's about as civilian in the world of tmnt as you can get. she can scrap, but she can't fight (nor does she want to). her mom's a hairdresser and her dad's a train conductor; the triceraton invasion was harrowing for them as her dad was halfway across the country at the time and maintaining contact was hard. she loves rollerskating through the city, street art--be it graffiti, murals or turning a trashcan into the cookie monster--and the 1970s aesthetic. since she's pretty uninvolved in the turtles' adventures and dangers, she can often be a source of grounding for them; her apartment's become another safe-haven away from the lair (her mom knows about them), and if you befriend her you will get a nickname. there's no escape. that's a threat and a promise.

nyxram is a triceraton; she was born to two assassins, raised and trained in isolation to surpass her parents in their 'trade', essentially birthed and forged to kill. unfortunately for them, 'nature' seems to have beaten 'nurture' in this case. nyx never took pride nor satisfaction in her work, but since it was all she knew, she felt it was all she had. after witnessing traximus defy zanramon in the arena and escape, she sought him out and joined the rebellion, becoming a key resource and informant due to her proximity to zanramon and the council. post-rebellion, she struggles with her sense of purpose and direction. her mother has been apprehended and detained--considered a high-security prisoner--but her father is believed to have died during his attempted capture. nyx isn't so sure.

gwyn and ash are twins from the realm of liáfsini, a world that exists between worlds much like the battle nexus does. ash's physical body was killed by the weapon she currently inhabits, her soul having been transferred into the gem as she died. the weapon is made of the liáfsian soul-gem and a black mineral that shifts to the will of the soul it's bound to, allowing ash to take the form of any weapon she's seen (sometimes with a bit of her own flair). she can be playful and has an odd sense of humor, but is more often riddled with anxiety and hesitant to make her presence known to anyone aside from gwyn.

gwyn is galaxy and dimension hopping, searching for a way to get ash her body back while fleeing the man responsible for her family's death in the first place. where ash has somewhat come to terms with her 'death' and wishes gwyn would live her life for herself, gwyn refuses to let go of the possibility she could get her sister back. gwyn has not been 'traditionally trained' in combat, but rather has learned through observation, trial-and-error, and necessity. her resourcefulness paired with ash's shapeshifting give her an edge of unpredictability in a fight. survival has required her to become a bit of a social chameleon; she's lost touch with her own identity in many ways, but her unrelenting will and gritted-teeth optimism keep her on her feet and moving.

my final 'primary' is darach (no public art yet because i want to get him right), the main antagonist of gwyn and ash's story-arc as he's pursuing gwyn across the universe with the intention of retrieving the weapon prototype for study and replication. he's an ancient liáfsian druid, and if ch'rell was all force, power, and intimidation, then darach is the pot you put the frog in. the water seems safe and warm. you don't realize you're boiling alive until it's too late.

there're rumors that he and ch'rell collaborated before the latter got stranded on earth. and in my self-indulgent headcanons, i like to think some of ch'rell's inspiration for the sword of tengu came from a glimpse darach's spellcasting. he would have stripped lightning from a storm and wielded it like a blade. should darach ever learn about the sword, he'd be flattered. it was a crude, but effective, copy. and what a compliment! that the great ch'rell must have first felt his own skin crawl before wanting the power for himself.

appreciate you posting this and potentially reading my response! i can be shy and reclusive, but i'm trying to get better about talking about my creations instead of hoarding my thoughts like a skittish dragon fjdshjkghsd.

been lovely reading everyone else's replies, too! ✌🖤 13/10, great kids, bront!

Not sure if anyone is gonna see this since it's 1:40 AM here, but if you have TMNT OCs

* makes grabby hands *

Show them to meeeeeee. I wanna meet everyone's literal children.