#tangentially related: recognizing the need to work on something doesn’t mean you’re a bad person

[yourlocalmissingtexture]

Company-sponsored movie night (unsolved and/or internet mystery investigation videos I’ve already watched 3-4 times) at the electric meat factory (my serotonin-deprived brain) tonight!!

[flightfoot]

The reason of the so many Adrien salt fic is because while Mari need to face a consequence of her wrong doing (akumatizing Lila, chat blanc, animaesteo, miracle Queen) Adrien could scoot free with no consequence copycat is harmless and not counted.

...Huh? Wait, what? How does “facing an akuma that was partially due to Adrien’s actions” not count as a consequence for Adrien, but DOES count for Marinette? Also Marinette had her own issues in that episode - breaking into your crush’s locker in order to break into his phone and delete an embarrassing voice mail? Not cool. And Marinette actually came out on top that episode - she got to go to the movies at Adrien - though granted, not alone - like she’d wanted.

Marinette sometimes gets hit with “consequences” for silly things - what she did in Chris Master was FINE Tikki, just because it was tangentially related to the story Marinette told Chris didn’t mean he did anything wrong - I’ll agree with that. And she’s gotta be feeling like if she slips up at all, even for a minute, like things can go catastrophically wrong, after what happened in Miracle Queen.

Something to note even about those, though; while bad things may happen as a result, it’s never treated as a “she deserves to suffer” kind of thing, and no one tries to punish Marinette. Nor is there ever a long-term consequence, except in Miracle Queen - and you notice what happens when she breaks down in that episode? She gets hugs and comfort. Chat doesn’t scream at her about messing up. NO ONE gets upset at her for making a mistake. Everyone just tries to help her deal with the situation as best they can, try to get it to the best outcome, and try to reassure her. (Well, everyone mostly meaning Chat and Fu here). 

AT WORST, she might receive a mild scolding, usually from Tikki, very occasionally from Adrien. But neither of them ever do more than that, or seem to even think badly of her - just that she didn’t make the best choice right in that moment, or that she made an honest mistake. They don’t yell and scream at her or try to get her Miraculous taken away or really do more than say “hey, that wasn’t cool.” 

And Adrien DOES sometimes face consequences - Reflekdoll’s a decent example, where he’d been kinda obnoxious earlier in that episode about making jokes with bad timing, since Ladybug had needed him to focus right then. And later, when he had the Miraculous, he experienced why sometimes she didn’t have as much time for jokes since it requires more concentration than the Black Cat to use well, and he recognized that at the end and told her he understood. Then they all got to have a fun time finishing up the photoshoot.

That’s another important thing; whenever someone faces a consequence, like with Marinette, they’re always fine at the end. Life goes on, they still have people and friends to rely on, and generally the episodes end on a positive note. She gets to hang out with her friends, go to a movie, eat some ice cream, etc. She isn’t treated as deserving to suffer.

Also, Animaestro REALLY isn’t a great example of Marinette facing consequences. What she did there was pretty damn bad, and she never really faced consequences due to THAT exactly - the akuma was partially due to the plan going awry and Thomas getting caught up in it, but... not so much because of the awful things she tried to do to Kagami.

I’ll go over the episode a bit, because honestly? I think it should be talked about more.

Chloé: If we get rid of Kagami before the movie starts, there'll be an extra seat for you. Marinette: We can't do that! Chloé: Remember what you said to me once, Marinette? All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing. (Marinette gasps) Well today, the evil is her and the good people are us! Marinette: I'm not too sure about this. Chloé: Fine! Keep on not being sure about it and tomorrow, Adrien and Kagami will be on a plane headed for Japan! Marinette: Adrien? Japan? There's no way! Chloé: You think? They're already going to the movies together, their parents are signing papers together. (camera zooms in on Mrs. Tsurugi in the background, stamping a document with her signature) Marinette: (imagines Adrien and Kagami on a plane and dancing with kimonos on) We can't let her do that!

To Marinette’s credit, she DOES at least have reservations about doing something to Kagami... but she still agrees to it, because she doesn’t want Adrien and Kagami to get together... and Adrien to potentially leave. She still decides that it’s ok for her to interfere and to purposely try to “get rid of” Kagami.

Scene: Under the serving table. Marinette is gathering items needed for their plan.

Tikki: Marinette! Surely you're not gonna team up with Chloé?! Marinette: I'm just stopping Kagami from kidnapping Adrien and taking him off to Japan. He's too nice to see what she's really up to! (Tikki looks at her judgingly and sighs)

Marinette’s in full anxiety mode here and has persuaded herself that Kagami is this awful person who deserves this, and that she’s ‘saving’ Adrien somehow - that she’s in the right.

Adrien: Well I'm more of a dog person... (camera zooms further out to show Chloé and Marinette) Chloé: Alright. (she looks at what Marinette has gathered) Garbage bag, ladle and what? (she holds up a spool of string) I asked you to get some rope! Marinette: All I could find was this cooking string. You know, for tying up roasts. Chloé: Do I look like someone who knows anything about cooking roasts? (she grabs Marinette's arm and starts pulling her along) Marinette: Hey, wait! (Chloé finds a plate of macarons and pours them into the garbage bag. She ties up the bag and begins smashing it with the ladle.) Marinette: Chloé! We can't do this! Chloé: Listen, Marinette! If we don't sacrifice a few macarons now Adrien is going to be eating sushi for the rest of his life! (Chloé blows a bubble with her gum before spitting the gum into the ladle.) Chloé: You better not screw this up, Dupain-Cheng. Marinette: (picks up the gum warily) I'm doing this for you, Adrien.

She does at least voice some reluctance about the plan again - but she still goes through with it. Still thinks that she and Chloe have the right to try to do things to Kagami to ‘protect’ Adrien for his own sake, but not say, talk to HIM about it and see what he thinks - heck, earlier she was saying that he was too nice to see what Kagami was really up to! And then saying it’s for HIS sake - which no, it really isn’t. Even in her imaginings of him going away to Japan, he doesn’t look unhappy or miserable or anything, she just - doesn’t want him to potentially leave her, and has persuaded herself it’s for his sake for her own sanity.

Chloé: (to Jagged) Hold this for me. (Marinette is being helped up by Adrien) Marinette: Thank you, Adrien! (The gum sits on the ground next to Kagami's foot) (Marinette takes the special macaron out of her pocket.) Marinette: Here, Adrien. This is, uh, your favorite flavored macaron. Er, of course I'm just guessing. I mean, how would I know, right? (nervous giggle) But people do sometimes prefer some things to other things so... Here! Adrien: Uh… thanks, Marinette!

Here, Marinette purposely drops a tray of her parents’ macarons which they made for this big event, in order to provide cover for planting gum on Kagami’s shoe. It’s a good thing her parents made extra. This is a big event, and it wouldn’t look great on them professionally if they hadn’t brought a sufficient amount of treats, or if one of their servers had dropped so many of them that THAT’S why they ran out. She didn’t drop them by accident at least, like her parents thought might happen - she did so purposely as part of a plan to ruin Kagami’s clothes. Which I’m pretty sure makes it worse.

(Marinette smiles at Adrien briefly before Chloé whisks her away) Chloé: What were you doing with that macaron? That was not part of the plan! Adrien: Kagami is something wrong? (Chloé and Marinette peek over a counter to see what Adrien is talking about. Kagami is holding up her shoe with gum on it.) Kagami: These shoes belonged to my grandmother. Chloé: Hah! This is a part of the plan. (Adrien puts down the special macaron and goes to get a chair) Adrien: Sit down. I'll help you. (Kagami and Adrien spot the crushed macarons that Chloé had put on the seat) Chloé: Phase two, Dupain-Cheng. (Chloé crawls across the floor and pulls out the spool of string and Marinette grabs a poster of Jagged Stone. Adrien looks all over the event for another chair but all the chairs have crushed macarons on them.) Marinette: Can you please autograph this for me, Jagged? (Marinette holds up the poster of Jagged Stone) (Jagged gets a pen out and puts the cake on a chair. Adrien finally finds a chair that doesn't have macarons on it. Just before Kagami sits down Chloé pulls the string which is attached to the cake chair. The video goes into slow motion as Kagami goes to sit down.) Mrs. Tsurugi: Kagami! (Kagami straightens up and doesn't sit on the cake)

The plan here, which Marinette was privy to and is a part of, was to have Kagami sit on that chocolate cake, staining that kimono. Considering that the overall goal is to drive her off, at the VERY least, they’re intending her to need to go to somewhere to change and not getting back in time to see the movie. Considering that it seems like she could at least get a change of clothes and come back in time to catch part of the movie - getting around ML Paris doesn’t seem to take all that long - I’m guessing part of what’s intended to keep her away is the whole “getting really upset at having something humiliating and awful happen to her so publicly at such a major event, with lots of press and one of the few people she’s friends with there to see it��. This isn’t some unintended, not thought about consequence - it’s PART of it. It’s intentional and premeditated. The only reason it DIDN’T work isn’t due to say, Marinette having a change of heart and trying to change the plan - it’s ONLY due to the dumb luck of Mrs. Tomoe calling out at precisely the right moment to stop Kagami from sitting on that cake. I actually wrote a fic based on what I think may feasibly have happened if she HADN’T called out right then actually, and HAD sat on that cake.

(Adrien helps Kagami hop towards Mrs. Tsurugi as the children and Thomas go near the cake chair) Child: But if you didn't make the story or the drawings, then you didn't do anything. (Thomas sits down and sighs. He spots the special macaron on the table where Adrien left it. He takes it out and eats it. His face becomes worried as red boils pop up all over it.) Thomas: What's happening? Children: Eww! (Thomas takes out his phone and looks at himself in the camera before sniffing the macaron packet.) Thomas: This macaron contains almonds! (runs over to Tom and Sabine) I specifically told you that I'm allergic to almonds! Tom: We were so careful about that. All the macarons are made from coconut. Marinette: Uh, oh. All but one! (The children laugh at Thomas) Thomas: What? What in the- Who put this cake on this seat!? (The children run away from the angry Thomas) Marinette: I should have known! How could one of Chloé's plans end in anything but disaster? Thomas: I spent three years of my life working day in day out for this! What was meant to be my night is ruined! (looks sadly at the floor)

Notice that Marinette’s upset here that Chloe’s plan ended in ‘disaster’ - which it was always intended to, just as a disaster for Thomas rather than Kagami, who was the intended target.

Also, bringing that macaron to an event where that type was specifically barred due to allergies could also have gotten her parents in serious trouble. Though admittedly, there’s a decent chance that she didn’t know that macarons with almonds were barred, and with how she’d planned to hand it over, the risk was minimal.

Mrs. Tsurugi: Now I understand why Kagami speaks so much about you. Your father has raised you to be a refined young man! (Adrien blushes at the comment) Marinette: The plan is a total disaster! Adrien and Kagami are even closer now than they were before. Chloé: You ruined EVERYTHING, Dupain-Cheng. What was it with that macaron, anyway? Marinette: Er. It was a special passion fruit macaron. Chloé: But that's the favorite of... No. Don't tell me that! (laughs and points finger at Marinette) You've got a crush on ADRIEN! (laughs and wipes eyes) That is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. You're a nobody in his eyes and you'll always be a nobody. Watch, I'll prove it. (walks over to Adrien) Adrikins! Doorman: (offscreen) Who are you? You can't come- wah! (the doorman is thrown from the door and Animaestro is there instead) Animaestro: So you really think a director does nothing? Let me show you exactly what I'm capable of. Chloé: Come on! Get a grip! Hey, Adrikins. You'll never guess- (sees Adrien gone) (Civilians start screaming and running away) Animaestro: Oh, come on! Don't leave! The show's just getting started! (Animaestro transforms into a large green cartoon dinosaur in a puff of pink smoke) Animaestro: Roar! (spits a lasers out of his mouth that hit buildings) Marinette: I promise I'll never take Chloé's advice again!

Notice here that Marinette does NOT realize that trying to ruin Kagami’s clothes and sabotage Adrien and Kagami’s time together was wrong in its own sake - she’s only upset that things didn’t go to plan, and especially that it’s had the OPPOSITE effect of bringing Adrien and Kagami closer together. The lesson she learns is “Chloe’s plans don’t work and tend to backfire, so don’t participate in them if you want the intended outcome to actually happen”, not “trying to purposely sabotage other people’s time together, even trying to get their property ruined to do so and be publicly humiliated, is a bad thing to do”.

Then the akuma happens. Partly as a consequence of some of her actions, but no one blames her for it or even have a clue she was partly involved. And at the end?

Marinette: Chloé! Please don't tell Adrien I have a crush on him! Chloé: (takes a macaron) In this world, there are those who work and those who shine. Forever there will be this division between us, Dupain-Cheng. (pokes Marinette on the nose) Which is why you and I will never be a team. I'm not going to tell him. You're not worth the extra attention. (enters the theater) Thomas: (after seeing the conversation) You know what. Take my seat and enjoy the movie. I've seen it ten times or more. What matters the most for the movie is to be seen by people who really want to see it right? Marinette: I-I but.. Thomas: Sorry, I guess you don't know who I am either Marinette: Of course do. You're Thomas Astruc the movie director! (hugs him) Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Thomas: She recognized me. Somebody actually recognized me! (wipes away tears) This is the best day of my life! (eats a macaron)

She still gets to go to the movies with Adrien, though he spends time with Kagami as well. Nothing bad happens to Marinette, and she gets what she wanted in the beginning, why she came in the first place - to spend time with Adrien.

Look. If the places were reversed, Adrien salters would NEVER EVER EVER STOP SCREAMING ABOUT IT. If Adrien had teamed up with someone - probably still Chloe - to try to sabotage Marinette and Luka spending time together because he’d convinced himself that she’d get together with Luka and he’d whisk her away to somewhere outside of Paris so he wouldn’t get to see her again, and had as a consequence knowingly participated in a plan to ruin Luka’s property at some huge public event in order to get him to separate from Marinette, and to take Luka’s place and spend time with her in his stead, because he was convinced that he knew what was better for her than she did, that she just couldn’t see that Luka was bad for her? And then only learned that those kinds of plans backfire, getting upset that they became closer instead, and getting to still spend time with Marinette afterwards? Somehow I don’t think Adrien salters would accept that as Adrien facing consequences just because an akuma happened.

And that’s part of my problem with Adrien saltfics, and most saltfics in general; they’re not generally about ‘consequences happening’ so much as ‘punishing the characters and wanting to make them suffer horribly and telling the characters that they DESERVE that suffering’, which is NOT a thing in canon.

[janiedean]

While i hate antis and their bullying everytime they shaming a fictional ship because i believe that "Fiction is not reality", I also agree that fiction can be a good role model for the real world for example : Diana's characterisation in Wonder Woman to show us more variety of strong woman character or Theon's PTSD scene to how us what REAL PSTD scene looks like (and we're mad when people keep saying that Theon just being coward in that scene). How should we balance the two, in your opinion?

okay, so, first thing, I think we need to make a basic distinction and state that fiction influences reality and people might be influenced by fiction do not mean the same thing whatsoever.

then we have to make another distinction ie there’s such a thing as massively consumed fiction and less consumed fiction/fandom and both are also different.

then we also have to state that one thing is emulating characters, one thing is finding them interesting or recognizing yourself in them.

last thing that instead is valid for everything, one thing is good things being represented in fiction, the other is bad things being represented in fiction.

let’s go from easier to hardest.

easier: massively consumed vs fandom. now, what people on tumblr fail to realize is that most of the planet doesn’t not give a fuck about fandom or engages with it. I mean, if you’re into it you would, but I know a bunch of people who are nerds/into fandom who don’t ship nor are into fanfic. fanfic/fanart/whatever influences people maybe on a fandom-level, but if you assume that people at large might start thinking incest is fine because thor/loki exists (which is a purely fanon thing) or because jaime/cersei exists (actual mainstream stuff but not as large as idk SW), you’re frankly deluding yourself because only thor/loki shippers give two fucks about thor/loki and not counting a few people I can think of, no one thinks jaime/cersei makes incest okay nor abusive relationships okay. thor/loki isn’t even represented in fiction, it’s fanfic, jaime/cersei is represented in fiction, but no one would think either thing makes banging your brother okay whether it’s dysfunctional (t/l) or just downright abusive (j/c). in that case assuming that if you’re into t/l or j/c you want to bang your brother is the bad case which assumes that whichever fiction in existence influences reality directly.

that said, no one is actually wanting to make a social justice point while having jc being a thing or t/l being dysfunctional. it’s dynamics that are interesting to explore.

wonder woman giving more variety to a strong female character instead is extremely mass-consumption media which would show a lot of people that different type (because a lot more people watch DC movies than GOT) then you show them differently and they might start thinking differently about strong female characters. or idk black kids seeing the new star wars and liking that there’s a black lead (same for the mcu and falcon/black panther) is also an extremely mass-consumption thing, because of course most people watch star wars and know what the hell star wars is. in that case you have fiction making a positive impact on reality (or maybe reflecting reality) but it’s also, like, reasonable. because sw-the-movies have impact and normalize that the leads in the story can also be not always white blonde men with blue eyes, but the star wars fandom - and I’m just talking about the part that produces fanfic/fanart and not about the people cosplaying stormtroopers and so on - influences shit. no one is going to make people think force-choking someone is going to be okay because k*ylux fic exists, same as no one thinks that killing a bunch of children is okay because anakin did it in the prequels and no one is ever gonna think you’re a psychopath because you stan k*ylo ren same as no one who watches star wars (IN GENERAL) sees kylo and thinks WOW HAVING SUCH A BAD VILLAIN WILL BE A BAD INFLUENCE TO CHILDREN, because a generation or two grew up thinking vader was cool but no one ever thought what vader did was right. I mean, people who don’t have issues distinguishing the two facts (and usually the people who do are radical SOMETHING, conservatives or antis or whatever) are entirely aware that reality lets itself being influenced by fiction to a certain degree when it’s about positive things, not for negative things at large.

now obviously you have exceptions like fifty shades of gray which is a bad fanfic that has turned mainstream (relatively) and so now there’s a bunch of people convinced that it’s real BDSM TM, but that’s because in society people don’t get educated about how abusive relationships work or toxic relationships work so they don’t recognize it in shitty fanfic turned mainstream, but that’s where you focus your efforts and educate people, you don’t say that since fifty shades is shit then you can’t write books or make movies about bdsm period, which is what the idiots seem to want.

now, moving on to point one: as stated above, *fiction* as a thing doesn’t influence reality or every kid who’s ever read HP would have committed suicide trying to fly off the window on a broom, which is a thing that we know doesn’t exist irl and cannot exist irl. and mainstream fiction can influence reality as much as we let it for positive things, because honest, who’s ever turned violent because of videogames? no one, but since we all have violent instincts buried somewhere maybe killing people in a videogame lets you blow off some steam and whatever because you know it’s fake. of course there’s the matter of age appropriate content, but if a parent lets a seven year old watch GOT or play GTA and then that kid is traumatized it’s their parents’ fault, not the fault of the media which was clearly labeled for adults. or I mean, I read/watched media that was above my age when I was ten but I was ready for it and my parents knew it, if I wasn’t they wouldn’t have let me.

also, on the ptsd angle: in the punisher there’s plenty of examples of realistic ptsd post-war, but I haven’t seen anyone yet say anything sensed on what was to me the most realistic and well done character in that sense (lewis wilson) because people kept on saying he was *white terrorist* and that the show didn’t excuse his action with *mental illness* without knowing that having ptsd post-combat is like, being mentally ill. that show was excellent rep in that sense, but have people in fandom caught up on it or understood it? meh. people outside it yes, and maybe some people on here, too, but not as many as I’d like. same goes for theon - WITHIN FANDOM because the ptsd thing was fairly understood OUTSIDE IT. which means that the real world is getting more sensitive to that narrative, tumblr isn’t. in that case, the real world is letting himself be influenced or touched by that narrative, tumblr isn’t. what do we know.

so, tldr for this part: fiction only influences X as far as you let it and people in general do know that if wrong thing is depicted in fiction it’s wrong. I mean, I never heard of anyone becoming a pedophile after watching or reading mysterious skin, which is a really fucking good movie which doesn’t romanticize the subject at all. 

now, about the last part ie personal identification/emulation: now, never mind that emulating a character is usually done by the time you’re ten and before then you pretend to be batman while playing with your friends but you know you’re not batman, and past five you do know that if superman can fly, you a regular human being can’t. the point is that fictional people are written by real people, so if they’re realistic and the writers write them well, they’ll be relatable, and if they’re relatable they might influence you as a person or make you find shit out about yourself that might change you, and in that sense it does influence reality somehow, or if you use it to cope with trauma then it surely helps you, but who you relate to isn’t what others might. we can say that we have basic level, representation level, using-it-to-cope level.

now I’m gonna go use myself as a template since I’ve for good and for bad have used fiction to cope with shit for my entire life, so. under the cut because this is long and the next part is all personal shit so people should have the right to scroll past it xD

basic level: when I was fifteen I was having a shit time, I read the dark tower, I ran into my Favorite Character Ever, the guy used shitty humor to deal with crap all the time, it was a tendency I already had and I went like ‘okay if it worked for him why didn’t it work for me’ and today I’m someone who deals with about anything by using shitty humor or joking about it and it’s helped me tremendously honestly, if I took everything too seriously I’d be a terrible person. also, that helped me with self-confidence to a point and blah blah blah it made my life tangentially better. but that was just, like, about me. and I didn’t certainly try to emulate the guy’s worst flaws, because that wasn’t the point. anyway, I found the guy relatable but I didn’t see him as, like, representation or anything.

representation level/slightly coping level: I read asoiaf when I was twenty-two. I am sad I didn’t before because when I ran into brienne I was slammed with a brick in the face that was saying OH HEY THAT’S SOMEONE WHO’S ACTUALLY LIKE YOU/HAD YOUR EXPERIENCES. I don’t just relate to brienne, I identify with brienne to a fairly bad degree, and I’m really sad I didn’t run into her before because I might have gathered a great deal of self-confidence from seeing that there was a main character somewhere who was ugly/seen as ugly by anyone else and still was an a+++ person who could do worthwhile things and was a viable love interest for Hot Guy. (idk if it shows when I write jb fic but it’s there, so.) did brienne change my life? not as much as she could have if I had read acok when it was released, but she did give me some hope that with GOT becoming mainstream not-conventionally-pretty women would get some mainstream rep, because sure af there wasn’t much when I grew up. if that happens? fiction did influence reality, but in the wonder woman/good kind. again, no one (me or anyone else) would want to be like brienne by GRABBING A SWORD AND KILLING PEOPLE, we’d rather probably just get confidence/inspired by what she does. because she’s a well-written character that entirely gets it.

except that a lot of asoiaf fans think that she’s boring or useless or see nothing in her. which is fine - it’s not their target I guess, but again, a character who’s extremely important to me means nothing to other people and certainly doesn’t influence them.

coping/potentially badwrong coping level: so, as a person I’m really not into badwrong/dysfunctional dynamics that don’t make people better. as such, I tend to ship healthy couples/dynamics where the two people make each other better.

which is why I never was remotely interested in thor/loki as a thing in my entire life until two months ago - WAIT - and for all my time in the mcu I always felt a visceral dislike for loki I never really dwelt upon while at the same time whenever I saw thor bashing (ie he’s an idiot or he’s a bully or he doesn’t understand loki and the likes) I always felt a visceral distaste in my mouth like NO DON’T IT’S NOT LIKE THAT, but since it wasn’t even my favorite mcu franchise and thor isn’t my favorite mcu character I never, like, thought about it. I just went with the obvious ‘everyone likes loki because ANTAGONISTS which I don’t get and I get angry on thor’s behalf because he doesn’t deserve that shit’. all good until I watch ragnarok which is, like, COMPLETE CRACK ON A STICK AND NOT A SERIOUS MOVIE AT ALL and which probably did not mean to be a psychological textbook and at the end I’m like ‘fuck okay maybe I ship it a bit and now that loki’s done with the angst maybe I can tolerate him’, and then not long later or so I get hit with another ton of bricks in the face and realize that of course I always had that feeling, that was because thor and loki had the exact same dysfunctional dynamic I had with my former best friend of fourteen years that I haven’t talked to for at least seven years and which is like the root of 70% of the issues I have. all of them. and like, loki was like her except Much More Extra and on a larger scale, thor was me except Much More Extra and the more I think about it the more it just fits 100% and you don’t even wanna know how I’ve spent this last month, because I had no idea I spent six years with those feelings about that dynamic because of that, I had no idea I actually found thor that relatable on a visceral level and I still have Unresolved Issues with that person and I can’t solve them with them personally for reasons. if I actually end up writing them fanfic where I, uh, subtly address personal issues and it works, then that badwrong-ish fic has influenced me for the best (and says all that I realized it just when they reconciled, I didn’t let myself do it before). but like, that wouldn’t mean that I wanted to bang my ex-friend or that I suddenly approve of incest - because sure af I didn’t want to bang her and sure af I didn’t turn into PLEASE DO BANG YOUR SIBLINGS WHENEVER YOU WANT (ew no). that’s the damned difference. thor and loki banging in whatever fanfic won’t make anyone excuse incest and won’t influence anyone outside thor fandom on ao3 - hell, at most it’s going to influence me because if I do it I’m doing it to work through my issues. it doesn’t change reality at large.

like, fiction can be a model for something you want to see more of or you can find characters role models or relatable and it can present you a view of the world, but at the end of the day we all know that it’s not real and we only use it to filter reality and/or ourselves through it and it helps us doing it, which is why something that makes sense to me - ie that thor is extremely relatable - won’t make sense to someone who finds loki relatable for reasons I couldn’t even begin to imagine. maybe the same piece of fiction/media both influences us, but it influences us very differently because we see it through different lens. and the thing is that if you conflate the two things and start emulating characters past the age of four then you have a problem distinguishing the two things and you need to get over it/get help/whatever, because to everyone else it’s normal to see the world through fiction or part of it. if you do because I know people who think fiction is merely fiction and don’t understand the point of relating to a character in the first place. 

so like tldr, fiction influences you as much as you let it and it’s something you use actively and that is there for everyone to interpret, but it can’t, just existing, influence anything especially because if no one reads it or watches it then it’s useless. and since most **problematic** stuff is consumed by people who actively look for it and know what they’re doing - again, no one reads tentacle porn on ao3 if they don’t like tentacle porn - you can’t say that by existing, incest fic or badwrong fic normalizes abuse, because it only does if you let it and if you don’t know what abuse is and you can’t recognize it for what it is. like, a piece of fiction doesn’t need to spell THIS IS WRONG for you to know that I dunno t/hramsay fanfic is not what you should want in a relationship, you have to know that, and that’s on you, not on something that’s not mass-consumption - because badwrong fic and stuff is usually written by badwrong fans for badwrong fans, not by hired disney writers for star wars movies that have to be good for children, adults, nerds and the mass audience at large.

you balance the two by knowing that badwrong stuff is wrong irl (and it’s not a stretch) and by looking at the world through the lenses of whatever not badwrong fiction you enjoy/like/relate to, which can also be badwrong of course (see the thor/loki rant above) but like the fact that it does it to us singularly doesn’t mean that all of a sudden THE ENTIRE WORLD IS INFLUENCED BY THE EXISTENCE OF FAKE THINGS.

nor that WE SHOULD PUT THAT MUCH IMPORTANCE on fake things, because one thing is all of the above, another is saying that a piece of media is trash because it doesn’t have the representation you want in it or thinking that since something exists in fiction then you won a social justice battle. again: fiction is a tool, it’s not the ending nor the beginning of anything. having more black people in media won’t be what stops black people go to jail in the US at a higher rate than white people for the same crimes, but it might help making people relate to someone who’s different and so normalize some stuff... if you watch/consume that media and choose to engage with it. (ie, brooklyn 99′s boss is a gay black man in a stable relationship with a white professor and it’s not what you usually see on tv and it will work for casual watchers, but I doubt someone who usually watches fox news then also watches b99 - you can’t win your wars through fiction, to convince the fox news watcher to not vote trump you have to talk to him and not show him a sitcom. and mind that this can be reversed ie all the anti-russian/islamic propaganda in the US which tends to normalize russians/muslims as The Bad Guy - it works along with other things, not just on its own) the key is in knowing that fiction is made by people and consumed by people and eventually begins and ends with the people who make it and consume it in whichever way, and not in thinking that it’s above us and is something divine that changes the world just by existing.

[golbatgender]

@failure-artist replied to your post “You know the “Chinese room” linguistics experiment? I think anti...”

What is the Chinese room?

http://www.iep.utm.edu/chineser/

Against "strong AI," Searle (1980a) asks you to imagine yourself a monolingual English speaker "locked in a room, and given a large batch of Chinese writing" plus "a second batch of Chinese script" and "a set of rules" in English "for correlating the second batch with the first batch." The rules "correlate one set of formal symbols  with another set of formal symbols"; "formal" (or "syntactic")  meaning you "can identify the symbols entirely by their shapes." A third batch of Chinese symbols and more instructions in English enable you "to correlate elements of this third batch with elements of the first two batches" and instruct you, thereby, "to give back certain sorts of Chinese symbols with certain sorts of shapes in response." Those giving you the symbols "call the first batch 'a script' [a data structure with natural language processing applications], "they call the second batch 'a story', and they call the third batch 'questions'; the symbols you give back "they call ... 'answers to the questions'"; "the set of rules in English...they call 'the program'": you yourself know none of this. Nevertheless, you "get so good at following the instructions" that "from the point of view of someone outside the room" your responses are "absolutely indistinguishable from those of Chinese speakers." Just by looking at your answers, nobody can tell you "don't speak a word of Chinese." Producing answers "by manipulating uninterpreted formal symbols," it seems "[a]s far as the Chinese is concerned," you "simply behave like a computer"; specifically, like a computer running Schank and Abelson's (1977) "Script Applier Mechanism" story understanding program (SAM), which Searle's takes for his example.

But in imagining himself to be the person in the room, Searle thinks it's "quite obvious...I do not understand a word of the Chinese stories. I have inputs and outputs that are indistinguishable from those of the native Chinese speaker, and I can have any formal program you like, but I still understand nothing."

So essentially, REGs follow authorities who dictate what they are supposed to believe and what they are supposed to hate. They are given symbols--discourse buzzwords--and are told to produce outputs such as “good,” “bad,” and “pee your pants” in response to certain sets of buzzwords. However, most REGs don’t actually know what most of the buzzwords mean, only how to recognize them and choose the “correct” output. If you force them beyond the limitations of the input-output script, they lose the artificial coherence of the Chinese Room and start outputting word salad. A good example of an anti doing this is this post. They seem to just look for keywords, disregard the actual content of what the other person is saying, and then spit out a pre-prepared, insulting response based on just those keywords.

I mean, given the homogeneity of that school of “thought,” it’s not really surprise. Do you need to know what “pedophilia” or “ddlg” mean if the only thing you are allowed to express without facing persecution from your “friend” group is some syntactic variant of “Ddlg is pedophilia and fetishizing childhood!” or “If you ship ___ you’re supporting pedophilia!”? Do you need to know what “fetishization” is or whether straight women are actually doing it or writing the majority of m/m slash if you aren’t socially allowed to have any opinion on the subject other than “Fujoshis are homophobic and fetishizing mlm by writing fetishy fic about them for female consumption”? Do you need to know what cishets, asexuals, queer/lgbt resources, taxonomy, or the state of those things in the real world are if the Smart Multiply Oppressed People you look up to are so absolutely certain that “Homophobic cishet asexuals are invading lgbt spaces and stealing resources” or that “Asexuality is white supremacist and colonialist because it taxonomizes sexuality”?

No, you don’t. You repeat the Safe Opinions that these people give you, because if you have an opinion of your own and it accidentally contradicts that (or can be perceived to do so) in any way, or if your glorious leader chances to disagree for unrelated reasons, you are now the target of the same righteous wrath you have been dishing out on others, and you will deserve it. And you’d better pray that you’re not interested in something or part of a group that will be deemed problematic for whatever valid-sounding reason tomorrow, or you’ll suddenly be on the outside all the same no matter how well you have behaved up till this point--though most REGs don’t see that far ahead. They see their leaders as people fighting injustice, not people who just want to fight something, anything, and are looking for any slipshod excuse to have a reason to and get praised for it. They think that as long as they are Good they will be safe, and don’t yet realize that under this system there is no such thing as absolute good or bad, but only what their leader currently likes/tolerates or dislikes, and that that can change at any moment.

It’s a horrifyingly abusive system. Because it relies on a specific type of abuser to work--a well-spoken, demographically oppressed person who frames themself as progressive and fighting bigotry, and who indeed often does start out fighting real oppression (such as misogyny, racism, or homophobia) and having real insights into that oppression, and who almost always believes their own arguments and projected image--and also on a crowd of lackey enforcers of varying degrees of awareness and complicity, even survivors of past abuse are often vulnerable to these systems and become convinced that the head abuser(s) know better and are right. After all, they’re marginalized/survivors themselves, more than you are, always somehow more than you are, and they keep coming up with insights you’d never have figured out on your own.

(And the reason you wouldn’t have is often simply that they’re illogical, untrue, or just make no sense, but it would be bigoted to question them, you’ve been taught. These kinds of abusers have turned the very good strategy of “Believe the experiences of victims and marginalized people; don’t say they’re lying about it” into the now alarmingly prevalent idea that “disagreeing with someone who’s a victim or more marginalized than you about anything, especially anything even tangentially related to what they’ve gone through, or even something completely unrelated to their past or marginalization, is bigoted.” Put simply, “the most oppressed person in the room must be right.” Like being oppressed makes you an expert, instead of simply giving a little more insight. Ironically, REGs turn themselves into the very thing that anti-SJWs stereotype activists as!)

This type of abuser identifies as an inherently good person, and because of that thinks that anything that confuses, scares, or disgusts them is bad. They have no separation of action from identification; just as they think that their being good makes them inherently good, they think that doing anything they deem bad makes someone inherently bad, and therefore a target. Moreover, when they see something that claims a difference between identification and action, and the action applies to them but they don’t like the identification, their response is to say either that the identification doesn’t exist, if the perceived conflict applies to the outgroup, or that the identification is wrong if the conflict applies to self/ingroup identity. (E.G. thinking that asexuals who choose to have sex must not really be asexual, because they’re doing the same thing as non-asexual people, completely ignoring their reasons or what they feel; being told that telling people to kill themselves is bad, and deciding that it must not be bad because they’re doing it so therefore it must be good). Their rhetoric oscillates between loaded emotional appeals and paragraphs of dense theory with provocative, soundbite conclusions; they are very good at justification, and attempts to disagree with them will end in gaslighting. If they can’t convince you that their argument is right, then they will try to convince you that asking to have boundaries respected is ableist, or that trying to disagree with them in the first place is racist or homophobic, or that they’re inherently more oppressed than you are and so therefore their opinion is more valid, even if it doesn’t directly relate to the subject in question at all but yours does...and so on.

And then if you keep disagreeing with them, all their fans who still believe waht they say will rush to harass and denounce you and get approval points, while the primary abuser(s) disavow their involvement with the harassment (and yet make no effort to stop it). Next week, some of them will get the same treatment, or next month, or next year, whether for disagreeing, offering a minor factual correction or asking a question, or for some inherent trait or formerly-considered-harmless behavior that has suddenly become the new source of all evils. I really hope most of the lower-ranking REGs can get out of these Woke Personality Cults before they get hurt too badly, and unlearn the patterns of thought that got them there in the first place. Heck, I hope the higher-ranking ones can stop doing it, too. If they don’t--I want to say I hope they experience what they’ve done to others, but I’m not sure I could willingly inflict that on even the worst person in the world. There are certain levels of cruelty that are just pointless.

There is nothing more dangerous than a person utterly convinced of their own rightness or righteousness who has learned to manipulate people’s fears. Doubt yourself and your motivations often.

Personally, I think the only way to combat a politics of fear is to learn how to act out of love, but this post is already  a mile long. But tl;dr, REGs are manipulating people though a combination of fear of ostracism, fear of the villain of the day, and the positive reinforcement of being able to consider one’s self inherently good. Because ostracism can be so swift and arbitrary, and because the logic is so bad, their side of any discourse turns into though-terminating cliches, with an input-output based call-and-response so that the lower ranks do not even have to understand what those thought-terminating cliches mean, just the moral value attached to specific buzzwords. This prevents the dupes from figuring out that the catchphrases are either a) entirely meaningless or b) incredibly and unarguably bigoted if you consider their actual implications in the slightest. And all this resembles the “Chinese Room” scenario where someone can produce coherent or at least semi-coherent responses in a language they don’t understand by means of pattern recognition, within a limited set of possible topics, but not when something happens that isn’t programmed for.

[justinmclachlan]

I saw that one person responding to your post where you bring up Wolf 359 being like this was triggering, this was racist, blah blah blah it wasn't because people didn't get there way. Yes it was. Calling the show, the writer a racist b/c of the way a character who just happens to be black was killed and that it was 'triggering' is some garbage censorship bullshit. Is American History X racist? 12 Years a Slave? Turn? By that standard, yep -- they all are. Any number of shows are. Such BULLSHIT.

I didn’t see those comments and I am, again, only vaguely familiar with what happened on a show that I didn’t write or have any involvement with what so ever (and then, what I know is third-hand).I agree that calling a storyline ‘racist’ and then ascribing that motive to a writer is troubling (the latter being really problematic). It’s difficult for me to understand how one can be so strongly for human rights in one area, but then attack freedom of expression in the same breath — freedom of expression is a human right as well. People die everyday on this planet for simply trying to assert that right.Do we have a problem with minority representation in pop culture? Yes. Do we have an issue with how those characters are handled when they do appear? Yeah. Is it because most of the writers/execs, etc., are in the majority — yes, that probably has a lot to do with it. Can we assume then that they’re just bad people who don’t care about minority representation or minority characters in what they create? No— how can we? That’s just the easiest, simplest conclusion to leap to and it’s intellectually dishonest when we know, at the intersections, the issue is far more complex.Here’s what we can do. Continue to express how a storyline makes us feel, and why. It may be cheesy, but use your “I” statements (i.e., I feel, I think, I believe, I’d like). Don’t ascribe motive— you don’t know anyone’s heart and it’s damn presumptuous to make those conclusions, let alone level them as accusations. You wouldn’t like someone else telling you how to feel or that you’re not entitled to feel the way you do, but that’s just the flip side of telling someone else why they did something. Own your feelings and demand they be respected, but that’s not the same as blaming someone else. Continue to fight for and advocate for minority characters and minority performers and insist that they populate more than the ranks of supporting cast. Recognize and applaud when they do. Consider that we’re at a moment where we’re starting to see more diverse characters take more center stage. And when we’re talking about story, center stage means more peril, more danger. It always has. That means that minority characters are going to die. It means sometimes they’ll die brutally, in ways that wreck us, in ways that uncomfortably reflect our harsh and unjust world. But that’s what art is. And that’s what makes this all so very difficult. Art is not always going to be comfortable or safe. And we have to engage with it in a way the reflects that level of complexity. Instead — speaking as one on the receiving end — we tend to leap toward the simplest, reductive conclusions. Sometimes those conclusions aren’t wrong, and we really do have nothing to blame but systemic racism, white privilege, etc. Leveling those accusations, though, however true, might still be counterproductive. And yes, it’s still too easy for writers to reach for characters who aren’t like them when they need a death in a story (remember, we’re humans with feelings just like you ... so if you think about that for a few minutes, you might understand why it’s so). But telling a show runner, you did X so I will never listen again is the fan equivalent of telling them you’re taking your ball and going home, and it just doesn’t work. If you need to take care of you and stop listening or watching, that’s totally appropriate, but lashing out at writers that way is little more than emotional manipulation. Engage the writer in a way that will make sense to them. Make a story case for why things could’ve or should’ve gone another way. Give them ideas. Tell them what you’d like to see instead of threatening them over something you don’t want to see. Continue to expect and advocate for happy endings, or at least cathartic, emotionally fulfilling endings, for the characters and kinds of characters who don’t seem to get them enough. 

As someone who benefits a lot from structural privilege, I can tell you we need to hear perspectives outside our own. There’s a lot I don’t understand about the experiences of people who aren’t like me, who aren’t male, who aren’t white. My goal has been and always will be to support and amplify those voices. To tell the story of diversity and magnitude of the human experience. But I’m not perfect, and I won’t ever claim to be. I’m not going to do it right all the time, or even well. But I’ll do my best :)What I actually have come to love about all this, is that it just sort of proves my central thesis: art makes us feel things. But even when those feelings are horrible, painful and awful — it doesn’t necessarily mean that the art was wrong or bad. It could, if we’re willing to engage honestly, mean that the art was just so right.I have something else I want to say that’s sort of related but I’ll put it in another post because it’s a bit tangential and this is getting super long and I’m sure no one is still reading. 

[tylerbeyond-blog1]

▼ ♢ ✖ ☎ ☂ ✣ ♀ lets fight

▼ kissing them

tae ho grins from ear to ear. he recognizes that unwilling smile. how he was somehow to blame for what is about to happen. he’s won again. melted their heart and side stepped their defenses, and now they couldn’t help but kiss him. tae ho liked winning. sometimes he wonders if they let him win, but that seems unlikely. even when he loses, he feels like he wins. “don’t look like that,” they say, pink lips turned in a frown. 

“don’t look like what?” he replies, still grinning. 

“that one, you smug bastard.”

 tae ho quirks an eyebrow, his expression even more smug now. “what’re you gonna do about it?” 

they kiss him again and he smiles into it, even when he feels their teeth at his lips. they try to punish him, bruise his lips to bruise his ego, but it only makes him happier. tae ho doesn’t know what it’s like to lose. he hopes he never finds out. as long as he has jung so by his side, he doesn’t think he ever will.

♢ stabbing them

this isn’t his vegas apartment. this isn’t even his brooklynn apartment. this is the apartment two floors down tae ho used to spend the odd afternoon in doing drugs and having sex with a man he barely knew, but considered his friend. wait, no, this is his apartment in brooklynn. it doesn’t feel like home. the posters on the walls are his but he feels nothing but terror and anguish in this room. there’s a message on the wall in blood. he smells smoke. he feels fire errupting from his side. heat spills down the blade twisting in his gut. his pants are soaked.

the hand holding the blade isn’t the one usually holding it. it isn’t large and strong and pale as bone. it’s slight and familiar. he isn’t looking up into the dark, soulless eyes of his killer. he’s looking down into the anguished, tear stained face of his best friend. but they aren’t beautiful. they’re twisted, shifting between the faces of beck and jung so. light and dark, love and hate, fear and loathing. “you did this to us!” the monster screams. “you did this to yourself,” it says in dark, gravely tones. “you did this to me!” red hot panic courses through him, but his scream is dead in his throat. all he can do is gurgle, drowning in his own blood. “it wasn’t supposed to be this way.” the two say in harmony. 

“ae… tae…. tae!”

finally the screaming makes it past the blood in his throat and he can move. he thrashes and fights, his limbs curiously tangled. suddenly, he’s soaked. his eyes snap open. this isn’t beck’s apartment. this isn’t his brooklynn apartment, either. he’s in las vegas. there’s no smoke, and there’s no fire. not on the walls, nor in his side, though it ached with the ghost of old injury. jung so is leaning over him. fear shocks his system once more and he scrambles to get away.

“tae, tae, babe, it’s me! it’s me! you’re safe. no one’s going to hurt you. he’s gone.” 

he watches them, eyes wild like those of a wary animal, chest rising and falling rapidly. 

“tae?”

“…why am i wet?” he asks, his hand going to his throat, then his side.

jung so watches him with pain in their beautiful, soft brown eyes. “you weren’t waking up. i dumped my water…”

slowly, tae ho starts to make sense of his surroundings. separating the nightmare from reality, he gets off the bed. jung  so follows. he raises a hand. “i need… give me a minute, please.”

they nod and watch him go.

in the bathroom, he dries his face and hair. he takes off his shirt. the great ugly scar in his side is closed. no blood. tae ho’s reflection is pale and drawn. he’s stronger now, but he feels as skeletal and weak as he had two years ago.

there are footsteps behind him. arms wrap around his middle. there’s no fear this time. jung so isn’t the monster. still, their words echo in his mind. 

you did this to me.

♞ shooting them

tae ho had a dream. no, not the rockstar dream, a different but tangentially related dream. just like barney stinson, he would never take a bad photo. so far, he’d succeeded. still, jung so tried. they tried so hard to catch him candid. they managed once. now tae ho sits in his boxers on the window sill of their apartment, stomach in rolls as he hugs his knees and stares out the window. he hears the floorboards creak. in a flash he sits up straight and drops one leg, resting his hand on his fist and looking contemplative. he hears a shutter click. “god dammit.” jung so huffs. 

“bet that one could go in rolling stone right now,” tae ho says, smugly.

“i’ll get a real candid of you one day,” jung so says, hotly. 

“holding a photoshoot in my sleep doesn’t count.” 

jung so raises an eyebrow and tae ho realizes his mistake. 

“you drool sometimes in your sleep.” 

tae ho laughs. “good thing i never sleep!” still, his insomnia didn’t seem to deter jung so. “i’m going to get a bad photo of you. it’s gonna happen.”

✖ punching them

tae ho’s head jerks back and he hears his teeth crack against one another. pain blooms across his face. “you haven’t hit me like that since high school.” he doesn’t think he deserves this. he doesn’t understand why they’re angry. he was just trying to help. it doesn’t bother him like it might someone else. they used to fight all the time. for fun and to settle squabbles. but it had been years since they’d proper punched him in the face. he might’ve responded in kind, but something stays his hand. they aren’t kids anymore. they aren’t just his young friend anymore. he can’t do it. he clenches his jaw and relaxes his fists. 

sometimes they needed to punch it out. sometimes that was the only way to resolve their issues. but not this time. not now, not after everything they’d been through and how far they’d come. maybe that was why his heart didn’t ache even though his jaw throbbed. jung so didn’t actually want to hurt him. if they did, there were far easier, less physical ways to do it. their words cut worse than any physical injury ever could. well, almost any injury. tae ho spits blood on the sidewalk. “watch the face, next time.” 

“shut the fuck up!” they scream. “how could you do that to me? it was humiliating! and cassandra’s pissed!”

“fuck cassandra! i thought you’d like it! you seemed so miserable, i thought― i thought you’d like hanging out with quinn…”

“fuck off! you humiliated me!”

➶ slapping them

to say tae ho has a vanity problem is a bit of an understatement. to say that is an understatement. since he started training in earnest, it has gotten worse. it means great things for the band’s promotional shoots and his instagram has never been more alive. tae ho turns in the mirror, trying to figure out the best angle for a selfie that doesn’t make him look like a total toolbag.

“there’s no angle where you won’t look like a total tool,” jung so says, coldly.

“wanna bet?” tae ho snapped one over his shoulder, getting a shot of his back and ass. when he lowers his phone to see, jung so got a peek. 

“i stand corrected. you look like a total fuckboy.” 

“probably cuz i am one.”

“you shouldn’t be proud of that.”

tae ho scoffs. “look at me.” he holds up the phone and zooms in on his ass.

jung so rolls their eyes. “toolbag fuckboy.” they gave him a sharp slap on the ass.

“oh! please, sir, can i have another?”

“oh my god.”

☠ poisoning them

tae ho’s knuckles are pale and tight as he grips the toilet bowl. a thin sheen of sweat breaks out over his skin, giving him a pale, clammy look about his thin face. “what… what did you put in that ramen?” he asks, forcing down yet another heave. 

jung so rubs his back soothingly, looking terribly guilty and apologetic. their delicate features pinched and slightly green. they have a sympathetic gag reflex so remaining here in the bathroom with tae ho was the ultimate declaration of apology and penance. “i- i don’t know! there were some chicken left overs but? they were only a day or two old, we’ve definitely had longer left overs before. oh, god, tae i’m so sorry!”

tae ho waved a hand, then quickly slapped it to his mouth as more ramen made a break for it. “shi- shit happens, babe. it’s fine.” he groaned. “better― ugh― better toss it, though. or give it to cassandra tomorrow.”

☂ picking them up

tae ho is not the strongest man in the world. he isn’t even the strongest man in the band. he is, in fact, the weakest. his endurance and energy knows no rival, but both gabe and fang had him beat in the upper (and lower) body strength. he is far better off than he had been two years ago, but cassandra not-so-gently insists he should do more strength training. jung so says he’s fine the way he is, but they work out with him whenever they can, and especially on nights when fang isn’t around or tae ho will definitely slack off. “c’mon, are you really gonna let fang be the hottest person in the band? well, second hottest to me, but you get it.”

tae ho looks at jung so with such offense you’d think they’d insulted his mother. “fuck no, are you kidding?” tae ho huffs, face blotchy, sweat shining on his freckled skin. arms trembling, he forces the barbell up. jung so pulls it back into place on the rack. with a whoop! tae ho stands up and punches the air. “how’s that for hottest band member?”

jung so’s smirking at him, the kind of smirk he knows means they really don’t want to be smiling but can’t help it. “second hottest. and you only did, what, ten reps?”

tae ho gapes at them. “that thing’s mad heavy! i bet i could press you.” 

“don’t you dare―” but it’s too late. tae ho swooped in and picked them up by the waist and lifted them clear off the ground. they squeal, gripping his shoulders and laughing. “put me down, you idiot!” he kisses their abdomen. “you’re so fucking stupid, this isn’t even a press! it doesn’t count!”

 tae ho laughs, giddy at how easily he lifted them. two years ago, this would’ve been unthinkable. jung so must think so, too. they kiss his forehead. “put me the fuck down.” 

✣ bringing them food

when you are in a band that’s as close as kiss & make up, illnesses pass through all of them like a plague. it usually starts with fang or tae ho and ends with jung so or gabe. this time, it’s jung so, and tae ho could not be more sorry. the great plague of twenty-seventeen originated with tae ho. he has jung so tucked into bed, a bed they kicked him out of. cuddled neatly into every pillow they own, they watch rupaul’s drag race with a sports bottle of gatorade and a box of tissues. “i’m hungryyy,” the whine. 

“it’s almost ready, babe!” tae ho calls from the kitchen. he ladels spicy mapo ramen into a bowl. “make room,” he says, carrying a tray of steaming ramen and couple packets of crackers. jung so makes a small effort to brush used tissues off the bed and sit up. tae ho lays the tray over their lap and takes a seat beside them. “just what the doctor ordered,” he says, smiling kindly at them.

“i don’t think any doctor has ever ordered an overdose of sodium,”  they say, picking up the spoon and stirring the noodles.

“i can take it back if you want.”

“no, no, it’s fine. since when do we listen to doctors?” 

tae ho laughs. he tucks a paper towel into the collar of their shirt and they swat his hand away. 

“if you ever do that again, i’ll kill you.”

“you’re sick. you can’t do shit to me.”

“wanna bet?”

tae ho

☎ hugging them

jung so slides into bed, carefully. the bed hardly shifts under their weight. they lean down and brush a tender kiss to his temple, then lay down beside him, pulling him into a gentle embrace. in an astounding feet of agility and speed, tae ho locks his arms and legs around them. jung so always said, if you give tae ho an inch, he’ll take a mile. really, they shouldn’t be so surprised that he koala hugged them so tightly they could hardly move. what did they expect from sneaking into his bed and hugging him? jung so had to hve known he was awake. he rarely slept, especially if jung so wasn’t with him. “you’re too hot!” they whine in korean. “you’re too hot― get off!”

tae ho laughs, nuzzling their cheek, taking full advantage of having them trapped in his embrace. soon they’d give him a good smack or an elbow or knee, and he’d have to let go. until then, he’d enjoy every inch of this mile jung so let him have. 

“oh, for fuck’s sake.” jung so jabs him hard in the stomach forcing tae ho to let go. 

“you’re so mean to me,” tae ho cried, rubbing the spot they’d poked him. 

“you’re so weird!” they exclaim, pushing tae ho so his back is to them. jung so curls against his back. tae ho grins into his pillow.

♀ proposing marriage

if jung so had their way

tyler is alive with music, alive in the glory of the love of their fans. this is what he always wanted. not boy band antics, no label to force them into a box they didn’t fit in. the audience is packed with a thousand friends, new and old, the people who brought them to this new point. no label to answer to, no weak willed manager to tell them what to do. kiss & make up reborn, and tae ho couldn’t be happier if someone handed him an emmy right then. 

he danced along the stage, reaching for the hands of their fans, thanking them with all his heart. he’s covered in sweat. he turns and sees fang, gabe, and jess are gleaming with sweat and pride and joy. jess hands off goldilocks to a roadie and comes forward with a mic in their hand. tyler holds his arm out to them. 

“this has been the greatest night ever, fam!” tyler says to tumultuous cheers. 

“you guys are definitely the greatest audience. you stuck around even with this one ate shit after the fourth song!” the crowd laughs along with jess as they slip under tyler’s outstretched arm. they’re dressed exactly how they want to be. they are exactly who they want to be tonight and the audience loves them for it.

“the stage was wet!” tyler insists.

“because you keep throwing water everywhere, idiot!”

“they’ve got you there,” says gabe from behind his drum kit.

“well! fine! but they don’t mind, right? you love us!”

the crowd agrees whole-heartedly. someone screams “i love you, tyler!”

“i love you, too!” he answers.

“you know who else loves you?” begins jess, stepping away from him.

“me?”

everyone laughs.

“i mean, yeah. but, not what i meant.” they get down on one knee. the audience gasps, a brief moment of silence before they start screaming. jung so waves them down to a dull roar. fang is already crying. “tyler… tae ho… i fucking love you. i’ve loved you ever since we started this band, but don’t tell anyone okay, that would totally ruin my rep.” they wink at the crowd who laugh right on cue. “you always said we were never gonna be apart, but, y’know, i figured we should make it official.”

tyler gapes at them, for once in his life, completely gobsmacked and still. his eyes shine. 

“will you marry me?”

“fucking― yes! yes, fuck, of course, always? fuck!” tyler fell to his knees and into their arms, kissing them deeply. the crowd explodes in support. fang and gabe come out from behind their instruments. “i’m so mad!” tyler says as jess swaps one of his rings for the one they got.

“why are you mad?” they ask, laughing.

“i was planning on asking you! you beat me to it! i had it all planned out, but you beat me!”

[davidamosley]

The Lies We Tell Ourselves + How to Stop It

  Apologies for the lack of post last week. I've been going through... I don't know what it is, exactly... a tough time? a transitional period?... I have no idea what to call it, but it's been interesting, to say the least. YouTube, in all it's wisdom, suggested this video to me yesterday, and I immediately pressed play. If things have been weird or painful or confusing day after day after day, I figure there must be a bit of internal dishonesty at play, and I wanted to see if the video would open my eyes to some new way of thinking. 

Most of us lie to ourselves, from time to time, to avoid pain. It makes total sense. We lie to ourselves about the things that would be really hard to change (like a marriage, a belief system, a career path). We lie to ourselves about the odd internal thoughts we have in order to convince ourselves we're normal. We lie to ourselves about what we do and don't care about to avoid feelings of inadequacy. We lie to ourselves about all kinds of things for all kinds of reasons.

We lie because facing the truth, being truly honest with ourselves, can sometimes be downright terrifying. For example, here are some things I've been lying to myself about lately: 

Money

Relationships

Addiction

Health

To tell myself the truth about those things — to be ruthlessly honest with myself  — would (will!) mean making a lot of changes and mindset shifts that will be hard. So, like many people, I've been using some pretty stealthy techniques to avoid facing things head-on.

Below are some of the techniques discussed in the video. I don't use them all, but I've gotten pretty darn good at the ones I do use. And, because I know that the first step to change is identifying exactly what the problem is, I thought I'd go through them a little bit here and add my own two cents in terms of what you can do to stop using them. 

Distraction: We distract ourselves with all kinds of things to avoid facing our issues — drugs, alcohol, our phones, work, sex, food. It's not the things themselves we like; we like their ability to help us keep our distance from the reality we're afraid to face. Distraction is what leads to addiction, and it's one of my go-to techniques for avoiding problems. If you don't look at it, it's not happening, right?  Solution: Stop it. I know, I know, it's so much easier said than done, but it's the only way. Whatever you're using as a distraction, you have to stop doing it. If you can learn to moderate the behavior, great, but I know, for me, moderation is so hard, so often the best thing for me to do is quit doing something completely. If you need help, ask for it. Get a professional involved. Do whatever you have to do to remove the distraction as an option. 

Cheerfulness: To avoid facing the truth, we pretend everything is fine, using cheerfulness as a way to mask whatever unpleasant feelings are really weighing on our minds. Generally this isn't my go-to move, but as I'm writing this, I can think of quite a few occasions, particularly in relationships, where I feign cheer in order to avoid the reality of the situation.  Solution: Be honest — with yourself and with others. Pay attention to how you actually feel and don't be afraid to express it. Yes, this won't always be easy, but do you know what's also not easy? Pretending everything's fine with you're burning with anger or awash in sadness. Life is hard, and painting over the pain with a coat of cheerfulness isn't going to make easier in the long run. True colors always show. 

Irritability: We sometimes push our inner pain so far down that we don't even know what's truly bothering us anymore, and that pain manifests itself through irritability. This, for sure, is a technique I've embraced many a time. When I don't address issues honestly, everything feels more irritating. Just as distraction isn't really about loving a specific thing, irritation isn't about the little annoying things. It's a side effect, and it not only makes you feel bad, but it makes you not so great to be around.  Solution: Pay attention to how you really feel. When you get annoyed at the car that just pulled in front of you or frustrated by your coworker's email, pause for a second and ask yourself what's really bothering you. Yes, life has some irritating moments, but, if you're in a good mental state, those things won't drag your whole down; they won't change your whole attitude. Also, try to dig deeper into why a specific thing irritates you. You'll learn more than you might think. 

Dismissal: Another go-to technique for me is this one: pretending like I don't care about something or I'm not interested or I don't like it in order to avoid thinking about how I actually feel. We see this one a lot in teenagers ("Whatever. I don't even care.") but grown-ups like me use it, too. Of course, there are really things you might not like or care for, but when you're quick to dismiss something, particularly something that has wronged you or sets off some sort of feeling, pay attention.  Solution: Investigate why you dismiss things. Sometimes there's a valid reason, but if you're dismissing something quickly and harshly, you might need to do a little digging here. For example, when talking with someone about meal preparation in relation to making healthy eating easier, I recently said, "I'm just not interested in that." But why? Wouldn't it make my life easier if I prepared meals for myself ahead of time, particularly giving my organized nature and my lack of interest in cooking? Wouldn't it make sense to get it all done at once? What, I had to ask myself, was with my quick dismissal of this suggestion? 

Outrage: In order to avoid our own thoughts about a particular topic, we can grow judgmental of, and often condemn, it. We encourage ourselves to feel outraged because anger prevents us from realizing how, simply by being human, we might relate to this "horrible" thing. Anger isn't one of my go-to emotions so I don't do this one often, but I sure do see it a lot online. Man, outrage is trendy these days. Of course we can — and should! — have opinions, but outrage is often misdirected.  Solution: Learn more about what you're outraged by. Exploring the outrage is the best way to get to the heart of the matter. What angers (or even just annoys) you is a nugget of wisdom into yourself and what's truly bothering you. Are you outraged because, deep down, you might actually have similar views? Or, if not similar views, maybe a similar technique for expressing yourself? Or perhaps just some sort of "unacceptable" thought that relates, however tangentially, to what outrages you? 

Defensiveness: The act of being offended (by someone's behavior, a criticism, or even a well-meaning bit of advice) takes a lot of mental energy and attention, which is great when we're trying to avoid the actual problem. This one's a bit on the anger spectrum so it's not one of my frequently used techniques, but who hasn't gotten defensive at some point in his or her life? Personally, I've found that every time I get defensive it's because someone has brought to light a truth I was either trying to avoid or not fully aware of yet. It's a control thing, for me, like my mind is saying, I'll deal with my issues on my own time, thank you very much!  Solution: Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Defensiveness is so glaringly obvious. C'mon, you know when you're being defensive and you know when someone else is, too. It's a hard one to hide. There are two ways to handle this. (1) If you feel defensive, don't express it. Instead, take note of how you feel and what triggered the responsive and investigate it. (Yes, there's a lot of investigation going on in these solutions!) (2) If you can't help it and you express that defensiveness, recognize and, scary as this might feel, acknowledge it. Out loud. Something like, "Sorry I was so defensive about that email. I've been putting off that task, and your email reminded me of my tendency to procrastinate, which is something I'm working on." 

Cynicism: This technique is a common one. We're so upset by what's really bothering us that we generalize that pain and say everything is terrible in order to avoid addressing the specific issue. I'd like to say I don't use this one, but when my dad asked me how I was yesterday, I responded, "I'm great, if I don't count the debt or the lack of romance or the stupid health issues that are plaguing me or the uncertainty of my career." So, yeah. I guess I do use this one. It's an easy thing to do — claim everything is terrible in order to deal with the terrible things we actually have control over.  Solution: Stay positive. Now, keep in mind, positivity is not the same thing as cheerfulness. Positivity is about figuring out how you make the best of a situation, even if it's not great. It's not about pretending everything's fine when it's falling apart. Staying positive is hard work, but the best way to make it a habit is to pay attention to your thoughts. If they're all about how bad everything is, it's time to make some mindset shifts, 'cause you're never going to solve anything if you just complain all the time. Yes, things will suck sometimes, but your attitude doesn't have to. Remind yourself that all of that cynicism and negativity is just a trick your mind's playing on you to make sure you avoid facing what's really going on.  

  I know I'm not alone in this whole "lying to myself" thing. It's something I see so many people do, and I bet it's something you do too. Sometimes, I'll admit, it can be useful in small doses. Sometimes we do need to pretend it'll get better in the morning, just so we can make it through the night. But, more often than not, lying to ourselves causes way more trouble than it's worth. And we usually have to deal with the problem eventually (and, by then, it's often worse!). Or, worse, we have to spend our entire lives running from it, using these techniques and countless others to avoid, avoid, avoid. 

The lies to ourselves that keep us in bad relationships, keep us making unhealthy decisions, keep us from identifying some physical manifestation of avoidance (looking at you, insomnia!), keep us isolated and alone, keep us in jobs we hate, keep us from doing what we really love, keep us from exploring, keep us from growing, keep us stagnant and bored. These lies, while they might feel good in the moment, keep us from being who we really are. And, personally, I want to at least see who I really am. Of course she'll be flawed and scared, as we all are, but at least she'll be real, and not just a tangle of overly complicated rationalizations. So, here's to self-honesty, and the hope that my little soul-searching this morning will help you with any lies you might be telling yourself.