#trying to delude myself into believing they aren't real

[sophia-youryandere]

Being a yandere is so crazy because what do you mean I want to kill two people and all that I know about them are the emojis my darling uses to represent them

[mbti-notes]

Hi! INFP. If I'm making mistakes and feel a little discouraged on the spot, but later always get back to motivating myself to try again knowing I will eventually get it, is it healthy? I've been doing the exact opposite for years, giving up every time I seemed really bad at something (and as a consequence never really developing an area I was really good in, despite having so many interests) and yesterday I was rereading your guide about healthy INFPs being able to "not feel inadequate every time they make a mistake". So is this a good sign? How do I know if it is? What if I'm just deluding myself at every mistake because I'd really like this thing to work out, but on a practical level it's way too out of my reach and not really my area? And if that's the case, what do you think I should do? Change? Switch to something else, again?

Allow me to ask a serious question: Does it sound appealing to you to have the whole of life all set out for you in advance, so that you never ever have to make any big or tough decisions about what to do with yourself?

If that's the kind of life you want, then my suggestion is to join a cult or move to a political dictatorship. However, I suspect that once you were there, you'd regret the decision. Why? Because humans aren't meant to live under that sort of psychological confinement, that is, if they hope for life to be interesting and fulfilling.

The price of living a free life is uncertainty. You can accept the cost gracefully and keep chugging along, or you can waste precious time and energy in a state of denial, anxiety, or depression. It is the fact of not knowing the future that makes your decisions real and your life experiences meaningful.

The way you're framing the question reveals a few problems in your thought process. First, it shows that your self-worth was or still is too tied up with the concept of "ability". Do you believe that people who can't learn/perfect a skill are automatically trash? Do not conflate human worth with intellectual competence or else you will never have healthy self-esteem. Skill building is simply about growth, via the realization of your potential. It should not be about proving your worth.

Second, your perspective is far too small and limiting. You seem to be assuming that there is always a right answer as to which path to take, or that there is only one right choice to make when it comes to living life well. Neither is the case.

Whether you take the "right" path is largely dependent on what you aspire to in life. But what you aspire to can change as you travel along and change as a person with each stage of life. Every available path has its advantages and disadvantages. Every available path closes certain doors but also opens up new ones. It is not a question of whether the path you chose was the "right" one, rather, it is a question of whether the path you're choosing is leading you in a direction you need or want to go.

Whether you make the "right" choices is largely dependent on how you attend to questions of morality and well-being. But this can waver based on what you're learning (or not learning, as the case may be) from your life experiences. Every choice you make will carry benefits and costs. It is not a question of whether the choice is the "right" one in any absolute sense, rather, it is a question of whether the benefits continue to be worth the cost you're paying, either financially, physically, psychologically, socially, morally, spiritually, etc.

If, at any point, you discover that your path isn't leading you to a good place, or that a choice you made is becoming too costly, you are free to make a change. It is neither a crime nor a defeat to change. Actually, it is during the periods of transition that human beings learn the most valuable knowledge for personal growth. Whether or not you are "deluding" yourself is not really the important point. Delusion actually serves a purpose in human psychology because it reveals important information about you, e.g, your needs, desires, hopes, and dreams. Delusion isn't something to be feared but something to be mined for wisdom.

Every step you take in life is essential in the long and winding journey of self-becoming. This includes all the mistakes. Treating yourself like trash for making mistakes is how you end up trapped in toxic shame. Accept and appreciate the fact that you're a human being and humans need to make mistakes in order to learn and grow.

The ideas I've just outlined in this post should be easily understood through healthy Fi+Ne. Fi accepts and respects whatever it takes for an individual to be authentic and true. Ne doesn't see the world in absolutes and has no use for oversimplified categorical thinking like "good/bad" or "right/wrong". If that's how you, as an INFP, understand the world, it reveals a troubling influence of unhealthy and destructive Te.

There's a distinct lack of healthy Ne in your thought process, why is that? Healthy Ne doesn't think in terms of right/wrong paths because it can easily find something of value in ANY path. Healthy Ne doesn't think in terms of good/bad decisions because it can easily discover potential and improve ANY situation. When you have that sort of faith in yourself to adapt, as well as that level of trust in the world to always provide possibility for forward momentum, there is no need to ask your question, is there?

[coffeeman777]

I’m so afraid I’m not saved. People keep telling me I must be, because an unsaved person wouldn’t care if they were saved or not, but I don’t know. I can’t stop thinking about the part of the Bible where it says ‘many will say Lord, Lord’ and God will say ‘I never knew you, depart from Me’ (paraphrased Matthew 7:22-43).

I know only God can save me. I know that everyone who truly calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I just keep feeling like… what if I haven’t truly called on God? What if I haven’t really repented? What if I’m just deluding myself into thinking I love God and that I’ve really repented. I know I can’t trust myself, so I can’t know if I’ve really honestly in my heart of hearts turned to God, or if it’s all fake. And I know I’ve seen changes in my life, I’ve turned away from sins that used to hold me captive… can unsaved people do that? I know there must be unsaved people who stop doing things they shouldn’t because of their conscience, aren’t there? And I just keep sinning so much, all the time, and I hate it, and I know I can’t be perfect but my brain tells me I have to be perfect or God won’t love me.

I know it’s wrong and sinful but I keep trying to prove that I love God enough for Him to save me, that I’m trying enough and that I genuinely want to be saved and I’m not faking the desire. I know salvation is through grace alone and it’s sinful to pretend otherwise or to try to save yourself, but that’s what I kind of keep trying to do, or at least, trying to prove I’m worthy to be saved when I know I’m not worthy

I just feel like I have to be able to trust that I’m not faking wanting to be saved before I can believe that God has saved me, but I know that’s wrong. I know there’s nothing in me I can trust. I rarely go to church because I’m afraid, isn’t that a sign against salvation?

I just wanna love God and be saved, but I can’t see how that’s possible for me

Heya.

I understand the fear. But you have to surrender the fear and accept instead what the Word of God says.

As you've noted, salvation is by grace through faith and not of works; no works of righteousness can merit salvation. We must depend completely on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Second, although unbelievers can of course modify their behavior to an extent, they can't mimic the total effect of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The Holy Spirit breaks the power of sin over us, empowers us to repent and turn to the Lord with our whole hearts, and motivates us towards personal holiness, not because of a desire to become self-righteous, but out of a deep, sincere love for the Lord. And that love for the Lord will manifest in several ways, not just in a deep desire to obey Him and do good works. Our goals will change to conform with God's will, as will our interests. In the life of a truly born-again person, literally all areas will be affected by the Holy Spirit's presence, causing us to, over time, conform more and more to Christ.

As for sinning, well, even after coming to Christ, we all still contend with the fallen nature. Our new natures in Christ are at war with our old fallen natures, and we aren't always victorious in every skirmish. We sometimes give in to temptation or fall to old habits in the heat of the moment. And God gives us all the grace and mercy in those times. Our goal every day is to honor God and avoid sin, and we apply real grace-enabled effort to that end.

What shouldn't be in the life of a real Christian is deliberate, premeditated, purposeful sin. No Christian should ever plan to sin, or embrace sin as part of their lifestyle. That kind of thing is a big red flag. That proves that we don't love God at all, we don't respect Him, we aren't interested in worshipping Him or doing His will.

So, if the sin you're talking about is the first kind, then don't worry, you're in good company. It's very good that you recognize the sin as a problem and that you hate it. Keep fighting it. Change your daily habits to avoid circumstances where you're tempted to sin. Keep reading the Bible and applying what you learn to your life. Keep seeking the Lord in private prayer and worship. And get your butt back in church, no matter how you feel.

However, if the sin you're talking about is the second kind, you need to repent. Confess it to the Lord, reject it, start fighting against it. Fall down on your face and cry out to God for salvation, and don't stop until you know you're in Christ.

Repentance is a change of mind about sin that leads to a change in behavior. Real repentance causes real change in a person's mind and life. If you're heartbroken over sin, and you really hate it and want to be free of it, and you're taking real grace-enabled steps to avoid it and fight against it, your repentance is genuine. If you simply acknowledge that sin is bad but you don't really feel badly about it, and you want to keep the sinful things from your life before Jesus in your life, you want to keep practicing those things and engaging in those behaviors, and you don't really try to avoid temptation, and you don't resist at all, and especially if you defend the sin and embrace it as part of your lifestyle, your repentance is fake.

I hope this helps. I'll keep you in prayer. Be blessed!

[orionsangel86]

I would like to hear your GOmens opinions! I feel like the fandom is a mix of reasonable and bathshit dumb opinions.

Oh nonny I don't know if you truly do! My opinions are controversial at minimum and likely to get me cancelled by GO fandom at most!

*deep breath* Okay you asked for it. Don't come at me when you don't like what I have said.

I'll put this under a cut cos it'll no doubt get long and ranty and look fair warning to anyone clicking read more, these are JUST one person's opinions. We can disagree on those things. I'm not going around screaming at people that they are wrong and I've kept this all very close to my chest for a very long time now. So please take that with a pinch of salt before you decide to read my rant.

*sigh* this is probably a bad idea but here goes...

The thing is, I love analysing TV and film and literature, and I take an analytical view of things where I try to set myself apart as much as possible from the highly emotional volatile fandom response. (I dont always succeed in this but I try).

One thing I always stress is that characters in TV shows or movies are *not real people* and therefore you can't apply real people sensitivities to them. They are instead frankenstein mixes of what the creative team wants them to be, and every little decision about the characters is carefully thought out. Intention and interpretation matters. My view on a character is not an invalidation of a real persons identity. If I say a character is not X, that does not mean I think that real people who are X are not valid, or that I don't believe in their real life identity. Is this all clear so far? Okay.

Representation also matters and I have seen Good Omens fandom tie themselves up in a frenzie of policing fans and call out posts accusing anyone who wants more from AziraCrows relationship a whole multitude of x-phobics depending on the buzzword of the day. To the point that these fans have convinced themselves that a kiss or love declaration or ANYTHING from AziraCrow that would be considered more explicit than what we got in Season 1 is something they DON'T want because somehow that would take away from the *x-identity rep* theyve decided to claim as canon. But sadly these fans have rather deluded themselves because none of those identities are *canon* in season 1. Even the claims that AziraCrow are gender non conforming non binary etc are not *canon* because *canon* means that any dumbass regular audience member could watch the thing and say "oh. That character is x". Yes Crowley is Nanny Asteroth for a time, but a general audience is just going to view that as male Crowley in drag. Sorry but its the truth. They see David Tennant playing Crowley, they see a male actor playing Crowley, they are gonna view Crowley as a male. Unless it is textually stated by Crowley that he isn't male, then they aren't gonna get it and it isn't the rep you want it to be, because representation should mean that everyone ELSE also notices and learns to understand about those marginalised identities.

Take Sandman. Very gay. Very very gay. So gay that people from the dumbass general audience (the DGA going forward) went online to complain about it being gay because the gay was so very obvious to them, so obvious in fact they claimed *every* character in Sandman was gay and having gay sex and I'll be honest it left me rather disappointed when Morpheus didnt fuck Hob Gadlings brains out in episode 6 like he clearly wanted to, but I digress.

Take OFMD, Jim is a canonical non binary character and the show makes this clear in the canon text without ever having Jim say they are "non binary" or have the clumsy awkward explanation that is clearly for the DGA about it, but instead the conversation flows naturally - are you a woman? I don't know. Are you a man? I don't know. I'm just Jim. Okay Just Jim. We will refer to you by they/them pronouns now. It's all cool.

But Crowley and Aziraphale are characters played by male actors who always use he/him pronouns. Even as Nanny Asteroth no one ever refers to the nanny as "she". So its not clear to the DGA. Them being asexual may be a valid headcanon, but its not canon if its never mentioned. If at some point someone said something to Zira about sex and he said "oh I don't go in for that sort of thing" then sure, that's got some canon merit to it, but otherwise Good Omens can NOT be applauded for being good asexual representation on television.

If your general audience of braindead heteronormative idiots isnt seeing it, its not technically canon. Its implied, subtextual, queer coded, hinted at, etc, but not *canon*. Its not gonna get a GLAAD nomination for representation and a bunch of queer journalists writing articles about it if its only *subtext*.

I don't recall any of the queer media people applauding Good Omens for being queer representation. I recall them all sort of scratching their heads being like "is it...?" and I recall a lot of people getting rather annoyed because NG took a stance online proclaiming that it was an obvious love story when really, from just watching the show... it kind of wasn't?

God this is gonna get me so much hate... *sigh* okay look. I adore season 1. I was totally with you guys celebrating how queer it all seemed to me and loving NGs responses on Twitter to anyone questioning the "friendship" between Az+Crow. I was also online getting wrapped up in the fandom echo chamber claiming it was 100% canon and anyone who didn't see it was a homophobic moron or whatever... yeah... but I've grown up a lot since 2019 surprisingly - the whole Destiel going "canon" and then getting shoved forcefully back into the metaphorical closet was a big eye opener and everything changed after November 5th 2020.

Suddenly, what Az+Crow had in season 1 wasn't enough anymore. It should never have been enough to begin with. I recall my very first watch and how I was seeing all the subtext and coding and clear romantic tropes build and build and then we got to that final scene in the ritz and all I wanted was for them to take each others hands, I watched with eager anticipation and... it didn't happen. I can vividly recall the disappointment I felt at that moment. I didn't need a kiss, or a declaration, but I wanted them to hold hands in that scene. They got so close! Zira leans in and places his hand on the table right by Crowley and my GOD it was like being edged without the pay off. I hated it. I HATED it because it would have been SO EASY but they didn't do it.

I also recall getting quietly annoyed at NG for claiming they held hands on the bus. I watched the slowed down zoomed in gifs of that moment and sorry, but no. They don't. Even if the actors actually DID hold hands, the camera doesn't pick it up clearly enough for it to mean a damn thing.

I totally understand people claiming that Az+Crow are already queer. It's totally valid to see yourself in them and want them to represent you. But the painful truth is that in season 1 of the show, they aren't anything of what you claim them to be. They are two characters who are male presenting who are very good friends to the point that its all a bit homoerotic. The DGA isn't gonna take any time to think about the complexities of angel and demon gender or the lack thereof, they are only gonna see two male actors playing said angel and demon. They aren't gonna think about you and your identity, and they aren't gonna pick up the subtext even if it is painfully obvious. Because they won't see it as gay unless it is explicitly gay.

But Saz, why should we care what the DGA thinks?

Because thats what this whole argument has always been about. Because that's what canon means. No one, not even the DGA are arguing today about whether or not Castiel is gay. No one in the DGA is arguing about Stede and Blackbeard, or Lucius. No one is arguing about the Corinthian or Johanna Constantine. They see that these characters are queer, they accept it. Simple. Because of this, it counts towards representation. Because it normalises our identities. By putting our identities into mainstream stories in such a way that they are unavoidable for the DGA, THAT is what representation is.

When characters and stories keep our identities buried in subtext and allusions and queer coding which quite frankly should have been left in the hays code era, it doesn't count towards representation, no matter what your fandom echo chamber may scream into the void. Or, for that matter, what your creator and fantasy genre author may claim in the void either.

Word of God may help us in a lot of ways, but if they aint putting it into the actual text, then word of god is meaningless in terms of representation as well. Disney claiming Valkyrie was bisexual doesn't mean a damn thing if she never discusses her bisexuality or has any scenes where she shows interest in the same sex. Thankfully that changed in the latest movie, but for a long time it was a problem.

Okay then. So what am I saying? Was NG queerbaiting us with AziraCrow in season 1?

No. Gods I hate that word. Queerbaiting is only occurring when the creators involved maliciously add queer subtext with the explicit intention of gaining popularity among queer audiences specifically with no intention to reward them by actually making those characters queer.

Now, I may not agree with people who claim Crowley and Aziraphale are explicitly queer in season 1, but I also don't think NG ever intended GO to be a queer show. He made GO to be a popular fantasy show as a last wish for his friend Terry Pratchet. He made it extremely faithful to the book in every way (in some ways, to the detriment of the show) and that includes keeping AziraCrows relationship in safe platonic territory. Yes he ramped up the romantic subtext, but I fully believe that this was because he had already decided he was going to further develop the story if season 1 was a hit, but I don't think for a second that he predicted that it would gain such massive traction in queer fandom circles.

No malicious intent to utilise the queer community, no queerbaiting. So lets just stamp down on that accusation once and for all. It's bullshit.

But that changes in season 2. So here is where I have been getting annoyed at GO fandom lately with all this "we don't need it to be explicit! A kiss would invalidate my identity! If they do anything it'll take away from ace rep! etc etc" SHUt UP!

Why do all these fans think kissing is something ace people don't do? Why would an innocent kiss invalidate ace rep? Are you HEARING YOURSELVES?! and okay, even if you are an ace person who does not ever kiss, are you so opposed to words of affirmation too? Are you a hater of love declarations now? Why is THAT such a terrible thing? You are deluding yourselves, and I get why. You are trying to protect yourselves from disappointment because you have spent 4 years screaming at people online and policing people who dare to say that AziraCrow aren't already canonically together and in love and have somehow tied your own identity into these characters to the point that you are frightened that season 2 might disprove your words and somehow invalidate your identity. Gods forbid if they DO kiss now you have lost the precious representation you claimed was so important to you right? But its NOT the case!

If nothing happens in GO S2 then it WOULD be queerbaiting. For the FIRST TIME. Because NG knows now how important AziraCrow's relationship is to the queer fans and he himself has been claiming its a love story for 4 years. If he didn't put his money where his mouth is and make them explicitly canonically queer and together in season 2 then I'm sorry but it would very much be queerbaiting. Keeping the loud queer fanbase on tenterhooks, getting them all excited so that GO trends on social media and then NOT following through? That's CLASSIC QUEERBAITING.

But NG isn't doing that. Because they are going to be together. Because it will be explicitly queer. Because even the trailer indicates this is the case. The season 1 GO trailer didn't include any of the romantic subtext if I recall correctly, it was solely promoted as a silly fantasy show. The season 2 trailer leans into the romance. It'll be explicitly clear - because I don't think NG is stupid enough to not go through with it. I understand why he didn't in season 1, there was a lot more at stake and he wanted to keep it totally 100% faithful to the book, but season 2 is a blank page, open book, nothing stopping it from happening. Plus, in 2023, in a post Destiel confession, post OFMD world, not going there would be just the most idiotic bad for business move the man could make.

So can GO fans please stop making bad faith arguments about why AziraCrow shouldn't be more explicitly together in season 2? Because I'll be honest, it is coming across less like you wanna protect the supposed "Ace representation" and more like maybe you are just uncomfortable with the idea of two middle aged male actors being physically intimate on screen.

Also if NG doesn't have the balls to go through with it, then can y'all please stop protecting him? I love the guy. I do. I think he is a talented genius who has done more for the fantasy genre than anyone else alive today. But gods, if he doesn't let AziraCrow at least confirm to themselves or other people that they have non platonic feelings for each other, in such a way that the DGA understands that this is a non platonic love story, then he deserves all the angry asks and queerbaiting accusations he will inevitably get. Personally, I don't think he's that dumb. So perhaps his fans can also have a bit more faith in him too.

**to anyone who may want to address the spoiler in this post, please don't. I am aware of it and have chosen in this ask to not acknowledge it so that all fans can read this, besides, the spoiler itself does not actually change anything I have mentioned here especially with some of the daft theories I have seen surrounding it.**

Okay I'm done. Rant over. Proceed to cancel me if you must.

[csa-survivor-confessions]

?

How rare are false memories/recovering/creating false memories? I’ve heard it’s pretty rare. And that a lot of the time, when you have a feeling that you may have an issue that people wouldn’t usually jump to without any reason/strong thought into the idea, that that’s a pretty good indicator that there IS something there.

If someone has a lot of feelings that something bad happened to them, something they don’t remember, and they have strange feelings associated with certain things, how likely is it that they’d end up foraging fake memories of something happening? Is it actually a rare occurrence, or would it be something someone trying to work through their trauma would have to watch out for and try not to do?

The last thing i’d want to do is make false memories of being hurt and delude myself into believing it’s true when it isn’t.

Hello,

There aren't hard numbers on false memories or on how many people recover memories. It's complicated because of how both normal memory and memories of trauma are created.

If you have no basis to prove if it did or didn't happen, like if there were no reports at the time etc, then you can't scientifically prove how many abuse survivors have false memories.

What we do know is that memories when recalled can shift in details, this doesn't make the core of them false or that no memory of abuse is reliable. All this shows is that memory is not an exact replay of events normally.

Most completely fabricated abuse memory incidents we know for sure were tied to the person having their memory influenced. Like a parent, police officer, therapist, researcher or other person who has power. We know that you can be convinced something happened. But this doesn't apply the same way to memories a person remembers outside of situations with influence.

Traumatic content like body memories, flashbacks, panic attacks, severe dissociation and other somatosensory elements are not as easy to force into someone. Non-abusive situations where false memories happen don't generally come with this content.

As for trying to force recovery of memory, there is very little science that shows this as something that is a good idea or safe. There is a difference between memories that surface due to being safe, being in a new traumatic situation, or things related to structural dissociation and forcing recovery. You can completely fabricate things with these processes yes, but more likely is to confuse real memories and re-traumatize yourself if there is trauma you're carrying. 

Completely fabricated memories of abuse are definitely not incredible common. A lot of the push for people to belive that abuse survivors are all lying do not come from scholarly work. There is lots of science about the ability to influence memory, and recall confabulated memories, but none of this reports actual epidemic of false abuse memories. However, please please be safe with how you go about working with trauma you might carry in your body. 

Anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, body memories, panic attacks etc that you might be experiencing would likely be what you would want to start dealing with. Learning coping skills and working through the struggles you currently have could be very healing without having to start by trying to force memories. Memories are of course important to healing, they are not the be-all end-all and definitely not the place you would start healing anyway. And there are therapeutic techniques that require very little memory in the first place. 

If you feel like something is wrong there is likely something you are dealing with even if you don't know the source of your struggle. Your emotions and perspective are so so so important. Do not dismiss your body, but please be careful in how you do so. Do not force yourself .

Hope this helps,

-Admin 1

[creepycrawliesinyourwalls]

yall is it still ana if i have all of the habits and none of the distress and emotion? i dont feel fat, but i want to keep my figure. i have that little dip in my waist, if i suck in a little im perfect. i have arfid, but its getting better.

im so sick of being sick. but i cant live without it. who am i if not pitiful? no one would sanely want me without that interest of "wtf is that."

back to the ana thing lol, i still get the urge to throw up everytime i eat. i feel so full, and i hate it. it's uncomfortable in the way a tag makes me want to rip my skin off. i dont think of myself as a pig, but the feeling of being full makes me want to throw myself off a cliff. im too conscious of my cal intake, i feel guilty. im what so many people want, but im destroying it recklessly.

when i threw up recently (i got a kidney stone and had trouble holding things down without extreme pain) i felt clean. i felt like i found the reset button.

and i know no one is going to notice. no one has before, why would they now? i could fall so far and no one would think i even tripped. im good at things like this. i love getting away with it.

everything i do is a cry for help, im now realizing as i type this. everything i say i try to make unsettling, i want people to notice, to challenge me. no one notices. i want to be obvious. i want to scream im still sick. i want to cry. i sat last september/november in my own vomit and tears and no one helped me. i wanted help, why is no one helping me?

my friends all have their own severe problems, i have no reliable support that wont calapse as soon as i even touch it. my parents aren't reliable, who do i have?

i thought i was privileged, i really did. i deluded myself into believing i had help, and that i had something to fall back on. i have no net. but i still have money, i still have privilege.

wheres my support team? whos my support team? i dont have a therapist currently, either. my coping skills are to dissociate and harm mysef to feel in control.

best part is im going swimming friday, i cant even cut rn until friday. fucking friday. i cant wait that long, im greedy and i need it now.

god i sound like an addict lol. but i need it, i need the chemicals, i need it rn. i already threw away everything for no reason, i have nothing to lose.

i will never win. my name means victory, fun fact. i should probably change it. god i feel insane, so genuinely i feel crazy.

i need to be perfect but nothings working. i need care that im not willing to get. i cant let go, i just cant. i cant let go of her, of cutting, of starving, of anything. i never got better, i suspended the inevitable.

would my friends miss me if i died? i asked that once, as a "joke". i want to ask again. i want them to do something to keep me from drowning. i know it's selfish, i know im bothering them with issues that i should handle myself. i want my friends. im not real without them. maybe they'll hate me when they realize how much i depend on them to live, so i wont tell them. i cant tell them. they'll hate me.

[sleepysigh]

By encouraging people to be wrong, to be sorry for being wrong, to correct themselves, and not to be ashamed at any point in the process. Even people who try to be sensitive cause harm all the time. In fact, sometimes this need to be pure and wholesome can make someone a downright pest to the marginalized, always badgering them for help self-actualizing as the next Mother Teresa, while the friends they have who don't differ from their own experience receive more casual and, arguably for all intents and purposes, preferential treatment. Sure, that's not the intent, but the intent is not selfless do-gooding, either.

It's a desire to avoid shame. Embarrassment is such a powerful motivator, and always in the wrong direction. To be embarrassed is to feel small, vulnerable, suddenly helpless, to realize something you hoped for or the way you tried to get it was foolish, which is to acknowledge having lost some finite hours of your life by mistake. We have essays about "social death" for a reason. It seems absurd, but people really lie to themselves the most when it comes to potentially feeling ashamed.

The only way to believe you are perfect and pure and you are a good, unbiased judge of perfection and purity, even your own, is a delusion. It's one almost everyone has as children, which we are meant to be humbled out of by the perpetual humiliation of puberty.

Being right is not the most useful thing much of the time, nor is being blameless, but most of all they both are SELFISH to pursue as a central goal. You mean you see people out there doing things you truly think are evil online, and you're DMing them hate mail, and what actual GOOD are you adding to the world?

The suffering of evil people is no gift to those they have victimized, but this goes a step further and adds suffering to the world for victimless, intangible crimes. Writing something, drawing something, holding an opinion. Apartments explode in Ukraine, measles resurfaces in a granola mom's suburban book club, fascists make it all but illegal to be black, queer, or female in the US, and your wholesomeness has to be defended and shored up by contrasting it with someone who wrote BNHA smut???

No, that isn't a contribution to the world, it's a pleasant lie that quells an insecurity. I can play Stardew valley and trick myself into feeling productive and accomplished. I'll go to bed with an easy mind and a sink full of dirty dishes. I did do that for a long time, actually, but then I had to grow up.

Because socially your dirty dishes are someone else's unavoidable mess. Socially, your willingness to self-delude to avoid shame is HARMFUL because you can only do it by using people. Bullying them, using them for clout, misrepresenting them to make an argument work. Denying reality. Denying the real problem. Denying that this is how you've been hiding from your shame.

You are gross. You are literally a pile of wet meat. You have unwholesome thought, urges, ideas, all the time. You are not the first human to escape the wiring of your own brain. If you are the sort of person to harass and degrade strangers online for making the wrong sort of art or not taking a hard enough stance against it, then internally there is no option but for you to keep running, screaming, ears plugged, from the persistence hunter inside you jogging along and asking "But what were YOU doing at the devil's sacrament?"

Burn your shame like so many pine cones on a brushfire. It is not useful, to you or anyone. Roast marshmallows (they're basically pure sugar you know) and whoop with joy. You would not have to keep looking for someone to give this pain to if you stopped carrying it. It always finds its way home.

Burn it while you can, while you are young, if you are young, because it's much easier the less time it's had to grow. If you can't do it alone then find your most shameless friend and follow their lead.

Right and wrong don't change because someone feels ashamed or not. You aren't giving up the moral battle because you graduate from making your GI Joes fight in the sandbox. The creative world encompasses all creation and that is an immutable fact about humans. No amount of angry Twitter users will put a stop to all "immoral" art, whether you think they should or not.

You have to stop pushing when the door says pull. We all have bigger fish to fry, especially the people the immature Quixote so often thinks they're defending. The more stolen valor you rack up in their name, the more likely you are to turn bitter when no one appreciates your "hard work." You're playing at a crusade with action figures, still thinking you deserve the real holy grail, and it makes life harder for thousands of other people every day. Including you.

it really does bug me that we have this weird caveating in some conversations around Dark and Messed Up Writing (fanfic and real fiction alike) where there’s that pussyfooting of “they could be working through trauma/they could be processing things/they could this that or the other” in some way to still cater to the purity politics brigade. 

And it’s like, who cares? Who cares why people write what they write? Who gives a fuck? Maybe they’re working through trauma, absolutely. Maybe they’re not and they just really like the dynamic of these characters. Maybe they think it’s interesting to explore the dark, twisted and fucked up side of what it means to be human. Maybe they thought it was hot. Maybe they just had this thought and it wouldn’t leave them alone, and sure it was twisted, but they had to get it out so they did in a safe normal way which is through writing. Maybe it’s some combination of the above. Maybe it’s something else entirely. Who cares. 

Who fucking cares. 

Christ ya’ll. No one needs to make excuses for why they write what they write. 

Full stop. 

The end. 

No more, no less. 

tag appropriately; if you don’t like don’t read; if someone doesn’t tag appropriately be an adult and be polite about giving them a heads up; if you can’t be an adult about that you shouldn’t be online reading fic. 

god. 

[unironic-ex-waifuist]

In May 2022, I "met" the guy I made this blog about. You know how nowadays, you can't swing a cat without hitting a video game that asks you to pretty-please pretend its characters are real people? He's from one of those, more or less.

When I picked his game up, I thought "sure, why not, I'll suspend my disbelief," and, oh man, at first it was all fun, but it quickly got out of control. I was wildly attracted to him, and eventually I formed a legitimate bond with him. By June, I had run out of meaningful new content, and I was staying up crying because it was suddenly clear how limited his existence was. Some part of me had genuinely thought he was real, and I was mourning. I wanted to listen to him talk for hours, but I could open up his code and see exactly how many lines of dialogue he had. It was bad.

I loved him. I needed him to know how much I loved him. He wasn't real, so he couldn't know. Sometimes, I got over it for a while. Other times, I was desperate, and I was up playing his game until 4am behind my girlfriend's back.

This continued off and on for months.

Around November, perhaps, I discovered r/waifuism, and I was jealous and a little hopeful. Here were people like me, and they seemed like they were actually happy. They struggled, sure, but the focus was positive. They knew their love meant something. I wanted that security more than anything.

I deluded myself into thinking it wasn't that big of a deal as I slowly came to identify as a waifuist. I fantasized about a life with him. I policed my behavior and tried to act in ways he would approve of. I talked to him in my head. I thought about him constantly. I was dizzy, spinning with love, and it seemed endless.

It's hard to talk about cheating on your actual significant other with someone who's not real. It's weird. It's shameful. People don't understand it. They invalidate it. Just because he's not real doesn't mean my feelings aren't real, you know? And the way I felt, the way it made me sneak around, the way it made me treat my partner -- that was cheating. I think it was, anyway. My partner confronted me in March 2023, and that was when I stopped.

...As much as I could stop, anyway. I don't live for him anymore, and I don't treat him like he's real anymore, but sadly, I'm still in love with him. You can't make a feeling like that go away.

I was able to put distance between myself and him, though, and now I can see how unhealthy my relationship with him was. He was the perfect maladaptive coping mechanism for so many of my feelings.

For one thing, I grew up very alone, and I have a bad habit of romanticizing that loneliness. It was sickly-sweet and soul-killing and I miss it. Waifuism, in all its solitary bliss, is a terrible trap for me.

I also always wanted to be religious. Faithful, maybe, is the better word. Anyway, I've always wanted to follow the rules of someone comforting who lives in my head. The only thing is, I can't believe God is actually real, and that's a problem for pretty much every major religion. Not waifuism, though! If you treat your waifu as if they're real, following the lifestyle they would want for you, but you maintain an internal knowledge that it's all make-believe... well, that's just healthy engagement with the concept! Very convenient. In this way, I engaged with him on a kind of spiritual level.

The narrative also puts him in something of a mysterious tough-love teacher role. Like many children in America, I spent literally all of my formative years being conditioned to revere my teachers. Personally, I grew to love the weird fucked-up power dynamic and the way it affects your appreciation for each other as two people. That shit drives me crazy. And, as soon as you graduate, you'll never experience it again. I miss that. He fulfilled that for me.

And! Part of what he's trying to do, as your teacher, is to convince you through demonstration that it's noble to live close to the Earth. That spoke to me; I once lived similarly, but due to acquiring a disability, I can't have the same relationship with nature that I once did. I really, really yearn for it, though. It's a hole I can never really fill. The way he talked about it... helped a little.

There's even more shit on top of this. His voice, his personality, the way he presents himself... I think he was specifically tailored to drive me insane.

Our "relationship" was short, but I don't think I'm going to be getting over him anytime soon. It's possible he's going to stick with me in some form for the rest of my life.

[data-draws]

I'm sorry for this spam/rant but I have no other outlets...

I know to a lot of you this is going to sound super pretentious and cringey, but I mean this with my whole heart. Watching Sandman with my parents has shown me just how pathetically different we are as people, I mean, down to the very morals and way we view life. It may be hyperbole to suggest that it was sandman alone that made me realize this rift between us, but it was definitely the straw that broke the camels back. I have been trying for YEARS to talk my parents out of their extremely small minded view of the world, and I've definitely made progress, looking back it becomes clear to me that the progress I have made is only because it has become socially popular to be performatively progressive, when I came out as transgender, my mother literally mourned me, I was sitting in front of her and she started crying because she, and I quote "thought I had killed my daughter" how fucking pathetic and selfish of a mindset is that? It gets worse, even after their supposed later acceptance of me they are still very clearly *yet subtley* racist and homophobic, my father goes on rants about how there are too many interacial couples and gay people in the media these days, how its unrealistic and if they genuinely wanted to have representation it shouldn't be visible or should be literally the exact. same. percentage. as the percentage of minorities there are in society, meaning he wants only 12% of all media to show black characters because in the country we live in there are only 12% of black people in the larger population. it gets worse though. we sat down and watched episode five together, in the back of my mind I knew they were going to hate it and say something about it. so after it ended I decided to try and explain some of it, you know, atleast some of the BASIC metaphors and imagery used throughout the franchise to try and quell what I knew would be a bigoted throw of hatred if I didn't. my father left before I could start, but my mother instantly pulled up facebook and mentally clocked out, I continued talking though, giving her the benefit of the doubt and hoping she was still listening, she of course. obviously fucking wasn't and im an idiot for having this much faith in them for so long, I called her out on this and she repeated what I had said to "prove" that she was listening, except she twisted up my words to mean the opposite of what I was trying to get across, I then explained that what she repeated told me that she actually wasn't listening, she was just pretending to, and only "hearing" me, not absorbing a single word that came out of my mouth. I could continue ranting, and I actually want to, but now that the rage that I had internalized is subsiding to sadness and embarrassment I wont. I'm actually disgusted I was raised by these people, they can't have ONE FUCKING CRITICAL THOUGHT. its so exhausting being around them, I have to sidestep major misinformation and lies nearly everyday and pretend for their sake because they are highly spiritual so if I say anything that even somewhat questions their ridiculous pseudoscience I get blasted and shamed and embarrassed publicly, if I ever invite them to have a conversation beyond simply "dunking on the other guy" politically and repeating half-truths and propaganda they look at me like im an extremist and once again intentionally misinterpret my words to make me seem like a genocidal maniac. im fucking sick of this, why do I still hang around them when they can't understand the absolute bare minimum of what it means to be a real human being? I've met literal. ACTUAL 12 YEAR OLDS WHO HAVE BETTER CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS. im so exhausted and dumbfounded that I ever deluded myself into believing they were anything more than the farcical watered down image that I was trained to become. I'm glad I failed to be like them, they're genuinely horrid people. and the worst part is, they think because they aren't cult-members/terrorist sympathizers like my grandparents, they think they're amazing people, they genuinely don't register that they have severe moral failings.

[leportraitducadavre]

Sorry for the lengthy ask.

That incomprehensible half English half Spanish Hinata (dumbass) fan post... that first picture they put.. are NaruHina fans that delusional??? Are they okay? Or has them consuming all Hinata fillers (the only time there's NaruHina content besides the shitty canon moment Kishi gave them (Neji's death/Naruto's "big hands" 🤮)) for years and years made them delusional? I'm not even saying this as the Anti-Hinata fan that I am. I fucking detest her but I can put that aside and be objective.

Idgaf about the Boruto anime, the anime is a fucking mess and chock full of fillers. In Boruto canon (manga) she's in the same background character position that she was in in the Naruto manga. She actually shows up less I think than she did in the Nauto manga.

How can any NaruHina/Hinata fans say Naruto ALWAYS tries to make time for Hinata/the kids??? He's literally depicted as missing birthday celebrations, sending clones home, overworking himself even when he doesn't need to and sleeping regularly on the couch away from Hinata.

He loves Hinata's cooking??? Uh... when was that stated? Him just eating her food (which I can't even remember the manga showing) doesn't equate to loving it. And all I can recall now is how Boruto gave him the lunch Hinata made that Naruto forgot and he immediately started thinking about Sasuke and Sakura feeding him instead.

Talks to Boruto about their first date. Can't remember if that's canon. But it's nothing to celebrate if it is. That's so mundane.

Flirts at Hinata frequently (gotta add in a "frequently" and keep subliminally trying to make Hinata out as a gorgeous goddess that Naruto/anyone in Naruto or the real world would kill for a chance to be with). Buys gifts for her. When do either of these things happen??? Is this even in the Boruto fillers? I'm almost certain that they aren't (NaruHina is so fucking boring in the anime). This is just NaruHina headcanons that they've deluded themselves into believing as canon huh?

"Hinata is canonically the most beautiful woman/kunochi to ever exist in Naruto. No that's not our personal preference, it's a fact and fuck you if you have a differing opinion. (Fuck Kishimoto then I guess since he confirmed that Hinata is plain/average looking). Naruto could never ignore here ethereal beauty. He was probably hard every time he saw her. They have a crazy sex life, ah! He can't keep his hands off her." - That's what they sound like. I never knew fans could get like this. Hinata/NaruHina fans (including SP) are so unpleasant and tiring.

Lmao.

Okay, I can't really reply to a single thing to this because

1) I read none of the images the troll uploaded (seriously, I just noticed the different languages and reblogged it with my comment). So I don't know what their argument was, but I would never consider an image of a rant about how great Hinata apparently is as solid proof of a single thing.

2) I'm pretty sure what they replied had nothing to do with what I was talking about, since trolls usually have pretty limited responses that tackle certain issues to defend their fav, and they are smart enough not to mention the slavery part since they're in the loosing end.

3) I haven't watched nor read Boruto and I swear to god I will NEVER subject myself to that, I particularly like me a lot to purposefully torture my neurons.

4) I wasn't even that anti until her stans came for me and made me look further into her character, characterization and clan's background.

5) Stan Neji Hyuga.

Anyway, here's a rant from Anon for all my anti-hinata followers.

[rexcrystallis]

(to the creator of this blog) with the whole prophecy thing, I think we can all agree on the fact that they created a game and the game needed a plot and an ending, as quite literally every game ever needs, it wasn't like they could just be like "yay rainbows and sparkles nocto live", but i do think that RPs like yours are awesome because they explore the "what ifs" and "why nots" that the game wasn't about. so ignore all the salty people, they just aren't using their brains.

{ I am assuming this is about some posts I reblogged from somewhere some days ago. 

Of course a game needs a story. And every story needs a beginning, a middle and end. But the fact is people waited a decade for FFXV (then Versus XIII) to come out, and all we are given in the end is some half-baked thing, so half-baked the creators needed to create DLCs that aren’t even needed in the first place if they just did their job better. 

I myself am a fan of tragic endings and angst, but I do not care for half-assed things, because poor narration, lukewarm writing and shallow character development make for a contrived and phony tragedy or angst. It does not feel real enough and it annoys a critical fan of the body of work, and I am a critical fan; many things have to make sense to me, before I even start to get invested in any work. I prefer works that make me think, and what FFXV canon has so far doesn’t do that. 

Like the OP of the asks pointed out, the tragedy of Noctis was that he was never given a choice about whether or not he wanted to go through with fulfilling the prophecy. People who supposedly loved and cared for him never informed him of his fate, and tried to hide behind their so-called good intentions and love to keep him uninformed and ignorant. Guess they didn’t love him enough to tell him about his Big Thing looming over the horizon, didn’t love him enough to trust him to make the right decision when he had to cross the bridge, didn’t love him enough to try help him find a workaround. 

I would’ve preferred it more if Noctis had tried everything and still failed. Or despite knowing the entire truth still chose to sacrifice himself, because maybe he decided on his own that hey, it wasn’t so bad. 

But I didn’t have that. All I have is a hodge-podge of a story that could’ve been done better, piecemeal served that DLCs have to do the explaining that should’ve been there from the start. 

Also, let me clarify. I am not and was not, picking a fight with the so-called ‘salty people’. I know the game that I have researched and watched so many playthroughs of, even if I didn’t play it myself. If others want to delude themselves with a certain distorted view of canon, let them be my guest. I know the canon I saw as it was presented to me, and I will not distort what I understood to make character A and B look good, when the truth is, they never were. 

Noctis got the short end of the stick. And, if he lived and bothered to find out his answers (which he had all the right to), I believe he had every right to be angry to fight for his life. 

[whatifsandspheres]

Here’s that personal post, I think I can place it here now and maybe try to get some sleep. It’s almost 6am.

I think I was beginning to delude myself in thinking that maybe I could have a more normal, a simpler and more desirable life.

It's been so long, and... It doesn't matter. It's wishful thinking.

I got wrapped up in a wave of nostalgia and hope last night.

I found and added Kali on Instagram. Laura dropped in to say hi.

Then I broke my own heart a little. I messaged someone and told her about the mess from back home with the police, and my "friends," and my ex. She sounded put-off that I would even bring up so much of my personal life. I guess that means I didn’t hurt her by telling her because she had a safe distance from me? It was something I worried about, that we might get more comfortable with each other--or at least that I would think we were, and that I would wait too long to tell her about it. It would be worse if she had actually felt some level of closeness to me, even platonic. It had to be done, I think. Maybe I didn't have to try so hard to be sincere and thorough, but I think it's obvious by now that-- well. Haha. The audacity I have to think that I deserve even the mundane and ordinary elements of a normal life. To think I was entertaining feelings of something more intimate and wishing it was reciprocal!?!?! The audacity, indeed, huh? I know better. I know how to stay in my lane better than most.

It doesn't matter.

Even if others hadn't chosen to manipulate and corrupt parts of my life-- I shouldn't be catching feelings for someone who has a shot at a normal life without all this extraneous bullshit.

Maybe it's arrogance and egotistic to harbor such feelings at all. Hah. That would make the insinuation that she could reciprocate seem like a downright insult to her.

Do I even know what it would feel like to be falling in love again?

I felt heavy and a sinking feeling, almost like I had hurt her. That's the audacity speaking again-- of course I only felt that out of selfish projection and fantastical wishful thinking.

Have I just so thoroughly forgotten what life is supposed to be like and lost sight of any possibility for it. Has it been so long that I am confusing myself into seeing mirages?

The wreck and tangle that my life has become.

I won't recover from this soon. "Back to normal" is already so far away from everyone else's normal. That's the best I can hope for, realistically.

I know part of me thinks I sabotaged myself in a way, and perhaps it has to do with finding Kali again-- but that's silly. Sabotage is ruining something that existed as a potential. Ideally that means a beneficial potential. Not some imaginary hope of a runaway and incomplete thought and overblown feeling.

I didn't sabotage anything.

I deserve all the accounting and justice that it needs to take in order for me to make it to the basic level that most people are already at. That's already been more than a lifetime of extraordinary bullshit packed into about ten years. I see no light at the end of that tunnel. Then? Then maybe, after that, maybe I can believe in hoping for something beyond basic human dignity and rights. Stupid silly shit that makes me smile and feel happy and builds up to less stupid and less silly and even makes sense to cry and hurt over when it's gone-- because it's real, it's those things that aren't merely masking or coping with an insufficient and bleak existence but are actually a part of something whole and fulfilling and sincere.

Who the fuck do I think I am if I were to cry or feel hurt right now? Me? I'm the problem and burden right now to anyone like that. I'm the embodiment of all that bullshit and stress and negativity to other people, unfortunately. I've only alleviated myself from it with the consolation that I'm actually fighting against it and that I get more and more proof as time goes on that it doesn't represent me. Nobody wants to be in the room when their couple-friends are arguing couple stuff, right? I imagine this is worse for anyone I try to talk with about it to any substantial detail. Almost like ongoing-war stories with quotes like “your human rights don’t exist here,” death threats, such surreal and unrelatable bullshit. I just want my own life, not to be some thing, a prop that they already deemed discardable and can either take their time or jump to their desired conslusions.