#which fucked me up bc she wanted to recover and I'm so used to my stubbornly addicted father

[sameschmidtdiffname]

Peeta as the smallest of 3 brothers definitely had to resort to dirty plays like biting in his youth.

First off, you're right and you should say it. Second off, Peeta being the youngest is 1000% a dynamic in his relationship with Katniss once they start to recover.

No bc listen. I was the youngest of three siblings and while we never got into physical fights I learned QUICK how to use my mouth to win what battles couldn't be fought physically because my siblings would 100% go to jail for trying to rock a 3 y/os shit. So Peeta was running his mouth religiously around the household. Can't tell me otherwise. "If it weren't for the baby??" Girl, he was biting AND flappin his lips. 100% would get pinned to the ground by his brothers and be like "wow I feel bad for your girlfriend" before getting his shit rocked. He'll offer them tips inbetween punches. "Aim for the throat. Wow, you're still pathetic."

Second, Katniss is the eldest, Peeta is the youngest in their families. Once they're more secure in their relationship, Peeta is 100% causing fun! problems 24/7. She's stressed the fuck out she's gonna come home one day from hunting again and half the house is repainted with all of the furniture just shoved into one big pile away from the drying walls like "WHY DID YOU DO THIS??" "bored :))" because he's so dangerously intelligent, I'm thoroughly convinced he's a practical fucking moron. He probably had to create his own entertainment as a child, he's used to being ignored. If he gets an idea to rearrange the furniture, he just does it. Katniss and Haymitch both have to intervene with how much this happens because Katniss complained about it to Effie once, and Effie started rambling about this thing called "feng-shui," and now Peeta is completely obsessed and will spend several hours to the point of obsession planning with Effie not just his decor, but literally fucking everyones, and Katniss tried to warn Haymitch "Hey, we need to fucking stop this," and Haymitch just said "get out of my house." But now Haymitch is too sober to deal with the constantly changing furniture, and why is this idiot painting his ceiling, and can you please pick up a hobby that doesn't involve majorly changing the layout of our houses? Peeta says no. Katniss instead comes home to Peeta having several geese chasing him at Haymitchs training. He's been waiting for an excuse to reveal this.

She stops feeling bad for needing his constant comfort once he starts biting her out of boredom. Oh, come on. You can see it. He would absolutely look at her arm one night and go "you look nice :))" before taking a giant fucking bite that makes her question every decision she made from age 16-18. There's a solid minute where they just sit in their bed at a standstill. She's holding her book in shock, he's just frozen still biting her. She says "What the fuck" he says "nostalgia :))" to which she's further confused and slightly terrified. She learns how to duck. He learns how to lure her in easier. Post-canon angst + comfort is cute, give me chaotic Peeta torturing his wife who just wants five minutes of peace but secretly adores her dangerously clever idiot of a husband

Imagine when they have kids. That woman is gonna go from "peetas baby!" To "your child."

He likes tossing the motherfuckers in the air. He's the kinda dad who will take off RUNNING with the shopping cart, shove the thing as far away as he can and just wave "bye bye! :))" to the baby inside of the cart that's laughing wildly while Katniss is just chasing this fucking thing down through the store like it's the quarter quell all over again and everyone else is just watching like "Jesus Christ he's doing it again." It gets worse when Peeta collaborates his children with the attacking geese to use against Haymitch when he tries to prevent him from repainting his ceiling again.

[revelations-persona]

fucked up my hand in the middle of sewing so i won't be able to make progress in a while :') but while i'm here i might as well show what i got done so far. made everything but the tie :3

long ramblings about the process so far below

started working on all this for a bit over month. been alternating between maya and jun's outfits but ultimately switched focus to maya because her stuff was more complex.

this post is mostly about maya but here's the only interesting part of jun's stuff rn

i don't like the stitching on the roman numeral either but who will look. my eyes are Up Here. might paint over the thread so it doesn't stick out as much but who knows. also kind of off topic, it threw me off so bad that jun is a third year but in official art he's always shown with the two on his collar?? had to do some digging to make sure i wasn't crazy for thinking he was a senior.

the rest of his jacket is currently like a very basic looking cardigan with raw edges everywhere, nothing worth showing off rn. i think i'll continue working on it now that i can only work one-handed for the time being since the machine does most of the heavy lifting. as for the pants, i thrifted a pair several months ago. it's actually the reason i wanted to cosplay him lol, the pants were just the perfect color.

side note, my machine is Mischievous and simply refuses to sew down several layers at a time, or even just my beige fabric for some reason. so everything beige is sewn entirely by hand. maybe that's why i got carpal tunnel lol

here's what the sleeves look like on both sides and also on the inside

tbh i never realized it until i looked at her design more closely but she has like these little squares on half of her sleeves, so i tried to recreate that. it's basically just two rectangles sewn together but one of the rectangles is made up of other, smaller rectangles. nothing crazy. however, sewing the trim and elastic to it suckedddd. generally to sew elastic or stretchy fabric, you have to use a zigzag stitch (which looks exactly as you'd imagine). the easiest way to do that is by machine, except i couldn't because of the problems i just described and also the opening is too small for me to properly put it under the machine anyway. i never want to do a zigzag stitch by hand ever again. especially not with having to push through like six layers of fabric like no ty </3

now the corset

side by side of how a half of it looks on the outside vs the inside. both cups on the inside are labeled left and right respectively, in case i forget which boob goes where. currently the trim is just pinned on until i recover and can properly sew it down. i'll also have to figure out how to get the two zippers and the little rectangle that goes at the bottom on it too. the zippers for sure i'll have to cut down bc they're too long (they were the smallest ones the store had :/)

i found a pattern for it and it was easy enough to follow, just took longer than i wanted it to because i had to do it by hand. i also modified the pattern a bit to have it zip up at the front bc by default it closes at the back. had to adjust it twice so it would stop slipping off from being loose (size chart was weird). that little triangle was the result of me trying to ease the transition from the cups to the back of the corset after making the adjustments. it's not very noticeable when i have it on bc that's where my arms rest lol.

you might also be looking at the weird looking foam like why's it look like that. and you're right!

this is leftover from when foam was installed in the ceiling by the landlord to reduce noise from upstairs neighbors! like ten years ago! and she just left it here!! there's a lot more of it not pictured, that's just the amount i used. so kind. had to cut the triangles off and trim some of the thickness off, but thanks to her, i'm gonna have the quietest boobs at the con :)

and the hearts

they're right here :3 i still haven't attached them yet.

the trim is just black fabric cut into 5cm by 1.5m strips attached to other strips to make a super long strip i fold into 2cm pleats and cut as i go to fit the things i need to put it on. the stitching looks messy bc i have to in several times on the machine and only sometimes does my machine want to sew down more than two layers. i bought a yard of the black but i might unfortunately need more? i will cross that bridge when i get there.

the brown zip up undershirt thing i just modified an existing pattern i found online so that the sleeves were longer, it zips instead of buttoning up, and making it cropped. the collar is just that comically large so i suggest adjusting that if you also plan on using this pattern and don't like the collar size.

the skirt is a simple a-line skirt made a few inches wider so after sewing it and it's properly shaped like a skirt, i can go over and fold two sides together for that pleat in the middle of the skirt. i went in by hand to sew the inside of the folds to the fabric behind them so that the pleat stays in place. then i cut a strip of elastic to a few inches less than my waist measurement, sewed the ends down to form a circle, folded the top of the skirt over it twice, and then sewed it down and boom waistband. looks kinda weird all bunched up when it's not being worn, but i didn't really care about making it too pretty. you only really see the bottom part of it lol

i also made legwarmers to wear with the outfit because i refuse to spend money on shoes i will never wear outside of cosplay. they're literally just tubes made of a singular rectangle each with elastic on one of the ends, easiest thing ever. i think those boots fit well enough with the overall vibe so i'll wear them with the outfit.

the beige skirt thing she has i cut out already but really didn't do anything with yet so i have nothing to show for it rn lol

oh also. the brown, black, pink, and teal fabrics are broadcloth, the beige is peachskin, and the white fabric and little things on the front of jun's collar are gabardine (leftover from lisa and elly's uniforms).

if anyone has any questions i'd be down to answer them :3

[the-gayest-show]

Through the Looking Back Glass Thoughts/Analysis

I LOVED this episode. It was very endearing and honestly heartwarming (near the end that is) and overall one of my top episodes in the series!

First off, Sofia leaning on Cedric for help with homework is so fucking CUTE. Their dynamic makes me jump up for joy, and Sofia really trusts HIM to get the job done 🥺 Even when Cordelia appears and offers to help, Sofia is still adamant to only have Cedric do it 🥺🥺🥺🥺

It's a small detail, but I think Cedric's pose changes slightly when his sister is around? Like, he's got that hunch back pose that he had in earlier seasons when she's there, it's crazy. There's probably more screenshots I could gather on this but yeah.

The song that comes up in this scene.... mmmm art. Here's me ranting about it.

I think the saddest part of the episode is really seeing Cedric and Cordelia's past dynamic because I genuinely loved it? Like. When they hugged here it was so heartwarming. The nicknames (Cordy, Ceddy) were so cute as well, I guess when they don't use the nicknames in the beginning it's to show the deterioration of their relationship over time, and somewhere in the end of this episode, Cedric starts using the nickname Cordy again which really cements the mending of the relationship. (I did get taken off guard when Cordelia called him Ceddy in the flashback bc I've always associated it with Calista. Maybe Cordelia said it around Calista and she picked it up? IDK)

Cedric is also shown to be really good at magic here. Bro did a spell that was apparently "too advanced" or something? And let's not even begin to discuss the lore implication for WANDLESS MAGIC. BRO TRIED TO REVERSE A SPELL WITH HIS BARE HANDS. THIS MAKES ALREADY INTERESTING STF LORE MUCH MORE INTERESTING.

I find it so interesting that the incident (despite having no known cause at the time) was quite literally blamed on Cedric almost immediately and everyone went with it? Like Cordelia shouts "he ruined it" and no one questions this??? Not even Cedric fending for himself worked? Whoever said in a Tumblr post that this implies that Cedric was treated like some kind of bungler/looked down upon even before this is probably right. Because why else is it just normal for everyone to jump to this conclusion? His parents don't do SHIT about it, and I'm assuming that Goodwyn holds this grudge too (if eps like Mystic Meadows mean anything). Why are they holding onto this for so long? Literally I get holding a bit of resentment but everyone makes mistakes....

Idk this went off, but basically, oof living in your father's shadow was hard AF especially with one mistake people reference in your presence.

Despite this event happening over 30 years ago, it's still somehow the ONE thing people defined him for for years. This episode really further contextualizes his motivations for wanting to become king before season 4. Imagine being rejected from society for YEARS, being belittled and made fun of, people tearing you apart for a mistake you made when you were 9-10 YEARS OLD, it's crazy. 100% that took a toll on him, something you can see in this episode and literally most episodes. It's just really sad.

I'm glad that Sofia and Calista were able to help the both of them realize that it wasn't actually Cedric's fault (something Cordelia should've realized years ago, but seeing the event happen as it did was more a confirmation for Cedric than anything). Cordelia and Cedric forgiving each other was a bit too fast considering everything but I'm glad their relationship is mending.

Credit where credit is due, she sticks up for him after this and lets Cedric do his thing and lets him help Sofia without any ifs and buts, it's sweet.

Personally, I feel that Cedric and Cordelia probably still have a semi-strained relationship after this ep (your sister being the reason you were made fun of for years, and that reason wasn't even valid to begin with defo is not smth you can recover fast from in a 22 min episode)

Also, it's not hard to believe the circumstances wouldn't have changed if the incident were truly Cedric's fault, but Cordelia needed a wakeup call I guess, that works.

Want to mention King Roland for a second because dude. Why is your first reaction to blame Cedric (again), instead of the 2 other magic users in the room (ESPECIALLY THE CHILD. Look I'm a Calista fan thru and thru but logically the blame would be shifted there to an extent??)

King Roland I thought we were over with this since Day of the Sorcerers?? What happened to being NICER to Cedric and maybe NOT blaming him for every little thing? Idk that kinda pissed me off. The fact that Cordelia was the only thing stopping Roland from interrogating the guy... THIS BEHAVIOUR IS WHY CEDRIC TRIED TO TAKE OVER YOUR KINGDOM!!! ROLAND THE 2ND YOU IDIOT!!!

In conclusion, love me a character focused episode that develops a backstory as well as a slight resolution. 1000/10 would re-experience this again.

[cherry-alive]

So, okay, I made a post a bit about this yesterday, but I've had a lot of thoughts since then and a useful conversation with my therapist. So. Complaining about dyspraxia below

I haven't been formally diagnosed with dyspraxia. It's actually pretty much the only diagnosis I've given to myself without at least medical confirmation. But I've given it to myself based on both a lot of research and comments I have received from medical practitioners (e.g. my pediatrician commenting on my weak grip, not meeting developmental milestones on time, comments from teachers, etc). And today my therapist said she's pretty sure I have it based not just on what I've reported but what she's observed in the way I physically interact with the world over the years, so that was helpful and validating. And we contacted my doctor today to hopefully get a referral to an OT, who will be able to actually assess me, which would be very cool. Because I still doubt myself all the time and go "you don't really have this" except like...I do though lol.

Part of the reason I doubt myself about it is that it hasn't had that much impact for many years. But recently, that has changed, and I've realized that it's not that I got better, it's that I went on disability and stopped trying to do a lot of things I used to do and spent like all day on my computer and got assistance with most physical tasks. I'm doing much, much better mental health wise lately, which is amazing, and as a result I'm engaging more and more with the physical world around me, whether that's going on walks or to the grocery store or cooking or dressing nicely or eating in restaurants or trying art or whatever. Which is great!

But it's all. so. fucking. physically. difficult. Not in an exhausting way, in a coordination way. Pushing carts at the grocery store? I bump into things constantly and get really overwhelmed by it and a few weeks ago dropped a glass bottle of olive oil that shattered all over the aisle in the store. Cooking? I love to cook, but it takes me at least 2 to 3 times the time to make any given recipe because I know myself and know I can't multitask so I do all the prep all at once up front, and slowly at that bc cutting vegetables is hard. Putting on makeup? Better set aside 10 minutes just to try to put on lip gloss without going outside the lines. Going to a restaraunt? Often a mortifying experience where I a) bump into other tables and/or b) have food all over my shirt by the end of the meal, which is so embarrassing but I've struggled with it my whole life. And it's just. It's all really really difficult and often I feel so ashamed when I drop something or bump into something or get messy or whatever in public and it just...it just sucks. And I get so so so frustrated and flustered and overwhelmed when I'm trying to do basic tasks at home like hanging up clothes or whatever and it's just so difficult and frustrating for me.

And I had forgotten how hard it all was because for years I just spent all my time on my computer. But I'm not doing that now. Which is great! But I trip and stumble and knock into things and get lost outside and can't do the things I want to do and I'm just constantly reminded that the physical world is very challenging for me. My probable dyspraxia has really been interfering with my life lately in pretty significant ways that have surprised me, I had kind of forgotten how frickin hard it makes a lot of things. I consider myself able bodied for the most part but I'm remembering now that like...not exactly 100% actually. And it just kind of sucks. A lot.

The good news is that as I mentioned, we contacted my GP about it and hopefully I'll get an assessment and maybe even some OT and/or PT, which could hopefully really help me. Because I'm trying very hard to recover and regain some independence, and this is proving a more significant challenge towards those goals than I had expected.

[presidentkamala]

Ok im being SO brave and chugging a mug of peppermint tea before i suit up and GO ON A WALK and get my steps in but uhhhh emotional personal word vomit below that is too cringe and immature to share publicly probably lmao

Yesterday things were going really well, i brought my parents some of my muffins and two of the new farmers market apples and part of the brie wheel, and bc its a religious holiday one of my mom's friends invited us to a party in virginia.

But then i found out that my dad didn't plan on going (i also didn't plan on going at ALL and in fact i was going to do something completely separate) and my mom decided that she can't drive at night and she was like inviting me and hoping i would go partly so i could drive. And like we as a family don't have any kind of social life lmao and i also didn't want my mom to have to uber so i was like hey i can drop you off! TRYNGGGGG to do a nice & thoughtful thing to make up for why i wasn't going. And the main reason i wasn't going is bc this auntie LOVES to rub her hugely successful lawyer daughter married to a PARTNER in her firm (interesting if you ask me) with three children in my face and im like not in a place to uhhh recieve that energy rn (like along the lines of "[paragraph about how challenging parenting is and how successful her daughter is], turning to look at me and asking me how i "fill my days" and being intensely patronizing and smug about what a professional and academic failure i am, fake compassion, bringing up her daughter's 250k signing bonus completely out of nowhere, the works).

Well of course when i drop her off my mom's like no it would be rude not to come in and say hi so i do that with as much grace as i can muster and start driving to THE OFFICE on a saturday night because when i said hello this auntie was like no we'll be done with the ritual and dinner in 2 hours max and it wasn't worth it going back to my parents' and then back to auntie's place in under two hours

Except on the way to the office im like wait im in VA why don't i hang out in alexandria? And went down king street which has HUGELY recovered from when i lived there during the pandemic and was full of people and HAPPY COUPLES and FRIENDS ENJOYING DINNER and then Me with my whole foods loaf of brioche so i could get free parking like sitting on a park bench listening to a VERY poor rendition of hotel california

And after a couple hourse of walking along the waterfront, king street, etc, i texted my mom to see if she was ready to go and was met with TOTAL silence for. ANOTHER ENTIRE HOUR AND HALF and at that point i was just. Trapped in alexandria sitting there waiting to be called by my mom to pick her up from an event i was too ashamed to attend, filled with people who spent the last 10 years of my life gleefully asking me why i wasnt getting a masters or a law degree or being hugely devaluing of government jobs &work, who clearly have a different understanding about what's acceptable to prioritize, especially right now, especially in this moment, who i will NEVER be able to impress and who i will NEVER be able to give a reason good enough for them to treat me like a first class citizen

And reader i fucking lost it

Year after year after year i have to humble myself and apologize to everyone for not being this or doing that. Yes I'm still in [Agency] no im not engaged no i don't own a home no i'm not working towards a hugely lucrative shift to consulting. Yes my mom is parading me around like a child with nothing better or more important to do with my time. Yes i still remember every offhand remark and every backhanded compliment and every cutting remark. No i haven't radically moved forward in my life in a way you would respect

And the thing is i DID have plans last night!! And if i was more secure or more successful, i probably would have had no issues cancelling and coming to the function by myself. But im so behind in everything, and im getting old, and slower, and my chances of catching up keep slipping away

It all hit me so deeply - it felt like an attack, it felt like im being punished by my mom and everyone else for continuing to put off these things that are my duty, marriage and family or barring that career success on an astronomical level

It got worse when my mom finally DID say she was ready to go almost 2 hrs after the initial estimate. She immediately launched into transports over another guest who "isn't much older" than me and who was a DIPLOMAT and is now MARRIED TO A FRENCH DIPLOMAT and now they OWN A FARM IN POTOMAC WITH 10 COWS and it was the way she said it, so specific, so insistent about her. I don't know if im just paranoid but it felt like she was rubbing it in, i felt the walls closing in again and kind of shut down and i just said "sorry im struggling to regulate my emotions" bc its unfair to put all this paranoid shame on other people and she just looked so annoyed and disappointed and i felt completely overwhelmed by the need to just get away and be somewhere safe from judgment and disappointment and shame

Im not proud to say i relapsed into some self harming later when that interminable drive was finally over and we came home

And then today one of my OTHER cousins just announced their engagement like im SO.

I keep being made to pay the price for being single and for not being a dr or a lawyer.

It's getting old. Im getting old. There are bigger things happening in the world. Im a data analyst im a fucking unit chief i volunteer and i advocate and i work to see change like im not sitting on my hands doing NOTHING but i will NEVER be treated with respect in this family/community until i do get married or become a billionaire.

[wildknightblaze]

people i want to get to know better

tagged by @ubejamjar, ty :3 don't know who else to tag in response so if you see this and feel like it, consider this an open invitation.

Last Song: A Risky Bet from the recent FFXIV Dawntrail raids. a little weird because my group hasn't even gotten to that part of the fight yet, but it's awesome to have in the background while I'm compiling the strategies and shit for the rest of the group. the drum & bass remixed into the song that was already burrowing into my mind bc it's essentially a Crush 40 3D Sonic theme from my adolescence is just 🤌

Favorite Color: an easy one, right? bet it's soooo hard to guess that the person whose OC has red hair and is always wearing red to the point that she looks weird in anything not red, her favorite color is red, right? trick question. my favorite color is blue. my car is blue, i'd like to paint my walls blue when i have the energy, i just find a deep naval blue to be really soothing, and probably the color i myself look best in. (turns out Ellie has her own tastes. :V)

Currently Watching: rewatching the first season of Gravity Falls because a friend mentioned it, and I never actually watched season 2, so hoping to move into that. After that I'm thinking of rolling a die to pull up something random from the backlog that's been around for years. Or maybe Arcane, idk. Or The Bear. friends have been singing the praises of The Bear.

Last Movie: The MST3k episode of Space Mutiny. A really fun time except, uh, Mike and Crow did a pretty transphobic-stereotype sketch in the middle of it. :/ Stuff made in the 90s sure was made in the 90s. At least the rest of it was pretty funny.

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: I am such a spice baby that I got an accidental order of spicy chicken nuggets a couple of days ago and they actually made me sick. >.> Sweetness is nice, but I have way less of a sweet tooth than I do for something like a homemade chicken sandwich.

Relationship Status: single

Current Obsessions: if i am not logging into FFXIV even when i have literally run out of stuff to do, i am dead. part of it is also probably how i'm - not exactly leading my raid static, but I'm the one compiling the strats and teaching them to everyone else (and then executing them wrongly to lead by bad example lmfao). Other than FFXIV though, I've been having a lot of fun with a couple of indies I picked up to delve into while recovering from surgery. Tactical Breach Wizards has a really compelling and satisfying gameplay loop and a fun story; the characters are very snarky so like if the MCU has ruined that for you that can be off-putting, but it's still better-written on average lol. I haven't delved too much into Fields of Mistria but I really want to, it's cute af. I'm also thinking it's about time for another Ace Attorney, but I'm not sure if I want to do Investigations 2 IN HD IN ENGLISH OFFICIALLY or finish Great Ace Attorney 2 ALSO IN HD IN ENGLISH OFFICIALLY... ALSO, friends have started a weekly Civilization VI night in discord in the wake of the announcement of Civ VII, and I reallllly want to deep dive into that. Many fond memories of getting lost in the easy loop of V. also missed opportunity that they didn't call it CiVIlization, or CiVIIlization.

Last Thing in My Search History: "surface pro flex keyboard deals." there are none. absolutely insane how much microsoft is charging for something like this. >:( (the "flex" is important, because turns out the normal surface pro keyboard that is already ridiculously expensive doesn't have bluetooth connectivity, which idk if your thing's approaching two hundred fucking us dollars it doesn't seem like an unreasonable expectation for it to be wireless-capable!!) i gotta stop this before i get really mad about capitalism and the tech industry

[steamanband]

Can u summarize that Joyce (or mask) lore for me my memory is so shit actually

I wasn't specifically waiting for confirmation to send this one but I remembered now lol entertain ME !!

YES BOSS!!! I know you said summarise but errm. I yapped a lot. Long post incoming.

Joyce. I actually don't think often about her life before she worked for Walter Manor but she was born in 1988 and is a fat emo lesbian so I imagine people weren't very nice to it. 😕 But she was undoubtedly the smartest and coolest person around sooo suck it haters 💯

I think she started working for Walter Robotics around late 2013 / early 2014 maybe. Some time after Six's face exploded. Her unique specialisation being cybernetic enhancements, prosthetics, blue matter medicines ect ect medical used for blue matter. Its core purpose is always to help people, often at the expense of it's own well-being or comfort. She refuses to experiment on other living things and instead performs a lot of experiments on her own body, which obviously considering the nature of blue matter is a terrible idea, but it's hard to talk her out of things she has already made its mind up on. She is in. A lot of constant pain. But fuck it she balls.

As of currently in the timeline (like 2024) it has been working for Walter robotics for 10ish years !! She's like. 36.

Personality wise it's very fun 2 me. Bc I'm sure she comes off as a very stereotypical loving and sweet person, and she is both of those things, but honestly it's also... RIDICULOUSLY stubborn and easy to annoy WHAHWUAHWHAH if you piss her off once she will not like you forever and will tell you as much. Truly born to be married into the Walter family, the family of grade A haters. Although its irritability is likely due to her surplus of health issues and lack of sleep, it just feels   very sick 100% of the time. She's also a bit of a shut in, despite her friendliness she gets tired of talking to people easily and will often disappear for days on end to work or recover or both

Some fun Joyce Ferrer-Rosales trivia:

- It has superhuman strength as a result of her experiments and can easily lift the weight of a couple cars over her head

- She likes fishing. Her and Hatchworth go fishing together

- It finds boring people genuinely unbearable to talk to if you arent a freak do NOT interact

- I think she would really enjoy things that taste cheap and fake. Mmmm microplastics

TLDR: She wanted to make medicines and became a cyborg about it

[tezerenotameiki]

Hi, uh. I saw your post about the denpa-style C-ta horror game and. 1. your mind?? yes please, and 2. do you have any denpa classics recommendations because I've only played a few and love the aesthetic..

ANONNNN YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I SMILED WHEN I SAW THIS ASK ,, 1) IM MAKING THIS A THING AND 2) ALWAYS. RAMBLINGS BELOW

ok. im working off the assumption ur like me and primarily play english vns but have relative familiarity with the, uh, quirks of the genre. just in case: denpa games are pretty difficult to recommend in general because of how intense, graphic, gorey, etc. they tend to be. i cant really get into content warnings with each one bc they would be literal paragraphs LOL but i'm going to try and provide a range of options (both classics + things that i personally believe fit the aesthetic). if you need more details on any game, just hmu!!

subahibi: i'll start off with easily the most horrifying game i've ever played (extremely affectionate). it's difficult to even talk about the plot of this game, other than that it's a fascinating spiral down a literal/metaphorical rabbit hole as you unravel the psyches of the most fucked up cast in the world. a read so brutal i have to take breaks from it to recover from it. i adore it so.

sayonara o oshiete: if you want a classic, this is one of the Defining games in the genre. it definitely shows its age, but holy shit is the atmosphere incredible. it's also... another really graphic game. there's an english patch that isn't particularly good, apparently, and got hated on so much it was deleted... but it's not hard to find (lol) and i've definitely read worse translations

shizuku: so this was a fun surprise! in researching this list i discovered someone who machine translated the OG visual novel and denpa game, shizuku, and uploaded it to youtube. it's janky, but a cool find, so i'lll be watching it later. shizuku's just got a neat aesthetic in general and it's good if you want to know about the classics - there's a lot written up about it.

totono: unfortunately, by its inclusion on its list, i'm spoiling that its not a normal dating sim… but it's a nitroplus game, that's a given! a protagonist convinced that he'll never amount to anything begins to connect with the two love interests in the game. from there… the game truly bends the narrative and uses its medium in stunning ways. it's as thought-provoking as it is horrifying. a must-read imo

higurashi: i'm assuming if you're at all familiar with vns you've played or at least heard of higurashi. if not. go play it. shakes your shoulders.

soundless -a modern salem in remote area-: this was actually my introduction to denpa games, so i have a huge soft spot for it! it's insane how much they tailored it to my tastes. a young girl caught in a religious cult is viciously tormented by the other members for her visions — until another member arrives saying that she can see the same things too.

chaos;child: more sci-fi than most denpa games usually are, but with all the focus on delusion, gore, the spiral of mental illness, etc etc i just have to put it on this list. watch this cocky newspaper club president try to investigate senselessly brutal murders across the city and become embroiled in a case beyond human understanding! fun!

^^ (as a sidenote, its prequel, chaos;head NOAH, is supposed to have a improved translation patch by committee of zero coming out soon! just based on the aesthetic, i think c;h is a little bit of a better fit, but i haven't played it yet)

milk inside / outside a bag of milk: two separate games, but mostly listing for the second one, which has a stunning art style that completely replicates that feeling of being disconnected from reality. short but stays with you.

hopefully there are a few on this list that seem of interest to you! i can always dive into my itch.io for more niche games i may have forgotten about lol

[fuckin-sick-bih]

any chance of seeing a TLOU fic (no game spoilers)

that has Tess catching a pretty rough cold after her and Joel get Ellie out of the QZ?

I have this feeling I'm gonna end up a Last of Us snz author and y'know what I'm cool with that bc I... enjoyed writing Tess a lot??? I don't think I've ever posted fem snz writing before so uhh go easy on me lol hope you enjoy! Fandom: The Last of Us Summary: Finding shelter in the salon just after finding out Ellie is infected, Tess isn't feeling so hot but the three need rest. Joel takes the first watch... and watches over Tess. CW: Joel/Tess... sorta? It's a bit like the show where they are but they don't talk about it. Word Count: 1.2k MINORS DNI

Between the rain, the rush of adrenaline, and the screams and clicks of the infected there hadn’t been much time to self asses. So what if it felt like her lungs were burning, her throat felt like she’d choked on some overbaked hard tack, her limbs were like lead, and there was definitely congestion building in her sinuses. Panting and trembling, Tess rested one hand against the wall of the abandoned salon while Joel moved the hefty bookcase in front of the door.

All at once, she spotted Joel suddenly raise his uninjured hand and clench it into a fist meaning to go silent, so she quickly looked to Ellie and pressed a finger to her lips. She’d all but gotten her breath back thankfully, but stayed frozen half bent over in her recovering position as the infected ran past their hiding spot.

Then there it was. A tickle. Something so small that could spell disaster and possibly the end of their lives if Tess didn’t get a grip. She swallowed hard against her aching throat, determined to stay utterly silent until the shuffling straggling made his gruesome way past, but the tickle was turning into a burning itch.

It traveled up from the tip of her nose deeper into her sinuses and started to make her eyes water, slightly pink nostrils flaring while she clenched her jaw. Fuck now was so not the time for this! Her breathing was starting to shake a little and her eyes squint, one hand coming up to press her wrist under her nose. The same hand that held her gun, safety on and finger off the trigger.

Joel’s gaze was traveling to her, his eyes widening as he seemed to realize the struggle she was having and he ever so slightly shook his head. “Don’t.” He mouthed to her, not making a sound.

With a slight roll of her eyes, Tess wondered what the fuck he wanted her to do about the predicament she was in but her breath was starting to hitch. “Hi’ihh…” There were no sounds from outside. She gestured with her free hand for Joel to check where the infected had gotten to while she rubbed carefully at her nose with her wrist.

After a few moments, Joel spoke up. “We’re clear.”

And without hesitation, Tess let go. “Hiit’shhiew! Isshiew! Ikshiew! Oh my god…” She breathed out and sniffed, leaning against the wall like the sneezes had taken the last of her energy.

“Jesus Christ, were you holding those in the whole time?” Ellie exclaimed in shock to which Tess still had just enough in her to look over at her in annoyance. “Jeez, alright, I’ll just go… sleep over here then.” And without another word, Ellie went to go curl up on a patch of grass.

As Tess recovered for a few moments, putting away her gun and checking her bag, Joel was busy getting them a dry spot to sleep as well as setting up a chair for someone to keep watch. “Figure we’ll take shifts. Unless you’re not feelin’ well. Then you sleep, and I’ll keep watch.” He said, tone not leaving much room for argument.

Not that Tess was going to let him go unchallenged regardless of whatever tone he took with her. “I’m fine. Just the- hii’tshhiew! Ugh, rain.” She insisted, sniffling again as she went to set her bag down. “I’ll take first watch if you-”

A warm, calloused hand brushed over her forehead and Tess slapped it away without even thinking about it. The look in her eyes wild for a few seconds as she stared at Joel before she softened. “Sorry…”

The look he gave her spelled out that there was no need for apologies. Unspoken traumas plagued them both. There was no surviving this long without it. “S’alright… Just checking for a fever.” And his hand reached back out again. Rough. Warm. Tess let herself lean into it.

Those feelings they’d never quite addressed came crashing to the forefront and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to lay down. “I know…” She started quietly. “I’m usually the big spoon, but- just this once…?”

“You even have to ask?” There was a softness to his voice that Tess had never heard before. Something she wondered if it had always been there before the Outbreak. It made her yearn to have known him before. “Lay down before you fall down, princess.”

Tess scoffed at the nickname. “I’m anything but and you know it, smartass.” She eased down onto the makeshift bed and curled herself up under her jacket. Within moments, Joel was curling up behind her. His jacket was being laid half over her and half over himself as his arm snaked around her. The additional warmth had her snuggling back into him against her better judgement, but god she was freezing and exhausted and he just felt so good…

There was a quiet sigh from behind her, his breath tickling the back of her neck. “Known you for how many damn years and, of course, now is when you decide to get the sniffles…” He teased her quietly. “Not back in the QZ where I can actually take care of you.”

“Shut the fuck up…” She replied quietly, somewhere between amused and annoyed but there was still a slight curve to her lips. The tickle was starting to return with a vengeance, making Tess scrunch her nose and rub at it with her fingers. “You’d take ca-hhih! care of me?” There was genuine surprise in her tone, not having expected him to be so… soft about this. Reprimand her maybe, but not this.

There was a half beat of silence, almost like Joel was offended for a split second before he replied. “ ‘course I would.” He mumbled quietly, shifting a little so he could lay in a position to keep one eye on the kid at all times. Fair enough, she thought as the tickle grew worse making her eyes start to water again as it builds for another fit.

“Tuck you into my bed, see if I couldn’t scrounge up some soup from the ration line, make you comfortable under a blanket…” Joel rattles off and Tess aches for that. For even a sliver of it. She never let’s herself be cared for by anyone but Joel because Joel gets it.

Joel knows what she’s lost.

“Well, aren’t you just the sweeeht’sheiew! Eisheiew! Ih…ishhKIEW! Fuck, sorry.” Tess had scrambled to pull her coat over her face as she sneezed, trying to both muffle the sound and cover.

Slowly, Joel’s hand pulls back and Tess feels her heart ache spreading like poison through her veins down her arms because of course she’s disgusted him, chased him off, made him not want her anymore…

“Get some rest, darlin’.” Joel murmurs quietly, some of that southern drawl slipping out more as he lets himself relax just a little. Instead of pulling away his hand slides up underneath the back of her shirt to rub slow and gentle circles against the skin of her back. “I’ll keep watch tonight.”

Tess can only tiredly nod, giving a soft cough as the exhaustion pulls at her. “Thank you…” She whispers and lets her eyes close as she drifts off to sleep with the help of his comforts in the unforgiving world.

[llycaons]

final ch lb reposted bc it's not showing up in the tags???

AUGH THE CHAPTER IS CALLED DUNGEON MESHI. it's simple but I love it when they do that. perfect for dm, which is pared-down in themes but applies itself perfectly to what it wants to say

wow, damn, guess that makes sense, it's so amazing that laios brought so many people together with the simple promise of something that unites all living things - nourishment - and they in turn brought their own food to add to the communal pot. I would have liked to see more exploration of this community-building through food, but this is literally one of the only things I would change about dm it's so impeccable crafted

damn marcille

JESUS LAIOS

aw man, that's genuinely an awful thing to live with. this might be a happy ending, but laios lives with the consequences of his defeat of the demon

this is an actual medical condition too...people can get really sick

celebratory panel!!! ofc senshi is stoic (though without ever being unkind! he's unruffled without being cold) and izu doesn't rly care

sorry but 👀

THIS IS SO FUNNY. senshi being like 'I'm politely staying out of this' and everyone else being like 'yeah there's no way he's that selfless'

damn, what a step for marcille, who was so terrified of losing the people close to her

she's so hot here ugh

OHHH this visual is so cool

mmm tasty! her face says hehe she's so cute I missed her so bad. real babygirl material

yayy!!! and standing up suddenly able to walk, and TAKING the dragon with her??? that's so cute like a little plush

it would have been an interesting ending for her to maybe not recover the use of her legs? ending the story with a disability wouldn't have been a tragedy, and it's been done really well in other stories. like, I'm still me, this is a change that happened because of something I've been through, and it's something to adjust to and keep moving forward with. sorry to bring up tgcf here but sqx's storyline is truly so compelling like she DID that

SHES SO CUTE I CAN'T STAND IT. farlyn are you free friday I can take you to a movie and buy you dinner

really incredible how she's hot in one panel then charming in another then ravenous in the third. her range...

this is such lover behavior <3

AHHH SIBLING LOVE!!

marcille love!!! her legs lmao

😭😭😭 not many stories end this straightforwardly satisfyingly and honestly it's really really nice. a more bittersweet ending or a more 'mature' one might have had farlyn not come back at all a lesson abt death or w/e but fuck that!!

ohhhh sexy

STOP THIS IS SO FUCKING CUTE!!! LOOK HOW HE'S SMILING. CRYING OVER THIS!!! character who barely know each other and have met like once before but will absolutely be friends for life. this might be my favorite panel in the chapter and maybe even series

PEACE AND LOVE ON THE PLANET EARTH

aww she's trying to reach out to izu. she's not someone who warms up to people easily but farlyn is just so lovable and sincere and weird that I can def see a friendship potentially for them

STOP STOP THIS IS SO CUTE. im so glad farlyn didn't get paired off or even god forbid MARRIED to that guy who likes her can you fucking imagine. maybe farcille isn't confirmed but they're real in our hearts and nothing disproves them

damn, pizza? I don't remember that

of course she does!!! she's outgoing and adventurous and loves to eat!

you know this story wouldn't have worked half as well if farlyn wasn't legitimately a charming and lovable character who was easy to get attached to and root for. if they tried going the jerk with a heart of gold route, it would have taken a lot longer and been harder to create sympathy for her. like how cql's appeal rests disproportionately on you liking and rooting for wwx, dungeon meshi's driving plot relied on you WANTING this woman to come back to life, to eat and see her friends and do her magic and get into her weird hobbies. and she's perfect! the writing doesn't rely on one cliched line or scene to get you to realize 'oh they're a good person despite their harsh exterior' to get you to root for her (even tho that's an underutilized technique for writing women), it just presents this oddball and lets you love her. rk is so good at writing women who feel like real people, it's a reason adore marcille - for her awkwardness, her judgement, her readiness to blow things up without thought. she's just a deeply uncool person who's very endearing

not to be a monarchist or anything but this is probably the best they could have gotten given the situation so I'm not going to complain too much. it's not like I read dm for in-depth and realistic political engagement

and this is like the easiest way to be a good leader. just care about your people getting the food they need. that's enough, really. I don't think laios is capable of much more anyway. it's not like he's a politican

also what does the succession line look like? I know he's not having a kid. omg kabru!! his face is so ajshdksad. and yayy marcille and farlyn staying to advise him together!!

oHHH SHIT. thesis statement of the series! also these babies are so fucking cute I can't deal. ik that one of them is a dog person but the other one??? is that an orc??? well take back what I said about just food being important. integration is happening here too - it's clear that laios's kingdom is welcoming of people like orcs who have historically been expelled from other places and violently targeted by other races. idk how he managed that but like, well done, laios!

you know I adore cql but it's such a relief to step into other stories that aren't quite so much about Good (TM ) in a vague and all-encompassing sense and also have characters who aren't laserfocused on one person and who you can envision making connections to and becoming close with other characters 😭 loving lwj is so hard sometimes loving farlyn is so easy always

[taegularities]

ive just finished reading a book that shattered my heart into infinite pieces and i am not even joking a bit. i knew that the book was as good once i started crying and tears never stopped. i think 70% of that book was me crying. now i have swollen eyelids lol. i never cried so much over something since i watched Hachiko the movie. like real sob, sounds coming out from my mouth, the real hurting package thing :(

now i need another book as beautiful as this one. and i don’t think i would recovered from this one yet. she even mentionned one direction’s songs to describe the relationship between the two mc. i am fucking torn. oh btw the book is « a thousand boy kisses » by Tillie Cole. have you ever heard about it?

have you any recommendations? also i am debating myself to buy a kindle. although i do like the idea of paper book, idk. i spend most of my nights reading ff to be honest but since last month i can’t find any that is why i switch back to «��real » book again. although i think i missed a lot of your series too i have to read them.

that made me think, is there any books that made you to start writing? how did you find telling yourself that you wanted to write? would you considered it as an hobbie or a passion? pardon me if you had already answered those questions in the past too. in that book i’ve read, author was talking a lot about passion and made me realize that besides piano - i am unfortunately not really into it anymore - i don’t have any. like isn’t it beautiful to say that we had something to hold on, to escape? i miss that..

i talked a lot today lol i am so sorry. oh and if any of your followers as any book recommandations (not ff too), i take!!! 🤎

oh gosh, babe.. have you recovered from it yet? i know that feeling so well. some stories just stay with us and are hard, if not impossible to forget. i know it hurts, but i'm also glad you found a book you could enjoy the way you did. i haven't heard of it, by the way! but just googled it, and it sounds beautiful. soulmate au :(

i wish i could rec stories, but i think it's genuinely been years since i read a proper book. i know 'me before you' and its sequel made me cry :') definitely get that kindle if you've been reading a lot these days! i do prefer paperback, too, but i get the appeal of an e-book.

yeah, honestly, that's gonna sound extremely mainstream, but books that made me write were john green's stories, the novel 'every day' by david levithan and (okay, don't laugh pls lol), but ed sheeran's songs. there's beauty in all those – a lot of talk of love and the stars, of soft and sweet things. which is probably why my writing ended up the way it is today? but i've always written tbh… i enjoyed reading and at some point, i started a random ass story back when i was 13 or so (it was horrible) and then wrote my first stuff in english when i started this blog. i wanted to try it out. play with words, see if i'm any good at it? and yeah, now i'm kinda in love with it and trying to be better every day <3 so i'd say it's both a hobby and a passion. truly an activity i enjoy the most.

it's beautiful to have something like this, true. i hope you find your passion, too <3 and tbh, i'm so grateful you asked all that? bc i love talking about these things.. like what, you're actually interested in me and getting to know me?? i'll blush lol :') love you <3

[tinystepsforward]

i am so fucking sad tonight and i used to put that stuff on here like a decade ago so here we are again ig. just.

really horrid combination of things happening right now and it makes me extra upset bc i'm into my second month on low-dose t and the first month was going so fucking well for like. being conducive to the last of my trauma recovery? and then, of course, recovery isn't linear and also my parents seem intent to retraumatise me whenever they can. but like.

english terf hits our shores

completely inescapable discourse, and also targeted abuse, on twitter and elsewhere. also i wrote an op-ed bc our media are useless and we need at least a few trans voices out there (hopefully it does get picked up, but it was gruelling to write)

my mother switches from spreading conspiracy theories about climate change to a sudden and vicious focus on trans people. not that she ever stopped being a bigot but usually it's one post every few months about how conversion therapy works and not several posts a day from people who want trans people murdered

scheduled to be interviewed for a study on conversion therapy survivors on tuesday

scheduled to go on holiday with my family on thursday. i booked a separate room so i won't have to attempt to take my (oral, twice daily with food, specifically bc the endo didn't want me on injections until we knew for sure i wouldn't need to suddenly stop t to avoid extended ptsd episodes) testosterone around family who would be very willing to attempt conversion therapy round fucking four on me

i have no idea if my job will still be there for me when i get back from this scheduled leave bc [gestures at tech companies and ai]

conference all day monday (tomorrow, technically) that i know will eat all my spoons, and that doesn't cater for my dietary needs so i'll have to pack food

and it's like. i am so sad. i am so so sad. i have been making a concerted effort w my family because my paatti (dad's mother) is in town, the one i've talked about before who doesn't know i'm gay and married bc my parents have prevented that happening. and i feel so lonely and so cut off bc as a diaspora/migrant family, and a mixed one at that, my only connection to my cultures is via my parents who fucking hate who i am. so i've been trying to hang out with her when they're not around. i said yes to this vacation, we'll get more time together and some pictures and stuff.

but i'm still fielding her questions about why i don't have a boyfriend. and my parents have decided to, right when i'm most stressed about being trans, and about connection to family, be the worst people they can be about it again i guess? and it's true that my conversion therapy/parental/religion trauma is the stuff i've never come back around to working on in therapy bc my parents are actively reopening the wound every few months and it's. hard to work with that.

fucking like. shocking that i recovered from ptsd once, after [black box of getting csaed more times than i can count], immediately got groomed in a way that's rly fucking complicated to talk about bc my ex is a trans woman who decided to come out as a child-grooming rapist and as trans in the same month, and terfs salivate over the idea of using people like her as a cudgel, and completely forgot that approximately 300 other things, sa and otherwise, happened to me along the way to the point where my psych said she was surprised/proud i haven't killed anyone yet.

so i'm sad about all of them at once rn except the brain injury means i can only hold about two in my active memory at a time and i keep alternating which ones i'm sad about like shuffling several decks of cards really fast i guess.

[south-park-meta]

tbh It made me realise the reason why I loved SP's take on depression was better, if u compare Stan with other characters whose purpose is being social commentary on depression and mental health (Effy Stonem from Skins and Hanah Baker from 13 RW).

Hannah Baker (13RW)

Her character frustates me because 13 RW had so much potential,the idea was creative,narrating how many stuff drove her to suicide: from bullying,h4rr4sment,SA'D r4pe, not only adressing depression but to adress those things as well.

I know the author's intention and Selena Gomez's idea were good and focus on mental health but the development was icky,some dialogues feel rushed to arrive to the tragedy, some traumatic events feel to gave shock value to the audience than genuiely comment on it, besides how the series remarks you that if the love interest would have confesed Hannah, It would have saved her.

Which is very hurtful for many reasons.

A partner can help u throught recovery and being moral support but they aren't ur therapist, adding the fact that selling the idea "if he would have confessed,he would have saved her" when confessing or just be with them doesn't automatically saved them??.

Very different with SP, like Wendy and Kyle genuinely wanted to help Stan, but their moral support isn't enough to get him out of depression and sometimes it can be tiring for others (Kyle)

However If we compare a character that is more similar w/ Stan.

• they are both main characters and the leader of their friendgroup.

• they are the younger sibling.

• they can be charismatic,smart, and independant from such young age

• they can be bit arrogant sometimes.

• both of them are done with everyone's bs.

• both of them distrustful of adults, and sometimes get embarrased at their parent's stupidity.

•struggles with relationship, fear of abandoment.

• heavy uses of alcohol plus depression.

However their character differs on how the writers made them, while Skins's purpose was to show life never ends how u want it to be, and endings could be most be sad or just neutral,healing. Showing adolescence,teens struggling with addictions,disfunctional families,etc.

Skins GLAMOURIZED her depression,unlike her brother's behaviour. He was villianized (bc he was an asshole,he deserved it but he matured),he got heavier consequences. unlike her, while her friends and her love interest were fed up,they forgave her too quickly. it also presents u the narrative "love interest saves depressed person" to a whole level, while she was ""recovering". Out of nowhere,her bf gets killed by her psychiatrist?? Out of shock value. Even when she gets a bit of consequences she managed to manipulate to save herself, even with that smirk of "I'm effy stonem I'm always get what I want".

Effy represents an unhealthy and glamourized ideas of depression that the show pushed on it's female fanbase. (as someone w/ depression, when I saw the show I questioned why my depression didn't make me mysterious and prettier or get a bf that saved me from it)

"Her depression it's destructing her but that makes her even prettier and mysterious, ppl want to be her or fuck her"

and it had such an impact that on tumblr when the show came out until this day, many ppl want to be as mentally ill as Effy or fuck her.

Stan's depression and his self destructive tendencies is never showed as something that makes him mysterious or quirky. Neither his philosophy and way of thinking. His conflicts don't feel like to be shock value.

Althought he didn't get therapy at all,it protrayed realistically how some ppl don't get opportunity to be treated, and how sometimes they just have to move forward, feeling like shit but then a neutral point u don't care about anything,neither happy or sad, and keep moving.

Plus his personality,his behaviour in certain situations makes him more relatable to me than any character.

Tegridy farms burning? It was smth u see was coming. Because his anger is explosive, he puts out with his father behaving like a child,drinking,sometimes belittle him, always fighting with this mom for dumb stuff. The farm was an idea clearly Shelly,Sharon and him disliked. And them fighting over the divorce bc Randy didn't want to share money w/ Sharon was his breaking point, the impulsiveness "oh fuck it farm goes boom bc he is an asshole" cost him sister's life in the bad ending.

They showed Wendy trying to be suppoetive but not as his therapist or "love interest saves depressed person". Neither make Kyle his therapist or sm.

And it sometimes surprised me how SP while is social commentary is also dark humor and parody treated depression withot demonizing Stan neither glamourizing his depression.

Honestly his character is so interesting i could analyze that bitch for hours.

Idk how to expressed it but ugh.

I haven't seen Skins so I don't have a point of reference for it lol. I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent with this.

Depression in South Park and its fandom is a tricky thing because I think a lot of people don't have realistic, or sensitive, headcanons about depression. Which is probably obvious by my whiny posts lately lol.

But it's also something, both for South Park as a fandom and media at large that needs to be looked at pretty carefully. There's a lot of headcanons that if I'm being blunt I think are God awful and insensitive if people think about it critically at all. Which I do try to weigh with the source being South Park which can in itself be insensitive.

The thing that makes South Park as a source fairly unique is it represents a more stereotypically 'masculine' depression. Which isn't to say women can't or don't act that way. But the 'explosive' depression is something that is more typically present in men. And that isn't something that is often present in media as a whole; the typical depiction of depression is more by-the-book representative of young women. (Again not exclusively so. Some of Stan's more annoying/negative traits are things I've felt and worked to outgrow. Probably some I've failed at lol). It also feels very authentic, presumably because Stan is so much of Trey in ways that characters aren't typically so emotionally autobiographical and usually have multiple writers.

That leads to the crux of my waffling with a lot of handling of depression. It very often is based on female depression, and whether in media or fandom is often based on stereotypes of this, such as cutting etc. A lot of stereotype appears because the authors can't personally relate. But then again, quite often authors DO relate to this, and it occurs so often because the authors themselves are more typically women than men, in particular in fandom. But on the other OTHER hand, depression is often treated as childishly annoying and something to grow out of, and in mocking it it very often is done by exaggerating the female depression stereotype that everyone has in their heads. Even in South Park there's a mess of trying to write mental illness but not being able to relate personally, relating personally but not presenting in the same way as is typical the demographic represented and shown in South Park, and finding mental illness annoying and actively mocking it, usually in these underhanded kind of headcanons.

Anyway this is a mess lol I'm about to clock out for work but hopefully there's still something decent in what I said. Mental illness and its representation is so multifaceted! Maybe I'll talk more about it tomorrow when I'm off :) thanks for the ask!

ETA Now that I'm back home:

Overall what makes good representation is:

Knowing from personal experience

Being earnest

There are at times things you can extrapolate from your personal knowledge of being human and feeling emotions even if you don't know things personally. But it's going to always feel truer when it is truer even with the best of intentions.

Being earnest makes a huge difference, too, and is something I think people forget. Shows like South Park can be and often are insensitive, but the feelings behind them are also often authentic and earnest. Shows like Skins, often aren't earnest by design in that more dramatic/soap opera based shows are usually looking for more shock value than emotional authenticity (someone feel free to correct me if I've missed the mark on the genre though. This is just what I've vaguely picked up from Skins from seeing like 2 or 3 eps and knowing the general premise lol). I think it also speaks to my earlier points in that the VAST majority of the writing credits for this show are men and have no lived experience as being a depressed teen girl. No lived experience and a desire for emotional reaction over emotional connection is, to me, always going to lead to a less 'true' outcome. Even if the show has its own positive merits.

I actually DID read Thirteen Reasons Why (in high school) and watched uhhh about 15 minutes of the show, which I quit because it struck me as OTT in a way that I don't really like. I did like the book okay but also thought at the time 'this dude doesn't know what it's like to be a girl', which is the crux of a lot of problems. But I do think Jay Asher has his heart in the right place which covers up some of the problems. I've heard a little bit about the show that makes me inclined to agree it leans into shock value though.

Side note as a rec, everyone should watch Ordinary People. That movie's good as hell.

[mosssunmaniac]

I've gotten into watching Malory Towers and it is so good! Also very infuriating, but, good!

This post will include spoilers! So don't read further if you do not want spoilers!

So..... !!! SPOILERS !!!

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I have some headcanons upon watching the show as I'm now on the beginning of season 3. (And also some thoughts on Ms. Johnson!!!!)

The matron is a stern and stubborn woman. Over Season two I saw a possible love interest setup with the form teacher. It seemed pretty obvious, but, by the end of it, it was discovery that this wasn't the case. The girls believed she'd been proposed to when in reality the form teacher was bent down on one knee trying to help get a cat out from underneath a desk. (Said cat was found and secretly cared for by a student.)

When she's confronted, she explains she'd "choose a cat over a man any day"

This made me think, Matron is aroace!!!

And that's not the only evidence. In the episode where Georgina has measles, it's a concern that it may have spread to Mr. Parker. He's kept in the Matron's office to recover. She ends up writing a story that is essentially a biography about how she takes care of the girls and wishes to impress the form teacher. She asks Mr. Parker to give her an honest review, to which he admits it's not very good, escribing how diligent she is with the girls but that she is not a writer. Based on her comment about not wanting men, it leads me to realize her writing reflected her want to impress Mr. Parker and be his friend. Essentially, not a crush, but a squish!!

That and in Season 3 she's asked to do a biology lesson on changes in a woman's body. She gets very awkward and doesn't use obvious language. She's clearly uncomfortable teaching the subject, despite being knowledgeable on health topics to care for the girls. Being a sex repulsed asexual myself, I often hate using even medical terms because my brain often makes connections between that and how it's viewed in a sexual light.

Essentially

MATRON IS AROACE!!!!!! Possible microlabels ofc, but I don't know atm.

Finally, very simple, but, BILL IS TRANS + NON-BINARY!!!!

I imagine she still uses She/Her, but I feel she wouldn't mind She/He/They as well!

Also Ms. Johnson is an absolute bitch and I hate her. ESPECIALLY BC SHE KEEPS ESSENTIALLY FUCKING DEADNAMING BILL AFTER BILL EXPLICITLY STATES SHE WANTS TO BE CALLED BILL.

Ms. Johnson is straight up evil I swear.

[kinnsporsche]

Thank you for your kind words on my AITA for calling the police on my sister.

I'm sorry you've been through that. It's very rough and it's hard especially in situations where the child is abusing a parent.

hiiii op!!! (context, it's this @am-i-the-asshole-official post)

my brother was around the same age, maybe a little bit older, when everything went down with them. when i was growing up he'd always been abusive to me physically and emotionally (the worst thing i remember is him pushing me into a bunch of thorns and nettles and then him and his friend shooting me with a bb gun and when i was super young maybe 4 or 5 he hung my toys from the ceiling with rope) but he didn't start getting physically abusive with my own mum until somewhere between 16-18.

unlike your situation, i was young so i was home with my mum when it happened and so she never had to ask for our help, but i do have core memories of her hiding me and my little sister behind her whilst my brother was going off on one, i remember him shoving her and her hitting her head on the counter and splitting her eyebrow open and there was blood all down her face, i remember her having bruises all over, i remember him holding a knife to her, i remember her pulling one back to defend us (i was 11/12 which made my sister 7/8 at the time) and for most of his teenage years, he never changed. my mum made a lot of excuses for him until it got really bad - he was abused by his own dad (not my father, he's my half-brother) and she felt guilty for that, she felt like she messed up his childhood so this was her fault and she deserved it.

i dont think she started to understand how bad it was until the knives got involved, until he brought a group of people into our house whilst some man waited for them outside and threatened to tie everyone in the house to the back of his car and drive around our estate, until i, a twelve year old child, had to go up against him to protect my own mum whilst she was bleeding on the floor until my dad came over and got him out of the house. and after that is when my mum also became heavily involved with alcohol and alcoholism and lost herself until i was about 16/17. she's okay now, we're both in good places and super close, but i lost my childhood to the both of them because of how bad things got with the abuse and the drinking. i was kicked out of my own house at 14 iirc, i have ptsd (which fucking destroys my memory hence the broad age range bcs i cant remember shit), depression, social phobia, and anxiety from it all, i'm still scared of my brother, i'm terrified of confrontation, i have attachment issues, but the worst part of it all are the nightmares and the flashbacks. my mum doesn't know i have them, i've only told a few people, but they happen regularly. most recently my brother in one of them my brother tried to drown me and poured scolding water on my face so theres that.

op you did the right thing by showing her that there's consequences for what she did, if your mom was willing to let it lie, i am 100% sure it would and might still will grow into a situation like my brother. i cant believe there's people on that post claiming yta for calling the cops on your sibling when they laughed in the face of your own mother almost dying at her hands. yes acab, we know this, but until there is a better system in place to help and protect in situations like this, what else are you supposed to do? wait for your sister to one day do too much damage that your mom can't recover from? fuck no you have every right to defend your mom from her and, even if your mom understand it now, one day she will, especially if your sister continues to walk such a dangerous path.

please please see what i went through as a warning, and if you want to share this with your family so there's even the slightest chance that they might see how bad things can get if she isn't punished for her behaviour, if it's left to fester and root, if she thinks she can get away with it, then please send it to them. i'm wishing nothing but love and safety for your family, especially your mom.

[superfluouskeys]

omg i just realised you're in law school?? can i ask what prompted you to pursue a (i presume) 2nd degree? i am nearing 30 and considering going for a 2nd degree as well but i'm super reluctant haha, would you mind sharing something about your experience? are you doing like a master's, did you choose it to get a specific job you are aiming for?

Ah, I would be happy to talk about my questionable life choices lol! For law school in the US if you want to actually practice you get what's called a Juris Doctor (JD) degree, which is a professional degree, and you have to have completed a Bachelor's to pursue it. People who want to like, specialize in something will sometimes get an LLM (Master of Law), but generally do that after the JD, even though a JD is technically "higher" than a Master's. Absurdly long story of my Journey TM under the cut lol

I tell people law school was a response to the pandemic even though that's not really true bc I don't want to get into the years-long insane series of thought processes that led me here lol. I only have a Bachelor's degree (in German/Music) and never intended to pursue anything beyond that. I'm naturally intelligent and did very well in school without trying, but I never had any particular interest in pursuing a higher education and pretty much just did it because that's what you're supposed to do. Looking back I feel quite embarrassed that I didn't fully appreciate the value of my education, even though I obviously wasn't doing it on purpose LOL. I got a lot of value out of college in general but it's frankly amazing that I did fine in my classes given my general self at the time. Fortunately I went to one of those schools where ppl hear the name and go oooOoooo woOOooOOow and don't generally care about my mediocre GPA.

I never really had a clear idea of what I wanted to do with my life, and I don't feel I'm one of those people who has a Calling TM. I'm good at and enjoy a variety of things, and I have a hard time being happy doing the same thing for a long period of time. I worked as a professional actor/singer when I graduated, and even within that field I became unhappy when I did too much of the same kind of work. Ultimately, as I grew into myself, I became frustrated and disillusioned with the industry in general, and with how I was being forced to live my life. I so rarely got to do anything I genuinely enjoyed, the work that paid best was utterly soul-sucking, and the general attitudes of the people around me esp. towards maintaining one's appearance were very unhealthy for me. They're unhealthy for everyone of course, but I was trying to recover from viewing my body in a negative light, and being around ppl with these attitudes made it pretty much impossible.

So I was already sort of looking for a new path of some sort a few years ago, but what I didn't realize at the time was that I had completely lost faith in myself and my abilities, and was selling myself incredibly short. I tried to do a bunch of dumb shit which obviously wouldn't be fulfilling in any way, tried to reshape my life into something bearable, and failed miserably several times. I was in fact halfway through discarding another failed attempt and taking up a new one when the pandemic hit. I ended up having to move back in with my mother, and what we all hoped would be a couple of months turned into Whatever This Is. So I found myself with a lot of time to think lol. And while it was a very difficult experience, I kept telling myself, whatever you do, no matter how bad it is, you need to actually think ahead for five fucking seconds and try to do something that will actually work, you know lol, because otherwise you're just going to end up in the same place again.

Law school started as a whim like any other; I was having lunch with my mom, and she mentioned offhand that she thought I should go to law school (she didn't go but she has a lot of lawyer friends). And I was feeling just insane enough that day that I was like yeah idk maybe I should. So I went home and was like okay how does one go to law school. I looked up a practice LSAT, took it knowing absolutely nothing about the LSAT, and did EXTREMELY well. So I thought, well. Huh. I need something to do w my life so I stop wanting to eat drywall, why not study for the LSAT lol, can't hurt.

And it just sort of kept going from there. Practicing for the LSAT gave me a sense of purpose, applying to law schools gave me a sense of purpose, and that sense of purpose enabled me to start slowly improving the horrible circumstances I was in. I didn't know how anything would shake out and to be honest I didn't particularly care at that point. Looking back I think I really had no hope for the future, and I was pretty crazy and didn't really feel like I'd be able to live very much longer. I didn't envision myself as a lawyer really, more as a law student lol. Schools have a lot of free resources and people who want to help you, and even as crazy as I was I felt I was in a much better place to take full advantage of those things than I had been in undergrad, in order to achieve SOMETHING. I wasn't really worried about what that might be.

So, I vowed to myself that whatever happened, I would really try, not just in school but to build a better future for myself. I did not arrive here in a good mental state, to say the least lol. And going back to school brought back a LOT of painful memories from my previous time in school when, as I mentioned, I was infinitely crazier. As just a couple of random examples, I was sort of toying with the idea of trying to learn a new language, and realized that I was still holding onto this intense guilt about the mental breakdown I had while taking a Russian class in college. One of my professors told me that I was an amazing writer, and I realized no teacher had ever told me that before. I had these insane moments sitting in class where I would get emotional because I was just so happy to be there, in spite of absolutely everything. I stopped regretting all of my past mistakes, because I genuinely think, no matter what horrible things I've done, I would do them all again if they would bring me here. My favorite professor literally saved my life, and is probably the only person in the world who could have successfully convinced me to go to therapy. I can't really even wish I'd done any of this sooner, because I know without a doubt that I wouldn't have been ready.

There are definitely some challenges to being back in school after so long. I remember feeling especially when I was around my friends who were in grad school that if I had to, like, write a long-ass paper or something, I just wouldn't be able to do it lol, like I'd just be so pissed that I had to do some arbitrary assignment. But it should be noted that I, like, despise philosophy-type subjects and things with no practical application, and always felt like I was bullshitting my assignments to make them longer. Not only do I love law school assignments because they are about applying the law to a set of facts (which may be made up but still have real-world relevance), but I always have a LOT to say, and am always struggling to make my papers SHORT enough rather than dragging out my dumbass takes to meet the minimum lol. It's a lot of work, but generally it's work I actually WANT to do, which makes all the difference.

I definitely also feel a bit of a disconnect from most of my fellow students. I think this is partially an age thing and partially a life experience thing. Like, for example, I had a series of hilarious conversations with ppl a few weeks back bc one of my classmates was like "where do you go?? you leave class so fast?" and i was like ?????? when class is over you get to leave that's the deal??????

And I was talking to my fave professor about this and she was like yeah that's definitely a difference of being a little older, you're probably just not in the same mindset that they are. Which is definitely true, and worth keeping in mind. It's not a big deal really but it can be very isolating if you don't feel like you can relate to your classmates on that level. I sometimes get a little :( because I don't usually have a hard time talking to people but I'll just have the most insane interactions w some of my classmates and have to talk myself down like it's okay it wasn't you the other person was the one acting weird LOL. Also, for me at least, I definitely have a little bit of a 'you can't tell me what to fucking do' attitude sometimes LOL, and will get really irritated when professors keep us over time or make us do something pointless. That may just be my sweet personality, but I think in general having been out of school for awhile and also being a bit older, I'm MUCH less tolerant of trifling bullshit than when i was younger LOL. Generally I think there's a lot LESS trifling bullshit to deal with in law school bc there's just so much that's genuinely important to learn? But something to keep in mind.

But god there are SO many benefits! Like, as I mentioned, I'm a naturally intelligent person, but it's actually terrifying how much my mind had slowed down over the past few years. I've had SO many moments here where I was like oh my god, I'm stupid, I'm just stupid and I can't understand this-- and then I was like okay sweaty :) have you considered taking a nap and maybe you'll calm down :) lol but you get my point. Learning new things in a structured environment where you literally have to do the work I think is so beneficial especially at this particular age, since most people get pretty settled into their ways around 30, and personally I don't particularly like being set in my ways and want to always be growing and improving and pushing myself. Every aspect of my life has improved noticeably since I've been here, my physical and emotional and mental health, my memory, my writing, my personal relationships--everything.

BUT that is a direct result of all the work I've put in, because I did this at the right time for myself, and at a point in my life when I'm able to truly appreciate the value of a good education and all the benefits and resources that come with that. So, I would say that if you're in the right mindset to go back to school, it's absolutely 1000% worth it. But if you feel like, 'I don't want to do this, this is a waste of time and will make me miserable,' then I'd say wait it out a little more. There might come a day when you're like, wow, I'm so ready. Or you might think, I can't believe I was gonna go to grad school for That TM that would have been insane, and want to go for something else lol. I think we're so conditioned not to listen to our intuition that we don't realize a lot of the time our gut instinct will tell us whether something is the right move or not!

Wow this was long lol, thank you so much for reaching out, friend, and I hope some of this was mildly helpful or entertaining! I wish you the best in your ventures, and of course I'm always happy to talk more!