want 2 emphasize that this is very much just my haphazard personal experience and i'm sure there are many circles in which things are different

but

i keep thinking like, okay, as a ~multigender attracted~ genderqueer person i'm, like, theoretically just as eligible for queer women's spaces as i am for queer men's spaces (which is another way of saying, just as ineligible, but), and i definitely wouldn't mind having, like, Queer Attraction to Women be more of a presence on my dash, why have i mostly followed people who are attracted to dudes???

and then a random wlw thirst trap makes its way onto my dash and i think like, hi, yeah, i'm here for that! and then at the bottom it says MEN DNI and i'm like oh right. literally that's why

because like. (again, ime, this is all entirely In My Randomly Selected Personal Experience and not a claim about All People or Spaces That Exist) queer men aren't generally out there slapping dnis all over their posts that force you to like. call a time out to debate how the OP would probably read yr gender and then take a dip in the misery pond about how that makes you feel (which is 'bad,' btw. how it makes me feel is: bad.) and then decide whether you want to disavow whatever inchoate ambiguous dubious claim on masculinity you might possibly have, for the even more dubious reward of getting to click 'like' on this thirst trap. and like. at that point it's always just like. anyone who'd ask me to do that isn't in fact someone i like!

I am once again asking you to put some respect on Charles's name. He's bewilderingly under-appreciated as a character despite being really complex and well-developed. I see a crazy number of people say they hate him completely without nuance, for a novel where reading deeply and questioning everything is the entire point. Anyway, here's something you might have missed if you shotgunned the book and then have lived off of fanon ever since until you forgot what was actually in the text.

Charles is almost certainly a CSA victim

A major motif of The Secret History is the extent to which childhood trauma has shaped these characters' current actions. Henry was neglected by his father, so he latches onto Julian now. Francis has a codependent relationship with his addict mother that has obviously shaped his actions with Charles. Richard grew up in an abusive family and finds himself forced into a mediator role now; he grew up in poverty and latches onto the first wealthy group that will accept him.

For some reason a lot of readers seem to think that the twins' issues instead developed totally in a vacuum? That they just spontaneously developed an incestuous relationship in adulthood, for the drama of it?

You all know that would be bad writing, would be awful. But you refuse to examine it any closer. You say "the incest is gross" and decide you're just not going to think any more about it, because it makes you uncomfortable.

So let's see if we can ferret out a better explanation. What are some of the risk behaviors we see from Charles?

Substance Abuse - shouldn't need much of an explanation, I think pretty much everybody picked up on this.

Eating Disorder - seems to have been missed by a lot more people, but a major part of why Charles ended up in the hospital is that he simply stopped eating. When Richard and Francis take him to lunch after getting out, he refuses to eat even when they are begging him. Afterwards, we're told he's subsisting entirely off of peanuts for the rest of the novel.

Sexual Risk Behavior - his relationship with Camilla, clearly.

Trust Issues - his relationship with Richard is dripping with this. He spends the entire second half of the novel begging Richard not to betray him ("You're my friend, aren't you?" "You wouldn't go behind my back, would you?") and at the final showdown, Richard is the person he is most angry with, for breaking that trust.

Revictimization - y'all aren't going to like this, but his relationship with Francis is absolutely this.

What do all these bullets have in common? They're all common long term effects of childhood sexual assault.

Hey, remember that sequence shortly before Bunny is killed where he's antagonizing every member of the group individually by taunting them about their secrets he could expose? For Henry, obviously he's threatening to expose the farmer's death. For Richard, his lies about his wealthy background. For Camilla, her incestuous relationship. For Francis, his homosexuality. So what about Charles- what's he threatening to expose here? He wouldn't randomly leave out one of the group, right? Well, let's roll the clip.

If he treated Henry with deference, it was the rest of us who were forced to bear the wearing, day-to-day brunt of his anger. Most of the time he was simply irritating: for example, in his ill-informed and frequent tirades against the Catholic Church. Bunny’s family was Episcopalian, and my parents, as far as I knew, had no religious affiliation at all; but Henry and Francis and the twins had been reared as Catholics; and though none of them went to church much, Bunny’s ignorant, tireless stream of blasphemies enraged them. With leers and winks he told stories about lapsed nuns, sluttish Catholic girls, pederastic priests (“So then, this Father What’s-His-Name, he said to the altar boy—this kid is nine years old, mind you, he’s in my Cub Scout troop—he says to Tim Mulrooney, ‘Son, would you like to see where me and all the other fathers sleep at night?’ ”). He invented outrageous stories of the perversions of various Popes; informed them of little-known points of Catholic doctrine; raved about Vatican conspiracies, ignoring Henry’s bald refutations and Francis’s muttered asides about social-climbing Protestants. What was worse was when he chose to zero in on one person in particular. With some preternatural craftiness he always knew the right nerve to touch, at exactly the right moment, to wound and outrage most. Charles was good-natured, and slow to anger, but he was sometimes so disturbed by these anti-Catholic diatribes that his very teacup would clatter upon its saucer.

His Catholicism? Charles, the group member most morally affronted by the idea of killing and also the most affectionate towards Bunny, comes around to the idea of murder because Bunny is making fun of his Catholicism, something that hasn't been mentioned before and never will be again? Something that has been consistently shown to bother Francis and Henry more?

Connect the dots, here - Charles isn't triggered to the point of physically shaking because Bunny is making fun of Catholics, something we know that he's been doing for years. He's triggered because Bunny is taunting him with stories about adult men molesting young boys, in front of everybody.

Anyway, this isn't a defense of Charles's treatment of Camilla. Obviously "hurt people hurt people" isn't meant as an excuse or a hand-wave. But it is an explanation. Charles is, like every other character in this novel, a flawed person who does some terrible things with complex motivations, and he deserves the same amount of respect you give the other flawed characters who do terrible things with complex motivations.

TW: Discussion of CSA

I'm Sick of This Shit

Sorry Mod, this is off-topic and heavy stuff, but I'm fucking sick of this cutesy little internet trend of insinuating the worst about people over fucking nothing. This is going to get heavy but I'm not sitting down and shutting the fuck up this time.

Please put a read more here? I don't want to trigger anyone, I just want to try and give a wake-up call to people who do this shit.

I cannot believe I just read a callout post for someone as a "dangerous individual" and it's about them drawing some fictional character. Or rather, I can, because it keeps happening, and it's the dumbest new trend I've ever seen. As a victim of that specific kind of abuse? As in, someone who's fucking tapes have a hash in the ICAC database? (Do you even know what that means? Do you even care to find out? Do you actually care about victims or do you just want some moral gotcha over the person you don't like? Because I have a feeling it's the second one!) Someone who's been really fucking impacted and harmed by this shit in my actual flesh-and-blood real life?

Shut the fuck up. No, actively, antagonistically fuck you. How fucking dare you equate the seriousness of my and others' real-life physical harm to someone finding some stupid WORTHLESS, UNIMPORTANT, NOT REAL ANIME CHARACTER HOT. Who in the absolute fuck actually sincerely CARES?? Do you think authors who write about murder want to secretly kill people?? Do you think people who make horror movies can contact the dead? You are so obsessed about thought crimes and unimportant bullshit to the degree that you are accusing people of being the absolute worst type of person over anime. OVER ANIME! Who the fuck cares if someone draws a fake person doing something sexual. I, as a victim, do not give a shit. I don't care if they draw a fake person getting dismembered. I don't care if they write about a fake person being subjected to death by 1000 paper-cuts! Do you know why?

They're not fucking real!

Somewhere along the way people seem to have forgotten that the reason abuse is bad isn't because it's "icky" and "gross" and makes you uncomfortable to think about.

It's bad because it's fucking hurtful to people who are actually really alive. It's bad because if you cut a real person we fucking bleed. It's bad because if you do things to our body, it leaves fucking SCARS. It's bad because WE LIVE WITH THE FUCKING TRAUMA AND CONSEQUENCES OF WHAT IS DONE TO US YOU STUPID EMOTIONALLY BEREFT ASSHOLE, YOU FUCKING MORALLY STUNTED BRAT. DO YOU FUCKING COMPREHEND THAT? DO YOU ACTUALLY HAVE THE CAPACITY TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REAL LIFE AND FICTION? LIKE DO YOU? ARE YOU AN ACTUAL CHILD? BECAUSE IF SO, YOU SHOULD NOT BE ENGAGING IN THESE DISCUSSIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??? AND IF YOU ARE AN ADULT, FUCKING ACT LIKE ONE. This isn't a slag against someone who does have empathy issues or anything like that- ironically they tend to have no problem differentiating real life from fiction crimes, at least in my experience. No no, this is against the specific type of person who willfully chooses to libel against someone because of what usually boils down to """fandom crimes."""

I am in a support group for people like me. Do you know what we bitch about lately? You motherfuckers. Clogging the actual fucking hotlines by reporting drawings of cartoon characters, do you even realize that there are real consequences to your moral crusade? The time these people are forced to spend deleting anime art from their email literally costs real-life children -- AGAIN, REAL PEOPLE BEING HURT, YOU FUCKS -- precious time from getting the help they so desperately fucking deserve. Do you even think before you act? Do you? Do you fucking consider for a moment the real-world consequences of your behavior, or do you just raise your head and preen over your moralistic victory against the nastybadwrong person that wrote a story you don't like? I hate you.

Sure. Maybe this person who was submitted about really is the scum of the earth, an absolutely toxic bastard of an individual who does deserve a callout post. Wouldn't surprise me, because lots of shitty people are out there. So then, if that's the case, how come you didn't present that proof? Because all I read (images didn't work) is that they drew some anime character horny. People have been doing that for decades. The fucking Disney animators have drawn Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse going at it. Who gives a shit. It's fiction. You are having a moral panic over nothing and blinding yourself to the real consequences of your actions and I am here on my hands and knees BEGGING you to have more concern for people who actually exist than you do for your stupid goddamn anime boy.

I actually HATE people like you, I actively fucking do not feel SAFE around people like you. People who create fictional works, even dark and fucked up ones? They generally know the differences you seem to miss: that thoughts and actions are different things. There was a post going around where some guy got thrashed on social media for getting a leg amputation for fetishistic reasons where he was called every name in the book and probably some new ones yet to be added to the Merriam-Webster's dictionary. Turns out he actually had cancer and the amputation was for medically necessary reasons, but one (1) minor looked at THE TYPE OF ART HE DREW and made assumptions about his whole entire character from that. And thus someone going through some incredibly emotionally challenging shit was forced to further stomach the trauma of an internet hate mob because of baseless accusations just like these. Don't fucking do that. That shouldn't even need to be said! And yet. So I'll say it again. Don't! Fucking! Do that! Fuck!

This is wildly out of the scope of this blog and I'm really sorry to Mod for having to see it, but I'm sick of seeing this everywhere online, I do not need it in my fucking safe space hobby. Actively go fuck yourself if you do this or participate in this. If you care about victims- if you have actual compassion for people who are real, and don't just want to control how others portray fictional characters for reasons of moral outrage, then don't do this. And if you've done this in the past, just... fucking try to do better from here on out, at least. The world is fucked up enough without needing to rip each other apart over, and I cannot stress this enough, goddamn cartoons.

And if I get sassed in the comments as "not a real victim" or some shit, go ahead. I've heard it before, I don't care. I've been told by people in my life that what happened to me was 1) a misunderstanding 2) deserved because I in some way asked for it 3) that I'm lying for attention, etc etc. Does not matter that mine was one of the cases that actually made it to court and resulted in a sentencing... victim-blaming is incredibly ingrained in my country's culture. I honestly don't care if I'm believed or not, I just... want to say my piece. I want to confess, to air my grievances, with a current trend everyone on the internet and this hell-site in specific. So, thank you for reading if you have, and fuck you if you dismissed it all because your precious fictional little meow meow matters more to you than the victims of the real-life atrocities you're so motivated baselessly to accuse people of perpetrating.

And mod, stay safe and practice self-care. To all the victims, I hope your abusers die horribly. You deserve the world.

~Anonymous

Mod: thank you so much anon for your response, nothing is out of scope here (kinda, I like tangents, just need to follow the rules too) so anons, don't be afraid of expressing yourself as you so rightly did here.

Okay, I wasn't going to go in on this but I didn't expect people to be so sad over the spoilers, to be honest. I see people really disappointed in both Ben and Devi as I once again, completely understand both sides.

I will be talking about s4 spoilers so if you don't want to see that you should probably stop reading now.

First thing I'd like to say is that I am just another person on the internet with an opinion and I could be very wrong about all of this. This is just my personal view of things and it doesn't make anyone else's any less valid.

I think the biggest thing that confuses people is actually the one I'm most excited to see happen in season 4. I really disliked how they handled the cheating in season 2. Devi's apologies seemed like they were over a stolen pen, not cheating on someone. I did think the second apology was sincere, I just think it should have been a whole conversation.

I believe that season 4 will be focused on unravelling of all of Ben and Devi's traumas, which is a big task and will result in messy emotions, anger, lashing out and suffering. As much as I like the show's approach to trauma and Dr. Ryan scenes, we don't actually see the characters explore that with one another. It is all very internal. The confusion comes, I believe, from the well crafted pov episodes that allow us to know how Ben and Devi are feeling. We know so much about their inner struggles but here's the thing - they don't.

Yes, Devi knows that she hurt Ben in the past but she doesn't know how that feeds into his insecurites and abandonment issues. She doesn't know how much that has actually affected him.

Because she broke his heart.

She broke his heart and she doesn't know that.

And yeah, Ben knows that rejecting her in the way that he did wasn't the best way to deal with the situation but he doesn't know that the reason why Devi is so attached to him is because he accepts and wants all of her. It means comfort. It is a love language. All of this seems obvious to us, people that are more mature and grown. But not to two traumatized kids that are trying to understand relationship dynamics. Ben and Devi both have a pretty good understanding of their own feelings towards relationships - Devi in season 3 ("What if no one ever loves me because I am too much?") and Ben in season 2 ("But it isn't real. What you and I have is").

Because what if no one ever loves her and here is Ben Gross who likes her personality, who will miss her. What if no one ever loves her and here is Ben Gross saying that he needs something easier and simpler with another girl.

And what if what they have is real until Devi pulls back. And here is Devi Vishwakumar telling him that first times are always a bit weird and they can try again. She can be that for him.

Ugh, my children are really hard to defend sometimes.

Devi's season 2 is gonna be Ben's season 4 and i know some people will probably not like it but I think this is really important for him and I don't think it makes him regress as a character. I think it is good that he recognizes that they can both take things too far because they make each other feel so much. But I don't think that he actually wants something simpler and I have a feeling he will realize that later in the season.

I also thought that bringing Margot into all of this will just be a repeat of Aneesa's character but I don't think that anymore. Ben and Aneesa were fundamentally really different people who couldn't understand each other while Ben and Margot are much more in tune with one another. Margot was and is important for Ben's development because she helped him relax and try new things. I love Ben and Devi but sometimes they can really reinforce each other's bad behaviors.

This is just a repeat of what I said in my last post but just having love for someone is not enough. Strenghtening the positive effects they have on each other and building trust is what they need now. They need communication and time. They need friendship but also a certain perspective which requires space from one another. They need all of it, all of the messiness because they are complicated but ultimately extremely realistic characters.

Because what if what they have is real and what if a relationship you have with someone is so important you challenge everything you know about yourself. Over and over again until you get it right.

What if what they have is real?

CRINGETOBER DAY 2: Self Insert

if i could insert myself into any world you bet your ass im going to nevada (just kidding id die in an instant but how cool would it be to see deimos in action?)

a story below about how this topic is actually all connected to my current favorite friendgroup atp

we wouldve never met if it wasnt for someone on the meme account, big_chungles on instagram (yes really!) who wanted to make a madcom themed account and were asking people to join as admins. a few days pass and i see an account named sanfordtits! i followed and had a few laughs for them for a while. and they announced their public server, so i decided to join it. and to my surprised i was dunked and candle wax that was cheese flavored and got cannibalized by kon and niko. (thanks kon for doodling the feast image.) there were a few major events in that server. i also met alfred in that server. yuck. anyways, there was a talent show and i performed osu mania there. it was soooo embarrassing since it didnt capture my audio and my osu was glitching and lagging so hard the judges werent able to even watch me play. niko won that talent show. we had some sort of rivalry-friendship thing going on and would bicker at eachother. (this is important later, i promise.) he was given the supertitter role since normal members were just named titters. i eventually got one myself, and zardy also got one too. due to being active members of the server, we would greet new members, talk alot yada yada alot of stuff. we were also thinking of doing a dating sim where i was one of the routes, and there was a lore behind it, i wont spoil it of course but i drew alot of stuff for it, and some writing which can be see on a doc here. there was also an fnf mod which you can actually see i had the sprites/concept art for it here. theres a lot! let me tell you that. and we had around 3 bgs, completed around 5 characters worth of sprites, a few music and charts done... until. i started to notice something, there was this admin where they babied and constantly praised just because they were a partner of another admin in the server. there was an art channel there right? i often post my art there along with others, and their pencil sketches would get way, way more attention than everyone else in the whole server. i bought this issue up with my friends and wanted their opinions on it, before calmly confronting the admins. and their reactions were not expected. they acted harsher towards us and called me a lying prick (?) i cant remember their exact words, but when i wanted to speak out against this behavior theyre doing and they wanted to shut me up as soon as possible. they were announcing that the servers getting shut down, and they were trying to ban me off of the server. admittedly i did something stupid and made a "kys challenge" joke to them which, well, they got mad at me for. i shouldnt have said something so vile back then. i was emotionally very immature back then. i hope theyre doing well now. i eventually got banned from their server, and they put me on blast on their instagram, which resulted in me losing a very close friend because their story captioned something like "these people harrassed my partners, theyre so gross, please block them" which.. well. youre kind of right but not really? we didnt harrass that person, only called out the admins.....childish behavior. although i did missacted and made a kys joke there too, so im not surprised on why theyre mad. i do take accountability for it. i cried for a bit. we were both wrong in this. but eventually made a new server for the people that were on my side. first it was named something like.. landfill? not exactly appealing, hehe. but it was eventually became bunkers, and its still my strongest bonds with my friends ever. and what a wild journey its been hm? if all of that never happened i wouldve never met the great friends i have today and my amazing loving boyfriend @woopdeloopei <33 (love you btw) its crazy how that spiraled but it all ended up pretty good in the end. a few of my friends got out of their depression and is happier now. i guess we matured! but seriously, so much history for such a small friend group. im so thankful for them right now. if it wasnt for that madcom admin on that meme account.... ah! i wouldve been just dead! thanks for reading all the way through the story!

As we await to potentially hear some news on COYOTE VS. ACME - a film that might possibly be locked away forever because of executives being jackasses, let me share a piece of Disney history:

It's often written that THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER, made at Walt Disney Feature Animation and released theatrically in 1990, was a victim of a squashed marketing campaign. The studio's first sequel, the story often goes: After the film opened with underwhelming numbers the same week as HOME ALONE, then-Chairman of the Disney film division Jeffrey Katzenberg pulled all the marketing for the film and thus left it to fade away into the Christmas season. It remained the sole disappointment of the "Disney Renaissance", sandwiched between hit films like OLIVER & COMPANY, THE LITTLE MERMAID, BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, ALADDIN, and THE LION KING.

Here are two corrections to that tale...

A) The marketing was not pulled immediately.

B) The film was deemed dead-on-arrival *well* before release.

So, a week or so after the film came out, Disney tried a "now playing" trailer that ran before other movies in auditoriums next door. It's proof that Disney didn't give up on the movie right away, and gave it one last push... But it just didn't do it, and the movie made less than half of what LITTLE MERMAID made a year earlier.

As for the film being written off (not as a tax write-off!), here's what happened.

In March 1989, Disney theatrically re-released the original THE RESCUERS that came out all the way back in 1977. This was the film's third ever theatrical release, the previous one being in 1983. A good chunk of the Disney animated classics did pretty robust business in re-issues, before they came to home video. BAMBI, for example, made over $30m in the summer of 1988, SNOW WHITE made over $46m in 1987.

The $21m gross that THE RESCUERS pulled in, in early 1989, was deemed a disappointment. THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER was greenlit on the grounds of the original having earned the most money for a Disney animated film on its initial release. The rationale from executives after that must've been "Oh crap... We greenlit a sequel to this thing."

It was apparently too late to cancel, though, so they went through with it. If anything, it served as a good testing ground for that digital ink-and-paint software Disney Animation staff were toying with for a single shot in THE LITTLE MERMAID. A little thing called C.A.P.S. It also allowed more time on BEAUTY AND THE BEAST and ALADDIN.

THE RESCUERS DOWN UNDER went into production, but there wasn't much confidence in it before release. Even though they attached a new half-hour Mickey Mouse cartoon to it (THE PRINCE AND THE PAUPER), this was treated as a minor effort long before release. The execs were far more excited about BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, as by that point, the LITTLE MERMAID songwriting team - of course, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken - had been brought onto the movie after the previous version had been thrown right out.

So DOWN UNDER served as a stopgap, and its failing meant no more theatrical sequels (sans Roy E. Disney's pet project, FANTASIA 2000) and probably no more animated action-adventures like it. The string of movies released thereafter stuck very close to LITTLE MERMAID and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST's templates. But in the end, they got the C.A.P.S. system's success out of it, and an eventual home video hit.

Now, think about THE RESCUERS not doing great on that re-release... And DOWN UNDER's release date. March 1989, November 1990. Disney actually had plenty of time to throw that movie out, but they didn't... Whatever the reason, they didn't.

And here, today, we have David Zaslav - CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery - shelving near-complete or fully-completed movies for tax write-off purposes. Loser behavior. See the damn thing through, mate.

I could also relate the time Disney's movie division firmly determined that audiences had moved on from fairy tales, following the disappointing box office returns of THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG. In early 2010, it was made very clear that there would never be another fairy tale movie from the studio. Despite a history in making beloved fairy tale adaptations or fairy tale-like stories... Nope, it was all over. John Lasseter and Ed Catmull acting like the pallbearers, saying that Disney Animation wouldn't invest in any.

At the time, a SNOW QUEEN movie was put on ice, a JACK AND THE BEANSTALK tale had trouble taking off... but one movie was a little too far along to cancel... RAPUNZEL. And that picture had already gone through a few director changes and reinventions, which no doubt ballooned its budget over the course of three decades. There had been various goes at a Rapunzel story at Disney Animation in the late '90s and in the early-to-mid aughts, in addition to another version that was not quite approved of by Lasseter. Glen Keane, who was supposed to direct the film with Dean Wellins, stepped down. RAPUNZEL's journey to the screen was as long as her hair.

So in the final lap, in early 2010, the movie was re-titled from RAPUNZEL to TANGLED in a silly attempt to make it appeal to the audience that supposedly tanked THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG: 6-to-12 year old boys... Yeah, that was a real low point, wasn't it? Silly focus groups. I'll always get a kick out of the sketch that longtime Disney storyman/artist Floyd Norman whipped up for it in response:

But what do I know? TANGLED came out in fall 2010 and was a very popular film. Right afterwards, THE SNOW QUEEN was put back into development, as was the JACK AND THE BEANSTALK movie. As you probably know, THE SNOW QUEEN became FROZEN, while the latter - titled GIGANTIC - lumbered through development hell and ultimately got canned by Lasseter. Disney would also proceed to remake several animated fairy tales in live-action, from CINDERELLA to BEAUTY AND THE BEAST to ALADDIN.

However, Disney Animation at least completed TANGLED. And released it. Saw it through, no matter what level of confidence that the higher management at The Walt Disney Company had in it. GIGANTIC wasn't anywhere near completion when it was scrapped, as the movie had been penciled in for a Thanksgiving 2020 release, and the movie was put on the shelf in fall 2017. A good three years prior.

That's when you DO cancel something, should you ever.

Not right near completion. Or even halfway there. Looking at you, former DreamWorks management, with LARRIKINS and B.O.O. and MONKEYS OF MUMBAI-yes indeedy I still haven't forgotten about that.

Anyways, if you're almost done, just fucking complete it. Maybe down the line, it won't be much of a loss. It might even be a surprise hit.

tagged by @hauntedwoman to talk about 5 things i’m obsessed with <33333 thank you!!!

1. succession surprise, surprise. i’ve finally gotten around to starting a full succession rewatch and i’ve been taking notes. first and foremost, one of my missions for this rewatch was to really focus in on shiv as a character because the first time i watched it and then rewatched it, i was a huge tom and kendall girl and honestly really did not like shiv :( but i recognize now that my dislike for her was mostly a result of my own internalized misogyny and also because she is a woman written by men and they really do their best to make her one of the less sympathetic characters in the show. i also think that a big chunk of fans online (esp twitter) are quick to label her an evil woman and, when defending their pov, they tend to bring up her behavior towards tom and kendall while also ignoring how both tom and kendall have treated her. i’m really enjoying this rewatch and have really grown to love shivvy. her relationship with tom also reminds me a lot of macbeth and lady macbeth and i think that their relationships have a lot of parallels and i find it very very interesting!!! i’m hoping to compile enough evidence to write something comprehensible about it. also, ROMAN. i literally did not give a shit about roman until the last few episodes of season four which is crazy but something has come over me. i think it’s his issues with intimacy and refusal to let anyone like actually see him and love him that has really bonded me to him <3 additionally there is something about kieran culkin (and rory…) that has bewitched me this summer. i think it’s kieran’s little fangs. i’m obsessed

2. the enormity of my desire disgusting me <3 welcome to truelovewaitsmp3 on tumblr dot com. this summer, i don’t think i’ve opened my journal without writing about how bad i want someone to love me, to look at the mess of my insides and all of this gross desire and love me anyways. to quote something i said to katy alpacinolover in an email, “I DON’T WANT SOMETHING CASUAL. I WANT TO BE THE PREY IMPALED ON YOUR SHRIKE’S THORN.” there’s something to be said about shame here and probably a million other things but i’ve written it so many times already that i don’t care to repeat it here.

3. ??? (stone fruits) two weeks ago, i bought a carton of nine plums from a local produce market. i had been rotting on the couch all day and decided that if i didn’t get up and put on real clothes and go buy a plum i was going to die. the most erotic experience i’ve ever had was eating a plum over newly washed cream sheets, plum viscera under my nails and between my teeth, wine colored juice dripping down my chin and onto my sheets. when the plums were gone, i found two forgotten nectarines in the fridge. i have been assigned “the love song of j alfred prufrock” for three different classes over the last four years (high school english, western humanities and then british lit in college) and each time, the line “do i dare eat a peach” was said to refer to prufrock’s acid reflux. in my american lit class, my professor brought it up one day and told us that it referred to oral sex. anyways. a nectarine is not a peach but i find the experience just as enjoyable.

4. wasteland, baby (2019) for whatever reason, i’ve always gravitated more towards hozier’s first album. however, over the past two months, i have listened through wasteland, baby an insane amount of times. something about the world ending and having someone there to hold through it. this album is also so incredibly sexy and is home to the horniest and sweetest hozier songs (TALK, be, dinner & diatribes, movement, etc). at the end of the title track, hozier whispers “that’s it” and i lose my mind. nfwmb is an honorary wasteland baby track, to me, and also a song that makes me insane and that i have had on repeat lately. i’m scared and excited to see what unreal unearth is going to do to me.

5. a past that i cannot go back to !!!! my hometown is filled with too many ghosts. summer digs them back up. i drive past her mom’s house and have to see her stupid car. someone else comes into work and i have to be reminded of everything i’ve missed out on. i have written about the same thing so many times i’m afraid that my story is metamorphosing.

hiiii ok i’m tagging @alpacinolover (i know you’ve already been tagged by someone else but i really need you to do this) @motherofvinegar @kenromshiv and anyone else who wants to do it! im tagging u.

Warnings for: discussion of dieting/intentional weight loss, medical issues, eating disorders, and related topics

Here's the thing. On a general level, I don't believe in dieting. I think it's bad for you, the science shows it almost never works, it makes people miserable, it usually comes from an unhealthy place, and it encourages unhealthy behaviors. And. At the same time. I have a rare disease that could potentially have very dangerous complications if untreated/if it progresses, and it seems to be progressing. And genuine research has shown a significant correlation between developing hepatic adenomas/having more adenomas/having more growth in your adenomas and "obesity." Now, there are links between lots of things and "obesity" and often not nearly enough research is done into WHY and whether any correlations actually have anything to do with causality. And I don't fully know why obesity and hepatic adenomas are correlated, I have to talk to my hepatologist about it, though from what my dad found in his research he suspects it's a combination of adipose tissue producing more estrogen and potentially other metabolic effects (more research/answers are needed there). If someone says "being fat makes you unhealthy in x way" I always want to know the underlying mechanisms there, because it's never that simple. But the point is that it does look like, in this case, hepatic adenomas and obesity are at the very least significantly correlated.

There are not a lot of treatment options for hepatic adenomas. The first step is always going off any hormonal birth control, which I did a year ago. If things shrink, great, you can keep monitoring and hope that things stay shrinking or at least stable and probably leave it at that. If, however, things continue to grow, well that becomes concerning, because the larger the tumors are the more risk there is of them rupturing or becoming cancerous. If your tumors are larger than 5cm, like mine, and not shrinking or goodness forbid growing then just continuing to monitor may not be a safe long term solution. So you'll have to look at other treatment options, none of which are great.

The next step in trying to get them to shrink after stopping birth control is almost always weight loss. Because the only other options are a) transarterial embolization (a very gross procedure I looked up that I'm terrified of having to do in which blood flow is cut off from the tumors), b) ablation (which isn't recommended for tumors larger than 3cm which mine are), c) liver resection (which I'm pretty sure I'm not a candidate for because I have too many large tumors in too many places, and anyway is a very scary and risky surgery with months of recovery) and finally d) liver transplant (an ever scarier and riskier surgery with significant risks of mortality). And as much as I don't believe in or want to diet, the other options are worse.

Which means that it is very likely that in a few weeks, when my therapist gets back from vacation, I will be seriously attempting to lose weight for the first time since I was an anorexic teenager. And I don't want to, I so don't want to, but I suspect it's going to be the best choice out of a group of bad ones. But I'm so scared. I'm already having crazy relapse thoughts, I'm already struggling with horrible OCD food research spirals and calorie counting and thinking about food for hours and hours and hours each day. And it sucks. My hope is that it will actually get slightly better if I genuinely try to lose weight with my therapist and use a detailed meal plan, because then it will at least be set in stone and not just me panicking indecisively about everything. It'll be predetermined in therapy, so I won't have to spend hours thinking about it on my own. But I don't know, it still feels very risky for my mental health. I know how easy it is for me to obsessively count and calculate everything and how much that sucks and how much I hate it even as I can't stop myself. And I'm just. I'm just so stressed about the whole thing. Also like, it almost feels like it would be a slight betrayal of my values, because I really don't believe in dieting and I hate diet culture and love the anti-diet and fat acceptance movements. But at the same time I wouldn't be doing it to look better or whatever, I'd be doing it with the very specific goal of hopefully shrinking my tumors. And if I do go down this path and it turns out that the main reason obesity and hepatic adenomas are correlated is indeed higher estrogen in fatty tissue I'm going to talk to my doctors about monitoring my estrogen levels, so that I'm looking at the underlying cause and trying to focus on that number instead of just the number on the scale. But idk. This whole thing just. It just sucks and it's scary and I'm in awful OCD hell and I really wish my therapist wasn't away for the next week and a half.

Different anon here (putting that just in case so you dont get mad or whatever), you did hit first. Claiming others are "icky" or "dangerous" is a lot more serious than you think, especially with lots of followers like you. And if you wouldn't mind me saying this, but it doesn't look like a sincere apology to me when you add the last bit that says "Well. We hurt each other so there". Can't you apologise without making things about yourself? The reply isn't meant for me, but I kinda notice you have this tendency where you make things about yourself in the end in a lot of your old replies concerning this issue you made for yourself. Which I think also helped fuel the flames to the old problems you faced. Idk, maybe its cause I'm so sick of seeing popular fanfic writers/artist control fandoms whether unintentionally or not. They also apologise like you, making the other party look bad by making it all about themselves.

(First off if this comes off as angry I apologize, I'm not angry I'm tired and confused)

I mean. Yeah I did say that it was gross, but I'm pretty sure I've already said that the error that caused the problem was that I had a completely different perception of what I was talking about than what was actually being said (a genuine error on my part), and also that I didn't realize my words had the connotations that they did, which was another misstep that lead to hurt feelings. Both of those were genuine mistakes caused by me a.) Not knowing what the fuck I was talking about and b.) me forgetting the fact that people don't have the same ideas about fiction that I do. Not really sure what else to do other than repeat that it was a mistake over and over, since the only other option would be to delete what I said but that would be dishonest and wrong. I DID fuck up.

As for the apology, I am sincere that I didn't mean to cause harm, but I am also sincere when I said that the response hit a specific trigger and hurt me as well- because it did. It did hit that specific trigger zone and I see no reason why I shouldn't be clear about it, especially since I wanted to make it apparent that I wasn't just shitting on people and dragging their name through the mud because I have some social status I wanted to flaunt or w/ever. I assumed it would make anon feel better while also asserting the fact that their behavior wasn't exactly okay either because I DID repeatedly say that I wanted the topic to be dropped and it didn't. Even the ground, try to lay down rules to prevent future conflicts, that sort of thing. It was a two-part statement- one, the apology and admittance that I was wrong, and two, the showing of vulnerability on my part to prove that I view myself as on equal standing as them and that I am also flawed and inherent to biases, while also pointing out how to not cause future conflict. I assumed that would be the most effective. I didn't even consider the fandom pov thing or power dynamics, bc this at its core was a misunderstanding between two people that had the misfortune of happening on a public platform.

I will agree that I do have an issue with talking about myself though, because to be frank, my own pov is kind of the only thing I know and so explaining my thought process as it goes is the familiar beaten path. When I say that I'm autistic and have been isolated my whole life apart from one friend (also isolated) and my immidiate family, that isn't a lie. I didn't start talking to more than the same 3 people for extended periods on a regular basis until I was 17. And those three people were my mom, my bff, and a close friend I picked up in high school when I was 15. And even then, those talking periods would be no longer than an hour at a time. This isn't a good thing by any means nor a method of excusing myself, just a means of explaining why I do it and that it's not because I think the world centers around me, just that I have to translate what I think to it for communication with other people to start making sense. Its def. something that I struggle with in even basic conversations, though I am working on that via interjecting various questions and comments about other people vs just proccing an infodump. It's most likely a low empathy issue that I still need to learn workarounds for, because I'm a very low-empathy autistic.

I CAN say that I grow more tempted to just delete and remake to start anew by the day, though, because the thought of being popular and having an influence/being on a pedestal puts me in a state dangerously close to a panic attack. The problem is that I cannot figure out a way to do that in a manner that would actually work, plus I cannot tolerate change.

But genuinely, the thought of power dynamics...it frightens me. My ideal would be a world where I can just push my thoughts and writing out and not be seen at all, except that I can't manage that because then I'd have nobody to discuss hyperfixations or special interests with. I don't WANT to have any sway over people. And its partially because of things like this- because I don't want to fuck up by tripping over an unseen landmine of a social error and then have my reaction be absorbed uncritically, or have that error be held under scrutiny. It makes me feel sick

damn, people are so sad at times. bullying, throwing hate for no reason to people who have been nothing but nice to everyone, and putting them under a fire while bring anonymous themselves 99% of the time.

tumblr used to be such a comfort but that comfort is being replaced by anxiety, slowly. and i am sorry you had to go through part of that.

i’ve definitely gotten some p gross anonymous hobgoblins in my inbox, but i’m more concerned about the deteriorating vibes on this site from a general standpoint (primarily as an observer.) i do appreciate the concern, though! 💕

i shall engage in discourse under the cut because no one has solicited my take here. then, i will step off my soapbox and resume my usual thottin’ and boppin’ because being here with my silly little moots, feeding my silly little delusions is supposed 👏🏻 to 👏🏻 be 👏🏻 healing 👏🏻

cw: general reference to anonymous allegation of anti-asian/anti-korean racism in a fanfic (truly not discussed in any detail whatsoever because that’s not actually even the point here); discussion of anon hate & “cancel culture.”

protect your peace, y’all!

disclaimer: the bulk of the anon messages i’ve seen this week focus on allegations of anti-asian racism, specifically a scene in a fanfic where a bts member experiences racism & xenophobia in america. this anon crusade was the straw that broke the camel’s back (it’s me, i’m the camel) but it is absolutely not the only example of the problem here. as a reminder, things i am: a korean immigrant who lives in america. things i am not: a mouthpiece for 1) POC as a collective, non-white whole; 2) asians; 3) koreans; 4) korean immigrants; 5) korean immigrants in america; 6) immigrants, anywhere. literally *any* thought you see on this blog is me speaking my individual mind on my own, individual behalf.

i’ll start off by saying that i don’t have an issue with people going to creators and saying, “you did this thing, and i think it was harmful for xyz reason.” i don’t have an issue with people doing that anonymously, either. this kind of interaction isn’t inherently toxic.

for example, in january (i think?) i discovered jackson wang, thought he was a babe, and dug his music. i wrote a drabble that featured him. shortly thereafter, i got an anon message that (essentially) asked why i would post a drabble about him because he was problematic.

the short version of that answer is that i didn’t know anything about what the anon was referring to. however, because this person brought the issue to my attention, discourse ensued and i did learn about it. ultimately, i came to agree with the original anon that he was not a person i wanted featured on my blog/in my content. the lesson was learned; the drabble was deleted; and things were resolved (in that i got no additional anon messages about this, etc.)

unfortunately, that situation appears to be a statistical anomaly. now, there are hate blogs focused on bts content creators (which is exactly as stupid as it sounds.) i won’t say the name of the blog because i think it’s like a “bloody mary” situation and i do not wish to summon that buffoonery and goonery into my space, now or ever.

i would just….. really, really like a mission statement to explain what the hell the purpose of these blogs and anonymous crusades is supposed to be.

it’s clearly not to meaningfully address conflict and promote changed behavior because the anonymous bombardment continues even after targeted users begin taking accountability & remedial measures. and if that’s supposed to be the goal, i can’t wrap my brain around why no one on those blogs is permitting that process to occur.

so, if no space/time is given for anything constructive to happen, the only purpose i can identify for these blogs is to ceaselessly criticize people whether or not it’s constructive — regardless of the target’s response — until the person they’ve set their sights on feels so beaten down that they ultimately leave the platform.

i’m serious — what does that solve? who does that help?

definitely not the marginalized groups these anons are purporting to advocate for because, from where i’m sitting, this kind of anon swarming just muddies the message and exacerbates the problem.

no one is going to want to try harder or know better if this is what they’re met with, even when they try to respond in good faith. no one in the relevant, marginalized group benefits, either, because someone that could evolve as an ally just got fucking clobbered.

*if you’re in that marginalized group and you disagree with the anons, you’re an “apologist,” “ass-eater,” etc. so, it seems that not all of our voices matter? what was that about speaking over POC (specifically, in this instance, asians)? 🤔

like, do these anons actually want people to learn/change, or do they want a public execution? those things are mutually exclusive.

since the latter is what their ham-fisted tactics result in, i think that was always the goal. and i hate that. i don’t think that makes anything better — for anyone.

As I've been getting back into Black Butler after all these years, I have noticed something among the wider fan base (and among modern fan culture as a whole).

Warning, im talking about yee old anime fujoshis and sebaciel. Both these things are very bad and I will be talking about that.

The anime and the early manga (cannot speak for the manga as a whole as I have not read it all), is rife with weird fujoshi-bait fanservice moments. This is an UNDENIABLE fact. Yet I have seen so many people deny its existence outright; particularly in comments on youtube videos, tiktoks, instagram posts, etc., where people will outright say that there's nothing to have ever given people the idea to ship characters like Sebastian and Ciel together. Which is just,, flat out wrong?? Admitting it exists because you have eyes and can see does not mean you condone it or are some weirdo. Scenes like that and every other eyebrow raise kinda moment we're included for a reason, that reason being appealing to fans of that kinda content. It's a definite flaw of, at the very least, early Black Butler. Denying the existence of these scenes does not mean people who are skeeved out by it/want to address it are somehow the bad guys here.

There's a similar issue among villain characters in media as well. Just because a character, written as a villain and clearly shown to be in the wrong, does something morally fucked up, does NOT mean the writer nor the fans condone that behavior. There's a difference between romanticizing or trying to act like a characters actions are okay vs. when its clearly a villain doing villainous things. On the fandom end, there's a difference between analyzing a characters actions and condoning them. My favorite character of all time is Dio from jjba, that doesn't mean I condone all the bad shit he's done, in fact I love to discuss his motivations and actions because he has a lot of depth. Does that mean I think any of what he's done is okay? Absolutely fucking not, obviously.

It's basic critical thinking skills and media literacy that seem to be lacking amongst some fandom spaces today, and I've been seeing it more and more. But don't use this as an excuse to bully newer people in fandom, stfu we've all been there before. Just as I was a preteen kid watching Black Butler in 280p on Youtube, there are also new kids on the block when it comes to anime. The issue arises when it's people who HAVE been around the block, or are grown ass adults, trying to act like every interaction Sebastian and Ciel have had ever is completely innocent and lacked any kind of ulterior motive. Try to show someone the corset scene and tell them that there's absolutely nothing weird going on there. Yes it was a joke scene, but what was the intent?? fujobait. fanservice. THATS the joke, the joke is FOR those audiences. And yet there is so many people just flat out saying that interpreting these scenes for what it was intended to be, fujoshi bait, and pointing out how weird it is, are wrong. They're saying that only weirdos would be able to see it at all, like its a reach to say that the gross fanservice scenes are, in fact, gross fanservice.

Before I conclude this rant I'd also like to point out that there are some series that I believe are indefensible with its questionable-at-best content, and i don't think Black Butler is one of those. Black Butler actually has a plot outside of the fanservice moments, and from what I've heard about the rest of the manga, those moments are now few and far between. It's when a series has little to no plot, or a lack thereof, aside from the gross stuff that being a fan of it is inexcusable.

This is getting long but i assume you get the gist at this point. Acknowledging that something problematic is present in a series does not mean you condone it, nor is it bad for people to recognise the issues in the first place. You can address a series' flaws, it doesn't mean that you are weird for seeing those flaws in the first place. Rant over.

when bege met with sanji, he specifically said that he would be marrying the 35th daughter of the charlotte family AND says her name is pudding. he has a nasty history of being perverted towards teenage girls after the timeskip (he literally Turns To Stone upon seeing shirahoshi, who is only 16) and his attitude with pudding is no exception (she even comments on his perversion during the wedding ceremony. there was no "brainwashing" involved, he is just a perv.)

im a sanji fan myself, but you can't turn a blind eye from his behavior towards teenage girls. he is 21 years old in canon after the timeskip. pudding being "mentally 18" is such a gross way to explain why sanji might view her as older than she really is and as someone who was groomed by a pedophile for acting older than i actually was at the time, that phrasing sets off so many red flags in my head.

im not necessarily saying sanji is a pedophile (because i truly dont believe that he is given his attraction to All women and 16 is the lowest age hes acted like that towards), but it is still extremely weird of him and people making fun of him or criticizing that aspect of him is perfectly fine and you shouldn't take it as a personal thing. that is just how oda wrote him. (but hey at least he's not kyros or vander decken who genuinely ARE pedophiles.)

You make some good points.

Alright, I'll take the correction on Bege telling him her name. But that still doesn't give any other details. Sanji isn't told her age, occupation, baking skills, etc.

I have a lot to say on his intricate and nuanced forced relationship with Pudding.

Long post and discussion under the cut

As for for the history with teenage girls post-ts, I think it's just Shirahoshi??? And while I'm not saying that's good, I will say that I am conflicted on some of the characterization in Fishman Island. I haven't read it in a long time so I'm just working off what I remember here. While the plot of Fishman Island is great, I always have some issues with the arc itself. It always feels a little off to me. Like some of the characterizations are just a little wonky here and there throughout the entire arc. It feels like Oda forgot how to write a few characters. It also feels like he's using that arc to see how far he wants to push new gags or personality aspects he's trying to work with after the IRL mini timeskip. Like he doesn't quite know just yet who some of the straw hats are after their time skip. I'm not saying that excuses Sanji's behavior, I'm just saying it makes me conflicted over the legitimacy of Sanji's personality in that arc. Because like Oda doesn't use the "almost die from bloodloss gag" again after fishman island either so it just always kinda feels like Oda was fumbling around in the dark with Sanji (as well as a few others) in Fishman Island. That's just me, though.

As for Sanji being obsessed with Shirahoshi's beauty, wasn't that like the whole thing with her? Wasn't like the entire country obsessed with how pretty she was? I could be mistaken but I thought I remember the citizens being enamored by her as well. I ain't saying it makes it better, I'm just saying that Oda made that a weird prominent detail if I'm remembering it right.

And I didn't say that that Pudding was "mentally 18" nor do I think she is, I said that she could be mistaken for 18 in a quick meeting. Meaning he wouldn't question her age as he actually barely got to talk to her at all. I think he only ever spoke to her like 2-3 times and never for very long or unchaperoned (judging by how Pudding talked about Sanji). Especially since Pudding is an excellent actor and is actively manipulating Sanji in a specific way that Big Mom has coached her to do. Neither family cared if Sanji and Pudding liked each other or cared about what was healthy for them so they would have no reason to let them interact for very long. As someone who was emotionally abused by my mother, when I was a teenage I took on personality traits and speaking patterns of someone older than myself (a common problem with emotional abuse). People often mistook me for being older than I actually was in short conversations. If Sanji never had any actual long conversations with Pudding, he'd have no clue that's she's not actually 18. While this doesn't make things right, it would explain some behaviors.

He doesn't actually want anything to do with her. He just wants to go home.

As for what I consider Sanji basically brainwashing himself is just him talking himself into an obsessive and possibly dissociative mindset. Sanji's under so much duress and his mental health is so incredibly fractured right now that if he's going to survive, his only option is to construct a dreamworld so far out of reality that he's actually happy and in love with Pudding.

Because of the sudden influx of trauma, stress, and crippling hopelessness, Sanji's grasp on reality is quickly crumbling. He needs to take any handhold he can grab. The only handhold he's allowed to take is Pudding. He calls her his "Ray of Hope". And because of this, he throws himself so hard into her orbit that he goes to the extreme of being creepy because now his only grasp on reality is Pudding.

This protective delusional headspace he's in is so strong (again, common for people who have suffered severe trauma and abuse) that he stays in it until he sees her eye. Because he if didn't have this headspace to keep him "calm" beside his would-be murderer, the wedding ceremony on the cake may have ended in actual disaster. And all their plans would be ruined.

After he gets through to Pudding by calling her eye beautiful, the very real danger of him being murdered is gone and he's released from his protective headspace. Which explains why he's so platonic towards her during the escape and all the cake baking despite the fact that she's constantly melting when he even looks at her.

What I am saying is that if Sanji called out for simping on teenage girls was a definable trend in his personality, why is he never all over Carrot? From what I remember (and I could be wrong), he only ever treats her like a little sister. She's young and pretty but still in Zou Sanji simps over the adult women minks rather than Carrot, despite her platonically being all over him (minks are just very affectionate). Hell, he seeks out Pedro more than Carrot.

I'm not saying that Sanji shouldn't be called out for being a fucking perverted idiot. Because he is one. I'm just saying that it pisses me off when people write him off as a one-note creep not worth thinking about instead of taking the time to understand that Sanji is extremely nuanced far outside his single trait of being horny.

I will say that Sanji can be creepy but I don't get the vibe from him about being an active creep specifically towards teenage girls. Especially since he seems to prefer more mature women like Robin, Kiku, Viola or frightening women like Nami.

As for me taking things personally and getting physically ill. That's just me being stupid and having severe rejection sensitivity when it comes to Sanji. I wish it'd go away.

I think it all boils down to Oda having sus choices in character ages... It would have changed literally nothing if he had just made Pudding 18.

My housemate wants me to sweep downstairs and vacuum the common areas at least twice a week because of my cat’s dander. This is triggering a lot of shame about me being a “slob” and also worry that I won’t physically be able to keep up a routine like this because of my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. But I can’t say no because I need a good reference when I start looking for a new place to live next month, and also I just… Can’t Say No. It’s kind of one of my issues.

 My cat (11 next month) is now on gabapentin for her arthritis pain. I can tell it’s helping her, but the only affordable option is a liquid that I have to squirt in her mouth twice a day while pinning her against me and she hates it. She tries to hide when it’s med time and cries when I pick her up anyway. So that’s a thing I have to deal with.

 Last night I actually did some Google searches about rehoming a cat and I burst into tears. (Disgusting, I know.) Money isn’t too much of an issue yet, and her “behavior problems” are mostly my housemate being an asshole. (Cat is not aggressive, doesn’t pee outside of box, she’s just struggling with grooming now that she’s older.) So I don’t think I’ll have to do it, but even just thinking about giving her up wrecks me.

 My right shoulder keeps trying to climb up to my ear due to tight muscles (painful) and I keep getting a fluttering feeling in the left side of my chest (not painful but scary.) I think these are both stress-related but don’t know how to make them stop.

 I’m supposed to help my family with Dad’s move-out this Saturday. I don’t know how useful I’ll be, being a Physical Wreck™ and all. Nor do I know what I’m walking into emotionally. Mom and Dad have been civil so far (that I’ve seen) but my brother’s birthday dinner was awkward AF and left me feeling very sad for everything we’ve lost.

 I can’t talk to my ex-therapist because she’s bought into (literally paid hundreds of dollars for some scam-ass program) a bunch of life coaching mumbo-jumbo and now I can’t be messy™ with her for even two minutes before she’ll try to make me “look for the positives” and “remember my strengths” and “create a plan” and shit.

 I can’t talk to my best friend because she has the empathy of a rock, and also she just started a new job with an insane commute so if I do call her, I’ll have to listen patiently to her rant about that for half an hour before she even asks me, “So how are things?”

 I can’t confide how I’m feeling about my parents’ divorce to either of my parents (obviously) or to my brother, because Dad straight up emotionally abused him and the last thing he needs is dad’s golden child whining to him because she feels sad.

 I can maybe talk to my kid sister or my grandmother about how I’m feeling about the family stuff, but I’ll have to tread lightly. I can’t talk to either of them about the housemate stuff because 1) my sister has no life experience here, and 2) my grandmother is a clean freak who doesn’t like cats so she’d be the opposite of helpful.

 Meanwhile my self-esteem is in the shitter because I keep ruminating on my family’s fucked-uppedness, and where’s the line between being kind versus enabling the assholes in my life, and who would ever love me, etc., etc., etc.

 And to top it all off, an employee I’ve been hounding for overdue paperwork for months just pulled a stunt that I can only describe as “malicious compliance.” I passed it on to my boss via email and told her I actually wanted to cry. (Again, ew gross, I know.)

 I must be ready for my full cyber-conversion because I’m sick of having feelings about anything.

I feel like every girl knows that Colby isn't interested, they just want to see it for themselves or have this disillusion that he's gonna get changed if they have sex once or several times

Tbh i don't buy the first relationship story anymore, how he can't get over it. It's just an excuse to not open himself up anymore to any girl until a certain point. Just admit it straight away and stop with that story cuz I'm tired of it and no one's gonna keep believing that u still think about that certain person so much that u can't move on with ur life

i honestly think it's the mindset of "i can fix him" which i think a lot of women feel like is something they can do to "broken" men. when in reality, you don't exist to fix ppl. you are not a therapist. it's not your job.

take it from someone who's thought like that before lol

and as for his past love/ex gf, this is all gonna be speculation bc he honestly never talks about what fully happened but here's what i believe happened: i think he's not hung up on the girl, i think he's hung up on the things he did in the relationship, or what happened to him. the couple times he's talked about his past relationship, he goes heavy on the fact that he was too clingy, and he was the one that would fall apart when plans were cancelled. he always makes it seem like he did too much, and she didn't seem to do anything wrong. it was always a him problem. i think what happened is he fell madly in love with this girl, and she just… didn't love him the same way he loved her. and bc the love wasn't reciprocated, he ended up looking desperate and clingy and over-protective when in reality, he was just in love with someone that didn't love him back the same way. sure, maybe he did take things too far. that's perfectly possible and probably also true. but i think he's embarrassed by how he acted in the relationship, but not bc he actually had gross behaviors, so to speak. i think he's more embarrassed for maybe not realizing how not interested she was in him, or how he was giving 90% to her 10%.

i mean, he literally has said he doesn't want to fall for someone like that ever again unless it's his wife. that means he was basically ready to marry this girl, which is insane to me for a number of reasons.

for example: colby clearly cares about appearances (both literal and general), i mean that's why he hates looking back at old videos. but you would think that if looking back at old videos makes him cringe, he would a) stop doing that and/or b) moving forward, not act in a way that makes him uncomfortable, right? instead he doesn't do that. he continues the cycle. and not that that's a bad thing, but either way he loses if he doesn't change. he either has to learn to pretend to be someone he's not, or learn to not get embarrassed by stuff like that. both take time and internal work, and one is clearly the better option than the other. and i think that goes for his past relationship.

i don't think he really started to get over the relationship OR work on himself until 2019; which i think is why that was the most depressing year for him. i mean, that's when we got the balcony tweets, that's when he talked about staying on his couch for days on end, ect. and god knows there are a ton of layers to who he is as a person that maybe need to be addressed on top of the relationship issues he has.

and now, he goes for girls that are already very interested in him, that way he doesn't have to worry about them ever falling out of "love" for him. and then on top of that, he has one foot in the door, one foot in the grave. so, in the very rare occurrence they do stop being into him, he's already gone to begin with. forever ago, i saved this one post he liked on insta that was a tweet of his: you can't miss what you forget with a meme attached that said "scared of ppl leaving you? leave them first". and i think that perfectly describes colby. he's terrified of not being wanted (again) so he only goes after girls that want him more than he wants them. that way he can leave if things get weird, and on top of that, he doesn't have to commit in the first place bc it wasn't that serious to begin with. does he do this on purpose? i don't think so, or i don't think he fully realizes what he's doing when he messes with girls that might fall for him. i also don't think it's his intention to make a girl fall for him, i think that just kinda happens naturally.

slight side tangent, but i've always felt that ppl who rely heavily on casual hook-ups and flings and never settle down are most likely hurting from something in their past and try to use sex to fix it, or at the very least to number the feeling of it. not saying that's every person that likes a casual relationship. do whatever makes you happy. but, why are you doing it? is it bc of the lack of commitment or being scared of it? is it bc you don't think you deserve a loving, full-body relationship? just some food for thought.

and as for colby, i think to some degree he sees the casual hook-up life easier for him. he gets to stay emotionally detached, and he gets to have fun too. it's a win win. but… i don't think in the long run for him it's gonna be. but that's how i think.

again, totally not shaming those that like hook-ups and what not. as long as you're healthy and safe about it, do it. i don't judge. i'm just more stating what i've observed over the years. but if you disagree, totally fine. god knows i'm probably not right lol

Just throwing this into the world

It's not happy.

I have reached a point in like my life where I am just wondering. Where do I go from here. I am disabled nearly forty year old adult. My issues are mental health related and only get worse not better. Manageable with medication to prevent me from extreme highs or lows but as a whole. It’s worse. 

Most of my family (Father, Stepmother, Aunt, Grandmother, and even my mother (to a smaller degree)) operate under this idea that if I just take my meds and get over it. I’ll be fine. I’ll be able to get a normal job. Be able to get my head on straight and be ‘normal’. The specifics of my issues aren’t super relevant at this point and even then this is only a small portion of the whole current issue that doesn’t just involve me, but involves my entire household. Though I will say that if it was as simple as getting over it and moving on. I probably would have by now. I am just saying. Of course, they like to say I am just lazy and THAT’S why. Which you know easy to lay blame in certain areas I guess and I do understand why it would seem that way. 

I’ve lived in Texas my entire life. I was not born here but I would have been if my dad (who was in the Navy) wasn’t stationed in San Diego when I was born. Which honestly, at this point I wish I had grown up in California. It’s not perfect but there are definitely appealing aspects to being at that way (health care?) or any democratic state really. But no. I am in texas. A state that’s so republican racists sit in their houses stewing over the fact that people from mexico (and south america) want to get into texas (which ironically used to be a part of mexico - Louisiana purchase anyone) 

When I was a kid I was adamantly against politics because I was a kid and that kind of things was boring. I’d like to say my childhood was idyllic but it was definitely far from it. I grew up in the houston metro area (which is any of a billion smaller towns surrounding houston). I’d like to say I didn’t go through some shit, but I did. 

The first time I dealt with a man touching me I was probably 4 or 5. He was the boyfriend of my mom who decided I wanted to be in on the action (I was not in the bed with them or anything. I was in another room those were just his actual words. Cause he’s gross). I told my mom what happened and I would like to say that she left him but she didnt right away. I was never around him again though and the relationship did not last long at all. Obviously, that reaction wasn’t ideal. I don’t hate my mom for any of that. I do remember it though. 

Sadly, this was not the only time. People who pray on children (women are predators too) are too damn good at spotting people that are vulnerable. They’re good at manipulating us and sadly this one was a bit closer to home. My grandmother’s husband. His name was Herbert (Ironic if you’re a family guy fan) Starting at the age of probably 5 until I was 18 years old I dealt with his bullshit. It didn’t stop at just touching and no I won’t go into details. I don’t think I have to. 

During those years I had a lot of behavioral issues. It was chalked up to ADHD (which I do actually have) but no one looked any deeper. At 14. I told my Aunt what was happening. Despite the threats I’d been feed my entire childhood by him I finally oufnd the courage to open my mouth and talk. I got told not to tell my grandmother. To not tell anyone and it continued for 4 more years. This is a truth my aunt adamantly denies ever happening. She has a really bad habit of just pretending shit she doesn’t want to deal with never even happened. Or maybe she does truly erase it. Maybe that’s how she deals with her own trauma. Acts as if it never existed. It’s also easy for her to gloss over it because for her. It wasn’t a core memory. For me it was. I remember exactly where we were. What I was looking at when the worlds tumbled from my mouth and what I continued to stare at when I realized there was no help. My mother’s husband was also abusive in a different way. A strict disciplinarian kind of way. I’ve made my peace with him as best I can. I think he’s realized some things. 

When I was 25 I finally did tell my grandmother. I got accused of only doing it for various reasons none of which were good enough, but it still boiled down to I should have kept my mouth shut. Right?

I disappeared to DC for a while lived homeless made friends came back home. I’ve still got people telling me I just need to get over things and move on. Get over it. Worker harder. Be better. Stop being so lazy. Etc etc etc. 

Now to now and while I feel like I have no where to proceed. 

I live with my mom. I am disabled as is my younger brother who has schizophrenia 

(I personally have Anxiety, Depression, bi-polar disorder, a (un)healthy dose of PTSD from childhood sexual trauma AND ADHD, but it’s fine I’ll get over it.) My mom is not disabled but she has a whole litany of health issues that makes it hard for her to work consistently (I,E. she really is unhealthy and should be receiving help but the govt basically told her that 20 years spent as a stay at home mother means nothing (even though that’s where they want us) and she gets to suffer without insulin or high blood pressure meds and have neuropathy in her feet legs hads etc) because women don’t mean shit in this country as proven with the overturn of ROE. We are expendable. 

We live essentially paycheck to paycheck. Often having to choose between food or a bill. Existing in a space where we are still paying on a car that we had to replace the engine in once (we replaced the whole engine a month and half into getting it) and are already looking at it breaking down again. Because we can barely afford food or bills my mom owes a ton of taxes on her house that we cannot afford to pay. We are having our water shut off on the 16th due to an inability to pay water tax or whatever the fuck it is. So where do we go from here? No running water (next week) 

What are some other things that broke and can’t afford to fix: Dishwasher. Kitchen Sink. Bathroom toilet leaksx2. Shower won’t drain properly. We have NO Central AC for 5 years (which also means no heater during that really bad freeze). We were able to get a window unit last year (we can only have it in one room because if we put it in any rooms not facing the back yard we will get reported to the HOA. When our AC initially broke they basically told us we were SOL and could not switch to a window unit full time. In fucking Texas. Where it often gets into the triple digits. 

We live in a world where the suffering of other humans is ignored. Out of sight. Out of mind. This isn’t a purely republican issues. Establishment StatusQuo democrats much to often bend the knee to maintain their space in whatever place they want to be elected to. They will nod and smile and do what these old men ask them to. 

So where do we go from here. In a household where we have no option but to hang on until they rip the house out from under us. Where do we go? What do we do. Even homeless shelters around here operate on a “Well you need to try and get a job” Ma’am I am disabled (I do have one I’ve just been fighting with ADA accommodations for 2 months anyway) I tried to apply for food stamps to lessen some of our financial burden. Qualified for 15 dollars. Every person charity. Organization I’ve called just sends us to the next person. NO one has any answers. The sad thing is. This kind of thing isn’t unique to my family. So many people in this country (and the world, but we’re talking about the US rn. I can’t speak for everywhere else) are suffering too. 

I’ve been homeless. It’s not fun. As many jokes I make about literally everything. I don’t know if I can personally handle it again. Where does that leave me. Or anyone who has zero options. 

I’d love to leave this fucking country but even then. I have nothing to offer anywhere we go. I am disabled. My brother is disabled. My mom needs medications we literally cannot afford. I am so fucking exhausted and any time I try to talk to or vent frustrations to my family. I just get told it will get better. Or that I just need to try harder. Worker harder. Get over it. Move on. Be better. You can do it ok. No No I can’t. I know I can’t. I know my limits. It’s not a lack of desire that’s preventing me from wanting to DO better. You think I want to live like this? You think i want to not even be able to just go to a movie every now and again and just ENJOY myself?

A fucking night at the movies shouldn’t be that hard and yet. It is. 

You think I want to be this person. My grandfather (Paternal) helped put men on the moon and I am sitting here. Accomplishing fuck all because I can’t be around most men without having a panic attack and disassociating. God if I could get over it. I definitely would have. 

Hell. Members of my family (my aunt) still commemorate my rapist every year on his birthday. On father’s day. Post his photo with a heart and say “I miss you.” Next to a picture of her ACTUAL father. 

I will say that watching him die was more than a little cathartic. I got to watch the light fade from his eyes and watch him disappear from this world, but at the same time. He remains here. Like a fucking spectre. 

It hasn’t gotten any better though. He’s dead. Good. He won’t hurt anyone else, but my life didn’t improve in any way. I stand on the brink of losing what little I do have. I don’t even know where I am sending this. I don’t even know if I should send this anywhere. I want help, but WHO do I reach out to. How do I FIND help? Does anyone even care? Is just gonna be more “Oh that sucks but it will get better” even if I do talk to someone. 

And I am so damn tired. I am so terrified. I just want to FOR ONCE have peace. 

(Edit:I wanted to add that many social media sites and applications also feed into the toxicity, since many don’t censor or punish people for their behavior)

Okay look.

I love Star Wars, it’s diverse and has so much interesting lore & ideas! But gods above do I hate the fans. Don’t get me wrong! There’s many fans who aren’t pieces of literal trash; and are actually polite, nice and decent human beings. But there’s so many awful toxic fans who tend to speak the loudest and cause the most controversy in the Star Wars fandom. They do and say so many toxic things it’s hard to keep track of it all, and they can always find something to be angry at. Whether it’s stuff from the actual series or other fans doing their own thing, they will find a way. Biggest thing is not letting people enjoy shit. Like so what if people like the sequels, or don’t like them? As long as they aren’t being problematic or hurting anyone (physically/emotionally), who care what they like and don’t like!? People have many different views and many different likes and dislikes, not everyone is gonna like the same stuff. And it’s okay! To not like a character or story line is okay, and as long as you are respectful and civil with others, most are open to discussing their differing opinions. But toxic fans can’t let people have that, they gotta fight and scream their better or this is better. Not to mention the harassment and threats they throw at people on a regular basis because someone doesn’t agree. Or how they talk down to some other fans as well because their opinion isn’t the same.(Once again I must reiterate, being a bigot is not a valid reason/opinion to dislike someone, something or a performance.)

Not even getting into the large history of gross bigotry you see in the fandom as well like; racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc. It can be like a fucking cesspool of awful shit. And under that’s there’s a whole lot of other underlying issues too that stem from fans and even creators. From the Ahsoka Tano outfit controversy to the recent Reave issue, that shouldn’t have ever happened and the fact that fans were being so disgusting is horrific, and at the end of the day they reflect the Star Wars community regardless of what people say. They make it into articles, headlines, top rated videos and tweets; everything! And honestly, it’s become embarrassing at times to admit you are apart of the Star Wars community when shit like this is what people hear about it.

Theres still a lot of controversy over many design and story choices over the years, some more problematic than others, but none more than the shipping community. It’s like a dropping out a bucket of chum in the ocean— you just mention shipping and you’re bound to get some toxic fan waiting to tear your ass apart and explain why you’re wrong and their ship is superior, etc. Is there issues in shipping? Yes! And we can talk about that without people literally coming out the wood work to send death threats because someone ships Quinlan with Ventress, or Obi-Wan with Cody. Or anything mostly. Like two consenting adults having a relationship isn’t that big of an issue outright. But that’s all I’m gonna say about shipping here, since it’s a very complicated topic.

Last thing is the need to argue or prove a point. Wether it be about a character, a design choice, or something with the plot — someone’s gotta fight with another person. Proving that their chosen character is superior or how the other persons critiques on said character are invalid because “this is what I think so you are wrong”. And I’ve said before in another post, no one likes to agree to disagree, they gotta prove a point or make the person feel like shit for liking/disliking something just cause.

Tbh people on the internet have gotten way too entitled to come into peoples safe spaces, pages, accounts, sites, etc and just act out. They can’t be polite or nice or civil if they want to talk about a differing opinion, they gotta invade peoples spaces and disrespect them and their opinions/ideas. People are way to entitled to speak, but don’t care about how they do it or who they talk to. Sometimes it’s an adult, sometimes it’s a minor that they shit on, but a lot of people don’t care as long as they get to open their mouth and spew their bull crap. And people often will have rules or tell others they don’t want this type of confrontational stuff in their space, but 85% to 90% don’t care. And obviously the Star Wars fandom isn’t the only one that suffers with this problem, a lot of fandoms do. From Marvel and DC — to animes like DBZ and Fairy Tail. A lot of fandoms have this issues where people don’t respect peoples boundaries, aren’t civil/nice person when talking to others, argue with anyone and everything, and harass/threaten people who disagree or criticize them. It’s an Fucking issue that plaques so many places in so so many fandoms.