#because constantly seeking out stuff that hurts you is a literal form of self-harm | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bigskydreaming · 3 years

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#when i read about tim i often kind of come to the idea that he's relatively self centered#and that can be both a flaw and a strength#but he doesn't often consider other people's feelings and circumstances#like when dick made damian robin he didn't really consider the situation from anyone else's view#or in his origin story#he doesn't seem to consider how dick would feel about hearing how tim was affected by dick's parents' death#or with the spyral situation#or in regards to him earning robin#and its pretty consistent in fandom characterization even if a lot of writers don't seem to be aware of it#its interesting cause i think its something i think he has in common with bruce#its honestly a surprisingly consistent thing from what i see#and it can be a strength to#it can absolutely lead to some confidence and self actualization#as well as being able commit to fixing something and working hard at it#because you believe you can and don't think anyone else can/will do it via @emenerd

Y’know, what’s interesting to me about these points is the fact that like.....Tim having tendencies towards self-centeredness is actually something that COMPLETELY makes sense and can be quite sympathetic in light of his backstory of having neglectful parents.

In an age of armchair diagnosticians eager to label anyone who expresses a controversial viewpoint while centering themselves as an example, as like, having a narcissistic personality disorder (and with the loaded implication that this makes them a bad person even if its true, instead of just....having a disorder, yay weaponizable ableism) like, it can be important to add in distinctions that even tendencies that share overlap with a lot of things born of entitlement, etc....aren’t always necessarily proof of that.

For instance, in Tim’s case, an overemphasis on himself and his own position in situations and arguments can very reasonably be attributed as a coping mechanism he developed in an attempt to acknowledge and address self-esteem issues he sees himself as having, DUE to parental neglect.

Its not that he thinks he’s the most important person in the room, necessarily, its that he spent so many years not even being considered a person in the room, that now he OVERCOMPENSATES on his own behalf, in an attempt to remind himself that no, his opinion and feelings and situations do matter.....and because he like most of the Bat-characters has a tendency towards hyper-fixating on a problem they’re trying to address, this can also understandably create a kind of tunnel vision. Where he’s so busy focusing on what he’s diagnosed as an actual issue he has that he’s trying to address or make up for, in order to build up his self-esteem....that he neglects to keep everyone around him equally centered in his interactions with them, and remember that like, they have their own issues and ignoring that to focus entirely on his own runs the risk of negatively impacting them in the exact same way he’s still learning to cope with having been negatively impacted in his development as a child.

None of this makes him a bad person, or is stuff that can’t be addressed and developed just by paying the appropriate attention to it and his interactions.

SO the issue I tend to more often have....

Is with how often in fandom and fanon we hear references to Tim’s neglect and emotional abuse and how this impacted him.....much in the same way we see Jason and Cass and Damian and Dick’s various forms of abuse and the developmental impact it had on them....

BUT there tends to then be a disconnect, IMO, because that acknowledgment of the WHAT of Tim’s neglect and abuse and the HOW it hurt him.....isn’t often followed up by an examination/awareness of how it also SHAPED him.....at least, not compared to how discussions/fics about say, Jason’s abuse tend to point out the latter as much as the former.

And this is a big part of my gripe with the ways abuse is centered and tackled as a topic in fics and fandom discussions, because its so often capitalized upon as a defense or shield for a character from criticism, stuff like that.....without ever actually EXPLORING the topic itself, or the FULLNESS of the impact it can have.

But only in regards to some characters.

What I mean is like....we see a lot of focus on Jason’s childhood abuse, yeah? And this often is then connected through headcanons, meta and fics to various aspects of Jason’s characterization as a teenager, and as an adult as well.....with a tendency towards anger or violence, abrasive personality, etc. Don’t get me wrong, its usually presented as such in a SYMPATHETIC light, especially when raised by fans of Jason themselves.....but his abuse is very much present and centered in fics and discussions as something that not only impacted him and made him suffer, but something that actually shaped him to varying degrees as well....with a lot of focus then in fics of him as an adult, like, paid to him going to therapy and unpacking his childhood abuse in an effort to WORK on these aspects of himself that make his present day life harder or less healthy than he’d like it to be. The issue of how his abuse lent itself to various behaviorisms is raised in order to address various byproducts of his abuse as FLAWS that he seeks to eliminate, in order to make himself happier and make himself someone that people want to be around more.

And again, don’t get me wrong - for the most part, this is a GOOD thing. The caveat here is just a personal dislike I have for how often these narratives smack of a kind of saviorism, and act like it was only through the grace of Bruce and becoming part of the Batfam that Jason’s ever afforded the opportunity to better himself as a person. I dislike the hell out of this because it not only pairs all too well with a lot of classist shit, it feeds into the singular narrative we’re so often presented with by media about abused kids: the myth of the victim being destined to become a victimizer, it all being an inevitable cycle. The reason this myth is so easily perpetuated is the exact reason I’m so critical of the saviorism in a lot of abused-Jason fics.....people can very easily fall into the trap of assuming that abused kids are likely to grow up to be abusers because they never have anyone to TEACH them that abuse is wrong, or to lead by healthy example.

The harm of this perception is that it kinda throws under the bus every kid who never lucks out and gets a Bruce Wayne style savior swooping in to not only save them from their abusive environs, but TEACH them that they deserved better and that abuse is wrong.

Because its like, uh, the thing is, plenty of abused kids who never get a personal mentor or savior figure are fully capable of figuring out for themselves that they deserve better and that people hurting them is wrong, because it makes them feel bad and they don’t like that?

Many abused kids don’t grow up in a media vacuum where they simply have no access to glimpses of lives different from their own.....we see kids having happier, healthier family lives on TV or in books and are able to figure out that society overall thinks that’s what family is SUPPOSED to look like, and its ours that is the aberration?

The very fact that we’re taught or have it instilled in us by abusive parents that like, we’re not to bring up instances or examples of our abuse to teachers or friends, that its a SECRET, is like, usually a dead giveaway that there’s something WRONG with it that we’re being instructed - and enforced with abusive consequences - to keep from alerting others to....like, this is basically a blaring siren to a lot of us that no, what’s happening to us ISN’T normal and acceptable, and that’s literally WHY the parent we’re afraid of is so insistent on us keeping the facts of it hidden?

And so like, tons of abused kids figure out for ourselves the difference between right or wrong, based off nothing more than our own feelings about things and a desire to not be like the people who make us feel miserable - like, never underestimate the power of spite to like, keep a kid from growing up doing the same thing to others that was done to them, lol.

But point being, lots of kids never get a Bruce Wayne figure to take them away from their abuse and also teach them that they never deserved it and how not to pass the hurt forward by doing the same things to others. And its kinda condescending as fuck that we so often see narratives that take it as so obvious it barely merits commenting on, that like, ‘of COURSE abused kids grow up to become abusers if they don’t have someone else step in and show them a better way’....mmm, no. Fuck that. But you get what I mean.

So like, its a mixed bag. Its a good thing, to see Jason-centric stories that show him addressing his childhood and seeking just a more fuller, happier, healthier life for himself. Its a less great thing to see this narrative presented as all encompassing, with it never being raised that no, Jason actually could figure out he deserved better and how to treat people in ways he’d want to be treated even without a billionaire guardian angel.....NOT because the narrative wherein someone helps an abused kid figure out what was wrong about how they were treated is like, NEVER valid....but rather it just becomes a problem when looked at as a data point against the larger tapestry of fandom-wide works....and noticing that this specific narrative is pretty much the ONLY one raised or treated as valid. With it just being ASSUMED to be the natural course of events and characters, rather than just....the direction society overall has their perceptions of abuse steered towards due to a singular and constantly reinforced abuse narrative shown to us in media.

And the way this all plays back into my point about Tim and what took me down this road in general.....

Is that disconnect I was talking about, lies specifically in HOW Tim is often acknowledged and regarded as an abuse survivor due to his emotional abuse and neglect......with this abuse and its impact on HIM often taking center stage, much the way Jason’s abuse and its impact takes center stage in his narratives.....

BUT with a key difference being that while a lot of Jason’s narratives go on to denote the specific ways his abuse helped SHAPE him and his interactions with others, and raise and address the ways in which he can better himself and his relationships by unpacking all of this openly....

Most of the stories about Tim’s abuse/neglect tend to just STOP at the awareness of its existence and impact on him. Never taking it that one step further to examine how those specific forms of abuse could have additionally SHAPED him....in ways that sometimes negatively impact those around him and his own loved ones, even if this is completely unintentional on his part. The difference, the disconnect, lies solely in how rarely its ever acknowledged that Tim’s own upbringing can and does play directly into how he interacts with people later on in life.....and in ways that he’s fully capable of addressing and bettering himself so as to be happier and healthier just in his own life, and in his relationships, as someone others want to be around.

Aaaaand once you actually examine or consider WHY there’s this discrepancy between the full ramifications of Tim’s abuse and that which various siblings of his underwent, when there’s full agreement that what he did go through absolutely can be termed abusive as well....like, its the implications of what about Tim makes him more naturally resistant or whatever to being shaped by his abuse in ways that have actual negative impact on others in his life, whereas the same isn’t true of say, Jason.....that’s when the red flags start to go up for me, and the unintended subtext starts to get Less Than Stellar, IMO.

Anyway. Just food for thought on the subject of Tim, his upbringing, the various impacts this had on not JUST him but also on how he interacts with others, and ways in which all of this compares and contrasts with how the subject of abuse is raised and depicted in regards to other Batkids.

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rattusrattus3 · 4 years

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Can I ask you a few questions about feminism? I got into Riot Grrrl and have since found feminism. What's a fadfem? What's third wave feminism? How would you describe your feminism? I hope you dont mind the questions

Wow! I love this question !!! Thank you so much for reaching out! I wanna say I am not the authority on feminism and feminist issues and reccomend doing lots of your own research, please don’t take my word for things! I’m just a 21 yr old

Ooh riot grrrl is so fun! Love that for you! I think that as a movement it had really good intentions but in practice kind of ended up being white, classist and exclusionary in some cases (not a judgment on you! Just a fact about mainstream feminism in a Racist society! Here’s a source about that, just paste it into sci.hub.se if you cant access it!)

rad fem? i think is maybe what you mean? it means radical feminist and they are not very radical, their main platform thing is that womanhood is all about having a vagina and whatever so theyre very trans exclusionary and I dont like them, highly recommend against rad fems

third wave feminism! so basically people who study feminism have categorized it into different waves, or time periods/ideologies. Third-wave was 90′s to 2010s, it has some problems because of its association with neoliberalism (which advocates for individual action to systemic problems, relies on capitalism and the free market, and of course is still pretty exclusionary in many spaces, in terms of being very white, abelist, middle/upper class, etc), But third wave feminism is about like individualism and diversity

fourth-wave feminism is what we’re in right now ! feminism is constantly evolving and growing through its mistakes and learning so much! Fourth wave feminism is much more aware of intersectionality, (intersectional feminism was coined by Kimberly Crenshaw, heres an amazing video of her talking about) intersectionality is the fact that different aspects of your identity will impact you in different ways, so for example, a cis white woman will not experience the same discrimination of a trans woman of colour, intersectionality is about recognizing your privilege, using it where you can to help others, and educating yourself about issues you may not have experience with (or that you do!) (like colonialism, racism, mental health/abelism, ageism, classism, homophobia and transphobia, etc etc etc).

feminism for me is about the dismantling of the hetro-capitalist-patriarchy, a system which is fundamentally unsustainable as it revolves around the accumulation of profit for more capital, and this is at the expense of others, i say hetro- because the hetrosexual, two parent, nuclear family system is a fundamental part of the system which seeks to create and raise little workers who feel they are an individual, always under surveillance and need to compete with others to survive (see Michel Foucault!) het normativity has gotta be dismantled and we gotta get away from it, and the trad family supports uneven power realtions between spouses and children and as an insulated system is a huge site of abuse for many people. i say capitalist bc capitalism is a fucking disease and literally the source of most of our enviornmental problems and has been used to justify racisim and colonialism and its gotta be undone. Patriarchy is the culutral system that priveleges men over women, defining men as “rational, logical, smart, strong, and multifaceted” and women as “one dimensional, emotional, and reliant on men”

bell hooks is a great famous feminist author i highly recommend, she believes that all forms of oppression are interlocked (sexism, racism, classism, speciesism, etc), and the only way to liberation was to simultaneously dismantle the oppressions that affect us, (primarily within and because of a capitalist system!) she has some great books i reccomend like feminist theory from margin to centre, theres a free pdf for ya ;)

another book i really recommend is Making Space for Indigenous Feminism edited by Joyce Green

for me personally, feminism involves a lot of stuff, like anti capitalism, body autonomy, intersectionality, supporting indigenous sovereignty, protecting eachother from sexual assault and general abuse, and supporting organized actions that actively support the marginalized members of my community (and fuck cops! theyre not our friends theyre not on our side!)! for me feminism looks a lot like constant self evaluation and critical analysis, acknowledgment of privilege, and a desire to improve rather than be perfect! for example, I am white and a settler, so I am racist by default because of having been raised in a white supremacist, settler society, BUT i can actively do my best to unlearn my racisim and all the other forms of oppression(like classism and sexism and abelism) that i have learned! and that at the end of the day is what feminism is about for me, is trying to figure out how to ensure love and liberation for all beings around me, i also know i will always be doing harm as long as i live and participate in a capitalist society, so its important to know that I am not perfect and make a lot of mistakes, and am trying to do what I can with what I have to learn how to do less harm, in a world that is hurting a lot. Feminism for me is about listening to others and learning from others. sorry for the rant, a lot was left out, people are free to comment! heres a feminism tag on my blog where i reblog stuff that i think of as feminist issues

#sorry for the ramble #asks #ask #anon #feminism

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gg-astrology · 5 years

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Since both Hoseok and Jimin are infamously known as the two who are most scary when angry, can astrology tell us how scary?

Hey there! 💕 Thanks for sending this in dfkjnkn I’ll do my best to explain it 💕

[Below Cut: BTS anger]

warning: long post

Note: this is just my interpretation, feel free to have your own interpretation on the subject. As always, please use your own discretion when reading! 💕

Premise

First thing that comes to mind is that context might be important here, everybody gets angry to an extent. How they lash out depends on how angry they are and who they are as well (nature- overall placement, nurture, how they’ve grown/developed/matured).

Some people might have trouble getting angry (they’re just never angry) Some has only experienced mild irritations. Suppressed emotions can be pretty common, especially those who just doesn’t know how to express themselves properly/acknowledge their feelings.

They’ll have to learn sooner or later. How to recognize and resolve ‘negative’ emotions they might feel. How to express them healthily, and how to do so in doses instead of overly-expressing them or suppressing them entirely.

Now, the reason Hoseok and Jimin might be ‘the scariest when angry’ is within the context of BTS themselves. How often does the other boys express their anger? How do they express it? Is it just irritation, frustration or do they suppress/act passive aggressive about it?

Taehyungie

Taehyungie– with a truckload of Capricorn in him, is literally the most peacekeeping lil shit without actually being peaceful himself. Capricorn Mars, Aries Moon, Aquarius Venus. Alot of his energy goes into making sure nothing gets too out of hand, but at the same time– trying to find objectivity in his reasoning/situation in order to express his anger

(Like, there has to be that ‘exact’ moment where everything in his head makes sense within the context of the conversation, so he can just insert it out there – like a pre-formed phrase that’s just waiting for the right time/context to be expressed you know? Kind of like Cards Against Humanity.)

Capricorn placements (especially Mars) might find it so much easier to just swallow down their anger– a momentary emotion, in order to observe and find the best way/opportunity to express them properly.

The head always rules the heart, even when the heart is close to breaking down in tears/a million pieces (not trying to be melodramatic sdjfnakns this is just– how it is sometimes)

There’s a reason Capricorn is exalted in Mars, and it’s because they can literally put themselves on the back-pedal in order to put the situation first.

It’s the same self-sacrificing aspect they have, where they don’t want to ‘burden’ others with their emotions/problems because they feel awkward expressing themselves. A dumbass about it, but a well-intended one (that’s going to bite them in the ass eventually).

There’s power and dominance in being able to handle your own emotions, even if you had to suppress them at the beginning. In terms of anger, oh it’s not like he doesn’t feel anger. It’s just that– the Capricorn/Aquarius way, anger is always expressed through the head, through objectivity, rather than emotionally letting go/releasing that outwards.

It’s this innate need for power and control over their own objectivity that makes them quiet, makes them seek a different opportunity to express themselves. They’re stubborn and foolhardy, they can wait forever just for a 0.5 window of opportunity that’s perfect to align itself for them.

(Also, Capricorn Mercury/Mars – loud booming voice, no heat in them. Intimate sometimes, but always clear about what they want. Once they’ve reached a limit/others push them to the limit, they’ll become pretty blunt about self-protection.The loud voice is more to do with intimidating tactic, done subconsciously. Not really meant to harm/shout at others, it’s just the way they naturally escalate in volume/primal in a way. Push authority into short words but straight to the point. Doesn’t like to do this to others bc they feel guilty/like they’ve wronged their social responsibility to others (some moral integrity stuff)– so they’re always trying to ‘soften’ themselves up constantly/outside of the context.)

Jungkookie

Compared to Taehyung, Jungkookie has more of an internal alignment to be peaceful internally– even if he doesn’t know how to do so/exert it externally that well (he’s still learning).

Virgo, compared to Capricorn– is more internally controlled. They’re aware of what they’re doing, what they’re going through, how they deal with situations. While Capricorn as a cardinal sign, is more intuitively aware/experienced with keeping peace externally.

Virgos as a mutable sign, is more of a sign that configurate things inside of themselves and if the solution isn’t satisfactory– they go ‘this aint it’ and work to find a ‘better’ solution (in regards to emotional dissatisfaction/anger).

Virgos motive for making a move is centered around ‘can it be improved?’ – if it’s a constructive criticism, if the other person can make some changes around it. Will it be useful/helpful going further? They’re stubbornly prideful, clings onto their moral integrity. If it’s just a ‘passing emotion’ they’re less inclined than any other signs to make a screaming match about something that doesn’t matter to them in the long-run.

Moral integrity is the utmost important, and then ‘will they listen? will they accept help?’ becomes secondary factor on whether or not they should express their anger. Like Capricorn, it’s pretty controlled. Clean cut, moral objectivity. But in this case, there’s actually an allowance for irritation to flare or personal feelings to come forward.

They’re not going to deny themselves the opportunity to feel something, but they will most likely deny expressing it to another person. Would rather eat the poison and suffer alone, than drag anyone into it because they don’t know how to express it properly. Maybe after they broke down, they process everything and have had time to think about what they want to say– they might consider letting others in on their inner thoughts/vulnerabilities. Maybe not.

(Also, Scorpio Mars. Has the ability to ‘shut off’ emotions to get things done. I know, ‘water signs are emotional’ and all that– but when it gets too much, too overwhelming and they have to focus on a single-minded goal/objective– they are prone to just exerting themselves into action, to reach a certain goal, with or without hurting other people along the way.)

(Can be kind of prissy, isn’t booming like Tae but isn’t backing down either. Clipped, short but shows more self-control/awareness of other’s emotional receptivity than Tae does/primal. Isn’t guilty about it unless Leo Moon dictates so.)

Namjoonie

Can’t talk about anger without mentioning Namjoonie. Again, with his Virgo there’s a modicum of control. But also with the Sagittarius Moon, Libra Mercury and Cancer Mars– there’s a conscious decision to ‘slither’ this control into something different, something not as openly hurtful to others, but still self-expressive.

Anger is just an emotion people go through. Frustration, embarrassment, shame, regret are emotions everyone’s supposed to feel.

There’s no shame in acknowledging that, in discovering and categorizing that inside of yourself (Virgo - wants internal control/seeks out externally, and part of that control comes from noticing emotions inside of themselves - Cancer/Scorpio)

With a Sagittarius Moon (fire moons), every emotion feels physical. Your face flares up, your heart-beat quickens.You react instinctively, through what you’ve already experienced/know before their brain goes on shut down.

Processing of emotions comes after, putting a name to it acknowledging what it is and figuring out a way to counteract it in the future.

See, the thing about it is that fire signs feels emotions but can’t control it. It’s an automatic reaction, everything catches them off-guard. Water signs feels and acknowledge emotions but doesn’t see the point in letting it all out at once (inner-depth/internal emotions not just external ones).

Sure they might know how to navigate through it and often wish to ‘turn it off’, but the comparison between fire/water sign is like throwing a pro-swimmer and a non-swimmer in a pool and ask them to stay afloat for 30 minutes.

One is just struggling to survive while the other is tired because they’ve been paddling for 15 minutes. Fire signs shows more emotional reaction than water sign does, mostly because they don’t have complete control over their emotions the way water-sign does.

Water signs acknowledge emotions, acknowledge reactions and learns how to navigate through it. How to swim, how to figure it out, how to work through it eventually. Fire signs are stuck at the beginner-level swimming phrase for a lot of their emotional reaction.

Having both of these in one’s chart (Sagittarius Moon/Cancer Mars/Scorpio Venus) – Namjoon can’t control his emotional reaction (his frustration/anger)– but he can learn how to categorize them, how to work with them and how to express them to others properly.

He feels emotions (not just anger) truthfully and honestly. He learns how to hone it, how to cope and work with it through social obligations/situations (Scorpio Venus/Cancer Mars). He’s a sneaky bitch who acts passive-aggressively sometimes, side-eyes, snarks, can be a little insensitive but he’s learning.

If there’s a situation where he can’t express his emotions, earth/air takes over. That’s his awkwardness, fire/water at least acknowledges/expresses emotions. Earth/airs would rather die than express any kind of vulnerabilities they haven’t screen-tested before showing it outwards.

Think of it as like, the head (earth/air) versus the heart (fire/water). Which side would you choose? Which side is more important? Neither, but when it comes to anger/expressing anger– Namjoon might let his heart rules him before his head (earth/air) actually shifts into gear (vice versa too, but it usually lets to the heart losing control and the head having to pick up the pieces/try to keep a modicum of control that we’re talking about earlier with Virgo)

The difference between Namjoon and Jungkook is the configuration of placement. They might have all the elements there, but Namjoon has 2 counts water (Scorpio/Cancer) while Jungkook has 2 counts earth (Virgo Sun/Mercury).

With an elemental balance (all elements in a chart) – the ones that’s overwhelmed by the other is the one that needs to be practiced, learnt and is like their ‘vulnerability’.

So with Jungkook, anger is more controlled than Namjoon. He may not express it well/all at once like Namjoon does, or know how to do so without holding back —but it’s heart-felt anyways. Namjoon goes heart-first in expressing his emotions, his thoughts, he tries to make it reasonable, but the heart/emotions wins over logic when push comes to shove.

It’s kind of like– the 2 count head/earth is the overt exertion, while the heart is the underlying layer for Jungkook. While for Namjoon it’s the opposite, the 2 count heart/water is exerted (way of expressing his emotions) and then the head is the underlying layer underneath (trying to keep balance/control).

(Which is why– if he holds a grudge, the heart doesn’t forget and the head works to keep it under-wraps. )

(Always wants to win, so the main objective to Libra Mercury is winning the argument. Competitive without realizing it, especially when Cancer Mars is engaged/cardinal. Smug but firm, gloats a little.)

Yoongi

Now we have a watery man example. Yoongi is?? similar to Jungkook and Namjoon in a way. Pisces Mercury, Aries Venus are quick to point out things that they disagree with. They may be easy-going most of the time, but if it’s taken too far by someone else– they’re the ones who’s going to go ‘this aint it’ and explain to others what could be added to make it better.

Of course, emotionally he’s aware of himself (virgo moon) but can also steer the direction very quickly (pisces). Yoongi is like, the opposite and similar to Taehyung.

Tae’s fire moon earth sun expresses emotions physically but also suppresses himself– doesn’t have time to acknowledge bad behaviors/habit he has or the emotion he just went through.

Yoongi’s aware of the emotions he went through/feels, he can suppress it too if he wants. Most likely if the opportunity/the way he words it isn’t to his liking.

With Pisces Mercury, often times he has a hard time expressing his emotions forward to others anyways. The way he goes about expressing/connecting to others is through teasing (Aries Venus) motivating others, guiding them/being there for them (Virgo Moon).

In terms of anger/expressing anger, Virgo/Aries takes over externally. ‘This ain’t it’ becomes the biggest concern, constructive criticism but also objectivity becomes key points. Underneath that, is the underlying Pisces/Cancer– he cares, it’s from the heart. Emotional connectivity to others for protection, guidance, empathy and realizing objectivity in the situation.

More of the type to rely on empathetic logic/rationality (emotional) than trust himself to express things from the heart completely. Everything is kind of a ratio of 1:2 emotions to logic. Mostly from that Virgo Moon keeping things under-wraps for him (internal control).

At the same time, he can tend to take personal offense to things because of this Virgo/Pisces/Cancer part. Nagging, irrationality, personal complaints about his personal lifestyle that isn’t bothering anyone might irate him (less serious stuff -> irrationality anger, more serious stuff -> rational empathetic anger - Pisces).

Yoongi structures things methodically, systematically through the head to achieve the heart’s emotionality/expressing the heart out. That’s why, compared to Namjoon, he tends to be much more a person who holds a grudge over the decades and plans for revenge (with a smugness/air of superiority that Pisces/Virgo has, ‘martyr-like’ superiority) because the heart really doesn’t forget, but the head also works to exact revenge exactly as planned.

(Because of trouble expressing the self, tends to rely more on Aries Venus to get through to people. Complains a lot, goes about seeking things in a roundabout way sometimes.)

Jinnie

Next we have Jinnie, let’s acknowledge how the luminaries are fire/fire which makes him pretty expressive/lose his head pretty quickly. But the lower half, his inner planets– are Scorpio/Capricorn/Cancer.

Similar to Namjoon, but because Namjoon has a Virgo Sun, he can tend to hold back a bit more (trying to figure himself out) while Jin has no regards expressing how he feels in a way that’s accessible to him – logically but also rapidly.

I know we’ve all said ‘Jin’s hiding something’ or has a more ‘serious side’ to him– but that’s mostly just a Capricorn and how Capricorns typically are. There’s no hidden agenda, everyone just thinks Capricorn are like hidden darkhorse or something/has something underneath it all.

Capricorn and Scorpio both are kind of objectively driven, pressured by the same kind of stamp as each other (time/challenges) grind in the same kind of mortar.

The reason most people feel unease because of these signs (‘they’re intimidating’ or ‘they’re mysterious’) is because people like to objectify them without understanding/acknowledging them as people themselves. (Wow what a surprise that Jin gets treated the same sometimes by the fandom!)

Jin expresses anger through objectivity, but it comes in layers.

One, if it’s frustration/immediate he jokes about it, tries to bring it to attention so others can pick up on the ‘actual’ gravity of the situation through pressure/tenseness of his snark.

Two, if that doesn’t work– he expresses his points objectively instead. You’d be caught dead in a ditch if a Scorpio Mercury actually spill their heart out to you with all their vulnerabilities, everything has to be screen-tested first.

You’ve been screen-tested, his emotions are screen-tested, his strength/weaknesses are screen-tested. Everything can be tested in order to ensure optimal support and transformative motion to the situation.

Three, it’s pretty straight forward. Unless he can handle it himself (keep it under-wraps) work through his insecurities/vulnerabilities and come out alive. He likes to categorize concern for ‘ones to talk about with others’ and ‘ones to deal with himself’.

Control — Capricorn/Cancer/Scorpio all talks about having control. Externally most of all, what you see is what you get (for now). There’s more underneath it (obviously) but unless he’s ready to conclude/worked through it already he’s not going to let anything get ‘messy’ externally so others can see it.

Control is also level-headedness. The key word to Jin is that he’s not messy. His emotions aren’t all over the place, everything is pointed, purposeful. Evoke something purposefully with an objective/punch-line he can run with. Even his jokes/first level frustration has an objectiveness to it.

It’s great because it’s systematic and objective right? There’s the private, personal and public. Everything is organized in layers. Whether you want him to be personal or his public self, he can bring it out for you. The main key here is Capricorn Venus dependability. Combined with Cancer Mars control/protectiveness.

(This ‘not messy’ part is important. Having layers helps him with this. It’s not like Namjoon or Yoongi, who can get quite messy. Not like Taehyung or Jungkook who’s abhorrant to messiness in general (on a spectrum of Taehyung/Jungkook to Yoongi/Namjoon how messy are you?). Jin isn’t afraid to get dirty with his emotions, but he cleans up after himself afterwards because he knows how.)

Hoseok and Jimin

Now, we get to the two in question. The members mentioned how they’re the scariest when mad right? Well after we’ve looked at everyone– on the scale of Taehyung to Namjoon– how messy do you think they get?

There’s two things here. First, Jimin doesn’t hide his anger/frustration. Most of all when it comes to himself. His own frustration/anger at himself, he’s pretty expressive about how he feels, where he’s at emotionally and wants to engage emotional conversations with others (BV3 - also Scorpio Venus).

Hoseok hides his anger/frustration. Not through an obligation (although it does make an easy convenience/excuse to do so considering his job) but more like he doesn’t understand it, can’t control it. Doesn’t even know how to go about acknowledging it sometimes (Taurus Moon).

We see the sister signs Scorpio-Taurus here more prominently. And of course, Namjoon who also has a Scorpio Venus is just as messy as Jimin (although Jimin is– substantially better at controlling/using his Scorpio than Namjoon is)

The key point here is that Jimin doesn’t hold back from expressing himself. Crying when someone mentions it? Expressing his emotions/thoughts? His Forte.

He grew up learning how to do this, despite his awkwardness shy clumsy ass. He doesn’t disallow himself to express what he’s learnt to express, what’s good for him, what he shouldn’t keep to himself.

The luminaries (Libra/Gemini) is lighter than the lower half (Scorpio Venus/Mars)– there’s a balance of rationality to emotionality. Doesn’t mean he knows how to control it.

What he lacks in fire/earth– makes him learns thing step by step. He doesn’t rush into things, doesn’t hold himself back. He learns what he has to learn and he keeps going that way. Focused, in the present, build up from each other without suppressing himself down (Libra/cardinal).

Which is why he has a better grasps at expressing himself emotionally than Taehyung does, or directing Jungkook on where to go/how to do things when kook needs a little more emotional direction (Namjoon is kind of similar in this way to Jungkook)

Jimin isn’t head driven or heart driven, he’s made up entirely of those two (air/water). That’s his entirely (Libra/Gemini/Scorpio). He isn’t like Yoongi who lashes out playfully to his own inability to express himself properly (Pisces Mercury/Aries Venus) or Jin who reacts in layers (Fire Sun-Moon/Scorpio-Capricorn-Cancer)

Jimin’s steadfast in his approach to emotional reactions, he learns and grows as he goes– step by step. He doesn’t hide himself or hold himself back.

Figuring out that literally 6/7 of the team members have some earth placements in them that kind of acts as an ‘anchor’ holding them down – its freeing to be able to zooms in and out of guiding others in the right emotional direction as well.

Now we look at Hoseok. Who is literally the opposite of Jimin. He’s just as zoomy, quick on his feet. But emotionality? Pah.

The thing with Taurus Moon is that unless it hits them in the face, they won’t even realize what they’re feeling sometimes. This isn’t stubbornness, it’s literally obliviousness.

Thus why, when they ‘explode’ (because, y know. Suppress it until you can’t make it. But unlike Virgo/Capricorn, Taurus doesn’t have that self-preservation sensor that tells them they’re nearing their limit/should express themselves now)– it’s a whirlwind of unexpected, surprising emotions. To them and to others.

The reason why it’s scary is because they don’t even realize what they felt/how they’ve been feeling. Everything is fine and dandy in the Taurus world until it’s not. And then it’s like the Apocalypse is happening. Because everything comes crashing down all at once, taking everything– the Taurus themselves, others around them, off guard completely.

This isn’t like the Scorpio native who knows their emotions, comes in short bursts, can fix it/control it pretty quickly.

The Taurus literally has no idea where it’s coming from, so any modicum of control they may have over their situation/themselves/others? Gone in a flashflood (*depends on the person, mostly their development/placement)

The repercussion is a series of self-evaluation. Wondering where they’ve gone wrong, what they didn’t notice the first time around. It’s a slow learning curve, unlike the Scorpio’s transformation/regeneration process. The Taurus is stagnant in what it’s learnt/know, so it grows only when it does some serious self-evaluation (after) and not during it.

The thing with Hoseok is that he’s also made up of Aquarius and Pisces. So besides that Taurus Moon– his problem is that he’s always a bit frantic. Pisces does that to people, want to be appreciated, want to be near/close and observe others. The power of their astute observation is also their downfall, because that directly fuels their anxiety.

It creates a time-scape where they’re concerned about the now, the future (or think constantly about the past without doing much about it). They don’t have time to self-evaluate or go through the process of learning the Taurus has to do in order to progress/grow the way it wants to.

Aquarius observes, direct, helps both sides. But getting involved in the Taurus’s messy emotions or the Pisces’s urge/desire? Unlikely. To others who needs it– yes, sure of course. To itself? It’s own problem? Pah.

So now we have two duality. Both who learns in similar ways. Step by step, growth spurt by growth spurt (fixed).

But one who doesn’t realize his emotions until it’s too late sometimes (wants to help others, wants to be useful/helpful and cries easily - Pisces Venus)

And one who still has to learn, to be able to explore all types/variety/ranges of emotions (optimistic, idealistic, wants to explore, looks on the positive - Libra/Gemini)

They counteract each other, one who controls and the other who loses control (Taurus-Scorpio * this is kind of simplified, they’re much more complex than that but this is kind of a small conclusion in regards to the context/subject above).

One who looks at things optimistically and one who wants to do things properly (Gemini/Libra/Scorpio-Aquarius/Pisces/Taurus)

They balance each other out. They work similarly, approaches things similarly, but execute things differently from each other.

Conclusion

On a scale of all of Bangtan, Hoseok’s obliviousness to his emotions is even worse than Taehyung is.

Mostly because Taehyung still acknowledges that he does have emotions, and his burdened with his ‘worser’ emotions (don’t want to burden others) – while Hoseok doesn’t even acknowledge that he has it, or felt it. Going straight to solving other’s problem or approaching it practically instead (Aquarius -making the fall out worse sometimes)

Out of all of Bangtan, Jimin’s on the other end of the scale. Maybe tied to Namjoon or the Hyung-line (Jin, Yoongi). He’s kind of like Jungkook, as time goes he gets more control over his range of emotions. And thus, he learns how to balance it out himself.

Note that Earth and Air signs do feel emotions, and can express said emotions. But whether or not its ‘good’ or ‘bad’ emotions to them, will dictate how/if they express it to others.

So yeah, contextually. It’s all of Bangtan that should be considered. As well as perspective of those involved. To me, someone like Yoongi or Jin would be hard to handle. Mostly because my way of handling my anger/emotions wouldn’t know what to do with those who express their anger/emotions that way.

Considering Bangtan, and their lack of experience with Taurus emotional expression (or Gemini emotional expression) – it might be hard to calm them down or help them if they can’t approach it/understand it in their own way.

Whether someone’s scary when they’re angry or not depends on how well equipped we are with handling them. Whether we see it in ourselves, or whether we lose control completely.

I mentioned control a lot in this answer, mostly because that’s part of the problem (abundance of control/too much of it) but also the way it’s expressed to others. We all have some kind of control over ourselves, as– you know– maturing adults.

We’ve learnt how to express ourselves differently, some of the lingering problems when we were kids are still there, but we try to grow with it, grow through it anyways.

Ending Ment

Sorry if this was a bit messy sdkjfnkasnf I feel really stiff coming back after going on vacation for a while. But I hope this is a good answer anyways 💕 Thank you for sending in the ask! 💕

#bts #bts asks #hoseok #jimin #namjoon #taehyung #yoongi #jin #jungkook #bts astrology #bangtan astrology #kpop astrology #bts scenario #bts imagines #bts reactions #anon #asks

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motherboxing · 6 years

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Somewhat tangentially, but this is part of why I’ve never understood people who seem to openly pick fights and bait people online, and then start crytyping about their anxiety when people get mad - like, listen, I understand how online interactions and dynamics can become a form of self-harm (literally this morning a friend like, very gently and kindly told me , essentially, “I think you keeping up with this one awful person’s blog is a pretty obvious form of self-harm and should be taken seriously as such”, and he’s not wrong! I have been thinking about this all day!), but at the end of the day so much of my blogging style is informed by this sense that I am constantly being monitored for any fuck-up, and that any time I can’t figure out how to present something succinctly and clearly without compromising complexity and nuance (an impossibility by design on tumgle dot hell!) I am playing Russian roulette with online harassment.

That’s in ADDITION to the fact that I am actually kind of deeply terrified of people getting mad at me! I spend a lot of time acting like it doesn’t matter if I piss people off because I would rather it didn’t, and also I don’t necessarily always understand my emotional response to things that can - rightfully or not - feel threatening, as like... fear. (Last week in therapy I said, in explaining why I feel like I’m a difficult person, “any time I think someone is angry with me, there’s a moment where it feels like all the blood in my body has turned to ice, like, it physically hurts, I feel ill, and I don’t know why I can’t just process people being mad without feeling like I’m gonna die,” and my therapist was like, “well, it sounds like when you think people are angry with you, you feel afraid, because in the past that has meant abuse” and I was like ???) So I really want to avoid people getting mad at me! To that end I try to be as clear as I can about shit, and I feel really bad when I think I’m not as clear as I could be. Multiple times now people have commented on my tendency towards disclaimers, clarifications, etc, and that’s why!

So like - ultimately, if people getting mad at you triggers your anxiety, I understand that, and I understand seeking out stuff that triggers you, BUT, you know, other people are actually still human beings, so it’s actually still shitty to bait them and then paint them as hostile when they go for your bait. Regardless of motivation that sucks, and is one of those things where you just kind of need to have some self-awareness!

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tcobeauty · 7 years

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Confessions of a Beauty Hoarder: When #TreatYoSelf Goes Wrong

So I had been planning to do another Beauty Spend Freeze in April, following my failed 60-day freeze effort (I made it 45, which I thought wasn’t too bad, right?) in January/February. I’ve been hyper-aware of my seemingly never-ending and always-expanding stash lately, and I’ve been wanting to calm things down and streamline my routines for a while now, so just out of curiosity and because “TCO” doesn’t just stand for “Taking Care Of,” it’s also a business term that means “Total Cost Of” (the more you know, my beauties), I decided to go back through my 2016 spending and see just how much I dropped on beauty and skincare in a 12-month period.

You all, I spent more than $5,000 on skincare, makeup, and beauty products in 2016. That’s almost five mortgage payments. That’s a credit card I could have paid off, one of several across which I spread all that money to try to fool myself into thinking I wasn’t actually spending all that much (and clearly it worked). That’s 5/8 of the oral surgery I had back in January that I had to get a healthcare-specific line of credit to be able to afford, and that’s with both dental and health insurance through my employer. And because I’m a total masochist apparently, I decided to plow ahead and see how much I’ve spent so far in the first quarter of 2017, and I’m already at $1200.

I am not a professional beauty blogger (obviously). I don’t get PR samples and free stuff to review–everything I buy and review and rate comes directly from my own wallet. And while I am a lot more privileged and in better shape financially than a lot of people in the world (I’m employed in an office job full-time with benefits, I don’t have a car payment, I don’t have student loan debt, I’m relatively healthy, etc.), I simply cannot justify spending that much of my income on products that are not tried and true and tested for me. Especially not with the increasingly mountainous hoard I’ve accumulated over the last several years of my beauty box subscription adventures and my lately discovered and constantly growing love of Korean skincare products. My beauty habit has proven to so far be continually innovative, interesting, and above all, effective, of course, in addition to super fun. But how long can you continue to spend money you don’t really have on things that you love and that ostensibly make you happy before it defeats the purpose of those things? What’s the cost/benefit of a love of beauty products versus deepening credit card debt?

There’s a line of undiagnosed but deeply obvious hoarding that runs on my mother’s side of the family. My great-aunt filled up an entire house with stuff, built a new house to live in once her stuff overtook her and her husband’s living space, and took to her bed for a week to mourn her stuff when some meth-heads burned down the stuff-house and reduced it to ashes and a chimney. No one was hurt or harmed, but her hoard was reduced to rubble and she had to go on tranquilizers in order to deal with it. The bathtub in her living-house is now unusable due to dozens of pairs of shoes piled up in it. The medicine cabinet cannot close due to crusty, separated bottles of nail polish that are probably older than I am.

My grandmother, her sister, keeps a tidy house for the most part, but two back rooms are mostly stuffed to the gills with flea market finds, clothes that don’t fit and never did or never will, books that might get read when there’s time (and there never is), my late grandfather’s clothes and belongings, tucked away where they are not painful reminders of his absence, but reassuringly still there, just in case. She’s always kept Cool-Whip containers and McDonald’s straws to reuse until they fall apart. I always thought it was part of rural life, of being born and raised in the aftermath of the Great Depression, but somehow it seems like there’s always something more to it than that.

I’ve always held on to things for longer than I should, specifically beauty products. I’ve always been searching for new things to try, as much as I have already established a routine and system that clearly works perfectly fine, it’s never enough to just stick with that. Something else out there could be better, more effective, more tingly, more luxurious. Something could be a better deal and getting better rewards so I can get more products, more often.

I see shadows of this need to collect, to have too many things because you never know when you might need them, to be prepared just in case I need this one thing that I tried once and was okay but might come in really handy at some point in the future. There are murmurings of it in my own excessive and overflowing bookshelves with dozens of books I’ve bought with best intentions but haven’t looked at in actual years, my hopeful closet of pants with the tags still on them and shoes I love but that literally cut my feet apart with blisters that maybe I will figure out how to wear the right way someday, and my multiple cabinets and drawers and boxes of beauty products that aren’t really arranged or sorted in any way, shape or form but that I somehow manage to know where everything is without thinking twice.

So this April spending freeze is pretty much indefinite for the foreseeable future. I need to use up this massive stash. I need to throw old and expired things out. I need to use the things that I know work. I need to try the bajillion samples I already have before I keep adding to them and trying to justify them by figuring out how ostensibly valuable they are. I believe in the power of beauty as a tool to define oneself in a world that seeks to define us in tiny boxes based on arbitrary rules and kyriarchal systems of oppression, but I cannot let debt as a result of this effort define the rest of my adult life, no matter how I claim to be able to couch it in terms of resistance or justify it as part of my feminism.

I believe in the importance of self care, the fun and specialness of #treatyoself, of the meditative elements of skincare rituals and customizing them to match your mood or the weather or how your face is feeling at that particular moment, but I also believe it’s important that we be honest with ourselves in terms of prioritizing things, no matter how much we tell ourselves that it’s for our own good, our self-improvement and self-image, for our health both physical and mental. I believe it’s important to examine the culture around beauty products both domestic and international, how we’re still conditioned by society to want to be “beautiful,” and even though those parameters have evolved somewhat, how they’re still cisgender, heteronormative, able-bodied, Eurocentric, and fatphobic. And I believe it’s important for us to take a hard, honest look at what these parameters are costing us, both financially and emotionally, on a daily basis and in the long run.

So while I have a few backlog haul posts and beauty box reviews yet to post, the direction of this blog and of my own focus is going to evolve somewhat over the next few months. I’m still going to be posting regimens as I run through my stash, but look for more empties posts as I make an effort to use things up and reduce my hoard. There will be much fewer haul posts as I continue to keep my spending on lock in an effort to get my finances in order and focus only on making absolutely necessary purchases over the next few months. I’m going to try to do more reviews of products I know and I love and have been using for years instead of the latest fad or trends, and I’m going to be focusing more than ever on the real value of these products, how the packaging and the branding and the messaging can be interpreted (because yes, that shit matters), and how we can think about holding the beauty industry accountable and becoming more aware ourselves on the prices we pay to feel beautiful, and whether those prices are actually worth it.

I started this blog so I could write about beauty products, something I know and love and use daily, and called it TCOBeauty because I personally like to take care of business, and I like beauty products that do the same. I started looking at the Beauty ROI of my beauty box subscriptions to see if I was actually getting my money’s worth on all this new stuff, and I started tracking my hauls to see if I was actually getting as good of a deal on these products as it felt like at the time (spoiler alert: not as often as I thought). The cost of beauty has never been more crystallized for me as it has at this point in my life, and I’m going to continue to be as up front and honest about it as I can.

More to come, my beauties, as always.

#personal #confession #finances #hoarding #beauty products #spending #beauty haul #beauty roi #treat yo self #mental health #self care #beauty standards #product junkie #feminism

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notanicequeen-blog · 7 years

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Greetings, And Controversy

I think it'd be best to just start by saying, "Hello." I'm Elsa, and I am not an ice queen. I'm a 24 year old freelance writer--primarily ghostwriting--and if that didn't clue you in, I enjoy writing. In various different forms, really. Original fiction, text-based role-playing, fanfiction, I write all of them whenever it strikes my fancy.

And I also enjoy writing about…well, writing. That's what the point of all this is. In my adventures to write what I'm paid to write and to get my brain to calm down long enough to write what I'm not being paid to write, I like to take time out and jot down my observations on the writing process and everything around it. No matter how tenuous the connection sometimes is.

A lot of these blog entries were posted on a different blog a few years back, but they've been re-written and I'm re-posting them here, on a platform that doesn't require me to jump through quite as many hoops to stay ~*~relevant.~*~

That's all the introductory stuff out of the way, so I guess now it's time to move onto the meat of this baby. To kick things off, let's look at a…slightly controversial topic among a lot of writers.

I'm going to talk about Mary Sues, because why shouldn't I? It's the first entry and it sounds like fun.

Is there anyone here who doesn't know what a Mary Sue is? I'm going to assume you've all at least heard the term, but let's get into a bit more detail than just that.

Despite the name, a Mary Sue doesn't have to be a female, though for males the term is frequently changed to Gary Stu, Gary Sue, Marty Stu, you get the point. Cute, isn't it? However! Because of the hoops female characters need to jump through to be considered good characters, people tend to fixate more on Mary Sues than they do on Gary Stus.

Assuming they aren't just using it as a catch-all term to describe a character they don't like, a lot of people bastardize the definition to 'a character that is overly perfect,' but that's not quite right. A closer definition would be more along the lines of 'a character whose existence bends the world so that everything centers around them.' Like I said, gender doesn't particularly matter, but people are more likely to flip the table and scream, "That's so unrealistic!" about female characters doing this.

(As for where the term actually came from, I regret to inform you that it did not just fall out of the aether to give all of us nerds some shared terminology. Instead, allow me to direct you towards the Star Trek fandom. A satirical fanfiction--a very old fanfiction--was poking fun at the concept with a teenage ship captain named Mary Sue.)

Unfortunately for anyone looking to identify a Sue out in the wild, there is no one set of traits or characteristics that makes up a Mary Sue. There are some made of sweetness, rainbows, and turtledove shit, and they fix all conflicts just by walking into a room. There are some who are completely unrepentant jerks to everyone around them (especially a love interest) and they chew everyone out for the slightest mistake, but of course everyone loves them for their spunk and their ~*~attitude.~*~ Or maybe they're miserable and every tragedy in the world finds them, and the entire population is divided evenly into people who want to hurt them or protect them (have you read Oliver Twist? then you know what I'm talking about).

They can be everyday people, famous people, warriors of distant lands, beautiful but tragic broken birds, or anything else you can think of, so long as the world revolves around them in a way that strains suspension of disbelief.

But why are Mary Sues problematic?

…You wanna know a secret? It's a doozy. You might not be able to take it.

You see, they aren't problematic. Or at least not always. While it's true that some writers are going to start pulling their pigtails and throwing a tanty at the mere mention of a Mary Sue, in reality everything has a place. If someone is truly writing just because it's what they want to write, then you're free to simply not read it and no one is any the worse for wear.

As with many things, it also depends on the audience and the type of writing.

For instance, let's look at original fiction. Here, it depends entirely upon the audience. Sometimes it can just be nice to feel like the world revolves around you for a change. Oh, sure, that's not everyone's cup of tea, but if someone doesn't want that sort of story, I would like to know when it became their business to tell other people what they should or shouldn't like to read.

In fanfiction, the line is a little clearer. More often than not, a Mary Sue in a fanfic is an original character that the author has made up and injected into the world of the story, and the lives of the characters from the source material revolve around the author's original character. In general, that's frowned upon. People are free to write it, and more power to them, but most people who seek out fanfiction are looking for the characters of the source material, not a new character they've never heard of and thus are not pre-invested in. (Especially in cases where the source characters wind up warped and twisted out of their original shape so they can accommodate the new character.)

However! I can think of fanfic right off the top of my head where the source material's main character was written as a raging Gary Stu, but the writing itself and the characterization were brilliant and I loved the fic. So it would be disingenuous to say there's no ambiguity here.

(Besides, if the author is having fun, then there’s no harm coming out of it anyway.)

There is one situation, though, where there is very little ambiguity, and that is role-playing. For those that don't know what it is (or those who are perpetually stuck in the gutter), I'm talking about a collaborative story telling game (my preferred form is text-based, but there are various types). Each person has a character (or several) and they're in charge of the thoughts, words, and actions only for the characters that belong to them.

In a role-playing game, Mary Sues are very frequently obnoxious. Because the game is collaborative, most players want to get their own time in the spotlight. Everyone wants to feel important to the story. What this means is that one player constantly trying to make the story focus around their character is going to be incredibly annoying, whether it comes in the form of constantly fixing everyone's problems, constantly being dumped on by the world, or something else. Odds are the player of a Mary Sue is either going to get a stern talking to or kicked out of the group, because no role-player wants every conflict solved immediately or for their own character's drama to be stolen or overshadowed.

However, I did say very little ambiguity, not no ambiguity. Because you know what can be fun sometimes? Complete and utter over the top, self-indulgent bullshittery where every character is equally as ludicrously special and amazing. Where nothing makes sense, nothing is remotely plausible, ‘down to earth’ is a foreign phrase, and everything is explosions, be they literal or metaphorical. Because when you get down to it, it’s about having fun. (Side note: you should all go look up The Ballad of Edgardo.)

But what about me? What do I, personally, think of Mary Sues?

Frankly, I tend to prefer more realistic characters, but I'm not going to pretend I've never read and enjoyed stories about Mary Sues. It's fun to be the center of the universe now and then.

Beyond that, I think they're a phase that every writer goes through. I certainly did. If you're a writer and you're reading this, you did, too. Every writer wants their characters to be awesome, and it can take time to refine your personal definition of awesome. Criticism and advice are fine--maybe even encouraged, depending on the writer--but being a jerk about it just makes you a hypocrite. After all, you've done it, too.

#Elsa's Talk Time #blogging #writing #mary sues

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