#i don't feel empathy.
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Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".
Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"
And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".
Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.
At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.
So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!
Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!
Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!
Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.
#hlep#original#mental health#my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need.#the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it#i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support#and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist.#the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28!#a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents.#they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of#huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the#longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong.#and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives.#you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead?#or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of.#no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow.#i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel#i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong.#just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop
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Coming to the realisation that "regular everyday people" don't question if they even have empathy and what that means.
#realising that I've never really felt empathy.#more so just known how to act. what should be said.#it's not that i don't care. i don't care. but it's more than that. i don't care in a sense i can't feel shit#but i care in a sense. i wouldn't want my girlfriend or best friend to be sad. for example.#it's more than i can explain.#if my relative died. i wouldn't feel anything. even if i was 'close' to them.#seeing my mother upset was sad. i didn't like she was upset. but i couldn't understand why she was feeling like that.#i only know by association that's how people feel towards those situations#time and time over things like it happen and part of me thinks. maybe if someone i really cared about died. i would feel that.#but would i?#someone i considered a gran. I'd known all my life. i didn't cry. never did any feeling set in.#when i passed exams. i didn't feel happiness. it was indifference#when I had my first breakup. i didn't cry. whilst my ex cried for weeks on end....#i feel shit. of course i do. but. it's more. feelings without aim? i don't know.#loneliness. depression. and all the alike if i haven't interacted with my favourite person for a day+#those are feelings. and i fucking feel them as if they've all been amplified#but do i feel love? this is my 3rd relationship. each and every time- it's like i don't have the ability to#or maybe i do. just not conventionally. maybe that's the catch.#whatever it is. I'm more and more convinced by the day. maybe there is truth in what I've been told by family and exfriends#i don't feel empathy.#I've just managed to mask my whole life...#i feel so much yet i feel so little.#vent tag
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this year my challenge for everyone is to unlearn the association between love and morality. love is not something that is inherently morally good, and the absence of love is not something that is inherently bad. sex without love isn't morally bankrupt, it's just an action. people without love aren't less kind or less good, they're just people. when we can get past this false (and often unnoticed) dichotomy of good love/evil lovelessness then i think we are going to be able to take leaps and bounds in sex positivity, aro advocacy, certain discussions of mental health...
#and also. not the direct focus. but love doesn't make things good. you can be in love and do terrible terrible things.#people do bad things in the name of love and in despite of love all the time.#but!! imagine a world where people could exist as people and not be demonized.#sex positivity means being cool about All sex. reexamine your internal systems of moral judgement.#this goes for sex workers. for aroallo people. especially aroallo men. for aro people in general who might enjoy sex.#and frankly i think it can easily bleed into discussions about mental health disorders around 'not feeling' certain things#especially demonizing ppl who don't feel as much empathy. i think there's definitely a correlation between that and the emphasis on love.#our support needs to go out to Everybody and i think these things are all structured together in one way or another!!#it might not be immediately obvious but when i tell you it all leads back to amatonormativity..... little bit wild.... large bit wild....#anyway. horror movie psychopath 'oh he can't feel emotions or love' damn alright. well. let's take a closer look at that.#silly that there's an association between lack of love and Murdering. feel like that might affect some stuff.#love is just an emotion/a feeling it doesn't mean anything about you one way or another#same with empathy. you can feel it all you want but it doesn't inherently change the actions you choose to take#anyway. thesis statement. there is a socially constructed link between love and morality. unlearn that.#kiss kiss (<— lovelessly)#aromantic#aromanticism#arospec#talking#aroace#aspec#sex positivity
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Life as a JGY stan is so hard because sometimes I want to make posts about the ways his very justified paranoia turns against him sometimes, rare moments where I think being more trusting or vulnerable would have helped but he felt like it couldnt, or talk about how his brutal survival instinct intersects with society's existing bigotries in a such a way that most of his violence is actually aimed at people lower on the ladder than him, with people like Jin Guangshan being the exception not the rule. Because he's a fascinating character and these parts of him are interesting!
But when I do that I have to live in perpetual fear of the moment that it escapes its target audience and someone takes it to go "Yeah he's a monster who fucked over everyone and is incapable of love! I wish he was killed earlier and his death was a thousand times more painful 🤪"
I mean, take my last example. Due to existing hierarchies it is, at any point, easier and safer for jgy to harm people less powerful than him instead of more powerful than him, even if the more powerful are the ones threatening his safety in the first place. Even knowing how it harms him and while working against it, Jin Guangyao is not immune to internalizing the mindset of the world he lives in. Even when killing Jin Guangshan- one man- it ends up costing the lives of 20 sex workers. You think I can bring up the sex workers in this fucking fandom? You think that will go over peacefully? The well has been so thoroughly poisoned here it feels like any conversation around morality automatically turns into a courtroom to determine a sentence for this fictional fucking character who's already dead.
#mdzs#meng yao#jin guangyao#complaining and whining about fandom#does fandom even know you can talk about morality in a way that's not adding up good person vs bad person tally points?#i think it's really fucking interesting how jgy is the person who's saved the most common people in the setting with the watchtowers#a politically unpopular move! this was a passion project he made becuase he wanted to help people!#and yet he's not afraid to take advantage of every bit of social capital he painstakingly gains to harm those below him either#i wish! that i could talk about that!#i also haaaate the 'incapable of love' thing on principle#morality is a choice! people don't need to FEEL love or empathy to not harm others#to use it as shorthand for 'evil' is reductive and fucking annoying#people hurt people they love all the time!#fandom does this in a similar way to nmj also. 'oh he can't empathise with other people' NOT THE PROBLEM. HE HAS A VERY DIFFERENT PROBLEM#what characters feel is very important to me from a 'studying blorbo' perspective but not in a debate about whether they're a good person
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You know what's interesting to me? For all people keep claiming at every juncture that perhaps Bells Hells will come around on the gods and see the harm they do (which, as discussed extensively, is, half the time, simply not intervening) not only have they never done so, but also they never quite cross the line into saying the party should join the Ruby Vanguard or aid them - and indeed, they defend against it - so what does this achieve? It feels like they're asking for a story in which the party stands idly by, which isn't much of a story nor, if I may connect this briefly to the real world, a political stance anyone should be proud of.
That's honestly the frustration with the gods and the "what if the Vanguard has a point" conversations in-game. What do we do then? Do we allow the organization that will murder anyone for pretty much any reason that loosely ties into their goals run rampant? The group that (perhaps unwittingly, but then again, Otohan's blades had that poison) disrupted magic world-wide, and caused people who had the misfortune to live at nexus points to be teleported (most, as commoners, without means of return). While also fomenting worldwide unrest?
Those were the arguments before the trip to Ruidus; with the reveal of the Vanguard's goals to invade Exandria, the situation becomes even more dire. Do you let the Imperium take over the planet?
And do the arguments against the gods even hold up? If Ludinus is so angry at them for the Calamity, what does it say that he destroyed Western Wildemount's first post-Calamity society for entirely selfish means? (What does it say about the validity of vengeance as a motivator?) What does it say that Laudna told Imogen she could always just live in a cottage quietly without issue before the solstice even happened? (Would this still be true if the Imperium controls the world?) What does it say that when faced with a furious, grieving party and the daughter she keeps telling herself was her reason for all of this, Liliana can't provide an answer to the question of what the gods have done other than that their followers will retaliate...for, you know, the Vanguard's endless list of murders. (That is how the Vanguard and Imperium tend to think, huh? "How dare your face get in the way of my boot; how dare you hit me back when I strike you.") She can't even provide a positive answer - why is Predathos better - other than "I feel it", even though Imogen and Fearne know firsthand that Predathos can provide artificial feelings of elation. Given all the harm Ludinus has done in pursuit, why isn't the conclusion "the gods should have crashed Aeor in such a way that the tech was unrecoverable?"
Even as early as the first real discussion on what the party should do, the fandom always stopped short of saying "no, Imogen's right, they should join up with the people who killed half the party," it was always "no, she didn't really mean it, she just was trying to connect with her mother." Well, she's connected with her mother, and at this point the party doesn't even care about the gods particularly (their only divinely-connected party member having died to prevent the Vanguard from killing all of them). So they will stop the Vanguard; as Ashton says, the means are unforgiveable. As Laudna says, it's not safe to bet on Predathos's apathy. As Imogen says, she's done running; the voice that she used to think of as a lifeline belongs to someone she doesn't trust. So I guess my question is: if they're stopping the people who are trying to kill the gods (and defense of the gods isn't remotely their personal motivation)...do you think the next phase of the campaign is Bells Hells personally killing the gods? Reconstructing the Aeor tech and hoping none of their allies notice? How does this end? Does your ideology ever get enacted? Or is this entirely moot and pointless and the story ends with Bells Hells saying "well, I'm really glad we stopped the people who [insert list of Vanguard atrocities from above]; none of us follow the gods or plan to, but honestly, the status quo we return to is preferable to whatever nightmare Ludinus had concocted in his violent quest for power and revenge"?
#i've got a lot to do today so I think I'm done posting but#cr spoilers#i called that this particular cohort of fans had empathy only for those like them and were terrified of player agency like. 18 mos ago#and i have never been proven wrong. zero analysis just a constant demand that everyone coddle their feelings and confirm their biases#literally will straight up fabricate lore and cry you're disrespecting a pretend person for not including it in your considerations#absolutely SHIT understanding of actual lore. utter incapacity to follow a logical throughline to its conclusion#it's like. wow. wonder why you're so focused on hypocrisy and you overreact to the word selfish#the reason they hate or fear orym (they say they don't...but that just means they want him to go to a reeducation camp instead of die)#is bc i think they are truly terrified of the idea that people can not just hold opinions that are against theirs but stand fast by them#easier to stan the villain because then they die and you can feel wronged and betrayed and wallow in a sense of continual victimhood#than to like a character who might last long enough to call you the idiot and asshole that you are#but it's also funny bc literally if orym weren't there in the latest convo the conclusion is the same.#ashton's had the same opinion of the vanguard the whole time (and it's not positive) but that's not under scrutiny#probably bc it doesn't allow people to be ghoulish in the most cringeworthy way possible
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hey guys btw there is actually never a good reason to loudly and publicly talk about how much u dislike a fanfic!! Like. let's break this down for a sec:
i don't like it
ok, understandable. i've dnf'd lots of fics because i didn't like them. but the people writing fanfiction are doing it for free and for fun, and you don't know anything about their lives. they could be a young writer just starting out! they could be an older writer getting back into writing after years of being unable to! they could be someone going through a rough patch whose only source of joy right now is writing their silly little stories! talking about how much you dislike a fanfic literally does nothing except hurt the person writing it. that's it. it is not productive, it is not necessary. even strangers on the internet deserve basic human empathy.
ok but i really don't like it
babe, i feel u! i'm a hater too. rant about it privately. shit on it in private messages or group chats with friends. u can dislike something without dragging its creator into the town square to throw tomatoes at them, yknow?
ok but i really don't like it AND it's popular
ok? shouting about that on the internet doesn't make you cool or special or unique. it just makes you kind of mean and, honestly, bitter. like i said before, this is fanfiction. nobody is paying for it. nobody is profiting. there is no standard that these writers are obligated to meet. clearly, other people like the work. why not let them enjoy it in peace?
no u don't understand it doesn't deserve to be popular there are better fics that deserve it more!!!
talk about those fics then!! post about how much u love them!! uplift those writers!! ur tweet or tiktok or tumblr post is not going to suddenly make a popular fic lose all popularity, no matter how undeserving u perceive it to be. if this is actually coming from a place of frustration because you feel like there are other fics that deserve more attention, then just give those fics attention.
no but it's problematic
mmm ok. let's sit with this one for a second. i want you to ask yourself--is it really, really problematic? is it perpetuating harm against a marginalized group? remember, this is fanfic; it is outside the consumer economy, and the stories it tells will almost never make it to a mainstream audience. so is the story actually hurting people, or is the author just exploring something that you're uncomfortable with? because if you're just uncomfortable, then assuming the work is tagged properly, the best course of action is to just click away. as uncomfortable as it may be, people are allowed to write stories that you might find upsetting or gross or weird, and those stories existing is not inherently harmful in and of itself.
it is actively reinforcing harmful stereotypes/rhetoric/etc
okay! ok. if you are deeply concerned because you feel that this fic is genuinely harmful, then go to the writer. leave a comment. send them a message on tumblr or twitter or tiktok or wherever. explain your situation and see what they say! nine times out of ten, i'd bet that an ao3 writer means no harm and would be willing to listen and address your concerns. in fact, they might even be grateful to you for being kind enough to make them aware of a problem and educate them on it. every ao3 writer i've ever spoken to is an incredibly kind and thoughtful person; you don't need to immediately go on the attack
the writer is unreachable/nonresponsive/not willing to address or change the problematic thing
alright. if you truly feel that this fanfiction is actively harmful and can't reach any kind of conclusion with the writer, and you want to warn others who might read the fic, then do that. do that. make a post that says hey guys btw, x thing in this fic is not a good representation/perpetuates a harmful stereotype/whatever the problem is. and leave it at that! you don't need to go further and insult the writing or the person who wrote it. that is helpful to exactly no one, and if your goal is actually to make the world a better place, then you should learn how to draw attention to an issue in a way that encourages actual dialogue instead of dog-piling and personal attacks.
anyway the next time you feel the desire to post about how bad you think a fic is, feel free to use this as a guide before u do! xoxo
#like i genuinely don't understand u guys sometimes#why do i keep seeing posts w hundreds or sometimes even thousands of likes#that are literally saying nothing except#i think this fic is bad and i don't like it#if someone was making cookies and handing them out for free and u didn't like them#would u go stand next to that person and shout about how shitty their baking skills are??#or would u just move tf on!!#bc they are doing something nice for free!!#and if u don't want to eat it u don't have to!!#like if u post abt disliking fics u are literally just mean#im sorry but u are just mean#and not even in a fun way#i love talking shit i love hating on things!!#i do it in PRIVATE#in PRIVATE!!!#where it's fun for me but i know it won't hurt anyone's feelings unnecessarily!!#some of u guys treat fanfiction like a product to consume and it's NOT#it's a gift!#it's a piece of art that someone is giving u!#so for the love of god stop thinking like a fucking little capitalist consumer for a moment and think like a human being w empathy!!#ranting and raving#txt
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Jaiden can recognize when someone else is playing Cucurucho. Just like the other Egg parents can differentiate when it's another admin playing their Egg, or if the Binary Monster is pretending to be their kid...
#i talk#qsmp talk#o(-(#I'm emo about Jaiden always being so kind to Cucurucho don't look at me#her empathy speaks to me I feel seen#Empathetic characters are a major weakness for me
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Y'all ever think about how Harry would describe his own skills? Since in canon, they're never referred to directly by their names. Here's some random thoughts:
Intellect
Logic: Common Sense; Puzzlehead; The One Who Draws My Conclusions
Encyclopedia: The Book Brain; The Worldy University; The Footnotes In My Mind
Rhetoric: Nuance; Goldenmouth; The One Who Speaks In Gold
Drama: The Thespian; The Muse; The Method Actor
Conceptualization: The Wordsmith; The Textured Brush; The Hand Which Writes My Poetry
Visual Calculus: The Numbers; The Calculator; The Mathematician
Psyche
Volition: The Crown; The King; The Lord Of My Impulse
Inland Empire: The Dreamer; Inland Empire; The Root Of My Psyche
Empathy: The Bleeding Heart; The Lover; The One Who Resonates With Others
Authority: The Captain; Toxic Masculinity; Make Papa Proud
Esprit de Corps: The Bröderbond; The Blue Radio Static; The Spirit Of Mine Loyalty
Suggestion: The Tempter; The Planted Seed; The One Who Plays Along
Physique
Endurance: The Heart; The Lungs; Determination Made Flesh
Pain Threshold: My Punctured Flesh; My Mental Anguish; Know Thy Limits
Physical Instrument: The Coach; The Throne; The Instrument Of My Body
Electrochemistry: The Urge; The Impulse; My Starving Dopamine Receptors
Shivers: The Beloved City; The Streets; La Revacholiere In Her Entirety
Half Light: The Fight; The Flight; The Impulse To Survive
Motorics
Hand/Eye Coordination: The Aim; The Trigger; That Which Holds My Hand Steady
Perception: My Eyes; My Nose; That Which Lets Me See The World At Its Most Fundamental
Reaction Speed: Reaction Without Thought; The Hastened Instinct; The Pen That Drops From My Desk—I Catch It Before It Falls
Savoir Faire: My Style; My Disco; That Which Guides My Feet. Savvy.
Interfacing: My Hands; My Mechanical Desires; That Which Makes Me Tinker
Composure: My Spine; My Level Head; Face It Like A Champion
The Sum Of My Parts
Ancient Reptilian Brain: The Ancient Dread
Limbic System: The Primal Instinct
#disco elysium#harry du bois#disco elysium skills#anyway this is just something i've been thinking about#do you ever wonder how harry might have explained his skills before the game#because i do#i imagine he'd make a list and it'd look something like this#the list of names and trying to determine what the actual root of the skill is#like 'my starving dopemine receptors. that which drives me to follow my impulses. what do i call you'#'aha--you are my body's sense of electrochemistry'#shivers is more like 'every time the city speaks to me it fills my body with shivers#'so i will associate that feeling with that aspect of myself'#anyway. i still don't really think he refers to these parts of himself as the actual skill names for the most part#but it's good to have a label to refer to. makes things feel neat and organized where they really aren't#btw as i come across more in-canon references/names to the skills i will change/adjust this lmao#me adding in 'bleeding heart' to empathy
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You know... it's okay to trust your body. If you are separated from your body to such an extent you feel you cannot trust it, I truly from the bottom of my heart empathize and feel grief for you, but you can trust your body.
It's okay to listen to your body and to heed what it is telling you. I wish you (and your body) well wherever you go. You deserve the peace of mind to feel able to do what you want.
#positivity#mental health#mental health support#gentle reminders#this is something i struggle with myself so that's why i said i empathize (well... i guess as much as you CAN empathize)#(because even if you have gone through the same thing... it's not going to look the same as somebody else going through that)#(and while it can be valuable to express empathy it doesn't mean you truly 'get it' from the other person's point of view)#i struggle sometimes not to feel like my body is fucking with me because sometimes i expect it to function at bare minimum#or i just assume that when it is in debilitating pain that it's just... somehow to fuck with me and i am cognizant that this isn't true#i am cognitively aware that the body isn't Specifically Designed to have a Fuck With You mode even if it feels like it#but my experiences with disabilities and general unwellness made it easy for me to alienate myself from my body#in order to preserve myself i felt the need to separate myself from every flaw (or 'flaw') i have#so when people are confused about why you could mistrust your /own body/ it's stuff like this that can somewhat illustrate it#i think we don't really talk about this but i think it's more common than i would assume#(mostly based on the There Are Eight Billion People principle)#hm making this also makes me realize that abuse absolutely plays into how i mistrust my body. hm.#mistrust in your body feels like self-protection and self-preservation in this weird and almost twisted way (at least in my experience)#but then you start mistrusting *everything* and nothing feels... GOOD or NORMAL anymore#i'm going to play mahjong about this 🫡👍
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unfinished business
#your turn to die#yttd spoilers#sou hiyori#shin tsukimi#kugie kizuchi#yeah i'll make a ghost au#i didn't have room for more dialog but i think he'd want to be called shin here#shin's my fav and i like the greenblings so much but sometimes i forget that he was kind of a cringefail brother#sou being to kanna almost like what midori was to him + kugie rubbing it in >>#but also there's no way to know what their time in ch 2 was like for sure#it's only ever others who say kanna was being used while kanna herself denies it+her whole thing is that the main cast overlooks her agency#they had normal conversations (e.g. mint choco ice cream) and kanna was more aware than she let on (e.g. knowing sou wrote the phone note)#but the one conversation we saw of them alone from sou's pov (post-nightmare to be fair) was not a good look#we just don't know how healthy their dynamic was overall!#kugie wasn't the best sister initially either so i think she's reminded of her regrets too. but the dunking comes first#sometimes you see something you hated about yourself in someone else and go hm. hate that#i think they should have ghost adventures after their initial beef though. why? bc the kanna hallucination cg is my fav and i said so#and yttd is all about feeling empathy for everyone y'know?#art
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They'd have little tea parties together 😭💞✨
#I still don't know how to feel about Nostalgia#But I still love her!#also I feel like she'd treat Empathy like her grandchild#She's a sweet old lady and I LOVE SWEET OLD LADIES 😭💞✨#inside out#inside out 2#inside out oc#inside out fandom#gacha#small creator
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the more loved i am and the more i love people on purpose, the more comfortable i get with who i am. i think this is a natural product of getting older as well, you kinda settle into your skin and figure out what you want and how to go after it. the funny part about doing this for me is that like.... i don't feel things like other people do. i just don't. i have a pathological need for attention and i don't form attachments the same way that others do and i break connections very easily and i don't feel guilty about stuff. i do recognize when i'm WRONG and i change my behavior and/or my viewpoints when they're harmful and i actively work to combat my most maladaptive bullshit, so sometimes it's like.
i dunno. the whole stereotype of the self-aggrandizing sociopath who thinks they're above everything is boring, but sometimes it feels like there's something to it. like i'll see sensationalized explanations of 'narcissism' and 'sociopathy' that are like "these people can just choose not to care about stuff," and i'm like....
....yeah??
So The Fuck Can You.
in fact, you do. CONSTANTLY. by telling yourself that the real life living breathing human being asking for change on the street is a scammer, or a predator, or unpleasant, or too sick, or too strung-out, or otherwise too Other and inhuman to help. you only reserve your so-called "intrinsic empathy" for people that you relate to, and you turn it off when it gets uncomfortable.
i know exactly where i'm spending my emotional energy and who i'm spending it on. when i don't spend my emotional energy on someone, it's not because they're an unperson to me. it's because i simply don't wanna put my emotional energy there.
you guys could learn a thing or two about doing this. like. i know why i am how i am. what the fuck is YOUR excuse????
#i had a Debilitating dissociative disorder when i was younger bc i'd partitioned off the defensive me with no empathy versus#the Good (TM) me who Cares#and the older i get the more i'm like. i don't actually need to overextend myself and pretend i feel things i dont to be a good person.#in fact i hurt a LOT of people by pretending to have more energy than i did and then letting them down when they depended upon me#i'm largely very friendly and open and excited and accommodating and that's not a LIE that really is my personality#but it's also a performance to a point. this is closer to what i sound like when i'm not trying to be likable.#idk what to tag this. low empathy people are literally fine actually.
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it's so funny (read: sad) that if bigoted fuckheads didn't insist i was a woman simply by virtue of my body at birth, i'd probably be chill with she/her pronouns in addition to he/they. if my mom didn't insist i was her daughter, i'd probably let her call me that, and we could still have a relationship.
i'm nonbinary and 'gendered' words are hypothetically meaningless, but because there are so many people who are more interested in telling me who i am rather than lovingly and curiously letting me express my own sense of self, those words carry trauma.
there's no reason a nonbinary person like myself can't be a son and a child and a daughter. there's no reason a nonbinary person like me can't go by he, they, and she.
'she' is not a slur. 'daughter' is not derogatory. 'beautiful' 'pretty' 'gorgeous' 'feminine' are not insults.
to the contrary, they're parts of language that express certain facets of a multi-faceted human existence, like mine.
and i have this sad, mournful feeling that if it weren't for unloving, condescending people, i'd probably be down to be called any of those things alongside my usual masculine/neutral terminology.
but i'd rather die than let anyone tell me what i have to be called.
#i try to reclaim 'feminine' words for myself in private#calling myself 'babygirl' when i need to chill out. or saying i feel pretty. or going 'she needs help' when i'm struggling lmao.#but there's still so much fucking trauma in those words from the people who've forced them on me#who've snarled in my face that GOD made me ONE THING and ONE THING ONLY and that's a WOMAN (stepdad)#who've guilted me for taking their precious perfect daughter away as if i'm fucking dead (mother)#who've mocked me and everyone like me as if we're not the experts on our own sense of self (general transphobic public)#like. i'm not a fucking man. i'm not a fucking woman. i'm nonbinary. gender is absurdity as a concept. i'm done with it.#but being called a man or a son or a guy or 'he' or WHATEVER in that vein is fine and dandy because i've never had anyone say#'that is all you can EVER be'. or worse: 'that is what GOD made you to be and you have a ROLE to fill'#(christianity pls die approximately yesterday thanku 💖)#so yeah. idk. ranting yet again about Cis Audacity.#the complete lack of empathy. the lack of curiosity even.#the condescending bullshit. the 'i understand you better than you do'. the fucking AUDACITY.#i am the expert on myself. i am the ONLY expert on myself. period. no contest. not a debate.#i understand myself better than anyone else is CAPABLE of understanding me.#i could call myself 'she' and understand that i meant it in a nonbinary way.#in fact i could even see myself letting other trans people call me feminine terms at some point in the future. when i've healed more.#but cis people? probably not. they can call me 'he' or 'they' or they can fuck off & never get to know me because they don't wanna know ME#/end rant#any terfs/bigots that try to touch this post will be swiftly blocked and quite possibly cursed. have the day you deserve <3
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Saying this an Elia Martell fan from what little we know of her, but I'm really sick of how fandom sees her as nothing but a perpetual victim and/or hater of Lyanna and Rhaegar. Where's fandom content of her being kind to baby Tyrion or headcanons of her plotting with Rhaegar against Aerys? Makes me wish GRRM would write more Fire and Blood books to flesh her out more outside of the "pretty victim" fanon Sansa stans want her to be.
It's actually so frustrating cause there are great conversations + theorizing that could be going on surrounding her character because we know we're going to be learning more about her in the future, but a lot of her "fans" are just stuck on using her as a prop. And honestly? That's because the more we learn about her, the more she moves away from being fandom's favorite passive self-insert character. If George has her doing anything it breaks their idea of her being the perfect victim which is what they love about her. They don't even like her character organically, they just like that it gives them a justification to hate Rhaegar and/or Lyanna. I'm personally neutral-positive about Elia, but I am very interested in learning more about her character. George has kept that portion of the story intentionally vague for a reason and I can't wait to see why.
#ask#anon#elia martell#neutral positive in that I have empathy for Elia and want to learn more about her but I can't really say I love her character#because I just don't feel like we know enough about her and I'm not a huge fan of filling the gaps in with headcanons#I'm neutral-neutral about Rhaegar because to me his actions + motivations aren't as fleshed out as Lyanna's so I can't really make#a judgement until will learn more...I'm interested in that but for now my goodwill for him comes from him and Dany being literary mirrors#I might be biased but I just feel like we have a better sense of Lyanna's character because of Arya + Ned's thoughts on her#I can theorize about her actions/reactions in a way that I can't with Rhaegar#but if you go into any of their tags it's full of people making statements as factual without anything to back it up
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I say a lot that Wash isn't empathetic when talking about people giving him Carolina's personality, but I don't think that really explains my thinking. Empathy is too vague of a concept in discussion of character.
Wash cares a lot about people. Wash cares so much it hurts. He trains the Chorusans without being asked, on his own initiative. He doesn't leave the reds and blues at the first sign of trouble. He's traumatized by violence by his own hand that he still agrees with the logic of, he remembers what he's done to people and while he doesn't regret it, it still haunts him. He doesn't want to care so bad but he does, he cares so much that violence against relative strangers hurts. Even if it was his best choice. Even if it was his only choice.
Carolina doesn't want people to know violence like she does. Carolina wants to tackle the whole world to keep it away from the ones she loves. Carolina wants to be the one to handle everything, to keep war off the doorstep.
Washington knows violence, and well. He thinks it is something that sometimes is the best option. He knows how to make the people he loves capable of protecting themselves. So he does.
Carolina is someone who wants to protect. Washington is someone who wants to teach people to protect themselves. Carolina wants to be the one to offer shelter in the rain. Washington wants to burn the fire so hot and so bright the rain evaporates before it can ever touch them, so hot it never even comes down, so bright no one could ever get lost. And he wants to teach everyone he cares for just how to do it, too.
Just in case it ever rains.
#it may seem like i went off topic immediately. but trust me. it's a hard concept to communicate.#logical 'empathy' where you care but you don't understand. you don't share it. it's hard to articulate.#it feels stupid. why do people care so much about this temporary problem? it's so obvious to you how trivial it is.#but they still care. even if you can't understand. and you care about them. so you show them how to approach it.#maybe your answer is callous. maybe it doesn't quite grasp the complexity of the situation#but it's what you know. it's what you can offer. maybe it's just inevitable that you will cause pain no matter what you do.#very autistic of him!#rvb#rvb washington#rvb carolina#nonsense thoughts
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I just want to say, that I agree with almost all of your Critical Role takes and you have 1000% better and more nuanced takes than all of Twitter and I greatly appreciate it! The takes over there regarding Liliana and the gods are just wild and you bring some much needed sanity to the content I see
Thanks! I hope you don't mind because I've been thinking about this re: the Twitter takes but the thing about Twitter and Liliana specifically that I've seen is that there's this really bizarre fetishization of like, the fact that she is a (white) southerner (this also weirdly happened for Birdie though to a much lesser extent, and the person who spearheaded that wasn't even American so I have to assume this is a specific corner of Twitter Culture At Large). And like, here's the thing. It's true that fantasy tends to be very British in its accents, and it's also true that accents in a fantasy world are used to convey the same things we'd assume in our world - RP British for educated, southern American for rural, Cockney for rougher types, etc.
It's also true that laying the exact socioeconomic parallels from our world onto, say, Liliana and Orym (who reads to me as non-regional but I, like Liam, am from the Northeast originally) is a recipe for disaster. Or rather, it's not, but it is going to reaffirm your own biases, some of which are dangerous to reaffirm.
There was a popular post on Tumblr a while back, probably not long after Trump was elected, of someone talking about how they were convincing a relative with the confederate flag towards socialism by appealing to the idea of "isn't in unfair how uneven wealth distribution is and how a small group has so much control" and a number of people were rightfully like "uh, maybe you should focus on the racism" or "hey OP ask your relative who they think that small group in control is because I'm getting a really bad feeling they're going to say it's The Jews." And I feel that a lot of the empathy for Liliana from those spaces feels like that OP. Or in other words: I get that you see your relatives in Liliana. Unfortunately, I cannot help but see me and mine in Orym.
You see someone trapped by circumstance and desperation in a dangerous ideology. I see the fact that I haven't gone to a synagogue in easily 6-7 years without there being a security guard present and usually, the doors locked with someone looking through the window to let you in, and then in the sanctuary there's been an installation so that you can quickly bar all the doors in case an alarm goes off or you hear shots in the lobby.
I think there's a great case for seeing yourself in Imogen, who is in a painful struggle with the fact that her mother does love her very much but is in dangerously deep and has done a number of incredibly terrible and harmful things. That latter point is important, incidentally; I get that cult members sometimes rise through the ranks but all but the leader are being manipulated. But the fact remains that a brainwashed person can still commit atrocities, and in this story, they have, many times over. It's especially true because like...sure, plenty of people are like "I lost my relative to a cult and I just want them back and I couldn't harm them," but also, as we've seen, this cult can and will harm Imogen! Plenty of people are also like "yeah I gotta cut them off, it hurts but unfortunately my horribly bigoted and violent relative, while a victim of brainwashing, is a threat to me too." It's not even the full picture of the Temult side of things, let alone the picture that includes the Vanguard's victims.
I also think the Southern gatekeeping is unhinged because it's like. guys there's QAnon members and other cults across the country; the Confederate flag example above was actually notable in that OP wasn't even Southern so you couldn't even write the flag off as deeply misguided heritage but rather was explicitly being used as a hate symbol. It's awfully presumptive to assume all southerners have the same experience (especially since the Temults are portrayed, physically and in accents, as white southerners, not that the experiences of white southerners aren't also incredibly varied). It's awfully presumptive to assume that people find Liliana threatening because they have no personal experience with people like her; often, it's because they have all too real experience with people like her, and it says something even worse about you if you can say "but you guys, I see me and my family in Liliana" when people are telling you that they see them and their families in Orym. I would not, personally, publicly admit that one's empathy extends to the people who remind you of your family but runs out before it reaches their victims. Nor would I publicly admit that I assume everyone who disagrees with me clearly has never had personal experience with this topic.
I should also note that, as I've noted a number of times before, that these are fictional characters and not real people. Twitter seems to be really fucking bad at grasping that. Like, yes, this is the other thing; I do not think that OP should kill their Confederate flag-toting relative, whereas if Imogen did so to Liliana I'd be like "hell yeah." The former is a real person who I do hope gets deprogrammed, just, you know, maybe adjust those priorities; the latter is a fictional character in a story.
#answered#anonymous#if steel had a southern accent do you think people would feel differently about her? sound off in the comments i guess.#cr spoilers#it really is like. with the people who can't separate characters from real people...there's this assumption#that everyone who doesn't agree with them lacks the same experiences or is bigoted#don't like liliana? well it's because you're not southern. don't like laudna? it's because you're neurotypical and straight and hate women.#notice how none of these carry within them any argument within the text? notice how they just rely on the assumption#that you can only understand things through direct personal experience and not like...thought and empathy?#that if you fit certain demographics you obviously Will hold these exact opinions bc clearly all nd people or wlw are a monolith?#it's like. yeah man i see why you have more sympathy for the vanguard than their victims...you think like a cultist even if you're not one#you say There's Those Who Understand And Have The Mandate of Heaven Because We're (southern or nd or queer or whatever)#and then there's Them The Ones Who Don't Get It And Never Will Bc They're Not Like Us (even though plenty of times...they are)#anyway. as always i am sorry that twitter sucking hurts the careers of countless creatives#but i think it does foster this sort of no-nuance no-argument Me First thinking so. can't be too sorry.#long post
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