God I hate this kind of comment on my posts that are specificity pro aging and/or talking about having appropriate friendships with people who are much older or younger than yourself.

Like, I’m not calling anyone out here or anything it’s just really sad when someone says this kind of thing because they’ve so massively missed the point. And when you miss a point like this, it’s not doing yourself any favors.

We can all agree that very few binaries exist in life, yes? Well kiddies, I wish that someone had told me much sooner that “friends own age = good. friends older = bad.” is no exception. It’s nonsense. There are terrible people your own age who will make terrible friends. And having APPROPRIATE friendships with someone 10, 20, 50 years older than yourself can enrich your life enormously.

Sure friendships with someone who is much your elder won’t look the same as the friendships you share w/ a bestie you met in kindergarten but they can and do exist in healthy ways. I’m glad I eventually got this. Someone 25 years older than me shared personal stories with me that changed my life and encouraged me to really interrogate about if parenting was for me. Someone 30 years older than me gave me great advice I use at work literally every day. I help a friend over 80 with stuff around her house whenever I can because she used to give me rides to all kinds of activities and stuff as a kid when my parents couldn’t. In each of those cases, my life and their lives are better off because we are friends.

Damn am I ever proud and encouraged that kids these days are wary of inappropriate age gaps. They should be. Boundaries between adults and adolescents are extremely EXTREMELY important. Aaaaaaaaand it’s not only possible but HELPFUL to build friendships with people who are older/younger than you. Friendships take different forms and you’ll miss out on a ton of support and wisdom and connection if you walk around thinking every 40 year old is always inherently a threat to you.

As someone with just a very minor background in the legal field, it’s kind of annoying seeing all these people say that because Taylor hasn’t really said anything about this whole situation, that means she isn’t doing anything and doesn’t care. To start off, I am not blanket defending her. Maybe the rumors are true and she really is just a capitalist who is in it for the money. But this is kind of a big deal. This isn’t some small scandal that she can frown at and move on from. If there’s any overlap between the swifties and the tryceratops, the Try Guys had somewhat of a minor scandal in the grand scheme of things. They run a pretty small company, and this scandal only really affected their company, their friends, and their family. And yet they couldn’t talk about it for over a month. And what they did say was slim and then they could release more and even now they haven’t shared the full story. Why? Legal reasons. There are legal ramifications from just spilling the tea on shit and going off on someone on social media. ESPECIALLY when that “someone” is a major corporation like Ticketmaster. I’m not entirely happy that her only post about it was from a temporary IG story, but don’t consider her silence as carelessness. If she is in the process of doing something (and I do say IF because we really don’t know anything), then she can’t ruin that process with an angry Twitter thread. This shit takes time. Ticketmaster has been in control for DECADES. It’s been less than a week. If something is going to happen, it’s going to be a while. Longer than you might like, but that’s how the law goes. Paciencia y fe. You need to calm down. Thank you.

simply being horny about people is not boundary-crossing or sex pest behavior, but also feeling guilty about it doesn't mean you're infantile or sheltered or puritanical or whatever. we live in a culture that is very weird about sex, simultaneously telling people that sexual desire is wrong while also being abysmal about normalizing crossing sexual boundaries, so I deeply sympathize if you struggle with feeling like you're doing something wrong if you fantasize about real people. it is, however, sex pest behavior to ask random people without prompting if you have their "consent" to fantasize about them or use their photos as masturbation material. do not fucking do that.

anyway literally everyone is going through something all the time!!! everyone is wounded!!! everyone is human & no one makes it out of this life unscathed!! maybe try approaching people in good faith instead of always defaulting to the worst possible interpretations of each other

you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.

(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)

but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.

(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)

there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.

(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)

you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.

(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)

you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.

in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.

but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.

they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.

it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.

Asterism book cover

WAIT I WANNA BRING UP ANOTHER THING ABOUT HOW BULLYING IS ADDRESSED IN NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE. one thing I really liked about how Max is shown as a bully is his talk with Pete at the Pasqualli's parking lot. When Pete tries to stand up to Max, Max pushes him down and emphasizes that Pete isn't a loser because of his own qualities - rather, Pete is a loser because Max simply said so.

Of course we can attribute this to Max's god complex but I think that this point in particular is less than often really brought up in teen-centered media featuring bullying: that bullying exists not because of nerdy behavior or whatever the fuck, but because bullies will it into being. And to have a BULLY of all people say that out loud - to have the main villain point out the root of their behavior without showing any kind of shame whatsoever - showcases just how much of a menace Max is.

Can I appreciate the anti-racism message of a show AND the beauty of the actors??

Thank you.

y'all need to get a grip. you blab all day about how much you hate bigots and hateful people and how evil it is to dehumanize anyone and then you turn around and say "kys" and "i think [x] should all just kill themselves" and other disgusting, violent and childish trash

so many people on here are just full of hatred and vitriol and turn into frenzied sharks anytime the target 'deserves it' and they think they can get away with it and not be called bad people. then they whine about how sad it is that we can't all just get along and if only all the evil people in the world would stop doing evil things wouldn't that be nicer

you're just as vicious, hypocritical and fanatically puritanical as the caricature you have made in your minds of the people you think you have nothing in common with. if you've ever told someone, ANYONE to kill themselves you're not advocates of justice, you're not artisans of peace, and you certainly don't have any moral high ground that would allow you to pass judgment on others

It can be helpful to understand some things we think are normal are not normal, particularly when we’re unpacking toxic stuff from childhood.

But something being “normal” doesn’t make it inherently good. Lots of normalized parts of life are fucked up.

Just don’t confuse “common” with moral or acceptable.

There's something about reading really great writing that's so relaxing. You can just sit back and let the words wash over you, knowing that you can trust the writer.

Seeing as the Gerudo turned on Ganon, he might not have been that much better of a ruler.

First of all, we literally have no idea, because the only ancient Gerudo that we actually get to interact with is Ganondorf himself, and he has nothing to say about his own people. The ancient Gerudo sage doesn't count btw, she doesn't have a name, we never even see her face, and she has literally nothing to say except repeating the exact same dialogue as the sages for the other races. The narrative does not treat the ancient sages as people; they are four completely interchangable weapons that are owned by the royal family.

And secondly, I don't care how Ganon ruled them; the Gerudo only get one man every century, if their king sucks, they've obviously got their own system of government to fall back on. I have no idea what kind of authority the sages had among their own people, but honestly I'd say if the four of them were in charge of their respective people, then they were just puppet rulers appointed by Rauru, given that all four of them happily agreed that to sell their entire race into servitude the second Zelda asked them. Say what you will about Ganondorf, but I fucking know that if he was told the Gerudo people existed for the sole purpose of serving the glory of Hyrule, he'd drop kick Zelda into the fucking sun.

And don't get me started on the implications of the cultural differences we see between the independent Gerudo and the annexed Gerudo. The background Gerudo characters all have their own models, and we can clearly see that the ones siding with Ganon have their own unique looks - for example, the amazing lady with the mohawk that summons the molduga swarm in that one flashback. And men are never mentioned in these flashbacks at all, which implies that the Gerudo genuinely didn't care about settling down. Ganon even speaks derisively about marriage, implying that it's very rare for Gerudo women to make serious romantic commitments with men. It implies that their culture is more along the same line as their portrayal in OOT - they are a closed culture. Men trying to force their way into their areas are arrested, and mocked for being entitled dumbasses. Outsiders are only welcome if they can prove that they respect the Gerudo as people, and aren't just there to try and pick up chicks. It's never outright said, but OOT also makes it pretty clear that the Gerudo women just aren't interested in marrying outsiders - close relationships occur with other Gerudo, Hylian men are only considered useful for making babies.

Meanwhile the Gerudo we see serving Hyrule are all trying to measure up to Hylian beauty standards, and appeal to their men. Their one goal in life is to meet a man and get married. Men are welcome in their lands, and only kept out of the town itself... and even then, there's a small army of guys trying to force their way into the town anyways, which is brushed off as just haha, boys will be boys. No men allowed isn't even about independence, it's just a silly romantic tradition.

Of course this is just a fictional culture in a game world, but it's still really fucking uncomfortable that the 'evil' Gerudo are the ones that have independence, both politically and socially, and display a unique culture that refuses to tolerate disrespect from outsiders. Meanwhile the 'good' Gerudo are the ones that canonically exist to serve a kingdom where 95% of the population is light skinned (even setting aside the unfortunate implications, just saying one race exists to serve a different one is super fucked up), they have classes on how to be more appealing to Hylian's, and their entire social structure is built around finding a Hylian man to marry, making them all inherently dependent on the goodwill of outsiders. Even their biggest value of 'women only' is treated as a joke; men trying to trespass in BOTW are just shoved back out the door, letting them keep trying all day if they want. The crowds of men plotting to force their way in are laughed off as a joke. Nobody cares that there's a guy running laps around their city walls and trying to trick women into being alone with him. I mean for fucks sake, in TOTK we find that the creepy guy trying to lure women away has taken advantage of a massive disaster to get into the town, and he's still there once things return to normal. You can't kick him out, or alert anyone to his presence. And the Gerudo just tolerate Hylians blatantly ignoring their boundaries. For fucks sake, TOTK even reveals that the seven legendary heroines they've been revering the whole time were actually completely useless and unable to achieve anything... because they needed the eighth hero, a Hylian man to teach them basic tactics and do all the heavy lifting.

TOTK does not respect the Gerudo people in the slightest. It doesn't respect anyone who isn't Hylian or Zonai.

...This got a little off track, but the point I'm trying to make is, no, I don't consider the Gerudo turning on Ganon to mean anything. The entire game does not feel like the real story of what happened, it feels like the propaganda version of history meant to make Hyrule look as good as possible. I genuinely cannot believe that we're being told the real story about the Imprisoning War, because none of it feels real, and we don't get to know any details that might have made Hyrule look even slightly imperfect. We're told that Ganondorf is evil because he hates Hyrule, and he hates Hyrule because he's evil. The Gerudo people followed Ganondorf and saw him as a hero of their people, then suddenly he was their worst enemy. Hyrule is a perfect kingdom that has strong, equal alliances with the other races, but also all of the non-Hylian races exist for the sole purpose of serving Hyrule, and their leaders are expected to swear eternal loyalty and submission to the Hylian royal family. King Rauru and Queen Sonia united all of the races in peace and equality, which is why they're sitting on the world's supply of magical nuclear missiles, and every member of the Hylian royal family is allowed to walk around wearing them as cute accessories, but everyone else only gets them at the last second, and they all need to outright swear to only use that power to benefit Rauru and his descendants.

There's just so many fucked up contradictions, and so many hints of something more nuanced going on... but the story refuses to acknowledge any of it, and just keeps aggressively pushing the narrative that Hyrule is the ultimate good and couldn't possibly do anything wrong. I don't even believe that Ganon was a bad king honestly; we never hear why his people stopped following him. We also never even see if the Gerudo people turned on him at all; all we know is the ancient Gerudo sage wanted him dead, and given that she also happily sold her people into slavery, she's not exactly the most trustworthy source of information. All we know is that Ganondorf was a hero to his people, only one of his citizens is ever shown having an issue with him (and her motives are never explained), and then he lost the war and was sealed away, leaving his people open to be conquered by Zelda and annexed into Hyrule. By the time we see any Gerudo actually opposing Ganon (apart from the ancient sage), it's been ten thousand years since the war, and all anyone knows is the Hylian version of the story.

so i've been thinking about this premise for so long but it wasn't working for obikin (which of course i took as a challenge) and i think i finally got it where i want it so

au where 35 yo obi-wan is a music sensation across the world but he's recently divorced and going on tour again after releasing a very cutting, personal, and well-received album

and 19 yo anakin joins his tour with his very small band of two other people (ahsoka, padmé) to be his opening act - they have a small but loyal following, a pretty big social media presence, and there are even people who ship anakin and padmé which you know means these are die-hard fans

anakin has definitely looked up to obi-wan and his music for a good portion of his life and he's like. beyond excited that he's going to tour with The Obi-Wan Kenobi - this is big, not just for his music career but also for himself and the little boy he was listening to obi-wan's music for the first time!!

i'm just imagining like....obi-wan and anakin meeting after a few days of rehearsal for opening night, and it's not the most auspicious start because obi-wan's going through like 20 different emotions at any given moment (he's on tour, he's divorced, he's tired, he loves the music, he can't be the person he was in his twenties when he was first on tour but that's a whole different matter, he has all the media training and charismatic instinct to cover up these less than savory emotions with flirtatious empty words) and anakin is just like. sorta starstruck sorta shy sorta eager sorta awkward so:

"i'm uh, i'm a singer it's nice to meet you. hi yeah. hello. i'm on tour. as well. with you. actually." "ah no, are you one of my backing vocal artists? we can't have that - you're much too gorgeous and my ego is much too dependent on the audience focusing on me." "um 😳"

so it's a relationship that begins with a lot of flirting and being flustered and progresses through moments of vulnerability and honest emotion which turns into mutual affection which turns into anakin's celebrity crush becoming very real....meanwhile obi-wan googled anakin and the opening band after the first show/introduction and finds all the stuff about him and padmé being together and that's. that's fine. young love. how sweet. any sort of disappointment obi-wan feels is because he's recently divorced and bitter about it and he's going to have to spend at least half his tour watching the lovebirds snuggling up together.

and even when all the misunderstandings about relationship statuses have been addressed and the pretense has fallen away to leave just attraction, both have to think about their careers - it's all well and good for obi-wan to date someone sixteen years his junior, post divorce, but that's an image he's never wanted to deal with or be associated with. and this is the biggest shot of anakin's career - his best chance to make it in the music industry. in the words of his bandmate, is he really, honestly thinking about risking it for a chance to sleep with The Obi-Wan Kenobi?

but what his bandmate doesn't seem to really understand is that for anakin, obi-wan hasn't been The Obi-Wan Kenobi in a long time. he's just been obi-wan. and that makes a world of difference.

Killua: “I just want to be a kid and have a friend my own age who’s nice and do normal things like hanging out with them” :(

Killua: *befriends the least normal 12-year-old known to man*

"After all, you're my only friend. And you are no less important than anyone, do you understand?"

love for love’s sake carefully, and beautifully handled mental health. they didn’t sugar coat the depression myungha and yeowoon were experiencing.

a lot of times in bl we see characters going through hardships, but by the magic of love they’re better again or everything gets fixed. external love definitely plays a huge part in healing and being able to get through hard situations more swiftly, but it’s hardly ever the sole solution.

myungha getting a bf didn’t cure him, gaining friends didn’t cure him. he had two guys wrapped around his finger, his grandma was alive yet he still has low self worth. he’s someone that has been depressed for so long, has had deeply ingrained negative beliefs about himself that have kept him from ever being truly happy. he believes that nobody could ever love him, he can’t bother anybody with his problems because he’s a burden.

this is why depressed people isolate, they believe all of the things the depression is telling them and it is incredibly difficult to change that. it can take years to change the way you percieve yourself and the world, i think the buffs were the blockages in myungha’s perception. when yeowoon said “i love you” to him, there was an error message because deep in his soul he believes that as an impossibility. his buffs were because of his attempts to getting close to yeowoon, he saw it as a danger because getting close would mean that he would burden yeowoon.

myungha’s life was so so sad, poor guy was dealt such bad cards. his mom living happily without him as if he never existed served as proof of the negative things he’s been telling himself. realizing that you’re nothing to no one, that you’re hard to love or you’re too much is such a hard pill to swallow. it might not be objectively true, but if your mind believes it, then that’s all it takes to completely break your spirit. myungha kills himself because he sees no reason for his life, his mom abandoned him, his gf broke up with him, and his grandmother is dead. his reason for life is reliant on other people it isn’t an internal reason.

now when he’s in the game, he’s faced with the choice of who he loves more, yeowoon or his grandma. i think that they decide to make him choose between them because he can’t fathom receiving love from two people at once. it’s overwhelming, and terrifying for someone that has had limited quantities of love his whole life. his love for yeowoon is the truest love he’s ever felt besides his grandmother. yeowoon and myungha are equals, share a lot of similar life experiences, yeowoon opens up his heart and is ready to be there for him unconditionally. even when myungha refuses to share what he’s feeling, when he is actively breaking his heart, he is willing to change whatever it takes just to be around him. having someone show you that unconditional love is both incredible and so scary at the same time. that person is seeing you at your most vulnerable, at your worst and still choosing you.

myungha is used to self-abandonment, it’s all he knows. he felt like choosing yeowoon would mean choosing himself, and in turn would mean he is selfish and leaving is grandmother to die. if he chose his grandmother he would stick to his usual self, but yeowoon would possibly go back to how he was in the beginning and die. to him everything seems like a huge risk because he feels the weight of the world on his shoulders. of course in the game that really was the consequence, choose one life over another. but i think this show really did a great job at showing just how impossible choices can be when you’re depressed, how warped your point of view gets. but i couldn’t help to think what would’ve happened if he had chosen himself, maybe that’s what he was supposed to do.