you kiss your sister on the mouth?

Hey! I recently read your post on, ahem, 'Female Characters in BSD And Their Portrayals' (to paraphrase)

I thought it was really interesting actually!! Thank you for writing that!

Another point is how Yosano's quirk had gotten sexualized in the anime, whilst in the manga, it's much more eery? That was weird.

I had a question: How Is Dazai Sexist?

Not in a 'pRoVE iT to ME!!' manner, but a, 'i can genuinely see that and I'm curious about your perspective' manner!

I read No Longer Human about, two months ago? And Dazai Osamu, the author, had a niche perspective on women, I suppose. He humanized them, but also dismissed them, but also heavily related to them? Of course, with historical context it's probably the average view of the time.

But I'm genuinely curious!!

My “Female Characters in BSD And Their Portrayals”

Thank you for giving the post a read! I was low-key nervous when I posted it, I don't really like being the killjoy, so I found people's positive responses to it very reassuring (╥﹏╥)

About Yosano's ability being sexualized in the anime. I know right,,,, it's part of the bigger picture issue, it's nearly impossible to find anime without fanservice. The difference in female portrayal between the bsd manga and anime is actually something very interesting to ponder on, because they're actually quite different: the manga is sexist, but it never visually sexualizes its female character (the Gaiden manga being an exception). The anime is more low-key in the blatant sexism, but there's female fanservice that the manga lacks that... Idk feels almost a given at this point, like animation studios just CAN'T not do it (I don't even know what to say? Something something *through gritted tits* 57th prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe). On a different note, this ask came as some sort of epiphany for me because it made me realize that the reason there's so many people missing on the sexism in bsd which leaves me so often baffled is because people probably reason fanservice = sexism → lack of fanservice = lack of sexism, but it really doesn't have to work that way? Of course fanservice is for the vast majority sexist because more often than not it comes with the objectification of female body, but I wouldn't say there's a direct correlation between the two things: I hope I was exhaustive enough on why bsd is sexist although it never sexualizes its female characters, and I think same can be said for the other way round? Kill la Kill is my favorite anime of them all and the most female empowering anime (and overall media??? Idk I love klk with everything I've got) I've ever seen, but it'd definitely be a wide stretch to say it lacks fanservice.

On why I said Dazai is sexist: for one, I trust Chuuya's word

This is a joke, but funny enough, that's exactly the panel I was thinking about when writing the post– I was negatively surprised by how a main character could reportedly be called womanizer, and that is just kind of there, like being sexist was just another weird little characteristic of bandage man, nothing strange there. You see the problem here?

I remember when I watched the bsd anime for the first time, I used to think Dazai was sexist a lot– but in retrospect, I don't have that much a strong opinion on the matter anymore. When I watched it, it would bother me how Dazai would objectify women a lot, using them as mindless pawns even more of how he already does with every character he encounters; it would bother me how he's so fixated on committing a double suicide with a beautiful woman, like... You do realize that is wishing for another person, and that person needing to be a woman specifically, to die, right? Not to mention the “beautiful” part only adds to the objectification if you ask me. But all taken into account, I don't feel for it as strongly as I used to– don't get me wrong, it's still disturbing, but I don't think it's an issue of Dazai specifically as much of the work in its entirety having a fucked up view of women. It hit me today rewatching the bit at the end of episode 5, Dazai explaining Ranpo's deductions to Atsushi: “she wasn't dressed for work, she had no make-up on”. Now, if you say anything like this to me irl, I WILL punch you in the face. But can you sense how it doesn't really come from Dazai in particular and is more expression of an overall worldview of women that necessary transpires through the characters, an underlying pattern I couldn't really perceive on my first time watching the anime? So, I feel like it's less of a case of “Dazai being sexist” than it is of “Dazai is a character with a lot of lines in a fundamentally sexist franchise”. The point isn't about Dazai's being sexist, because ALL the characters are in a way or the other, but about the author writing them as such; that's what I meant by saying “Dazai is openly sexist and it’s just kind of there never to be addressed”– he's reportedly sexist IN CANON, the thing is it's never portrayed as something strange or worth to be addressed.

january 8, 2023 - new year; new problems

soooooo,,,,, past blog entry did not AGE well... here’s the thing, i’m writing this as i am currently experiencing a pregnancy scare. NOW, now, NOWWW..... i get what you’re thinking, “yo, what the fuck?”, look i can explain. alot has happened the past 2 months that i was QUIET on here, and i did not tell my friends neither have i told YOU anything... so here’s what happend:

november: - i lost my idgaf war, i was hung up on the same guy that i was talking about from my past blog

- i was soooooo hung up and i wanted to move past this attachment that i reinstalled the same dating app where i met him. have i told yall that i’m still in contact with him the entire time? except he was so full of bullshit and i was tolerating that because,,, well... i’M DUMB!

- ENTER the guy who i knew from twitter. he is very funny and im a fan of him and we matched on the app, anyways it was a short encounter. i was intimidated by him because i felt like i didnt pass his vibe check. i wanted to be his friend because he is very funny and cool so like, i was very devastated when the last message in our conversation was me and he just liked my text. (mind you, we had a long conversation, i’m just anxious because hes very cool so i just straight up dipped out of slightly “out of vibes” reaction which is liking the message)

- friend saw me on the dating app and announced it while we were drinking, i was embarrassed so i deleted the app

- guy from twitter had a hit tweet, i replied as a joke, i thought he wouldnt recognize me anyways he dmed me and asked me why i left the app SO I WAS SURPRISED BECAUSE HE NOTICED !!! my ego skyrocketed like crazy. i forgot to let you know guy on twitter is well known, basically a micro internet niche celebrity idk

- i am now talking to 2 men at once: guy from my elementary school & guy from twitter. anyways, fast forward to whatever the fuck was going on, guy from elementary was slowly losing interest or whatever, we were still sexual but our conversation started limiting to just sex and it was starting to get tiring but im still hooked up for his attention and everything and im so so so stupid compared to guy from twitter whos very decent to talk to 

- i ended up planning to see guy from twitter AND guy from elementary. except the latter never went with his words and boy oh boy the former did

SOOOOOO...............

december:

- im still HUNG UP ON HIM HE ENDED THINGS ON MY BIRTHDAY I WAS SO FUCKING BGSHHGBSHDGBSHFBSHDF SO SO SO 1!!!!! upset and sad and yea wtf was that he never let me speak about it he just apologized and said happy birthday and IM SO FUCKING SAD AND BROKENHEAWRTED I WAS DRUNK ON MY BDAY 

- anyways still hung up on him i lost my virginity to guy from twitter and that was the biggest plot twist because out of everyone i didnt think i would be hooking up with him especially when i used to just see him have hit posts all the time on the tl (if u want tmi he is very good in bed i orgasmed lots)

- still in contact with guy from twitter hes ok we r friends hes cool hes nice i do not feel any attachment towards him idk where that attached virgin stereotype came from 

- found out guy from elementary went back to his ex before december ended and i was so annoyed and pissed because he couldve just told me instead of leaving me hanging and not letting me speak jfc 

anyways i think i left a few details here and there and now, i am typing this, days before my supposed period, it’s the 21st day of my cycle and i am INCREDIBLY ANXIOUS because i just realized i had sex BEFORE MY OVULATION and now i could not stop hitting myself with my pillow and praying to the lord BECAUSE I HAVE SO SO SO MANY PLANS AND SO MUCH DREAMS THAT I NEED TO REACH!!!!!! like it’s so embarrassing already to just lose your virginity at 23 WHAT’S MORE EMBARRASSING IS GETTING PREGNANT AT THE FIRST TIME!!!! i do not want that neither do i want to mother a child that’s goinna turn out of a mess just like i am!!! on god please for the love oF GOD GIVE ME MY PERIOD I AM SO STRESSED I CANT HANDLE THIS ANYMORE I HAVE A CAREER THAT I’VE BEEN FOCUSING ON LATELY 

ok that’s it

sincerely,

me

I spent a month reading harry potter fanfics and here’s what I learned

So for the past three and a half weeks, I’ve been doing basically nothing but reading Harry Potter fanfics and now I kind of just want to talk about them. No one cares but future me will! I tend to get caught in obsessions fairly easily (for instance, two months ago was comic books and last month was video editing and then k dramas). I’m feeling like my Harry Potter obsession is fading which makes me really sad cause it was a fun ride. I went from Drarry to Hinny, time travel to alternate realities, obscuris Harry to Dark!Harry, MCU AUs to Doctor Who AUs. I must’ve read more than 50 fics.

I’ve learned that I hate Dumbledore

Snape makes for a great mentor but I will only like him with proper character development

also where did Snape being Draco’s godfather come from? I don’t think this was in the books? I’m not angry, just confused

I read a fic that was so sad that I was physically unable to finish reading it -- actually I read two of those, one of them was a DID fic and the other Voldemort adopted Harry

the Voldemort one is quite possibly the most tragic thing I have ever read and even though it’s been two weeks I still haven’t been able to recover -- I was only halfway finished too GOOD LORD

another fic I read that was so fucking depressing was a time loop situation where Harry literally couldn’t get out of and it ended tragically

obscuris Harry is interesting but I really only like the ones where Newt is actually involved but I couldn’t find any finished ones

I don’t like it when Harry’s appearance changes, it throws me for a loop

there was this one where Harry got sent back in time and his figure got disfigured and so he didn’t even appear like himself anymore

I just find it odd for Harry Potter not to look like Harry Potter, idk

I also have a headcanon that his hair is very curly rather than shaggy

I haven’t been able to find a fic where Harry goes back in time to the Marauders era and has the right amount of angst but the right amount of fluff

I’ve read some good ones where the Marauders travel to Harry’s time but like,,, it isn’t quite what I’m looking for? I’m gonna have to write it, aren’t I? 

this doesn’t happen with irondad fics, literally everything you’ve ever wanted you can find it there

I read one where Harry did go back in time but she (fem!Harry) didn’t really interact with her parents or the Marauders that much, she became friends with Regulus instead

Regulus should’ve been in Gryffindor

I’ve not only read fics where Draco has been a Ravenclaw, Slytherin, but also a Gryffindor. I haven’t found one where he’s in Hufflepuff

I’ve read fics where Harry’s in every single house - the Ravenclaw one might be my favorite so far, it had to do with him going to a different timeline where there’s another Harry and he’s a major dick

Hufflepuff Harry one was funny, but it got distressing cause Dumbledore didn’t trust him and tried to get him expelled

actually the Hufflepuff one made my heart hurt cause Harry was put in the body of a Harry who isn’t the boy who lived and barely spoke and was basically like an even more traumatized Neville

Slytherin Harry is everything to me and he should’ve been in Slytherin

Ravenclaw Draco is something that can be so personal

I’m tired of reading Year One fics, I get it, there’s a stone, let’s move on

Year Four fics are my favorite however, there was one (which is my favorite) where Harry’s a necromancer and in the graveyard scene he calls corpses from the graves alive to help him get out of there it was so cool

I am partial to Harry/Draco but Harry/Luna is cute

there was a Pokemon Harry/Luna one that’s adorable and I’ve read it twice already

I like when there’s a ton of lore involved

especially Hogwarts lessons - like ancient runes can fucking get it, I love runes fics

there was an MCU AU one where I read Harry didn’t have his magic anymore, not as potent as it was, but he did have ancient runes

LISTEN I tried to get into Dark!Harry but after that Voldemort adoption one I can’t do it anymore, I will start crying literally right now -- he just wants to be fucking useful! He just wants to be loved! Is that too much to fucking ask for? 

however Harry doing dark!magic but isn’t actually on the dark side is cool

Death Eater Spy Draco! It makes me distressed but also I am so here for it!

Jenkins if you’re out there I love you (if you get this reference I love you)

I read a ton of Avengers adopt Harry when he’s younger but I don’t care for younger Harry fics, I prefer when he’s a teenager and I don’t have to read the first few years at Hogwarts, it can get repetitive

Give me all the angst with Harry being a horcrux please, I’m living for the drama

Lily is not a fan favorite weirdly enough, when the Marauders are in fics she’s usually not there which is unfortunate because I just really want a good Harry/Lily bonding moment

one of the saddest fics I read was where harry, luna, hermione and neville find themselves in an alternate dimension where Lily and Remus are married and alive, James is a dick but has other kids, and every single person that had died in their world is alive

I don’t like it when there’s Ron bashing, he’s one of my favorites, but if I have to, I’ll read some of them

there was this Sherlock fic (listen, I went in fucking deep, it’s been a weird month) where fem!Harry is on the run from the Ministry because I don’t actually understand and Ron and everyone is out for blood for her

Eleventh Doctor/Harry is a pairing I was not aware of but I actually kind of love?

Master of Death Harry is fucking OP and I love him for that

mcu aus is something I never knew I needed

Holly Potter and the Midlife Crisis is fucking everything

So is On Punching Gods and Absentee Dads, I realized it was the same author when I read in the author notes that the author was going to some volcano convention thing and I was like this is way too niche for it to be a coincidence

I’ve read Tony is Harry’s dad, Loki is Harry’s dad, Harry is just weird friends with Thor, ones where Natasha is Harry’s aunt

listen everyone is related to this boy

I will not read a fic if it doesn’t involve Harry, he’s my boy, he’s my love, I care only about him and him only I’m so sorry

you know that meme where people say nobody’s favorite character is harry potter, the titular character? Well meet me! He’s my favorite!

in battle of hogwarts fics, Remus almost always dies. Why is that? Why do you guys hate him so much? It’s always half and half for Fred, I never know if he’s going to live or not

In all of the good fics I’ve read I saw in the collections area of ao3 the same collection and I was like! You get me! 

if it says Gammily’s Bookshelf on the fic, it’s gonna be a really fucking great fic let me just tell you that right now

Parseltongue gets me so riled up, I fucking love Parseltongue, it’s so cool

there’s a reason I usually filter out non/c*n but I decided to let it flow and I ran into a few that fucking d e s t r o y e d me why do you guys read shit like this, it broke my heart

that being said I read one that was really nuanced and actually really good but it’ll never be finished and I’m very mad about that

Either we have a better understanding of how goblins could be utilized  than JKR or we’re just ignorant of how powerful they can be

weird coincidence that I’ve read two completely different fics where Harry thought having a threesome meant kissing three different people

Dumbledore’s a bitch and I hate him, every fic I’ve read so far agrees with me

there is a person out there that is CARRYING the bucky barnes/harry potter pairing on their back and I hope whoever that is knows how much I appreciate them

remind me never to click on a fic that hasn’t been updated since 2015 ever again, C’est La Vie I will miss you so

this is just a fucking quarter of the harry potter fics I’ve read but thanks for reading if you did, let me know if you want to know some of the titles

I haven’t thought about Vampire Academy in a long long time, but as it was the first book series I ever really connected outside of the childhood classics and I adored it once upon a time (HP, Narnia etc.)... I feel obligated to speak...

I’ve never watched TVD nor do I know what Julie Plec did but I see an overwhelming amount of horror at her being the show runner...

That’s fun to know

To be fair, Richelle Mead did let the travesty that was the VA movie be produced... so she’s known for her poor choices... but again I withhold judgement on Julie bc idk her work...

And yes I watched the VA movie. Funnily enough I accidentally spoiled the absolute bizarre ending by walking into the theatre before the previous session was done and got an out of context Sonya Karp looking to other Strigoi like they were boutta storm the academy like it wasn’t something that was meant to happen 2 books later...

I hated the movie

Putting aside the weird comedic tone that, while VA was quite funny, it was not Mean Girls funny and unfortunately the directors who did Mean Girls let that leak into the story...

Rose and Christian being weirdly friendly and HUGGING

That is once again non-canonical until at least book 3

Lisa’s weird British accent and she kept saying fornicating like what for??? Aren’t they all American teens???

I didn’t mind that they got a Russian actor who looked mostly the part. Dude was beefy tho. Also Zoey Deutsch while quirky wasn’t quite the vibe of Rose Hathaway...

Basically all this to say, the VA movie actively turned me off of reading VA again after that... I mean there were other extenuating circumstances like my exams, but to this day I haven’t even finished the Bloodlines/Golden Lily series with Adrian and Sydney which makes me sad even now. But I still won’t try to reread it. I’m still leery of the whole thing.

One day.

But not now.

So. The VA tv show. I do wish it the best. And I do hope to see Adrian become a reality. But we know he doesn’t really become a fully fleshed out character until later on in the series and into Bloodlines bc Rose just doesn’t pay him enough attention...

I want Lissa to be played by someone who doesn’t overact.

Anyway.

Also I feel like the teacher-student relationship/minor + adult relationship situation just doesn’t pass these days... I was young and naive and enjoyed their relationship before, but it is fairly problematic.. that said Dimitri does do a decent job of warding off a relationship until she’s at least 18 but again he doesn’t discourage the affection either and he’s 7 years older so the maturity imbalance... ehhhhh it’s problematic

If Ben Barnes becomes Dimitri I will laugh. I will laugh and laugh until I can’t laugh no more.

In my own personal fancast before I’d ever even heard of supernatural, I’d been looking up potentials for Dimitri and found a picture of Jared Padalecki so there’s that knowledge out there...

But anyway. I’m ambivalent about the VA tv show. I wanna get hyped but when I saw it was trending all I could think was “but why??”

Bc like when the movie came out very much after the golden era of YA-teen books getting adapted to film, I feel like VA is not niche nor original enough a story to be adapting this late in the game to tv...

But again good luck to them!

y’know what i’m still feeling annoyed and petty, plus i’m stuck inside and it’s storming out so why not type out a checklist of what everyone in TOW did to me.

since i am mean and manipulative, petty and pathetic, and so much more? why not bring up some old beef and give ya’ll something to eat. 

Gansey: tried repeatedly to instigate drama -- if not actively break up -- my OC ships by encouraging -- through IC shenanigans -- cheating and lying. One of these happened while I was on vacation with my family and i still remember crying about it in a hotel bathroom because i thought one of my few ships in the RP was over and I hadn’t even been asked about it. This also included trying to get his OC Tomas to make IC/OOC (hey you can feign innocence when it’s in that dubiously OOC space, until its receptive in which case you can say it was IC the whole time!) at one of my ship partner’s OCs. Made repeated fat jokes at one of my fat characters (the same one they were clearly trying to get away from their partner...hmm...). Claimed I was always running to vague on my personal. Fair enough, I did, but they did the same thing. In poem form. Never answered my message about leaving the RP group because they felt ‘disrespected” by it. Repeatedly including untagged dubcon/noncon elements on the dashboard and triggering me. Lying to Ivy and me about having a full Overwatch party then trying to say “oh it just emptied you can join now”. hid this “FAR” idea from the rest of the RP community and then played coy when they got found out and asked about it by another anon (not me). Made fun of other RP groups in Tumblr tags then, when I asked them and their friends not to, was told “we’re a step above them.” Saying I was excluding them from things when I asked to play OW with them AND invited them to my horror RP group AND, only months beforehand, were inviting them to my Marvel RP??Trying to emotionally manipulate me through threatening to kill characters they had obviously grown tired of playing (probably because their major connections were to me and not their other friends) -- “haha i’m probably going to kill (my oc) idk but doesn’t that make you upset?? what will (your character) even do??” Engaging in nasty “”IC”” interactions with my character, basically telling me, through them, off, and being supported by the entire community in doing so. All of this really hurt me because I considered Gansey a friend and a major inspiration at one point in my life. Someone I non-jokingly looked up to and trusted. I feel like Gansey left TAR, our first RP group, because of how controlling, self-interested, petty, and mean-spirited the admins there were. That they were limiting other people’s creativity while building up their own narrative -- everyone else just there to be their audience. But you and Roman literally became Usa and Jen. Congrats. You lived long enough to become everything you’d rebelled against. And yes Gansey -- I saw all of your messages to everyone. Emotionally manipulating others -- telling them how terrible you are you don’t deserve their friendship, but would like to -- isn’t an apology. Its a tactic. Do better in the future. And despite me “blocking” you? There were a hundred ways to still reach out to me if that was what you really wanted. But let’s be real. It wasn’t. That was part of your gambit to. Goodbye. 

Rosie: asked literally EVERYONE about what had happened with the ““TOW explosion”” except me. never even asked my side of the story. Rosie I don’t even get because the other admins treated her like shit -- making her do all the coding and technical components for the entire RP -- but she was still defending them to the end. Okay. And then to treat Shelly like utter SHIT even though Reyne was running her passive-aggressive mouth off about people who couldn't even defend themselves? Amazing. Yeah, she’s the bully. Your perspective was so twitested by your biases that you were ready to victim blame Shelly just because Reyne had to run at the sight of someone actually throwing their bulltshit back at them. 

Reyne: Like Gansey, frequently indulged in cheating/cucking scnearios for fun -- again, including my own characters without asking or telling me. Don’t think Reyne ever apologized for this, IC or OOC. Dropped ships with me repeatedly -- leaving the group even -- without a word. Passive-aggressive to the max. Made a ship with Gansey just to play out her Teen Wolf OTP -- something that will never not be funny to me, when she called Gansey’s “character” Stiles. Smooth. 

Frankii: Repeatedly dropped me and my characters from plots. Gave me one of the most hurtful comments of my RP community by essentially being like “maybe if your plots and characters weren’t so confusing than more people would want to RP with you.” Invited to join my horror RP group and never made a character. also told me this after Gansey wrote that enormous callout about me, that Roman piggybacked on while the getting was good: “also I'm not here to advocate on behalf of my friend but I really don't think Gansey was trying to be rude last night, they can come off a certain way when they're stressed.” COOL. The rest of Frankii’s message I really appreciated, at the time, but, surprise surprise, then despite us being “cool” they never spoke to me again. 

Laura: I actually really liked Laura tbh but I guess she didn’t feel the same. Some of our interactions back in TAR were actually some of my favorites. I invited her to join my horror RP group and she never made a character. When I asked about this -- and if she needed any help making someone or wanted to leave -- she said she was working on it. Basically stonewalled me over time. Honestly though? Not a lot to say I actually think Laura is a good writer and pretty cool. Its just obvious who her friends were and I, stupidly, thought I was included in that. 

Anna: Actually I really liked Anna too tbh but I guess I vastly overestimated our friendship? It happens. Dropped me from one of her plots -- after talking to me about including me in one of hers because she felt “obligated” basically, from being featured in my own -- without mentioning why or talking to me about it. Invited to join new RP -- refused (not mad about this, just making note of it). Refused to follow my new account when I lost my old one because “lol they’re such a furry”. 

Roman: lmao where to even start. Roman was condescending and elitist literally from the beginning of TAR. barely acknowledged my existence until he had to.I started a plot with an open invitation to the entire RP group, with a deadline so I could start writing. Roman waits until its over and complains that they were left out. I include him anyway. Roman mocks the fact that I ask to tag or outright remove aphrodisiac dust -- because I don’t like seeing untagged dubcon/noncon on my dashboard, it upsets me a lot -- and then goes on a whole thread about it after I go to bed and can’t even defend myself. Apparently told his friends not to invite me to things because he doesn’t like me??? And then he has the nerve to be like communication is key and you can come talk anytime??? While having me on their public “friends” list with a description about me on his blog??? omfg...I literally can’t. To this day. Actually let this image speak for itself.

Everything Else: The repeated, childish treatment of strippers as immoral (””your character is stripping?? my character is so upset and is going to protect them!!”). The implication that characters who were stripping were also automatically sex workers. The continued references to my character, who owned this establishment, as being sleazy and manipulative. Also, honestly, what was with ya’ll adopting some random teenager into your OW groups? That was weird af. And then bringing some random person into TOW without asking anyone and trying to pull rank like “we’re the admin team and we can do whatever we want”. and shit-talking Meg and me in your “open forum” when all we wanted to do was get on with out lives. Like? Who cares? Ya’ll didn’t want me, at least, there anyway, clearly. You don’t get to exclude me then talk about how disrespectful and “wrong” the way I left was..........

Me: I didn’t do everything perfectly either. I know I could be passive-aggressive. I could be self-interested. I could make bitter comments. I dealt with feeling angry and upset by making memes -- which, I’m gonna be honest, I get why ya’ll were upset but I don’t regret either. I had spent so long in TAR/TOW with nobody interested in my characters and plots -- originally because I didn’t vid and played furries but, later, well.........see above -- that I did focus on my own narrative. I wasn’t invited to plots. I didn’t have sexy vampires and boy band werewolves. I played weird characters that didn’t fit the common niche of the cast of an angst and hookup filled supernatural YA novel. Maybe my plots were confusing but, honestly? It was because they were always going to be in the background. I wasn’t disinterested in anyone’s stories. I had just been left out of them for so long -- having to beg to even be a mention in a single mention -- that I had to make my own. I wasn’t there to just be an audience member to be aghast by Roman’s newest quirky boy or Gansey’s newest possessed twink. I was a writer. A member of the community. And, at the time? I thought a friend. Someone who deserved appreciation and respect. 

I know who my true friends are now. We did, ironically, exactly what you did -- we have out own group, our own setting, our own community. 

And I still live with the mean and manipulative things YALL said everyday. Even as an adult -- even with everything I’ve accomplished and am so proud of -- I’m still traumatized by being treated so poorly -- for years -- and not even realizing it. Something I’m still working on -- one of the many reasons I still have trust issues to this day. Congrats. That’s your legacy on me. aNYWAY

byeeeeeee

I feel bad for not caring about Avery and Schneider on the show. I mean what do they even have in common besides being rich and hating it. Maybe it’s because they don’t show them as a couple or even her as a character much. Idk, they are just so boring to me. She does seem nice and she’s beautiful and I love that they are married in real life but as a couple on the show? I just can’t see it

Okay, this is totally you asking for an essay on Schneider and Avery, right? Whoops you’re getting one anyway because I have so many feelings about them and so many opinions I haven’t had much reason to dig into yet.

The genius of Schneider and Avery is that the actors playing them, real-life marrieds Todd & India, have the MOST ridiculous chemistry.

The problem with Schneider and Avery is…the exact same thing.

The Backstory

I knew long before S3 came out that Schneider was getting a love interest this season, and that she was going to be played by Todd’s wife, who I wasn’t familiar with at all besides his Instagram photos. I’m not even sure I knew she was an actress until they announced her guest starring role. Because they announced it early, I had a lot of time to build up anxiety over it.

I’m as deep into this fandom as I am because I ship Schneider with Penelope. I love the show exactly as it is, and if they never become canon I won’t love it any less, but that doesn’t change the fact that: 1) I watched the show; 2) I started shipping them; 3) I decided to write my first fic for a sitcom because of them; 4) through fic I made friends and developed headcanons and made more friends and managed to keep writing through some really rough life events; and 5) then from filming announcements and through the fandom, I found out Avery was coming and that the show was going to be including the weird Pen/Schneider sibling vibe in S3.

So before S3 premiered I was really, genuinely scared I might not enjoy S3 as much as I adored S2. What if I hated it? What if I hated Schneider’s new girlfriend??? I wanted to like her so much because I knew the actress was Todd’s wife, but I had no idea if I COULD because I had no idea how they were going to include her or who she would be. And I’ve never hated Penelope’s love interests just because I like her with Schneider, but I had also met several of those by the end of S2. Schneider getting a girlfriend was new.

1. Todd and India have more than their fair share of chemistry. Who do I speak to about that?

Then, in 3x03, we meet Schneider’s new love interest–and I was basically Schneider (as I often am). From the glasses that don’t succeed at all in dulling how gorgeous she is to her nerdy interests and apparent mild social anxiety (when she asked ”are you making fun of me?” so sincerely, my heart just went…oh. oh okay.) I thought she was adorable and funny and even more than that, I’m SO weak for devoted men, I can’t even tell you.

Well, I don’t have to tell you. If you’ve read anything I’ve ever written about Penelope and Schneider, you know. I love men who love women so much they would do anything for them, especially when they’re quietly selfless about it but so in love that it just radiates out of them.

That’s how Schneider has always acted with Penelope, a little bit, even when he wasn’t trying. That’s why I fell for the ship.

But that’s also how TODD acts, opposite India–to a ridiculous degree, in a way that isn’t acting at all. You can feel it hitting you through the television, how lucky he feels just to be with her, just to be NEAR her. It’s so sweet, I die. Schneider/Avery isn’t even my OTP and I’m gonna make them a gifset at some point, just because I cannot handle the fact that Todd looks at his wife that way, every time he focuses on her.

So because this is clearly going to be long, to sum up point 1: Todd Grinnell, who plays Schneider, and his offscreen wife India de Beaufort, who plays Avery? Absolutely fantastic couple. I’m totally rooting for them, these strangers I don’t actually know. Just because watching them act together is a beautiful thing.

Also because India is a sweet human who told me on Twitter that the little nose rub between them after they reunite in 3x13 was improvised by them, not scripted. And you better believe I could not love that more if I tried. THEY ARE CUTE. Conclusion one.

2: Schneider and Avery have too little screen time to make sense as a couple.

ODAAT as a show is so strong because it holds the Alvarez/Riera family at its core and builds everything around them. You’re supposed to fall in love with them first, and grow to love the supporting characters around them, as you slowly learn more about them.

Now, in some cases, it’s not a slow process. It didn’t take me long to love Carmen or Schneider–it only took me one scene to love Syd. But the show’s purpose isn’t those characters, at least not at first. It’s Penelope’s family. And the rewarding thing about ODAAT is that the definition of ‘family’ grows and envelopes more of the characters, as time goes on.

Because Schneider was still a (fabulous, lovable) supporting character before S3, he was on the outside a bit, along with Dr. B. I think you can look at the show like a set of circles, with Penelope and Lydia and Elena and Alex in the center circle, then with Schneider & Dr. B. and Syd one ring just outside of that, revolving around them. The support group, most of Penelope’s love interests, and Elena and Alex’s friends are a ring outside of that.

S3 widened the inner circle and pulled Schneider in. It was the first season to actually dig into his backstory, the family he comes from, his sobriety. And while it was amazing, it was still just a start. It was the beginning of showing him as a full family member. It put him in the center circle, and that meant giving him more focused scenes, more story.

But the show is still also about the whole family, and S3 has the same amount of episodes as the first two did. The show included more Schneider, but still only fit in so much. And one consequence of that is that his relationship with Avery exists almost entirely offscreen. They told us more about it than they  showed, and let Todd and India’s chemistry fill in the gaps, the unanswered questions.

3. What we actually saw onscreen when it comes to Schneider and Avery.

A meet-cute, which was pretty well-done. We learn she’s a geek along with him, that they’re compatible in at least that one way. We learn they like each other pretty instantly, which isn’t always believable, but the show’s got to move at a fast pace and I respect that. We learn he likes her enough to argue with Nikki, and she likes him enough to do the same. She’s no pushover, and she inspires him to be stronger. A good start.

Schneider spends some time with Penelope in the next episode and Avery doesn’t come up at all. When we see her again, Schneider’s about to have his first real date with her, as far as I can tell, on Valentine’s Day. (No pressure or anything.) It’s clear that Penelope and Avery have met by now, though we don’t know when or how. By the end of the episode we know that Schneider and Avery spent most of their first date lying to each other.

The big reveal, that they have even more in common than they thought, was super predictable to me but still funny, and my only problem with it is that once they land that plot twist, it becomes Avery’s entire personality. She’s no longer the quirky kindergarten teacher who gets along with Schneider the hobbyist because she loves to write poems and appreciates his niche interests.

Now, she’s his rich girlfriend. They get along because when he needs to fix his expensive hot tub, she can suggest they just pay someone to do it. The next time we see her, Avery’s entire existence is a few lines that show how well she gets along with his father because HAHAHA money. And then? We don’t see her at all until her surprise return in the finale.

5. What we didn’t see onscreen between Schneider and Avery.

Offscreen, as far as I can tell, they had other dates, they seem like they were serious enough to probably have had sex, she clearly was invited to some dinners etc with the family (though we don’t know if she went), before he started drinking again and they broke up and then she avoided him completely until Lydia convinced her to give him another chance.

We know Schneider completely blames himself for their breakup, but we have literally no idea what happened to send her running scared. Did he start drinking in secret and she caught him? Did he start drinking around her openly because he thought her reaction would be different from his family’s? Did she leave him because of the drinking or because of some specific thing that happened while Schneider was drunk or for some other reason entirely???

Based on their conversation in the finale, something happened, whatever it was. And Avery definitely knew he needed to be sober, otherwise why else would she be scared to try again?

Therefore the single biggest conundrum that S3 left me with, especially the more I rewatched, was this:

Avery knew Schneider well enough to know he wasn’t supposed to be drinking, or enough to tell there was a problem when his drinking came to her attention. SOMETHING happened that was bad enough for them to break up, and for her to ghost him after.

Avery also knew that Schneider’s family of choice was Penelope and her mom and her kids. She’d met them often enough to be able to talk to them politely, to know where they live.

Why didn’t she say ANYTHING to ANYONE in that apartment as soon as things with Schneider imploded????

How is it that she could be aware enough of Schneider’s life to know his family/best friends, aware enough to be worried about his sobriety, and worried enough to decide they had no future, but not tell his family what was going on when she was clearly aware of it long before they were??

Even if she was unhappy and uncomfortable and didn’t want to get into relationship details with Penelope, she could have just mentioned the drinking part and cut off all further communication! She could have left a note at their door!! She works at Elena and Alex’s school teaching the little kids, presumably she might sometimes run into them on school grounds…and she never said anything.

It drives me crazy because maybe there’s a reasonable explanation for that, for all of it, but I would have no idea what it is, because all of that happened offscreen and wasn’t explored.

6. Why it matters.

With the family at the show’s core, and Schneider only recently included in that center, Avery falls in the outer ring. But because S3 tried to give Schneider more without giving the rest of the family less, there just wasn’t room to flesh out Avery enough.

If you compare her to Max in S2, we saw him interact with the whole family on multiple occasions. Because of that, we got to know him as more than just ‘Penelope’s casual sex buddy who she was friends with years ago.’ He and Pen weren’t my OTP either, but I genuinely liked them together because we understood why they worked. We saw them survive conflicts, face problems, have real conversations.

With Avery, we saw her and Schneider meet and then we saw them present fake bios to each other before the truth came out, and then we saw her be the perfect rich-son girlfriend before disappearing. Their conflicts were left to our imagination. Their deeper moments were left to our imagination. When they get back together, we see Avery after she’s already decided to try again, and Schneider apologizing for whatever exactly happened that we may never know.

As viewers, we can interpret that as generously as we want, but it still leaves us with a relationship that we’re told matters…because we’re told it does. Though I love Schneider and I hate seeing him in pain, ‘he’s sad without her’ is not a detailed case for why he belongs with Avery. And ‘because Lydia vouched for him’ is absolutely not a good enough explanation for why Avery belongs with him.

Even looking at it as though what we learned about her in the beginning holds true, we’re left to assume that Avery loves him enough to support him through his recovery and rebuild trust, because…they’re both pretty nerds with similar feelings about their family money? And he loves her so much he was in hell without her…because to him she’s a ‘perfect angel woman’ (which is so painfully idealistic of him, it makes sense for him but is also begging for him to be crushed again when she falls off that pedestal).

There are as many red flags in the screen time we do see as there are reasons to root for them. She claims to be miserable with inherited money just like he is, but she’s way more comfortable relying on it, talking about it in ways that we just don’t see Schneider do. And the whole point when Schneider’s father visits is that Schneider is not who Lawrence wants him to be–but as far as we know, Avery isn’t putting on an act to get along with him, the way Schneider does. She just IS enough like him. She’s very at ease on his level.

And don’t even get me started on Avery stopping Schneider’s joy over being an Alvarez to make him focus back on her. It’s a joke, but it’s also not a good sign for their future, if any part of her isn’t 100% comfortable with how important to him the whole family is.

7. My grand unifying theory.

I’m convinced that her lack of dimensions, and their relationship lacking depth as much as it does, is because writing Avery in involved bringing India on. I’m not saying I wish they hadn’t!! Again, I adore her. But it’s a problem, and here’s why.

Every serious love interest we’ve seen Penelope have, from Victor to Mateo, is in her orbit mainly, but also interacts with the rest of her life. Max got to know everybody, counseling Alex, being pestered by Schneider, flirted with by Lydia, etc. Victor was central to her life for a long time, so we learn a lot about him through his many family scenes. Mateo has scenes with Penelope mainly, but he’s around the family enough that we learn about him based on that proximity–how he feels about Alex, how his background compares to her family’s.

Avery is Schneider’s first serious love interest, and we see her interact with…Schneider. No conversations between her and Lydia, only one exchange with Penelope when Avery tries to mistakenly console her over being single, then they never directly speak again. Avery doesn’t ever talk to the kids, though they’re super important to his life.

As a show, ODAAT never made me consider the Bechdel test until I was trying to include Avery in an edit about the female character interactions and I realized that that one moment with Pen is the only one. As a character, her entire point, and focus, and existence even, is about Schneider. It wouldn’t be so weird if she were just another Stick Girl, but we’ve seen her included in family events. We know she knows the people in his life. We just don’t see her ever talk to any of them, and I don’t think that was a choice they made to keep her character secluded so much as it was a natural result of adding a character to the outer ring whose only purpose in the story is to date Schneider.

So they created a girlfriend for Schneider, and they worked her into the story enough to give them a relationship, and to make their breakup and reunion important plot points for Schneider’s S3 arc.

And because the show was more focused on the family, Avery’s character was only included where she absolutely had to be, to hit those plot points.

And because the actors have chemistry enough to sell it, ODAAT called that good enough for their characters and that relationship and kept moving.

It’s clear from social media that the cast and crew of the show adore Todd and India, and adore their onscreen relationship just as much. Because of that, I’m not sure if maybe they’re a little blinded to what the whole thing is like for the rest of us, who don’t know them personally, who don’t see Schneider/Avery first as an adorable ship starring these two cute dorks that so clearly are meant to be because the actors are.

But whatever the reason, I think a lot of the people involved in the show ship it harder than the viewers do. I ship Schneider/Avery because she makes him happy and the actors are fun to watch, but I hope they’re not endgame for all the above reasons.

Schneider deserves love and a future with someone, and even if he doesn’t end up with my personal choice for his ideal match, I still want that someone to make sense. I want to be able to root for them for reasons that exist in canon. If the show gets more seasons and we see Schneider and Avery work on/through some issues, if we see him start to treat her like a flawed person he loves rather than like someone he doesn’t deserve at all…if we get to see how the other important people in his life relate to her…then I’ll be more on board.

But after S3, all I can say with certainty is that Todd and India make Schneider and Avery watchable…but they can’t carry the whole relationship based on their chemistry alone.

@detectivegordons So I saw you were looking for new youtube channels to check out and boy, do I have some gems for you. I started writing this as a normal ask but it quickly got waaay too long so we’re doing a classic text post + add where I can comfortably link the channels and also the rest of my peeps can check them out if they’re interested. So. Let’s divide and conquer:

Cooking

Bon Appétit (Test Kitchen) - One kitchen. Various series with their own themes and style by a specific cook. We have Claire who does ‘Pastry Chef attempts to do x/y/z’ of snacks and treats (e.g. ‘Pastry Chef attempts to make Gourmet Twizzlers’, ‘Pastry Chef attempts to make Ferrero Rocher’) and it’s a delight to watch her struggle through the process of replicating it as closely as possible. There’s also Brad doing ‘It’s alive’ featuring everything involving Fermentation, basically. The editing on this one is the best. There’s Carla inviting celebrities and doing follow alongs and back to back cooking. Ugh, and so many more, I love them all! 

House Renovations 

Wabi Sab-E - Follow this couple on their journey to renovate and old barn doing everything by themselves - construction, pluming, painting, tiling. It never gets boring due to the faster pace of the video and the really thought out and lovely edit. They’re a cute, genuine couple with two dogs and a cat as far as I can recall and just in general awesome folks.

Madeleine Olivia - Apparently she does lifestyle as well but I only watch her renovating videos. She and her boyfriend (fiance/husband??) bought a very cute cottage and just started remodeling the whole thing. She’s not as knowledgable or skilled as the other channels but watching her talk throughs and bringing bits and pieces together really calms me down.

Three Birds Renovation - Now, this is a professional channel. The three birds are three ladies from Australia renovating whole properties and really glamming up the lots. This isn’t diy it’s full on money and glam but if you want to watch houses getting remodeled and basically almost built from scratch again, this is your channel. They usually take on a house and then upload each room as a separate video. My favorite (as I guess most people’s fav is) is their forever home series where they each do their own houses and really kick it out of the park. Extravaganza. 

Lifestyle

Liziqi - A fairy queen from another realm. Absolute beauty shots of her doing her daily life, ranging from picking wild mushrooms, building a love seat from scratch with bamboo, making her own tools, cooking in a self made stone stove. No dialogue, mainly just music and her occasionally trying to keep the sheep from eating her cabbage. You NEED to watch at least one of her vids, I cannot describe this to you! 

Claire Marshall - Claire makes beautifully edited lifestyle vlogs featuring fashion, travel, reconnecting with her past, her cat, make up, drafting/doodling or just life and her thoughts on it in general. She has a much more calmer vibe which I personally prefer to a louder and up beat video personality and her flow, aesthetic and visual presentation really drew me in.

Grackle - A cute little every day vlogger from England. Nothing fancy, nothing out of the box, just plain good and old vlogging and following her around. She’s an absolute dork, a gentle soul and I find her family very funny and relating, lol.

Damon & Jo - They used to do a lot of travel vlogs and I mainly followed them because of their older videos, now they’re both kinda doing their own thing but they’re still great, still traveling the world on a low budget. They’re very very talented when it comes to languages and I find them going on adventures in foreign countries highly amusing. 

Eve Cornwell - Eve is a soon to be proper lawyer currently finishing her masters degree (I think?? I need to catch up on her, lol). She drinks too much coffee, is a relatable student who struggles through her workload and shows you what it takes to get that law degree. Also her editing is just *chef kisses* super cute.

Booktube

Paperbackdreams - I just saw a few of her vids bc I’m mainly not that much into booktube but her video about after just had me snorting all the way through so maybe you enjoy that. Also, a very small curly haired bean.

LilyCReads - Lily got famous for her rant videos and I just love how she picks apart shitty plots. Mainly, because she swears a lot. But she also has a series of her reading the Harry Potter books for the first time and I quite enjoyed them. Simple, very entertaining. 

Readwithcindy - Only watched a few of her videos but I love her style and her vibe a lot. Also, she has the same favorite books as I do so ... maybe that’s a reason as well. Oh, yeah. And we share the depression part and I can relate on t h a t.

Movie Commentary

Dylan is in Trouble - Basically a dude watching our favorite chick flicks, guilty pleasure or teenage obsession shows and comments on them. That’s it. That’s the whole content. He started a series where he was watching the cringiest shows and see how much he could take and it basically evolved from that to .. watching movies and commenting/ranting/questioning various parts that we all questioned. 

Alex Meyers - Alex comments on shows and sums up weird stories very well and he does so with the help of animation. Basically, he’s an artist making fun of weird shows but it’s very light hearted and mostly not ill intended. Also, his animations feature his dog so if that doesn’t get you selling idk what does. 

Trin Lovell - She’s like Dylan. But female. And asian. And much more energetic but just as funny (if not even more). Also, way more edited and dramatic but I like it. So, yeah, a movie commentary channel watching everything from Twilight to Riverdale, lol. 

Art

Emily Artiful - I mainly followed her because of her Sketchbook Storytime videos where she draws and chats/rants to her viewers at the same time and it’s not only beautiful but highly amusing as well. Love her presence and her way of telling a story and getting riled up about it. 

Documentary/Personal

Max Joseph - I know, it’s the guy from Catfish but hear me out. He’s got like 2 vids up where he really took the time and effort and met with very interesting peeps. One of the videos is about if you need to be an asshole to make it as a director in the movie industry. The other one is book related, how to read more books and such and I found them highly intriguing and fascinating! He doesn’t have that many videos yet but those two are like an hour long so grab a snack, sit back and enjoy! 

Film Analysis/Video Essays

Now, those are channels focusing on movie analysis and explaining shots and film for you and why we, as the audience, feel a certain way because we’ve been set up. So if you’re interest in that (I LOVE those) that might be your niche. They’re mostly doing the same thing so I’m just gonna link their channels down below! 

Lessons from the Screenplay

Nerdwriter1

Sideways

Tyler Mowery

Let me know if you knew any of those already or if you liked any of them! :) 

@thecicadasong yeah i havent actually had like, Anons trying to get fresh w/ me about what i Should be drawing (i think ive gotten anon hate like, twice? once for passing along a tweet abt respecting homeless people, another time i have No idea why they were trying to roast me but they were also...weirdly bad at it) but the very rare occasions someone’s tried to tell me i should be drawing different stuff for whatever reason Stick With Me b/c i’m often still steamed abt shit that mightve happened years back but it was THAT annoying lmfao & i reaaally hate when ppl get patronizing &/or when i can tell they’re acting like whatever angle they’re taking is going over my head or they think i’m clueless & i can’t even tell they see me that way lol and i’m like, oh my god i mean it doesn’t make me concerned if i Only Appreciate Boys b/c they’re mostly who i draw b/c yknow......my drawing corner is some rando over here just entertaining myself & Xpressing myself. and a real limited amt of my Interests = the ones im able/interested enough in to draw, & then i tend to wanna draw them a million times lmao....it’s not necessarily the One Unfiltered Reflection of all my interests and all the characters i like, cuz it’s not the only way i think abt shit and express things, & if somebody thinks that my Portfolio not being >50% Girls means that it’s b/c i’ve totally hated girls all along.....that’d be their prerogative i guess. also good lord but that’d be a bad litmus test anyways like.......alllll the misogynist dude artists who draw plenty of ~female characters~ like Yikes City ahhhhh god thats such a fucking cursed realm like. the people so sexist they should be banned from depicting girls and women in any medium. and banned in general God Anyways And Yeah like. the terrible relationships thing too.........like really, this is what you think is appealing???? its too clear sometimes when some man writing this kind of stuff has NO real idea how to think of a woman as an actual person and if they’re trying to write from that perspective it’s like “oh, let’s throw in a ‘smh boys are so stupid and sexist’ thought to realistically depict what it must be like to experience misogyny” and “something about a bra idk” and then call it a day, and if they’re trying to write Romance it’s just like....this Incredible Love that’s truly out of nowhere and they never bother explaining what sustains this, or they decide that the reason bitches liked pride & prejudice is totally because she thought he was a jerk and they fought but then it was like wait nvm we’re in love, right?? and they make that into like, some dude being able to be a total asshole and a really detrimental force in some girl’s life and somehow this Intensity can just be translated into Romantic Intensity no problem, it’s fine that like, they’re not even friends and who knows how to believe they can just get along in regular life and the guy is probably super disrespectful and diminishes her but whatever its fine All Of This And More.....there are so many terrible and annoying ways they do m/f relationships and it’s Really easy to just make it decently written!!! i mean of course sometimes there’s m/f ships that i think are tolerably written and i don’t hate it but also don’t particularly care one way or another but a small / hetero-leaning fandom will like Never Shut Up About It and it’s like ok please shut up about it......i mean really i definitely don’t ever go into any new piece of media expecting to give a shit about any Guy Girl couple. it was a pleasant but total surprise that i really like jeremy/christine (which is not me disavowing the nb lesbian jeremy hc by any means lol) and it was NOT complicated why!!! really in fact a couple of the biggest reasons i found it Especially Good is like, ten seconds in total lmao and it’s “jeremy and christine cracking up by squawking at each other on the couch” and “jeremy doing that Ecstatic Stimming Twirl after kissing christine for 0.003 seconds” lmao.....like!!!! consider showing that the characters can actually have genuine fun interacting with each other for longer than five seconds!!!! give us a single reason why they’d be drawn to each other As People!!! it’s notttt thaaaat harrrrrd aaaaaaaaaA THE WEIRD CHARACTERS yeah i love a true Quirky character and not in the like.....bad clichéd quirky way but like. just someone who’s weird!! the nerdy awkward guys who manifest this by like....maybe being a tiny bit socially clumsy are like, boring and whatever a dime a dozen. but when people are funky and in a sort of fun way and it’s genuinely part of how they interact with others....it’s real relatable lmao i don’t have any very Weird Persona at this point but back in the day i did a bit moreso b/c like, firstly interacting w ppl tended to make me Nervous so it’s like ah hell i’ll do a bit. and then also there’s the classic “well i have this Weirdness abt me that i can’t turn off that ppl seem to dislike, so i’ll put on this extra layer of weirdness that i can try to be vaguely entertaining with.” and then you aren’t popular at all still lol but at least you’ve got your niche amongst whoever does actually like you.....Weird Quirky Guys characters are fun and like, it’s funny that nato of the black suits is Like That in terms of being a lil weirdo who just kind of does his thing in his corner and might Say Something About Anything Apropos Of Nothing as his conversational style and he’s apparently that superlative student type but doesnt seem to actually give a shit and just has his specific interest and depression.......it’s like oh jeez!!! relatable lmao!!! everyone who has a kind of Veneer of communicating a bit erratically and maybe just always throwing out random shit when interacting with others to hope something sticks......but also the strangeness doesn’t even have to be at all performative b/c it’s rarer but super fun when there’s characters who do have that kind of more inherent weirdness that they can’t turn off that really puts people off despite like....them not really doing anything lol....now THAT’S what i call A Timeless Mood it’s funny lmao like i totally have clear Character Types and i always go for those ppl on the same general wavelength as me but it can be a bit Unpredictable and nuanced which ones will actually be adopted into the faves category......like naturally i go for the un-cool passionate excitable types but if someone’s real like, mad energetic or demanding/loud im like oops you lost me. i like people who like to / want to Socialize / have relationships but sometimes if they’re too outgoing / have that natural success at it all / are obv free of anxiety im like, again, you’ve lost me. you truly never know!! only the Most relatable can survive!! one that might seem like they should be a fave on paper might super annoy me lol or just generate Zero interest.......it’s nice to be surprised by which characters really strike a chord lol

Humor Analysis (?)

The fact that this is a humor analysis in itself can ruin a lot of humor so. Me stating that things are funny can very well ruin some humor too so this probably shouldn’t be read. Ill probably analyze that chunk later, try and define what that little magic is.

A bit of a disclaimer, I'm not here to be political or say anything political directly, I use parties because I tend to associate types of humor with these parties when it comes to “funny posts” on the internet. (Funny, being a very subjective term, quite obviously.) This is, inherently very opinionated too. 

Starting with one chunk of a side, the primarily republican users I tend to see on places like instagram have large communities founded on more offensive, shock dependent humor. Although uncommon or uncommonly accepted is not the equivalent of good. I think most of us label this humor as “cringe culture.” 

(This may seem like a sudden topic change, but wait.) When I began seeing issues in the world revolving around things that feminism is meant to defeat, I started also noticing my very instinctive and reactive behavior towards the word, topic, and its expressions when I was younger. In all honesty, I thought it was all “cringey.” Even if legitimately good or important. This humor, strangely, ended up being essential to “fit in” in ways. What I'm ashamed of is that even with my strong feminist views, I continued laughing at this offensive humor, but began to grow tired of it.

The only way I can describe it is the taste of licking your hands when they weren't washed all day. (I know it’s disgusting, but I was a gross 3 year old.) It’s dirty but in a genuinely gross and bitter way, deep down most of the humor is unethical in ways more than what meets the eye. 

The humor stresses me out and reminds me of toxic relationships where you fear expressing interests or yourself as a whole because it immediately gets torn down somehow. The best way I can describe a bigger scale than one relationship, the packs of straight white boys in middle school who roast you for wildly specific things that become new, completely stupid and unreasonable insecurities. This side of humor, is that, but intensified and extended about 800%.

It’s reached a point where they don’t just make fun of understandable shit, they make fun of literally everything, including what I did at one point as well. A majority of feminism’s representation. Of course it’s great when women are open about their power but even if people aren’t directly pushing it down because they hate women or something, (which they likely don’t,) at the end of the day there’s at least a subconscious disrespect towards them, finding their want to “stand up” to be embarrassing, and a tendency to not take social issues seriously. 

The humor, truly, is immature. Not entirely because it offends people, those with this humor tend to believe they’re somehow superior for not being mindful of feelings and again, real social issues (that extend far beyond “this has a racial slur,” and tend to reach more towards “this is can be analyzed as an expression of honest disrespect disguised as “irony.”) 

On with the irony concept: 

Of course everybody is naturally inclined to laugh at one thing or another. But I still believe you can distinguish what pushes air out of you and what you analyze as funny, it’s theoretically funny, but still funny regardless. 

I find this funny as opposed to a typical post of a feminist expressing her view and her point being shut down by someone with vastly different views, because this irony of the post above, is honest irony. From what I see, there are no undertones of legitimate distaste, irritation, or as I described as disrespect. There aren’t any real issues to analyze. (Others may reasonably disagree as it’s a surface level of speaking against something, but its more just voice than it is mind and heart. Feel free to state what you think about this.) This humor is definitely still edgy, but the difference is that it isn’t actually meant to silence a voice. I believe that real irony is funny, because of the mentioned reason, and because it requires some sort of thought, and its not just purely being reactive, narrow minded, and immature. But in a utilitarian way of looking at it, of course humor would naturally be “better” without any implication of harm at all. 

The other side of the online humor spectrum is, what I find to be possessed by primarily Liberal people that support Hillary. There isn’t much analysis to this, it could go the other way around in cases I'm sure, but mostly its very simple humor. Its either wholesome, or “I'm so random XD” humor disguised to be otherwise and even “niche.” 

The place I tend to find my sense of humor lies is mostly with @slimetony posts is that people are really never made fun of, and if they ever are, (which I can’t remember a specific time with this account but I do remember it with accounts that fall under a similar humor category,) it’s actually reasonable and not reactivity. (Idk if my reactivity/reactiveness words are words but whatever.)

(Setheverman can fall under this category too.) 

As a whole, it’s not Jackassish. It’s the wholesome/not harmful meme category but elevated above simplicity with truthful irony, (in turn real thought and some intelligence.) Unlike the post shown, although they share good irony, as mentioned, it’s not harmful. I categorize this with a lot of internet bernie supporters. And it’s not the same exact thing as “random” humor as there’s always a bit of sense that ties it together. And if there isn’t, at least unlike the category before this, the “random” is always actually up to date which is another important factor. Garfield shit is funny right now. 

Here’s a post that fall under the “bernie” category of humor.

The sense that ties this together is honestly the “m” connection. It’s like the little bit of skin in between a cut grape when you’re trying to make plasma in the microwave. Small but important. Very important. Also, I don’t know how to analyze the little “already existing” thing but it’s funny. I hope I don’t ruin any posts by looking into them because its like why explaining a joke makes things not funny. 

Of course in general, not everything can be analyze all the way and nobody can really explain humor through and through, but these are my thoughts. Of course everyone’s humor is different, and theres factors like laughter inclination and just “recognizing” funny. But in general, I hope I get to have interesting conversations with new points, thoughts, or differing ideas added. This definitely is a mess of a post but at least point I tried to make agains edgy anti-feminist humor can be considered important to really think about. But yea, clearly I have presented my opinion on humor so I hope this isn’t taken as me trying to state any facts. 

Happy Hour~Jack Maynard

A/N: eyo more imagines this week wassup. this was requested idk how long ago sorry dood

     I polished some rocks and martini glasses quickly to keep up with the crowd. The club I bar tended at was unusually packed tonight and I didn’t have a single idea as to why. It’s not like it was some dive bar, but it wasn’t exactly a modern night club. It was a just your average bar, yet the usual manageable crowd were now an explosion of mostly women, some looked questionably younger than the legal age limit. I turned to my co-worker for some answers. “Steve,” I said, getting his attention. 

     “What’s up, (Y/N)?” he asked, irritation and exhaustion threaded in his voice.

     “Is there a specific reason we have such a large crowd tonight?”

     “Yeah. There’s some YouTube dude coming to perform. Popular with the ladies, if that wasn’t clear.” I huffed in disbelief. I had somewhat of a disdain for youtubers. In my mind, they were popular assholes that piqued in middle school. They displaced their unhealthy and immature attitudes into their shitty videos. Their “sketches” just highlighted the existence of rape culture and excessive toxic masculinity. “What’s his talent, then?” I asked Steve. “Pranks? Stand-up ‘comedy’?”

     “Singing, actually,” Steve answered, chuckling slightly at the latter question. “And I think he’s pretty good.”

     “Then I guess I have to take your word for it.” We continued to try to quench the mass crowd, but I knew they were thirsty for something else once the main act came out on stage. They rushed to the stage, screaming. My eyes widened at the behavior of these grown women. I was taken aback by how they were acting. This was just some guy, and they were all at least 18 from what I knew. Then he began to sing. The passion he put into the music, the strength in his voice. I felt almost hypnotized. “He is pretty good,” I spoke up after being distracted for so long. 

     “You in love?” Steve teased. I scrunched my nose and shook my head. “Not my type,” I said. “His voice is beautiful though.” I continued to watch his set in between the now occasional customer. Just like me, the people in the crowd were just as enchanted watching the performer. At the end of the set, he took a bow and smiled at the crowd. “Thank you, everyone!” he exclaimed through the mic. “My name is Conor Maynard, and that’s all time we have!” 

     “Conor Maynard,” I thought. “Gotta remember that.”

     “But, before I go, I’d like to thank my brother Jack for DJ-ing!” Conor then went to the back of the stage to bring his brother into the front hot lights. Once Jack stepped out from the shadows, the crowd went wild again and my jaw dropped. He was a lean hunk of man, and I wanted a nice, healthy bite. “Now you’re in love,” Steve chimed in, interrupting my dirty thoughts. I shot him a dirty look and an evil smirk. “You stay out of this!” I scolded him. “This is between me and my perverted mind!” He laughed at my response and handed a scantily clad girl a drink. He made some quick shots, placed them on a tray, and handed them off to me. “Well, I guess this is destiny,” he said, lifting the tray to refer to it. “Your stud and his clearly invisible brother ordered these. Go to the back room and deliver them.” I quickly yet carefully grabbed the tray and rushed to the back.

     I entered to find Jack holding a camera up and talking to it. “A youtuber,” I thought. “Not the best, but he’s cute enough to make up for it.” I knocked on the open door and smiled. “A little present from the club,” I said, placing the shots on the vanity. “Aww, hell yeah!” Conor cheered as he walked over to the tray. Conor’s cheer got the attention of his older brother. Jack came gliding over and gave me a smirk. “Thanks, love,” he said in a flirty tone. 

     “Anything for the greatest duo I’ve seen play here,” I replied coyly. 

     “Oh, stop,” Jack responded bashfully. “You’re probably just saying that.”

     “Maybe I am. Anything to get you to talk to little ol’ me.”

     “You don’t need to do much more to impress me.” We shared a longing expression. We were then interrupted by the sound of mock gagging. “For fuck’s sake, get a room!” Conor shrieked. Jack laughed and I went along with it, but I was a little startled. “Shall we get a room?” Jack asked.

     “I don’t know,” I said hesitantly. “I am on the clock.”

     “Eh, the crowd’s probably clearing out as we speak. They’ll be fine without you.” I just stood for a moment, then put my tray down. “What the hell,” I said with a shrug. Jack’s face lit up as I ushered him to the other dressing room across from the one in use. “But no funny business!” I scolded, wagging my finger at him. “I know your type all too well, Mr. Maynard.”

     “No promises,” he responded with a wink. I just shook my head as I was bursting internally. 

     We sat next to each other on the soft couch and talked. That’s all we really did. We talked until 3 in the morning when my coworker found us. “Alright you two!” he warned playfully. “I better be able to take a black light to that couch after you guys leave!” It was my turn to giggle at the niche humor and for Jack to laugh nervously. As we collected our things, we exchanged numbers, and I had never been happier to deliver shots to someone.

How was it like growing up as an autistic child? When were you diagnosed? C:

I was diagnosed later in life (mid-twenties) after seeking out the diagnosis on my own. I never really knew I was autistic as a child or as I was growing up, I just knew there was something “different” about me. It was hard to put two and two together for a number of reasons…

(adding a read more cut because this ended up being a long answer, sorry!)

I was home schooled by my mom with only my brother and sister as company until I reached the 7th grade. The only real social interaction I had was with a few family friends (most of whom trickled out of our life after a couple of yrs of knowing them, for various reasons) and kids I got to know at church. I went to church every Sunday and Wednesday until I was in jr high and had a few friendships that lasted a few yrs, but all of them ended over time (kind of badly in some cases, some of them bullied me in the end). I hung out with my cousin for several yrs until she also became too “cool” for me. Needless to say, everyone just thought I was weird because I was home schooled, isolated, and friendless through most of my little kid yrs.

Despite having a somewhat isolated childhood I was really happy I think. I didn’t really get why people didn’t want to be my friend back then. I was a pretty happy kid. I didn’t think it was all that weird to be as hyper-focused on small details of things as I was, to notice the things I did, or to have the special interests I had. Also I was really really shy and didn’t talk very much at all. I had fewer sensory issues back then because I was more in control of my environment (spent almost every minute at home!) but they tended to get worse on long trips in the car or in situations where I couldn’t get away.

I grew up in a very small town in Texas. There was no practical or helpful interventions in place for kids who didn’t “look” like they had a disability, but still did have one. None of my issues ever got singled out on an institutional level (like recognizing a learning disability or whatever, my issues were mostly intrapersonal and interpersonal, everyone thought my educational issues were bc of home school). My parents thought I had a behavioral attitude problem and threatened to send me to boot camp a lot (my dad is ex marine). I got in trouble at home a lot because I was argumentative. The one time i spoke up about having anxiety and depression I got a couple of months worth of Lexapo from my GP, and never got it refilled. I was a freshman in high school at the time I think. Mental health wasn’t talked about or taken seriously where I grew up. If you had real problems you were supposed to work them out in church (no offense to ppl who believe in that, but I don’t think it should take the place of practical interventions that can help improve ppl’s lives). I mostly just started “working them out” through self injury (bad coping mechanism), and later through art.

From jr high to high school I kind of found my niche. I had groups of friends eventually, really good friends. Mostly outcast types, but we didn’t care, we were the weirdos and we liked that. I also took on the role as the artsy eccentric one in the group who said weird stuff that people thought was funny or amusing. I actually really liked this part of me, but the other issues in my life at the time made this a less happy point in my life. It was a mixed bag.At this point (basically from 7th grade on) I was dealing with a lot of depression, anxiety, self injury, etc. I started looking into psychology as a way to describe what I was going through, why I had such intense emotions, meltdowns, sensory issues, depression, headaches, stress, etc. That time period was the birth of my lifelong interest in psychology. I bought every book I could, watched every movie. There was a lot of confusing info out there (movies probably didn’t help since they don’t portray mental illness very accurately usually, lol). But autism was never really brought to my attention because of the obvious reasons (stereotypically a young boy’s disorder, mute stereotype), but also because of the divide between the medical field and the psychological field. I was looking in the wrong places, apparently. I think this divide is a major issue that will eventually need to be addressed, by the way.

To answer your actual question… Growing up undiagnosed autistic was confusing as all hell. Often sad. Very very lonely. I didn’t really get what I was doing “wrong” most of the time? For a large portion of my life I had a lot of magical thinking. I thought I was “special” and could like, control certain things in my life (kind of like in a serendipitous way? idk it’s hard to describe). I used to think I had schizotypal pd but that might have just been a result of trying to make a confusing life make sense. Maybe I do though who knows really.

I might have had these issues with or without a diagnosis, but I definitely have always felt “broken” bc I didn’t have an explanation for why I was different.I have a lot of self-loathing, lack of confidence issues that I’m still working through as an adult. To be honest with you (and I don’t consider this tmi because this is my blog lol)… I was really at my wit’s end when I decided to seek out a diagnosis. I felt broken, like a burden, like garbage parts that would never do any good in the world or mean anything to anyone. I had a lot of suicidal thoughts all the time, I was in a really dark place for many years and the only thing keeping me going was my husband (then boyfriend) and my pets. When it got bad enough that I was scared for my safety I decided I needed to demand help from myself and my family and friends.

Things completely changed when I got my diagnosis. Something in me shifted, and I felt I understood the universe more clearly. Kind of like when you learn something new in school or whatever and everything takes on new meaning somehow. It was like that. Since then, I’ve had a lot more self acceptance. I still have a lot of issues sometimes when I’m having a really bad meltdown or depression (okay it happens way more than it should, I really need to go to therapy I know, lol), but things have improved so drastically by knowing I’m autistic, I can’t even tell you. It’s also improved my relationship with my husband, (side bonus).

It hasn’t been all good, I mean, my family and irl friends have barely acknowledged it which just makes me doubt myself all over again… But then I remember “oh yeah other people don’t have to deal with this kind of shit!!!! This isn’t typical!!! This isn’t the “normal” everyone else is experiencing!! Fuck you I’m autistic or whatever else you wanna call it, come at me!!!! I’m done feeling like I’m broken so just accept it already and start to know me as me and not as this bullshit image you’ve created in your mind to represent me!!” :D

Besides, acceptance or not, I’m always going to have the issues I have. I’ll always have a hard time understanding what people are saying when there’s too much going on, I’ll always get overwhelmed and burned out, I’ll always have meltdowns (something that is very hard to accept about myself), I’ll always make social blunders and misunderstand people, I’ll always be misunderstood, I’ll always struggle with things that come more easily for others. But I’ll also always see the world from a totally different perspective from everyone else, which I think really helps me in my art and ideas. And I have a lot of fun in life when things are going well, I’m really super passionate about so much and I think that’s because of my strong emotions and connectiveness to things. I have a fun childlike view of everything when I’m in a healthy place and I love that about myself. There’s a lot of really cool things about it, and some bad things too.

Sorry this is such a long answer. I’m clearly avoiding my school work…………. It’s been a long stressful weekend and venting a little felt good so thank you for this question that I have taken way far off track, heh heh.

I should probably be more “professional” in my answers to these types of questions since this is the field I want to specialize in eventually, but whatever. This is real life and real life is messy and sometimes you get mad about your baggage and curse a little. It helps to curse a little. ;)

Also I’m an oversharer, sorry! Autism is a big interest of mine and so is human behavior. So it’s hard to hold back…

Thank you @thorniest-rose for the tag and everything forever

1. why did you choose your url?

when i was younger i was super into astronomy (still am but mostly School Has Taken Over Everything), and albireo (a.k.a. beta cygni) is this binary star system at the head of the constellation cygnus. it’s a really pretty star system--orange and blue--and has a lot of Meaning and Symbolism to me about pairs and soulmates. and it starts off with a letter k because [marge simpson voice] I Just Think They’re Neat. 

2. any side-blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

out of all my sideblogs my favorite is @two-birds-holding-hands which is very near and dear to my heart (because maybe all of us are looking for someone to help us disappear in the forest never to be seen again). i have an incorrect quote sideblog for cobra kai (@hashbrown-incorrectquotes) and various other incorrect quote sideblogs which shall not be named, as well as an inactive photography sideblog 

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

since early 2016, i think?

4. do you have a queue tag?

yeah it’s just “queue”. wish i had something more interesting to say LOL. started using it maybe last year. 

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

I Wanted To Be Closer To God (jk real reason is i thought it seemed like a funny niche place that i already spent a lot of time on, and i was super into star wars which was exploding on here back in 2016)

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

bears are my favorite animal and this one looked particularly Thoughtful and Wise 

7. why did you choose your header?

brb lemme check what my header is 

ok so i was on unsplash and i found that image from john towner, I Just Think It’s Neat and when i look at it, it speaks to my soul

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

i think it’s the colin farrell post. yeah. 

9. how many mutuals do you have?

less than 10 probably? haven’t ever counted. 

10. how many followers do you have?

278. and i love every single one of them. except for p*rnbots who i haven’t identified yet. but if i find them it’s game over. 

11. how many people do you follow?

164

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

[looks you in the eye] [leans down] [grabs your hand] [opens it] [places a smooth pebble in your palm]

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

ok i have one of those hour counters and my daily average seems to be somewhere around 1.5 hrs. 

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

ugh CRINGE. i got into a weird... something... with a blog but it was unbelievably short-lived, it was just me calling them out for using my content without crediting. i know i was justified in doing that AND at the same time i feel very embarrassed about it still. 

15. how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

they make me feel awkward because otherwise the main message of the post is usually something i’d agree with, but that message makes me... not want to do it anymore. something something free will and personal identity 

16. do you like tag games?

YES. BLESS YOU. 

17. do you like ask games?

i enjoy answering questions it is one of the fundamental components of the human experience

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

i don’t have any “tumblr” famous mutuals but i have a couple mutuals that are fandom famous and I Think That’s Pretty Cool Of Them And I Love Them So Much [i am looking directly at you. yes you reading this post. did you enjoy the smooth pebble?] 

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

idk if i’d call it a crush, it’s more like a [feeling very awed that they followed me back and we value each other] 

20. tags?

idk who’s done this and who hasn’t so i’ll tag: @mimsyaf @no-mercy-bby @frankcastlesgrunts  (whoops i accidentally tagged someone who i know already did this, if you’re reading this I Apologize For The Notif)