#improving is learning. and learning is power

[cosykitchenwitch]

I was one of those people who thought life would be boring and I would feel trapped and stifled as an adult. At times, I didn’t think it would be worth living past 25 or 30.

But the reality I have experienced is actually the opposite: I was at my most miserable as a teenager, and life has really improved after age 25. Every year I feel more grateful to be here, alive, in this body, getting to become even more myself.

Sometimes, when you’re in the miserable existence, it feels like that is forever and will be forever. But often you just have to wait it out. Do your best to honor your needs in that time. Rest when you need to, study when you need to, try really hard to focus on what will get you through the NOW and benefit you the most when you’re able to get out of it.

Imagine the future you want and do whatever you can at this time to work towards that. Often that means studying, but it equally means giving your focus to things you enjoy doing, because experience is a highly sought-after skill. Try to earn money and save as much as you can, especially if you want to move out on your own when you’re able to.

Take small steps towards your goal as often as possible, and do your best to speak kindly to yourself and learn about boundaries and personal values and how to figure out which of the many options feel right for you (many of us are not taught how to do this, we’re simply taught to obey our parents and other authority figures). Read books about everything you are interested in because knowledge is a form of power, and if you’re young you are lacking in power.

It will get better and you will be glad that you bet on yourself.

I get to be more free as an adult than I ever did as a child and I think more kids need to know that. as a high schooler part of what made my depression so bad was being told over and over again that it was the most carefree time of my life. while I was trapped in an abusive home + amongst bullies at school + in a body that wasn’t right for me. opportunities to be carefree don’t end when you turn 18. you can be more you than ever as an adult and that’s such a gift. I know ‘it can get better’ is an annoying thing to see over and over when you’re as trapped as I was back then. and I know that if you’re still a kid you deserve to be free right this second. but it can and will get better and this is not where life stops being interesting. promise

[miwiheroes]

The Love Monologue + El's Arc

This is another post going onto my byler slides :)))

So today I wanted to talk about how the Love monologue is not a closer to El's arc like a lot of Milkvan shippers think it was. To me, a lot of them seem to look at this monologue in a black and white way - she was about to die and Mike spoke to her and then she escaped the vines so that means he loves her and she needed him to say it. This take is very surface level and barely seems to acknowledge all that El has been through in S4, instead just taking note of how she's interacted with Mike.

She's been apart from Mike this whole time for a reason - she needs to figure out who she is, she needs to learn to love herself. To me, that is her main arc in the entire show. Finding a family who loves her unconditionally, but also finding the strength to love herself instead of pleading for kindness from others.

Her arc with Papa in this show, to me, clearly goes:

Papa uses El to get what he wants: To find a gate to the UD to find Henry

He manipulates her into doing this by only showing her the love she needs when she does what he wants: Locks her away when she refuses to use her powers. Shows love when she improves her powers.

In s4, he poses himself as the only one who would ever accept her for causing everything: Takes her into the lab but still blames her for being manipulated by Henry. Implying she needs him for her own sense of self-worth.

In the end she says that he is in fact the monster and she is not to blame: Therefore meaning she doesn't need outward love from Papa to believe she is useful.

Papa had trapped her with a collar. When he's almost dead in the desert at the Byers-Hopper reunition thing, he is the one to open back up the collar. He says I'm proud of you. He says I've only ever wanted to help you. But this isn't as an act of love. It's all an act of self-preservation - just like all the other times he 'showed' love towards her. It was all for his gain. He hoped that she still had some guilt inside her to save him. He hoped she still had that desire for him to validate her inside him.

But she doesn't. She walks away. She says goodbye as an act of self-love. She doesn't need him anymore, she's not guilty about feeling like the monster anymore.

And since Papa is literally paralleled with Mike in the same Season?

Well. We can say that her arc with him is very different, but similar but in the sense that Mike gives her normalcy, makes her feel good about her powers but only when they save people or don't hurt anyone. He doesn't do it on purpose, but he inadvertently makes El feel like she needs his approval at the beginning of the season.

Mike's not an abusive figure, but her old abusive childhood means she pleads for unconditional love from Mike in order to calm her insecurities about being a Monster.

She creates an ideal version of herself for Mike at the beginning of this season because she doesn't have powers anymore which is what he puts her on a pedestal for, and continues to. Even during the monologue.

When that ideal image is shattered by her attacking Angela, Mike shows his disgust. And she breaks down, revealing why she felt the need to create the idealised version: she wanted Mike to love her. And why did she want her to love him? So she doesn't feel like a monster which is how Brenner made her feel. FUCK MAN-

She needs to stop tying her self-worth to men.

Anyways, so what I'm saying through all this is that El, after all that was said and done with Papa, it should be clear to the audience now that she doesn't need outward love to make her feel like she isn't a monster. She needs self-love.

Now, I wanted to point out something that I find interesting. In the scene in SBP where Mike and El joke around and then El gets kind of serious: I believe she was going to let him down easy and she knew he was going to as well.

Hear me out. Watch this scene. Can you image this carrying onto end up being Mike saying "I love you" at the end?

Mike's facial expressions of sadness and remorse, like he's about to apologise instead. El's faces of quiet sadness at the mention of their fight (it's a fight you can't come back from remember) - and how she says 'I missed you' like she's trying to cheer him up before saying something?

He breathes a sigh of relief because she's not mad. Meaning: he can apologise instead of feeling the need to do what she was mad at him for not doing!!! Now that he knows she's not mad at him for the fight, he can now begin to talk to her about the truth and "explain" himself.

The music has quiet, wistful, almost bittersweet notes to it that indicate not something hopeful like an I love you that we 'wanted'.

If this was supposed to be an "I love you" moment, then why did him saying it later seem like such a big deal? Why did Will need to be the one to push him to do it?

And besides, he gets interrupted, leaving the viewers to guess what they were actually going to do, making his love monologue seem different to what he was actually going to say here. And we know that without Will, the monologue would never have happened.

So now, we get to the monologue.

This is what we know already: the conclusion of El's arc with Papa in this season is her not needing him to feel good about herself and feel validated. She lets him go. Then, she meets up with Mike and starts a conversation that seems bittersweet rather than about them loving each other. Mike also suspects that El doesn't need him anymore - but Will, not knowing about El's true feelings or anything, sacrifices his own feelings to save their relationship and says Mike is the heart of the party and El's saviour.

So when Will again tells him this in a crucial moment where it seems like al is lost - Mike reverts what he was going to do in the earlier quieter scene and instead tells her what he believes he should.

And this is her reaction:

Yeah. I have another post on here about how this moment isn't supposed to read as satisfying or an amazing turning point, but from everything in El's story this season, Mike telling her that he loves her just......doesn't feel like what she needs???

In this scene, she's literally being told by Henry that it is all her fault that he is the way he is, manipulating her into thinking that she is at fault for even the mind flayer and Will's disappearance etc. Then he tells her that he's now going to kill all her friends because they've all already lost, so he makes her "watch" as he kills Max.

The whole time as El's listening to Mike talking, she has her eyes closed, she looks extremely afraid still, and nothing is happening. The vines are still tightening around her throat for like 3 minutes of this monologue - We have learned from her arc this season that she is trying to realise that she is not a monster by herself. She doesn't need Papa to think she is useful, she doesn't need Mike to love her to love herself.

Which is why the love monologue doesn't work until El looks at Max and is reminded to Fight.

Compare the pic of El above this one to this pic of El. They have practically the same expression except her eyes are open. The first pic is from the beginning of the monologue and this one is from the end. El's emotions never fucking changed until she looked over at Max. She was afraid the whole time - and then boom. Not anymore:

She was able to get herself out of the vines because she is reminded to fight and that she is good at fighting - she uses self-confidence to get out. Not Mike's words about her being a Superhero which overexaggerate and idealise her again just like in the love monologue.

This girl:

Is in a completely different place than this girl:

So that's why Mike saying the exact same things about being a superhero does not mean the monologue at face value is a good arc closer for El this season. Well, clearly not for the world, because El "lost" which are Mike's own words he later says at the end of the season.

Hopefully this made sense <3

[flamboyant-king]

when yer in a creative rut, try doing a redraw. it'll make you feel better.

it wont make harvey feel better though...

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In the same way that this blog has given you something to hold on to and look forward to, seeing these comics has given me something to hold on to and look forward to in some bleak times too. Thank you for sharing your art and your journey and your commentary and your jokes. They mean a lot to me and I’m certainly not the only one. Keep “”””””poorly”””””” drawing <3

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey of trying to get by, and learning to stay silly and hopeful.

[galaxygamer0960]

"Optional diagnostic data may also be used in aggregate to train and improve experiences powered by machine learning, such as recommended actions, text predictions, and contextual help." This is from the actual link in Microsoft Word that sends you to a page containing this little paragraph under "Optional Diagnostic Data". I've just learned about it and turned it off, but I assume my thousands of words have already been turned to slop in their machines. More people should know of this.

Microsoft Office, like many companies in recent months, has slyly turned on an “opt-out” feature that scrapes your Word and Excel documents to train its internal AI systems. This setting is turned on by default, and you have to manually uncheck a box in order to opt out.

If you are a writer who uses MS Word to write any proprietary content (blog posts, novels, or any work you intend to protect with copyright and/or sell), you’re going to want to turn this feature off immediately.How to Turn off Word’s AI Access To Your Content

I won’t beat around the bush. Microsoft Office doesn’t make it easy to opt out of this new AI privacy agreement, as the feature is hidden through a series of popup menus in your settings:On a Windows computer, follow these steps to turn off “Connected Experiences”:

File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Privacy Options > Privacy Settings > Optional Connected Experiences > Uncheck box: “Turn on optional connected experiences”

[feministdragon]

this is Chapter V now:

"You see, John, the women have specialized — even in motherhood.” Then he went on at considerable length to show how there had arisen a recognition of far more efficient motherhood than was being given; that those women best fitted for the work had given eager, devoted lives to it and built up a new science of Humaniculture; that no woman was allowed to care for her children without proof of capacity.

“Allowed by whom?” I put in.

“By the other women — the Department of Child Culture — the Government.”

“And the fathers — do they submit to this, tamely?”

“No; they cheerfully agree and approve. Absolutely the biggest thing that has happened, some of us think, is that new recognition of the importance of childhood. We are raising better people now.”

I was silent for a while, pulling up bits of grass and snapping small sticks into inch pieces.

“There was a good deal of talk about Eugenics, I remember,” I said at last, “and — what was that thing? Endowment of Motherhood?”

“Yes — man’s talk,” Owen explained. “You see, John, we couldn’t look at women but in one way — in the old days; it was all a question of sex with us — inevitably, we being males. Our whole idea of improvement was in better breeding; our whole idea of motherhood was in each woman’s devoting her whole life to her own children. That turbid freshet of an Englishman, Wells, who did so much to stir his generation, saw women only as females and wanted them endowed as such. He was never able to see them as human beings and amply competent to take care of themselves.“Now, our women, getting hold of this idea that they really are human creatures, simply blossomed forth in new efficiency. They specialized the food business — Hallie’s right about the importance of that — and then they specialized the baby business. All women who wish to, have babies; but if they wish to take care of them they must show a diploma.”

I looked at him. I didn’t like it — but what difference did that make? I had died thirty years ago, it appeared.

“A diploma for motherhood!” I repeated; but he corrected me.

“Not at all. Any woman can be a mother — if she’s normal. I said she had to have a diploma as a child-culturist— quite a different matter.”

“I don’t see the difference.”

“No, I suppose not. I didn’t, once,” he said. “Any and every mother was supposed to be competent to ‘raise’ children — and look at the kind of people we raised! You see, we are beginning to learn — just beginning. You needn’t imagine that we are in a state of perfection — there are more new projects up for discussion than ever before.

We’ve only made a start. The consequences, so far, are so good that we are boiling over with propositions for future steps.”

“Go on about the women,” I said. “I want to know the worst and become resigned.”

“There’s nothing very bad to tell,” he continuedcheerfully.

“When a girl is born she is treated in all ways as if she was a boy; there is no hint made in any distinction between them except in the perfectly open physiologicalinstruction as to their future duties. Children, young humans, grow up under precisely the same conditions. I speak, of course, of the most advanced people — there are still backward places — there’s plenty to do yet.

“Then the growing girls are taught of their place and power as mothers — and they have tremendously high ideals. That’s what has done so much to raise the standard in men. It came hard, but it worked.”

I raised my head with keen interest, remarking, “I’ve glimpsed a sort of Iron hand in a velvet glove back of all this. What did they do?”

Owen looked rather grim for a moment.

“The worst of it was twenty or twenty-five years back. Most of those men are dead. That new religious movement stirred the socio-ethical sense to sudden power; it coincided with the women’s political movement, urging measures for social improvement; its enormous spread, both by preaching and literature, lit up the whole community with new facts, ideas and feelings. Health — physical purity — was made a practical ideal. The young women learned the proportion of men with syphilis and gonorrhoea and decided it was wrong to marry them. That was enough. They passed laws in every State requiring a clean bill of health with every marriage license. Diseased men had to die bachelors — that’s all.”

“And did men submit to legislation like that?” I protested.

“Why not? It was so patently for the protection of the race — of the family — of the women and children. Women were solid for it, of course — And all the best men with them. To oppose it was almost a confession of guilt and injured a man’s chances of marriage.”“It used to be said that any man could find a woman to marry him,” I murmured, meditatively.

“Maybe he could — once. He certainly cannot now. A man who has one of those diseases is so reported — just like small-pox, you see. Moreover, it is registered against him by the Department of Eugenics — physicians are required to send in lists; any girl can find out.”

As I read I'm starting to think that Gilman is not precisely eugenicist, in the sense of *unfit people* being bred out of existence. No, I think what's going on here is that *unfit men* are being manipulated into a different way of being. I don't think you can call this eugenics, although you definitely could call it social engineering.

I need everyone in radblr to go buy urself a copy of "Herland"(1915(?)) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman as soon as possible. Yall do not understand. I cannot believe this isn't like, basic radfem/female separatist literature already.

Same author as "The Yellow Wallpaper", three men find a land consisting of only women which is a literal utopia. The men question their own failures in patriarchal society while the women of this land politely exchange information with them about their own lands.

You have no idea how therapeutic this book is. men casually say "oh no man can do that!" and the women respond "oh, no man? can women do it?" and the men go "oh yeah, also no women". There's also such brilliant regular feminist thinking through the book;

"These women... were strikingly deficient in what we call "femininity". this led me very promptly to the conviction that those "feminine charms" we are so fond of are not feminine at all, but mere reflected masculinity- developed to please us because they had to please us, and in no way essential to real fulfillment of their great process."

Insane for 1915 and such a fucking relief and pleasure to read. I hope all the anons who have asked me about radfem books see this bc yall NEED IT

[frogmood]

i’m one of those mfs who watches the phantom menace and is like “i want more political intrigue and trade law discussions between minor characters. this movies going too fast”

[crowdusk]

genuinely confused about the regeneration thing bc initially i thought it was probably something to do with using haki in a new way or something.

but then i realized Gaban cut off Sommers’ LEFT arm specifically (where he has the tattoo, which Oda showed us during his intro). if part of the tattoo is the abyss mark that lets them use the teleportation circles, it might well be the same thing that grants them regeneration powers from Imu. and I looked at which arm Gunko uses when she’s making the teleportation call - the left. so i thought it may well be that Gaban knows that and intentionally cut off his left arm first to prevent regeneration, before making his second attack.

the problem is, i think Oda made a mistake (we know it happens regularly) with the right and left arms in the following panels. we see Sommers’ left arm get cut off, but then he holds up a severed right arm in the next panel. then, it’s very small but when he notices Gaban it looks like he’s holding his mace in his right hand again if he’s facing Gaban, but in the last panel it’s his right hand that’s cut off again.

all of that to say, the multiple mistakes make me think that it should be the left arm and Oda messed up (normal and fine), but if it’s important it would mean redrawing the panel pretty significantly for the volume release. we’ll find out next chapter whether he’s careful to make it the left arm anyways, but that’s just my hypothesis on how the holy knights’ regeneration can be stopped. kind of silly to all have the marks in the same place if i’m right, but i guess fascists love uniformity and have the arrogance to think that they’re untouchable anyways. we’ll find out in the old man on old man violence next time! yay!!

[greentrickster]

Also, Romance is in charge of their Instagram account, and Abby handles the majority of their twitter, and Jinu's usually the one showing up as the mainstream face of the group. Mystery doesn't have a designated 'main' platform he's in charge of beyond his personal accounts, and instead just 'takes over' the main accounts from their designated Saja Boy at random, with no pattern or logic that any outsiders can see*. His stans lose their fucking minds whenever this happens, and the designated tag for spotting one of his appearances is #It'samystery!!!; his stans watch this tag like hawks.

Also, I'm in agreement with the rest of the fandom that Jinu probably does almost all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Personally, I don't even think he does it for any actively malicious demon-related reasons, I think he's probably just got a pretty calculating and perfectionist personality, and you have to force him to delegate with your claws to his throat before he'll offload anything on someone else.

Not to mention that, on top of that, regardless of how cushy and improved it was over life in the streets... Jinu was still a former nobody suddenly working for the king. He probably had to learn a hundred things all at once when he got brought into that palace** just to make it to his first performance for the king, then keep on doing everything just so and perfectly every time in order to keep his place (and potentially his head on his shoulders). Being in control is safety, kept him alive and comfortable (at least until the shame fully consumed him, he became a full demon, and presumably got yoinked to the demon world at some point).

Like, if the Saja Boys and the Huntr/x girls ever managed to meet up and have a civil conversation, pretty sure the two groups would instantly bond over what workaholics their respective lead singers are, and how they have absolutely no chill when it comes to their music.

.

*The logic is that he is, in fact, a natural-born internet troll, he just didn't have access to the internet when he was born a couple hundred years ago, and he freaking loves messing with the fans. Also that he steps in whenever the others are busy with other band stuff.

**And is it just me, or did it look like he fully thought his family was going to get to come with him right until he got to the gate? Like, there was no reason to bring them along if he was just going to leave them outside, he was holding his sister's hand, he didn't look happy or smug when they were pulled away and the gate closed between them. Like, yeah, he was selfish and lacked the strength to fight for them, boy fucked up, but also I think Gwi-Ma whispering shame and guilt into his ears for four hundred years has convinced him that he had more agency in this situation than he actually did. Guy was a peasant in an era and area where looking at nobility funny could end it all for you, guy had talent, not power.

The funniest thing about reading fandom stuff on the Saja Boys, as someone with a background in the performing arts, is the sheer number of people commenting on how Jinu must have worked his butt off to find four random demons and teach them to be Kpop stars while also running everything behind the scenes for all the technical stuff.

And like, yes, that's a super funny headcanon, I've absolutely been giggling at them.

But also, with my personal experience with the performing arts... absolutely no way Jinu was the only performer Gwi-Ma got onto his side. Like, the I've met people in way better circumstances than Jinu who would absolutely sell their soul to make it big. And the fact that all five of these guys look extremely similar to Jinu even in their demonic forms indicates, to me at least, that there's a good chance that they were all former human musicians themselves.

Therefore, with all this in mind, I will put forth the humble suggestion:

Jinu didn't round up a random group of demons behind Gwi-Ma's back and train them from the ground up.

Jinu held freaking auditions behind Gwi-Ma's bacl and brutally narrowed it down American Idol style to the best of the best in order to assemble a crack team for his plan, and the other four members were the ones who made the cut.

"But Trickster, he was the only one who would get anything from Gwi-Ma for doing this, what would the other four be doing this for?"

For the chance to be performing in front of tens of thousands of adoring fans and be worshiped as an idol, naturally. I mean, have you seen the things real-world people will go through to get a chance at that? And these guys have already sold their souls for a chance at this, why not team up with the best performer in the demon realm for another chance at it?

Also, I think Baby was in charge of their TikTok account. He's just got that vibe to him, you know?

[zerguette]

Kursed: -hands you my goobers-

Request time, decided to draw some of Ur fellas in my au maybe hmmm

@bluetorchsky @kursed-curtain Ur fellas!!!!!!

( and some interactions with my boys)

[druidonity2]

Kal'dorei Varian, Anduin, and Wrathion.

[clumsypuppy]

Atla live action 😐

[cementcornfield]

It's important to fans to understand me, and me understand the fans. I put a lot of work on my English to talk with you guys. And I think I'm doing a good job.

[mekatrio]

im kinda dealing w vesperia the same way i did w ff8 where im just sooooooo mad at the flop ending but give it 3 months and ill probably sing high praise for this game but as of rn i need to seeth......

[freaky-flawless]

Mmmm...yeah sad to say I'm a little underwhelmed by Catty's doll. I feel like her release should have been a bit more...special? It's kinda lame to see a popstar in the same packaging as the regular dolls. I think it would have been really neat if she came with two outfits, a popstar/performing outfit, and casual clothes for when she's not performing. Even Toralei's doll came with a mic stand, Catty's should too.

And overall I expected her to look a bit more glamorous.

[crumbleclub]

Anyway. Mike regaining a sense of bodily autonomy after years of trauma and being given the impression that he's not allowed to have boundaries or make choices.

Haircuts, piercings. He can change how he looks, if he wants. Nobody can stop him. He can lock his door, and people have to knock rather than just barging in. No one can make him lie for them, or force him to lie to himself until he gets confused about what really happened. People can't touch him without asking. Nobody is allowed to go rifling through his belongings without permission.