Amatonormativity has destroyed so many people's understanding and acceptance of themselves, and it's heartbreaking.
Yes, it is normal to be in your 20s, 30s, or older and not have lost your virginity, had a first kiss, or a partner. It is normal to say that you aren't ready for those things, too! It is normal if your life doesn't follow the "college graduate -> engagement -> buying a home -> 2.5 kids and a dog" trajectory that so many people have idealized.
So many people associate maturity with losing your virginity, or having a first kiss, or a serious relationship, and I think that's a dangerous association. Maturity isn't gained through those things, and you don't have to have those experiences to be considered "mature" or "grown." It is not a bad thing to go at your pace. Nobody else can live your life but you. If you end up having those experiences, that's great! But it should be done because you want to experience them, not because you feel "broken" and "immature" without them.
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I really feel like one of the best details in “A Scandal in Bohemia” that I never see people fixate on enough is that the story starts with Watson stopping in to see Holmes at Baker Street on a complete whim, because he happens to see that he’s home (and Watson is now married and living elsewhere). Like he doesn’t send word first, he’s not invited, he just shows up and surprises Holmes. Which is not that weird but then Holmes is like “oh good, I’ve got a case anyway, you might as well hang out!” which just makes it funnier when the King shows up and is like “I’d really rather speak to you alone, actually” and Watson tries to leave and Holmes is just like “anything you can say to me, you can say to my best friend John Watson, and if you ask him to leave, I would consider it a grave insult, you would be my enemy and I will not help you ever!!” And the king is like “…ok” and just moves on.
like, that is crazy behavior. Holmes is talking about how there’s probably lots of money in this case, and then almost turns away the client for…not knowing who the fuck Watson is?? He’s not even supposed to be there?? He just came to say hi?? “It is both or none”… girl, GET UP.
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as someone who has unknowingly been in a "mentally unstable femme/do anything for you butch" [i was the do anything for you butch] dynamic i have to say it did severe damage to me and my idea of self worth. i was walked on in horrendous ways. i was not treated like a human or a person with feelings. i was manipulated. i was sexually coerced to do things that no one should ask someone else to do. it has taken me the better part of a decade to recognize the damage this did to me, and it took a strong network of friends (and a particularly supportive and protective femme friend) to help me realize that i deserved to be treated like a person.
i am really tired of seeing butches and femmes alike endorse the idea this is uwucute. its not. its extremely damaging. butches, please find your self worth. recognize that you have needs too. femmes, respect that butches are people. saying mentally unstable femmes use service-oriented butches is downright wrong and disrespectful. i dont care if its a joke or memepost. im exhausted. i know there is a lot of loneliness in being butch and femme. but we don't need to be glorifying unhealthy relationship dynamics, even as a joke. you can get the dynamic you seek (dominance and control) from healthy individuals that respect your personhood. everyone in the community deserves better.
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Helloooooo!!! I hope you’re doing well! How would you say Mycheal is at comforting sad people? And how best is he comforted if he’s sad? Thank you and have a lovely day!
In a way, Day 2 was Mychael trying to comfort you after thinking about your lost cat! He's kinda bad with what to say so he thinks distracting you is the best thing he could do. Maybe he'll cook you something delicious, or bring you out for an outing with an activity like a picnic of sorts! Anything to get your mind off of it <3
As for comforting him, he's not the kind to talk his feelings out. He just needs proximity like being near you or having a part of him touch you, like leaning against you or having his tail around your arm while he figures it out on his own. He rarely has sad days, but when he does he kinda needs to wallow in it and have you with him when he gets out of that funk.
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I think it would really benefit people to internalize that mental illnesses are often chronic and not acute. Some of us will never be able to jump the hurdle of managing illness, much less sustaining a sense of normalcy. Many of us will never "recover," will never manage symptoms, will never even come close to appearing normal - and this is for any condition, even the ones labeled as "simple" disorders or "easy-to-manage" disorders.
It isn't a failure if you cannot manage your symptoms. It isn't a moral failure, and you aren't an awful person. You are human. There's only so much you can do before recognizing that you cannot lift the world. Give yourself the space to be ill because, functionally, you are.
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Things that absolutely fucked my shit up this episode, an incomprehensible list:
- Ellie liked the smell of Frank’s sleeping bag
- Joel still wearing Frank’s shirt
- Joel staying up all night to guard while Ellie slept
- “They’re not gonna hit you. Look at me, they’re not gonna hit you.”
- “Mom! Mom! Mom!”
- The way the doctor gave the lines “I delivered you. I held you in my hands.” and “I’m your doctor” so simply when asked for reasons why he shouldn’t be killed
- Ellie’s smile when Joel tried to tug the gun from her hand
- The way Joel bumbled his way through trying to make sure Ellie was okay, and ask if she wanted to talk about it after she shot Bryan
- All of the superhero drawings on the wall that Sam drew of him and Henry
- The mask that Sam had drawn on his face
Something about how everyone is undeniably human, and how unafraid they are of not shying away from that.
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i think we would all benefit from a new internationally recognized holiday called Wraith Day where you just shuffle around in a floor length hooded black cloak that completely obscures your entire physical form and communicate only in hisses and vague menacing gestures likea. wraith
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I am so entirely serious, I'm gonna need future BL to take SO many notes about the relationships in this show
the way this one simple line tells us so much about how much Fang loves his brother while also acknowledging that sometimes we need someone outside of our family to turn to. the way this moment also tells us how much he cares about Tan even if he might not always be the best at showing it. the way they're all just there for each other.
this show genuinely fills my heart with so much joy it's insane.
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The reason I keep banging the Jiang Fengmian drum so hard is not that he did nothing wrong--he's definitely in contention for best parenting in this book but that bar is in the ground--but because most of the takes I see about him are so extremely bad.
If you want to slag him off for trying to make choices that would hurt no one, and winding up properly protecting no one as a result, that's valid! That's an interesting and text-based critique, which opens into his parallels with Lan Xichen!
If you want to blame him for being weirdly over-invested in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being bffs, that's fair, that definitely contributed to the weirdness between them. If you want to say he was a poor communicator, that he fundamentally misunderstood his son, that he failed to be emotionally available in a way his kids could get much use out of, even that he should have figured out a way to stop Yu Ziyuan from creating such a hostile environment, all of that is fair game!
If you want to tackle how the worst thing he did to his kids was die I am so interested in how Wei Wuxian went on to abandon A-Yuan by going to his death, and how that might be tied to how his primary adult role model tied him to a boat and went off to a fight he knew he was going to lose.
After his parents had already left him like that once before, presumably less intentionally.
But no, instead I keep seeing that Jiang Fengmian didn't care. That he never expressed affection. That he actively participated in Yu Ziyuan's fucky game of forcing proxy conflict onto the boys instead of constantly trying (and failing) to shut it down, or that he ignored her bad behavior because it didn't affect him, or that he fought with her constantly, or that he was too much of an unmanly coward to stand up to her when she wanted something.
All of which are directly in contradiction to every scene he's in, and several of which manage to invert or erase the actual conflicts between him and his wife that were the source of all that tension.
And which are really interesting, because some of the most intractable elements are ideological--Yu Ziyuan is fundamentally a conservative and Jiang Fengmian seems to want to be an egalitarian, which ofc matched poorly with his hereditary authority as patriarch of a large sect.
The fact that the bit where we get to actually see him failing to parent Jiang Cheng consists of him gently and firmly trying to correct Jiang Cheng's ethics when what was actually needed in that moment was reassurance for the well-founded insecurities that were causing him to be a little bitch, only for Yu Ziyuan to charge in and make everything fifty times worse, is so much more interesting than literally any version of this family dynamic I have seen in fic. It's to the point I'm relieved when writers kill Jiang Fengmian off, because it means they probably won't feel the need to character-assassinate him too badly.
The number of people I've seen come right out and say some variation of 'men can't be abused' is killing me here. No, Yu Ziyuan wanting to hurt her husband does not constitute sufficient proof that he abused her first and deserved it! That's not how anything works!
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