#also you can literally tell when i have no irl social life because those are the moments im most active on this blog aha

[i-will-physically-fight-you]

I hope whatever is going on in your life, things go your way.

Take care of yourself, drink some water <3

Thank you, it is much appreciated. It's just Everyone I've Ever Known has wanted to spontaneously do things with me after weeks of radio silence. Which is great, but super stressful! I'm very exhausted atm, so I'll be catching some Zs shortly and will hopefully get some writing done later this week

[decolonize-the-everything]

.....does anyone else get the vibe that the limitless expanse of the internet, media, and consequent ability to interact politically, spiritually, and apathetically with people locally and globally maybe had an influence not only on the individual's relation to the collective but also their ability to participate in it and see their significance to it?

Can we talk about it?

Like I feel like as some who was a frontline activist and now is a disabled social activist who dabbles in radicalizing liberals... The wall I and my peers continuously keep running into is the collective feeling that someone else will do it.

"it" being whatever action.

For me it's signing a petition, protesting, donating, community organizing (both online and offline).

We get tons of interest on stuff. Interest which very rarely translates to doing more than showing a poster to the friend theyre with before trashing it, reblogging a post, or hitting "interested" or like when we post local events.

And on All these platforms posts gets to a point of "enough" responses where ppl just stop responding and sharing, too.

On Tumblr you see this a lot with donation posts and people constantly having to make new ones. Cuz they're getting notes, but not tangible assistance that will help them. And the reblogs stop because there are so many notes that ppl start assuming that the goal was met or will be met soon.

But that isn't what's happening. And like I said this isn't just with donation posts or money so the answer isn't "well ppl are broke" which would be an easy and sensible answer.

Honestly, I've been thinking that with so Many people easily accessible online with so many opinions and varying levels of popularity and followers that it's easy to lose yourself in them. Especially now when so much of life takes place online.

It's so easy to think you're just one of those many people. ....So surely nobody would notice if you were being a little facetious, right?

Gonna be real, it seems a lot to me like a lot of people are trying to hide their lack of integrity through the anonymity offered online.

And like sure maybe nobody would notice if it was just a few people being facetious about supporting something but it's SO MANY (in my experience? Upwards of a thousand once) and Everywhere. Online, offline, and apps.

And the thing that makes it weird is that every one is assuming that people are being more helpful than they are. That more people are showing up.... Even though they themselves are not showing up either. Like I said reblogs for donations stop, shares stop, and only a handful of ppl show up to events irl. You can literally compare reblogs to the signatures when a petition is being shared.

Wanting to show up isn't the same as showing up.

"People" are not coming to change or show up to the revolution. It's you. You are the people. You are the people that need to show up. Not just as a notification on my screen but actually, because you think someone else will have enough integrity to show up for you but they don't.

Your integrity matters.

You matter so much. I don't know what it is behind this mass behavior that has y'all acting otherwise but I'm telling y'all right now that YOU and the choices that YOU make matter. The events that you choose to spend your time at and how you spend your energy and protecting your rights matters!

That isn't some "im just another drop fighting an endless battle in the ocean" kind of deal.

I'm telling you from experience: there is no ocean! We are in a fucking drought and every drop matters.

Show up. Nobody else is doing it on your behalf.

.......or is it just me? Has anyone else noticed this

[trickstarbrave]

Actually b4 I sleep:

I see in the bg3 arguments (carried over from ppl rules lawyering 5e too hard) that if a character wants to do something it is unethical or “gross” to use persuasion rolls to convince them out of it. Examples: that you should let Astarion ascend because he wants to, or let Shadowheart become a dark justiciar because “it’s all she’s ever wanted”

These arguments are stupid.

Normally I don’t go hard on the “this is a stupid argument” bc most of the time complex moral situations require nuance and you shouldn’t try and call ppl stupid for differing perspectives but. No this one is stupid.

Persuasion rolls are not magical mind control. They are literally using the force of charisma (whole other conversation but again it isn’t mind control) to talk about something to a character and have them see it from different perspectives. High rolls are not you overriding their will power or decision making—if they rly didn’t wanna, they wouldn’t do it. You can do this for objectively horrible end goals, but also good ones.

Not to gamify real life tragedies but IRL, talking someone down from a suicide attempt would be a charisma roll (I’ve been suicidal so I’m using this example). The person really “wants” to kill themselves—or at least, they really think they do. This isn’t a choice made in a vacuum. Ultimately people want to die when they think there is no way out of their problems be it bad mental health, abuse they’re constantly subjected to, insane amounts of debt they feel they’ll never be able to pay off, social isolation, grief, and so on. It can be a combination of factors, but really what they ACTUALLY want is a solution to the problems that are overwhelming them and making them feel like being alive is worse than being dead. Talking someone down from suicide is not a BAD thing to do. In fact it would be morally bad to go “well we have to let people do what they want. Go for it man here’s a loaded gun and some pills”. But you have to persuade them to help them. Because they’re in a really dark place and can’t see reason.

Shadowheart was raised in a cult. She doesn’t actually want to be a dark justiciar, she wants to feel accomplished and like she belongs. She has been punished, isolated, and hurt her whole childhood and had her suffering justified by those in power above her. She’s been abused and told being a dark justiciar is the best thing a sharran can be. That it is the height of Shar worship. And that Shar took her in and “loved” her when “no one else wanted her”. Her ideals and goals are built upon lies and abuse. You, as an outsider, can give her that perspective and tell her that no matter how hard it gets she is worthy of love and can uncover the lies used to cover up and erase her past. She is just so narrowed in on what she thinks is “right” based on what she’s grown up with that she is not thinking for herself, she’s falling back on cult doctrine to think for her.

Astarion “wants” to ascend because he wants to feel like no one can ever hurt him again. He wants to spite Cazador. He wants to feel safe. And not worry about burning in the sun too. But are those things worth your actual fucking soul and your ability to love and connect with other people? No. Astarion doesn’t actually want the power, he doesn’t actually want to rule the world, and this power will not actually keep him safe. He has mistaken power for freedom because of 200 years of abuse and also was almost killed via human sacrifice like a minute prior (turns in dnd are only 6 seconds). He isn’t exactly thinking rationally give he’s been free for a week and nearly died a few seconds prior. He’s running on base instincts. He’s leaning into the lies Cazador has drilled into his head: the weak suffer because they are weak and the only way to be safe is to be the strongest person around. But this is an ideology that isn’t true. Cazador wasn’t safe. He wouldn’t have been safe even ascended. Astarion won’t be either. It’s literally a Faustian bargain and the game hits you over the damn head with it multiple times. Talking him out of it means you to see Astarion for who he is: as a person beyond his abuse and what makes him useful or not.

Hell, on a smaller level, Wyll wanted to kill Karlach. You can find out very easily though that she’s not actually a bad person, it’s just a technicality of Wyll’s contract. Or are you gonna say Karlach is manipulative and immoral for telling the truth and pleading for her life??? Because it’s getting in the way of what Wyll wants to do! Mizora told him she’s heartless! He’ll suffer if he doesn’t! Gale wants to blow himself up and thinks it’s the right choice, better miss out on all of act 3 because why are you trying to convince him out of it???

You can still ofc make different choices in any storyline bc this is s video game I’m not here to tell you what you can and can’t do. Just arguing “actually it’s morally bad that I have to roll persuasion—“ is a dumb argument I need people to stop making.

[minniiaa]

Sorry if this seems repetitive but I haven't been active on social media in yearsss

Is it true that there's a lot of lawlu hate on tiktok and Twitter? I'm so confused because there used to be so much love for the ship back in 2017/2018 from my perspective (Amino era).

The short answer: yes and no. Let me start by saying I'm not the best person to answer this since I purely consume on twitter. I made my personal twitter in 2007 like it's everyone I've ever known irl and has nothing to do with shipping or hobbies and I follow approx 0 accounts related to anime, manga, or lawlu. I just looked up lawlu a few times and browsed and suddenly it's my whole fucking timeline and there’s no going back and now I have a lawlu twitter (This makes me very happy).

So if anyone else has an opinion on this that is more in the community, please feel free to comment away. Otherwise, below are my observations.

First off, there IS a ton of love for the ship. Most of what I see is beautiful art (they got the nsfw ayo), memes, fanfics, and headcanons just like tumblr. There are tons of comments of people swooning over these posts, Lawlu IS one of the most popular OP ships after all.

There's just a vocal minority that are very against the concept of shipping and in that subset there are those who are very against Lawlu. There people out there that will literally list accounts to block that ship lawlu or write lawlu DNI in their bios. The same can be said for other ships, it's not just this one it’s any they deem a ‘pro ship’ (problematic ship) and Lawlu is generally considered one of these. Below as is an example:

The biggest issues I’ve seen with Lawlu are the following 1. luffy is aroace and cant be shipped period 2. law groomed luffy and the age gap is gross. IMO I think most of these people are just infantilizing Luffy as some goofy autistic kid that doesn't know what love and sex are when in reality he's very self-aware and happy does not equal stupid. Also he's 19 he’s not underage. He met Law twice when he was 17, one of which was saving his life as a doctor and Luffy was unconscious most of this time. Let's not forget Luffy's a war criminal kicking the asses of people 4x his age in a pirate world, age doesn't really work the same as irl.

BUTTT Not that any of this matters because you can ship whoever the fuck you what because guess what? It's ~fiction~. I could rant about how people can ship whatever the hell they want all day but I'll save my breath for now. (my opinion of course)

Also there are just mentally ill people who enjoy telling others to kys if you like something they like do. Lawlu shippers are just their chosen target demographic. Creators get foul messages in their inboxes, rude comments, just general hater behavior. Twitter is just a firey cesspool and all fandoms have 'fans' who do nothing but hate. We live in an age of negativity where being a hater is the cool thing to do.

HOWEVER, I see more people posting about why those people are wrong and stupid than the actual negative tweets but maybe that's because I actually support the ship and the algorithm sees that. Not sure how twitter works, nor do I want to know about that dumpster fire there's a reason I came over to tumblr.

As for tiktok, I don't really consume a lot of tiktok so I can't speak on it besides seeing cosplayers and cute animations/art. I'll leave that to the tiktok people to look into.

For argument's sake, I went through the lawlu tag and picked some lovely tweets to share with you so you can see the toxicity for yourself. Sadly only 10 images per post but I think you get the point. Thanks for the ask hope this was informative. :)

[dr-spectre]

man i saw your last two posts and i wanted to tell you, you're not cringe, and you're not unlovable

i've had like, one full conversation with you going back and forth on both shared and unshared interests and it had a profound effect on me at the time

I need to unlearn shame, i need to be more open with what i fixate on and what i'm doing (and also the realization i'm definitely on some kind of spectrum), from one chat with someone *loud and proud* like you, how fucking crazy is that?

I hardly know you personally, but it's not hard to gauge how awesome you are, in face of your perceived faults, several of which i share myself, you yap so much but you're so genuine and passionate i and pretty much everyone who sticks here loves to read it, it never gets old, it never gets annoying

you put your whole pussy into innocuous little things about the subject matter, and it's a wonderful thing

you can find friends, you can find love, and you deserve both of those things

this is a little long but it's sentiments i've had for awhile now but no good opportunity to share......

I.... I..... WHA.

WHAT DO I EVEN SAY TO THIS?!?!?! YOU CAN'T DROP THIS IN MY INBOX LIKE THAT!!!

LISTEN... ITS JUST.... I aint awesome!!! Im some 20 year old autistic dude who's too obsessed with a squid woman! How's that awesome!!?!?!? I haven't made an impact on anything... not on the community... not on inkipedia... not on anyone... I have 300 followers... that's nothing...

...or have i?!?! There's no way I could have had an impact on someone... hell even SEVERAL PEOPLE! I just overanalyse stuff that seems so cut and dry but... people are actually positive about my stuff? People say to me that I changed the way they see this important character to me.... BUT THERE'S NO WAY RIGHT?!?!? I still feel like a drop in the ocean. Just a spec of dust!!! I haven't made real change yet... OR HAVE I?! I DON'T KNOW!!! WAAAHHHH!!!

Maybe.... maybe if I have changed one person's perspective, then maybe it was worth it in the first place...

You know. I wanna say that the reason I came to tumblr was because my irl friends aren't into Splatoon and my family gives me a meh shoulder shrug to my interest. It was so difficult for me to explain Splatoon to my parents when Splatoon 3 came out and I picked up the game at launch! So I went here because I felt like it was the best place to express myself. And yeah I'm glad I stuck with it honestly.

I get why my irl friends aren't into Splatoon, they need to buy a multi hundred dollar console that's about to get replaced soon just to play 2 games. And trying to explain to them Nintendo Wii U and Switch emulation is just... I dont even wanna attempt that HAHAHAHA!!!! So I often felt lonely and it felt like I was screaming into a void when talking about Splatoon to them in a discord server. I guess that's where my sense of loneliness comes from.....

I genuinely have NO ONE in real life to talk to about my interests and have someone ACTUALLY listen. I guess that's why I feel cringe and not cool at all. My interests are so nerdy and I'm on the spectrum, my social skills are like D tier. I genuinely cannot talk about myself, i really cant. Its why i have never been in a romantic relationship before.... As a 20 year old dude, that shit fucking stings I'm not even gonna lie. I think about that shit every day. LITERALLY EVERY DAY I'M NOT LYING!!!!

But anyways, I'm getting way too personal on the internet. I don't wanna be some sad sap.

Thank you. Seriously, thank you. I'm not sure if I truly feel like I deserve love but. Thank you anyways. I guess it is a good quality to have that I can ramble and yap and become really focused on something, even if it's not adult things like... getting a job, paying taxes or whatever HAHAHAHA!

[vulturesrottencorpse]

Is this part of my autism or am I just an asshole

ok so basically, there's this really nice girl in my class, she keeps trying to talk me me (guess she wants to be my friend) but I don't like her. I go to a school that isn't mainstream so we get a lot of people with autism, ADHD, ect. You'd think this would make this easier to make friends, right? No. For some reason I'm a very picky person with who I talk to, I need someone who's smarter than me or gets my humour or something. This girl, she just talks, and talks and doesn't get the hint when I try to politely shoo her away. I'll be drawing, she will comment on it and if I respond even with a thanks, she takes it as an invitation to pull her chair over and sit and draw with me. Constantly asking "should I do this?" "How do I draw this part" " what do you think" every 2 minutes. It annoys me because 1, I don't want to be rude, I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings so I can't just tell her to go away, and 2 , I HATE socialising, even with my friends I find talking hard (irl, at least)

Getting too long but, is this normal? Am I a bad person for not liking this person who wants to be my friend, who's really nice and shares all my interests? Aren't you supposed to like people who are just like you? We are almost exactly the same yet I can't stand her. Maybe this is what it's like for other people who talk to me. I don't know.

Edit: a part I forgot to mention was that she has anger issues and gets annoyed pretty easily. When she's mad she just starts yelling and stuff, if I accidentally offend her by telling her I don't want to be her friend I'd be the centre of attention as the person she'd yelling at, which would probably give me a panic attack.

Since the start of this year I've become a very VERY shy person. If you were to ask anyone in my class or any teachers (from my class only) about me theyed probably shrug and say "who?" Or, "oh. The one that draws all the time" which is super odd because basically my whole life I've been bullied and to combat that I became a very loud and outspoken perdon. I still had social anxiety but with my friends I was pretty much obnoxiously confident. I've gone from being told to "shut up!" And "stop talking to loud" to "speak up" and "talk a bit louder nobody can hear you." So the switch is pretty sudden, and attention, ANY attention, a teacher saying hi to me in class, someone walking past and even glancing at me, sets me into panic.

So I can't tell this girl to simply go away, even if I wasn't scared of being mean.

Also, rereading this post I'd like to clarify that I asked if this was autism because of my extremely low social battery, people pleasing behaviour, ect. And I asked if im an asshole because you're SUPPOSED to get along with people who are the same as you. With people who have similar interests or struggles but I HATE being around those people. I hate being around people who remind me of myself. My whole life I've been friends with the confident, loud and unapologetic people. But the more I think, the more my brain tells me "you just don't like them because they have autism, and that annoys you" (IM LITERALLY AUTISTIC)

This is quickly turning into a long ramble session rather than an explanation. So, feel free to just ignore this wall of text lmao.

[siberian-xanadu]

Hiii it's Violet misses her friend again hours!!! I hope you don't mind this little story I'm going to share, because it's something I think of every time I find myself in this state lol. So, back in January, around the New Year, I was hanging out in my sister's room after my friend had logged off for the night. It was only about seven or eight o'clock here, but he's 5 hours ahead of me, so it was around midnight to one in the morning there. This is important.

One thing you should know about me, for context, is that I've moved and changed school districts twice in my life. I moved in fifth grade from one school district to another, and then again between eighth and ninth grade. It's been hard to keep in contact with people from either district throughout high school.

So, my sister is scrolling on social media, and she finds the account of my elementary school classmate's sister, who announced my old classmate's death. Now, I wasn't particularly close with this kid; I spoke with him a couple times in elementary school, being in the same fourth grade class, but his mother was my fifth grade teacher (until I moved). What I do remember is that he was always nice to me, and his mother was a nice woman as well.

To be honest, it took me a moment to set in that this person from my childhood was now dead. In fact, it's been a few months and I'm not entirely sure if it has set in yet. It was a strange feeling. It is a strange feeling. Even though I hadn't seen him in six or seven years, and wasn't even that close in the first place, I knew that we were supposed to be starting our lives, not ending them in car wrecks.

So, in my shock, I messaged my friend on discord because I didn't really know how to react, or what else to do. I knew that we had said our goodnights about an hour before, and wasn't really expecting a response, but to my surprise, he got back to me within ten minutes.

Another thing you should know about me is that my standards for relationships (platonic in this case) are in turbo hell. I never really had a solid group of friends growing up, due to being neurodivergent and moving around a lot, and I certainly never got to the point where I would tell one of my friends about this.

And he got back to me within ten minutes. Not only that, even though he said he wouldn't be able to talk to me that night, he said that was because he wanted to help me in the way I deserved, and that he was thinking of me and that he loved me. What the fuck??? Like I said, my standards are in literal hell. This guy, that I met on this fucking hellsite that I've never met in person is a better friend to me than anyone I've known irl. Which is... sort of pathetic on my part, I suppose? But I guess it's also beautiful in a way; how two people can connect across oceans.

The story doesn't end there, however. The next day, true to his word, he sends me a "care package" (his words, not mine) of concert videos of all my favorite bands. I was in the middle of class when he sent it over, and I was, honestly, completely shocked. I don't think I'll ever forget that kindness. We had a long conversation that night over lots of things, partially about my classmate, partially about whatever we were talking about, but I think that's when I knew I finally had something real.

One last thing you should about me, and it's sort of a combination of moving a lot, never really forming solid friendships, and some issues with my mother (that is a whole 'nother can of worms) is that I have some anxiety around abandonment. I recognize it for what it is now, and do my best to not let it interfere with my relationships, but sometimes I do get anxious, and start trying to mentally prepare myself for the end of a relationship (romantic or platonic). So, I have to recognize I'm spiraling and I have to fight it off. Rereading those messages always grounds me and reminds me that it's all in my head.

I really didn't intend to write this much, but whatever! I feel it's got a good message, I think.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

I can't in any capacity say that I'm an ally to anyone. That's not me being an asshole. That's not me being a bigot. I'm an ally to no group. I'm a friend to people. And I care about people. Someone asked me about one of my asks where I got called a transphobe and a homophobe and it reminded me about the topic in general.

Fact is I don't care what color you are. What religion you belong to. What sexuality you are. What Identity you assume. If you are not a dick to me or to people that I care about, I won't take issue with you. What's weird though is to be called homophobic when a lot of my friends are lgbt. And this is not one of those, "Well I have a black friend" moments. I legit have friends from varying walks of life. One of my best friends from college was a gay black furry. And one of my favorite past times was picking on him in playful ways. Why? Because if was always fun to see him flustered and he actually thought it was funny. Am I gay? No. I'm comfortable in the fact I'm straight. And my friend knew that.

There are going to be a lot of things that people say that I don't agree with. Does that make me hateful? No. It just means that I have my own views on things. I however understand that if I WAS hateful towards certain groups, I'd have to be bigoted against a huge number of my friends. Like my college buddy from Sri Lanka, his friend and our roommate who's have Korean half Black. Several of my ex GF's who've been bisexual. Even friends of mine who are lesbians whom I've defended in public after they have been accused of being transphobes for, and I'm not kidding, "No being willing to suck the dicks of trans women". That's not a fucking joke. And it's sick.

I've made posts about how I'm not an extremist because I'm not. Fact is, and I mean this, I should not be considered an bigot because I don't worship a movement. No one else should either. And on my blog I will cover a lot of topics. Like:

-Groomers -Gun Laws -Radical Feminism -Black Representation in TV and Movies -Race Swapping -Capitalism -Communism -Socialism -Anarchy -State and Federal Powers -Etc.

And there will always be more. I'm not transphobic. I just want kids left alone. I'm also not homophobic, but again leave kids alone. If you are an adult you can love another consenting adult. I take ZERO issue with it. And I never will take issues with it. My only focus on any of that stuff is quite literally "Let kids be kids. Let them figure out who they are without pushing them. Don't sexualize them ever." Simple rules to live by. Anything else? I'm willing to have a discussion about. Hell I've been on record losing my shit at least in one of my reblogs borderline making promises to deal with anyone who would threaten any of my friends/family irl because they are LGBT.

What many don't understand about me is that I'm an angry ginger who is actually pretty moderate on most issues. And it's only in cases where people belong to cult like mentalities that anyone can even REMOTELY consider me hateful or radical. More so when we consider that the only people I actively hate are those that actively seek to harm others. And not just in a weird way that won't do anything. I'm talking people that WILL or would enact actual violence onto people I care about. Like the FBI. Or Antifa. Or real extremist white supremacist's. Or segregationists leftists who have called some of my non white friends "house N-". I typically don't give that word any power myself and most of my friends don't, but believe me when I tell you, I'll make you look like a punk and I won't even have to touch you.

So even the notion, that I'm X type of bigot is hilarious to me. And no amount of this, "Bow to me and my ideology or you are a bigot" will make me change who I am to my friends, my family, and the people I care about. I worship no one. And I will never bow to your cult like ideals. And maybe one day, someone like the person who sent that ask will find it justifiable to kill me. Who knows. I certainly don't. All I do know is that I'm a very caring person. And a lot of the time the stuff I mean get's lost in translation. What I say might be interpreted one way by one person and another by someone else.

That's just reality. But if you can't even come to me and ask for clarification, or you just expect me to placate someone because of the group they belong to, then you are barking up the wrong tree. You are not my friend. You are not my family. And a number of you are people that would actively endorse having me end my own life, or wishing someone would end my life for you.

Why? Because you are tyrants. You believe yourselves gods and that your "moral rights" are and should be everyone's "Moral rights". You will not rule me. You will not control me. You will not make me worship you as if you were gods. I am me, and only me. And I will live me best life not just for myself, but for the people I hold dear.

[echobx]

oh I'm ranting again. but ig by now you guys know that I can't keep my mouth shut. so to add to the list of all the apparently unpopular opinions that I have...

I don't actually think role play (rp) (and real people fanfic (rpf)) is bad, not if it's characters, and also not if it's celebrities.

"How can you say that? What's wrong with you?" I mean, there's plenty wrong with me but not here. Especially not here. I'm aware of my "controversial" takes when it comes to fandom, but honestly, the only reason you find them controversial (if you do) is because you haven't been in fandom long enough. Which, I will grant, is difficult if you are 1. not old enough to know better 2. are in a fandom that is rather young, like OBX is. But telling people what to do and not to do, simply based on you not wanting to see it, is simply and clearly an act of censorship. Now I'm not saying that it equates to the censorship our governments are trying to put on us in online communities (especially in the US recently) but it lays a ground for the politicians to base their argument on. Because when you go and spread around that some things "shouldn't be done" and "shouldn't be written" and "shouldn't be drawn" that creates a base layer of what politicians will take and say "see, they want us to censor them" and that is never ever good. bc it might at first be role play and "dead dove, do not eat" types of content, but it will really quickly lead to the banning of queer content, and I won't fucking stand for that.

so, yes, you might cringe at RP and other things, but you also have the possibility to simply block those accounts, to block the tags to filter your own online experience, especially on tumblr since it's the only truly user friendly social media site that we have left.

and on the fact of people bringing up Chappell Roan in this discussion. Chappell very clearly said that she feels uncomfortable irl bc it happens IN HER REAL LIFE. if she cared about people just talking online about her without any irl reason for it, she would've said that. but she didn't. she was rightfully pissed that people approached her irl and didn't take no for and answer and only after that they went online and talked shit about her. this is entirely different to RP. (it also reminds me how straight people forced Kit Connor to come out and then blamed queer people for it, when no queer person ever made him feel the need to come out because we accepted him even when he was in the public closet)

RP is clearly tagged as such, the people who do it are very much aware that it's a game, and not real. if you can't make that distinction, that's on you. not the person who RPs or the people who interact with the RP.

side note: if RPing is bad, why are you watching historical dramas based on real people? why is it okay for the industry to make bank on the lives of dead AND living people, but a normal person can't do the same without getting paid? maybe you should also think about that, because it's literally the same. y'all watched Elvis and Bohemian Rhapsody and The Crown and so many more shows and movies that are based on real people but aren't what actually happened 100% and that is okay, but when fandom does it you want it to be wrong and a moral failure? get a grip.

there's a clear line between fiction and reality and it's not the creator's fault for you to go and blurr that line because you don't understand the rules. RP and RPF have been part of fandom culture since the beginning, and just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it will go away, because there's nothing wrong with it.

just do with RP/RPF what you do with more important things in our daily lives, more serious matters. Look Away. bc clearly you are good at it any times else.

[longeyelashedtragedy]

it’s been a really powerful year for like mental health acceptance and self confidence building which inevitably means, when you’re as fucked-up as i am, that periods of that always then make you realize how much else is still wrong

at this point i think that as someone with C-PTSD i can’t expect to live a “normal” life in terms of how i interact with other people.  i really...don’t think that will be possible.  this level of acceptance has been my thing this year and it’s really been helpful to defy toxic positivity/disability porn culture and be honest and open with myself about the reality.  it will never happen and that’s that.  so i have to figure out what kind of “normal” i think i can realistically achieve and of course adapt that over time as needed.  but there’s no way i can have what other people have--in offline or online spaces.  and it’s actually sometimes worse to think about the latter because of the common belief that “oh you’re WEIRD you can’t make irl friends but can make Internet Nerd Friends” but to be totally honest i have some of the same problems in both spaces.

i was just reading about how exposure therapy for people who find it impossible to be in successful relationships with others is...duh, nearly impossible when you are triggered by relationships with others 😭 i keep trying to find alternate explanations but i think my actual complex trauma diagnosis kind of covers everything. 

it’s very difficult to be in a social setting when you kind of can’t keep up in a “group” and “group” to you literally means more than one other person.  i like...stop existing.  i feel like this caged spectator.  as the conversation goes on i start losing the capability to try to put a sentence together to get a word in.  like those people who are “locked in” and can only move their eyes.  if this happens the only thing that can kind of end it is if one of the people leaves or someone mercifully brings up something i’m very good at talking about, but i feel hurt after, like i’ve been hit by a bus and am picking myself off the ground.  i used to have these very big, very scary dissociative episodes that were kind of cinematic, and i haven’t had one since 2014 but i’m realizing that i think i have smaller ones all the time. i complain a lot about my work team but we also were weirdly close to the point where i just told my coworker that i have Trauma so if i ever just seem like....weird or off that’s why--sometimes my mind just goes elsewhere and i don’t realize until it eventually returns to me and i realize i’ve been sitting in a room of people staring blankly at a wall for....a LONG time.

(the thing is...my brain doesn’t shut off so...It’s that i’m looking inside my head you know?  the outside world just ceases to exist for a while.)

and like, jesus, everyone in the know agrees i’ve been doing “so much better” socially. this is so much better? i can’t even hold a conversation in a groupchat (unless it’s the deathpond because the deathpond is just. magical.) i’m so deeply afraid of other people.  not afraid of their judgement or something, but like, the crux of it is that Other People in Groups are going to happily watch me die because of something inherently wrong with me that makes me deserve this from them, and i can’t tell people i need help because...i can’t trust Other People in Groups.  by the time i was in pre-K or Kindergarten i knew my parents couldn’t help me with my problems and i lived in a constant state of random fear that would appear out of nowhere, which is pretty developmentally fucked up for a child less than six years old.  i used to want to tell them to please help me--but i was also a disturbingly smart and intuitive kid, and i remember thinking, i can’t tell them because the only thing that will help me is to “take it out of my head.” and they can’t reach in and take it out, so it will just continue. and indeed--that is the only thing that would have helped me!  i wasn’t properly diagnosed with anything till i was 24, and i had been to many therapists before that.

i’m not sure why i’ve written all this out.  i used to write stuff like this on my tumblr but then stopped because of how public it is, but whatever.  i guess i just want people to know.  i want to have good relationships with others and laugh in groups and have fun. but it’s just too hard for me a lot of the time.  sometimes i can handle it but other times it’s not at all possible.  i just have to learn to accept that i won’t fit in. i might truly never be able to. it’s hard to accept.

[solarpunkpresentspodcast]

Questioning the “survival” narrative

After studying Cold-War, Canadian post-apocalyptic science fiction, I have decided that I don’t want to survive the post-apocalypse.

Or at least, I don’t want to do what it takes to survive. Not according to the tenets of the classic non-solarpunk sci-fi narrative, that is.

Hear me out: I’m all about making a better future according to the values of solarpunk. I choose to focus on and pay attention to the actions that are taking society towards a radically just and sustainable world, that sow the seeds of a brighter future by the dim light of the present. It helps me cope with the fact that it’s pretty dark out there right now. It helps me keep the shadows away from my soul; they might have slipped into the crevices of my brain, but solarpunk helps me to keep my heart clear. Mostly.

Some would say we’re living through an apocalypse. Some would argue that our society (as with many cultures around the globe) already experienced an apocalypse and is living in the aftermath, though many people are unaware of it. Because this apocalypse was of the revelation sort, many of us don’t have the ability to recognize the violence that has been done to us. The violence that we have done to ourselves. The violence that we now embody.

Have you read (non-solarpunk) post-apocalyptic novels? Have you watched the movies? What tends to happen to the characters? What do they do to survive? How do they make their way in this changed world, which is often more brutal?

Now think about those stories again, and this time think about the supporting characters: the young, the assigned-female, the gender-non-conforming, the racialized humans. In the dominant science fiction narrative of the post-apocalypse, what happens to those characters? What do they do to survive? How do they make their way in this changed world, which is often more brutal?

I’m already seeing some of the tropes coalescing irl, and I don’t like it. I’m thinking specifically of two that have made the jump from (science) fiction to real life - the assigned-female humans who take on the violence and domination of the patriarchy, proving that they are “one of the boys” and can hold their own in a fight (whether verbal or physical), and the assigned-female humans who escape into traditionalism, trading in freedoms for the assurance of economic, social, and/or physical safety from the violence of other humans (usually assumed to be the assigned-male ones).

These aren’t great options. They also are based in an understanding of the way that humans work that is faulty, that is perverse, that assumes violence is the answer even before posing the question, that thinks that obviously people will turn to fighting, chaos, and ruination as soon as the enforcement of civil law is taken away.

Have you heard the references to nature, red in tooth and claw? To how life is nasty, brutish, and short? Life is pain, anyone who tries to tell you different is selling something? Who killed the world? These make up the background chorus of post-apocalyptic narratives in my mind; pop culture has thoroughly commodified my imagination and thus is an informing factor of my thoughts and actions. I suspect this is the case for many.

It’s appealing, to rest the axioms of irl human behaviour on the literal worst way that we can treat each other and our selves. It’s so easy, to choose the violent way out. To give in to our base emotions, to let negative affects overwhelm us and carry us along in their flood, consequences be damned. When our adrenaline is up, the energy necessary to carry out terrible things is at most humans’ fingertips, and it’s not a difficult thing to unleash.

(I say this as an average-height, disabled ciswoman who is super out of shape. I’m not going to be beating anyone up physically any time soon because I am angry. But could I bully? Could I viciously tear down my conversational partner if I believe them to be an opponent? Could I make them feel awful? Yeah, probably. Sometimes, it’s hard not to cut someone down verbally, whether in real life or on social media or an anonymous messaging board. You know of what I speak, reader.)

Post-apocalyptic fiction that is gritty, that is dark, that is “realistic” - these stories assume that, in both fiction AND real life, humans are inherently lazy. Well, all humans except for our noble protagonists who, for some reason, have the fortitude and willpower to overcome this urge to easy violence in order to … do whatever it is that merits the win condition for the story medium they find themselves in, I suppose. Conversely, if we’re following an anti-hero, we may gleefully delight in their giving in to their urges to dominate others, as it reaffirms to us that even the most relatable of people can be cut down, brought low enough that their humanity no longer provides a constraining, conscientious barrier to violence.

Is the post-apocalyptic setting that operates according to these rules a fun one to romp around in fiction? Heck yes! Do I want to live there full-time? Hell, no.

I don’t want to continue to survive in a world where the dominant consensual hallucination has agreed that humans operate according to these narratives of lack, meanness, violence, scarcity. I don’t want mine to be a bare life. I don’t want to be forced to operate according to kill-or-be-killed, survival of the fittest, power-struggle logic that operates strictly in punitive hierarchies. So many of our post-apocalyptic settings demand this sort of action from characters, scripting violence and domination into their interactions.

I am a firm believer in the fact that fiction influences us in a myriad of ways - some overt, some so subtle we cannot even recognize them until they are pointed out to us. The dominant imagination of the post-apocalypse has been beholden to these non-solarpunk stories for so long that fiction is starting to bleed over into reality. And survival is not enough* - it was never enough to begin with, and it’s really not enough now. Instead of imagining humans surviving, let us imagine all beings thriving. Solarpunk stories, in my opinion, do that very well. Is it unrealistic to thrive in the wake of disaster, or to make the best of a bad situation? Is it naïve to hope that there is more to life than a continuous power struggle, only temporarily driven under the surface of consciousness by the strictures of society, but ready to reassert itself the minute something happens to upend that society? I sure hope not.

I want that negative version of the post-apocalypse to stay in the world of fiction, safely, where it cannot twist the way that we think of others, the way that we think of our selves. Instead, I hope we invest more in real life examples of communities coming together in the aftermath of disaster, like the examples in Rebecca Solnit’s A Paradise Built in Hell. Like I experienced in Japan after 3/11. All humans do not naturally react to the misfortune of others with indifference, with violence, with destructiveness, but many react with compassion, empathy, and solidarity. I would say, based on this, that the non-solarpunk post-apocalyptic setting is the exception, not the rule.

As I was writing, I was thinking of an anecdote about anthropologist Margaret Mead, who purportedly claimed during a lecture that the earliest sign of “civilization” was not tools, nor weapons, nor pots, but a healed femur. Ira Byock describes how

“Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal. A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.”

This is a really nice anecdote, a wonderful sentiment, and something that points toward a truth, to me; however, that anecdote is very contested, and cannot be attributed to Mead at all. I was surprised to find this out, but even more intrigued by the critique put forward by anthropologist and physician Gideon Lasko. Lasko, writing for Sapiens in 2012, called out the inherent anthropocentrism of the anecdote, asking if medicine, healing, and helping others can really be thought to only be exclusive to Homo sapiens. He goes on to talk about how, not only are healed bones found in many species across the animal kingdom, but evidence shows that many species like chimpanzees, elephants, and wolves practice some form of self-medication and care for wounded members of their group.

This illustration points out rather succinctly that the non-solarpunk default of “survival” is a human construction, not the inherent truth of being “civilized” - which is a super problematic concept in and of itself - or indeed “human”. The dichotomy that the negative version of the post-apocalypse draws between civilized/uncivilized, human/animal, man/woman, etc is a hierarchy that is too often perpetuated in non-solarpunk science fiction stories, especially in those narratives we would consider classics of the genre. I’m looking at you, “Farnham’s Freehold.”**

It is useful to be able to take what we have been taught to be / passively absorbed from cultural worldview as a fundamental truth of nature (that survival is a struggle that continues up through Maslow’s hierarchy of needs past the first level) and carefully detach it from the other assumptions that make up our worldviews and look at it from all angles, recognizing what is true, and what is a result of invention. These ideas didn’t just come from nowhere.

So I return to my original statement. I don’t want to survive in a post-apocalyptic setting that operates according to the negative, binaristic logic that dictates that all interaction between humans is necessarily violent. I don’t want to struggle for power. I don’t want to be a victim. I can see my role, and it looks grim. I would rather just nope out of the situation entirely. There’s a reason I don’t read/watch most sci-fi post-apocalypse media. Solarpunk gives me an alternative, something that assumes people will act with care for others, with respect for their selves and nature, with good intentions despite the fact that we’re already in hell.*** I don’t think, if the world were solarpunk, I would need to want to survive, because the philosophical groundwork would already have been laid to enable me to thrive.

— *I’m not referencing Star Trek, I’m referencing Station Eleven, which references Star Trek. **Some narratives (especially in feminist, post-colonial, and more contemporary narratives) invoke this hierarchy precisely to critique its irruption in the present day, and point out how false a narrative it is. I am not talking about these cases. ***Apparently the road to hell is paved with good intentions, but if you’re already there, can you just take the road made of good intentions back out of it? I don’t see why not, since metaphors are also malleable.

[transformersarelikemagicalgirlz]

Ugh I can’t believe I’m venting here of all places but I also need to get this out so bad

For context, i haven’t had an irl friend since I was 11. My parents didn’t want me in public school, the stay at home parent couldn’t drive, I was babied and not even trusted to leave the house to walk/bike ANYWHERE without a parent, but I finally did manage to be allowed social media in my late 16’s.

Both friend groups I’ve had online were ones I cared about deeply and they both ended with me realizing they didn’t care about me in return. One I was the oldest of and 80% of the group was 13, but I still got along with them anyways and after a whole year of being the mom friend, the therapist, the “Ill call the police if you don’t throw up all those pills you intentionally OD’d on because I’m not letting you take your own life so young” stays up all night spam calling them when they said they were gonna ktms only to find out they were bluffing and never even took all those pills or actually intended to hurt themselves, that kind of friend. Then when push came to shove, the one time I needed them, the one time I literally had to Voice message because I couldn’t see my keyboard through tears, they completely ignored and roleplayed over the top of me and left my messages on read.

The second was so much better, they were supportive and funny and super invested in the fandom I’m hyper fixated on and you can ask anyone in my family I was BEYOND happy with them. Then out of the blue, the admin messages me to tell me I’ve sent a server invite. I hadn’t, I didn’t even have people to invite in and I had been hiking in the desert for four hours straight with my family. They let me back in and then booted me out AGAIN after a literal misunderstanding with them thinking I was “Acting like they didn’t have a reason to kick me in the first place”, and said “I think it best if you just leave sorry.”

I tried to explain myself and they came back with “Uh huh, you still sent an invite which is all I need to know.” Mind you I’ve been friends with these people for MONTHS at the time this happens and they’re completely unwilling to hear me out.

Out of desperation not to be kicked from my only friend group at the time I offered to show them screenshots of all my recent DM’s to try and prove I hadn’t sent an invite, they came back with “I don’t need to see that you could’ve deleted the message 💀”. ATP they’re condescending me and acting as if the situation is funny and I’m having a meltdown sobbing in front of my mom and unbeknownst to me at the time starting to get sick from too much sun that day.

So I’m sobbing and seeing red at the same time, and I told them to shove a cactus up their ass but that I’d be explaining to everybody through DM’s why I was gone and what happened. But they got to everyone first, @‘ing everyone just showing me being aggressive and telling them to shove a cactus in their ass and they managed to turn everyone against me. One very sweet person was nice enough to share screenshots of the situation and let me know about it before I ever even reached out to anyone and at that point I was too humiliated to say anything watching everyone make fun of me.

I couldn’t hold food down for the next two days out of a mixture of emotional upset and what might have been heatstroke from that hike. As of today it’s been a week, 2 hours and thirty minutes since that happened and I still haven’t heard from any of those people after the admin blocked me on everything. I still have a DM with most of the people there, but they haven’t once reached out to me and I’m too scared to reach out to them. I just keep thinking about it all on loop.

Oh, and as a bonus fun little side note they fucking posted a slideshow of our DM’s on TikTok, tagged me in it and said “Uh you deserved to be banned as this screenshot shows you invited someone so yeah sowwy ☺️” AND DIDNT BLURR OR CENSOR MY USERNAME. That’s wrong on a LOT of levels, but holy fuck I’m so glad that video got taken down. I hope their 11 likes was worth my internet privacy. And again I legitimately have no clue where that invite was sent, i still swear on my life I didn’t do that.

So yeah, not a peep from any of them and I’m seeing a pattern here. Am I obnoxious, am I boring, do people not find me funny… literally wtf am I doing wrong that nobody cares about me as much as I cared about them? Maybe those were just texts to them but to me online interaction is my ONLY interaction, it meant a lot to me. Maybe I can’t force them to care about me but I wish I could at least force them to understand how bad it feels to realize you’re not cared for. Do I just sound like a chronically online pussy who’s being selfish? Idk, but the loneliness is fucking killing me and I’m scared to be open or even joke around with people anymore. I feel like there’s a standard I’m not aware of that I have to fit for anyone to even consider me an acquaintance.

I still feel literally sick just thinking about the year wasted with those first people and then months with the second, I can’t get all that time back and it doesn’t feel like a happy memory anymore it just puts a pit in my stomach to think of how it all ended.

Christ it’s 2:41 am now and this must sound so fucking dramatic, I need to go to bed.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

gods sometimes I hate that I can't think about Palestine, about everything going on in the world, 24/7.

I ask myself "well why not? why not just think about that stuff and school and chores? why does fUCKING FANDOM and special interests eat your life and personality like this? don't you have any empathy?"

and I know the answer. I know its because there have been MANY times in my life where I've taken my own advice and tried to think about "the issues" 24/7. I became a total asshole. angry, stupid, often self-destructive. I didn't make any change or contribution besides starting fights with strangers online, and any effort I DID make to contribute irl just led to so many messes that the people who were actually helping then had to step aside and clean up.

the times I'm most capable of help are when I'm able to keep a balance between awareness of the problems in the world, with other stuff (both fandom and just like... homework n shit). it feels SO wrong and SO un-natural to actively prioritize fandom, but I've tried the "right" way so much and been such a dick and done a good bit of harm.

and I've tried the "wrong" way this past year and done more good/participated more than ever.

results speak for themselves.

and ik everyone does activism differently.

I'm obviously not gonna break any boycotts, holy shit no. I'm still attending protests and making posters/art for local activist movements and doing what I can when I can.

its just so tempting to put 99.99999% of myself into REALLY feeling that grief and rage and helplessness... but again. I know, yknow?

I know how that ends. I may feel righteous and empathetic and, honestly, Cool(tm), but I'm not doing shit for anyone

if mainlining destiel into my brainstem lets me show up for protests and make art and do all of that while NOT being a total bag of dicks...

ugh. it just feels fucking weird

(& yes, I did try the "really feel it, no self-anesthetizing with fandom and no distancing myself from it on purpose" approach as recently as this fall. after physically forcing myself to not send threats to kill strangers' pets, exposing my unmasked face to cameras while chalking a govt building, being kinda socially inappropriate and considering vandalism, i realized that it does in fact still make me an asshole.)

like I feel guilty about purposefully distancing myself for these issues, but also simultaneously understand from past experience that this is the best way for me to make actual, meaningful contributions. its weird.

if i go full-in on Understanding(tm) it, I FEEL morally/spiritually superior, and sure, it MIGHT make me a better activist, but years of experience tell me that, despite how I'm perceiving myself in that moment, it wont.

if I keep distancing myself, ie LITERALLY PURPOSEFULLY seeking out fandom/yt brainrot/Shiny Happy Things to AVOID thinking about it, I do more. I'm involved more, go to more protests, meetings, talk to friends about it.

...that is the reverse of how those things should work.

I think this may be the same kind of reason I don't do existentialism or organized religion. there are some things, really deep or emotional things, that if I think abt them too hard I get stuck EXTREMELY far up my own ass in how I can "only" think of these things or else I'm "awful"

but that's it. its all just thinking. and feeling. and not acting.

...I guess I'll go back to obsessing over my little shows and ships, making actual contributions to anti-genocide, anti-colonialism, pro-palestine efforts

and wondering why the FUCK I'm like this.

...also ok tbh my desire for some kind of moral or spiritual depth/fulfillment/righteousness/forgiveness???? via immersing myself in the experience of VICTIMS OF ONGOING GENOCIDE to try to understand their experience is uhhh

creepy.

especially given that its at the direct detriment of my actual activism and to the emotional harm of peers and fellow activists.

yeah hm actually that is just kind of creepy. and not helpful.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

tl;dr stream of consciousness ahead --

I'm thinking about how newer people in fandom think that a fandom is "for" the target age of the media it's based on and not the ages of the people engaging in online fandom and how... Idk. It's a very corporatized, brand-first way of viewing art? Like "this is For a certain demographic and it obviously can't resonate with anyone else, because it's Content and not Art." but media doesn't... engage with A Demographic, it engages with themes? And those themes can resonate with anyone? And it has nothing to do with who some boardroom said should be the target marketing demo? And it's not inherently nefarious? It's literally just themes??

Like, I hate that bronies made it impossible for actual little girls to engage in meatspace with mlp.

But I think that's a case of this same phenomenon, where people aren't understanding the divide between your online life and your meatspace life anymore. The whole "use your government name online and post selfies" thing has made people think that everyone behaves in meatspace the same way as online, when... Fundamentally, for fandom: no. That's never been the case, NOR IS IT THE DESIRED OUTCOME.

someone who is in their 30s and reads/writes fic and meta for a kids' show because they like the writing and enjoy engaging with the themes of "finding your place in the world" or "finding your own moral path," which are the two main underlying themes of MG and YA work, are not then going out into meatspace and trying to re-enroll in high school to meet meatspace teens. Generally, they want nothing to do with meatspace teens at all.

What themes resonate artistically with you and the fandoms you engage in have nothing to do with how you behave irl. Like, there's just so much handwringing that people are engaging with some kind of art themes because they want to irl engage with that art's corporate-decided audience or something?

And what MATTERS, what DOES bridge the divide between online life and irl, is how you view and treat other actual people?

Like I know I was rabidly anti-reylo but that's because reylos' behavior towards other fans was rancid, and that's not cool. But this idea that some purity culture wankers have that the only reason someone would engage online with a piece of media is to try to engage irl with its commercial audience is bananas.

Like I never want to hang out with the bros who Disney thinks the MCU and Star Wars are "for."

And I also never want to be around kids. I don't want to be around them online OR in meatspace. That's why I don't HAVE KIDS. the idea that someone would think I like American Girl or whatever because I want to spend time with meatspace children is fucking baffling tbh???? Why the fuck would I, an adult engaging with these themes through the lens of adulthood, want to talk to a child whose brain is still basically soup??? In my FREE TIME???? ARE YOU KIDDING???

there's also a fundamental misunderstanding of nostalgia, which, considering people are walking around in bucket hats again, is also baffling. But whatever.

Like. I don't know. People understand curating their experience when they're creating a DNI to tell other people who they don't want to interact with, but they can't fathom other people having their own demos they don't want to interact with, or something.

I don't know. I'm just thinking a lot of thoughts about how social media and capitalism really poisoned a lot of brains. These are not complete or coherent thoughts. I'm just saying that target demos are a marketing thing, not an actual guideline for who gets to like a given piece of art, and also, fandom has never, ever, ever, been for people who want to hang out with kids. It's just... not how anyone wants to spend their free time.

[autisticlee]

I have so many characteristics that make me feel like dating would be absolutely impossible to do and navigate, because they're such undesirable things that no one wants. i

if someone DOES want/are ok with them, there's so few of those people that they either already found someone, or they're out of my reach/we'll never meet. and that's if THEY match what I want as well, which then makes that pool even smaller.

i'm autistic. i'm asexual/aromantic. i'm trans/nonbinary. all things that make dating extraordinarily difficult to begin with.

i'm also not smart, rich, socially acceptable, or conventionally useful. i'm not physically attractive/don't match societal standards. i'm not likable to most people and can't even make or keep friends. my interests are very weird and niche, and it's hard to find people who share them.

if I can't figure out how to make and keep friends, how am I ever supposed to date? that's many levels ahead of where I am, almost end game. i'm at level 0. the tutorial level. except my tutorial glitched out before I even started and won't work. so I can't advance.

yes, I have good characteristics that people would be lucky to have (like loyalty, willingness to communicate, honesty, going out of my way to be there for people I care about, etc) but those things don't overshadow the ones above. first impressions kill me. my most noticeable traits kill me again. I can't lie or mask. no one gets to the smaller "good" traits or they simply aren't ever enough.

this is why I never tried to date and never even thought about it until now. I gave up before even starting because I knew it would be a dead end, a waste of time and energy.

i'm going to complain further under here, despite already making like 10 posts about the exact same bullshit:

"until now." so, I need someone who lives in canada to date me so I can move there from US and be with the only supportive people I have in my life lmao. my closest friends, my found family, who meet my needs, respect my boundaries, go out of their way to help me, and reciprocate everything mutually and equally. they actually want me in their lives. it's not one-sided, for the first time in my life. I don't question their motives or loyalties like every other friend I had in my life. it's genuine and real and they've stuck with me for like idk 5 years now? meeting irl (which usually ends my friendships for some reason...I guess people don't like me after meeting me outside of my internet persona?) it was solidified even more that we are the found family i've been wanting and needing my whole life. why do they have to be in a different country that has an extremely strict policy for being allowed to move there?!

so back to the dating thing a big problem is that I have too many barriers that I can't hide that make people uninterested or dislike me. I also can't control other people. people are unreliable and difficult as hell.

throw on top wanting to date someone specifically to move countries and they might question MY loyalties and think i'm only using them. when actually, I genuinely also want someone who can be part of our found family and be my life partner.

unfortunately, I know it will probably never happen, since it's not even about "trying" or "not giving up." I literally don't know how to try to find someone. like where to look?? social medias are collapsing and I get ignored everywhere. dating apps are for more hookups, polys, cheaters, and bots/catfish than real partnerships. I have no clue how to make people like me because who i am hasnt done me any favors ever in my life. waiting around for someone to come to me first just wastes my time! plus i'm picky as hell and can't accept just anyone.

people keep telling me "keep waiting you'll find The One! don't give up! I was in a similar position and i found someone!" that doesn't help me. it doesn't give me hope or whatever. I prefer actual helpful things like "I'll help you get there!" if you want to "help." I prefer to look at things realistically and live in the moment. not a future I can't see. and in this moment i'm stuck in a shitty anti-lgbt state with unsupportive and unaccepting family who don't treat me very well and no irl friends i can trust and rely on. no one can say that will for certain change in the future. things don't always magically change for the better and if you aren't prepared for that, you'll always be stuck in one place, waiting. i'm not being negative. it's more dynamic than that. it's more "I need an alternative in case this truly is a dead end." i'm simply not getting my hopes up for disappointment and fooling myself into believing that doing nothing and waiting will help, while life passes me by.

but I also can't do anything. because I don't know how/what to do

and by can't do anything I don't mean in life in general. I mean about getting out of my parents house so I can be free from them and fond a safe and comfortable place. I can't afford it alone obviously. I unfortunately need other people on my life, as much as i wish i could be a lone gremlin human and never need others. and that's the part I have no clue how to do. if the only humans who want me aren't attainable, then what? i've tried for over a decade and only had failures because people are unreliable and turn on me without warning, after i'm the only one who puts effort into trying to help us escape our situations. i'm TIRED. I can't keep trying to do everything alone and end up hurt and betrayed by fake friends. i'm so tired.

(if anyone reads this, don't try to comfort me because it won't work. if you relate, you can share that because that's fine. if you want to help me by being a candian who can sponsor me to move there then that's even more acceptable 🤣 if you find you cant stand me after im permanently there, i'll appreciate your help and let you go lmao)

[irradiate-space]

"Reading comprehension"? Your sarcasm isn't appreciated, and makes it quite obvious why you don't appear to have anything going for you IRL. "Tch, this fucking peasant can't understand words like I can."

The topic at hand wasn't legal definitions and copyright, it was "who stole what ideas and concepts from who", and I am telling you, quite clearly, that it doesn't matter, because both Dinotopia and Atlantis are in the same genre, and works that share a genre are going to share tropes.

Exotic crystals and gems are a common method in fiction to grant special abilities or power enigmatic machines. Kyber crystals, the Lens of Civilization, Kryptonite, and even our own time-keeping quartz crystals come to mind.

The idea of a Hollow Earth cradling strange life and stranger secrets had existed for a loooong time before Gurney wrote his World Beneath. The Mole People, Pellucidar, and a staggering number of conspiracy theories make use of such.

Fanciful machines, as I said, are the backbone of steamcore and turn-of-the-century-setting Pulp, and unfortunately, they all tend to look the same, with bronze, brass, brown leather, and sweeping angles with fins and trusses and bulbous windows and viewports.

You said yourself that you can't definitively prove a lawsuit and settlement occurred, only allege it, let alone prove that it went in Gurney's favour or that the judge didn't see enough difference between the two.

It's the same story with the other two works you mentioned. Fushigi no Umi no Nadia I pointed out myself in a post that the similarities were superficial on the same genre-based grounds and that the stories were different enough to not be a 'rip-off'. Castle in the Sky meanwhile has a similarly genre-inspired plot ("army looking to steal ancient technology"), and the designs of both come from two groups of creatives using the architecture of SEA as inspiration.

James gurney himself said in interviews he borrowed a lot from other works in the genre when constructing his world. He designed Waterfall City first as an archetypal lost civilization, itself inspired by the ruins and old cities he drew for National Geographic, before populating it with dinotopians and creating a greater lost world. A lot of his conceptual influences for such strange worlds out of time stem from people who were previously embedded in the Pulp genre, like Frank Frazetta, who he worked with on Bakshi's Fire And Ice.

"If Disney stole from Gurney then Gurney stole from Verne" is to point out the fallacy of claiming ideas are stolen when those ideas are just things that anyone can come up with or borrow from older works. I'm not literally claiming that Gurney copied things from Verne.

It's not sarcasm. In included the Reading Comprehension Questions in the original post in the hopes that they would forestall discussions like this. Alas.

You write, "The topic at hand wasn't legal definitions and copyright," but the original post was about legal definitions and copyright, and how those led to a lawsuit that has encumbered the Atlantis IP. The lawsuit was over copyright infringement. Copyright is a socially-constructed legal concept with specific definitions. The things you claim that Gurney admitted to do not constitute copyright infringement.

Crystals as power sources, shared tropes, underground civilizations, the mythological Atlantis: these are not copyrightable. They are also not the similarities I allege in the original post. It's not about individual elements, either, but the shape drawn by many elements in context with each other.

Reading Comprehension Question 1 reminds the reader of the similarities I do point out: aquatic-animal-shaped flying craft which glow blue, used in a chase sequence, in the context of an Atlantean civilization? Crystal-powered animal-shaped machines from an Atlantean civilization, discovered by a white man who figures out how to use the machines? The parallels become great enough to make lawyers ask strong questions of their clients, like "are you really sure you didn't use his art as inspiration?"

Whether or not Disney's concept artist room actually used Gurney's art as inspiration, Disney's lawyers likely looked at the parallels described in my original post, taken together as one pattern of concepts and images, and then the lawyers determined that they would lose the case in either court or the court of public opinion. From that probable loss, they decided to settle.

Future development of the Atlantis IP remains encumbered by the terms of the settlement. Disney isn't going to touch that. They're going to go off and build new IP, which, lacking the settlement's encumbrances, will be more profitable than Atlantis.

That's why there will be no more Atlantis.