#and ALSO biases in how this kind of stuff is enforced

[liedownquisition]

Every time someone, whether in-universe or in meta tries to say that Jason's a "loner" I think about two things:

First of all, the fact that Bruce is frequently referred to as a loner, both in universe and out, as if he doesn't literally constantly have his emotional support child and a rotating cast of lovers (sometimes multiple in any given story at once). In this instance, it's used to try and make Bruce seem "cool," which whatever ig.

Batman #359, which, is so fucking funny to me because this is before Batgirl and Talia showed up in this story. Catwoman too. It was a real fucking ensemble. He's berating himself for snapping at Dick, and sending some civilians (The Todds btw) to die, against Dick's advice, because he's being bitchy about Catwoman. Like, my man, you have a mental breakdown every time you're truly alone. You're not a loner but maybe you should be.

Secondly, is Jason a loner or is he just always alone and isolated? Is he a loner or does he just not know how to be any other way? Jason consistently through both pre- and post-crisis express a lot of desire to be around other people/build connections, as well as referencing factors that isolate him from them. (I'm not sourcing every incident here but here's Jay trying to bond with Bruce right after he gets taken in, and some stuff wrt Jason at school)

Detective #527 (Pre-Crisis)

Batman#395 (Pre-Crisis. This is him being jealous of Catwoman, sure, but given how often in this arc it's referenced that he's isolated from the other kids in school- despite being on some kind of presumably sports team. I think it's baseball? I'm trying to find the exact issue that it actually SHOWS him on said team but it is referenced in the issues leading up to when they switch over the histories.)

Batman Annual #12 (This is Post-Crisis)

In Brothers in Blood Jason's trying to reach out to Dick. I'm not saying he did it the right way or that Dick was wrong for rejecting that, but he did literally expressly say that he was trying to reach out to him. in his brief period that he worked with the Titans, it's explicitly stated that he'd had to sneak out from under Batman's nose to join up with them. Jason has a sparse few interactions with mostly adult heroes in Pre-Crisis and the only hero his age he gets to meet is Kid Devil/Eddie Bloomberg and that's nebulously canon or not since Pre/Post-Crisis was a soft, slowly rolled out reboot where they changed a lot of things in retrospect but also implicitly kept others. (N52 was also like this but I get the impression Crisis was marginally more organized.)

UtH was Jason reaching out to Bruce for connection. Again, not really the right way to go about it but he pretty obviously/expressly wanted affirmation that his relationship with Bruce DID matter to someone other than himself because he felt it had been stripped from him and false.

Someone who keeps reaching out to other people, but gets rejected because they did it wrong, is not a loner.

When those attempts fail and he reaches out less and less, that's not loner behavior, that's lonely behavior, maybe even a dash of self-loathing. When he starts sabotaging his relationships further he thinks they're already fucked, that's not loner behavior, that's bad coping mechanisms for childhood trauma. I don't care that they state it exactly that he's some kind of "loner," his actions don't agree with that statement.

Is his status something of a self-fulfilling prophecy at this point? Yeah. I keep seeing people refer to him this way and, jesus. y'all wanna ostracize him so badly sometimes. You don't want him here you don't want him there. You use the "loner" rhetoric to enforce the idea that his isolation is a good thing that he wants. They use it IN UNIVERSE from the mouths of characters who have biased views about him.

If he's such a loner why does he keep going back? Why does he answer every call? Like a beaten, but unfortunately faithful dog that can't help but return to their abusive master.

[little-skunk]

Your art and headcannons are so silly and cool, if I was an out little id so follow and like the heck out of you but im too shy... I visit ur profile a lot and your dandys world little headcannons are so silly and real <3 you don't have too but it would be really interesting to see ur take on who shrimpos cg would be and how their dynamic would work like!! Personally I think Goob would be a sweet one but thats a little biased... anyways im rambling ur awesome and keep being awesome!1! ⭐

Thank you so much! I'm always glad to hear others get comfort out of the stuff I make, it means a lot!

Before Glisten was officially in the game, he was the ONE toon I thought Shrimpo would genuinely like as a caregiver. Considering Glisten looked like he could be fairly rude and sassy when he wanted to be, I imagined them as a pair of mean girls.

It ended up really long so the headcanons (and a little doodle page) are below the cut!

Glisten ⊙°

More than any other toon, Shrimpo actually looks up to Glisten quite a bit. Shrimpo really likes him as a caregiver too, but sometimes he can't help but think he's wasting Glisten's time.

- Glisten is rather firm with rules when Shrimpo is little because he knows the consistency and expectations of them keep Shrimpo calm and in-check. Shrimpo respects Glisten and knows better than to try and pull anything with him. He also really likes how theatrical Glisten can get when they play pretend together, it makes things a lot more fun. Overall, Glisten is surprisingly good with kids, even with ones that have a temperament like Shrimpo.

- Shrimpo has a really difficult time reaching out, even when he knows he needs help. He almost see Glisten as 'above him' so he feels like he's wasting the other toon's time when he wants or needs to be babysat. Glisten also isn't the best at helping when Shrimpo is crying or sad, which doesn't help either.

- Glisten is best at taking care of him while he's around toddler headspace, but Shrimpo is comfortable enough to stick around when he's regressed to early teen years as well (usually when he's older he prefers to be alone, Glisten is the biggest exception to this).

- Around toddler age, Glisten like to play with Shrimpo by doing things like read alouds, coloring activities, finger paint (with heavy supervision), and playing pretend with action figures and toys. When Shrimpo's older, they play video games but Glisten always lets Shrimpo win if he can. And also when he's older Glisten tends to not hover as often because he knows Shrimpo would want more space and less doting. He generally trusts Shrimpo to not do something stupid when he's around 13+

- Glisten has the hardest time getting a toddler Shrimpo to bed, he is a very firm fighter when it comes to sleep. The one thing that gets him out like a light is hot chocolate, Glisten discovered. But of course, Glisten doesn't want to give in and let him have all that sugar every night, so instead he lays with Shrimpo and quietly reads (even if he reads through the whole book, he'll just start over) until he is sure Shrimpo is asleep.

- If Shrimpo is feeling fussy and says something mean to Glisten, without fail, Glisten will feign feeling offended/hurt and a majority of the time Shrimpo will end up scrambling to apologize and make him feel better moments after because he didn't mean it.

Goob ☆°

I do get the appeal of Goob and Shrimpo being a pair because Shrimpo could have a soft spot just for Goob, however I don't really think Goob is someone Shrimpo prefers as a caregiver unless he is in babyspace.

- In his normal toddler headspace Shrimpo absolutely loathes being coddled and babied, but Goob's love language is cuddles and doting on little ones. This leads to Shrimpo being very combative while Goob tends to be more sensitive for lack of a better word, and doesn't really know how to handle an angry little. Another problem is, Shrimpo knows Goob is too kind to properly enforce punishment, so he will often act out and do things against the rules on purpose with him, because he knows Goob won't make him face any consequences that matter to him.

- When in babyspace, Shrimpo tends to be more quiet and calm and is much more receptive to Goob's cuddles and caring style. He's probably too ashamed to admit it, but Goob is always his favorite when he's feeling particularly small. Goob just knows how to make him feel better after a meltdown.

- Both Shrimpo and Goob prefer to be little playmates rather than little/cg. This is pretty much the best middle ground for both of them. Shrimpo doesn't feel like he's being babied and feels less need to act out and rebel, and Goob doesn't have to feel as responsible or stressed out.

- Shrimpo doesn't like keeping many toys of his own, so Goob often brings some of his own toys along to play with in Shrimpo's room, like a dollhouse with a bunch of different toys, or fidget toys, or puzzles when he's an older toddler age. Goob likes playing with Shrimpo a lot, but he also usually gets too into it and regresses by accident.

- Goob actually prefers to be a big brother to Shrimpo since usually Goob is the little sibling. When Shrimpo's in babyspace he treasures the moments he gets with the bubbly little shrimp cradled in his arms. Goob gets why Scraps is so protective over him when he sees Shrimpo so small and vulnerable like that.

Teagan ♤°

A somewhat unexpected but very comforting caregiver to Shrimpo. She is a naturally motherly toon, but she also is particularly good with Shrimpo because she knows how to work with him through tough emotions or tantrums. She is very calm and patient despite how combative Shrimpo can be sometimes.

- Sometimes just the tone in Teagan's voice gets Shrimpo feeling small. She'll gently scold him for doing something he knows he shouldn't be doing, and he just melts.

- Shrimpo really appreciates how patient Teagan can be, even when he's being difficult on purpose. With her, he almost feels bad for misbehaving because of how she motivates him with praises (that he absolutely isn't used to hearing).

- Teagan really does care about Shrimpo and hates to see him beat himself up or try to deal with his issues alone. Her favorite moments with him are when he's small and sleepy, which makes him very cuddly and affectionate.

- Teagan found out that tea helps Shrimpo fall asleep without a fight (given to him in a sippy cup of course, wouldn't want any spills).

- Teagan takes care of a few other littles, so unfortunately she's not available as often as Shrimpo's other caregivers. Shrimpo isn't really comfortable with being taken care of with other littles around either (except Goob).

- Similarly to Goob, Teagan is very good at helping Shrimpo calm down during a tantrum/meltdown. She never raises her voice even when she's frustrated, and she tries to get Shrimpo to talk about his issues with an indoor voice. She always tries to give him options to try and help him with whatever's bothering him.

- Shrimpo really likes to hear Teagan sing for bedtime. Teagan doesn't really think she's that good at it, but she knows Shrimpo loves it so she does it for him.

- Teagan is the only caregiver that Shrimpo uses a parental nickname with, he likes to call her mama when he's small enough. Teagan thinks it's really sweet but doesn't comment on it to save him the embarrassment.

----------

Originally there was a section with Dandy instead of Teagan, but most of the headcanons were rather negative so I scrapped it. Instead, here are some little blurbs left over.

- Dandy is better at being a babysitter than anything else (to Shrimpo at least).

- Shrimpo likes to hang out with Dandy when he's in a teen headspace because he likes to rant and Dandy is good at listening without adding any unsolicited advice.

- Dandy has noticed subtle tells Shrimpo has when he is feeling small but not quite regressed, and he often teases Shrimpo when he notices him doing them to get him regressed.

Also. Here's the reason why the request took so long (procrastination)

[victoriansecret]

Vails

I haven't actually talked about it here a lot, partly because I try not to do heavy history stuff here - this blog is meant to be a hobby, after all - and it's something I'm frankly too passionate (obsessed) about, but my main area of historic interest and focus, especially when it comes to my own personal research, is the history of domestic service. It is not an exaggeration to say it is my life's work. Another reason I don't write about it often is I don't really know where to start. My breadth of knowledge on the subject is quite broad, so there's a lot I could say, but I think I'll try to write some small things about specific aspects of it. Vails were, in the 18th (and I believe also 19th) century, basically what we could today call tips, often paid to servants. And when you read things written by the 'master class' of people being served, while they're obviously biased and exaggerating, it does become clear that servants rather enforced them. There wasn't a guild system for servants like there were for trades, but there were informal clubs and groups, and this is one of the ways they seem to have acted together, almost as a form of unionization. There's a letter to a British newspaper where the write says that he estimates many servants are doubling, tripling, or even quadrupling their annual salaries through vails. I could write more but I'll just transcribe some of my favourite passages on this subject from the book Life in the Country House in Georgian Ireland by Patricia McCarthy: I will add too, while this is specifically talking about paid servants in Britain, you do see vails paid to enslaved people in America as well. Probably not as often, but Philip Vickers Fithian, who wrote a diary about his experiences in Virginia in the 1770s, writes about similar things of the enslaved people at the plantation he's staying at expecting their "Christmas boxes" of vails, although they weren't quite as beholden to the actual date of Boxing Day.

... The customary scene in the hall, as their guests waited for their carriages or horses to be brought to the door, embarrassed many. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] Hosts feigned ignorance of their guests' fumbling in their pockets to find shillings and half-crowns to distribute to the servants, who had lined themselves up expectantly. Whether the motive for allowing the practice was to salve the collective conscience of the employers at paying such low wages is not clear. [Bridget Hill, Servants: English Domestics in the 18thc.] It was not confined to great houses, but was also expected in more modest establishments, although the amounts given were less. It was also not only expected on departure from the house of a friend: vails were disbursed by 'house tourists' to whichever servant showed them around - in most cases an upper servant.

...

An army officer described how much his visit to the house of a friend would cost him: 'The moment your departure is known, all the domestics are on the qui vive; the house-maid hopes you have forgotten nothing in packing up, if so, she will take care of it till you come again; this piece of civility costs you three ten-pennies; the footman carries your portmanteau .. to the hall, three more; the butler wishes you a pleasant journey - his greate kindness in so doing of course extracts a crown-piece; the groom brings your horse, assuring you 'tis an ilegant baste, and has fed well' - three more ten-pennies go; the helper runs after you with the curb-chain, which he has 'till this moment carefull secreted - two more; making a total of seventeen, or, in English money, upwards of fourteen shillings. A heavy tax for visiting a friend!' [Benson Earle Hill, Recollections of an Artillery Officervol. 1]

...

Richard Griffith from Bennetsbridge, Co. Kilkenny, complained in c.1760 in a letter to hise wife that 'an heavy and unprofitable Tax still subsists upon the Hospitality of this Neighbourhood .. in short while this Perquisite continues, a Country Gentleman may be considered but as a generous Kind of Inn-holder, who keeps open House, at his own Expence, for the sole Emolument of his Servants .. this Extravagance is not confined, at present, solely to the Country .. ; for a Dinner in Dublin, and all the Towns in Ireland, is even in a Morning, with a Person who keeps his Port, you may levee him fifty Times, without being admitted by his Swiss Porter. So... I shall consider a great Man as a Monster, who may not be seen, 'till you have fee'd his Keppers.' [R. and E. Griffith, A Series of Genuine Letters Between Henry and Frances, vol. 4]

...

Swift gives similar suggestions in Directions to Servants: 'By these, and like Expedients, you may probably be a better Man by Half a Crown before he leaves the House.' He further urges those servants who expect vails 'always to stand Rank and File when a Stranger is taking his Leave; so that he must of Necessity pass between you; and he must have more Confidence or less Money than usual, if any of you let him escape, and according as he behaves himself, remember to treat him the next Time he comes.'

...

Card money was particularly lucrative for butlers and footmen - so much so that, in London at least, such menservants refused service in houses where gaming parties were not held. [Marshall, Domestic Servants - Two footmen at the court of Queen Anne, Fortnum and Mason, used this perquisite as capital to begin their grocery business in London. Country House Lighting 1660-1890, Temple Newsam Country House Series No. 4] But it was vails that finally undermined the authority of the employers, who virtually allowed servants to dictate whom should be received, and then pretended not to notice when the servants extracted money from the departing guests.

...

In the London Chronicle a correspondent wrote in 1762 that 'Masters in England seldom pay their servants but in lieu of wages suffer them prey upon their guests'. George Mathew of Thomastown, Co. Tipperary, a man famous for his hospitality, was one of the first employers to ban the 'inhospitable custom' of giving vails to servants, and to compensate them by increasing their wages. This was apparently as early as the 1730s. His servants were warned that, if they disobeyed, they would be discharged. He also informed his guests that he would 'consider it as the highest affront if any offer of that sort were made'. [Anthologia Hibernica, I - No date given for this account, by 'Grand George' Mathew, who died in 1737, was the man described, who was host to Jonathan Swift at Thomastown in the 1720s, a visit described by Thomas Sheridan in A Life of the Rev. Dr. Jonathan Swift] A crusade against the giving of vails began in 1760 in Scotland, where seventeen counties issued appeals to abolish them. Four years later the movement had spread to London, resulting in riots there by footmen, the servants who stood to lose the most. [Marshall, Domestic Servants] It was probably at about the same time that employers from a number of counties in Ireland agreed among themselves to abolish vails. [Griffith, Series of Letters..., IV, 'An Agreement entered into among the Gentlemen of several Counties in Ireland, not to give Vails to Servants'] Like George Mathew before them, they decided to increase staff wages in an effort to compensate them for loss of earnings. One of them was Lord Kildare: in March 1765 he issued a directive from Carton to members of his household, stating that 'In Consideration of Vails &c, which I will not permit for the future to be received in any of my Houses upon any Account whatsoever from Company lying there or otherwise I shall give in lieu thereof... five pounds per annum each to the housekeeper, Maitre D'Hotel, cook and confectioner; three pounds per annum each to the steward at Carton, the butler, valet de chambre and groom of the chambers, and two pounds to the Gentleman of Horse. ...

And I will conclude with this funny account, about the penalty for being known amongst the staff to be a spendthrift, from the same book: ...

An unfortunate guest in England in 1754 found his punishment [for not giving vails] truly humiliating. 'I am a marked man,' he wrote, 'if I ask for beer I am presented with a piece of bread. If I am bold enough to call for wine, after a delay which would take its relish away were it good, I receive a mixture of the whole sideboard in a greasy glass. If I hold up my plate nobody sees me; so that I am forced to eat mutton with fish sauce, and pickles with my apple pie.' [Quoted in Marshall, Domestic Servants]

feel free to tip here (and yes the irony of this is not lost on me, although it did not occur to me until about halfway through writing this)

[dogfishyapperrr]

cait essay laying out all my thoughts on her character in relation to how a lot of the fandom perceives her because i’m tired

warning it’s long (and s2 spoilers)

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while it’s valid not to like her, as it is valid to not like any character within arcane’s narrative, i feel like a lot of interpretations of her character justifying that dislike are rather misplaced.

establishing first and foremost: there is no way in hell that caitlyn DOESN’T feel remorse for what she did.

she spent all of act 3 working her ass off trying to right her wrongs, regardless of how severe one judges her previous actions to be.

letting jinx go scot-free, nearly losing her life, losing her eye to give mel an opening to take down ambessa, ending her arc by giving up her council seat to sevika in order to begin working towards zaun having a foundation for independence.

she did fuck up bad in act 1, by all means. i agree wholeheartedly that she took things too far in many ways. but the people saying she deserved even more punishment and stuff at the end- that just feels kind of backwards to me, especially in relation to a show that campaigns to “break the cycle of violence”.

further punishment will not reverse what she did, it will not make things better, and it won’t do anything useful for her character arc.

she’ll spend the rest of her life making up for the ways she fucked things up as it is.

and yeah!! chemical warfare was hella insane! but what a lot of people i’ve noticed haven’t drawn attention to, is that she and vi devised the strike-team plan as a less violent alternative to what WOULD have happened had cait stayed silent- salo would have conducted a full scale, violent invasion, using the full might of the enforcers, which would have surely resulted in mass casualties and incarceration. gunfire in place of the grey. even under ambessa’s wing, cait perpetually protested the atrocities the noxians would commit.

using zaun’s ventilation against them was still an awful thing to do, and so was being complacent to noxus, but they were decisions cait thought she had to make to avoid the worst outcome. she always opted for the lesser of two evils. she did not do these things out of hatred for zaun. it doesn’t make it right, but it also means she isn’t heartless. her vengefulness was always trained on jinx and those associated with silco/chembarons. zaun as a whole was caught badly in that crossfire, and that is completely on her. do i wish she'd been given a more gradual and well-thought-out redemption arc? yea. would it have been nice for her to have had more of an emotionally vulnerable conversation with vi about what happened? yea. do i wish we'd seen the exchange with sevika about the council seat??? yea. hell, it would have been cool for her to have a run-in with ekko at some point cause he would have given her shit to think about. the main point is, she would have listened. in all of these scenarios, cait would have listened.

she was raised in a classist society, and in many ways will always be at war with her own systemically biased viewpoint, but she wants to change that. she wants to better understand. she wants to HELP. that was like, her whole thing in season 1. the point i'm trying to make i guess is, in spite of all of her mistakes, by the end of the show she is undeniably trying to be a force for good within piltover’s government alongside vi.

that’s my (very long winded) two cents, thanks for reading if you’ve made it this far urgh

[ncisfranchise-source]

With Part 1 of its freshman finale, NCIS: Sydney uncorked quite the callback, by revealing that the “pregnant” woman who nearly got Mackey, Evie, Blue and dozens of others suffocated to death in an old bunker was in fact the blonde spy who eluded capture at the end of the series’ pilot.

Yet while it might seem as if Special Agent Mackey (Olivia Swann), Sergeant Jim “JD” Dempsey (Todd Lasance) et al now have the upper hand, the abduction of JD’s son Jack, in Part 2 of the finale (airing Tuesday at 8/7c on CBS), will thoroughly and harrowingly complicate matters. TVLine spoke with Lasance about JD’s imminent dilemma, Season 2’s “big finish” and his hopes for any possible Season 2.

TVLINE | I have been enjoying the show, and the first part of the finale was gangbusters. TODD LASANCE | Oh, thanks, brother. Honestly, and I don’t want to be biased, but I think [the finale] is going to be my favorite episode. And here’s a bit of an interesting note: one of my audition scenes was from the final episode. We had a couple of scenes from the first episode, but then some of the big, heavy, emotional stuff was in my audition scene before I even got the role. It was interesting to see how they had plotted that and where that scene ended up fitting in.

TVLINE | Looking ahead to Part 2 of the finale, what kind of a prisoner is Georgina’s “Ana Niemus” going to be? Oh, she’s not going to be a very compliant prisoner — that’s for sure. What I love about what Georgina did is there’s something under the surface that you know is unsettling. In the final shot of Episode 7 and the opening elements of Episode 8, you’re like, “Something’s not quite right here.” The team can sense it, as well. And when I played it as the actor, there’s an unsettling element for JD. When he’s watching her, you can see behind his eyes that he’s like, “Something’s not adding up.”

The payoff is huge in this episode. Even if, say, you haven’t watched NCIS ever in your life or never seen any of this season, this episode is such an amazing piece of what we did and what the showrunner and the writers and the directors did, as well. The tone of this show within NCIS is usually a lot more lighthearted and fun, so to delve into this kind of emotional realm was super exciting.

TVLINE | Talk about the personal element for JD that’s teased in the promos, involving Jack’s abduction. Being a father myself — I have a daughter who’s 7, and we had our son while I was shooting [Season 1] — there was a lot going on for me, personally. What I love is where JD crosses the line between the badge and what’s right as far as law enforcement, and what it is to be a father and family man. It makes the audience question themselves: “What would you do? What would you sacrifice for the ones you love, whether it’s a brother, sister, son, daughter, best friend…? What would the lengths be that you’d go to, to protect them, to save them?” All while knowing you took that oath as a law enforcement member, and the obligations that go with that. But every decision that JD makes — and a lot of things do cross the line — I personally would also have done, too.

TVLINE | Without spoiling anything, what kind of a cliffhanger will this finale leave us with? Are lives in jeopardy, or is going to be like, “I can’t believe what I just saw/heard”? It’s everything. Lives are in jeopardy. “I can’t believe what I’ve just seen.” The enemy is revealed on such a larger scale than what I think people realize.

TVLINE | Morgan O’Neill, the showrunner, is from Sydney, but I’m wondering if for you as a fellow Australian, did the dialogue and slang always pass muster? Were you ever like, “I wouldn’t quite say this”? Or did you ever add in a little Australian flavor? Adding is the biggest thing. Morgan’s writing has been phenomenal, and we also have separate writers who write each episode or a block of episodes. What’s been exciting for me, as an actor, is allowing to trust myself, but also Morgan trusting me with the improvisation that I add to a lot of the scenes, particularly with comedy. I like to see what I can get away with on-camera, and they tend to keep most of it in.

To add to the question that you’ve asked, the writers and Morgan actually start writing for you. They see the dynamic that you’re starting to bring, the little nuances, the comedy. Same with with Sean [Sagar as DeShawn]. He is funny, man, and we’ve got a great brotherhood in real life. Because of the improvisation that we bring as actors, they’re starting to write a bit more toward that. If we have series (seasons) onward from this, it’ll get even more nuanced, and that chemistry and characters will build even more.

TVLINE | Do you have anything on your wish list for any possible Season 2? Like, do you want to know the results of the ladies’ Kiss-Marry-Kill game? [Laughs] That’d be great. I’d love to know that one.

Obviously, I want [the finale’s big reveal] to come to fruition and we work all that stuff out, but I also want to get into action sequences again. I want to get into some shootouts, car chases, some big-scale action things, because that’s what NCIS is known for.

I also want to explore the family dynamic side of things. This is a dream series for me because I get to play with the comedy, with that cheeky “ribbing each other” element, and also be the straight cop/leader, and then I get to go with the emotional element of the relationship with the son and my ex-wife and the breakdown of that relationship. The sky’s the limit for us.

TVLINE | As we speak, we’re still waiting on any Season 2 news. What’s the best time of year to be shooting in Sydney? Isn’t it, like, 108 degrees for you all right now? Look, I’m not going to lie. Where we are — I live in the Gold Coast — it is hot today, but it’s always hot and humid up here. I love it because it’s so tropical. I think mid-year is usually fairly controlled because it’s sort of winter, but our winter isn’t like Georgia’s or anything. It’s not, like, snowing in Sydney, so we can still get the beautiful days!

[cosmicjoke]

Hi! I hope your doing great.🧡

It is sad to see yet another anon trying to force thier opinion and trying to get you to change mind about your truthful and honest analysis and opinion.

These kind of people are so toxic and the fact they are clearly masking thier efforts to get you to agree eruri is canon as friendly and respectful. I don't get why people are so obsessed with shipping and stuff, and why would they want to enforce Erwin and Levi to have a romantic kind of relationship. As if they can't be anything else.

It doesn't matter how many times we speak out on toxic shipping culture, these kind of people will believe what they do, try to bend facts and misuse and mis translate Isayama's interviews and stuff.

Alas, even I am getting tired with all these toxic and annoying shippers bullsh!t.

Thanks for always calling them out and writing out the truth.

Anyways, I hope you have a great and happy Christmas and winters, don't let these people ruin the happy vibes ❤💚😊

Haha, thank you. Yeah, they're absolutely insane. They just sent me the same, endlessly long ask using three separate accounts after I blocked them the first time. As if I needed any kind of proof that they're just trying to force me to accept their stupid ass, deluded view, well, they handed it to me on a silver platter.

It's exhausting. It honestly is. These people target me because they think I have some sort of agenda against shippers, particularly Eruri shippers, when I have no such thing. I'm simply interested in being able to have an objective and canonically based discussion about Levi, and about Attack on Titan in general, without the idiocy of the speculation and assumption that the shipping communities are drowning in.

Eh, whatever. They always do this. I give them my answers. They don't like my answers, so they keep pushing, trying to find new ways to trip me up and force me to accept their views, and when I don't, they get all butthurt about it and accuse me of being biased myself. Biased toward what? Canon?

Anyway, thank you as always for your kind words and support, and I hope you also have a great Christmas and New Years!

[rametarin]

This also happened with Harry Potter. I just so happened to talk about something like this, earlier this week.

So you've got ideologues that want their philosophy and takes to be significant as the piece of popular media. It could be radical feminism (note my specifying radical feminism. The academic kind. Yes, that means the kind that was standard fare TERF but also deviated into Intersectionality) or it could be Christianity.

To use the Christian example, more liberal Christians doing stuff like showing videos of The Lord of the Rings to their congregation and being like, "Just watch this part in the context of the war of armageddon between Christians and the forces of Satan!" And reviewing things like The Hunger Games and Harry Potter through a Christian lens, putting Christianity as the foal point to interpret the work, regardless of the work catering to or being about Christianity.

I call this method, "Courtney Loving." It could easily also be Yoko Oning, but Courtney Loving fits better.

Feminism did the same thing by trying to make itself a plus one, pretending to praise Harry Potter at the height of its popularity citing how "feminist" Hermoine Granger was as a character for being a smart co-tagonist and female. Junior feminists would blog about how progressive and forward thinking and modern Rowling was for Hermoine and Mcgonnagal and a few others, and try to rub off the popularity of Harry Potter by going, "Feminism approves of this work, you should also aspire to be good feminists."

And then once associated and affiliated, having +1'd itself as significant somehow and equal in importance to the work, suddenly others, people I refer to as Hydra Heads, pipe up with criticism. Suddenly the work is NOT as Feminist as it could be, it fails as a feminist work (and, you're supposed to think, fails as having redeeming or positive social value) because it doesn't have a deeper Feminist perspective. The bad guy doesn't neatly represent The Patriarchy, like they feel it should. Harry is still the protagonist, and "It's not very progressive or subversive to the status quo to still have a boy as the protagonist." Among a host of a million other things.

Then it spirals into deciding Rowling is an Imperial apologist on a bit of a logical leap and they remind everybody, she's English, and England bad, therefore she must also be unconsciously biased and bad by the transitive propertty of being English, and this is okay to say from the chest with full confidence about English people and culture because oppressive majority. But this logic would be racist or xenophobic if it was applied to Asian, black or indigenous American or Polynesian Islander people. Just throwing out this labyrinthean bullshit.

Then it becomes a campaign and race to the bottom of supposedly hip and aware and conscientious people deciding if you like [thing deemed badwrong], you advocate for the worst things they approve of or aspire to happen or their social values. People can't WAIT to tell you how much they hate [author/company of thing] for their crimes, whether or not you ask, and convey that if you continue to enjoy [thing] they'll see you as [racist/sexist/transphobic/hating Palestinians.]

And the fucked thing is these are the exact sort of people that study anthropolgy and sociology, so they're consciously aware they're trying to socially, culturally bully someone else with the psychological threat of ostracism and the inherent threat of someone lying about them, and other people being driven out of fear to castigate and rebuke the wrongthinker to avoid the ignorance of the judgemental witch hunting mob. They KNOW this effect is real but not usually actively, conscientously employed to manipulate or destroy people, and they're weaponizing it while feigning just feeling strongly genuinely about [thing].

It also advocates for a weird black box of cultural and social purity that, quiet part out loud, tries to enforce the idea that media is the writing on the monolith that is societal thought and unconscious collective values. They advocate for censorship, shaming and antagonism that makes rulebreakers fair game for "polluting society and its culture" with things, and they demand you affirm their belief in class based power disparities. Huge age gaps aren't a problem because of pedophilia and exploitation of children alone, they argue; Old people are "inherently privileged" over younger people, and "that's a power disparity," and you're supposed to just smile and nod and agree that's how it works and why age gaps are bad things, which is ENTIRLEY different from age gaps being bad because of more "bioessentialist" reasons, or NOT BAD AT ALL because they're either within 4 years of eachother, or adults.

They insist upon their logic for why things are bad or not and if you deviate from how they structure it, they determine you are enabling injustice and abuse and toxicity. As bad as any "moral majority" religious nut, minus the entrenched, tax exempt church, and more infestation of colleges, universities, unions and Human Resources departments.

These same people first laud a thing, say it's good, then say it's good because things that conform to their ideological values are the best and the work does that, then judge it for failing to live up or continue to be a posterchild for their values and start criticizing it as a piece of what they see to be a racist, sexist, patriarchal, white supremacist status quo and judge it based on the negativity of the now, interpreting society as it is as a shitfest of inequality and bigotry, and that work to be inescapably rife with that by association with the time and society of the day.

And these people will continue to do this shit. They deliberately enter every fandom they can, either with the intention of trying to make their ideological view the norm and demand everybody else conform to it while enjoying [work], by marrying it to [work], or they do it out of insecurity, the way some religious faithful have to somehow justify enjoying the work according to their faith's interpretation of things.

Recognizing it for what it is and what's happening is good, and I'm glad people are speaking out about the phenomenon.

At some point in tumblr history, the tumblr cycle of hipster media consumption added a component of "mandatory moral value" to its justification for praising or hating anything, which has made it exhausting to come across countless displays of mental gymnastics to justify, morally and ethically, why liking or not liking whatever piece of media (or part of it) makes you essentially a good or a bad person.

The cycle was always there, but it went from this

to this

and sometimes I think we're past it and then I go to a tag and come across some manifesto that makes me feel like I'm in hell.

[johntimothy19]

The Rise of the Machines: How AI is Taking Over

Artificial Intelligence. Just whisper the term in a crowded room and someone will either scream about the end of humanity or start monologue like they’re auditioning for a TED Talk. In the 21st century, AI has gone from science fiction to science faction—and honestly, it’s been one wild ride. Let’s unpack the techie wizardry of AI, why everyone is either scared or smitten with it, and how it might just end up being the most awkward roommate humanity ever had.

Chapter 1: From Siri to Skynet (Sort Of)

Remember Clippy, the enthusiastic paperclip from Microsoft Word who desperately wanted to help you write a letter? That was AI in its awkward teenage phase. Fast forward a couple of decades, and we’ve got ChatGPT, self-driving Teslas, and robots that can do back flips (Boston Dynamics, we’re looking at you). AI has gone from "suggesting grammar fixes" to "predicting heart attacks" in record time.

Today, AI writes poetry, composes symphonies, diagnoses diseases, and can even paint portraits. You’d think it would at least still be bad at folding fitted sheets, but no—now robots are better at that too.

Chapter 2: Ethics Schmethics

With great power comes great responsibility, and with AI comes great potential for absolute chaos. Ethics in AI isn’t just about whether your toaster is plotting against you. It’s about bias, privacy, surveillance, and whether your smart fridge is snitching on your midnight ice cream habit.

Imagine being rejected for a loan by an AI system because it decided your social media posts were too "vibe-cheeky." Sounds absurd? It’s already happening. Algorithms make decisions about hiring, law enforcement, and healthcare, and they’re only as fair as the humans who programmed them. Which, historically speaking, is… not always a great track record.

The real kicker? AI can be biased without even knowing it. It’s like an overconfident intern who read one Wikipedia article and now thinks they’re qualified to run HR.

Chapter 3: When Siri Gets Sassy

Conversational AI has gone from robotic monotones to sass-laden responses. Ask your digital assistant a philosophical question like "What is love?" and it might hit you with a Rick Astley lyric. That’s funny. Ask it how to commit a crime? Suddenly not so funny.

The line between humour and horror is thin in AI. While some bots try to be helpful, others have, shall we say, taken creative liberties. Like the chatbot who told someone to leave their spouse or the AI lawyer that made up fake case laws in court. You can’t make this stuff up. Or rather, the AI can make this stuff up. That’s the problem.

Chapter 4: AI in the Wild

Let’s talk about real-world AI. No, not the kind in sci-fi movies where robots rebel against humanity, but the kind that helps your vacuum cleaner navigate your living room without eating your socks. Roombas, facial recognition doorbells, AI-powered cat feeders—we’re living in the future, and it’s slightly absurd.

Take smart cars, for example. Self-driving vehicles are the poster child of AI. They can brake, swerve, and parallel park better than most humans (admit it). But sometimes, they stop in the middle of the road because they mistook a tumbleweed for a grandmother. Progress!

Chapter 5: AI and the Jobpocalypse

Ah yes, the question that keeps economists and baristas up at night: will AI take our jobs? The answer is yes. And no. And maybe. It depends.

AI is already replacing tasks in industries like manufacturing, customer service, and even journalism (awkward). But it’s also creating new roles—like "Prompt Engineer," which is just a fancy title for someone who knows how to talk to robots without them going rogue.

The truth is, AI won’t take all our jobs, but it might take the boring parts of our jobs. Which, honestly, sounds like a win. Just be nice to the robots. No one wants a passive-aggressive coffee machine.

Chapter 6: The Great AI Misunderstandings

Public understanding of AI ranges from "is that the thing in my phone?" to "is it going to destroy the world?" And the media doesn’t help. Every time an AI beats a human at chess, headlines scream "DOOMSDAY APPROACHES." It’s just chess, people. Calm down.

Part of the problem is terminology. We call it "intelligence," but AI doesn’t actually think. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t cry during Pixar movies. (At least not yet.) It just crunches data really fast and makes predictions. If your toaster started composing haikus, you wouldn’t call it a philosopher. You’d call it broken. Or possessed.

Chapter 7: AI for the Win

Despite the madness, AI has genuinely revolutionised how we live. Medical diagnostics, disaster response, fraud detection—these are big wins. AI can read MRIs better than some doctors and find Waldo in 0.0003 seconds flat.

In education, AI tutors are helping students around the world. In agriculture, AI predicts crop yields and fights pests. In gaming, NPCs are less dumb than ever. The applications are endless, and many are heartwarming. Picture a robot helping a child with disabilities learn to speak. Now wipe that tear from your eye, you big softy.

Chapter 8: So, Should We Be Worried?

A little. Not because AI is inherently evil, but because humans are inherently… human. We’re the ones building it, training it, and deciding how to use it. If AI becomes a problem, it’s because we let it. Or worse, because we didn’t think it through.

But let’s not end on a doomsday note. Instead, let’s consider this: what if AI ends up being more like WALL-E than Terminator? A clumsy, helpful friend with a heart of gold (or at least a really good algorithm)?

Chapter 9: The Future is Weird

Let’s face it: the future of AI is going to be weird. Not just because of the tech itself, but because of how we interact with it. Will people fall in love with AI companions? Already happening. Will your fridge text you passive-aggressive messages about your diet? Probably.

We’re heading toward a world where your toothbrush knows your dental habits better than your dentist, and your virtual assistant finishes your sentences (and your shopping list). It’s surreal, it’s hilarious, and it’s happening.

So, should you fear AI? Nah. Respect it, sure. But also, maybe laugh at it a little. Because if we’re all going to be replaced by machines, we might as well enjoy the ride—preferably in a self-driving car playing an AI-curated Spotify playlist.

And if one day your toaster starts asking about the meaning of life? Just nod, smile, and offer it a bagel. You never know who's listening.

[sometimesyougottasaywhatyoufeel]

How K-pop Saved and Destroyed Me

TL;DR: I loved k-pop then I gave up on it for a while.

The year was 2020. The pandemic was in full swing. Everyone's scared, everyone's confused, everyone was stuck inside because going outside was a matter of life and death.

As an introvert, I didn't mind staying at home and not interacting with people on a daily basis. But even so, I needed a distraction from the doom and gloom that was being reported in the news because, as you can imagine, there was not a lot going on. YouTube became my best friend, even though the content creators I followed were also struggling to put out videos that were silly but still informative and entertaining while still following the protocols and safety measures that were strictly enforced at the time.

Then I came across the thumbnail of Jimmy Fallon, The Roots and BTS performing Dynamite in the setup of the Brady Bunch, like how they got the cast of Star Wars to do the acapella version of the iconic music. I clicked, and the rest is history.

I watched all their music videos, the dance practices, I learned their names, their birthdays, I watched their variety shows (their own and guest appearances), I listened to their albums, I learned of biases and bias wreckers and bias lines, the fan chants, the inside jokes, I followed their social media platforms. Heck, I even started reading fanfiction about them. I became a K-pop fan.

Fast forward to 2024 and I have since added a few more groups to my ever-growing list. I have since given up the idea of having an "ultimate list" and "casual list" because one of my criteria for a group to be in my ultimate list is that I will watch their live concert if they're in my city (which I would not do for a group in my casual list) because I ended up going to quite a few of them anyway.

In the span of four years I have bought merch that quickly took up a bit of space in my apartment, I have purchased online content (including fanclub memberships) that could give you access to videos, photos and what have you if you are logged in to their platforms as members, I have watched online and live concerts and even flew out of the country to be able to watch said concerts. I have reconnected with friends and made new friends along the way and I consider them as some of my nearest and dearest, because who else would understand how you're feeling about a certain person or event if not those who are also in the same boat as you. My bank account may be trying to remind me that I have not spent this much money on anything in my life so far, but I was happy. I had not known this kind of happiness existed and wondered why anyone would want to live a life that didn't include this.

And then of course, came all the bad stuff.

K-pop idols and groups are seen as close to divine beings and are treated as such. Thousands of fans flock to arenas and stadiums where they can lose themselves in the music they so loved while waving their lightsticks and chanting the names of their favorites. For a few hours it was just you, the fans and your idols sharing the space and creating memories together.

But because they are portrayed as having squeaky-clean images, the moment they do something wrong in the eyes of their fans their downfalls are swift and painful, when in reality most of them are trying to be normal people living normal lives without having the spotlight on them 24/7. Don't even get me started on how these so-called fans do their best to dig up any dirt from their past to smear them, even though it's been more than a significant amount of time since the said offense. Has anyone heard of the saying "people change"?

But no, if a bullying accusation resurfaces ten years later the idol is forced to lay low, go on hiatus, until the whole media storm blows over. And for what? Their groups have to go on without them and not talk about them, as if they never existed in the first place. But when they try to represent the said absent member in content or performances, be it in the form of a gesture or a token, the fans are "heartbroken" or "wistful" or that they "miss them", it's sadly misplaced.

Or, heaven forbid, the idol does something offensive like date or smoke in public places, or are seen in clubs enjoying themselves, everyone has to have a say on why they shouldn't be doing anything normal.

Or in worst case scenarios, when the idols break the law and public opinion is divided between those who will turn a blind eye because no their idol would never do such a thing or those who will do everything in their power to erase them from history.

To be more specific, the scandal that I became aware of when I first got into k-pop was the Burning Sun scandal. It got a lot of attention because the perpetrators were well-known celebrities and yes, even idols. I've read reactions from people who claimed to be fans of these people since their debut and now refuse to have anything to do with them, while others said that it was all a mistake and that they were framed for being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Then an idol from another group was accused of gaslighting fans and using them for their own pleasures and was put on hiatus for almost three years, which not only scarred his own reputation but also that of the groups he was in at the time (he was in about three groups). The agency had to find a way to remove him from their filmed content that hadn't been released or scrap it completely or delay comebacks--one of which never happened. When he made a solo comeback not a lot of people were happy about it, but he has since made a more triumphant return, more than what anyone was expecting from him. He's one of the more fortunate ones, I'll say that much.

Then two idols from different groups were rumored to have been seeing each other, more often than normal friends would. This should not have blown up the way it did but both fandoms had a lot, and I mean a lot, to say about this pairing. It was disheartening to see their own fans try to get in the way of their happiness even so far as to compare them against the other idols that they dated before. Is it really that bad for them to live their own lives or did this reality check destroy the illusion of fans having a chance to get close to their idols?

Then an idol passed away at the age of 25. Rumors abound of how he died, but the most rampant of them all was that he had taken his own life. Those closest to him never confirmed or denied it, but given the sad and dark history of depression and bullying among celebrities and idols in South Korea, it was something that everyone naturally assumed to be true. Months later, a well-known actor was found in his car with a charcoal briquette in the passenger seat, a clear indication of the pre-meditated plan to end his own life. In their relentless pursuit for justice, this man had everything thrown at him and it all became too much to handle.

Then idols from different groups were getting involved in accidents or were taking breaks. One tore an ACL, one had a meniscus rupture, one was in a motorcycle accident, one had a hairline fracture on the ankle, some had to take time time off for their mental health and recovery from injuries sustained during concerts and appearances. It's difficult for fans to see gaps in choreographies and see from the faces of their idols how much they miss the missing members, like missing the sun on a cloudy day. You know they're there but you just can't see them.

And of course, the ever looming shadow of military enlistment. Every able-bodied Korean man between the ages 18-35 are required to serve in the military with certain exemptions for individuals who are physically and mentally incompetent and those who have won awards while representing South Korea, which means all idols of Korean nationality must do so for at least 18 months. That means they can't participate in anything related to being an idol, no concerts, no fanmeets, no appearances on music shows. Again, the absence is always seen and felt especially for smaller groups because it's very obvious.

While all these events are happening I am also trying to juggle the struggles of everyday life such as going to work, making sure the bills are paid, that there's food on the table or stocked for a rainy day and given the current political and social climate in the world, worrying about whether a new world war will break out or if there will be anything left for the future generation that's not artificial and robotic. I have also had personal losses, deaths in the family, which to be quite frank I don't think I've fully processed yet, further compounding on all the stress I've already been feeling.

And then came the issue of an idol accused of drunk driving, when in reality he was driving an e-scooter that did not require a license and he fell from the scooter right in front of where he lived without harming any person or damaging infrastructures. Had the police who passed by at the exact moment not witnessed the incident or came as close to him as they did, this would have been written off as an insignificant, if not a bit humorous, event. But as is usually the case, when the media caught whiff of it they fanned the flames and even contributed to the chaos by creating a false narrative and presenting evidence that had been tampered with, causing the issue to blow way out of proportion. He and his agency released statements that were full of remorse and promises of doing better in the future and he has since been fined an amount, which haters are still contesting and are clamoring for a harsher punishment. Said haters also did everything they can to discredit the idol's achievements but what they didn't expect was the counter attack of the fandom that made them fade away into insignificance.

The last straw for me was when an idol was accused of sexual misconduct, not too long after the scooter incident. Not only that, it was a formal complaint and not just hearsay. The authorities were involved so it meant that there was enough evidence to warrant a formal investigation. To be clear, I was not actively following this group but I have seen some of their content and I like some of their songs, so much so that they ended up in a playlist that I curated of my all time favorites. And this idol, was one of my favorite singers. It crushed me to know that he was capable of doing such horrific things to someone else, because you certainly wouldn't know just by looking at him, and again going back to the squeaky-clean image that they have carefully built throughout the years, all that came crashing down.

I started spiraling, doubting everything I knew about idols and wondering if there are darker secrets that even my favorites are hiding. It's not new when you really think about it, crimes such as these are committed everywhere but for someone who I thought had it all and still abused that power to do something harmful destroyed my very being.

So I did what I thought was right for me: I gave up on k-pop. I stopped watching content, I stopped listening to their songs, I watched other stuff on YouTube until my algorithm was all other stuff except k-pop. I ignored the updates on their platforms and even considered cancelling my memberships just to fully get away from it all. But deep down I knew I couldn't do it, because I knew I would need it again at some point. K-pop has become so embedded in my life that I would relate it to somewhat of an addiction, I needed it to fully function.

Maybe that's why it hurt so much. I can't say for certain if the cleanse did anything for me because the following weeks were such a blur. I couldn't even remember what day it was and had to refer to a calendar to make sure and I lived off on routine to keep me sane.

It wasn't all storm clouds and rain though, there were some bright spots that woke me up from my stupor. My friend and I flew to Singapore to watch a concert and since it was my first time there I made sure I made the most of it. I watched musicals, my first love. My sister and her family had flown home and I got to spend time with them and my little nephew brightened my days considerably. When the time difference finally was in my favor I got to catch the livestreams of F1 races. We managed to get tickets for a concert we really wanted to watch in January. I got to meet with friends over many meals. I got to chat with friends virtually over shared interests.

But true enough, eventually I started going back. One episode of this variety show in a day, a song on a different day, the next day absolutely nothing, then the day after I would binge watch up to six episodes back to back. Then again nothing. Then a video of some special content they filmed weeks ago. Then again nothing. Then listening to the new album that dropped. One thing at a time. I even started watching content from the groups I never followed in the first place.

Even now as I type this there's still a lot of content I haven't caught up on but I'm taking it slow. There's no reason for me to rush because I know it will always be there, and if I don't have enough time then there's always a different day. One day I'll get back into the swing of things and the heavy feeling in my chest when I hear their voices and see their faces will slowly lessen.

I'm more hopeful than I have been in a while, and I know that if something earth-shattering happens again, I can't confidently say that I'll be ready for it because let's face it, who is? But I know that there's always something waiting for me past the dark tunnel, and that the sun is always shining more brightly on the other side.

[sssammich]

great writeup, mel! i really enjoyed the breakdown here. hope you don't mind sharing my thoughts here also. very winding ideas and observations, so apologies in advance lol

i think it's in the pursuit of finding out who kara is that puts into perspective the complexities of her identity and why she traipses so well (and sometimes disastrously) between this person trying to do good and be good and be a source of strength and power for others who also happens to be sometimes a little bit terrible because of her passion or her blindspots or her biases and predispositions. which, in my opinion, makes her all the more human. i think as a result, this idea of Just Kara that she mentions can be considered as a kind of 4th identity that amalgamates the kara she wants to be, the kara she thinks she is, and the kara that she really is (insofar as 'really is' can be defined by those around her, like lena, and we, the audience).

i don't think it's too far fetched for me to say that kara exhibits behaviors that can be deemed courageous and cowardly or selfless and self-righteous, she's both protector and protected (via intersecting privileges such as middle class upbringing, cis/white appearance, her position as an alien/superhero along with law enforcement, economic status, etc), and she aims for truth while she stands as a hypocrite with both hands on her hips. these behaviors and traits harmonize in some ways and clash in others, just like you said. the woman has existed in the world for half a century in a body of a 20-something year old with unique trauma we can only really fathom or imagine. hard to beat that kind of circumstances, specifically on the shoulder of a pubescent teenager. how she's standing is a stuff of legends tbh. and that's without her powers. that's just her trying to make it through life without anything else.

i like how you framed it that danvers and zor-el are both burdens in some way. because it's true, right? what's in a name? certainly lena luthor knows all about that, she's a perfectly good foil there. but i think from this what i've noticed is that danvers hides one identity while it buries the other. kara danvers hides supergirl and buries kara zor-el.

danvers is her human name, her human identity, her human life. it is her most encompassing and longest identity which is so fascinating to consider when you think about how she doesn't give credence to it until she Became Somebody. isn't that just fascinating? like who is she otherwise? for all those years of her adolescence and early young adulthood, who was she to herself? i know that she was frustrated with not being able to use her powers or join kal in fighting crime and was consistently told to hide and protect herself, but i guess i wonder how did she see herself in the mirror at that age? did she still see kara zor-el or was it kara danvers from that point on? or a mixture of both? how long did it take for kara zor-el to switch from her default identity to kara danvers?

overall, the utility of the kara danvers mask is for hiding in plain sight, to be unremarkable and be as average as possible as a means of survival and protection. but it's also not just a mask she takes off at night. by the time she applies for her catco position, she assimilates and has assimilated into being kara danvers whether she's made up her mind about who that girl is or not. it's her default setting and the one identity she knows best, the one she knows truest. it's the one identity that protects her because it's the one that has to be On all the time.

interestingly, kara danvers becomes a name of Someone Important. she becomes a reporter who wins a pulitzer, and she becomes Someone Important to lena. that name steps out of premeditated averageness and mediocrity and transforms. gone is her unassuming nature because now her name is on the byline, she cannot just disappear in the wind. and isn't that something when it comes to accountability? there's an expectation on her name now that wasn't there before.

so whether she likes it or not, it's also the identity that fumbles and stumbles and hurts others. because it's her defaulted setting and most often worn mask. that's the one she shows everyone (has to show everyone for safety's sake) and one that lena became friends with. which is an interesting contrast with nia who became friends with kara AND supergirl at roughly around the same time. meanwhile, you've got a frozen identity and a crutch identity that develop in their own ways (especially as she unburies them or brings them to light). supergirl as the crutch identity makes a name for herself even though it's already attached to someone else's name: her cousin, superman. and kara zor-el, her frozen identity, thaws because of how kara connects to her supergirl identity. it's an interesting dynamic there for parts of kara.

i think as she learns more about herself and her heritage (all the good, bad, ugly about her family, about what her people have done), the kara danvers mask gets pushed aside to make room for the others. certainly, her obligations as supergirl comes at the forefront of wanting to protect, do good, etc. she's not just a name, she's a persona. she reaches celebrity status with that name. similarly, i think the suppressed zor-el who never got to grow up still gets to grow, in her own way. like you said, she can never really know because her world and that life is gone. but i think the more kara explores who she is, her actions and her behaviors, the more that kara zor-el gets to breathe, gets to be unburied. that girl gets to be incorporated in kara's life just for the fact that she's no longer hidden away.

all that to say, the 4th identity that i posit here is that Just Kara is the identity that wants to and tries to reconcile the lost childhood of an orphaned girl, the acceptance and growth of a person who is tries to be honest and present to her loved ones while also wanting to enact change in the position of power she wields as a member of the media and just as a regular person, and the commitment and responsibility of a superhero who wants to protect her second home from evil and harm and wrongdoing using the very unique powers she's been granted. and what's great about her is that Just Kara still kind of fails, especially in that moment you cite with lena. Just Kara was not fully honest, not the way she wanted to be or intended to be. and isn't that just such a cool aspect of her flawed existence as a character? there are these parts of her that she's pulled together to be who she wants to be and she still messes up with that character? and then has to figure out how to grow through that and past that and be better?

anyway this has gone on absurdly long and im not sure i've made any real points here but just interesting to dig further into kara's characterizations, her chosen identities, and the impacts of her identities that have on her despite her attempts to create someone from all of that.

Supergirl the show poses a question: Who is the real Kara?

Kara Zor-El, Kara Danvers, Supergirl. Who's the mask?

In the beginning, Kara doesn't even know. In the aftermath of Krypton's and Kenny's deaths, she did everything she could to appear as normal as possible - there was little room for her own innate traits to shine through when she was being as nondescript and people-pleasing as possible.

But that's not who Kara is.

We get the first glimpse of who Kara really is during Flight 237.

This is not about her being Supergirl or her powers (though both are relevant). Kara has suppressed herself for over a decade. She's not going to make waves - until she has to. Our first real insight into who Kara is now is as a devoted sister. It wasn't until Alex's life was at risk that Kara started breaking out of her shell (and then there was no holding back).

Our protagonist is a mid-20s adult - this isn't a coming-of-age story in the traditional sense. But it is a story of finding oneself and what it takes to get there.

And it starts with defending found family after a lifetime of loss.

So Kara creates the Supergirl persona. I think the cape is a crutch.

People say "a crutch" like it's a bad thing. But crutches are actually pretty fucking useful. They support you when you need it, whether it be short-term or long-term. They help you get around when you otherwise may not be able to.

Kara was deeply traumatized by losing everyone and everything she ever knew, being thrown into a world that overwhelmed her senses and made even her most casual movements into dangerous ones, and was told she needed to suppress everything - who she used to be, what she was going through now - to survive.

To find herself again, maybe she'd need a tool to get past what she had been through! The cape became that tool. She was able to unbury the heritage she had been hiding, she was able to embrace the powers that had burdened her, she was able to find her own bravery (and reactivity, she's got flaws in there too).

Keep in mind, in the scene above, Kara isn't "human for a day". Kara is powerless... just like she spent the first 13 years of her life. Her bravery isn't about her powers or Supergirl; they just help her get started.

That's not where her growth ends.

Kara's instincts for helping people start getting unburied in season 1, and she is excited to tag along someone else's quest to figure out where future threats may lie, or figure out how she can use her powers in service to the DEO.

But it's not until this moment that she realizes that Kara Danvers can be more, too. Lena unintentionally launches Kara's career - a second pathway for Kara's desire to help people, growing into a passion she is going to pursue (even if she gets fired). Her worth is no longer just about her sun-granted powers or being Superman's "younger" cousin.

In season 4, we even see her realization that Kara Danvers can be more powerful than Supergirl, because some fights can't be won by fists. That's a real discovery for herself.

Which I think, looking back, might becoming especially baffling for her... because Kara Danvers was originally an identity imposed on her when she needed to hide.

It's important to note that, while Kara Danvers was originally a facade that Kara gets at thirteen, she doesn't stay a facade - even in the suppression era.

We don't see enough of who Kara is when she's on Earth, left to her own devices. But we see glimpses - we know she likes baking (and we know we shouldn't try what she makes), we know she paints, we know she listens to NSync and Britney Spears. She's a goofball (even when she puts on the cape). Kara Danvers starts as a facade, but becomes a vehicle for Kara to continue developing her personality, now in her new context.

Would she have the same interests on Krypton? Maybe some and not others, maybe some new ones that don't exist on Earth. We're all products of our environments, after all. Her interests as Kara Danvers aren't necessarily fake just because they're different than what she expected.

Though she'll never know who she would've become on Krypton.

Which brings us to Kara Zor-El - the identity that is frozen.

Most people aren't the same person as an adult that they were as a child. Interests, tastes, personality, world outlook, philosophy - all of these shift over time, sometimes dramatically.

Parts of her are going to be deeply rooted in Krypton, and she's going to have ties to a culture that no one else on Earth has. It's not an aspect of herself that she can erase. But it's also not an aspect of herself that was able to develop for the remainder of her childhood and early adulthood.

She, like all of us, was destined to lose pieces of herself. But some of her loss was very sudden, and the pieces she lost probably weren't going to be the same on Krypton. Of course, she has no way to know.

And I think that frustrates her.

I guess my answer to "Who is Kara?" is that the three personalities clash with and harmonize with each other. None of them are truly her. All of them inform who she is.

There's a young Kara Zor-El as her root that was torn from the ground before she could ever grow.

There's a Kara Danvers who formed the bulk of her life - a mask that was given to her, the only vehicle for her personality, who ultimately became someone she could embrace as worthwhile in her own right.

There's a Supergirl who distinctly separates from those around her, but lets her move past her numbness and reclaim her heritage.

And it's that clash that makes her a particularly compelling character.

Maybe that's a cheating answer to the original question.

But there's still a missing piece to the puzzle - because it's not just about Who is Kara? but also about Who does Kara want to be?

I think Supergirl is something that could fade if needed. If Kara lost her powers, she would find a new normal, so long as she was able to pursue her desire to help the world in some capacity.

But the truth of her is somewhere between Kara Danvers and Kara Zor-El. The truth of her is in what Supergirl allowed her to unbury, even if not directly tied to Supergirl herself. But Danvers and Zor-El are burdens, in a way. Lena is one of the few people who sees the person in between, who understands Kara on her own terms. Which is why Kara is terrified of Lena's rejection.

I think it's one of the most telling lines in the show - to be just Kara is to be free of her own baggage, to be able to embrace herself despite the pain in her history. Something I think we all want, that is never entirely possible.

But the pursuit is still a worthwhile one.

[fictionyoubelieve]

The AI lawsuit stuff has made me think a bit more about copyright. The socialist, anarchist, and libertarian positions seem to be that copyright (and IP generally) should not exist at all, and that makes sense if you already have the other features of each of those ideologies. If we were living under a decent implementation of any of those systems, then I agree copyright should not exist--so if one of those is your ideal society, it's reasonable for you to assert that ideally, copyright would not exist at all.

However, that's not the situation in the US (and most other places) today. We live in a capitalist system where "property" (capital) helps you get by, and it's generally easier to accumulate "intellectual property" than the more tangible kinds. If copyright ended tomorrow, with no other changes, that seems like it would allow far more exploitation by the people holding all the other kinds of capital, and greatly increase inequality on net. So even if you want to take an incrementalist approach towards your ideal society, removing copyright protections entirely seems like the wrong step to take first, before other protections are in place.

(You might argue that the legal system already enforces copyright only for the "haves" and never the "have nots"; while there is some truth to this, I don't think there's enough to negate the above. For all the legal system's flaws--for all the ways it's biased in favor of the party with the biggest money stack--it does offer some protection for the "little guys" in the copyright game. The megacorps would love to never pay royalties again, but even they cannot completely flout the law without consequences, and there are plenty of realistic reforms that could level the playing field further.)

Of course, we still must weigh this benefit against the cost of letting megacorps utilize the same protections, to much greater effect. What do we lose, individually and as a society, by letting them hoard IP?

Current US copyright law certainly has a lot to improve when we consider this tradeoff. A term of 95 years (or life plus 70!) is obscene. Purely intuitively, somewhere in the ballpark of 10 years seems fine to me, so 95 takes some explaining! Fair use should also be shored up and expanded. I think we should care less about people accessing or reproducing copyrighted works in most cases where they're not making money from it, perhaps by shifting the legal standard to focus more on how much the perpetrator benefited (which is related to parts 1 and 4 of the doctrine, but not directly covered) than how much theoretical economic harm was done to the copyright holder (part 4). Of course big companies have more to "lose" from violations!

And finally, most pertinent to the topic of AI art: what counts as transformative? "Transformative" is a relatively recent consideration added to part 1 of the doctrine, and has been inconsistently applied in court. It's basically, and perhaps inescapably, "you know it when you see it." But I think I can still make a claim here: for judging whether an AI model is sufficiently transformative, the process matters, because no one can assess all the possible outputs.

You shouldn't have to sue to find out how likely it is for a company's AI to produce close-enough or verbatim excerpts of your work. There needs to be some level of transparency to provide a check on misbehavior. And AI providers shouldn't need to excessively guard against producing copyrighted material purely by happenstance; they can demonstrate some level of due diligence to reduce their culpability when the wildly rare edge cases eventually crop up ("gosh, this essay I asked for looks a lot like the Bee Movie script!"). I don't know enough about it to suggest a specific solution, only that it seems like there should be one.

Anyway, this is all to say that while I still think the median tumblr take on AI art is fundamentally misguided, some of the discourse has gotten a bit overzealous in the opposite direction. It's completely reasonable for creators to expect some kind of formalization of what their rights are when it comes to AI, so we need to hash that out one way or another.

-

Thanks for reading all that. Since it's obnoxiously long, I'm making another post that links to this one to use for reblogs, which you can find here.

[clonerightsagenda]

An instructor accused students of using chatGPT to write their papers after 'detecting' this by.... pasting their papers into chatGPT and asking it if it wrote them. So that's going great.

[alicentflorent]

I think my problem with Penelope this season is that the show doesn’t seem to be heading in the direction of holding her accountable for her actions or showing the extent of how damaging writing stuff, read by all of high society and the queen, like “this unmarried woman is pregnant and trying to manipulate a bridgerton” or “this woman is associating with political radicals”

They don’t really show any devastating consequences to her actions, Marina is saved at the last minute by her lovers brother who seems like a genuinely good man marinas age. Although we do see that she is deeply unhappy, and of course there are a lot of factors that contribute to her depression but we don’t see Penelope showing any remorse over this and the show doesn’t really enforce the idea that whistledown had a part in marina’s declining mental state. We get one line from Colin about how maybe things could have been different for marina if they had been kinder to her but we don’t see Penelope showing remorse or trying to contact marina and repair their friendship.

She writes that her best friend Eloise is associating with political radicals which could have dire consequences, if not for highly privileged Eloise, then certainly for the working class “radicals” that she has been associated with? They could have been arrested and faced severe or even capital punishment. But the most consequences we see is Eloise being embarrassed, and another scandal for her family who had already caused a huge scandal and pissed off the queen anyway. I suppose you could say Eloise cutting ties with Theo was a consequence, but we have already been told for most of the season that Eloise sneaking off to spend time with a boy below her station was going to blow up in her face even if whistledown didn’t print it. Also even if you consider how awful it is that Eloise was hurt this way by her bestie the show does justify it but implying, if not outright telling us, that Penelope had to do this to “save” Eloise from the queen when she could have come clean to either to Eloise or the queen herself and taken the queens deal.

Basically, There are no lasting consequences for Penelopes victims therefore, there are none for Penelope.

The show also gives us a “good reason” for penelopes actions to make out that would Penelope did was somewhat justified. Marina was “scamming” Colin, Eloise was in trouble with the queen and also she was a selfish friend who only cares about her own problems and not penelopes, then at the end we are meant to sympathise with Penelope, who lost her best friend, got humiliated by the boy she likes, then went back to writing as whistledown to cope.

Penelope as whistledown could have been a great story and could have made her such an intriguing morally grey character who is the quiet sweet wallflower, who is overlooked and shit on by most of the people in her life and feels powerless but there’s another, darker side to her, that has the cutthroat scheming abilities of her mother and holds these rich hypocrites accountable but sometimes takes things too far because of personal biases and the the power thrill she gets from being lady whitledown, which is an identity she doesn’t want to let go of because that’s who she wants to be without getting the backlash from the ton. Unfortunately instead the writers are going down this route of instead of having her be complex, they’re like “buut she had a good reason..” and “this character did this bad thing which is the same/worse” aka making excuses for her actions. Which makes it hard for me to root for her or even enjoy her as a messy, immoral, scheming character (and I love that kind of character) - because the show can’t pick a lane with her. They want her to do messed up stuff but be seen as ultimately good and not in need of consequences. In the end she will likely be rewarded without need for redemption by getting the guy she was willing to ruin her friend and confidants life for.

[drunkonimagination]

Maybe it's because the TID/TLH lightwoods have a chokehold on me, but I wish we'd been given more scenes of them before and after Barbara died :( I know that TLH has a much larger main cast than the other TSC series, but they each have so much going on (James' heritage, Math's alcoholism, Kit's inventions, Tom breaking out of the 'kind one' box, Cordelia's desire to save her family, the parentification of Alastair, Lucie's necromantic adventures) not to mention their romantic entanglements (1/?)

anon.

from a lightwood family enthusiast to another all i can tell you is: you are right.

i would have loved to have more moments revolving around thomas's family, but, as you said, there's so much going on, so many important stuff that absolutely need to get sorted out/developed more and we have just one book left. and despite its quite huge it still remains one book. so, to be fair, i don't think we'll get too much focus on the minor characters (tid cast, eugenia, etc.) but still there's a tiny part of me that really hopes we'll get at least glimpses of tom and eugenia's dynamic and their relationships with their parents....also another thing im hoping for is a scene in which tom comes out to his family i know i know im delusional i just want so much to read about gideon, sophie and eugenia's reaction like....they already know? if not, are they surprised about thomas's revelation? what do they say to him? and what about alastair? what are their thoughts about him? of course they will adore the boy and instantly forgive him for the rumor issue, but i would love to actually read all of this jwksj

about tom and barbara, anon you said you're not a writer but that scene you just delivered is so good 😭 pls it was so tender, i loved it.

and yes. i would have very much liked more focus on the lightwoods tbh and i know, im biased, but i just love them so much, i can't help it!?! like, as you pointed out, learning more about barbara and her relationship with oliver, tom's opinion on him, the way he interacted with both of them.....and i can just imagine how difficult must be to handle so many characters at once for an author, but honestly i would have probably emphasized more on tom and barbara's relationship? and not just bc im a sucker for the lightwood-collins family, but also bc it would have given us definitely more context to understand better thomas's behaviour in choi and how much his sister's death affected him.

overlooking thomas and barbara's relationship, such as tom's suffering after her death, just enforce the idea that what he's going through is not that serious, it kinda minimizes the gravity of what he's living and makes the reader less sympathetic toward him and also contributes to reduce thomas's character to the other half of thomastair

and i don't care if he's a shadowhunter and got used to the idea of death, he's still a 18-year-old traumatized boy constantly terrorised to lose the ones he loves.

and this fear is so tangible if you linger on some aspects of his story. like his tendency to put his needs/desires aside and keep everything inside for the fear of losing more people (because saying he was in love with alastair at the time of the academy would have made his friends uncomfortable and pushed them away or simply going to james and cordelia's house because he couldn't face the possibility of eugenia's death all alone.)

all these things....they give immediately the idea of how much scared and broken thomas actually is.

and (imo) the fact that we haven't gotten the chance to properly grow fond of barbara and her relationship with tom, makes it difficult for us to understand the extent of the actual nightmare thomas is living.

oh

you asked me about the lightwood family and i ended up talking about thomas. what a clown. im so sorry i got carried away, but i hope i properly answered what you asked me in the first place help

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

yeah so more notes because i cannot stop myself:

it is genuinely insane that if someone goes missing or is killed on a cruise ship, the crew will likely care more about staying on schedule and not disturbing other guests vs you know, the victim. its not necessarily surprising because capitalism is hell and profits over people and all that but still.

i do always love watching any kind of law enforcement trying to explain how polygraphs are still useful tools in investigations while also acknowledging the fact that theyre not admissable in court and are about as accurate as a coin toss. thats always a treat.

in reference to me knowing the details of the case in the episode, they actually did a fairly good job. they were a little biased towards what the family thinks happened but like, im not gonna fault them for that.

"...and lives by herself in cambridge, massachusetts" hey sam, where are you fro- *gunshot*

"people go missing on board cruise ships more often than you think" thank you miss moncrieff, i enjoy having even more reasons to never get aboard a cruise ship.

as much as im making fun of this show, i appreciate the fact that one episode goes into detail about Cruise Ship Victims and how that organisation changed laws for any us citizens on a cruise.

theres morse code in the intro btw. absolutely no idea what it says, i assume SOS

theres a specific thing you sometimes see in documentary-stuff directed by a man where its like the guy being spoken about right now very much sounds like hes misogynistic but in a way where they always have an out and noones acknowledging it

i deserve £20 everytime i hear someone in a true crime documentary use the word "psychopath" and hold back from fucking screaming

...im sorry the captain said what?? sir, you are the captain of a ship; what do you mean a rogue wave could have hit the starboard side and only washed one person overboard?? if a rogue wave hit your ship starboard side, EVERYONE would know; when one hit queen mary portside, she rolled 52° and was 3° away from capsizing you absolute spoon. rogue waves can sink ships on fucking impact. if you were blessed by fucking tyche herself, youd still see structural damage like smashed windows and bent walls.

no seriously, the retired detective talking head is correcting the statement given by the captain. imagine being that wrong

im back watching the terrible cruise ship murder show i was liveblogging last night and heres some more notes:

i havent mentioned the show's intro yet but its exactly what youd expect it to be, both in style and budget. i have friends who have made much better videos on less of a budget and those videos were ship edits for holby city.

said friend showed me said videos whilst we were sat on a curb at like 9:30pm just before we were approached by police thinking we were lost children. we were in university

im beginning to adore the red colour filter over the ocean, unironically

showing a giant cruise liner docked at any small island really does not make the cruise ship look good. it towers over the island like its about to attack.

...you know, everyone laughed at isambard kingdom brunel for his big fuck off ship, we should bring that back.

oh hey, a case i actually know about prior to this show. im sure this will not highlight any flaws of the show going forward

[dirk-has-rabies]

Gender variance and it's link with neurodivergency

Okay so this is it going to be another long one

All quotes will be sourced with a link to the scientific journal I took it from

Okay Tumblr, let's talk gender (I know, your favorite topic) my preface on why this topic matters to me is: I'm autistic ( diagnosed moderate to severe autism) I'm nonbinary trans ( in a way that most non-autistic people don't understand and actually look down on)  and I went to college for gender study ( Mostly for intersex studies but a lot of my research was around non-binary and trans identities) I will be using the term autism as pants when I have experience with however when ADHD is part of the study I will use ND which stands for neurodivergent and yes this is going to be about xenogenders and neopronouns.

autism can affect gender the same way autism can affect literally every part of an identity. a big thing about having autism is the fact that it completely can change how you view personhood and time and object permanence and gender and literally all types of socially constructed ideas. let me also say hear that just because Society creates and enforces an idea does it mean that it doesn't exist to all people it just me that there is no nature law saying that it's real and the “rules” for these ideas can change and delete and create as time and Society evolves and changes.  gender is one of those constructs.

Now I'll take it by you reading this you know what transgender people are  (if you don't understand what a trans person is send me an ask and I'll type you up a pretty little essay lmao,  or Google it but that's a scary thought sense literally any Source or website can come up on Google including biased websites so be careful I guess LOL) anyway to be super basic trans people are anyone who doesn't identify as the gender they were assigned at Birth (yes that includes non-binary people I could do a whole nother essay about that shit how y'all keep spreading trying to separate non-binary people from the trans umbrella)  some people don't like to use the label and that is totally fine by the way.

now autistic people to view the world in a way differently than allistic (neurotypical) ppl do.  we don't take everything people teach us at 100% fact and we tend to question everything and demand proof and evidence for things before we can set it as a fact in our brains. This leads to why a lot of autistic people are atheist (although a lot of religions and this is not bashing on religious people at all I am actually a Jewish convert)  this questioning leads to a lot of social constructs being ignored or not understood At All by a lot of autistic people and personally I think that's a good thing.  allistics take everything their parents and teachers and schools teach them as fact until someone else says something and then they pick which ones to believe. autistic people study and research and learn about a topic before forming an opinion and while this may lead to them studying and believing very biased material and spitting it out as fact it can also lead them to try and Discover it is real by themselves.

because of this autistic people are more question their gender or not fall in a binary way at all as the concept of gender makes no sense to a lot of us. “ if gender is a construct then autistic people who are less aware of social norms are less likely to develop a typical gender identity”

no really look: “ children and teens with autism spectrum disorder ASD or Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder ADHD  are much more likely to express a wish to be the opposite sex compared with their typical developing peers” That was posted in 2014. we have been saying this stuff forever but no one wants to listen. the thing is gender variance (being not cisgender or at least questioning it)  has always been closely hand-in-hand with autistic and ADHD people I'm even the doctor who did that study understood right away that it all made sense the whole time: “ Dr. Strang said they were initially surprised to find an overrepresentation of gender variance among children with ADHD. However, they later realized that prior studies have shown increased levels of disruptive behavior and other behavioral problems among young people with gender variance”  SEE YOURE NOT WEIRD YOURE JUST YOU AND YOURE NOT ALONE IN THIS!!

5% autistic people who did the study were trans or questioning. it was also equal between the Sexes fun fact. that may not seem like a lot till you realize that the national average is only .7% that's literally over 700% higher than the national average. That's so many! and that's just in America.

 in Holland there was a study in 2010 “ nearly 8% of the more than 200 Children and adolescents referred to a clinic for gender dysphoria also came up positive on a assessment for ASD” they weren't even testing for ADHD so the numbers could be even higher!

now I want to talk about a  certain section of the trans umbrella that a lot of autistic people fall under called the non-binary umbrella. non-binary means anything that isn't just male or just female. it is not one third gender and non-binary doesn't mean that you don't have a gender. just clearing that up since cis people keep spreading that. non-binary is an umbrella term for any of the infinite genders you could use or create. now this is where I'm going to lose a bunch of you and that's okay because you don't have to understand our brains or emotions To respect us as real people. not many allistics can understand how we see and think and relate to things and that's okay you don't have to understand everything but just reading about this could be so much closer to respecting us for Who We Are from you've ever been and that's better than being against us just for existing.

now you might have heard of my Mutual Lars who was harassed  by transmeds for using the term Autigender (I was going to link them but if it gets traction I don't want them to get any hate)  since a lot of people roll their eyes at that  and treated them disgustingly for using a term that 100% applied correctly.  Autigender  is described as " a neurogender which can only be understood in the context of being autistic or when one's autism greatly affects one's gender or how one experiences gender. Autigender is not autism as a gender, but rather is a gender that is so heavily influenced by autism that one's autism and one's experience of gender cannot be unlinked.” Now tell me that doesn't sound a lot like this entire essay I've been working on with full sources…..

xenogenders and neopronouns are a big argument point on whether or not people “believe” in non binary genders but a big part of those genders is that they originated from ND communities and are ways that we can try to describe what gender means us in a way that cis or even allistic trans people just can't comprehend or ever understand. Same with MOGAI genders or sexualities. A lot of these are created as a way to somehow describe an indescribable relationship with gender that is so personal you really cant explain it to anyone who isnt literally the same as you.

Even in studies done with trans autistic people a large amount of them dont even fall on a yes or no of having a gender at all and fall in some weird inbetween where you KINDA have a gender but its not a gender in the sense that others say it is but its also too much of a gender so say youre agender. And this is the kind of stuff that confuses allistic trans people and makes them think nonbinary genders are making stuff up for attention, which isnt true at all we just cant explain what it feels like to BE a trans autistic person to anyone who doesnt ALREADY know how it feels.

In this study out of the ppl questioned almost HALF of the autistic trans individuals had a “Sense of identity revolving around interests” meaning their gender and identity was more based off what they liked rather than boy or girl. That makes ppl with stuff like vampgender or pupgender make a lot more sense now doesnt it? We see that even in the study: “My sense of identity is fluid, just as my sense of gender is fluid […] The only constant identity that runs through my life as a thread is ‘dancer.’ This is more important to me than gender, name or any other identifying features… even more important than mother. I wouldn't admit that in the NT world as when I have, I have been corrected (after all Mother is supposed to be my primary identification, right?!) but I feel that I can admit that here. (Taylor)” and an agreement from another saying “Mine is Artist. Thank you, Taylor. (Jessie)” now dont you think if they grew up with terms like artistgender or dancergender they would just YOINK those up right away????

In fact “An absence of a sense of gender or being unsure of how their gender should “feel” was another common report” because as ive said before in this post AUTISTIC PEOPLE DONT SEE GENDER THE WAY ALLISTIC PEOPLE SEE IT. therefore we wont use the same terms or have the same identities nor could we explain it to anyone who doesnt already understand or question the same way! Participants even offered up quotes such as “As a child and even now, I don't ‘feel’ like a gender, I feel like myself and for the most part I am constantly trying to figure out what that means for me (Betty)” and also “I don't feel like a particular gender I'm not even sure what a gender should feel like (Helen)”

Now i know this isnt going to change everyones minds on this stuff but i can only hope that it at least helped people feel like theyre not broken and not alone in their feelings about this. You dont have to follow allistic rules. You dont have to stop searching inside for who you really wanna be. And you dont have to pick or choose terms forever because just as you grow and evolve so may your terms. Its okay to not know what or who you are and its okay to identify as nonhuman things or as your interests because what you love and what you do is a big part of who you are and shapes you everyday. Its not a bad thing! Just please everyone, treat ppl with respect and if you dont understand something that doesnt make it bad or wrong it just means its not for you. And thats okay.