#because you didn't like a suggestion I made and wanted to invalidate me

[hobsyllwin]

opened DRG reddit

[twig-tea]

I haven't been posting about it week to week but I have been keeping up with My Love Mix-up (the Thai adaptation) and I'm still sitting with how badly this latest episode (ep7) is sitting with me. I just have to purge this so I can move on. Criticism of the adaptation below [including spoilers through to the end of episode 7 and very vague spoilers for the source material].

I wish these show writers would not try to shoehorn an adapted work into the bubble, because this line they are trying to walk is disturbing. By having an older gay character tell Atom that he shouldn't characterize his relationship as different, it's suggesting that societal norms and social expectations are not real, but are something Atom invented. His fear is treated as a joke and an overreaction, something to overcome, and everything I've heard from Thai people in the real world tell me that is very much not the case. This is such a different message from the original manga and Japanese live action, which were both about having the strength to defend your relationship in front of obstacles and trust the people in your lives who have earned it. There's a huge difference between learning not to live in fear even though there are realistic things to be concerned about, and learning your fear was misguided/not based in reality after all so you can just let it go. Queer kids should not be taught to not trust their instincts about who to trust with their truths.

This is the same mistake GMMTV made with the changes they made to 23.5, and it tells me their writers fundamentally don't understand internalized homophobia. You don't develop internalized homophobia in a homophobia-free bubble--kids are not born with it, it has to be learned. We are taught to hate ourselves by parents, by media, by teachers, by strangers...to set a show in a world where that is not a reality, and then to have characters have those fears anyway, is insulting and dismissive of where those fears come from and how they are based on realistic fears about potential outcomes. Gay kids do lose their families and have their lives blown up over the people they love--that is not a joke or an overdramatic statement.

I am really upset by this. It feels like these shows are saying queer people are foolish and delusional for being afraid. I've had people in real life tell me that my concerns were overdramatic before, and I've also seen people badly hurt because they didn't take the threat of homophobia seriously enough. I just...it's not that I worry this will be a model for anyone's behaviour. But this adaptation took a story about characters I could relate to, and changed them so that the show instead instead is invalidating my experience. It feels dehumanizing. In trying to be an escapist piece of media, this show instead became painful for me to watch. I sincerely hope I'm an outlier and other queer folks watching this didn't feel it in the same way, because I don't want other people to be feeling how I'm feeling right now.

I'll be walking away from this one.

@bengiyo I think you mentioned feeling similarly disturbed by this approach in your stray thoughts, so I'm tagging you in case you wanted to add on.

[carriesthewind]

I watched Jenny Nicholson's new video on disney's failed Star Wars hotel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0CpOYZZZW4), and there is some absolutely *fascinating* mental processes on display on the galactic starcruiser subreddit.

While many people are responding reasonably, some die-hard fans over there are spouting the absolutely unhinged, reality-denying, victim-blaming talking points she discusses in her video. There are several people who seem really invested in not just disagreeing with her, but insisting that she is not only objectively wrong but a bad-faith hater.

So I picked one of these people at random and scrolled back to try and see what their experience of the hotel was.

[Rambling musing below the cut. Unedited because I'm typing this because I can't get to sleep.]

Unsurprisingly, they insisted it was magical and life-changing and one of the best experiences anyone could have. However, these declarations of how important it felt to them were accompanied by no specifics about what about the experience was actually so great (with one exception, which I'll get to in a minute). Their very first post was about how they couldn't articulate why experience felt special.

I have some theories.

First, as Jenny alludes to in her video, there is a psychological pressure to justify the value in something a person has already invested so much money and time into. At one point, the redditor describes waiting on the phone on hold for two hours just to book an *add-on* for their trip. And as she says, the feeling of judgment from others only adds to this pressure. The redditor outright states that they feel uncomfortable saying they went to the hotel (outside the fan groups) because of how people react.

But I think it's more than that. As Jenny describes in her video (and as the redditor's description of their own experience matches), the experience was exhausting and overstimulating. The redditor describes being overwhelmed and overbooked, but also says they feel like they should have skipped out on sleep because they feel like they missed thing. And then, at the end of the second day - a literal 16 hour day of activities - there is a big finale, starting with an adrenaline-triggering "alarm," where you watch a cool live fight in the midst of a hundred other cheering, excited people. And this is the one positive specific that the redditor describes (multiple times, in fact!). They aren't a big fan of the sequels, but they "gasped when Rey showed up" in the finale. This isn't surprising at all! They were watching a live show while in a suggestible state and experienced an adrenaline rush, and their brain processed this as a magical experience.

This is reinforced by the redditor's descriptions of their nostalgia. They talk frequently about wishing they were in the hotel and wanting to return. But they specifics of what they miss are either vague or signifiers of the emotional experience (e.g. talking about how they miss the smell...because it reminds them of the hotel). And at one point, they mention that they miss the pre-trip anticipation almost as much as they miss the hotel itself.

This is a huge tip off that their interpretation of their experience was completely disconnected from the reality of the hotel. Whatever made the experience feel magical for them (whether or not I'm correct about my suspicions as outlined above), it had very little to do with any disney did or the actual quality of the hotel.

To be clear, I'm not invalidating the redditor's experience - if they say it felt life-changing and they don't regret what they spent, I believe them! I love all sorts of things in ways not reflected by any "objective" quality.

HOWEVER. I can also admit that! If someone criticizes something flawed that I love, it's not a personal attack on me! And my love for it isn't an justification for a) contributing to a narrative to encourage people to massively overpay for it and b) attacking people who didn't care for it and blame them for "doing it wrong"!

Especially - and here's the most interesting part - if I have many of the same criticisms of the thing myself.

Because while the redditor has only one specific about what made the experience great, they actually include lots of specifics about their experience. It's just that those specifics are all flaws. Here are some details of their experience as they actually describe it:

There were not enough character actors for them to actually interact with them meaningfully

The setup of the role play made them feel horrible social anxiety for a large chunk of the first day

They were forced to miss at least one major story event because of poor scheduling by the app/disney

Describing being randomly shown story beats disconnected of their actions within the roleplay/game (but describing it as 'I don't know how we accomplished that')

Nearly crying at one point because they were effectively locked out of a story moment

Wasting over an hour trying to figure out how to do a minor quest b/c of poor design

The experience the redditor actually describes is of a fairly-poorly designed, overcrowded larp that made them anxious, exhausted, and at times actively miserable, but ended with a really great adrenaline high. All of these things are objectively bad, and they all match onto Jenny's criticism.

But the redditor subjectively looks back at their experience as wonderful and magical. And so they are angry at Jenny, even though her criticisms map neatly onto their own experience, because she frames them as problems with the hotel. They seem to feel a pressure to defend their subjective experience by rejecting the possibility of any other interpretation of the experience, even the objective bad experiences of others.

In one of their most recent (of many) angry posts about how disingenuous Jenny is, they say, "For me, there's no reason to relitigate the debates surrounding the cruiser. We are more than happy to enjoy our memories from the time and let the rest of the "haters" just wallow in their hatred."

Three sentences earlier, they described how they used some of their precious time inside the magical hotel to try to prove she was lying about not being able to see the dinner show because she was placed behind a column.

The redditor cannot simply enjoy their memories from the time. Because even in the middle of their experience, they were forceably attempting to prove that all the money and time and expectations they invested *must* have been objectively worth it. Jenny's video is threatening because the redditor cannot pretend that they just had different experiences, that Jenny got unlucky while the redditor got lucky and had fun.

After coming home they feel unhappy, which *must* be because the experience was so good that they are dissatisfied returning to their 'normal life'. The anxiety, the wasted time, even the tears? Those weren't the experience, the experience was the adrenaline rush at the very end. It was life-changing. It was magical. It was worth it. All of it was worth every penny. It had to be.

[kaizenproductions]

Natsu does NOT have any previous experience with romantic love

This is the (better) Tumblr version of my post from Twitter. Given the format of this website, I'll add some details to what's already written.

Before starting with this, I want to clarify that the motivation to write this post has little to do with nalu itself (it will be mentioned to highlight a point though). Having previous romantic partners DOESN'T really make any ship invalid. You'll find the actual reason behind this essay under the cut below.

This is about how Natsu, as a character, is never presented or seen by others as someone who has experience with love and such idea is never hinted or implied anywhere in the canon material. This lack of experience explains why Lucy thinks he has no interest in it.

As we will see later, Lucy isn't the only one who thinks like this... Let's get started.

Year 2024. Why writing all this? Some weeks ago I was involved in a discussion about whether Natsu was being OOC during a filler (non canon) scene of the anime where he snaps at Lucy in a way he never does with any of his friends in canon material. The discussion led to this...

I didn't want to assume that this person was taking Lisanna as some kind of first love. At the end it turned out that was exactly what was happening. The proof? The most platonic reunion ever... with Happy reacting the same way as Natsu and comedy being included. It is important to highlight that Mashima never makes two people between whom there have been romantic feelings reunite like this, with comedy references in between that downplays the seriousness of the moment to some extent. While this post is about Natsu and his feelings, I could also mention Lisanna's reaction to this, something that proves that there wasn't even a one sided love: after noticing this Natsu is the same one from her real dimension, she doesn't start crying because of him but because of her siblings.

Let's ignore the part where this dude started calling me and some other users "retards" because that speaks volumes for itself about his lack of real arguments. After all, he has been fighting for at least 4 years with teens over power scaling, a topic he may seem to be knowledgeable about but actually isn't so much, plus he has been banned from at least one Discord server because of his r4pe threats. It seems this individual was so obsessed with that specific thing that he said Zeref did it to Mavis and that's how August was made... That also speaks volumes about his media literacy and the fact that even if it's true that he did read the manga so many times as he claimed during this discussion, he has serious problems with reading as a normal person. When it comes to the topic of this post, the problem is that he has some influence within the fandom, at least on Twitter, so whatever he says is something that many of his followers will start repeating.

What does Mashima do when Lisanna finally comes back to her original home and she gets a proper reunion with everyone?

After the initial shock from seeing Edo Lisanna in Earthland and the big reveal, this is how Natsu reacts.

This isn't a reunion that suggests that Lisanna is special compared to everyone else in the guild, and particulary to those who grew around Natsu. Also, we can't say Mashima just doesn't know how to write such scene properly... because he's written it at least once (in Rave).

The emotion you can feel in this scene, the way ONLY both lovers are on the spotlight and the rest of their friends are in the background until the end... Well, the difference is so obvious that it's ridiculous to say more. Given how well Mashima handles the emotional dimension of his characters in his mangas, the possibility that he didn't know how to depict two lovers who got separated from each for some time due to circumstances beyond their control is off the table.

Also, notice how the end of the Edolas arc depicts this.

The difference with her reunion with Natsu and the others is so obvious that there's no need to say more.

We can also discard Lisanna as a former love interest because there's no akwardness between them once she's back to the guild. They can be seen playing together and briefly interacting from time to time, so it's not like they're avoiding each other.

Is it implied somewhere that they had something beyond friendship? Not in any kind of canon material. Every time Lisanna is mentioned in regards to Natsu she's presented as a close childhood friend. We have, for example, her profile from one of the first chapters where she's back home and the information of the official magazine that was released 10 years ago.

But what if they simply stopped loving each other due to being separated, as a fellow nalu shipper told me on Discord? Making characters fall out of love is something that Mashima also references (see Macao pic a bit below). It also goes against what we saw regarding Erza and Jellal, who still had romantic feelings for each other despite their antagonistic positions for many years, or against the whole Zeref and Mavis thing. In other Mashima mangas we have more couples like this. Elsie and Justice still loved each other despite being sworn enemies, and Let still loved Julia (and vice versa) when he discovered she was alive, a kinda similar scenario to Natsu and Lisanna if they had been lovers. Given that Natsu and Lisanna weren't even enemies to each other at any point and they were only separated for two years, we can't say they had something canonically and they simply got over it with no actual reference to it.

There was a very good moment to reference past feelings in 100YQ: when Touka includes Lisanna in the group of women "around Natsu".

Instead of offering us a comment like "it's not like that anymore", Lisanna just says something that implies they're not that close. After all, Natsu is hanging out with his team most of the time since it was established.

What's the reason this fandom has been so many years discussing about this friendship? Because the first anime adaptation goes beyond that friendship and the manga omake where both of them take care of Happy's egg, something Lisanna decides to help with because she loves animals and she felt Natsu wouldn't do it properly. The first season includes several fillers that pave the way for a love triangle, presenting Lisanna as a girl who is VERY interested in marrying Natsu when they're adults. In addition, Happy is presented as their son, something that totally goes against the source material. Even if Natsu is the one who saw Happy be born and was living with him since then, Happy is never considered as his son and is always called a nakama/companion/friend.

This long thread has everything that A-1 and Satelight added in regards to Natsu and Lisanna. As we can see in the info provided in one of the first tweets, Mashima let them "edit" the story the way they wanted to and it's mentioned explicitely by both him and Ishihara (the director) that Ishihara is responsible for those additions, not Mashima. We also can't say the additions were something Mashima asked for because he couldn't include everything he wanted in his manga for some reason. This is supported by the fact that Lisanna is never presented in the manga as any kind of romantic interest after she comes back.

There's also this tweet from 2012 where Mashima replied to someone asking him whether he was involved in the story of the anime. His answer is no.

It's also important to say that these fillers aren't canon: they're not referenced in the source material (the starry key arc was, even if Mashima wasn't involved in the writing), they're not referenced in the anime itself after Lisanna comes back and they have no impact in the events of the story during and after Edolas.

Currently, thanks to Mashima's Twitter Spaces, we know two things: he revived Lisanna because some people in the anime staff liked her (Ishihara is one of them for sure), which explains why she's not very relevant and is always tied to her siblings, and he once considered to include a love triangle between Natsu, Lucy and Lisanna after Edolas, but he liked Natsu and Lucy's dynamic by then enough to not introduce such storyline. He also said Lisanna was "だめ" in regards to that triangle that never came to be, implying that she would have been the one that doesn't get the boy in that scenario.

So is Lisanna our supposed former love interest? As far as the canon material goes, no. Was she close to Natsu? Yes. Is she dear to him? Yes, just like everyone in his family, the guild, is (I can't believe I'm writing this in fking 2024). Now, what if there was someone else? The assumption that characters may have dated another (unnamed) character offscreen isn't totally crazy. After all we saw how Juvia dated Bora, even if it was a narrative tool to show that not even dates would make Juvia stop being depressed. However, we can't say there was someone else as more than a headcanon unless it's implied or mentioned somewhere explicitely. We know Macao was married but got divorced thanks to the official magazine, for example.

When it comes to Natsu, nothing is ever mentioned.

100YQ, the official FT sequel, has several pannels that go against the whole idea of Natsu being experienced with romantic love. As I mentioned at the beginning, even others from the guild, and especifically Macao in this pannel, who knows Natsu since he was a kid, have a hard time believing he's interested in love.

This part of the story includes a very interesting pannel that also debunks the whole idea that Natsu felt more than frienship for Lisanna before she was transported to Edolas.

Why would Lisanna's brother react like this over such comment if Natsu and his sister had romantic feelings in the past? Easy: because those feelings never existed.

Even Lisanna is a bit surprised when Touka expresses her interest in him.

Previous romantic experience would also mean that Natsu's relationship with Lucy would be more advanced than it is as of now, not to mention this recent scene.

Natsu is still quite dense with romance, even when it doesn't involve him, and while he talks about his and Lucy's kids they still have a long way to go due to his total inexperience in this area as of now. Someone with past love experiences wouldn't be like this. I could say more about this but this isn't the post for it so...

Conclussion: the first season of the anime did a lot of damage that resulted in many years of discussions, fights, misogyny towards both Lucy and Lisanna. There was no childhood or teen love, no jealousy from Lisanna when she saw how close Natsu and Lucy were as a team and nothing suggests that Lisanna was more than a friend in canon material. Claiming the opposite at this point of the story is useless.

[joyswonderland1108]

Solos suck ass.

I can't believe a day came where i had to click uninterested on posts about Jimin or Jungkook.

The algorithm works this way the more you interact with something the more posts about the same thing/person will show up more. You all know i'm a Jungkook and Jimin stan so naturally my algorithm picks up that i'm interested in posts about them individually or together, which also means the algorithm suggests shitty posts the same as the ones i've seen earlier.

There's this one post i've seen and i'm not gonna share it cause really both parties are disgusting but this made me think.. This is why you should be mindful of what you say because later it can backfire, and the only one receiving hate from all that is the members.

Jimin and Jungkook solos are in this constant war getting back at each other and they're both setting up Jimin and Jungkook for hate. If you're a solo congratulations do you want me to give you a cookie for that? You go be a solo in your own bubble and talk about your fav all you want, but don't forget that you're a solo so keep other members names out of your mouth, don't go thinking that by dragging other members your fav will be happy with you. Thank you for all the efforts you do for the member you are solo'ing but that's all, that's literally all there is to thank you for.

Another thing i wanted to mention since some people felt the need to bitch about it. And i'm with @kkhluvsbts in this one, you are entitled to your own opinion about something as long as you stay respectful, if you feel a bit disappointed that you can't see JK being credited on any song in GOLDEN, fine whatever those are your feelings and no one can invalidate them, but going the extra mile to diss him about that?

A gentle reminder that Euphoria was not written by JK yet no one was barking about how it doesn't associate with him or how it doesn't represent him or how it doesn't mean anything to him, and to begin with as per Namjoon's words it was supposed to be a Jimin and Jungkook subunit but they decided to go for Jungkook only.

Jungkook didn't write Seven either but because he felt a connection to it he chose that one song, it's also the way he interprets each lyrics those are personal to him. When he was interviewed about Seven he made a slight distinction between the MV and the lyrics and this to me at least showed me how Jungkook sees the lyrics for himself, not how YOU perceive them or how YOU understand them.

Should i also remind you of the poems you google when you're an X mood and you post them because it defines how you feel at the moment? Should we invalidate your state at the moment because it wasn't written by you? Should we just pretend you are lying about your feelings at the moment cause you chose to post words written by someone else?

Also since y'all are being smartasses you do realize that Jungkook didn't start working on his album very early right? I do hope y'all weren't just hypocrites pretending to care about him when you don't even realize this. Writing your own songs can take a lot and i mean A LOT some people have been writing the same song for YEARS not just weeks or months, do you think JK would be happy to give us something he didn't have enough time to write properly?

I just want to understand what's so wrong with connecting with words that you yourself didn't write? When Jungkook chose "There for you" or "Best of Me" for his GCFs he didn't sing any of those yet he felt a connection with them and felt like they were the most fitting for what he was trying to show us.

I don't know just how long this fandom will keep on being dominated by immature brains. I come here everyday hoping i'd get inspired to write something cute about my biases but end up being disappointed with the shit happening. Y'all need to get a life istg.

[old-school-butch]

Thank you for having anon on, you must get a lot of hate, but i'm a hidden recently deprogrammed ex-TIF and i appreciate being able to... confess to being a woman without being hung for it. i know that when i come out with this i will lose most of my friends because my detransition will "invalidate" them all. they will push me out so they can remain "gay men".

i wanted to ask what you think about ex-TIFs? and if you've seen how it plays out when we (re)integrate into womanhood, from the side of women. i've only seen it from the side of TRAs and it's an excommunication and violent rejection. i'm going to lose my community, and i have (since i started looking into it) fully agreed with most radfem core beliefs you see here on tumblr.

i took testosterone for years, but i also stopped in 2019 because it made me so angry. i have no breasts and a deepened voice. i wonder how radfems might see me. will i seem like a returned traitor?

will other women be interested in me still? i'm bisexual, but was pushed to mainly date men as a TIF because those relationships were "gay" and dating women was hetero and "lesser" love. i don't want to center men anymore. but i have no breasts, and i have no woman's voice. do women care? i don't know.

i ask you because you are older and maybe you would know. my best wishes to you. thank you.

I keep anon on for just this reason, because I remember how insane I felt when I found the courage to stop pushing aside those thoughts that, surely, everyone knows we're making all this up and just being nice, right?

It's an unfortunate part of human nature that it's easier to con someone than persuade them they've been conned. Once the con is taken up, it's agonizing to admit it and pull away from it. You have to live with the harms you've done along the way, which I admit to and which will eventually weigh on you as well. It's not easy, especially when your immediate friends will be harsh with you. If they don't cast you out, you might find yourself self-isolating to pre-emptively remove yourself and spare yourself the pain.

I'm not going to lie, you will encounter women who regard you as a traitor because they, themselves, have not come to terms with the harms they've done, or they've been lucky enough to not have been tested on this crucible and can't believe that anyone can be turned so upside down as we have.

However, you're not alone. I have no statistics but in meeting younger lesbians I'd guess at least 1 in 3 of them are detransitioners from varying stages of identifying as trans. If you are same-sex attracted or gender non-conforming in any way, today's society will digest that as 'trans?' and without saying a word you will find yourself being they/them without ever asking, and transition will be suggested if you suffer from so much as a bad period cramp or any frustration with your body. As women and as lesbians, we experience so much pain that society ignores, and the most powerful articulation of that anguish in our time is 'this can't be the body I'm meant to be in.' Like anorexia, dissociative identities, cutting and other expressions of female despair, we are permitted to lash out destructively as long as we bring down that rage on our own bodies. We continue to inhabit these scarred battlefields long after the fighting has moved on.

I guess the main thing to know is that you are not alone. In fact, I suspect that the 'part of my story where I was convinced I was trans' is going to be part of the coming-out pantheon for lesbians in the future that is as common as having a crush on a straight friend and have the talk with your parents. I don't think having breasts or a deeper voice will condemn you to loneliness, I don't think anyone can blame you for what's happening or being swept up in it. If they do, you can ask them why they didn't stop you, why their voices didn't reach you when you needed it most, and why - now that you've found your own way home with very little help from anyone around you - they aren't appreciating the courage and effort it took for you to find your way.

Welcome home, sister.

[peachdoxie]

I don't think I ever really processed the trauma I went through in OCD treatment and reblogging that comic about OCD the other day really triggered me and arghhhhhhh I don't know what to do about it. Thoughts I guess.

The main thing is like, any time I would express doubts that I actually have OCD, my therapist (who specialized in OCD) would tell me that doubting that I have OCD is actually a very common symptom of OCD, and it felt like he refused to actually listen to my doubts when I was like "my avoidance happens because there's some block in my brain that I can't get past and it's not rooted in anxiety."

Like, because he thought I had OCD that meant that any thought or behavior I expressed automatically was because of OCD and not like, adhd, autism, fibromyalgia, sensory processing disorder, etc. It felt like my only options were to agree with him (which I didn't want to do because I don't!) or continue arguing and therefore just confirm what he already thought.

And like honestly it made me almost question my sense of reality when I was like "I'm avoiding this thing because I'm worried the physical exertion will trigger an asthma attack or tachycardia event or fibromyalgia flare up or migraine" and he'd be like "but what if it doesn't and you're fine?" and I was like "I can't take that risk because of how long it takes me to recover from these health issues" then he'd say "OCD treatment is about learning that you can and have to work through discomfort and, yes, even pain" and honestly if not for the fact that I have a strong sense of self and years of experience to back this up, I might have started to doubt that my health issues were really as bad (even though they are!) as I was perceiving them.

Like one exercise I had to do was increase my anxiety (to show myself that I can handle anxiety) by hyperventilating through a coffee stirrer for a set number of seconds, and I was supposed to do it even if I was going to black out but when I said I felt like that was too risky for me because of the aforementioned health issues (the tachycardia especially) he just kept trying to convince me to do it even though I kept saying I don't think I should!

And he kept suggesting things to convince me to do tasks, like if I don't do xyz by our next appointment I have to donate ALL of my savings to a political cause I disagree with, and I was like "that just creates more anxiety for me because I genuinely do not think I can do this thing because my brain won't let me!" That was the last session I saw him because I cancelled after that.

Honestly I think the main reasons OCD therapy was so traumatic for me were 1) I constantly felt invalidated when I expressed concerns and 2) I was being misinterpreted by someone who refused to listen to me. That second one is something that actually really bothers me a lot and some of the biggest falling outs I've had with friends in high school were when they misinterpreted something I said as malicious and used it against me. But the invalidation of my concerns goes right along with it.

The thing is too the part of me that does have perseverance and anxiety—not the logical side of me, that is—still worries that maybe he was right all along and I do have OCD and all of my problems are just because I don't think I can do something so I don't, even though my logical brain can point to all of the evidence contrary to that worry.

Like yeah, I do have intrusive thoughts that cause my anxiety, but I'm pretty good at handling them. And my avoidance is based in past experience of "if I trigger one of my health issues by doing one of these specific things that have triggered them in the past, it will make the rest of my week very difficult as I struggle to recover and play catch-up." It's like, what anxiety I have is most often based in very real, very tangible worries—and even now, I'm struggling not to start spiraling about it, so I'll stop before I get there.

Tbh the only good thing to come out of those six months of hell was the conclusion that the vast majority of my problems aren't caused by anxiety and that there is something else going on, whether it's autism, adhd, fibromyalgia, or whatever. I'm not sure it outweighs the trauma, but hey I learned something I guess.

Tbh I try not to be too pissed at myself for seeking OCD treatment in the first place and basically wasting my leave of absence by making minimal progress. I decided to listen to the therapist who diagnosed me (different from the OCD treatment therapist) instead of going with my idea of seeking help from an autism/adhd therapist, because I tend to defer to authorities on things like that—though I will say, the negativity and fearmongering on Tumblr around getting autism/adhd diagnoses certainly didn't help.

I think overall it's frustrating because I will never get closure with the OCD therapist. He will always have misinterpreted me and refused to listen to me, and I'll just have to live with that.

It's also frustrating because I don't think either therapist necessarily did anything wrong, per se, since they were looking at what evidence they had from their experience in their fields, which certainly biased them—and they both admitted to me that they don't know much about autism or adhd, and I should have taken that as a yellow flag and bailed sooner—and I'm going to shut up because the spiral is starting again.

Anyway if you read all this, thanks I guess. I'm mostly just train of thought writing to get the thoughts out of my head (perseveration is a symptom of OCD but also of adhd/autism and I need to keep reminding myself that). Please don't give me advice or suggest I reach out to either therapist please. Compassion only.

Please also don't try to convince me that I do have OCD because I don't need someone encouraging my anxiety spiral.

[transpersian]

Poppy and SFW Spaces - Part 2: About that time that Poppy posted lewd furry art in a SFW channel...

The last time this came up, I didn't want to overwhelm what was already a big post, but now that this is coming up again, it's reminded me to post the follow-up conversation from the server.

Because you know that there was a follow-up conversation.

TLDR:

Two server members spoke up about how uncomfortable the post made them.

Poppy has a conversation where she disagrees in a troubling way, then steps aside to allow for a mod to handle the disagreement (to avoid conflicts of interest).

Saige, who Poppy has disclosed on-stream that she is an FP for, stepped in to essentially parrot whatever Poppy had said (to, you know, avoid conflicts of interest).

First off, I want to make it clear that Saige is in an entirely impossible situation. Please do not attack or judge her for her place in this situation. Instead, look at it my way: as proof of what nearly a year under Poppy's control will do to you.

Anyway.

I'm feeling spicy and like digging into something, so here's Poppy telling a minor that they're wrong for feeling uncomfortable over her shoving her fursona's sexually posed, barely clothed ass in their faces.

Then we're going to talk about their server rules and how the subject of minors and NSFW content is handled. I'm going to properly dig in here, so strap in [EDIT: we're at over 2100 words, so I'm serious].

The offending post and the initial response. Note how hard both of these people are trying to not piss anyone off.

~~~~~~~~~~

So... a few things.

Note the immediate defensiveness and invalidation. Describing what's clearly erotic art as "cute."

"I don't find those particularly spicy." The minors do, though

"They aren't actually showing anything so to me they are mostly just risque." IF IT'S RISQUE THEN WHY ARE YOU SHOWING IT TO MINORS

"There are even more explicit versions and I didn't post those, so that makes these fine." You can use relativity to justify anything. This is not a real argument. Pro tip: always be cautious of relativity when it's being used to argue against your feelings.

"We get into stuff that's NSFW on our streams and we don't restrict that." I'm pretty sure this isn't the own you think it is, Poppy. This is you telling on yourself.

And then...

"we expect people who come there to be mature, the same is true about the server"

I... hm.

Poppy (and Zena, #nozzerasure)...

1. Why do you expect people who come to your streams to be mature?

YOU HAVE LITERALLY NO CONTROL OVER THAT. It's a mental health political drama channel that gets suggested to people who watch similar content. If the statistics you shared a while back are still true, less than 2% of your audience is minors, but that's who marking your channel as mature is for.

Even ignoring the barely censored lewd art for now, you discuss a lot of really adult topics on your streams. These are the rules for a reason, Poppy, and you don't get to decide that they just don't apply to you. IF YOUR CHANNEL IS FOCUSED ON ADULT TOPICS YOU MARK IT AS "MATURE." FULL STOP.

You have ZERO CONTROL over who wanders into your channel. It isn't your decision as to whether your videos show up in front of minors. You are fucking wrong here.

Fix it, or leave it as more evidence of how little you actually care about protecting minors from adult content.

2. Why do you expect people who come to your server to be mature?

You explicitly position it as a place for vulnerable, traumatized, mentally ill, BPD (etc) queer people to go. You have stated that you want your community to be a safe place for the people from Lily Orchard's community to go once they're out. You know that that community contains a lot of minors, many of whom are there for content about cartoons. Why are you outright assuming that these people are mature enough to handle this content? Because if that was really a major priority for you, Poppy, I would think that the absurdly low bar of DON'T SHARE YOUR FUCKING LEWD ART IN SPACES WITH MINORS would be one you'd gladly clear to make sure that those people were entering a safe, friendly, non-sexualized space. You know, because a major problem with LO is her being unable to keep her fetishes and sexuality out of minor-inclusive spaces. I've been researching some things recently and you'd be surprised how deep the parallels go.

And on one last note about this one, I think it's really funny that Poppy tried to act like the other sections of the server are some big secret. "What separate area" come on, now. lol

~~~~~~~~~~

It's weird how she can't just wrap her head around the simple idea of not showing NSFW art in minor-inclusive spaces. This isn't a debate stream, Poppy. Where are you trying to take this conversation?

I do love how the other person calls out the problem with relativity right there. Hell yeah. Just because Hollywood's decided that that's okay to put on TV doesn't mean that I use it as a barometer to dictate what I think is appropriate. Poppy should know better than to use that as an excuse.

~~~~~~~~~~

Saige moderates!

First off, I want to reiterate and stress that Saige is in an entirely impossible situation. Note how she's basically just agreeing with Poppy. I was torn on whether to include who this mod is, but the context of her relationship with them is important to show just how much of a conflict of interest this is. Having your BPD partner, who you are an FP for, be a mod for situations like this?

What was that about conflicts of interest, Poppy? Why is Saige moderating your conflicts on the server, as a mod?

Can you imagine, as a person with BPD, being put in the position to moderate disagreements over your FP's inappropriate posts in the server that she owns?

Anyway.

Looking at these as Poppy's talking points because I don't trust that they didn't discuss this behind the scenes before Saige posted her "verdict."

1. "This isn't harmful for minors to see."

According to who?

2. "On this server, we don't shy away from difficult interactions."

This is pure, basic Foundation propaganda (Poppaganda, heh). They say this, but all you have to do is look at the receipts for my interactions with them to see just how good they are at dealing with conflict. "But that was personally in dating" yes, I know, but believe me, it goes far beyond that. It's just how they handle their personal affairs. I've seen and have extensive evidence for it, I just can't share it yet.

3. "You are responsible to some degree for managing your interactions with an environment."

This is one of those abuses of therapy-speak. Poppy and Zena have been increasingly weaponizing certain definitions, particularly the notion of "boundaries." While boundaries are by definition things that you can state will be your response to specific actions and circumstances, you only have to look at Poppy's Twitter right now to see how that works out in practice.

~~~~~~~~~~

So what kind of expectations do PZ create for this environment?

Well, what is "Safe" versus the other categories, anyway?

Okay. Not explicitly for minors, fair enough. But let's check their server rules.

Solid start. What does that link to?

Oh, okay. Let's go over these.

~~~~~~~~~~

1) No minors in NSFW areas.

Serves to assume that no NSFW content is allowed in SFW spaces. Oh wait. About that first part.

And while one can assume that the person can still be locked out of chats that are specifically NSFW, this area of the server is a space where more NSFW conversations take place, including in VCs (which they clearly are, seeing as they're actively involved in the "reply to voice" chat in the background). There's no avoiding that unless the rules of the space itself change.

Oh wait. Also. About that second part. There's plenty in my previous post, but here's another fun one from last year that someone sent me today.

Maybe they changed the header in the year since, but uh... yeah. It's still in Safe, where there are minors. To be fair, the images were spoilered, but uh... yeah. Again, this is in the "Safe," minors-present category.

Anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~

2) People 23 and older can't act inappropriately towards minors. Check age roles to see if this is okay.

This comes across as weird for number of reasons. For one, this isn't something that should just apply to minors and 23+; anyone who feels uncomfortable with an interaction should be reporting it to the mods.

For another, while it makes sense to warn people that there are minors in the server and to mind themselves accordingly, why is the age gap specified like that? Why does it make a difference if they're 23 or 20? If they're making a minor uncomfortable, it's a problem!

I could say more, but it's just... weird.

~~~~~~~~~~

As for 3...

I want to first talk about that last bit because I know she'll be offended at the very suggestion that it isn't true; I truly do believe that Poppy believes that this is true. Unfortunately, wanting to do something and believing you do something and actually doing that thing are very different things.

But let's talk about this age difference thing again.

Take a moment and think about this: whose perspective is this from?

At what point does someone start "considering the power dynamics in the age difference" when they're interacting with a 22 year old? Maybe it's something to consider if you're over 30, but I wouldn't blink at a 24 year old dating a 20 year old.

So whose perspective(s) (#nozzerasure) are the age-based categorizations of "old enough to date question mark" designed for?

~~~~~~~~~~

Their stance on TWs/CWs

One last thing that I thought was curious...

They specifically have a section of their rules that discusses trigger/content warnings. This is what it says:

Notice how the two things that are marked as things that should be spoilered are violence and actual spoilers for media.

Most servers I've seen either have NSFW stuff specifically sequestered to NSFW spaces, or they spoil NSFW stuff. Why wouldn't this server do that?

Oh. Right.

~~~~~~~~~~

So what's my point?

What's all of this ultimately mean?

Firstly, I need to stress how NONE OF THIS IS EVIDENCE OF POPPY PURSUING MINORS IN "THAT" WAY. While her behavior is certainly concerning and inappropriate, I will not abide by any p*do-jacketing. If you're making any accusations like that, you'd better be bringing evidence, or at least a testimony.

Mainly, what this points to is a troubling pattern of behavior as far as her understanding of appropriate boundaries around sexual content. This directly impacts her ability to create truly SFW safe spaces for minors, especially minors who are emotionally/psychologically vulnerable or seeking refuge from sexually charged spaces.

Some of them may like being treated like adults, but that's not the point. The point is that it's not up to them. These are the rules for a reason.

Poppy, you may not believe that the rules should be this way, but please stop being so fucking stubborn. You're endangering minors with this behavior. All people are asking of you on this front is to be more restrained with your sexual stuff (including the "risque" stuff) in spaces where there are minors present.

Just exercise a little bit of self-control for the sake of making your server the safe space that you work so hard to convince people (including minors) that it is.

~~~~~~~~~~

ADDENDUM

HOLY SHIT THEY CLARIFIED IT

"Safe is only for friendly conversations about up to PG-13 topics."

[melminli]

This Can Go On All Day

pairing: peter parker x gn reader

synopsis - who does the best impression of captain america?

Your hands were currently digging in the candy drawer while Peter sat on the kitchen counter, scrolling on his phone. Your eyebrows furrowed slightly as you couldn't find anything decent that was to your taste. "Why the hell is there only sour shit?" you asked angrily, grabbing a pack of sour patches and leaning your arm on the marble counter. A funny thought suddenly crossed your mind as you looked at the bag and let your mind wander. "Hey, Pete." you exclaimed, drawing his attention to you.

His eyes looked from his screen to you. "Hm?" he groaned and saw you holding the package of gummy bears in front of his eyes.

"You think Steve would die if he ate one of these?"

Peter let out a small laugh before looking back down at his phone. "Yeah, sure. The strongest man in the world dies because of sour patches."

You tried to get his attention again. "Just listen to me for a second. I know he doesn't like sweet things, and I've never seen him eat anything sour. Plus, there were no sour candies in his childhood, I think, probably. So his taste buds would be pulverized." you came to the conclusion.

He thought about it for a second. "I mean, he's not a Neanderthal or anything, and it's not like he lived hundreds of years ago. I'm pretty sure he still has the ability to taste sour. Besides, sour patches aren't really sour if we're being honest."

"Good point." you conceded, letting Peter think that the discussion was over. "But how would he react. I mean, his standards of sour should be on a whole different level than ours. He probably perceives it very differently than we do." You said as another thought crossed your mind. "Unless his taste buds were also enhanced when he was in the lab, and that could mean that he would be immune against sour candy, which would invalidate my first theory. I mean kinda since he would indeed perceive it differently, though that would be the opposite of what i meant to say." You shrugged it off. "But let's just forget that possibility for a second."

"Right... I never thought of that." Said Peter, knowing what you were getting at. His hands reached for the package in your hands and took out a red sour patch. He tried to put on a deeper voice. "What are these little males?" he asked as if he'd never seen it before in his life as he carefully sniffed it. "And that's what people eat these days? What's it made of anyway?"

You laughed softly. "Okay Steve wouldn't react like some grandpa." you saw Peter raise his eyebrows at that like he was challenging you and you gave in pretty quickly as you thought about it for another second. "Okay I didn't say anything." You thought about his question for a second. "I want to believe it's from fruits but I'm just lying to myself with that. So some kind of chemistry probably."

You watched Peter try to keep his disgust subtle and fail miserably at it. You had to grin at his acting. "Hey, you're no less chemical than those sour patches." You exclaimed, snatching the bag from his hand in a huff.

"Everything in this world is chemistry. I don't understand why you use it in a negative context." Spoke peter and slipped out of his role.

You rolled your eyes. "Welcome back." You said and rummaged for the blue ones in the bag because the blue ones were the best.

A new voice responded. "Hey kids, what are you up to?" asked Tony as he entered the room with Bruce and immediately began to operate the coffee machine.

"Nothing really. We were just wondering how Steve would react to sour candy." you replied, impassively holding out the bag to Tony. "Any suggestions?"

He looked first at your hand and then at you before taking out a sour patch and you waited anxiously to see what reaction he would present.

After the first second, he spoke up. "My goodness. That's disgusting. What the hell is that? Without even starting the show yet."

Your shoulders slump in annoyance. "The peasants' meal is not to thee liking? Tony, I'm a little offended."

Peter nodded.

This time Tony rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah. Steve would probably be dead the second that thing touched his tongue. I don't know what you guys expect me to do."

"Some simple human decency would be nice." You turned your head to Bruce and held out the bag to him, whereupon he just shook his hand in front of him. "I'm not really good at this stuff."

"It's not about being good. It's about assumptions, man. Don't you do this all the time as scientists." You sighed in disappointment as you rolled your eyes.

"Well, let's see your reaction then." Tony prompted. He was pretty sure it was something absurd that would be far from reality.

You just returned his look self-consciously and took a gummy bear from the bag. "What is this strange consistency." You asked yourself in character as you test squeezed the gummy between your fingers a few times before putting it in your mouth. "Oh?" you expressed in confusion at first as your face contorted in a very strange way. "Oh! OH!" you finally exclaimed jokingly as you shook your head and slammed your fist down on the table. You then finally looked up with a serious expression after chuckling down the sour patch and straightened up as if nothing had happened when you met the judgmental stares of the others. "That was an... interesting experience."

Tony just raised an eyebrow as he took a sip of his coffee. "Yeah. definitely not."

Before you could defend yourself, the star of the day showed up. "Hey guys." Steve greeted you and at that moment, Peter's and your eyes met before you nodded to each other.

"Hey Steve, you want to try some of this new candy I bought the other day?"

Steve frowned a little as he watched the package. "I don't really like candy, but thanks for asking." he politely declined and was about to take something cold to drink from the fridge when Tony plucked the yellow bag from your hand and offered it to him. "Take one and eat it." He demanded.

Blue eyes looked around the room in confusion and Steve felt a little strange under the stares. "Oh. Okay then." he replied forcedly, taking a sour patch from the bag.

You wish you had your phone with you to film this.

"What a strange consistency." Steve expressed as he crushed the gummy bear between his fingers.

One hand clenched your mouth to hide your shock as Peter's eyes widened.

Then it finally happened. "Oh!" Steve expressed as his face contorted in a very funny way. "Oh! OH!" he finally exclaimed as if he had discovered a new miracle. After laughing it off, he looked up again with a serious expression as if nothing had happened. "That was an...interesting experience. You didn't tell me that it was something sour. I was expecting something completely different."

You slammed your hands on the table. "I knew it. Take that, you suckers!"

[lawgrain]

Hi, on the hunt for a guide of A03 etiquette i came across your very helpful post on appropriate and inappropriate commenting . Having recently got back into writing fics ive had some recent comments that are getting me down and i dont know if im being over sensitive or if these comments are considered inappropriate. E.g “i hope you do this or that to make said action more realistic ” or “it makes more sense if is this were to happen…etc”. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thank you ☺️

I'll be real with you, I get super sensitive sometimes with it because of how many bad comments I've gotten. I can't speak to comments I haven't seen but it can really feel invalidating to hear something that suggests that it'd be better if you went a different direction.

I made the utter mistake of replying to some of these types of comments and I would not do that again. I tried for a long time to reply to everything and I think it took too much of a toll on me. There's an off chance that a person will be understanding but there's more of a chance they'll just make you feel worse and worse.

For example I playfully replied to someone commenting on my hiatus saying I plan to continue. They responded in a way that just highlighted their disappointment in the hiatus in what I think they believed to be a friendly way but just made me feel worse. Another time I tried to politely explain something to a negative comment and they just got angry with me and wanted to go in depth on more things they didn't like.

I think it's completely valid to be disappointed and upset about those comments. It feels like they are suggesting you didn't do enough when you absolutely did. I was speaking with a friend recently on the subject and she put it very well. She mentioned that part of the reason fan fiction has a sort of etiquette is because fanficiton is a free source and what is written there is a gift of a sort. Published books are something people are getting paid for and opening to critique, but with a free work posted on a fanfic cite, plus the author hasn't said they are open to suggestion, its no ones place to do that.

On top of that, suggestions of where the story should go... I don't know, I just wish people who suggest things like that would actually just create? This is a personal opinion but it's great that they're inspired, that's a compliment in a way, but I'd rather not hear it. The whole idea of fan fiction is to take something and go your own way with it so if someone is that passionate, I'd be happier if they cited my work as the inspiration and do it. Some authors take requests, some are open to critique but if that's not the case, that should be respected

[zalrb]

I don’t even care about this show anymore, it was clear to me early on that they aren’t going to do this story justice. But the way they’ve basically given the female characters almost no agency and made Alicent be a victim of sexual exploitation multiple times for no reason is gross. There were other ways to make her more sympathetic. Not to mention, her character is so inconsistent and confusing. Like she lived with Rhaenyra and her kids for 10 years and couldn’t consider reconciling, but one speech at a dinner party and she wants to be bffs again? One episode she’s screaming at Aegon that he’s going to be king one day, but all of a sudden she had no idea that her father and his allies were planning for him to usurp the throne? And why on EARTH would she have genuine grief for the man who basically raped her and neglected her children? Give me one-dimensional evil step-mother Alicent from the book over this wishy washy bs any day.

I was super confused by her reactions to things this episode but didn't care enough to really explore the confusion because when she was crying over Viserys I was like ... ... do you actually mean this? Why tho?

And then her freaking out at the mention of killing Rhaenyra and Daemon just had me like, this is extremely naive thinking for a character who is supposed to be hardened. Why are we doing this?

And then the scene with Larys, so I've seen people say it was supposed to make her seem more sympathetic and I was like I don't see how they thought that would achieve this, they already did that pointed conversation about how she can't even imagine herself as queen but instead chooses to give herself away to men, we

And I'm also not sure why Alicent wasn't sympathetic before. Like I stand by what I've said about these characters, they lack interiority and depth and nuance and, well, life to make them anything more than cutouts, really, but she hasn't actually done anything that makes her unsympathetic.

And the thing with the complaint that none of the female characters have agency on this show is not that it's invalid but it's just, what does agency look like on this show? But actually. Because what the are the men actually doing? Like what is anyone doing?

Criston is basically unhinged muscle for Alicent, Aemond stands around pouting, Alicent and her father are supposed to be in this kind of chess match but he doesn't ever seem to actually be ahead of her even though we're meant to think he is but there's nothing to suggest that except that Larys tells him that he could potentially benefit from what he tells Alicent, Daemon kills people to get closer to a goal he seems nowhere near getting, like...

The ending of the episode is actually the perfect summation of HOTD as a whole, you had a whole ass dragon and burned no one just had it scream and then flew away, the lack of tension or consequences just makes this whole show an exercise in being pointless.

[bm-blog01]

Queen Charlotte Social Media Hype: Reddit Update

Ahead of the Queen Charlotte release I posted about unusual and odd social media hype for Queen Charlotte, and how much of it didn't feel organic (link here: How organic is the online social media hype for Queen Charlotte).

Just ahead of the release the BridgertonNetflix Reddit sub posted a series of posts for episode discussions, and since the release not quite 24 hours ago there has been a flurry of posts about Queen Charlotte, most of them from users who have only just begun posting on this sub, and only post about Queen Charlotte, all with similar comments. The quick response of many of these users, and the lack of any previous engagement on the BridgertonNetflix subreddit is very curious indeed.

At least one of these new users posting after the release of Queen Charlotte is a crew member, and his post is most definitely one of self promotion, despite self promotion being against the rules of the sub.

Another user who has not posted on Bridgerton in almost a year has popped up telling everyone to watch Queen Charlotte and even saying to people who expressed no interest in the show to watch it because they will change their minds, completely invalidating someone else's viewpoint. To me it come across as rather aggressive, and perhaps also a little desperate.

Another user has commented quite literally once on the the BridgertonNetflix sub reddit, only to defend the show from a post with a list of criticisms, as did another user who has posted previously, but only on Queen Charlotte, and not in any meaningful way. One of the interesting things about the second of these users, is in defending the criticism that George and Charlotte hardly interacted they made the claim that they interacted more than Kate and Anthony, and that they liked each other from the beginning (by implication Kate and Anthony didn't) which suggests that this person hasn't actually watched S2 of Bridgerton, or at least if they did took no notice of what was happening in the season. But regardless, it wasn't actually necessary to bring in Kate and Anthony except to either drama bait, or to try to diminish them and the achievements of S2 in order to make Queen Charlotte seem better, but why?

These users are only two small examples of the odd activity on the BridgertonNetflix subreddit, but it seems every minute or two a new Queen Charlotte post is going up by yet another user who is either not a regular (8 or 9 months since posting last) or has never posted on Bridgerton. Most of the users commenting on the episode posts for Queen Charlotte are also users that have had either little or no interaction on the BridgertonNetflix subreddit before 4 May.

The really interesting thing about all of these users who are apparently so in love with Queen Charlotte and so excited for it is that none of them are posting on either of the Queen Charlotte subreddits. If it was the show you wanted to talk about and post about why not go to the subreddit set up for that show, why suddenly start spamming another (connected) subreddit? Unless it is a marketing campaign.

As I mentioned in my previous post on this topic, if you are carrying out a marketing campaign where you are using Reddit / Reddit users to promote your show, then it makes sense to target the highest number of potential audience as opposed to targeting a small audience of people who are obviously already invested in the show.

I was contacted anonymously by someone who claims a comment they made on the BridgertonNetflix sub reddit about there being a Queen Charlotte subreddit was removed. I am unable to verify that information as the person in question did not provide their username. This does make some wonder if one of the mods on the BridgertonNetflix subreddit is somehow connected to the production, or has been contacted by the production to help with the promotion of Queen Charlotte, of course this is speculation only, but the question of why they don't send those wanting to discuss Queen Charlotte to the Queen Charlotte subs is one that should be asked.

Queen Charlotte is not Bridgerton, for all the use of Bridgerton Social Media to promote it, it is a different show altogether, and it should have to stand or fall based on its own merits and not be treated as another season of Bridgerton.

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

As you suggested, I'll send you my ask again.

self harm tw

I self harmed for some years till 7 years ago but only on my calves. I didn't want people forever to see "that my childhood was shitty" whenever I would wear a shirt. It made me feel pretty invalid because in mental health context most people just didn't assume that I self harmed (my arms were clean and I didn't tell without being asked) and treated me as a lighter case. I am still very thankful to my younger self for that smart decision. I have bad scars on my calves but tbh I don't shave and always wear long pants and, how often do you look at your calves? Pretty rarely, in my case, a handful of times a year. Which has the unwelcome effect that I didnt get used to them very much. Whenever I see them, it's like "Huh, oh right, full of scars, forgot this whole period of my life" I get triggered to self harm again. It is as if I get kicked back into my teenage years, with that desperation and sadness (that I completely forgot) again. And also a bit... Pride? When I see it, it gives me validation. "Oh right, I wasn't just a "light case" that people could easily ignore. I was as valid as any other self harming person".

And I don't know how to handle this. It is obscure but I haven't learned to live with my scars after 7 years.

Do you know any tricks that I can do?

Thank you

Hey anon,

First of all, congrats on being self-harm clean for 7 years! That's honestly such an enormous accomplishment. I hope you recognize that :)

Secondly, what you're thinking and feeling is completely valid. You are not alone in what you're going through. Even though you did not self harm on your arms does not mean it was any less harmful or that you weren't in pain. Your pain matters.

Since the scars are on your legs, you see them less frequently, so maybe you're not used to them on your body. And you mentioned that you didn't want to have visible scars because others may judge you/your childhood. Maybe you need to process your thoughts and emotions around that period of your life, and about the self harm. It still triggers you to see the scars, so putting time aside to think about them, look at them, and explore your relationship to them could be helpful. They are part of you and you get to decide what they say about you.

I like to think about things and write to process them. It sounds like (and I could be wrong) that you haven't been able to process your self harm yet, for whatever reason. You're allowed to go at your own pace.

Here is a resource on self harm that might help you start thinking about it.

Here is a post on coping with self harm scars.

Mod Misa

[donpishya]

Your sketchbook doodles of Jackson are so cute! (⋆ˆ ³ ˆ)♥ how could I not make a request? I also love that Jacksons face is longer with the non-chibi drawings like in real life. Randolph is cute with his little reactions too UwU (you know he was actually Thomas Jefferson's cousin?)

It's crazy to think that, from the age of 13, Jackson would never truly be at 100% health for some reason or another. That means he managed to do all his crazy feats WHILE INCAPACITATED. Makes you wonder what a full-health Jackson could've pulled off. (ง'̀-'́)ง

After reading the comments now I just really want to see an Inugami Jackson with a karusu-tengu Sam Houston

ଘ( ᐢ •ﻌ•ᐢ)づ ,,𓆩(•◇ • )𓆪,,

-----

oh and fyi since someone asked about the Triumvirate, Henry Clay and Jackson first met at Burrs trial where Clay served as Burrs lawyer. He defended Burr during the trial but after the trial he spoke to Jefferson and decided Burr was actually guilty. Jackson saw this and was disgusted at Clay's seemingly disloyal flip-flop. Their relationship never improved hence.

Jackson feared Clay would betray the country's interest for his own personal-gain. Regardless of whether this was the case or not, it's clear Clay had a hungry eye on the presidency. Even John Quincy Adams found himself disgusted with Clays poorly-veiled ambition (in political cartoons Henry Clay was always depicted as a raccoon). c:>⁐̤ᕐᐷ

Calhoun and Jackson had a fairly amicable relationship up until Jackson's presidency when Calhouns wife stirred up the Peggy Eaton affair. Basically the ladies of Washington were interfering with politics, not because they cared about any political issues, but because they were obsessed with the poor social standing of the Secretary of State John Eatons wife Peggy.

Pressured by their wives, Jacksons cabinet members wanted John Eaton removed, not because THEY thought of HIM poorly, but because their wives thought of Peggy poorly. Jackson was outraged, he had nothing against women being politically involved, but he had a big problem that petty DC social standing and slanderous gossip was taking priority in the eyes of his Cabinet over actual qualifications. Hence the name 'Kitchen Cabinet'

This is a point where I think Jackson made the wrong move pushing the issue and should've let someone else handle the matter. Not because his points were invalid, but because the matter was way too personal for him to approach objectively. Even Jacksons daughter tried to tell him he was going too far but he wouldn't listen.

You have to remember he lost his one true love to similar slander, gossip, and defamation right at the same time he became president, so his wounds were still fresh and bleeding. I think in his eyes he felt that if he successfully defended Peggy, in some way it would be a though he was successfully defending his wife.

It's thanks to Van Burens cunning diplomacy that the matter ended amicably and Jackson moved on to more important issues, albeit a destroyed between Calhoun and Jackson's relationship. Their relationship would further worsen during the nullification crisis.

Thank you!!🥰💕💕

I've heard that Randolph wrote a letter to Jackson suggesting "Greek Love" to him, so that's why I made him jealous.🤭 If it's true, I wish I could read that letter...

Sometimes I pay attention to the details to get them closer to the real person. I'm happy you noticed!☺️

I actually knew he was cousins with Jefferson! I believe John Marshall was his cousin as well, I like how two of his cousins didn't like him😂

Yeah, it always makes me sad reading his biography when I see any mentions of his poor health... I never thought about him being healthy before! Thinking about it now it would have been very scary if he was...😅

I would love to see them as those Yokai's too!🥺

Oh... I did know Clay was Burr's lawyer, but I didn't know he thought Burr was guilty after everything... I'm sure he did know Jefferson was doing shady stuff on that trial...

Oh, ok now that art is kinda scary. 😂

Oh, the petticoat affair! I really didn't like this problem...I thought it was very unnecessary... But I guess that's what it means to live in a high political class...😮‍💨

I really liked Jackson on this for defending Peggy. But I absolutely agree with you, it was too personal and he couldn't handle it well... But at the same time I really feel for Jackson...😢

And absolutely the nullification crisis made their relationship far worse than ever...

Thank you for telling me about Jackson's relationship with Clay and Calhoun!🙏🏾✨

I understand more why he said the words when talking about the two regrets he had after leaving office!

[slickshoesareyoucrazy]

"...And I Turned Out Fine..."

PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG THIS

I know my personal experience isn't the same as everyone else's. I'm not a navel gazing dipshit. But I do want to talk about my own bias here, I guess, having to do with this phrase and phrases like it.

I've said something like this probably thousands of times in my life. It was always trying to dismiss my own true feelings of not being fine. Literally every time I said it, it wasn't true. Not that it was exactly a lie. It was more an argument to myself so I could move past something shitty like it wasn't shitty and it shouldn't bother me. Sometimes I even justified shitty things like they were good for me. In some ways, some of the shitty parts WERE good for me, in the long run, but that doesn't mean I don't still have real trauma from them that I try to invalidate for myself all the time.

I think we're all basically made up of our traumas and their coping mechanisms. Optimism is one of mine. Sometimes that's really great. It's almost always great for helping out OTHER people who are having a hard time seeing their way out of shit, or can't find anything positive to hold onto in a dark time. I can see it. I'll show them where it is. I can spin a lot of things into brighter light, when someone else is already seeing the dark. I'm thankful for that part of me and how it serves other people. I really am. But for myself? Optimism, while often still really effective, means I'm just denying it's dark.

I never shared this anecdote between J and me publicly on the older, more followed blogs, and I may have shared it privately with a couple of you already, but it's on my mind again today, so here it is. In writing.

Maybe a year or two before tumblr hit my radar (maybe 2014ish?), J and I had a date where our son stayed over with my parents (I've always had mixed feelings about having our son stay with my parents, but there really isn't anyone else we trust at all around here. Anyway, so J and I usually went to dinner somewhere and then came home and did kinky shit together and watched rated R shit on streaming we couldn't watch when our kid was home. But this particular evening, after doing kinky shit, we were both web surfing some and we ran across one of those What Kind of Dom/Sub Are You? online quizzes (50 Shades was at peak popularity there, I think). So for silliness, we both took it. (We were living D/s since early 2007 at that point; so before 50 Shades existed). My results were all over the place, 20% of four labels each and 10% each of two more. J joked that I couldn't be labeled. His results were something like 85% White Knight Dominant. I remember the explanation saying that these 'types' were really concerned with safety, and very protective, and were 'typically drawn to submissives who are abuse/trauma survivors.' I said, 'You must be atypical. Because that's not me,' laughing at how ridiculous that suggestion was for me (it's dead on accurate for J). And he said, seriously, and kind of sad, 'Peaches? That's totally you.'

I admit that I use my happiness and security and accomplishments to justify my trauma and abusive past. I said, 'I did this, so my mom didn't really hurt me...' 'J says I'm a good mom, so I must not have been affected by that event...' 'What do I have to complain about in my life now? I turned out fine...' But the truth is all that hurt is still there, and that's why it comes out in the fiction. Because that's the place it's the safest to let it out still. Going to repost the first thing I wrote here with the no reblog control now that I can do that because all that's on my mind again today too.

[crossdressingdeath]

varric romance anon here and yeah i could've worded that better lmao

and i definitely agree that no romanceable dwarves in any of the games is weird (i THINK some writer or dev said he viewed them as child-like [1. wtf 2. the wording was probably different but the point was the same] and that's why there's no dwarf romance but i saw that a long time ago i don't have the source and it could've just been a hallucination so don't quote me on that--)

i just don't see varric as someone fitting for either hawke or inquisitor (when it comes to MY characters. again i don't think that OTHERS' views/hcs/whatever are invalid or wrong) as a romance but the fandom is obsessed with this idea. okay, not obsessed, but there's a lot of people who feel that way. idk. feels nice to have someone who's always your friend (yeah you can technically get him to rivalry or disapproval but i have not seen a single person do that, and i've seen a lot of... interesting stuff in this fandom)

this is a lot of words about a video game character lmao sorry

I do want to point out that you... kind of are suggesting that others' opinions on the smoochability of one Varric Tethras are wrong by talking like it's weird that a lot of people's characters have a dynamic with him that could easily be romantic if the game allowed it. As you yourself are pointing out, Varric doesn't have to always be your friend (you can make him hate you in DAI if you really want to); people just generally don't take that path because they don't see his relationship with their characters as antagonistic, like how you don't see him as a viable romantic interest for your characters. I don't think people are "obsessed" with romancing Varric any more than I think they're "obsessed" with romancing... I don't know, Solas: it's a dynamic that a lot of people like seeing in a romantic context, that's all. It's maybe made a bit more intense by the fact that the game doesn't let you actually do it, but that doesn't make it weird.

The thing to keep in mind with games like Dragon Age is that your player character might have basically nothing in common with other people's player characters, and that includes things like who they see as a potential romance; there are definitely people who hate whichever romance(s) you favour, and that doesn't make you liking them weird. Plus, both Alistair and Dorian (who I would argue fill the same "this character is intended to be your character's best friend" niche Varric does in DA2 in their games; yes, Dorian fills that role in DAI, I'll Fight You. Just look at his non-romanced, high approval epilogue in Trespasser, it's precious) are romance options! Romancing them in one world state doesn't make their friendship less important or precious in another, and their friendship in one world state doesn't make their romance less important in another. And with Varric especially, a huge amount of his character is designed around making as many players love him as possible; of course a lot of people are going to want to fuck him! Also I mean. in DAI the man has his tits out at all times on the side of a fucking mountain, if Bioware didn't want people to want to romance him they would've had him do his shirt up.