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mueritos · 2 months

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As someone who’s been through multiple therapists and psychs, you’re super not wrong about these people bringing their biases to the table. I’m lucky enough that I

1. Was an older teenager

2. Had friends who had had decent mental health help already

3. Already kinda suspected the shapes of what was “wrong with me” and

4. Had an innate sense of “no that seems like bullshit” before I went in with these people.

The first therapist I ever saw met me as a 17 year old alt girl, and when I tried to talk to her about thinking I had anxiety issues she cut me off before I was done explaining and told me I was self diagnosing, that was causing my problem, and we wouldn’t “entertain THAT” any further.

The second therapist I ever saw met me as a 18 year old trans guy, pre-everything, during the pandemic. She listened, but she had no experience with the trans community and I had to teach her everything about anything I wanted to talk about with regards to that. She was nice, but she couldn’t help me. She didn’t know how.

The third therapist I ever saw met me as a 21 year old young man. She figured I had everything sorted out already. I didn’t. She never tried to change her mind or delve deeper. At this point I couldn’t afford to waste my time, so I asked to be recommended to a psych and she said sure. After that we didn’t talk.

The first psych I went to was very kind, and absolutely did not do his due diligence. I came in with a shiny recommendation from a therapist (that he didn’t verify), so he all but handed me the medication with no explanation and I only ever spoke to him over the phone after that. It was a low barrier to entry but the medication wasn’t right and I didn’t know I had other options. He made it seem like I didn’t.

The psych I’m seeing now put me on a medication that reacted poorly with my inhaler because she didn’t cross check if they would be any drug interactions. I came back and asked for a different medication. She was going to put me on a different one, and then I asked her to check if there were any interactions with this one. Turns out there were severe ones. I ended up going with a different medication, it seems to be working. It would probably work better with help from a therapist, but I don’t have the time or money for that right now. And quite frankly I’m tired of trying to convince people to help me when I have to explain what I think is wrong with me for them to listen. Only for them to decide that I’ve already figured it all out and they don’t need to try.

So uh. Yeah. Lots and lots of stories from me and my friends about clinicians of all age and experience ranges that go from horror stories to just disappointing and unhelpful. Some of these people had been practicing for 20-30 years and they STILL weren’t any better at empathy or not being horribly biased.

first of all holy shit it really fucking sucks you had to go through all of these terrible experiences while accessing care you deserve and need. i'm not surprised these terrible interactions happened, and I can't even be disappointed considering the bar of standards is in hell. The "better" experiences a lot of folks have with clinicians align with your second therapist. They are clinicians who just genuinely have no worldview outside of their own, but are receptive to new information...they just have no drive to learn how to apply new frameworks of ways of thinking to expand their worldview and guide their clients. The worst is literal malpractice, ableism, and violence against clients.

a lot of people who go into the mental health field don't actually have the skills related to active listening, empathy, or curiosity based out of humanity. I say this to a lot of people in the social work program, but social work is the same pipeline as mean girls who go into nursing--it's just full of the girls who were not smart enough to go into nursing that decide to go into social work. Same breed of mean girl seeking power over others, just different contexts of public service.

the only hope i have is in the new generations of mental health clinicians who are BIPOC/queer, anti-carceral, disabled themselves, and who are mentally ill as well. I feel more solidarity with my neurodivergent peers in my program who can barely finish an assignment on time than I do with the white women who have never experience hardship in their lives. Not to say neither of these people can't experience easy or hard times in their lives but man....seeing the roadblocks in some of these people's worldviews, empathy, or conceptualizations of other people's struggles is fucked up.

the mental health field is just another medicalized, over-policed, and racist institution that wants to shove people back into the workforce ASAP. we are in hell!! but just know there ARE people and groups and orgs out there that are dedicated to radical work and will name all the hypocrisy, pain, and oppression that exists in working in this field.

thank you tho for sharing your experience and input. I can only hope that your experiences moving forward are positive and liberating for you <3

#muertoresponds #like brother we are in hell!#my last therapist is a zionist so yea we are literally in hell #there are really cool and awesome clinicians out there tho #it feels so freeing to openly talk about palestine with my therapist and shes like yea fuck zionists!#there are people out there dedicated to being safe and radical people #godspeed to anyone else in the social work field or who is training to be one #im trying to get my degree my license (maybe) and just fuck off #i only want to work independently or in higher ed

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lollytea · 2 months

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Up until a month back I liked a guy. And I really liked him. But I found out he didn't like me back. I was really upset, but I didn't want to hold it against him, but then I found out he had a reputation of being a player (which, at our age of 14 is flirtatiously texting girls and then just. Ghosting them).

And I felt really upset. I began to question if he even saw me as a friend, and whether the way he texted me was even friendly. What if he secretly loathed me and was just doing this to get a kick out of it? What if he knew about my feelings and they were just a joke to him?

I wanted to cry, but I told my friends and my sister I was okay. But I wanted to scream. Its not my fault I was born ugly. It's not my fault my face makes me unlovable. And even though I wanted to distance myself from him I felt some sort of perverse pleasure every time he did something embarrassing in front of every one.) And that's when I think it hit me.

That's why I'm unlovable. I am unlovable because I'm a terrible person. My friends tried to comfort me saying that he's a shitty person who can't see my beauty/cuteness, but friends are obligated to say that. I wanted to believe them because they're all so beautiful, and they would never lie to me because they love me. But they deserve a better friend than me.

I want to cry because I want to experience having a whirlwind romance, and falling in love. I also know I'll probably never have that.

And AGH I feel so upset. Because all my life I've known I was ugly. But when this guy showed me attention, was nice to me, it made me feel special. Made me feel like I was having my own romance.

I hate it I hate it I hate it. I hate that I can't be loved, I hate my face, I hate myself for feeling these things. Last year when I suspected I began liking him, I told myself not to fall too deep, and here I am, ranting to you on tumblr dot com.

Lollytea, I love your writing and I love your posts. I love how confident you are of yourself. I'm very sorry for ranting in your inbox about my shitty love life, if this makes you uncomfortable, please delete it. But if you don't, I genuinely would like some encouragement. That my time for my own romance will come. That I will learn to love this face.

You're not unlovable. You're just 14. It just happens that being 14 feels a lot like being chronically unlovable. But no, that is not actually the case.

Maybe you've heard this a lot. And I imagine that it must be frustrating to listen to. That being a teenager just means your emotions are bigger and more intense than they will ever be in your entire life, so they're irrational and silly.

That's not the case either. Your feelings matter. And they're worth being listened to. But I do need you to keep in mind that the age range you're in right now is one of the most difficult periods of time that a human being will ever go through. Being a teenager is very hard. Being an adult is hard too. But me and every adult I've ever met would not trade it for being 14 again. No way in hell.

It does severely influence how you see yourself and why your emotions feel so strong and messy and all over the place. But I assure you that you're doing a fantastic job for a person in your situation. It's rough and you're getting through it and I'm proud of you.

Firstly, I'm going to say this quite bluntly but dont take it as me insulting them. Most of the boys in your class probably aren't that smart. And they are the absolute worst people to be seeking validation from. I promise that their opinion of you is not worth worrying about because they are...stupid, frankly. They won't be stupid forever. Probably. But being 14 is a weird age for boys too and they're quite mean for a while before they mature and chill tf out. Please try not to let it get to you if one of them doesn't like you romantically. I promise you it is not remotely a big deal. None of them have any idea how to be good boyfriends yet anyway.

No, you're not unlovable for occasionally having spiteful little thoughts about somebody who was mean to you. Everybody has those every once in a while. As long as you maintain some self-awareness and don't let cruelty consume your whole brain, having a few mean thoughts doesn't make you a terrible person. What WOULD make you a terrible person is external terrible behaviour. It's your actions that matter. So just be kind, alright? Be kind to your friends. Ignore the people you don't like but be civil. Don't hurt anyone. If you stick to all of this, you're golden. Considering that you already seem so self-critical of being a bit bitchy inside your own head, I think that's a promising sign than you won't do anything worse than that. I hope so anyway. Be kind, that's all you can do. Your friends love you. If you put your all into loving them in return, then you can have something so special.

You're not ugly, you're 14. Sorry, I'm getting a bit repetitive but I think it's relevant information to this whole situation. At the age you're at, your face is probably in this weird transitional period between child and adult so maybe that's why it might look "uglier" than usual to you. It might last a few more years but it won't look like that forever. I assure you that your face is beautiful because it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do. It's alright if you've felt ugly your whole life. The way you look at your own face is way more personal than the way you look at other people's faces. We don't really notice the flaws on others the way we notice our own. We're wired weird like that.

All I can say is hang tight. If you don't like your face then please try not to let it upset you that much. Your face hasn't fully developed yet. For the time being, you look exactly the way you're supposed to look and you're perfect. Let's see how it looks in a few years before we make any rash decisions about it being as ugly as you think it is.

Don't be hasty in the belief that you'll never find love and romance. I assure you that the age you're at is the absolute worst time to get a boyfriend and its perfectly okay if you don't experience it for another while. It's normal. You're fine. It's okay.

I know you want it. I know it sounds nice. And I promise that if its important to you, once you're older and the people you're interested in are a little smarter, you will have it.

I'm serious when I say that for the time being, focus on being a good friend. Focus on school. Focus on your own physical and mental health. Focus on your hobbies. Being wanted by 14 year old boys won't mean shit in the long run.

Things will be okay. You talk so much about how you'll be alone for the rest of your life. But your life has only just begun and you hardly know who you are yet. It's impossible to tell what will happen in the coming years. I promise that you'll be okay.

I know you came for me for reassurance but from that last paragraphs, I'm sure you're already smart enough to know the things I've told you. But I imagine that you just needed a second opinion. Take care, love.

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doomspiral · 2 months

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Doom's Movie Rec List

Some of these are bangers, some of these are the worst thing I have ever seen in my life, but I think they are all worth watching and enjoying one way or another. Sometimes the enjoyment is cringe and sometimes its staring at a wall for three hours. <3

The seventh seal (1957)

Classic chess game with Death film, I presume the entire thing is Bergman staring into the soul of the viewer in dead silence until you can read his mind.

The cabinet of Dr. Caligary (1920)

Strange, lurching, I watched this in German without knowing enough to keep up and I believe my confusion added to the experience.

Atomic blonde (2017)

This is my favorite movie. This is the one that I can't stop rewriting in my fics. I can't get the "lies" soliloquy out of my mind. My soul is tied to this fillum. Hot insane woman does a lot of violence, kisses women, beats up a guy who truly deserves it. Iron Curtain Spy Nonsense.

Hackers (1994)

Am I depressing you? Good, watch Hackers to experience child-like wonder and also see a grown man skateboard down a foggy street in the middle of the night to harass the homosexual teenagers (and slim shady) he's beefing with.

The core (2003)

This is not a good movie. But there is a little freak in there named "Rat" who I am obsessed with.

Angel's egg (1985)

This is the kind of movie where you have to not try to figure out what's going on and instead let it take you by the hands, just experience it, just keep your mouth shut and your mind at rest and you can consider the implications afterward when its safe.

Princess mononoke (1997)

I watched this as a child and saw those beasts dissolve into bloody worms and apparently that left a lasting mark on my brain.

Nausicaä of the valley of wind (1984)

I actually read the manga for this one but this is a movie rec list, so please go watch this for the death and rebirth vibes, and some mild foeyay yuri.

Invasion of the body snatchers (1978)

Horror movie that's odd and disturbing and clearly betraying some better dead than red fears, worth it for the horrible despicable freakish noise the guy makes at the end while pointing at the viewer.

Strange days (1995)

Please read up on this before watching it, it revolves around a fictional, then-futuristic critique of the adult film industry, HEAVY focus on the capitalistic dehumanization and devaluing of human life.

Underworld (2003)

Bad asses in leather fighting monsters. Core memory.

Blade (1998)

Bad asses in leather fighting monsters but maybe you need a break from how white this whole movie list is overall. That's okay, I see you, this vampire flick fucks severe.

Fright night (1985, 2011)

The first movie is pretty campy (fun) but the remake dug into my actual stressors and fears and scared the lights from my eyes for a day or two. Welcome... to FrrrighT NighT.

Dracula (1931, 1992)

First movie is a classic, this is thee one with the guy crawling around like a lizard and there's armadillos for no reason. The 90's version has no business being as deranged as it is and for this it is a core personality trait movie.

Fast&furious: Tokyo drift (2006)

Not sure I would say this is peak cinema but it's a racing movie that falls in line with the F&F tradition of being clearly in love with the entire premise, location, and cast. Rent free.

Drive (2011)

I like this movie because it is not about the guy getting the girl, it is about doing the right thing every single time because that's what it takes to be a real human bean. being. whichever. I was so obnoxious about this movie when I watched it with my now-ex gf that I wish I could siphon the memory of it out of her brain, because I kept pointing at actors I knew.

Green room (2015)

This is the best punk parable I can think of. Litany against not reading the room, litany against being the hero when there's no one to save, litany against thinking shared trauma is gonna get you any pussy.

Lords of chaos (2018)

I'm obsessed with the band Mayhem there is no other explanation.

There will be blood (2007)

WILD WEST TOXIC YAOI. I'm not apologizing for this summary and I'm not elaborating.

Butch Cassidy and the sundance kid (1969)

I don't know. I watched this in the wee hours of the morning with my best friend and actually cried about it. Doomed criminals and a famous final stand.

Saw (2004)

I used to watch Saw movies when I lived in the trailer park while hiding from my family in a neighbor's place so I don't know if these movies are good or if I needed to watch tortureporn to relax bcs the roof leaked on my bed when it rained? But I think everyone should at least watch the first movie or how are you going to play any games?

Chernobyl diaries (2012)

I walked out of this movie shaking head to toe and couldn't think about anything else for months. I don't think I'd be as scared now but I can't say if that's because I'm not 16 anymore. Warning against going into a dangerous situation with a guy you met off Craigslist.

Constantine (2005)

Demon hoards, evil angels, catholic bullshit, 9/10.

The neverending story (1984)

Well after all that let's reinstate some whimsy into our souls again bcs this is the Jim Henson Power Hour. This one is just a solid entry point into "puppets are fun and practical effects are my best friend".

The dark crystal (1982)

My babysitters put this on for me as a bed-time story when I was five (5) years old and I do not believe I slept, I think they regretted this and had to tell my parents what they did. But now I will never stop making Skeksis noises at people I love.

Labyrinth (1986)

Y'know the phenomenon of alt teens and preteens dating young adult men who are total and complete losers, including actual band members? It's not that this pre-dates any of that, but I believe it does a good job representing it through the lens of a modern fairy tale. Like when you watch this you have to realize this is wish fulfillment for people who want to be Sarah because their age-gap goth boyfriend in the real world is a manipulative disappointment.

Pacific rim (2013)

Love letter to the mecha and kaiju genre(s). Makes no sense, compels me though.

Eurotrip (2004)

This is the movie "Scotty doesn't know" is from. Some high schoolers fuck off to Europe and have the most misadventure possible. It's somehow exactly the kind of cringe humor you would expect from the 00's without being cruel or overly disgusting. I used to watch a lot of really bad 00's comedies and this is a good one I promise. Scussie.

Hamlet (1996)

Personality point, I think this is the best version on film because the guy actually looks like how I envisioned Hamlet. Ignore your girl! Avenge your dad!

Advantageous (2015)

This movie goes in on the connection between race and class in a sci-fi future where you can change the former through predatory, dangerous cosmetic surgery.

Gravity (2013)

This is my go-to movie when I need to sob like a sick little baby. Space travel as a metaphor for motherhood, spaceships as the womb, scientists are the babies who left their babies back on earth. It's about what you give up in the name of fulfilling your human urge for the unknown.

All clear on the western front (2022)

Thee anti-war fillum. Very well done. I never recovered from one of the final scenes to the point I wrote a final paper on it. Without spoiling it, the Ending gave me the feeling of when you're a kid and you want to go play, but you're grounded and you fall asleep listening to your friends outside in the street. I hope this sentence ruins your life if you watch this movie.

Inglorious basterds (2009)

They lock some nazis in a theatre and set them on fire, good cinema.

Shadow dancer (2012)

Domhnall Gleeson in one of his classically pathetic twink roles but its about British imperial violence and Irish reactionary violence.

Logan (2017)

Good art film, a story about dementia, legacies, and why putting children in cages is fucking evil.

The batman (2022)

Weird art film, next question.

Joker (2019)

I do not care about the opinions of straight men who watch things uncritically, this is a good movie because of the depictions of poverty in the US. I don't believe this needed to be about the DC Joker this should have been a standalone art film about a mime.

Dragonheart (1996)

Medieval era dragon nonsense, I will never be convinced this is a bad movie.

Sleeping beauty (1959)

Personality trait was rooting for the dragon.

Snow dogs (2002)

I'm not defending this one it stands on its own, please watch this movie if you wanna see Cuba Gooding Jr. bite a husky's ear so it'll stop ruining his life.

Luck of the irish (2001)

This movie is genuinely so bad I have considered it some kind of hate crime since the day it came out, because I watched this the day it was a direct-to-TV movie. I think I was too young to feel insulted but I was deeply, deeply bemused.

Black swan (2010)

There is a woman inside her and she is trying to crash the plane. Can I get away with calling this foe-yay yuri also? I'm going to.

I, tonya (2017)

Sufjan Stevens' song "Tonya Harding in Eb major" makes me so unreasonably emotional, so one day I watched this movie and then the film of the 1988 Calgary Olympics in the living room while all of my housemates had to sneak around in the dark. This is just a solid movie about ambition, betrayal, abuse, tragedy, and having to get over it and move on because you're not dead yet.

Phantom of the opera (2004)

Whatever was going on in Labyrinth, this is the adult version. Weird man in a sewer possessing a soprano. I think there's some gender happening here but it gets a little lost under the love(?) triangle.

A knights tale (2001)

Just go watch some more medieval nonsense, it's good for you, its fun.

White chicks (2004)

I'm not defending this choice, it's a good movie. "You were thinking it" "Yeah but you said it" there are some phrases you could use to see if I had been replaced with a body double and this is one of them.

Heathers (1988)

Ouughhgh ough oh. Personality trait. Watched this because I kept listening to the musical soundtrack, love both but agree the themes are much tighter in the movie. This is just a fun schlock to tell teens life is stupid and difficult and bad things will happen, so don't abandon your friends.

Priscilla queen of the desert (1994)

Classic homo fillum, if you wonder why I write Gilbert Like That it's partially because of the mean little fruit from this movie. It's about the Aussie drag scene and who belongs in the queer community.

300 (2006)

I'm not sure that I would call this a "good" movie, but it's a classic as far as I'm concerned. This is the "THIS IS SPARTA" movie.

The foreigner (2017)

I actually don't remember the plot of this one too solidly but the suspense and action were solid, and I enjoyed the setup. Good for if you wanna be really pissed off for two hours.

Conan the barbarian (1982)

Look at me. Look into my eyes. You're going to watch this movie. You're going to think about the wheel of pain and you're going to go wow, this is so stupid. Don't look away I'm not done. You're going to watch this movie and then you're going to get a couple of paper towel tubes and find someone to beat the shit out of each other with the tubes.

Law abiding citizen (2009)

I don't know I think watching this movie changed my brain chemistry in very special ways. Guy fucking loses it and becomes a problem for his local community by kidnapping and torturing people who killed his family. Cathartic and vile.

Black dog (1998)

:D DO YOU WANNA WATCH AN ACTION MOVIE ABOUT AN 18-WHEELER?

The hunt for red october (1990)

Almost forgot this one. Lithuanian Submariner off the shits, goes rogue, I'm not sure what accent Sean Connery is going for, I get the impression he just showed up to gigs and did whatever he wanted.

#long post #movie recs #mein #If nothing else this is just the 'why is Doom like that' list

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akatsuki-shin · 5 months

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I always wonder how Yaga-sensei and Geto's first interaction would be when they meet each other again in that airport afterlife after Yaga died. :')

At the end of the day, no matter how strong and mature he carried himself, Geto was still a 17-18 years old student a.k.a. a teenager when he got hit full in the face with the whole Riko's assassination case. It was probably his first ever, yet extremely hard-hitting trauma.

He literally:

Saw his best friend got stabbed through the chest by an unexpected assassin and had to leave him for the sake of their mission (and later got told he was killed)

Saw the person he was supposed to protect, who had also become a dear friend to him, got shot right before his eyes just as he thought they finally made it, just as he decided they would stake everything in order to grant her wish to live normally as a normal human girl and not a Star Plasma vessel

Saw so many non-sorcerers clapping happily at the corpse of an innocent middle schooler due to their personal, cultist obsession, when he has been living his entire life by the principles that sorcerers should protect non-sorcerers

Continued to exorcise curse after curse by himself, swallowing that horrifying taste of absorbing curses times and again, in order to keep protecting the non sorcerers while already seeing their ugly side in the worst form possible, all the while falling deeper and deeper into the darkness while being left out by his best friend that he thought was once his equal

I think Geto's calmness and maturity is a double-edged sword for himself. Had he been a bit more childlike, maybe his stress and confusion would've shown more on his face and behavior, allowing others to notice and talk to him about it. Had he possessed a more candid or emotional personality, maybe the stress would've made him more impulsive, which will lead to others trying to rein him in and eventually look for the sources of his impulsiveness.

But no, because he is calm and mature, he kept everything bottled up to himself and he kept it hidden so perfectly. Nobody noticed his stress, nobody noticed his confusion, his dilemma, his depression. Nobody realized he was going through great turmoil for so many days and weeks, unable to find a solution. He thought about it by himself, he dwelled in his confusion by himself. Nobody realized he needed help until he was broken beyond repair and exploded — everything at the mere age of 17-18 years old.

And that became one of Yaga's biggest regrets in his life.

After all, he was Geto's teacher. He was one of the very few adults in Geto's life that Geto looked up to and could rely on (or perhaps the only one even).

Despite his scary and stern-looking appearance, we saw him sharing a close relationship with his students, that they have mutual trust toward each other, and that he cared about his students even though he was not someone who would put his honest feelings into words.

(I mean, just look at this scene and try to tell me Yaga didn't love or care for these five dummies)

And yet despite being the only adult figure they could depend on, despite being their mentor and father-figure in that school, he let two of his students went through the worst experience in life:

Haibara getting killed for the most ridiculous reason that is the wrong mission brief

Geto succumbing to his trauma and depression, and ended up turning into a curse user

Granted, it wasn't Yaga's faults but more because of the flaws of the people governing the Jujutsu society from high above. But I'm 100% sure he felt regretful and responsible for what happened to Haibara and Geto.

He must be one of the first people who was informed about Geto massacring those villagers and I couldn't imagine how it felt for him, to hear his best-behaving student turning into a villain overnight. But he couldn't show it on his face because he needed to tell Gojo about it, and he couldn't possibly show any sign of weakness while Gojo was freaking out in front of him, knowing full well the relationship between those two.

"I wish I had paid more attention. I wished I had been more attentive. I wished I hadn't left them alone."

I think those words were constantly on Yaga's mind up until the moment of his death. In the first place, he didn't even get angry at Gojo for letting Geto go in Shinjuku, didn't tell him to look for him again or go by himself despite Geto's sentence already been announced, and expressed his understanding instead. And I think his "This time we'll completely exorcise the curse known as Geto Suguru!" in JJK 0 is more of the only way he could think of to free his former student from the cursed fate that he believed was caused, among others, by his negligence as his teacher — than a desire to execute a wanted criminal.

I don't think I need to write down anymore proofs of how Yaga was actually someone who thinks deeply about his students and cares about them more than he shows, because otherwise, that conversation between him and Principal Gakuganji in those screenshots above wouldn't even exist, and they wouldn't be showing Geto's face there (in both the anime and manga) while he was speaking about regrets.

So back to what I was saying in the beginning, I wonder how his reunion with Geto (and Haibara) would've gone in that airport afterworld.

Would Yaga apologize to them first before Geto could apologize for the troubles he caused and before Haibara could express his dismay over Yaga's death?

Or knowing him, he might not put it into words. Perhaps he'd just pat them both on the head before they could say anything and ruffled their hair with his big hands like they were kids.

And this was more than enough to convey his feelings to them, more than any of his words could.

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk #呪術廻戦 #yaga masamichi #geto suguru #haibara yu

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thesweetnessofspring · 2 months

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Why don't you like swift? Is it her specifically?

I love how making tags in one random post has gotten me this ask, because like, in general my stance is to ignore her and not talk about it, use my tumblr filters and whatnot to ignore her existence the best I can. But I'm getting asked so here's my answer. I'm going fully honest with this because someone asked me to, so if this pop star is your idol, ignore this and dni. It's just my opinion and arguing with me will only entrench my hatred deeper, as evidenced by my past experience with her fans. Also this is hella long, so fair warning.

There are a lot of reasons why I hate that singer. Some range from my own adolescent dramatics to bad interactions with her fans to just really not being into celebrity culture and therefore her whole persona/existence. I also want to say that everything I know about Swift I've learned against my will, so some of this information may be incomplete, but I don't feel the need to look up details about her. If I could, I would never have to hear about her or her music ever again.

I don't like her music. I actually really despise it and have since she got popular when I was in high school. Now I've come to realize if I hate a piece of media, it usually either did an injustice to something I love (like the Ella Enchanted movie) or it's something I didn't like but it became inescapable. Swift mostly falls into the latter. I know people have been trying to take back "cringe" but I can't help it. When I have to hear Swift's music, I CRINGE and I have since high school. Love Story was the stupidest """story""" to me with huge plotholes. You Belong With Me was incredibly entitled and I still side with cheerleader girl in that one, like that is HER boyfriend who HE chose to date. In general, all of her music (that I heard) in those early years were girl-crying-over-useless-boy and that annoyed me to the high heavens. And I think my dislike turned to hatred when I was told that since I was a girl, I HAD to like her, that she was SOOOOO relatable to teenage girls when my life experience was nothing like hers. And her music being all over the radio, school, my social settings, etc. did not help.

And the thing is, I've heard songs/seen lyrics of hers that I didn't know were hers and I still hated them/thought they were cringe. Like I remember when "We Are Never Getting Back Together" came out. I heard it on the radio and thought "who is this new wanna-be Avril Lavigne?? She sucks!" And then the DJ said it was Swift's new song. 💀 A few months ago I was driving my parents to the airport with their car and a song comes on their radio I hadn't heard before, and I immediately think "ugh this song sucks" and then by the chorus I realized it was a Swift song. Even with her new album, when I saw the first meme for that "you wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me" I thought it was an old meme I'd missed and had originated from like, some cringey 12-year-old on Vine or something. Only to find out a grown-ass woman in her 30s who's likely never stepped foot in a psychiatric unit wrote it, which explained how utterly stupid that line is. All of that to say, even when blind, I hate her music. The one (1) exception to that is Blank Space. That one for some reason, I do find catchy. My obsessed cousin got me to listen to Folklore and I didn't HATE that, but I thought it was hella boring. She's either cringe or boring and mediocre and I think at this point, you have to be a fan of her persona to like her music because that's really all I hear her fans talk about. Not the songs themselves, but how they're about her/her life. Or their blorbos.

I think Swift is a spoiled, entitled, privileged white girl who likes to bask in any slight done to her and blow it up like it's the worst injustice done to any human being. She lacks a true core other than being obsessed with herself, her image, and her fame, and chases trending aesthetics instead of finding something real and authentic to her. Authenticity is really important to me. I really can enjoy things other people think of a "cringey" if it's authentic to the creator, but the only thing authentic to Swift is her martyr complex. She borrows aethetics and throws them off easily, never truly mastering any of the genres she stumbles into as a costume instead of an authentic artistic expression. Everything she does is half-baked.

And that's not to say that the press and people online haven't been nasty. That stuff with the deepfake AI rape-porn was horrendous and she doesn't deserve that. Nor did her body being scrutinized as a teenager (or ever). But she got offended by a TV show joking about her having had a lot of boyfriends (which is true!) and as a result, a black actress who was delivering the lines someone else wrote got harassed online. Like what an absolute LOSER. She's a billionaire and the most popular pop star currently alive, and some rando Netflix show has her panties in a twist to the point where she sics her stans to bully an actress??

I'll give Swift this: she is very good at parasocial relationships (to an exploitive degree, imo) and PR. She's turned feminism into her own "you're misogynist if you attack ME!!!!! Like who cares about poor women or women in countries that mine has colonized or abused women or exploited women, anyone who attacks MEEEEE is the worst misogynist around!!!!!" Ugh. And I'm not going to lie, when 1989 came out and I was getting more into feminism I fell for this narrative of hers until her "Bad Blood" music video came out and it struck me how she was a bully. From what I heard, the beef was that Katy Perry "stole" her dancers and TS responded by making a whole music video with some of the biggest female celebrities to show off how everyone was in her corner. Then I thought...oh...she literally doesn't care about feminism (blatantly attacking another woman for something really minor) she only cares about herself!! And I got on the hate-train again. I still think she uses her power to bully other people/keep them in line about her and I swear if I were a man in Hollywood/entertainment, I would never date that woman.

She's certainly not the worst celebrity around. And also, I think to some extent, celebrities who have achieved even half the fame Swift has is likely somewhat conceited and self-centered. Anyone I'm a fan of, I'm a fan of their work first, and if they seem nice then that's a plus, but I also don't bank of them to be perfect, as long as they don't cross over into abusing others. And I don't think (from what I've been forced to know) that Swift is an abuser. Swift reminds me more of that friend-of-a-friend that makes every gathering about her and is fake-nice to you to gather information about you so she can hold it over you socially. If that makes sense.

And also some of her fans have always just been really pushy and annoying. I'm not going to act like I never threw a little temper tantrum in high school when Love Story came on or anything, but I've had my fair share of her fans as roommates and friends and I've really tried to be polite with them a least since college when I'd gotten a little more mature. Two stories really did me in, though: once in college I went on a roadtrip with a friend. We were going to be going through an area with bad radio signals and when that happened we got out the CDs. She suggested the Red album. I politely said I didn't care for Swift, and pointed out another one of her CDs of band I did like. She told me I didn't like Swift because I only heard her stuff on the radio, reached over while she was driving and pulled out the CD and put it in. I didn't want to start some sort of fight trying to get the CD out while she was driving and had to listen to that CD. This friend was trying really hard to get me to like her, but I was just so pissed she hadn't listened to me and I was trapped in there. Halfway through I asked to change it, thinking okay, it's been like 20 minutes, but no, she insisted I'd like the songs in the last half (I didn't, obviously). I also in college had my "golden" birthday and decided to throw a huge party. My roommates and one of our joint friends at the time were big into Swift. They were helping me put it together and I asked that the music they play not be a) violent toward women or b) any of Swift's music. They got the first part but then put all of the "danceable" songs of her newest album at the time on my birthday playlist. Like, not one song. At least five songs. Because they wanted it. All of the other parties and gatherings I clenched my teeth and told myself to get through it, but seriously, my own birthday party they ignored my very simple request because "it's not a party without Taylor!" I literally left my own party until the songs switched. And when I asked them to take any other of her songs off, they didn't. So. Yeah. Even though that was over a decade ago now, it doesn't help my Pavlovian response to her songs or her voice.

I just really don't think she's talented at singing, dancing, acting, or songwriting and seeing all of her everywhere is just SO MUCH.

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rhineposting · 1 year

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POSSIBLY TRIGGERING CONTENT AHEAD, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

THE SCENARIO DISCUSSED IS IN RELATION TO A CANON DIVERGENT INTERPRETATION OF A CHARACTER.

THE DISCUSSED AND DESCRIBED THEMES AND HEADCANONS APPLY ONLY TO THIS PARTICULAR VERSION OF THE CHARACTER, AND NOT THE CANON AND OFFICIAL VERSION OF THE CHARACTER THAT IS DEPICTED IN MY OTHER, LIGHTER WORKS.

I DO NOT CONDONE BEHAVIOURS DESCRIBED IN THE FOLLOWING WORK. THE WORK'S MAIN PURPOSE IS FIRST AND FOREMOST A STUDY OF TWO CHARACTERS' MINDSET FOLLOWING TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES.

It had been two months since the Day of Unity, and they hadn’t made any progress in unstucking themselves from the Human Realm and, in turn, Camila’s home - which was pretty obvious, considering they were technically illegal immigrants with no papers or anything. Interdimensional immigrants, but immigrants nonetheless, and according to Luz, those weren’t taken so kindly. Which was… absurd, frankly. Their world was much vaster than the Boiling Isles, with so many more places to see and be in, and yet, for some reason, people just insisted on banning each other from doing that. And the worst part? Well, it was that apparently, that wasn’t even the worst part of living in the Human Realm . They didn’t dare ask what actually was, though. They'd seen and heard enough.

However, they couldn’t deny that some things were objectively better in the Human Realm - like the houses. Doorbells didn’t eat people alive and no one had a house demon. No one had a Hooty. Who… they kinda missed. But, most importantly, they had so many more options in terms of entertainment! Circuses with actual safety measures, or cinemas - basically crystal balls but bigger and with better sound and even special, cinema-exclusive snacks! Malls, too - like city markets, but stuck in buildings with nice smelling air and brain-numbing white lights, along with fancy water fountains and exotic plants strewn here and there, like in a garden. A very strange, synthetic and shiny garden.

Most most importantly, though, they had… the internet, which was basically all of those things combined. It was available on everyone’s devices, and was even out there for free, sometimes, in some places outside. And there was everything on it.

Everything.

Gus had almost died of overdosing on arcane knowledge, in fact, but that was a tale for another time.

‘She likes girls? So you’re saying I actually have a chance?’

Despite its dangers, it still held many good things - one of them being Net-flickers, or however that went. Luz didn’t agree on it being that good, but at that very moment, Hunter had no choice but to disagree.

It was raining outside, and while the others were sleeping through it, he and Luz had decided to hook her laptop to the TV to watch some old movie. So, here they were, huddled under a blanket on opposite ends of the couch, their eyes transfixed on the pale screen, blank as they simply and silently took in everything happening on it.

‘Dude, Mrs. Ember has a wife and three kids,’ a fake teenager on the screen snorted. ‘What are you even thinkinggggg?’

‘Dude, come onnnnnnnnnnnn!'

The fake teenagers laughed some more as they patted each other on the back before skateboarding off to the mall, where they would inevitably bump into some stereotypical bullies. Though that was for later. At that very moment, Luz quietly laughed too, which was nice. She didn’t smile very often anymore. Most of the time, when she wasn’t sulking, she just… stared at nothing. Almost as if she wasn't there in the present with them.

“... Hey, Luz?” Hunter suddenly found himself interrupting their comfortable silence, and the girl's head turned to face him. “... Can I ask you something real quick?”

“Of course,” she replied, resting her chin on her palm. “Hit me.”

… Hunter wasn’t sure why on Earth she thought he'd want to hit her, but he guessed that was a yes.

Despite being given the green light, though, he still found himself at a loss for words - opening his mouth only to close it again. Moving his hand in some vague and meaningless gesture before pulling it back to himself. Turning to Luz with furrowed brows, only to immediately look away and down at his hands. The longer this went on, the more puzzled Luz appeared. Even though he'd literally seen her doing the same whenever she happened to dance around a question.

Fortunately for the both of them, he eventually sighed and went with it - after all, what was the worst she could say?

“... So, uh…” he stammered, avoiding her gaze as he fiddled with the edge of his blanket, “... is it like… normal… for people our age to… um, like adults…?”

Much to his surprise, instead of immediately electrocuting him for even asking that, she… laughed.

Again.

“Pfff, of course, dummy. Everyone had a crush on an adult as a kid, it’s like. A rite of passage.”

“... Wait, really?”

“Well, duh!” Luz nodded, now fully smiling. Was she actually happy to be having this talk with him, or was she ridiculing him? Titan help him, he had no idea. “Trust me, I've been there - I had crushes on allllll the teachers that were even slightly nice to me. Like… my PE teacher, my art teacher in fourth grade, that one music teacher I had for three months before she moved, my english teacher…”

The longer she went on, the more bewildered Hunter appeared.

“And… okay, but you gotta keep this between us.” Even more so after she suddenly scooted towards him, cupping a hand next to her mouth as she looked around, as if she were about to confess to a murder. And was she? Wait no, they weren’t even talking about death, dying or killing. “Can you promise me to never, ever tell anyone? If you do, I’m killing you, myself, AND I'm burying us in one grave!”

His face turned one shade paler as he nodded, uncertain whether she was being serious or not under that weird, half-embarrassed smirk. Did he have any other choice than to agree, though?

At least it made Luz happy.

“Alright, so…” the girl lowered her voice to a murmur, still keeping her hand hovering in mid-air, throwing suspicious looks at the empty living room, “I… used to have a small, very teeny tiny crush on Eda when I first came to the Boiling Isles. But that was before I, y’know, got closer to her and before she… kinda became my second mom.”

There it was again : a glimpse of that searingly dull pain that seemed to always persist behind her eyes, where she kept it hidden, all to herself. Though, before Hunter could even think of saying anything, she continued talking, as she was certainly well aware of the opening she'd just left. She needed a distraction. Quickly.

“I mean, she has it all! The glorious hair, the fashion and all that coolness she puts into everything she does. Y’know? Even Willow saw all that! Willow! That surely means something, no?”

… As odd as it was to imagine someone like Willow yearning for the constantly-on-fire hairball in high heels that was Eda, he was… relieved to hear it. Enough so that he sighed and went back to resting against the couch, since, for the last five minutes, he'd been hunched over. For some reason.

“Whew, haha, good to know.” He smiled at Luz, who in turn smiled even wider. “Thanks, Luz. I knew you’d be the right person to ask.”

Yeah.

But before he could savor the peace and relief, he was proven wrong as her smile suddenly turned into a devilish, mischievous grin.

“Buuut, my wisdom does come at a price! And now you gotta pay! With YOUR wisdom!”

The smile on Hunter’s face fell. He looked away.

Then, just like a little kid about to be told a fairytale, she turned her whole body towards him and crossed her legs, her hands now holding both her cheeks as she stared at him expectantly :

“Who was your adult crush, huh? You wouldn’t ask if you didn't have one! Come on, spill it!”

“... Hunter?”

He wouldn’t look at her anymore.

“... Hunter, who was it?”

Precisely because of that, she still chose to listen to him as he finally came up with something more to say.

There was no answer from Hunter, and that alone was enough of an answer to Luz - now deeply disturbed, her eyebrows furrowed and almost at a loss for words.

Almost.

“...Hunter that’s…That’s not right,” she eventually spoke - her voice cracking, “That kind of crush is not right, okay or anything of the sort!”

She couldn’t see his face anymore, but she still saw his ears twitch downwards. Enough of an indicator of the slowly creeping in shame.

“...Didn’t you just say you used to think that way about Eda?”

“W-Well, yes! But that was a long time ago, I was still dumb and-” the girl found herself stammering over her words, struggling to not sound like a hypocrite, even though she knew it was not the same. “And she’s not actually my mom, we’re not related or anything, y’know?”

Yet, none of those words seemed to convince Hunter, as he still sat with his knees held to himself, fully turned away. Had they known each other any shorter, and Luz would think he was being difficult on purpose, but both to her fortune and misfortune, she could tell from a mile away when the boy was not with them anymore - instead back between white gold banners, kneeling below a mold-green giant heart and a pair of unforgiving blue eyes hiding behind brass. This too, was one of those situations.

“...You said you liked Eda because she’s cool, among other things,” he murmured, nearly burying his nose between his knees by then. “...For me, it was how…He was nice to me when I did good, unlike everyone else. They’d treat my every success as something obvious. Like…”

He interrupted himself with a huff, rubbing at the back of his neck - once again struggling to find the right words, the right comparison that would make Luz understand - while she simply waited. Even though it was the last thing she wanted to do right now, even though a part of her wanted to tell Hunter to stop talking and reminding her of just how horrible his life was. It was too much, being constantly reminded that one of her best friends never got the same opportunities she and her other friends had, and that there was nothing she could do to fix it, besides carrying the burden of knowing and offering advice - which she wasn’t even remotely equipped to give. As much as she loathed to think about it, a part of her somewhat resented him for putting her in this position. It was an awful, selfish thing to feel.

“...Humans don’t reward their devices for finding things they need on the Internet, right?”

To that, Luz nodded. Already understanding where he was going with this.

“...But they do get mad when they don’t. They lash out and yell,” he continued. “That’s how it was with the Covenheads or senior Scouts.”

For a moment, Luz wondered if Raine or Darius were included in that statement, and she didn’t really want to know. Especially in the bard’s case.

Hunter sighed again, now rubbing at his scarred cheek.

“...He did too, but,” he added, Luz’s thoughts momentarily going back to the dusty hall of gold framed memories, color briefly fading from her face as she recalled some of them. To this day, she was glad they didn’t see all of it. “He’d smile at me. He’d tell me he was satisfied with my work, and that he hoped he wouldn’t have to replace me anytime soon.”

He paused again, but this time to let out a bitter, pained chuckle.

“...I mean, now I know he was lying about all of those things, but back then…Hearing that was the best thing in the world.”

Oh no. Please no. Please don’t tell me it’s not what I think it is, please. I can’t deal with this alone. Why do I have to deal with this at all? I’m his friend, not a therapist! I don’t even know how to help! Please, stay quiet! Just- Just don’t say anything-

Just as Luz started to think her heart couldn’t break any more for him, she was proven wrong once again. Of course he wouldn’t have a crush on a teacher or anything like what she had. It was just like how her mother told her - if a dog is regularly mistreated by ten people and one of those people occasionally gives treats and pats, the dog is going to love that person to death despite the abuse. Wait, no, she didn’t mean to compare Hunter to a dog, that was even worse than simply considering him an extension of the Emperor and nothing else. Okay, maybe she should have started thinking about something else before she eventually blurts something awful out.

After hearing him out, the girl sighed and leaned back against the couch like a deflated balloon, her gold-brown eyes now full of sadness and understanding alike, her gaze trailing off to the side.

“...Still,” Luz added in a murmur, “Crushes on family members aren’t normal. Generally anything romance related between relatives is…Bad.” Especially if the family is an older caretaker. Especially if the family was Belos, “But hey, at least now you know that it was-”

From the corner of her vision, she saw Hunter’s head abruptly snap in her direction - his magenta eyes wide open and face pale, just as she finished her sentence.

“...Wrong.”

Hunter didn’t say anything.

The look of horror, of realization in his wide open eyes said everything for him. Dropped all the burden on her again for him. Right then and there, she should have excused herself, maybe under the excuse of going to the bathroom - only to run to…She didn’t know. Her mom. Amity. Or even Willow. They’d know how to help, they’d know the right thing to say, the right thing to do, right? But wouldn’t it be selfish? Wouldn’t that just make Hunter feel like she cared about her own comfort more than him? Of course it would.

So, there she stayed again, but instead of following her own internal yelling, she did the opposite of not saying anything.

“...Hunter,” against her better judgment, she spoke up again. “...Your crush was the only thing between you and him, right?”

A part of her hoped it wasn’t, in retrospect, it was the dumbest, most naive part of her that always believed things couldn’t get any worse. And it just so happened that almost everything regarding Hunter’s life seemed to get worse and worse the more she learned about it. It almost felt comically grotesque, as if he had been carved through life for someone’s entertainment. with each wound simply being another point on the program - and Luz didn’t dare wonder what the finale would look like, should this feeling turn out to be true.

In the end, Hunter almost turned sheet white in the face. He looked like his heart went ahead and turned itself off.

“...I…I thought it’s a normal thing between people that trust each other when they’re old enough,” Hunter said, his voice blank. “...He didn’t lie about that one thing, right?”

Luz was going to be sick.

Words, feelings, everything she had eaten all day had suddenly made a line to come out her throat all at once. Seeing it coming minutes later did nothing to prepare her for what felt like a stab directly through her stomach, and if that wasn’t enough…Her brain just had to fill in the gaps with images of something she desperately didn’t want to see in any way, shape or form.

She imagined Hunter, right about his current age. Lonely and clueless, lost in his feelings that he had to tend to alone. Then, she saw the blue eyed man that haunted her nightmares and thoughts. He would play with his faded brown-blonde hair, his gaze lazily narrowed like that of a serpent’s. A smug smile present across his face marred with blue scars and blemishes as he would have assured him that there was nothing to be embarrassed about, since after all he didn’t see Hunter as his actual nephew or anything else besides a pawn. Then, he would have probably made that annoyingly arrogant hand gesture to get him to come closer and—

Too much. It was too much, and it was her own fault. If she could have pried her skull open and set her brain on fire, she would have. Why would it do that to her? Hunter needed her right then and there. And now, she couldn’t even stay to actually try to help, even if she hadn’t had the slightest idea how to.

“...Sorry Hunter, I’ll-” She gagged, only slightly managing to conceal it. “...I’ll be right back. Pee break, haha.”

In the end, she just barely made it to the toilet bowl.

Hunter heard everything. Gagging. Coughing. Retching. Wheezing. As he unwillingly listened to the direct result of him trying to seek shelter in Luz, he stared wide-eyed at the TV screen until his eyes hurt from drying out - no longer paying any attention to the plot of the movie.

It felt like the more his friends knew about him, the more he wounded them in the process. Almost as if every time he opened his mouth, the venom constantly bubbling inside his guts poured out on them, slowly rotting them on the inside like him. And they didn’t deserve it. They didn’t deserve to keep putting up with a burden like him.

Never again, he decided, and by the time Luz came back, he was gone.

-------------

For the record, I did not write this for the sake of entertainment. While I do not owe anyone the history of my trauma for the sake of avoiding backlash, I would like to mention that the thought processes and actions of both Luz and Hunter are things I have done and experienced personally in the past- as both the listener and the one realizing that their world-view is skewed and based on twisted half truths and incomplete information on top of emotional immaturity.

Hence, this work takes neither Hunter's nor Luz's side, as they are both victims in this scenario, with Luz being a child suddenly faced with things she's not equipped to handle alone, and with Hunter also being a child who had been left to his own devices for most of his life when it came to his feelings and mental health. Neither of them possess the maturity and knowledge to act rationally in this situation - as, I cannot stress this enough, they are both children who had gone through emotionally stunting traumatic events. Neither of them are to blame, except the perpetrator who had put them through said events in the first place.

And again, I am not a licensed or educated professional in psychology. All the conclusions above come from my personal experience and knowledge which may be subjective and faulty at times.

With that said, if you still come screaming into my ask-box or notes about how I'm apparently a p*do or that I support SA, I'm going to spray a lemon in your eyes and sell your brain since you're clearly not using it for anything anyway.

And to those who read this far without thinking of doing that, thank you.

#long post #tw csa mention #tw child grooming #tw trauma talk #tw abuse mention #tw child abuse #toh #the owl house #toh hunter #luz noceda #storyboard belos #dead dove belos #rhine writing

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proudfreakmetarusonniku · 1 year

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it’s genuinely so fucking gross to see people fucking celebrating the shit that came out about dream like??? hello that’s teenage girls that got exploited? why r you happy about it. there’s victims and it’s fucking gross to use them as an excuse to celebrate considering the very real harm that happened to them? don’t pretend you support them when all you talk about is how superior you were bc you knew dream was a creep like, if you had evidence you should have fucking shared it. ESPECIALLY considering his fanbase has made a concerted effort in concealing the true details of his worst actions and the constant made up shit about him doing bad shit he didn’t actually do despite him doing plenty of bad shit making it fucking IMPOSSIBLE for anyone not doing actual research to Actually Know what was real or fake claims, which has only JUST started to clear up.

and, like, a lot of it has this vibe that they feel like they’re Smarter than the victims bc they never trusted him, when the victims did. there’s a lot of barely concealed victim blaming and it’s so gross. like, it’s actually pretty weird to do a full on background check of every random gaming youtuber you come across and again it’s really fucking difficult with dream bc there’s so much misinfo out there that his actual fucked up shit got buried under complete non issues- often intentionally by his fans or himself because he’s a manipulative piece of shit! and people being manipulated aren’t stupid or bad people for being victims but there’s always this underlying air of smug superiority and it’s sickening. you’re not better than people who just wanted to watch minecraft videos and believed his lies about trying to become a better person and who got exploited as a result.

and this isn’t to say dream stans arent fucking gross either. they accused one of the women (actually a woman in this case thank the fucking lord though it’s still creepy and exploitative) who was a fan of his he exploited for nudes of sexually harassing him for sending unsolicited nudes when they were solicited, or making fun of her for being “upset she was ghosted” which like… one, she wasn’t, and two, someone with a massive platform talking up their fans until they get sexual content of them and then dipping is actually really weird and not equivalent to like a rando you meet on a dating app ghosting you. this isn’t to defend dream- he’s a racist creep who’s not only flirted with minors and potentially groomed them (he Absolutely exploited them, but grooming is slightly more specific- but if all the claims are true (and the other claims seemingly being proven make it Not look good) he absolutely did) manipulated them into trusting him and thinking he was safe through playing the role of an accepting, loving pillar of the community.

but acting all holier than thou because you thought someone was cringe and taking it out on teenage fans, including potential victims, who most likely didn’t know about the weird shit that dream had done in the past or had such biased sources for it that they didn’t realise how bad it was, is just cruel. you’re not helping anyone by doing that. celebrating the very real suffering of these girls, who loved and trusted dream and had that taken advantage of, is vile. you should not feel validated that they were hurt- you should be horrified and sympathetic. the victims are human beings, not gotchas. and acting so vile only gives the fucking creeps defending dream more ammo, and who do you think sixteen year olds are gonna trust? someone telling them to kill themselves because they like a youtuber or the youtuber they take comfort in and don’t have the life experience to not trust yet? it’s so performative and pushed people deeper into spaces that, and i cannot stress this enough, centre around a very real threat to minors who’s still actively dming and snapchatting with his underaged fans to this day. don’t be the one to drive them deeper into that dangerous nest.

#dream situation #tw grooming #tw victim blaming

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livvyofthelake · 2 months

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fuckass book u say… what goes on…

hii abby i don’t even think you’ve been here to know what book i’m even talking about so i’m imagining you seeing that vague ass post and being like hm wonder what book beth read… only for me to tell you it was just call me by your name, known movie nobody on tumblr likes other than me <3 and i understand that no one here likes timmy due to the overexposure or whatever but you’re all really missing out because he really is that good. sorry i know this is the hates popular opinions website but sometimes an opinion is popular because it’s just right idk man….

ANYWAY. so we loved the book… well ok loved is a strong word. we had a fun yet tense time with the book… as we all know i like the movie a lot (clearly enough to put it in the timeless video twice never forget… and i stand by it i’d do it again and more) anyway so i am a big supporter of not getting to have real concrete opinions on things you haven’t seen/read/heard whatever. so my ass READ the text!!!! and i’m going to get into the adaptation process with helena’s ask later which none of you have seen but like. well it’s in my inbox and i’m going to talk so much about it i <3 discussing the adaptation process! i digress. the book was really good elio is SUCH a fucking freak to read about i adored him… he is literally like if nick carroway was alina starkov. he is utterly insufferable and also obsessed with that man. but in a way that is so teenage girl bipolar… the entire beginning he’s like UGH oliver is the WORST man on planet earth and he HATES me and i HATE him and somehow i’m still HORNY about it but he’s AWFUL and MEAN. and then he’s like oh wait actually i realized he’s just shy lol omg he’s just like meeeeeee fr!!!! it was crazy. And he really had me there for a minute i was like damn oliver sounds like he sucks remind me why this is a love story?…. i was like andré what are we doing… of course ultimately what he was doing was taking the reader into the character’s mind so we could experience the worst of what elio felt as well as the best. which was crazyyyyy you had to be there!! not that i’m recommending this book. well maybe i am. idk it’s hard to say. abby you’d probably like it actually i think you’d respect elio’s ever present horniness and loser energy about it. that was meant to sound friendly and loving i didn’t mean to insinuate that you’re a horny loser… but well i mean. um love you 😁🩷

i think overall i liked the writing and the only major things against it are that well. andré is still a man and as we know i rarely fuck with male authors. feels like every time i give a man a chance he lets me down and frankly. it happened again :/ must every fictional character going through a sexuality crisis get misogynistic with it? to be fair it wasn’t THAT bad i just didn’t like what he was doing with the female characters. it felt very like. you know how men just don’t see women as human beings? yeah. which is crazy because i looked it up and andré aciman has a wife. girl you HAVE to leave him i’m sorry but you need to there’s no way he’s the best you could do dear god… i understand that an author making certain characters less in a narrative doesn’t necessarily reflect how they feel about an entire group of people in real life. but i mean. i fear i just have very little faith in men. ALSO he wrote a sequel to this book. which first of all, call me by your name was published in 2007. and it’s sequel wasn’t even planned to be written until 2018. you’ll note that the film came out in 2017. capitalist ass…. anyway i read the plot summary of the sequel and it gave very Hates Women so. i’m sticking with what i feel. it also gave fanfiction a little ngl. it also made me hate elio’s dad more than i already did, which has always been a fair amount. but we mustn’t get into all that we don’t have the time. btw you’re not supposed to hate elio’s dad he’s supposed to be the jennifer garner love simon of this story. but i don’t like him and i never have even in the movie… but i do like him a bit more in the movie i’m mostly ambivalent about him in there but in the book i really didn’t care for him much. it’s not really hate so much as just dislike. but it’s enough to be worth noting!!

but i think the strongest thing about the book that really made it good was that it wasn’t so much a “love story” as it was one character’s reflection on intimacy in his life. a narrative being a Romance sort of posits that there are two characters of equal importance, but this is really just elio’s narrative and oliver exists only as an extension of elio. especially when you consider that the core part of their dynamic is that they’re so similar the edges between them blur. in a way you could read it entirely as a story about self respect and self love

but i digress. very jumbled ass post but what do you want from me you sent me a vague statement/question…..

#asks

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harmonyckrs · 3 months

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DAY 4 in Twisted Strangetown: A Curious Family Reunion

THE PREVIOUS DAY

WHAT'S UP GANG? Chloe here, back at it again with another report (Chloe, take this seriously. People's lives are at stake here)! So that basic looking nerd dude with the alien baby asked us to temporarily move in so that he would feel more at ease and make sure nobody else would get kidnapped again or whatever. Dunno why Lola agreed to this but yeah

Anyway, I told Lola about what Ajay and I talked about so now we have to go find this Aktu dude or whatever and figure out where Vidcund went. Speaking of Aktu, that dumbass called me today lol. He gave me some kind of cryptic message about meeting him in the "floating world of colors and clay" as if I'm supposed to know what that means. Wack ass bitch

Also I just found out that the bimbo girl that I thought Lazlo was dating isn't actually in a relationship with him! So I guess there's actually one hot single woman in this boring town (don't even think about pursuing her). Maybe I can snag her for myself since Lazlo seems to be taking his sweet time making a move LOL

Anyway, Chloe OUT! Gotta go solve that fucking riddle

A: And that's about everything. Again, I'm really sorry about what happened.

V: Is the entire town really under someone's control?

A: Yeah. Cyd and I suspected something was off for a while, which was why we came here before it started to affect us. Whoever is responsible for it doesn't have any power here, so he told me to grab any human I saw and take them here. And you were the first person I encountered, since you just ran up to me and shoved me out of nowhere yesterday afternoon.

V: You were spying on me! And you couldn't have just asked? I know at least seven people who would've loved to participate in your little experiment, my brothers included!

A: Again, I'm sorry! We'll help you get back to Strangetown once Cyd's powers are fully recharged. Also reversing that other person's mind control took a lot of energy, so he's also passed out. I can introduce him to you once he wakes up.

V: And how long is that going to take?

A: Probably about a week for both...again, sorry. I can find a way to make it up to you.

V: You better! I'm going to be missing a lot of work because of this! I don't want to lose my job, and Pascal still needs my help with Hecate!...oh, fuck! My family's all still being mind controlled, aren't they?

A: Yeah, probably.

V: Can't you do something about that?

A: I'm not the one with mind control reversal powers. And Cyd already had a hard time reversing yours. He'd probably die from exhaustion if he tried to reverse the entire town, unless if you're fine with moving everyone here and waiting several years.

V: Ugh...

A: Yeah, sorry. The easiest thing to do for now is figuring out who it might be. I'm not really familiar with everyone in Strangetown, but maybe you might have a clue.

V: Actually, I think I know who's responsible...

THE NEXT DAY

---

BONUS:

V: So there's that old lady Olive Specter, who's a witch. I'm pretty sure she could be behind everything that happened. And then there's also that asshole Loki-

A: Loki?

V: Yeah! He sent our town into an eternal winter because of one of his stupid experiments going wrong, and now we're stuck having to wear coats all the time. He's just the worst! And he stole my girlfriend, Circe, from me when I was a teenager. It took me ages to get over that. And he's also one of my coworkers and acts all high and mighty just because he's at a higher rank from us thanks to the strings that his parents probably pulled for him...are you even listening?

#ts2 #strangetown with a twist #chloe curious #vidcund curious #bluewater village

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madneedshelp · 2 years

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Drunken Secrets-Robin Buckley x Fem Reader

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Summary: You and your friends have just defeated Vecna and EVERYONE made it out safe, so Steve threw a party to celebrate. After you and Robin get drunk together, you let more slip than you planned to…

A/N: don’t mind the aggressive “everyone” up there, I just can’t write a fic without it being some sort of fix it fic, so yeah, everyone is alive in this one because we need that.

You had never been one to fixate on impressing people. Normally, you didn’t really care. Except when it came to Robin Buckley.

Robin was the most gorgeous human being you’d ever laid eyes on, not to mention how incredibly funny and clever she was. Ever since you’d starting working with her at Family Video, you couldn’t get her out of your head. Not that you could tell her any of this, though. In a town like Hawkins, that kind of statement would get you ostracized faster than you could say “lesbian.” Besides, you didn’t even know if Robin liked girls, and trying to find out could easily ruin your friendship, which would be the worst possible thing.

So, even though you were sure you’d never tell her how you felt, you spent at least an hour getting ready for Steve’s party. It was summer, so you couldn’t go too overboard without being miserably hot, but you were damn near close to that point. This girl really had driven you mad. All this effort for a crush you couldn’t even act on.

Steve's backyard was already packed with people by the time you arrived. Not "people" like from his parties back in his King Steve era, but "people" as in the group of you that dealt with all of the Upside Down chaos. All the kids were here, as were Steve, Nancy, Jonathan, Eddie, and of course, Robin.

You hesitated in your tracks slightly upon seeing her. Damn it all, she'd worn eyeliner. Only rarely did you see it on her, but you absolutely loved it. Focus, you told yourself as you snapped back to your senses.

After greeting all your friends, you went to grab a beer from the cooler and some chips from the food table. As you stood there, you felt your eyes wander over to Robin. She stood with Steve, both laughing happily. Your eyes lingered a little too long, and you didn't even notice as someone sidled up behind you.

"Jesus, still can't keep your eyes off her, can you?" Eddie chuckled as he popped open his own beer can.

You jumped and whirled to face him, nostrils flaring slightly. "Oh, shut it, Munson. Don't act like you haven't been eyeing Harrington all night."

You and Eddie had formed an odd sort of friendship in the past couple of weeks. You both had sort of bonded over the traumatic events you'd went through. He'd been the only person to figure out your crush on Robin, and you'd picked up on some vibes with him and Steve. Neither of you had officially confessed anything on the matter, but there was a quiet sort of understanding between you two that you both realized you were...different from the others.

"That obvious, huh?" He took a swig and grinned down at you.

You laughed at his cheeky smile. "I mean, 'don't ya, big boy?' was pretty obvious."

"Well, so is the staring, so unless you want the girl to think you're a stalker I would cool it." He shrugged, giving you a sideways glance.

"The Stalker and The Freak, what a pair we make, right?" You downed the last of your beer and grabbed another.

"Hawkins' finest outcasts," He smiled and lazily clinked his beer can with yours.

As the night wore on, the younger crowd began dwindling. Eventually, all the parents had came and retrieved them all, so the older teenagers were left on their own. That's when everything let loose.

It had been a tense few weeks. All the murders and near-death experiences had definitely weighed on everyone's shoulders. That's how you all wound up drunk on Steve's patio.

You had never been more grateful that your friend's parents were never home. Beer cans littered the ground and the six of you were absolutely out of it.

As luck would have it, Jonathan and Nancy had split off to the side, as did Steve and Eddie. That left you to finally talk to Robin.

"Hey," You grinned sheepishly as you flopped down on the ground beside her.

"Hi," She returned your shy smile with a giggle, which was definitely courtesy of the alcohol.

Everything felt a little fuzzy as you sat next to the girl, the two of you kicking your bare feet in the pool. It took you a few minutes to remember that you should make some conversation. That came easier after a half an hour and another beer for each of you. Soon enough, you were engaged in a bubbly, buzzed conversation.

"Work has been soooo crazy, I'm absolutely beat." You groaned and laid your back flat on the concrete, dragging out your words slightly.

"No kidding." She huffed out a sigh and laid down like you had. "Especially... for... you." She poked your arm after each word, which had you chuckling.

"What's that...what's that s'pposed to mean?" You slurred.

"Y'know, the boys. Hundreds of 'em. Begging for your number and to take you on dates." Robin murmured lazily.

"So annoying! Ugh! I hate boys!" You blurted with a sudden anger. You'd had too many beers to sense that you were approaching on dangerous territory with your words. Something was bound to slip out, but you couldn't stop yourself now.

Something in your response caused Robin to dissolve into a fit of giggles. "Me too! Hate 'em!"

"I...I just want them to never talk to me again, y'know? No dates! No thank youuu!" Your voice had drifted off in a raspy singsong.

"Not even the nice ones?" Robin asked, her arm raised in the air as she tried to catch a lightning bug.

Your eyes were trained on her outstretched hand as it waved through the air slowly. "Nope. Doesn't matter if they're nice, silly."

She turned to you, confused. "Why not?"

You were faintly aware of a nagging feeling that you shouldn't tell her something. But why not? You couldn't remember. Everything just felt so warm and she was so pretty, you wanted to tell her everything.

"Because I don't like boys. Duh!" You giggled and booped her nose lightly. "But I don't think you're supposed to know that, so it's a secret."

"I have a secret, too. You want to know mine?" She leaned over and whispered in your ear.

You felt your face go even redder, this time from her proximity and not the mass amounts of booze you'd already consumed. You nodded, eyes wide.

She looked around suspiciously before whispering, "I don't like boys either!"

You both gasped, wearing matching expressions of shock. Quickly that dissolved into more laughed. Everything was just so funny for some reason.

"Want to know something else? I like girlssss..." You slurred between your laughter.

Robin sighed dreamily and smiled at you. "Me too, girls are just, I don't know, just so pretty."

"Girls are so pretty...you're so pretty. Maybe that's what you weren't supposed to know. That's another secret, 'kay? I don't think I was supposed to tell you how pretty I think you are, so don't tell Robin." You couldn't stop the words from flowing out of your mouth.

"I won't. My lips are zipped." Robin mimed pulling a zipper across her mouth and you chuckled. Suddenly, she seemed to have some sort of realization. "Oh! Wait! A secret for a secret. I have to tell you one now. Hmmm...wait, I've got it! My secret is...I think you're pretty too! But you can't tell Y/N either."

"I won't! Pinky swear!" You held out a pinky and the two of you clumsily shook pinkies.

At some point in your conversation, the two of you must've drifted off. The only reason you knew that was because of your eyes creaking opening slightly to daylight.

As you sat up, you were first aware of the killer headache you had. You took in your surroundings and saw a glass of water on the end table beside the couch you were currently seated on. You took a few gulps and glanced around some more. It looked like someone must've carried you into Steve's living room last night. Not shocking, you'd ended up here before on some rare occasions.

What shocked you was the sight of Robin asleep on the loveseat next to the couch. She began to stir as you noticed her, and that's when it hit you. It all came flooding back. You had told her! You had been stupid enough to get drunk and then tell her you liked her!

Quickly, you stood and hurried to grab your things and leave. Maybe she wouldn't remember what happened. I mean, you were surprised that you did after all the beers you'd had. Maybe luck would be on your side for this.

It appeared that it wouldn't be when a voice called out just before you reached the door.

"Y/N!"

You stopped and sucked in a breath before turning to face the girl. Robin's cheeks were slightly flushed as gazed at you. "Yeah?"

"Why are you, um, running off?" She shifted from one foot to another nervously.

Now it was your turn to blush. Great, you were embarrassed and she looked really cute when she was nervous, there was no stopping the heat rising to your cheeks in these circumstances.

"Um, I should just probably head home," You ducked your head to hide your reddened cheeks.

You turned to leave again, but she stopped you once more. "Wait!"

"W-what?"

Now Robin looked just as nervous as you. "I was, uh, thinking that maybe we should, I don't know, talk or something? I mean, only if you want to. We totally don't have to. I'm not even sure if you remember last night or what we, uh, talked about. But I do, and I'm okay with talking if you want to talk. If you want to..."

Your heart about stopped in your chest. She remembered, and she wanted to talk about it. Before you started jumping to conclusions about the kind of talk she wanted to have, you asked the first question on your mind.

"Did you mean what you said? About...girls? About me?"

Robin's cheeks flushed just as hard as yours were. She nodded. "Yeah...did you? Mean it, I mean. Did you mean it too?" She clarified, stammering slightly.

It was your turn to give a nervous nod. "I did, I do."

A moment of silence passed between the two of you. Neither of you were quite sure what to do with this. I mean, it's not like things had ever worked out like this for either of you. People that were gay weren't exactly out and about in Hawkins. So, what were you supposed to do when you actually found someone?

"What do we do now?" Robin blurted the question you had just been debating internally.

You thought for a second, and then decided to muster up your confidence and go for it. "Well, I like you, and you like me, right?" She nodded with a shy grin. "Then I think we go on a date."

Her eyes widened. "A date?"

"Yeah, a date. We could go on like a picnic so people wouldn't see, or to be honest, no one would suspect a date right off the bat. They'd probably just think we're hanging out. We can go wherever you want, Robin, do whatever you want. So, do you want to go on a date with me?" You could feel yourself rambling like an idiot, but you couldn't stop.

"Yeah. Yes! I would, um, I would love to go out." Robin blurted nervously.

"Okay, okay, great." You chuckled nervously. "Um, how about tomorrow? I could pick you up at seven?"

"Yeah, sounds great," She nodded anxiously.

"Great! I'll, uh, see you then. Uh, bye!" You waved to the girl before stepping outside quickly.

You weren't entirely sure what just happened, but somehow you had landed a date. You were a bundle of nerves and excitement, but there was also an overwhelming joy above it all. Robin Buckley liked you back, and that was one of the happiest feelings you'd ever known.

#stranger things #fanfic #writing #imagines #x y/n #robin buckley #robin x y/n #robin x reader #lgbtq #wlw ship #wlw #self insert

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fujoshiwarrior · 1 year

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i dont really write posts like these because usually i figure no one cares, and because it's pride month i wanted to keep things mostly controversy free, but every now and then i find myself thinking a lot about specific things about this site's culture

a lot of people attribute the (relative) peace on this site (compared to how it was some 6ish years ago) to the Great Porn Exodus and while i do agree that was a turning point in tumblr culture, i feel like a lot of the mellowing out can be attributed to the fact that people on here literally just grew up. most of us were teens or preteens in 2014-2016, now most of us are early 20s-early 30s

still though, there are some things i've noticed in the way people here act that haven't really changed since then that's kind of...disturbing? for example, there's this pervasive lack of interest in other people's experiences besides your own---if you can't relate it to yourself somehow, it doesn't matter. people will pretend to care about other groups, because that's what a Good Person does, but they won't do any outside reading or research into other cultures, or issues, outside of what's dropped into their lap on tumblr

i remember some time ago when people were discussing the possibility of anne frank being bisexual, someone said that the possibility of her being lgbt made it easier for them to empathize with her. but shouldn't you be able to feel compassion for her anyway, because she was a teenage girl who was hunted down and murdered by a fascist regime in one of the worst atrocities in human history?

i occasionally see this article spread around, and for good reason, i genuinely think everyone on the planet should read it at least once and then maybe a couple dozen more times for good measure. and then every time you remember it, you should drop whatever it is you're doing and read it again. when i see people talk about this, they talk about how this is essentially required reading in understanding trans people. in spite of that, i constantly see people parroting the same exact sentiments the author calls out as bioessentialist and transphobic. this makes me think most of you just reblog the article without reading it because someone told you it was the Good Person thing to do.

i think a lot of the politics on here, and on places like twitter, are predicated on being a Good Person. you want to be a Good Person desperately, and of course being a Good Person means that you care about other people, especially people who aren't like you. so you reblog, you retweet, you share posts about the life experiences of people who aren't like you. this is the most you do. you don't read books, or essays, or articles written by people about their lives and their experiences, you don't look at studies about issues affecting these populations, you don't read literature written by these people.

this sort of thinking results in a menagerie of different behaviors, one of which is something i call "fandom as praxis" which probably deserves its own post at some point. but above all, predicating your beliefs on being a Good Person leaves you wide open to indoctrination, and ultimately, radicalization. this can happen to you literally no matter who you are as long as this is your mentality. the reason why this can happen is because:

there isn't a single person on earth who truly believes they're a bad person or what they believe is wrong. even the most vile of people, whether they be nazis, a terf, otherwise fascist, or any other strain of evil, believe wholeheartedly that they are good people and what they are doing is right. the only people who truly, genuinely believe they are bad people have probably killed themselves.

you don't have any actual understanding or conviction in your beliefs, so you're just going along with what other people have deemed are the beliefs and behaviors of a Good Person. when what determines a Good Person is changed, you change your behavior accordingly.

when put together, you have someone who is especially susceptible to brainwashing.

some time ago, i had a mutual who seemed like she became a terf overnight. it probably wasn't literally overnight, but it was very sudden. this was in spite of the fact that one of her close friends was transfeminine, and that many others in her circle were trans as well, people i assume would consider her a friend and were probably in close and frequent contact with her. i think the reason for this sudden shift is because of both the reasons i listed, in addition to the fact that the person who indoctrinated her was apparently her girlfriend.

i think i should mention that i don't think just anyone can become a nazi or terf; even with the two reasons i listed, what happens usually is that people start spreading harmful beliefs without thinking too hard about what those beliefs actually imply---this happens on tumblr/twitter literally daily---and the people spreading these beliefs are decidedly not reactionary fascists. i think in order to become a True Believer in genocidal fascism of any kind you have to be a very particular kind of evil, but discussing that sort of thing isn't the point, the point is that average, otherwise "good" people can still adopt these beliefs and patterns of thinking without becoming a fullblown fascist.

as i said in the beginning of this post, i wanted to avoid posting something like this during pride because i think we could all really use some moments of levity in times like these, and so i wanted to keep things lighthearted on my blog for the most part.

but i've also had this sitting in my drafts for some time now, and in a time where fascist and reactionary thinking gets more and more inflamed on the daily, i thought it would be appropriate to post this because i think in our fight against fascism, as leftists and marginalized people we shouldn't start thinking that we're immune to this kind of thinking by virtue of being leftist and/or marginalized, and we can't do anyone or anything justice if we refuse to expand our breadth of knowledge.

(please feel free to reblog and comment on this post if you want, or in the tags, i would love to hear what other people have to say on this)

#psi post!

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kinsey3furry300 · 1 year

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The Stomlight archives, badly summarised. Book one, The Way of Kings.

In a world where no one is white other than some weird weebs in Shinovar, a twenty something Emo drops out of med school to experiment with war and slavery, and wins PTSD to go with his existing Seasonal Adjustment Disorder and Depression, decides that a wise man builds a longer murder-bridge and not a higher murder-fence, and mentally breaks so badly that the universe sends him the mathematical average of superman and spiderman’s powers and an emotional support goddess. Due to the paperwork of this particular universe being irreversibly fucked by squabbling super-powered Mormons, the goddess in question is a 5,000 year old teenage girl with ADHD.

Meanwhile, an actual teenage girl with ADHD and trauma related D.I.D tries and fails to steal magic jewellery from the human embodiment of a ND dark academia moodbord, and breaks so badly that the universe takes pity on her and grants her an emotional support god who is the embodiment of math and also has Aspergers. The human moodbord then adopts her because they can both nerd so hard they enter an alternate dimension made of abstract ideas and fucking glass ball bearings of all things. They then go of on a quest to tell the world that slavery is wrong, but only because the slaves might get their minds back and also get superpowers soon (due to one the aforementioned super-Mormons being a prick), and that could cause them personaly trouble.

Also meanwhile, the moodbords cousins are a man so autistic he somehow invented the fidget-box while living in a world that’s every Warhammer faction at once, and a dyslexic himbo who talks to his sword. The father of these two is this universe’s only neurotypical person, who happens to be an angry boomer who’s so metal as fuck his heartbeat is the Doom 2016 soundtrack, but everyone thinks he’s going senile because the ghost of a god keeps prank calling him each time the weather gets bad. He’s fighting a war against crab people, but mostly against the rest of his faction who are at best his useless nephew (whose mom he wants to bone) and at worst the human embodiment of that sneer Joffrey makes in game of thrones.

Also the coolest fantasy swords of any work of fiction exist, and one of them belongs to a bald weeb who has to murder every world leader because someone stole his pet rock.

#The Stormlight Archive #brandon sanderson #adhd #my adhd #ND life #nd representation #autisum #aspergers #D.I.D #S.A.D #bad summary

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magnoliamyrrh · 1 year

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Paul is a fucked up manchild who berates his mom the second he gets supernatural powers and sees himself as better than everyone. That’s only if you can get past herbert’s awful writing where his villains gotta be fat and gay and he repeats these facts every single time they switch povs as if the audience has somehow forgotten (seriously, highlight every time herbert mentions the villain is fat. It’s so common it’s just boring stale writing). Paul in dune is the worst kinda self insert fanfic. Dune is such a shitty book girl how do you enjoy it

ohh he definetely is a man child; i feel bad for him in like the first half of the first book mainly bc hes a teenager, hes 15, like, a teenager teenager not an almost adult 17-18. he may come from a powerful family but hes just thrust into very messed up circumstances, more or less tortured to prove hes human, has to grapple with being some sort of raised-to-be-exceptional genetic experiment and being used in some weird intergalactic lie and war, and incredible amount of historical pressure and other things. like, at 15, hes more kid than adult dealing w this. but also, while being 15, he is smart, and charming to others, and he quickly rises to great infleunce and is good at manipulation. and yea the moment he gets some more power he turns it even against his own mother, against himself, and against others and the longer they go on the more insufferbale he becomes; what ground of expeptionalism in him existed gets raised tenfold -hes an inherently flaued character by all means who even when he tries he fucked up badly many times. i mean like hell, among all the shit he ends up doing, even just that thing that he himself didnt have the power to put shit in order, so he ends up forcing it on his son, like how he was shoved into a bunch of things when he was younger

and yes lol i am well aware of the villan thing. i do get that in this context the "fat" thing and even the gay pedo thing is moreso an allegory for greed and the keeping of and hoarding of precious things (im Not saying fat ppl are like this mind u, im not saying its good either, but in many cultures fat has or is indeed revered as a sign of wealth; and this is used to contrast to those who dont have, and i reckon this is where it comes from in the story). but yes, i do think thats uhh i hate this word problamatic. the fat thing, the gay thing, the pedo thing. definetely part of an ongoing issue of attaching several of those characteristics to villans, and also of making villans generally ugly, thus associsting the two together. like yup, its definitely not good

idk tho, i think. dune was written in the 1960s by a white dude. like, it doesnt suprise me that that stuff is in there. ive read plenty of things that have parts of them that are problamatic or outdated or offensive and it just,, is what it is. like idk i can enjoy something while also being aware and critical of the parts of it that are fucked up - i think if i wasnt able to, i wouldnt be able to like,,,, explore a lot of the literature that exists out there, especially older literature, no matter from where its from in the world or if its written by men or women. most of it or most authors at least have written some weird shit or held some weird shit. idk just a stupid parallel off the top of my head i love the 1001 nights stories - i grew up with them - but theyre filled to the brim with weird shit and problamatic things and sexism and racism and slavery and whatever else, like absolutely filled - to an extend they reflect the times. i still, however, enjoy reading them tho

i also dont know how much paul is a self insert - maybe. ive never read the dude as sympathetic or a sympathetic anti-hero much. i did find the idea that out of this all-female order theyd have the idea that a male would be the one w the greatest power and some sort of prophesied force of power weird, sooo idk maybe. but idk, if its a self insert i rlyyy dont think its supoosed to be a flattering one much. the dude just gets worse and worse as the books progress, and he ends up after fucking up so much and being too weak to fix it, exiled, alone, spending his last yesrs wondering in loneliness and deep regret. so, i dont think its shown that his superiority complex or anything else brought him something good; it just lead to tragedy

mostly i like the series for the intricacy of its plot and the way its introduced, the messages it tries to send even if it at times fails or does so badly. like yea, its not perfect, but it is trying to ssy something about foreign meddeling and co-opting of religions and cultures and desperste situstions, or colonialism and capitalism, of exploitation, greed, power, etc. and also in very large part its lore, its scifi elements, its weird out there mysticism, and all the parts of it that are very, very weird. i am fascinsted by the world that this dude created. im a really big fan of magical realism and to an extent the books are like this - because they start more normal and over time become more and more mystical and fantastical and weird and less grounded as more concepts, creatures, and affects of the spice are introduced. i also do like that the main character isnt an actual hero. all this talk of prophecy and whatever, but its all bad, and it goes so fucking bad. its to an extent a subversion of classical fantasy tropes, combined with space scifi.... and yes. there are times when the writing isnt great, or when its outdated, or when it hammers things again and again (like the villan thing). i also think in many places the writing is intriguing, careful, and calls for attention and contemplation of what is happening

and idk apart from something like 1001 nights..... to an extend, i feel abt dune as i feel about game of thrones. i rly love those books. yes theyre writing by an old white man. yes there are parts of them (less than the show id say) which are problamatic and outdated and i could go on a whole list about that. but, i still enjoy them. i think the world grrm martin created is insanely insanelyyy complex, beautiful, fascinating, the lore is some of the deepest and most intriguing ive ever seen, and the character writing - the sheer complexity of the characters, the willingness to show how fucked up humans are and how often things are so stupidly complicated, the way he can get us to love even insufferable characters, the way there are no perfect good heros, the broader anti-war and even climate change message, the harsh and grounded realism of much of the series,,, the way theyre also kinda like magic realism, bc over the books magic keeps coming back more and more, the world becomes more full of mystic and mystery and prophecies which arent 100% true, the way the books are largely a subversion of fantasy tropes. like, yea. theyve got issues, grrm martins writings got issues. but i think theyre brilliant in many ways at the same time 🤷‍♀️

so i guess. yea. im definitely not saying the books dont have issues or theyre perfect or theyre the peak of literature. but im still able to enjoy parts of them

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giantisms · 8 days

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hello, g/t asks for you! :D

A2, A11, A12, A17, A19 & B6, B14, B15, B16, B17

okay as a preface i think i'm due for at least some exposition on the characters i'll be talking about, even if some would technically be spoilers. so:

sinclair: an average human turned giant then turned back human again. works as a bioengineer after freshly graduating. after an incident he was forced to live among giants while he figured out how to turn back. a really curious but rational person tycho: ty for friends, an average giant that stayed giant. not trustful of humans, forced to babysit one (albeit one their size). their and sinclair's relationship is basically "can't STAND humans *ten minutes later* me and the bestie!". otherwise pretty laidback and chill, always helpful to others

przemysław: also przemek, a middle-aged borrower from 1860s congress poland - though that name (and political stuff surrounding it) matters very little to him. pigeon breeder and lover teodor: a human who, unlike przemysław, cares a lot about his homeland and polish identity. a young man with too many ambitions, and too much curiosity about the small man riding a pigeon that snuck into his home

wiktor: a teenage giant raised by a human village in secret, up on the giant mountains (polish karkonosze). your average angsty teenager if not for the fact that he's around 60 feet tall and sticks out like a sore thumb for that reason (might explain his moodiness a lot of the time) aniela: a teenage girl from jelenia góra who knows too well about struggling to fit in with her peers. single child of really supportive parents who she loves to spend time with, hiking the mountains and camping

answers under the cut!

A2. if your character could choose, would they be a different size?

sinclair: not really, no. even if he'd love to hang out with tycho "normally" he wouldn't want to give up his human life (again, that is) tycho: before meeting sinclair, no. but after hearing his stories they can't lie and say that they're not curious about all the mysterious little things... what the fuck is a microwave

przemysław: hard no for him, but literally only because he doesn't like the idea of interacting with people much more than his borrower life would have him teodor: honestly? he would love it. the idea of being so small sounds cool to him. he probably wouldn't like it in long term though

wiktor: yes. in a heartbeat. he wants to feel more "normal" around his family and friends, not like the lumbering giant he is. to have a chance at normal human things he'd only watched and heard of aniela: while she's curious about how wiktor sees the world she would HATE being a giant. she's already pretty self-conscious, being Perceived™ at such a large scale would be a nightmare to her

A11. what’s the worst experience your character has ever had with someone of a different size. (or the best?)

WELL it's spoiler territory for sinclair and tycho that i don't want to tread on (yet), wiktor and aniela only really have each other, and teodor hasn't interacted with many tinies besides przemysław... but i can tell you about przemysław's!

the second worst experience had to be the time a pair of humans found his pigeon farm on accident and, instead of leaving it be, destroyed it thinking it was just a regular pigeon nest. it cost him his entire livelihood at the time and left even more of a sour taste about humans. first worst experience had to be [REDACTED] though (oops! back on the spoiler territory again)

A12. if your character was a magical being (or a different species if already a magical being), what would they be? how would this change who they are as a person?

sinclair: would a warlock count. i think that fits him tycho: if we assume a fantasy race like elves count then yeah i'd go with elf! don't think it would get rid of their distrust for humans for one reason or another, but would definitely change how they interact with the world at a "smaller" size

przemysław: unironically see him as a fairy. which would be hilarious. stay small forever. his attitude wouldn't change much though to be honest lmao teodor: not sure honestly? i can't think of a single magical being that would fit him. i'll say werewolf because he loves dogs. it would be a little funny to make him a puppy too. don't think it would change much besides The Horrors Of Change

wiktor: i think a zmey would suit him! i think he'd have a tad bit better self image of himself? but i don't think it would change much aniela: keeping the slavic demon theme- she'd be a rusalka. i mean i guess that would change her at least a little bit, you know, being an undead spirit and all

A17. how common are interactions between the different sizes in your characters world?

for each pair i listed... it's common in NONE of them lmao. in s&t and w&a worlds giants are thought of as nothing more than myths and fairytales, and p&t is pretty similar in that regard. i think it's just a preference of mine to have the giant or tiny be thought of as nonexistent to the human, i think the dynamic is more fun that way

as a fun fact though i can tell you that (at least in the eastern european setting of congress poland przemek and teo are in) most spotted borrowers are thought of as a domovoy spirit and left alone lest they bring bad fortune to the household! the belief is much more prevalent in rural areas though, city folk would have a bit different approach

A19. how does your character feel about being reliant on others/relied on?

for tycho and sinclair once the latter manages to go back to his regular size it's... certainly a change. it's uncomfortable for both of them at first. and while tycho is more used to being relied on having a younger brother and being pretty helpful around their commune, sinclair finds it really off-putting, being basically manhandled by his friend. the feeling fades eventually though, because in the end besides things like moving sinclair around or offering something to eat, ty doesn't have to DO much for him

przemek despises the feeling of being reliant... most of the time. he's a well educated grown ass man and a successful entrepreneur, damn it, but deep down he admits even someone like him needs help from time to time. i suppose it's less of "feeling reliant" and more of hating to be looked down on because of his size. as for teo, he honestly likes feeling like he has a use for something and will jump at any opportunity to be reliable. he knows przemek is very capable, but he can't help it sometimes

NOW FOR MY FAVORITE ONE... being friends with wiktor is certainly a new experience for aniela, but she wouldn't say their dynamic means she's relying on him all the time, after all it's wiktor who's forced to fit in with other humans

but as for wiktor? it's not just that he's relied on for more laborious tasks around the village, it's the fact that honestly HE'S the one most reliant on the community as the sole giant. when he was brought to the village by his adoptive father he was a really young kid. he was not capable of providing for himself for a really long time - even to this day he needs help with sewing himself clothes or having enough to eat. and something like that eats away at him constantly. he's so afraid of being more of a burden than he already has been, to demand more than basic needs. it sucks, he doesn't like it, but he can't bring himself to ask for more. it's the reason he's so willing to put extra work in helping around the village, to somehow repay and justify himself just existing around them. it's... really not a healthy mindset he's in

B6. a trope you’d like to see more of

oh there's A LOT but hm. in general i'd say a "role reversal"...? what i mean is the community seems to think through this binary view of "giant big and strong and always in power" and "tiny small and helpless and needs to be taken care of" WHICH LIKE... not going to bash on any of these as i know it comes from place of comfort and projection as pretty much all of g/t content does, but personally it's not what i'm looking for?

while yeah i always acknowledge the inherent power imbalance in size difference i want to see more NUANCE! for example what if the giantkind is NOT in the power over humans? what if because of their different physiology they're ultimately at more disadvantage against the smaller party? having less resources to utilize because of being so big? which leads to humans having more advanced tech against them? what if giants are outnumbered to humans?

like i don't know, i find that MORE compelling (especially in established mixed size societies!) than the "standard" in the community so to speak. and that applies for any dynamic really

B14. do you prefer writing or drawings for g/t? (either creating or consuming)

i love creating in both mediums! not that experienced in making g/t content in particular as i've only started to really indulge in it recently, but still. as for consumption... while i appreciate both (they both require a lot of skill) i honestly prefer writing? i feel like all the descriptors of the size difference (like sound, and other sensations) hit way different than a drawing would. it conveys a lot more

B15. do you prefer gentle giants or scary ones?

why can't a giant be both? they can be gentle AND still scare the shit out of you (intentionally or not). i think that's a perfect blend for me

B16. do you like more animalistic or more human giants/tinies?

depends on where you draw the line on what counts as "animalistic". for example i like giving both giants and tinies in my worldbuildings some "non-human" features to distinguish them as different species AND to give them something that would make more sense in their respective size. that said i think even then things like pointed ears or fangs are pretty tame, so more human giants it is!

B17. favorite way to refer to giants/tinies? (borrower, bean, etc.)

can't say i have any??? i just call giants "giants" and tinies "tinies" lol. i use "borrower" too but more on the principle of it being a widespread term in the community (i have never ever heard of the books prior to learning about g/t years back)

#g answers #g speaks #WOW this was a long one #blasts you with my polish beam for like half of these #thank you for the ask!!#g/t #giant/tiny #g/t community #oc: sinclair #oc: tycho #oc: przemek #oc: teodor #oc: wiktor #oc: aniela

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