#i have no sympathy for you

[fearsomeandwretchedandwrong]

This is not a fucking apology. This is him trying to garner sympathy and relaunch his career. He takes no accountability. He minimizes what he did. He lies about not knowing what he was doing was wrong. He blames his co-writer. He whines about not making as much money as people claim. Whines about his best friend not being his friend anymore (because of your actions James, because you are a shit person). It's just a giant pity party and he's already pulled it down because people called him out on it.

[intobarbarians]

hearing healthcare workers complain about people using the ER for non emergencies (specifically complaining about poor people) is one of the most annoying things on earth

[ludwigoat909]

The worst part in all of this is that. Despite how much I hate her. Her ideology. Her arrogance. The way she saw things. The way she profots off of people's misery just to make her feel better about herself

A part of me was gonna vote her forgiven. Because, not only was she clearly getting a guilty again, I also pitied her. I pitied her for only trusting herself. I pitied her for hating herself. It fucking sucks that bastards that deserved nothing get to do whatever they want and not you. It feels good when you do the right thing.

When all you can see is rage and anger, life fucking sucks. You get cold and bitter that people dont get on your level.

...I saw myself in Kotoko for a moment...

Or at least I expected it to be the case

But as it turns put all she has is her pride and ego...

So yeah

Get bent queen.

[andthebeanstalk]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

[percontaion-points]

Firstlife chapters 26-28

Today’s review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 26

“He went to ask the King for an army.”

Chapter 26 summary: We left off on guards coming for Ten, but then she wakes up with Archer leaning over her. He got that mysterious message, and went to check out “the crack house”, where he found her. And nursed her back to health. How he knew exactly where to find her is beyond me, but whatever. He continues on to say that Troika found the spirits of Kayla and Reed screaming for help in the human world, and they signed without hesitation. 

Ten wants to keep going back to Many Ends so that they can save all of the unsigned souls, but knows that it’s too risky to keep being put on the brink of death over and over. She isn’t sure that she should sign with Troika, if only because she isn’t sure that she’d be able to get back to Many Ends from that realm. 

A few days pass, and Ten tries to regain her strength. Archer comes in to tell her that Sloan is missing, and has been since the party. Lina then starts banging on the wall from the other room, where they’ve been holding her prisoner. Ten goes to her cheap plot-device auntie, who proceeds to vomit up what’s going to happen. 

In short, Pearl is going to murder Sloan. Who has, only hours ago, signed with Myriad. And also Killian, for some unholy reason. Both Archer and Deacon warn Ten that this is clearly a trap, but she doesn’t care. She’s going to go save her friend. Archer leaves, and Deacon says that the military force is stretched thin enough, made worse by how they only have one conduit left. He goes on to say that Archer went to go ask the king for troops. 

Chapter 27

A third person is dragged onto the plateau, and I gasp. My father’s head is down and though he’s uninjured, his arms are fettered behind his back. His dark hair is rumpled, and tears stain his cheeks.

Yeah, I don’t give a shit about the man who sold out his own daughter to have a bigger slice of pie. That man can rot for all I care. 

“[Mr. Lockwood] attempted to cheat his contract, and such behavior will never be tolerated.”

GOOD. 

Multiple people are holding HART signs that read What If You’re Next? Stop the Madness!

Once again, I’m 100% down with their message. But the narration keeps trotting HART out without ever once actually telling us more information about what it is that they’re specifically doing to stop the wars, to stop the realms from treating the living like this, etc etc. 

His body jerks and his eyes go wide as three arrows cut through his back and peek out his chest.

Chapter 27 summary: Deacon and Ten try to go to where this execution is to take place, but Pearl has the place surrounded by guards. They’re forced to wait. Meanwhile, Ten explains to the readers that sometimes they do these public executions as a way to show that nobody is above the law. Most people think that it’s nothing but a goddamn joke, a game. Especially considering that secondlife is a thing that exists. 

Pearl comes out onto the stage, cloaked in her false virtue. On stage with her is Sloan, Killian, but also Ten’s shitty father. The first thing Pearl does is to kill daddy dearest for trying to get around the child clause in his contract (I’m guessing). Either way, so long and thanks for NOTHING. 

Deacon teleports Ten into the middle of all of this, where guards quickly overwhelm them. Pearl says not to kill the girl, which Ten thinks is because Pearl still believes Ten is Ashley. But after a moment, it’s obvious that Pearl no longer thinks that, and now believes that there’s something rather fishy going on with Ten. 

What happens after this is best described as a shitshow. Everybody starts fighting, and it’s complete and utter chaos. I gave up trying to follow half of it; it was a mess of terrible writing. Anyway, Ten makes her way over to where Killian is all chained up, and manages to free him. She asks that Archer (who had shown up at the last second) destroy Killian’s shell to set him free, but then Archer takes several arrows to his own shell. 

Chapter 28

My decisions—my indecisions— have never affected me alone, as I so confidently told myself what seems a lifetime ago. They affect everyone I love, everyone in my life. Even those I will someday meet. Even those I will never meet.

It’s not so much Ten’s choices, but the choices made by the people who think that they know what’s best for Ten. 

Never forget that. 

I expected the attack to come from Pearl, but she’s dead. I gaze up in horror—and discover Sloan. 

Tears glisten in her lashes. “I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so sorry, but they offered me something I couldn’t refuse.” 

The only thing she’d wanted was revenge against Vans, despite his death. Either Pearl lied to her or she has—had—a way to get to Vans, something Killian and Archer were unable to do.

 “I hate him more than I love you. I’m sorry,” she repeats with a sob of her own.

I never once thought for a nanosecond that Sloan held any sort of affection for Ten. So like… That hate can’t possibly be that strong. 

I smile at him. “I pledge my life to...” I suck in a breath, knowing deep down it’s my last, and as I release it, I whisper, “Troika.”

Chapter 28 summary: In his rage, Deacon ends up chopping off Pearl’s head. But this only makes the Myriadian soldiers even angrier, and they descend upon Deacon before he can render lifeblood to help Archer. 

Ten then realises that she has lifeblood, and asks Killian to help her. He tells her that he can give her 10 seconds, and no more before proceeding to yank her spirit out from her body. Once in that state, Ten looks around and sees the spirits that were previously invisible to humans. They’re having a huge battle around them. 

But Ten’s lifeblood isn’t enough. Archer gasps out for Ten to tell him a poem, so she does. He dies. 

Sloan then betrays Ten by stabbing both her and Killian with a poisoned-tipped sword. She says that Pearl promised her Vans, so… bye. As she begins to die, she tells Killian to get out from his body before he has his seconddeath. 

Ten contemplates going back to Many Ends to save all of the people who are and will be trapped there. But with her dying breath, she pledges herself to Troika. On that note, the first book comes to a close. 

[lotus-pear]

yeah sure therapy is nice but teen soukoku is faster and a lot cheaper

[aromantic-diaries]

Thinking about the whole "cishet aromantic men" thing and I just think it kind of sucks that we see the words 'cishet' and 'men' and think "aha, there's someone who has absolutely nothing in common with us and it's us VS them" and it gets paired up with the shallow perception of aromanticism as just not wanting to date and staying single. I don't think alloromantic people can really understand what it actually feels like to be aromantic and just how alienating it can be sometimes.

So who is this hypothetical cishet aromantic man that we're so upset about? I mean labels aside he is a person with his own thoughts, feelings, goals, interests and perspective. And despite being cisgender and heterosexual, he is still outside of the norm because he is aromantic. This hypothetical person has probably wondered "why don't I feel the same way everyone else does?" He probably looked around to pick someone to have a crush on. He probably watched a movie or read a book with a love story in it and didn't think people actually felt those things. He probably feels guilty about wanting sex but not wanting the romance part of it. He probably wondered why he can't find the right person. And when he learned that he was aromantic he probably felt alone. He probably feels rejected by heteronormative society because he can't fall in love with the women he has sex with and feels rejected by the lgbtq+ community because he still wants to have sex with women.

Again, this is a hypothetical person. I don't know any cishet aromantic men personally. Probably because a lot of them either don't know what 'aromantic' even means or they know what it means but don't know it's what they are, or they know and they don't feel like they can be open about it. And all this aside, if anyone has any example of these big scary cishet aromantic men inserting themselves into queer spaces and causing problems, I would love to hear it because as far as I know this isn't a real problem

[cyanastrologist]

❌ Ned Fulmer was fired for cheating

✔️ Ned Fulmer was fired for tarnishing his own brand, and becoming a liability to the company.

[creekfiend]

Man sometimes I think about Dora and like yeah she's a fictional person and not real but Jesus christ imagine dating a guy and he's literally the worst like just absolutely terrible and he doesn't let you be A Real Person and you finally leave and he makes you into a cudgel to beat himself with in his horrible brain and then ALSO YOU GET USED AS A METAPHOR FOR THE VIOLENCE OF LIBERALISM IN A VIDEO GAME ABOUT HIM ????? AND THE NARRATIVE CONTINUES TO NOT LET YOU BE A REAL PERSON EVER

WERE THERE NO GRAVES IN EGYPT

[visenyaism]

Very random question but do you have any ASOIAF theories about who hired the Catspaw?

it is unambiguously joffrey. tyrion figures it out the morning of the purple wedding. I think any other answer is both actively contradicted by the text and robbing it of so so much thematic depth.

it’s one of the most illuminating moments about him as a character- the catspaw WASN’T some political move on the part of the lannisters to silence a witness. it was a little boy’s attempt to impress his insecure and violent open wound of a person father after he heard him say that bran was better off dead rather than living disabled. joffrey is a child and he is also this amalgamation of every act of violence robert and tywin and jaime and cersei and tyrion and society as a whole ever did to him or anyone else. it’s all so horrific.

[charaznablespeteevee]

I don't do Warhammer, but as a Gundam fan, I feel a strong sense of solidarity with another model-heavy fandom that attracts incel losers who only care about the military aesthetics

[lord-squiggletits]

I think the key component to my personal reading of post-Delphi Pharma is that he's trying to be a horrible person on purpose. Not "on purpose" in the way that people have free will to exercise their own choices, but in that Pharma's "mad doctor" persona is a performance he puts on to deliberately embrace how much everyone else hates him. Basically, if people already think you're a "bad Autobot" and a horrible doctor who just kills his patients for fun, why try to prove otherwise to people who have already made up their minds about you? Just fully embrace the fact that people see you as an asshole. Don't try to change their minds. Don't plead for their forgiveness or understanding. Just stop caring. If you're going to be remembered as a monster, you might as well be a memorable monster, and eke as much pleasure and hedonism as you can out of it before karma catches up to you and you inevitably crash and burn.

I mean, I guess you could just go the route of "Oh, Pharma was always a fucked up creepy guy and Delphi was just him taking the mask off," but I really don't like that interpretation because, for one, it feels really wrong to take a character like Pharma becoming evil under duress and going, "Oh well clearly he did the things he did because he was evil all along," as if somehow Pharma breaking under blackmail/torture/threat of horrible death was a sign of him having poor moral character. As opposed to, you know, suffering under the very real threat of horrible death for himself and everyone he cares about while being manipulated by a guy who specializes in psychological torture.

The second reason is that it just doesn't make sense to write Pharma as having been evil all along. I mean...

Occam's Razor says that the best argument is the one with the simplest explanation. Doesn't it make way more sense to take Pharma's appearances in flashbacks, his friendship with Ratchet, his stunning medical accomplishments, and the few we see of him speaking kindly/sympathetically (or in the least charitable interpretation, at least professionally) towards his patients and conclude "This guy was just a normal person, if exceptionally talented." Taking all of these flashback appearances at face value and assuming Pharma was being genuine/honest is a way simpler and more logical explanation than trying to argue that Pharma for the past 4 million years was just faking being a good doctor/person. I mean, it's possible within the realm of headcanon, but the fact is Pharma's appearances in the story are so brief that there simply wasn't room in the story for there to be some sort of secret conspiracy/hidden manipulation behind why Pharma acted the way he did in the past.

I just can't help but look at things like Pharma's friendship with Ratchet (himself a good person and usually a fine judge of character) and the fact that even post-Delphi, pretty much every single mention of Pharma comes with some mention of "He was a good doctor for most of his life" or "He was making major headways in research [before he started killing patients]" which implies that even the Autobots themselves see Pharma's villainy as a recent turn in his life compared to how for "most of his life" he "used to be" a good doctor.

And although Pharma doesn't know this, we as the readers (and even other characters like Rung) know about Aequitas technology and the fact that it actually works, so... if Pharma really was an unrepentant murderer, why couldn't he get through the forcefield too? The Aequitas forcefield doesn't require that a person be completely morally pure and free of wrongdoing or else how could Tyrest get through, just that they feel a sense of inner peace and lack feelings of guilt. Pharma has murdered and tortured people by this point, and put on quite a campy and theatrical show of how much he sees it as a fun game, so why then can he not get through?

It circles back to my headcanon at the start of this post that the "mad doctor" persona is just that-- a persona. Delphi/post-Delphi Pharma's laughing madman personality is just so far removed from every flashback we saw of him and everything we can infer based on how other people see/saw him before that, to me, the mad doctor act is (at least in large part, if not fully) a persona that Pharma puts on to put his villainy in the forefront.

To avoid an overly simplistic/ableist take, I don't think Tarn tortured Pharma into turning crazy. To me, it's more like the constant pressure of death by horrific torture, the feeling of martyrdom as Pharma kept secret that he was the only one standing between Delphi and annihilation, the physical isolation of Messatine as well as the emotional separation from Ratchet, being forced to violate his medical oaths (pretty much the only thing Pharma's entire life has been about), etc. All of that combined traumatized Pharma to the point that the only way he could avoid cracking was to just stop caring about all of it. Because at least then, even if he's still murdering patients to save Delphi from a group of sadistic freaks, Pharma doesn't have to feel guilty and sick about doing it. As opposed to the alternatives, which were probably either going off the deep end and killing himself to escape, or confessing to what he did and getting jailed for it.

In that light, Pharma becoming a mad doctor makes sense. It avoids the bad writing tropes of "oh this character who was good his entire life was actually just evil and really good at hiding it" as well as "oh he got tortured and went crazy that's why he's so random and silly and killing people, he's crazy" and instead frames Pharma's evil as something he was forced into, to the point where in order to avoid a full psychological breakdown and keep defending Delphi, he just had to stop caring about the sanctity of life or about what other people might think of him.

Then, of course, the actual Delphi episode happens, and Pharma's own lifelong best friend Ratchet basically spits in his face and sees him as nothing more than a crazy murderer who went rogue from being a good Autobot. Then Pharma gets his hands cut off and left to die on Messatine. At that point, Pharma has not only been mentally/emotionally broken into losing his feelings of compassion, he's received the message loud and clear: He is alone. Everyone hates him. Not even his own best friend likes him any more. No one even cared enough about him to check if he actually died or not. He will only ever be remembered as a doctor who went insane and killed his patients.

So in the light of 1. Having all of your redeeming qualities be squeezed out of you one by one for the sake of survival and 2. Having your reputation and all of your positive relationships be destroyed and 3. People only know/care about you as "that doctor who became evil and killed his patients" rather than the millions of years of good service that came before.

What else is there to do but internalize the fact that you'll forever be seen as a monster and a freak, and embrace it? People already see you as a murderer for that blackmail deal you did, so why not become an actual murderer and just start killing people on a whim? People already see you as an irredeemable monster who puts a stain on the Autobot name, so why beg for their forgiveness when you could just shun them back? You've already become a murderer, a traitor, and a horrible doctor, so what's a few more evil acts added to the pile? It's not like anyone will ever forgive you or love you ever again.

Why care? Why try to hold on to your principles of compassion, kindness, medical ethics, when an entire lifetime of being a good person did nothing to save you from blackmail and then abandonment? Why put yourself through the emotional agony of feeling lonely, guilty, miserable, when you could just... stop caring, and not hurt any more?

[clonehub]

Frankly I wish star wars would stop with trying to show redemption stories through people who willingly join fascist governments and/or commit genocide it's very tiring.

[percontaion-points]

Firstlife chapter 23

Today’s review might be difficult for some; reader discretion is advised

Click to see the rest of the snark & image descriptions

Chapter 24

I’m stuck this time, aren’t I? Twice before, my body has died, and my spirit has come to this realm, but both times, the boys were there to save me. Today, I’m on my own. 

Now I’ll be forever separated from my mother...forever separated from my brother...forever separated from Killian and Archer.

I’m sorry. The sympathy you are searching for is unable to be found. Please make better decisions and try again. I’m sorry. The sympathy you are searching for-

The moment I reach her, the peace-seeking activist draws back her hand to slap me. The blow is weak, because she is weak, but it still manages to turn my head. 

“I’ve been waiting for you, hoping you’d come back.” She glares at me. “My brother was captured because of you.”

Once again, my sympathy is 100% maxed out for these people. Like maybe make better decisions. 

Yes, I’m still team HART. But we have yet to actually hear their side of things. And the only thing that this book has bothered to give us is a bunch of whiny brats who made poor life decisions, and are upset that their life is poor because of it. 

“No. The birds won’t get you if you jump in, but something else will. Everyone who’s ever touched a drop of that water has been sucked into its depths—and come out in pieces.”

Chapter 24 summary: So Ten is dying, and she knows she’s going to end up in Many Ends for the third time, with little chance of rescue now. As she collapses and dies, Lina sings a nursery rhyme to her. One that Ten uses as an emotional anchor whenever thing have been tough. The last time she was in Many Ends, she thought that the rhyme was like… a way that she could get out of Many Ends. And with Lina singing it to her as she dies in her arms, it highlights this yet again.

So Ten ends up in Many Ends. Again. She meets one of the other people she’d met her second time there, a girl named Kayla. The other girl is upset that when Ten was brought back, it created a huge flash of light that ended up getting her brother…??? Killed? Hurt? Kayla says that you can’t die in Many Ends, but later tells Ten that there are only three people running around the realm. 4 now that Ten is there. 

Ten asks about the tree, since that’s the second line in the nursery rhyme. Kayla takes her through a maze, and Ten begins to understand what’s happening, highlighted by her arithmomania, and realises that there’s a pattern to Kayla’s steps. They end up getting into a nest of these crocodile-ants, but then Ten intentionally falls into a swarm of fireflies, with an emphasis on FIRE. LITERAL FIRE. Which kills the murder ants. After saving Kayla, the other girl takes Ten to this magic tree, and feeds her the flowers, which heal them. Kayla says that the tree is the centre of Many Ends, and that nothing will hurt them while they’re under it. 

The other boy shows up, Reed. Ten asks about the lake that they’d mentioned her previous visit, but Reed says that as soon as you get close to the water, the birds will attack you. Ten asks if they’ll attack if you get in the water; no, but then something drags you under and hacks you up into pieces. 

[ride-a-dromedary]

[I'm sorry for your loss.] It was a long time ago. The wounds don't heal, but they become more bearable.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

I'm sorry I let down my guard.

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