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#i think being critical of media again will fucking cripple me
marloviandevil · 9 months
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A note on fanfic writing.
I feel like times have changed drastically. We went from ‘you write just for yourself’ to ‘likes are bad, reblogs are good, and the metrics by which your worth is measured’. 
Here, I will be using my own experience as a frame of reference - but again, it’s different for everyone. [The rest under the cut]
When I started writing - without posting, mind you - 20 years ago, I wrote exclusively for myself - it was catharsis. My first fanfic never saw the light of day, it’s rotting on a floppy disc somewhere and it was BAD. (It was a POTC fanfic, yes, there was an OC. It was the early 2000s, keep up.)
However, because I was writing in my bubble without the internet, no one was telling me it was bad. No one was engaging with it, and I didn’t expect anyone to engage with it.
When I started posting fics on ff.net, I did it in a ‘I wrote it, now it’s your problem’ kind of way, and I loved getting reviews, and all, but it was not why I did it, and if a story did not get engagement, I was not weirded out by it.
Because it was 2006, I was living in a French-speaking country, I didn’t have any internet at home, and sure, there were communities but I was not part of them. And so, it was easier to detach myself.
Back then, it was easier for writers to detach themselves from the others because communities were, I feel, smaller, split around, and overall, there was no real contest going on. The internet was not functioning the way it does now, where everything is content, and content has to be seen, and you have to get people on board with your ideas.
I was content being a gremlin in my metaphorical basement flinging my stuff into the void because the few people I interacted with, I interacted with only through reviews, or on one forum with other gremlins in their basement.
BNF was something that happened, but it was not something that most people aspired to. I don’t think that the majority of people writing fanfic aspired to recognition - like I said, gremlins in basement.
Now, fanfic spaces are often seen as another social media, but it’s not the same.
I feel like people who are getting into writing fanfics have this extra pressure of having started to write in a fandom world where you have to be good from the get go, where you have to get engagement, where your worth as a writer hinged upon your ability to draw others in.
There is no room for being average. There is no room for experimenting. Back then, it was accepted, and almost expected, to tell people to fuck off if they pissed on your work (remember flames?).
Now, more and more people in fandoms (especially people who have never posted a single line of fanfic in their whole life) expect writers to just accept unsollicited criticism under the guise of ‘improving’. And if you tell them to fuck off, you are an asshole. (I hereby absolve all writers of the Sin of Assholery when faced with that kind of people. Go forth and write, out of spite if you must.)
And so, newer writers may feel like like their intrinsic value as a person, as a writer, as a member of fandom, depends on how their works are perceived. It’s not their fault - it’s just how things are. Some readers now act like they are entitled to our work, and allowed to pass judgement and tell the writers about it.
I personally give no fucks, but again - I remember writing my first fic and thinking I was the shit (I wasn’t^^) and even so, I still get crippled by doubt when I feel like my stories don’t fit an imaginary audience’s brief. I do give a fuck about 30% of the time, but when I do... boy it’s not pretty.
But writers who are starting? Props to all of you. 
There is also a drive - which is pernicious because it’s not something that is apparent, and it’s unconscious - to be a BNF. As if it was the only way to make it.
Except BNF doesn’t mean shit. 
It’s easy for someone like me to say ‘you write for yourself, who cares about others’ - but things have changed, and for newer writers, it’s important for us ‘old’ ones to remember that it’s much harder for them.
Also, it’s much easier now to compare yourself to others. It was not something I really cared about until I got back on Tumblr around 2014, and then on Discord. But being on Tumblr and Discord made it so easy to look at other, more successful writers and start thinking my writing was crap.
It’s damaging as fuck. And it’s gotten worse.
Newer writers, remember this: you cannot compare yourself to people who have been doing this for decades. It’s like learning a language. When you have been learning a language for 8 years, you might think your mastery of it is shit compared to that of a native speaker who is your age. But I can tell you that at 8 years old, their own mastery of their language was not the same as it is now.
It’s the same for writing. If you have been writing for 5 years, you can’t expect to have the same skills - and well, the same notoriety - as someone who has been writing for 25 years and posted online for almost as long. (I am exaggerating but you get the idea.)
I have been writing consistently for 20 years, changed fandoms, went on hiatus, all that. And I’m no closer to being remotely known as I was ten years ago. (Though some in the Clone Wars fandom know me as the one who wrote the Apocalypse Officer, but it helps when it’s a pool noodle ship).
People need to remember that most of the time, writers write because they have to. We write because we have entire worlds in our heads, and ideas, and headcanons, and thoughts, and whole stories, and blurbs. And we have to let them out. If a cat has the zoomies, you let the cat have the zoomies and you don’t judge the literal meow meow on how they go about zooming around, do you?
So write, and create, and find your voice. Don’t share because you feel like you have to but because you want to. You may not find your audience right away, it can take time, it can even take years (sure enough took me years to find my niche).
Remember that all your ideas, no matter what, have values. I won’t tell you to write for yourself alone, because it would require a level of recalibration that would need more than a single Tumblr post to achieve.
Write the stories you want to see in the world. There are fics you love that may never have seen the light of day if their writer had started writing them now. Write what is in your head and for the potential one gremlin in the basement across the planet who would lose their shit over it.
Followers, reblogs, kudos, comments - they do not a good writer make. And they are the worse indicators of worth you can think of. It’s like, the points awarded by juries during ESC.
If you ever feel like you should stop engaging because of the lack of response, if you feel like your stories are not worth putting to paper: do what you need to do, but know this: all stories in your head are worth being told.
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unicornofgt · 2 years
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alright, i have come to the decision i am keeping this blog up as an archive and leaving the gt tumblr community for the foreseeable future.
when i made my post about chamomile-g-tea’s damaging treatment of my story, gtms, my goal was to acknowledge the situation so i could hopefully move forward and restore gtms/my blog as mine again, without her influence. and while i anticipated backlash, some of the responses were just...downright disturbing. lots of comments echoed a victim-blaming sentiment that i am responsible for the emotional and creative damage done to me by another person because ‘why didn’t you just say no or tell her to stop?’ not only does this ignore the several attempts i did make to express discomfort and set boundaries—which were not respected—but even if i didn’t manage to express a ‘no’, that doesn’t make what happened ok; it doesn’t erase the year of crippling pressure and guilt i lived with and still struggle to shake daily. realizing that so many people in this community think otherwise is just...disturbing. it’s disturbing. that’s the only word i can think to use.
the response to all this does not make me feel safe being here—that’s what this situation has unfortunately showed me: that the audience i hoped to allow to view my reclaiming process would also contain the same crowd who make me feel so unsafe—and why the fuck would i let those people see something as personal as that? why would i let them see anything? it’s made me understand i can’t continue to heal myself and my writing if i am posting it for other people, especially harmful people. and even though it turned out this way, i’m glad i gave it a shot; that i made that post as an effort to see if it was even possible or worth it to restore this space—even if the answer was no! absolutely fucking not!—because it saved me from even more time spent sharing my work with people who do not respect me as a person or a creator. i’m glad i tried, however much it sucked, because it allowed me to understand: it is not just one person in this community i feel unsafe with, but a solid percentage of the community at large that i just cannot healthily engage with, and no amount of blocking will fix that.
but of course this is not the only situation that showed me this community’s true colors—the dismissive or outright aggressive response to the calling out of racism in our tropes has also been deeply disturbing. to clarify, there is no problem in identifying with and finding comfort or catharsis in problematic tropes such as the pet trope, but there is a problem with using that comfort to make others feel unsafe and speak over people of color. and the solution to this trope problem is very simple—generally apply critical thinking skills to the media you enjoy, and tag your shit properly (dead dove, particularly when the giant owner/abuser doesn’t face consequences and/or if the abused/abuser fall in ‘love’—dead dove is not actually currently used in this community, that’s the problem). but rather than taking this as an opportunity to listen and improve, it was instead used as a chance to lash out at and make clear that poc are not welcome in this community and come secondary to the feelings of white creators and readers.
over the last few years, this community has fostered and been exposed for bigotry such as terfs, ableists, racists, etc, and especially in the current political era, this is no longer a community i want to share my work with or even just lurk in. and i know on the surface this community seems progressive, but take a better look and you’ll find members of the community doing and saying…questionable things, or keeping quiet and enabling their friends who do and say questionable things because they would rather be passive and polite than be genuinely kind and compassionate through active accountability.
of course this is the risk you take interacting with any person ever—but it’s especially taxing to look around at such a small, close knit community you know is riddled with these problems and wonder if the people making innocent posts are actually harmful; if they prioritize their comfort over the safety of marginalized people, if they even see you as a full person, and for me, personally—if they are willing to overlook consent to blame you for your trauma and defend the person who inflicted it. it’s taxing to explain basic basic concepts to strangers over and over in a place that prides itself on being a safe space, where people just have fun and mentally escape from irl hardships. it’s taxing to ride out shitty, hateful treatment when you are just simply one person (voluntarily providing free services btw) with only so much energy and fucks to give. it is not worth the strain it puts on you as a person, nor is it your responsibility to sit there and accept it, and i am not the only creator in this community who feels this way. we are fucking tired.
quite simply, this is not a community i feel comfortable participating in or sharing anything with. and that’s a shame, because there are wonderful, creative and caring people here who i have enjoyed sharing this space with, and maybe someday i’ll give this community another chance, but currently it’s just not worth the time of day. and i want to make it clear: my leaving is not simply because of just one person or just one situation—that i could handle—it is the community itself that is the root problem; that continues to be harmful, in multiple contexts—that is the reason why i and several other creators are leaving for greener pastures and more enjoyable communities—or just simply for a fucking moment’s worth of peace, because lord knows you won’t find it here.
#i considered making this post just ‘yea i feel unsafe here i’m leaving’#but i did want to post a clear explanation for mutuals still here n the ppl who come across my blog in the future#instead of leaving it to speculation and guess work#so i wrote a fucking essay lmao#but there are more personal details i didn’t go into bc they’re distressing and some of y’all are straight awful<3#however i will say you are not inside anyone else’s head if they say they feel unsafe it is not for you to question that#anyways privileges to myself and my writing are officially revoked#when i’m ready to share writing it’ll be with close friends in private#and maybe eventually on another site like ao3 but if that happens it won’t be for a while#and if i do post gtms there it will prolly be v different from the version here bc it’ll be the restored and improved version#i hate the version on this site<3#for now i just need to get back into the swing of things bc rn it is. so hard to Think at all#i’ll also be doing things on my fandom account i am just leaving this community bc good lord#if you told me a month ago i’d be leaving this community i’d have been devastated but now?#having seen sm of this community’s true colors one after another?#i don’t give a fuck now#the only thing i feel is relief#the community i thought i was apart of does not exist and it made me physically sick to realize and experience that reality#for all its problems i did not think so MUCH of the gt community was this vile#i’ve run this blog for years and closing this chapter just brings me closure and peace#and to those of y’all who are alright n still here: good fucken luck lmfao wish y’all the best dealing w this shitshow#gt community#giant/tiny#gt#g/t#sfw g/t#gtms#gt mech suits
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generalexcuse · 3 years
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Alright. I am beating a dead horse here but taking time off of this show and fandom did not work. This will be the last time I ever say something about it but it’s upsetting to me so I need to vent. And to everyone saying “You are an adult man and this is fiction, why are you so obsessed? Weirdo. Learn to differentiate between fiction and reality.” I am going to address these notions as well as other problems I am having here. But really, Inuyasha was one of my first Anime, I have many dear memories and especially Rin was one of my all time favourite characters. Seeing her being mistreated like this upsets me. Ofc it does because if you watch something in formative years it’s not just fiction like a boring sitcom you watch now. Shows and characters are important to people and to simply dismiss it like that even if they would have been equally upset if it wouldnt have become canon, is infuriating. Really this is just therapeutic for me because even after weeks it’s still so baffling to me. Also please excuse the grammar and spelling mistakes. I am not a native speaker.
So the problem is obviously Sessrin and how it’s done because while I absolutely dont agree with this pairing, it would have been fine if it wasnt like it is. 
In the original show, Rin is an 8 yo child and her entire character reflects just that. She behaves like a child and depends on others. She has also been traumatized, doesnt speak at the beginning of the show and dies twice. Both times she is saved by or because of Sesshomaru. In many ways, while she has survival skills on her own, she depends on his presence alone to keep danger away. He also leaves her with trustworthy humans at the end but stays in her life as a protector. Now I like the original dynamic. It’s sweet, innocent and both characters grow because of it. Rin can work through her traumatic experiences, learns to trust others and Sesshomaru becomes a better person.  What happens afterwards only happens offscreen right until Rin gives birth to his children at the crippling old age of 15. 15. My lil sis is 16 now and couldnt consent to something like that. And she is mature af. It’s ridiculous. My blood boils just typing that shit out. And if you give me the ‘it’s legal in Japan’ excuse. In Germany a 14 yo can be with a 20 yo sexually. Still not okay in societies eyes and on tv it’s never shown as something positive. It’s even explicitly forbidden for authority figures like teachers or protectors to be with their protégé before the age of 18 because the chances of even unintentional grooming are too high. 
Now lets take a quick break and discuss how this kind of relationship usually plays out in other fictional pieces. A minor with an adult is something that is being portrayed at times and I dont have a problem with that. The problem is how it’s being done in Yashahime. And I dont mean the nonexisting character development but the fact that even in adult fiction this type of relationship isnt depicted positively. And this show is for young adults and teens that will exist way after all the discourse as the official sequel to Inuyasha. A cult anime. Meaning that in the future young people will watch it. Just like many still watch Inuyasha to this day. It’s on Netflix for fucks sake. Just to preface what comes next.   Some people say, “But cant you differentiate between reality and fiction?!?!?!” Adults can but younger people havent developed this ability to the same extent.   What happened to Rin was statutory r*pe in the USA, illegal even in Germany and should have been depicted as such unless the showrunners and fandom are okay with watching it without criticism or deconstruction. At best it was done with the intention to please the fanbase but really it’s neglectful to anyother part of the present and future audience. Not even most Animes do that. And I get that Sessriners arent into that shit in real life and an adult show could have gone this route because the viewers understand and add the criticism in their heads. Not ideal but whatever to me. But a YA show to go this route is so wrong on so many levels. The younger viewer who will watch this show in the following years might subconsciously internalize that this is acceptable under certain conditions when it’s not criticized properly on the show. That lowers their alertness when an adult actually starts to groom them. How dense do you have to be to assume that the lack of criticism on this YA show is a good thing?? Not everyone who will ever watch this show is an adult or capable of the same reasoning.
But another thing: for the same reason r*pe isnt depicted in a positive light, these types of relationships arent either. Because it’s not a positive thing and most people and showrunners dont want to see or create it as positive. Even in adult fiction, even in other anime, the media critizes and deconstructs what it’s showing because normally the showmakers dont approve but show it for realisitc or dramatic reasons. the same sessrin storyline would fit a fucking horror or thriller series. Just change the music and show it all. No showmakers in their right mind would go “Aye we got a r*pe scene coming up, lets put romantic music and have a pink filter over it.” “But it’s a different time and culture!” People will say and I agree but to have the audacity to assume that back then it was okay or that in todays Japan it’s okay, is fucked up. Think about it for a second. That’s so fucked up to think. Even if the society back then or in Japan thinks it’s okay, does it make it okay? 15 yo girls werent able to consent to adults and bear their children back then. They had to. They were raised with the expectations and they simply grew up thinking that it was the normal thing. But that doesnt make it right. That’s just societal grooming which did not prepare them in any way or allowed them the human dignity that they would have deserved. To now act like it’s all cool to just show the “positive” aspects or to twist it into something positive is so fucked up. Child Brides are a fucked up concept and to portray it as anything else is fucked up and also undermines the experience many girls still have to make. period.
I heard people say that it’s okay to portray it in this way because “Sesshomaru is not human!!!1″ and that’s correct. He is not. BUT, it’s not about being human but about maturity, consens, and independency. Him being a yokai makes it worse imo because there is an obvious power discrepancy. But in this particular fiction a good relationship could have been established (Kagome and Inuyasha for example) on those foundations but they did not because I can only assume they wanted Sesshomaru to smash and the show to pick up at a point where the other characters arent too old to be cool.
“What’s with Sango and Miroku, Kagome and Inuyasha?? It’s the same!” No it’s not. Rin was 8 at the beginning of the show. Kagome was 15 and Sango was 16-17 when they met their significant others. If you now tell me that you think 8 to be comparable to 15-17, I must ask you to get a reality check. Kagome’s and Sango’s relationships were slowburns starting when they already were able to have sexual and romantical feelings. Rin was a child. And Kagome did not kiss Inuyasha until they knew each other for a long ass period of time and bonded as friends and maybe more. Sesshomaru and Rin never were friends in the same way that Kagome and Inuyasha were because the maturity levels are way off. No adult is friends with a little child in the same way they are friends with their adult friends. And normally you dont grow into such a friendship but in the rare case you do, it’s not when she is 15 but maybe 20 or 25. 
Last but not least, Rin is not a character to the audience the same way Kagome or Sango are. Why? Because she was never shown as an adult or 3 Dimensional character to the audience. We know her as a child who wants to be with her trusted group. She is naive, but tough and doesnt have any motivation or drive on her own outside her group. Like every child she clung to the adults around her and her world outside of this group was nonexisting. Kagome wanted to be successful in school, Sango was a demon hunter and wanted to find her brother. Those are motivations and traits that dont circle around the love interest. Rin never had those because she was not developed to that point. Because she was a child and her entire existence was to develop Sesshomaru and to perhaps give the viewer a character to simply adore. What we see is of her: Mistreated child, -> Dead child -> Child being looked after and healing, -> Child not being homeless anymore -> ????? -> Teenager getting knocked up, pumping out main characters and then getting yeeted into a tree. 
This is not the way you treat a beloved character. There is no dignity to her character. “But she is fictional!!1″ Yes she is. But please show me a show that treats its child characters like this without criticizing it. 
I would have loved to see her grow as her own person. Go on her own adventures or learning a craft or developing meaningful bonds with other characters her age. Forming ideas that dont revolve around Sesshomaru alone. You know her being 3 Dimentional and not just there to pump out main characters. And if she then with 20 or 25 met Sesshomaru again and thought he was the hottest shit, I would have been fine with it. Not happy but fine. But in the little time we saw her as ‘not a child’, she still behaved the way she did before. 
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kingofthewilderwest · 5 years
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How do u feel about Mabel
I have an unending sense of adoration for what Mabel contributes to Gravity Falls. Technically, Mabel isn’t a favorite of mine – I don’t think of her or relate to her as much as others like Stan, Ford, Dipper, or Fiddleford. However, my appreciation for her is endless.
Gravity Falls couldn’t exist without Mabel. The story’s heart would be crippled. Mabel’s energy and charm provides a unique personality to the show through her unique personality. The show wouldn’t have the same vibe without her ridiculousness! Plus, GF is a story of familial love. And Mabel, as half of the younger Pines twins duo, is essential to giving us the feels of what it means to be in a loving but emotionally complicated family. They couldn’t have picked a better personality to interact with Dipper and Stan for the narrative’s central trio. The combination of Mabel’s vivacity, Stan’s gruffness, and Dipper’s paranoia… is what sells us on this cast. (With Bill, Soos, Wendy, Ford, Pacifica, Gideon, etc. making great additions.)
That’s already enough to celebrate Mabel, but I can’t say this enough: Mabel is the fulfillment of my greatest wish for women characters:
Let women be weird.
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The Limited Scope of Female Personalities in Media
All genders get roped into stereotypical personalities in media, but I feel like women especially get reduced. I struggle relating to and loving fictional women… because they feel like the same restrictive subset of personalities I’ve seen reiterated again and again and again and again and again. 
There’s the rude, prissy, popular rich girl. 
There’s that easygoing cool tomboy. 
There’s the hot, edgy, serious, sexy, COOL, highly skilled badass action woman who is the most hardcore of the main cast, hides a sense of internal empathy and compassion, but warms up from her coldness when she meets the main character lead… and then probably goes and kisses him once he, despite being a rookie, magically manages to best her years of hard training.
*ka-sigh*
Even when a fictional woman doesn’t hit something that cringeworthily stereotypical, she still feels… bland. Fictional characters can be enjoyable exaggerations of personality traits – we have the opportunity to create as weird, ridiculous, or diverse of individuals as we possibly can. And yet usually women aren’t written to be as wild or diverse in their personalities as men. The ladies will probably look standardly pretty, act standardly reasonable, act standardly feminine, and make standard choices. Women characters in a cast often feel the least distinct to me. I’m probably not going to find quirks in my ladies or something that sets them apart from the crowd. Let’s be real: media depicts women according to societal expectation. Women in media are reduced to a washed-out, generic fantasy that doesn’t relate anything to how women feel, nor does it try hard to relate to what women feel.
The writing doesn’t understand women. And I can feel it.
When a bland, stale action woman goes on screen in her hot sexy tight pants, is her presentation supposed to be female empowerment (she’s fighting [gasp!])? Or is it another quick, uninspired shortcut without thinking through what her humanity is? “She fights, she’s a ‘good’ female role model, that’s good enough.” Still caters to the male gaze, still caters to male fantasy for what an attractive woman is like, still doesn’t think through her psychology, still presents media’s “desire” for what women “should” be like.
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We drastically need to improve how women are written.
You know what my women friends are like? Women are loud and unashamed belchers. Women crack terrible puns about the French Revolution while everyone boos. Women dress up their stuffed animal cats in goggles and a lab coat. Women geek out over how cute worms are. Women want to kill the opposing team in sports competitions. Women eat food off the floor. Women spend sleepovers watching chick flicks and musicals. Women shriek screamo songs at the top of their lungs, getting maybe a third of the lyrics right, racing through the night in their car twenty miles over the speed limit. Women spend thirty five minutes trying to get the perfect selfie because their hair finally fucking cooperated. Women repeatedly text their friends photos of them flipping the bird making derp faces. Women play beer pong until they’re drunk. Women do unnecessarily complicated mathematics calculations to prove their point in fandom. Women stay up all night screaming murder at first person shooter video games. Women play shitty pop song covers on their tubas. Women spend an hour and a half dyeing their hair pink in the sink (and dye the entire bathroom pink in the process). Women debate the finer points of Immanuel Kant with one another. Women demand their friends dish the details when they hear someone has a new significant other. Women binge watch anime eating frozen dinners heated from the microwave while sobbing out their mascara. Women get crushes on Simba or Kovu from The Lion King. Women work out at gyms because they want to get RIPPED. Women. Are. Diverse. And. Delightfully. QUIRKY.
I know I ranted a long time about it, but the point is to show the difference between what women are (personable and peculiar)… versus the stale bread, watered-down crap we get in the movies.
So this. This is why I will never quit raving about Mabel.
Mabel finally lets us see an ACTUAL GIRL as ACTUAL GIRLS act: she’s delightfully, realistically, over-exaggeratedly, charmingly, unforgettably WEIRD.
Instead of trying to write a “girl” first and getting tied up in the tropes and gender biases, Gravity Falls writes a character who happens to be a girl with some girl traits.
What Makes Mabel Different
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Instead of writing some standard bland stereotyping “oh this feels vaguely feminine and attractive” excuse-for-a-cardboard-cutout-of-a-woman… Mabel is given real love, real personality, real demonstration of what women are. After all these years of me suffering in theatres thinking, “Oh look, it’s the same uninspired sexy badass action woman stereotype,” I can finally find a character who’s not what media pretends women should be like. I see a character who the writers actually thought about her personality for!
Gravity Falls allows a woman character to do things I almost never see of women characters.
For starters: Mabel’s gross. She finds leftover tacos in the backseat of the car and decides it’s a perfect snack. She sticks her head into a dusty barrel and laughs when caterpillars crawl over her face. She makes fart sounds and laughs at those fart sounds. She lets a statue pick her nose. She shoves food into her mouth voraciously. She’s animated with wild, ridiculous, non-flattering facial expressions. Gravity Falls allows Mabel to be gross.
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This is already amazing to me. Cartoons are a little better than live action movies, where the latter can’t let a woman look imperfect when she’s crying or fighting villains. But cartoons often have limitations for how women are shown, too. It’s refreshing to see a girl who is gross.
And I don’t know about you, but I’d be hard-pressed to name even three other contemporary Western women characters who’re allowed to be girly AND gross. Mabel Pines. Princess Fiona. The list ends there for me? Sometimes I’ll see girls in media dressed with “unruly” appearances – their hair is SLIGHTLY frazzled and they wear glasses (gasp) – but that’s not real grossness, and it’s especially not grossness combined with girliness.
Gravity Falls isn’t afraid to make Mabel both gross and “girly”, and that’s special.
Next, Mabel’s girliness feels authentic. By “girliness” I mean Mabel taking actions according to Western societal gender norms for ciswomen. I don’t mean that’s how girls have to innately be. I hate the idea that people “should” behave according to gender roles and encourage us all to express our individuality. Anyway. Yes, most women in media have girliness to them… but nothing prepared me to seeing a twelve year old girl act like the twelve year old girls I knew.
Mabel loves bright colors, rainbows, unicorns, cute boys, formal dances, boy bands, and looking cute. These are girly traits and girly interests. But the way they show Mabel, Candy, and Grenda bonding over boy talk at a sleepover? That ridiculous, unrestrained screaming, combined with the mischievous grins, is exactly the sort of stuff I grew up with. It’s not just “oh we wrote a girl who likes pink and makeup who gets catty about crushes” – it’s “oh, we wrote a girl who enjoys her girly side like a twelve year old would!”
Gravity Falls allows Mabel to live according to some elements of the gender norm. The show doesn’t tote the idea that people live without gender influence, that people live in a vacuum of culture. It shows people in society often live by some pattern of gender roles. But, the show doesn’t make Mabel be that norm or preach she should be that norm. Honestly, I don’t see many shows try to strike this balance: willing to give characters gender role interests, while still respecting that everyone is unique and doesn’t need to live by those roles. Either the shows completely drop gender roles (which can be refreshing and help us overcome our biases) or they stick too close to assumptions that your gender = your brain, which is backwards thinking.
GF doesn’t lazily pin a character with girly traits because “that’s what women are.” It doesn’t stop at some assumptive “She wears pretty boots.” It understands Mabel’s psychology, lets her express that girliness unrestrained, provides her screen time to live this (!!! screen time to girl time in an all-gender-demographic-show!!!), and allows her to intersect that girliness with her grossness and her weirdness.
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Next, Mabel is allowed to be confident and bold. Society isn’t good with women being bold and outspoken yet. Women often get criticized for being bossy, bitchy, obnoxious, etc. when they speak their minds and act with the confidence that men are “allowed” to have in their daily lives. And yet Mabel can be an outspoken and unrestrained character.
It works well for her age, too! 
Last, Mabel is weird. Mabel has quirks. I’ve said this three hundred times and I’ll say it three hundred more, but Mabel being weird is a delight. It’s not often that women are allowed to be the ridiculous comedic side in children’s / family animation. (Yay Ruffnut for also fulfilling this role.) 
Mabel is unrestricted, allowed to be a wild dork on screen. She’ll eat tubes of toothpaste because they’re sparkly, make “Mabel juice” with plastic dinosaurs in the pitchers, dress pigs in costume, knit scratch-and-sniff sweaters, slap stickers on her uncle’s nose, scream for a minute straight before coughing up glitter, dream up the centaurtaur, and more. 
But it’s not just that. It’s her mindset. Mabel’s excitement for things – down to an eight legged cow having “more limbs for hugging” – is a perspective I essentially never see in stories. She’s got a way of looking at the world like no one else I know. It’s a wild, bizarre perspective… but that’s what makes her so good and human. 
Mabel has a “What the heck?” vibe from her, whether it’s her interests, her thought processes, or her choices.
And frankly, that’s so much more relatable, personable, and beautiful to me… than almost any other woman I see on screen in media. When I see Mabel, I can remember what I was like as a kid.
Although I’m non-binary, I didn’t grow up knowing about non-cis gender. I grew up more or less thinking of myself as a little girl. Many of my childhood experiences were with little girls. So, when I look at old photographs of myself, I see someone with unrestrained energy, joy, and weirdness - just like Mabel.
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That is what kids are like, guys! That is what kids are like!
Not this weird restricted stereotype on television I see! But THIS.
So yeah. 
Even just from the topic “What does Mabel bring to women’s representation in media,” Mabel is a shooting star. She’s a success. I love it. It’s freeing, exciting, and refreshing to me, being able to see a woman character given this loving treatment. I’m passionate about women being represented well in media, and not in the sense of falsely-portrayed empowerment. Mabel is the glorious three-dimensional, unique, bizarre, memorable type of girl I want!
She’s worth celebrating for all her personality traits, too: her creativity, her energy, her lightheartedness, her love for her family. But that’s content for another essay.
In short: bless Mabel Pines. Bless, bless, bless Mabel Pines.
This is a damn great character.
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Today in ‘Hazbin Hypocriticals’:  If you put the word “anti” in front of a tag name for a show and expect the fans not to get angry when you @ them... It was never “your” tag to begin with.
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I’ll stop when “antis” stop bullying people for no reason.
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 You’ve failed to keep out of the Hazbin Hotel tag already on literally any social media platform and now you wanna bully people and claim that’s it’s YOUR tag? No. That’s not how this works.
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/615126231163322368/stop-putting-anti-neutral-because-you-know-not 
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/620770927062466560/id-twotrucksonadate-started-following-you-so-i
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/620844266247323648/okay-so-not-only-did-that-one-person-with-a-neil
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/621654012301869056/insert-un-captured-shot-of-the-quip-i-had-made 
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/621693252094001152/inky-the-alien-im-not-sorry-that-i-assumed-you
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/621922255803465728/actual-antis-with-edited-hazbin-hotel-icons-are
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/622303703384408064/so-today-in-hazbin-hypocriticals-being
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/622320483106439169/the-main-blog-of-the-critical-who-made-that
https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/622406773952905216/hazmat-stans-can-you-fucking-stop-with-the-it
Keep your own fucking cross tagging that you started under control and stop bullying and baiting people to “interact” with you and then bullying them for that too when they try and then maybe, one day, I won’t. The Hazbin Hotel tag is NOT your tag just because you put the word “Anti” in front of it.  The term “anti” shouldn’t even exist in fandom spaces to begin with, nether really, should the use of Pride Flags unless it’s an extension of an expression of gender/sexuality/marginalized status for ones own comfort: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GVJNOKLBylg
What Anti’s do is just an extension of applying the use of a political language that they don’t understand to fandom spaces where they usually get to be the bigoted majority anyway and then now this particular one is telling me that I’m not allowed to ironically use a slam variation of my own tag that they use to bully me anyway just because they put the word “ANTI” in front of it and try to tell me it’s their tag now even though people like this KNOW that that they have a million other more hurtful. harmful, variations of slam tags they could use to bully me that they KNOW I’d never use AND THEN THESE SAME PEOPLE THINK THEY’RE ENTITLED ENOUGH TO FOLLOW ME AND BLOCK ME WITHOUT WARNING ONCE THEY “REALIZE”, COME INTO MY IMs, AND COME ONTO MY POSTS TRYING TO TELL ME HOW TO FEEL ABOUT HASHTAGS THAT THEY USE TO MOCK AND BULLY ME, because the modified tag of this show, that they use to mock and bully the fans of this show, is “theirs” and now this one is “annoyed” that I’m using something they made to mock me, to mock them right back.
Good to know it’s working, bud.
Good to know how much you don’t care about how you’re harming disabled people unless it’s convenient for you ether.
For context (Full post that they added their unwarranted commentary to): https://heartshapedcreaturefromcriptoon.tumblr.com/post/618564495669886978/first-screencap-a-twitter-user-making-fun-of
You’re only adding fuel to the fire of my Lame Flame.
@zeds-shipping-safehaven​ They put your post on their blog with those tags so I think it’s only fair you see this too. ^ ^’
But yeah, so it’s like ... So far I’ve been blocked by:
1. An anti with an Ace Attorney Icon
2. A “SU Critical” with a Lemon Demon URL who only ever made posts in defense of Lars and literally absolutely nothing else.
3. (And this one I blocked by myself) A straight up Hazbin Hotel Hate Blog with an “anti” URL, whose icon was an edited or rather “fixed” ( in their own words) picture of the character of Mimzy, and this anti got angry with me in the end because I neglected to use the proper third person pronoun that was not provided out of the two I had used that were provided and were correct and she tried to call me out for misgendering her I guess on a second blog that this person felt the need to point out to me was her main blog in the first place, because she was upset that I accidentally made the mistake of calling them a girl when they used an edited picture of cartoon a flapper girl from a show they claimed to hate as their icon and they presented their cartoon avatar on their main blog that I also had no way way of knowing about unless I checked, as feminine, and only she/her/they/them pronouns were listed there too and I had no way of knowing they weren’t actually comfortable being called a girl or even if they were a girl to start with because non-binary women exist but I didn’t have the time to ask them about all that because she was too busy telling me how much she hated the cartoon that I love and for some reason expecting me to engage in a civil , “mature” (her words not mine) conversation with her about this and then I blocked her for being obnoxious and then she contacted me on her main, that she felt the need to specify was her main, just to make a passive comment inferring I had misgendered her and I had blocked her then there too, for being obnoxious.
And fancy that, all three of you had “interacted” with me first.
I think that this just goes to show that you people have no sense of taste or tact.
And I guess I’m just to much of a stubborn bisexual of the crippled variety to keep my mouth shut when an “anti” comes onto my posts and starts meme-ing off to me about how apparently I’m not allowed to hi-jack a tag based on the (most basic) slam-variation of a show title that I love, that you coined to use specifically as an excuse to talk shit about this show that I love and bully the creator and the fandom because it’s “yours”, when I’m just trying to spread awareness of the dangerous ableism and hypocrisy that anti’s have on this post that you decided to meme off on that you’ve just proven that you do not care about unless it effects you.
Meanwhile, there’s a reason that the post you meme-d off on has had 58 notes so far and most of them are likes.
Nice try, bud.
You are not allowed or entitled to make space just to bully and harass people who are trying to enjoy a piece of media just because you put the word “anti” at the front of the original title of that media .
 If I’m really annoying you that much you know that you can just go, somewhere else like, say into...One of the a million other insult hashtags that you coined that are more blatant if you think that I’m too much hell or radio active to be around... And since you probably don’t get the jokes, I’m saying you should just go slip into your hazmat suit if you feel that much entitled to a safe space.
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Oh wait, no!
As I was told by tumblr user “hazshithotel”, during a one-sided “interaction” that I did not ask for, “that’s just absurd”.
Maybe it’s absurd because it’s bullying!
As for myself I’m sorry for not captioning this, I’ve been insulted enough and I haven’t showered (Oh no, I’m currently befitting of a stereotype in a game of “anti” bingo tag, how ever do I live like this?!) and I just started my monthly and I’m hungry and I haven’t eaten all day because I’ve been writing this!
You have a certain ( I’m assuming, otherwise they’d have compassion)    abled-bodied bi sexual ace attorney to thank for their ableism and why I’m posting in the anti tags again, directly this time!
After this it’s back to watching Dragula.
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natsunoomoi · 4 years
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I’m at a loss for words. I don’t really know how to say what I’m thinking succinctly. I feel like for Facebook I need to say something more succinctly and not ramble, but the only thing I can come up with is rambling and like indistinct sounds of frustration.
I’m tired. I just came back from a business trip to Ehime because I was covering for a different teacher who was going to do lessons at the company high school, but it ended up being cancelled because of fears of corona still, so we ended up doing a team teach instead as since I already had tickets to go it was easier for me to continue as scheduled.
On the way there and back, I was further horrified by what I was seeing reported by friends at home about what’s happening in the States. The protests started out about the same as previous ones and rioting because why the fuck do things matter if people act like you don’t matter and that makes sense. I’m still a bit uncomfortable with when the casualty was a hospital or nursing home and not like a normal business because that’s like other people’s actual critical care and like if the power goes out like during someone’s surgery or like the hospital is disabled and can’t power up again and treat you if you get hurt from the militarized police, it’s not great, but yeah I still get it.
The thing is though, we’re still in a pandemic. Like even a few weeks ago some entitled asshats were protesting so they could get a fucking haircut and they went to government buildings with guns. And these entitled mother fucking assholes got to go home safe. No one showed up with riot shields, rubber bullets, tear gas, or pepper sprayed them in the face even though they were gathering and protesting peacefully. These protests that have erupted people can just be sitting around or even in a fucking medical tent and police are starting the violence and shooting them. What the fucking hell? Not only that, but like hey protesters becoming rioters is one thing, but some other asshats are coming in from outside for whatever reason and breaking shit on purpose that are unrelated to the movement so like what? The protesters would get blamed for it? Some of them appear to be racist asshole white people doing this. In one place apparently some jackass with a gun just ran down a street and decided to shoot up some people??? Wth, why? What the hell is even happening??
I just....I don’t know, I’m tired and just really depressed by all of this. I fully support the protesters in whatever they do, but there’s some bad actors out there pulling shit to put the blame on them and the police themselves are inciting violence themselves and acting with impunity. I’m doing the best I can to try to stay engaged, but also my brain is just overwhelmed. I live in another country and there’s a limit to what I can do for the people back home. I’m tired. I cried all the way home and broke down because it was just too much to look at. I want to stay engaged, but also it’s kind of starting to really affect me emotionally and I need to stay present in my surroundings too because I have obligations to take care of.
Also like...when humans act like this, I kind of think back at FF XIV and why the series broke me. Emet-Selch’s whole thing against the shard people is because they act in such small ways and backstab each other and basically do things to each other very much the same as this kind of bad behavior we see in real life. For him, he found that because the Shard people did that stuff that they were unworthy to be stewards of their respective stars. If the Shard people acted like the way my country is right now, in this moment, I would say fuck it sacrifice them to Zodiark. I would want to save the people protesting but like the people being total dicks and even the President using force in front of the frickin’ White House should be sacrificed to Zodiark.
Also speaking of Final Fantasy, Square Enix is like the coolest company in all of this because rather than just putting a social media post, they pledged to donate $250,000 and match any employee donations. I have so much respect for them, but even more so after that. But like, they wrote Emet-Selch’s storyline. And even in 7R Sephiroth has a couple of lines that are kind of similar as to why a species that is so callous to others of its own species deserves to live. When I see all this madness, I struggle to find an answer to that. And like with 7R they had an amazing black character who has a gun arm and is the leader of an eco-terrorist group that blows up mako power plants. It just seems logical that they would be supportive. I don’t necessarily think their characters of color are necessarily perfect either, but man, for being a Japanese company they try. I have to respect that and their games give me a kind of respite from what is going to be crippling depression if I don’t detach from all the of the insane reports coming out right now for a little while.
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animebw · 4 years
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Binge-Watching: Demon Slayer, Episodes 14-16
In which Zenitsu continues to be the absolute worst, Tanjirou uses anger to fuel his empathy, and the pieces are put in place for one hell of a showdown.
Restraining Order
“Hate” is a pretty strong word to use in criticism. A piece of media can be flawed in a number of myriad ways, but those flaws don’t necessarily inspire outright hatred. They can just mean something’s lacking, or you’re disappointed by a direction things took, or you’re frustrated with the incompetence of some aspect of its creation. For something to be so bad that you can accurately say you hate it, it’s gotta be more than just a simple mistake or misguided idea; something has to have gone really, really wrong. But man, that where I’m at with Zenitsu: I really fucking hate this guy. It’s bad enough he communicates at least 70% of the time in ear-grating shrieking. It’s bad enough he’s a pathetic, cowardly mess who clings to his companions for protection like a parasite. It’s bad enough his mere presence is enough to skewer this show’s attempts at a dramatic tone like a shish kebab; who’s got time for mourning the brutally slaughtered corpses of the Talking Drum Demon’s victims when you’ve got jiggling bug-eyes to make for the tenth time in a row? But now he’s really crossed the line of no return: he’s become a possessive fucking creep who’s imprinted onto Nezuko like a tick. Fuck me, why does anime still think this is funny? Why are men who don’t respect women’s boundaries played up as comedy gold time and time again? At this point, the only thing separating Zenitsu from Mineta is that Zenitsu, at the very least, hasn’t resorted to outright sexual harassment yet. And when the only bar we manage to clear is Not Being Mineta, then something has gone horribly wrong.
The really shitty thing is, there are moments where I really wish I could like Zenitsu. Whenever he sits down, shuts up, and digs into the pathos behind his pathetic mindset, you start to see something really powerful shining through. He’s a miserable lost kid thrust into a situation he wants nothing to do with, with no self-confidence and no faith that he could ever become someone better. But part of his desperately wants to get better, a part of him he can’t shake no matter how hard he tries. So he clings to the coattails of those he thinks can protect him, sulking when they decide it’s not worth the emotional labor to try and convince him to get better because he doesn’t believe he’s strong enough to convince himself of that fact. Yet something still presses him forward, pushing him to ask questions about Tanjirou’s mysterious demon companion and follow his friends into the pits of hell on the mountain of spider demons. In moments like that, I can see the character I so desperately want Zenitsu to be, someone crippled with self-doubt and self-loathing struggling to find a way to trust his own footing. Hell, not to compare this show too much to another show it’s not that much like, but Armin has always been one of my favorite characters from Attack on Titan precisely because I bought into that pathos and his struggle to get better. Zenitsu could have easily ended up scratching the same itch for me. But every moment I think I’m starting to like him again, it doesn’t take long for another shrieking freakout and bout of selfish possessiveness to once again make me wish I could seal his mouth shut with molten lead. I can only extend so much sympathy to people who make it this difficult to sympathize with them.
Kill Them With Kindness
It’s a good thing for Zenitsu, then, that Tanjirou has infinitely more patience than I do. I’ve mentioned in the past that even Tanjirou’s got his breaking point: it’s takes a hell of a lot of emotional energy to be as empathetic as he is, especially to people as aggravating as his new comrades and literal man-eating demons. But as much as I enjoy seeing him give into rage and lay into everyone with righteous fury (”But here you are giving him a one-sided beatdown! You’re the lowest of the low!”), he’s got an even better solution at his disposal: aggressive empathy. Without question, Tanjirou is one of the most defiantly nice protagonists I’ve ever seen in anime. If a kind smile isn’t gonna crack your shell, then he’ll literally try to headbutt the aggression out of you. If a pleasant voice isn’t enough to calm down an enemy, he’ll barrage them with compliments just as intensely as he would match blades with them (on Inosuke’s face: ”It’s petite, thin-skinned and therefore cute!”) And if even that’s still not enough, then he’ll go full passive-aggressive and respond to all your attempts to provoke him with some of the most pointed cheer I’ve ever seen. It’s honestly kind of brilliant on Tanjirou’s part: when his inner emotional turmoil becomes too much for him to remain a paragon of kindness, he weaponizes that turmoil and makes it part of his efforts to reach out. If he can’t win you over with kindness, then he’ll kill you with kindness until the message finally freaking sinks in.
And we can see how effective this strategy is in Inosuke, the latest addition to this merry band of travelers. At first, this guy’s almost as aggravating as Zenitsu, an unrepentant, rude asshole driven by selfish desires and a complete disregard for anyone else’s well-being. But despite all the very reasonable reasons Tanjirou has to kick him to the curb, he instead launches the most determined charm offensive he possibly can. He doesn’t rise to any of Inosuke’s attempts to rile him up, responding with anger only when his recklessness actively puts other people in danger and with positive reinforcement at all other time. He gives this pissed-off boar head a taste of what it’s like to have someone treat you with basic human dignity for a chance, instead of as a nuisance, or a stepping stone, or a bartering chip. And for probably the first time in his life, Inosuke’s given a full-course tasting menu of what it feels like to be... well, liked. To be given basic human compassion. To be part of a bigger whole, fighting alongside people who can push him even farther than he can go alone. And through this sheer, relentless kindness, Tanjirou’s able to break Inosuke’s shell wide open and make him realize that empathy can feel really, really good. This lonesome boar is alone no more, and if he puts as much effort into teamwork as he did to his solo outings, he’s gonna be one of the best allies Tanjirou could hope for.
Spider’s Web
And man, Tanjirou’s gonna need all the help he can get. Because the battle he and his companions have gotten mixed up in is easily Demon Slayer’s most deliciously fucked-up scenarios yet. Fighting a whole family of spider demons who use web threads to turn people into puppets makes for one hell of a gnarly showdown, corpses and still-living people alike hoisted up on marionette strings and twisted with gruesome cracks and pops to fight for their puppeteers. Say what you will about this show, it knows its way around body horror, and the sheer agony on the faces of the still-living slayers begging for death as their limbs are splintered and snapped is gonna haunt my nightmares tonight. But even that’s nothing compared to how utterly furious Tanjirou gets at their gruesome deaths. My boy is pissed like we’ve never seen him before, so mad at the fiends responsible for this slaughter that his savage growl of determination to track them down is more chilling than any of his past screams. But even that rage isn’t enough to stop him from giving a peaceful death to the mother demon who welcomes his final blow with grateful, tear-stricken eyes. This is the first time we’ve seen anything resembling community among Muzan’s demonkind, a fucked-up abusive family bereft of the empathy and companionship that Tanjirou stands for. It’s a black pit of despair that’s sucking everyone- Tanjirou, his companions, the Demon Slayer corps, and even the demons themselves- down into the darkness below. Something really big is happening here, something that has the potential to rewrite the rules on Demon Slayer and finally crest it over the hill into a worthwhile endeavor. Here’s hoping by the time this arc is over, I’ll finally be on board.
Odds and Ends
-Jesus Christ, the animation on this hand-to-hand brawl is insane. Kudos, Ufotable.
-”I’m not in any way creepy!” Falser words were never spoken, Zenitsu.
-”You know what, this is starting to make me mad.” askjdaskdads
And next time, we reach this episode 19 I’ve heard so many good things about. See you then!
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happiness4jane · 5 years
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The Scariest Thing I’ve Ever Done
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Well, this is terrifying. Paralyzing almost. My hands are literally trembling as I try to punch the letters on my keyboard. When I allow myself to think about the people that might read this. People I know. People I work with. Students I teach. Students I’ve taught. My soon-to-be-in-laws. My exes. Their families (they’ll say, “I told you so!”). My friends. Their friends. My family. My children. All 836 of my Facebook “friends” are potential critics. And they’ll share it with even more people that might know me or will know me, that see me around and will avoid making eye contact with me in Walmart forevermore! When I allow myself to think about that – the people that might read this – every self-doubting, loathing, shaming, insecure demon inside me surfaces in protest. BUT… but. That’s the point, after all. For people to read this. To maybe help others claw their way out of the uncompromising, crippling, and degenerative grasp of the illness known as Bipolar Disorder (no, but seriously, this scares the shit out of me and I can’t breathe).
Here’s the thing though – I shouldn’t be ashamed of it. It isn’t fair we live in a society that shames people with mental illness into silence. That calls us “crazy”. We can’t just snap our fingers and make it go away (but, oh, if I could!). We can’t just act normal, act rational. It’s not something we can tame on command. And we didn’t choose this. Who would choose this?! Who would choose to leave behind a legacy of wreckage? Well, I don’t doubt there are some who’d choose that… As for me, when I think on all the destroyed relationships, the lost jobs, the unfinished projects and departed dreams, the reckless moments that would haunt me for years, the countless days stolen away by infinite darkness… the shame, the shame, the shame – I would never choose this. And yet, despite all the chaos and ruin and regret, it took me about twenty years to get help. Why? The simple answer is, I didn’t want to be Bipolar. I didn’t want people to think I was crazy (Ha! Like they didn’t already!). So, I refused to accept it. I refused to seek treatment. And it got worse. Much, much worse.
About seven months ago, after another life-is-amazing-and-I-don’t-need-to-sleep-and-I’ll-hyper-focus-and-finish-that-novel-and-train-for-that-marathon-and-FUCK!-you-better-stop-getting-in-my-way-or-I’ll-bite-your-damn-head-off-so-feed-yourself elevated state (Symptoms of a manic episode: increased activity, energy or agitation; decreased need for sleep; abnormally upbeat) followed inevitably by a crashing-into-bed-and-plotting-out-the-details-of-my-exit-because-I-just-can’t-live-in-this-world-anymore-and-I’m-worthless-and-horrible-and-you’d-all-be-better-off-without-me depressed state (Symptoms of a major depressive episode: feelings of sadness, emptiness, hopelessness; marked loss of interest in activities; fatigue; feelings of worthlessness or excessive or inappropriate guilt; thinking about, planning, or attempting suicide), I sought the help of a counselor. So, what changed, you might be wondering? What made me seek treatment at this point, after shunning it for so many years? Well, it used to be that I had normal periods of time between the depression and the elevation. It used to be fun and ambitious and productive (euphoric but always beguiling) to be elevated. It used to be the depression came maybe a couple times a year. The unwarranted distrust and insecurity and ultra-sensitivity was fleeting. The suicidal thoughts were daunting rather than soothing. That’s what used to be. It was easier to pretend I was normal then. I was just eccentric! I was special! Like some of the greatest artists and inventors and individuals that made history. I was a mad genius just like Salvador Dali, Vincent Van Gogh, Charlie Chaplin, Ben Franklin, Sir Isaac Newton, Michelangelo (Symptom: exaggerated sense of self). I was able to ride that train of twisted thought for a long long time, because I could finish what I started then, because I was younger then, and there was always another job, another lover, another place that would accept me. But around seven years ago, that all began to change. The depression seized more frequently. The elevation became less euphoric and more agitated, even rageful at times – lashing out at and rejecting the people I loved most. I started projects but never finished them. It became more and more difficult to go to work, and when I got there, I had to convince myself out of the car and into the classroom. In the classroom, I felt like an alien. I couldn’t stay on track, couldn’t focus my thoughts (Symptom: rapid and frenzied speaking, racing thoughts). I felt like I was disconnected from everything around me, like I wasn’t real (Symptom: dissociation). And then over the past year, the episodes seemed to be crashing right on top of each another with no reprieve in-between. It was relentless, crippling. One day of unbridled energy followed by two days of extreme irritability followed by one day of bed-ridden depression and then rinse, lather, repeat. Weeks, months, a year like this. The darkness that occasionally consumed my thoughts mutated to a pervasive utter blackness – leaving a void where hope and happiness used to visit. My fiancé pleading with me to get out of bed. My 10-year-old son asking me why I was so angry. My six-year-old daughter saying, “Mommy’s sick again.” I hated myself. I couldn’t pretend I was perfectly healthy – just eccentric – anymore. I was sick. Very sick.
You see, Bipolar Disorder is a degenerative illness, and by denying myself treatment, I had enabled a progression into periods of rapid cycling, meaning I was basically Bipolar on steroids – my depressive and manic moods shifting in a constant unpredictable shitstorm. This is the way it was explained to me by my counselor (in much more eloquent terms). She said that in the same way progressive diseases like Cancer will eventually cause organ failure if left untreated, Bipolar Disorder gradually diminishes brain function if left untreated. Oh, did I mention this conversation took place just a month ago? And, perhaps you remember that I went to see her the first time about seven months ago? No, it didn’t take that long to diagnose me. It took that long for me to commit. I honored my appointments only twice before I disappeared for another two months and then for another five months after that (I was still battling my desperate desire to be “normal”). During those initial appointments, I either purposefully omitted the symptoms of my elevated states, or honestly didn’t know they were elevated states. Hard to tell. On the one hand, for most of my life the elevated states were something to look forward to. They were a tremendous relief since they often followed a long period of depression, or, they were a welcome rush of intense energy and focus and ambition after a period of normal moods and routines. On the other hand, there was a part of me that hoped, if I had to be diagnosed with something, that it be depression and/or anxiety – just not Bipolar, please, not that! For some totally illogical reason, having depression and anxiety seemed more socially acceptable to me. People posted about their depression and anxiety on social media. My students openly discussed their struggles with them in class. Lot’s of people are depressed and anxious! Poor reasoning but, I convinced myself that my elevated states were just “normal” times when I wasn’t depressed. After all, I didn’t behave like someone that was manic. I was nothing like Bradley Cooper’s character in “Silver Linings Playbook”! I didn’t suddenly become totally irrational. I didn’t spend everything in my bank account in some obsessed frenzy. I didn’t abruptly start making good on all my wildest fantasies and desires. I didn’t incoherently speed-talk and jump around from one interest to another. No, it was never that pronounced. Or, was it? I’d certainly been called Bipolar enough in my lifetime – and not in a concerned or encouraging way. More like I was being called a “crazy bitch”. It was a bad word. And I did spend [a lot] more money than I should when I felt “good”. Like, when I bought that boat with a personal loan on a 50% interest rate. Or, when I financed that international trip while negative in my bank account. And on all that professional camera equipment when I decided to be a video editor, and on this website two years ago when I decided to be a blogger (Perhaps, now, I’ll finally make use of it?). And the hundreds of dollars I invested in gear when I was suddenly inspired to run a marathon (but I did follow through on that one, thank you very much!). Oh, right, I guess I do jump around from interest to interest when I’m feeling “inspired”. I’m going to be a motivational speaker, no, a novelist, no, a personal trainer, no, a corporate trainer, no, a filmmaker, no, an entrepreneur, no… the list goes on and on. But these things felt so good. Even though I had to clean up the wreckage whenever I smashed back down on the pavement. The rubble of estranged relationships, busted bank accounts, retired jobs. So yeah, I went with depression and anxiety, masking the symptoms of mania. And I refused medication (because all I really needed to do was get my shit together, not numb myself with zombie-making pills). Until the progression to rapid cycling imprisoned me and I sulked, defeated, back into therapy five weeks ago.
After years and years and years of heartbreak and rejection and confusion and self-loathing and denial and protest, I began taking a daily mood stabilizer and seeing my therapist once a week. It took a couple weeks before there was any discernable change, and after four weeks, the change in my behavior was nothing short of striking. At that point, I realized I hadn’t been swallowed by the black void in three full weeks – a record time in nearly a year. I hadn’t lashed out in rage at anyone either. And the most surprising thing? I wasn’t the living dead. I had heard these nightmare testimonies about people with Bipolar Disorder beginning medication and going numb, like they’d been lobotomized, and that panicked me. I didn’t want to stop feeling, I just wanted to experience my feelings in a regulatory fashion. And I was, for the first time in years. Now, I want to be very careful not to sound like the poster girl for medicating. My strong belief is that we over-medicate in this country (but that’s for another post). No miracle has occurred. I’m not “cured”. In fact, there is no known cure for Bipolar Disorder. It can be managed, with a combination of medication and psychotherapy. Some days are better than others. But every day, I still battle my demons and the life-long conditioning of patterns, emotional reactions, and behaviors. My recovery is a continuous journey where no arrival point exists. But I have hope today. I wake up motivated to get out of bed without needing the boost of mania. I carry out the responsibilities and routines of the day without fighting off panic or becoming despondent. I fall asleep without the “lulling” melody of my own death dancing around my thoughts. Yes, I still get anxious and angry and sad and overly eager. The difference is in the way I’ve responded to those feelings since starting treatment. My awareness of the condition and the symptoms that accompany it, along with my medication, has helped me acknowledge my feelings before acting on them.
I hope it’s not the honeymoon period. I hope it lasts.
It’s early yet.
But if this remarkable change is here to stay [with dedicated treatment], I can’t help but feel frustration with myself for not seeking help sooner. Just to think on all the chaos and anguish I could have spared myself and others… But I’m here now, and perhaps it’s exactly where I’m supposed to be – writing this blog so that you may read it and be inspired to act now. For yourself, or for someone you know, before it’s too late. Make no mistake, this disease does kill. The suicide rate for people with Bipolar Disorder is twenty times that of the general population, and nearly 30% will make a suicide attempt at least once in their lifetime.
Don’t pity me, and please don’t fear me. I’m not very different from you. I have a family, friends, a career, hopes and dreams and struggles and fears. For those of you that know me, I’m still Jen. Maybe I’m even a better Jen – my greater and more genuine self. As a society, we need to reframe the way we perceive and speak about mental illness. Help me promote a fair image for those individuals and families that are afflicted with it – so they won’t suffer in silence. So they get help.
My name is Jen Hogue, and I’m diagnosed Bipolar II. Today, I’m in treatment. I take my medication everyday and see my counselor every week. I have a sense of hope that I haven’t had in far too long. I still don’t know if I’ll be brave enough to publish this. But I hope I will. After all, it’s often in the greatest risks we take that we find our greatest triumphs, and our greatest gifts to one another.  
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deanirae · 6 years
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Here’s the promised rant! It goes on for thirty years! The season 6 as i can’t unsee it because i rewatched it at a weird point in life!
Step one: if you have shipping goggles on, take them off. If you have a big sentiment towards Cas's perspective in 6.20, for now, leave it at the door. It belongs in the trashcan, I hope you know that.
Welcome to season 6 and the gender-coded horror aka all the things that were done to Dean because he just wouldn’t stay in the kitchen.
Season 6 in its entirety stronger than any other season placed Dean into the role of a woman. It’s a thing since day one in spn, but s6 was all about it. Dean's horror in that season strongly resembles stories about women being abused and belittled because they are believed to be less than men; simply because they aren’t men [and know jack shit]. Their feelings don’t matter, neither does their consent, not really, which the season’s vaguely threatening “can’t or won’t?” encompasses very well [women don’t get to say “no” or “can’t” and keep it. It will get dissected and disrespected. Which is also Dean’s story].
Re-watching season 6 I felt like I was watching Rosemary's Baby but simply without the baby??? Everyone there is either lying to Dean or gaslighting him or both, all the while he's being repeatedly told everything that has been done to him, everything that hurt him, everything that took his choice away, was done to him for his own good or for the greater good vaguely including his own (or not) . And maybe he should shut the fuck up and drink a cocktail [or, according to Cas, some more whiskey].
This pattern stars in the very beginning of the season where Dean is being told that an important truth regarding Sam was hidden from him on purpose because Bobby Sam and Cas knew better what's best for Dean and they treated Dean's arguments as emotional and unreasonable. Dean fucking spent an entire year suffering from grief after losing his brother whom due to abuse and brainwashing Dean couldn't help but see as his own child (which is something that season 12 canonically confirmed). Like with Ro’s baby being declared dead at first but hey I digress, scratch that.
Unfortunately, this is just the beginning of his choice being taken away from him, since right away he gets guilt-tripped back into the hunting life and all the things that were supposed to be so good for him he got endlessly ridiculed for. Soulless Sam even drags Dean’s entire life when Dean chooses to stay with Lisa. Dean doesn’t know Sam doesn’t have a soul. He’s just supposed to take the abuse from the guy who pushed him into the domestic life in the first place and consider it normal.
Dean is also being called soft and too feminine, too weak to be treated as an equal decision making party in the hunting arrangement. He’s ranked below Gwen, only woman in the group, the lowest ranking member before Dean came.
Also very interesting that throughout the season Dean is heavily connected with taking care of children, bonding with them, and feeling for them deeply [Ben, 6.02, 6.03, 6.19], which again is something he gets criticized for every single time.
The criticism however doesn't end there and an extremely important example is where Dean begins voicing his concern regarding Sam and his behavior. Even though Dean knows Sam best, Bobby insists that Dean is being paranoid. Even after Sam literally served Dean to the vampire, he gets ordered to stop being so weak and get dressed into a more reason-based professional approach to the problem and he's supposed to put his trauma aside, basically he's being told to man up. Because he’s being emotional. And probably wrong and hysterical.
Of course it's no surprise that the game-changing moment for Dean too puts him in a woman's position within the narrative. While sexual assault isn’t a problem only women experience, statistically and, especially in the media, this is the sort of violence that women are in a larger threat of facing than men. What's more to it, what happens on screen in the episode only shows the girls being lured into a trap and forcefully changed. And all of this has extremely sexual connotations. Being unwillingly turned into a vampire and the forced feeding with a vampire's blood is a blatant metaphor of rape. In Dean's case the sexual undertone of the assault was heavily accentuated even in dialogue.
But not just there. In the episode Dean takes the vampire book and refers to its cover [the vampire watching the girl sleep] as “rapey”. He’s uncomfortable with the whole thing. The act of staring at an unaware sleeping woman is presented as a monster vs woman thing to do, as an assault. When Dean gets turned, he watches Lisa sleep before she startles awake [6.05]. Lucky, the dog-skinwalker, watches his “love”/unaware owner sleep, then crawls into her bed [6.08]. Castiel, despite of knowing the sigils were literally meant to be a restraining order, enters Dean’s room, watches him sleep. Tries to convert him [620]. The same episode also brings  up all the times Dean, completely unaware, was being watched by him. Just like the girl from the book cover was, just like Maddie was.
No surprise Cas takes the creepy cake because he resonates with the disturbing theme perhaps the most, showing through how in season 6 Dean's relationship with Cas played out. Or, to be more specific, how Castiel's relationship with Dean played out (and there is a difference).
The thing of the biggest import here, before I begin, is that power imbalance, the difference of species. The angelic mindset in the Angels versus Humans dynamics, which is rooted in the same arguments men use to establish their dominance over women and to later excuse it: according to Angels (and technically supernatural beings in general), humans are weaker, too emotional, definitely dumber, less experienced, less competent.
And what they deserve, at best, is patronizing treatment showing them where is their place, because they’re too fragile and too stupid to make decisions for themselves. Not worthy taking a meaningful position in a war, but at the same time they're extremely valuable due to their souls, which to an extent kind of reminds me of how women are often seen as valuable only because they are capable of childbirth, which is an ability unique to them in the same way having a soul is something that angels just lack, so they use humans for that.
Castiel might say he values humans as his equals, but even if he believes that, his actions don’t reflect it [5.18 for example, pick ANY episode from s6]. The thinking is so ingrained into him like patriarchal perspective is in men’s heads by default. Castiel's and Dean's relationship in season 6 is solely gender coded in this regard. Castiel simply isn't capable of seeing Dean as his equal because he’s, according to Cas, weaker, less experienced, too biased by his flawed - or castiel's actual words - “crippling” - human perspective, therefore he should be put away from the fighting for his own good. No matter the cost, no matter Dean’s judgment on the matter, no matter his choice. Safety is priority, right? Early in s6 Dean, desperate, tries to protect Lisa and Ben like that too, but he understands, he backs off. They reach balance.
But when the narrative puts Dean in Lisa’s place? The only thing he's allowed to do is to perform some basic tasks that are completely unrelated to what's happening on the Big Front and only when Cas sees it fit, and only how he sees it fit. Dean, as long as  it is for Castiel to decide, doesn't even have to know what he's doing. In fact, in the original plan it was supposed to go along the lines of: Manly Men (angels) Fight Wars To Protect Women (Dean) because they're capable and strong and cunning and rational, while Women (Dean) Stay At Home And Rake The God Damn Leaves. What they do is keep the fire going for the Victorious Soldier when He returns from War and if they don't get that, they're just dumb because their human little brains are too small to comprehend the stakes. So they don’t get a vote. They’re supposed to trust blindly. Men (angels) know better. And all of it of course is because Men (Castiel) love Them (Dean) so much and They’re willing to do everything and anything to protect those poor, brittle things (favorite pets?).
The list of anything and everything includes: lying about everything all the time directly into Dean’s face despite of the crushing emotional pain Dean was in. And I don’t even mean burning Crowley's bones-lying, but every single time Dean has voiced his worry that something is wrong with Sam. What Castiel does is to placate Dean, reassure him that he doesn't know what happens but he's so sorry and he'll try to find out! Aids and encourages Dean’s alcoholism just to make him docile, while lying to him actively, by the way [6.06]. And when that stops being an option and Dean is determined to return the soul to Sam, Castiel suddenly stops being so understanding and sweet. Like a flip of a switch. He guilt trips and indirectly threatens Dean before he follows through [6.10] and after placing Sam's soul back in its place [6.12]. And of course it has nothing to do with actual worry over Sam's wellbeing.
Cas pulled Sam out of the cage and didn't bother to check on him for over a year, even though soulless!sam prayed to him repeatedly. Not to mention that he later broke Sam's wall without blinking, so he did the exact thing he “warned” Dean about and by “warned” I mean that he made sure Dean would know the blame, if anything happens to Sam, is going to be his. The point of the whole show of concern was to keep Dean busy and technically powerless because together, alive and kicking, the Winchesters, while extremely dysfunctional and codependent, make a much bigger threat for the supernatural because it's so much harder to keep the game going when suddenly both of the brothers are asking questions and Dean is no longer being pulled down, preoccupied and controlled by T-1000. Dean is much more compliant when he has no support and when he has no moves to make, which Castiel knows.
So yes, maybe Castiel didn't pull out Sam soulless on purpose but it is no accident that he was so determined to keep him that way regardless of how much it cost Dean, whom, of course, he loves so fucking much.
And when you are an angel loving a man/mother figure so much you are also going to hurt the child just to force him to accept his position and stand down. And later tell him that he had it coming because he didn't listen and didn't do what he's told (if the babysitter is slapped, she’s clearly done something wrong). All of it in the name of freedom, of course.
While attempting to emotionally manipulate Dean into supporting his cause and agreeing that what Castiel is doing is right, Cas invokes values like caring, protecting, being a family -  which are in our society values mostly associated with women. Even the Superman metaphor presents Dean as Lois Lane (which Dean knows, so he throws that hot ball away as fast as he can). Throughout the entire 6.20 Dean is shown as and approached to as the delicate hurt wife that can't believe she's being cheated on, so everyone’s just being soft and protectional on her, poor thing, which starts in 6.19.
And fuck lemme tell you a thing about 6.19, buckle the fuck up. The episode very telling in the context of this gender-based abuse reading. It’s because both Bobby and Sam immediately understood that something is wrong about Cas while Dean couldn't. And, the way see it, it’s not the problem of Dean trusting Cas more and blindly because he's in love with him and stuff, no. At least not mostly. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that technically in the presence of both (especially soulless) Sam and Bobby Cas didn't put that much effort into playing soft concern and caring thing  as he did during the brief encounters he had with Dean alone. Sure Cas determined when he made it clear to Dean that driving the boys to their uncle is not something they have the time for, but there is a difference between the way he spoke about it in Dean's presence, to Dean directly, and the comments he made when only Bobby was there to hear them. Here, compare for yourself:
CAS: Dean, can I have a word? We need to find Eve now.
DEAN: Yeah. Go. Me and Sam just gotta make a milk run.
CAS: We need your help here.
DEAN: Hold your water. We’ll be back in a few.
CAS: Dean, Dean. Millions of lives are at stake here, not just two. Stay focused.
DEAN: Are you kidding?
CAS: there’s a greater purpose here.
DEAN: you know what, I-I’m getting a little sick and tired of the greater purposes, okay? I think what I’d like to do now is save a couple of kids. If you don’t mind. We’ll catch up.
Now, same problem, but with no Dean to hear it. I heavily advise you to dig 6.19 out and watch if not both scenes at least this one because the way Misha delivers his lines here is vital. I know just the words to describe that for you, but hear that for yourselves:
BOBBY: They won’t take long.
CAS: They might find more orphans along the way.  
BOBBY: Oh, don’t get cute.
CAS: Right. Pardon me for highlighting their crippling and dangerous empathetic response with “sarcasm”. It was a bad idea, letting them go.
Now, a bit on both [I still insist you should go watch that scene i’m begging you]:
First scene? Castiel approaches Dean gently, asks for a permission to talk in private, gives him space. He speaks to him super softly. I threw up softly. Dean doesn’t notice the demand in the demand at all, so he just goes ok, you do you, I do me i don’t get it??? So Cas goes into  the emotional territory [always works, don’t it], still soft.
Now dean gets it, but doesn’t budge. So bigger ammo goes off. And don’t even get me started on “Dean, Dean,” and how throughout the show only the villains do the variations of repeating Dean’s name to address him. The delivery slightly differed here but
It was followed by an order that was all the way patronizing. Only Castiel’s eyes reflect the irritation, his voice doesn’t - even though as scene with bobby makes clear - he’s pissed as shit. On dean specifically. He does say “they” but note that sam hasn’t spoken once on the whole issue? It’s dean who he was talking to.
He thinks Dean is crippled for being empathetic and bound to children and he isn’t rational enough to understand the stakes. Let it sink in. now think about it in the context of being a gender [species] issue. Let it sink deeper.
Something in Dean’s words, that thrown in “if you don’t mind” - that’s totally subjective but it kind of makes me think of this women-specific way of speaking from many decades before. Like 40s-50s wife thing? That implied asking for permission woven into their lexicons? Dean is, of course, bitter here, but still, you ever hear a man use that construction? I haven’t. Feel free to discard this point it’s just me trying to work with leftovers of my linguistic training and it’s subjective and i’m in no way saying that line went like that on purpose, ok? It just Bothers  me on some crawling under my skin level.
“Letting” someone do something is Bad Idea - says dude who slaughters in the name of Choice and Freedom. Oops.
And a bonus: Eve lured Dean into her trap, relying on his maternal side. Then, she tried to reach him using Mary. The whole thing being a mother to a mother talk because as a “mother” you should get my feelings.
Another bonus because you probably didn’t dig 6.19 out. That wasn’t an impersonal, rationalish vaguely grumpy sarcasm. That was soft, belittling, ridiculing contempt, the exact one you will meet again in 7.01! I wonder why!!
say bye bye to 6.19, we’re going elsewhere now. Still within the realm of season 6 fucking with Dean’s agency, gendering his problems, and somewhat within the realm of Castiel’s soon to be kingdom.
All that talk about making sacrifices for Dean’s good [because of dean/for dean, mind you] and preserving free will? Oh man, that was to not even convince God [who was blogging about cats at the time], but to make himself feel good and justified in what he’s doing.
And if he really meant what he said by “i’m doing this for you, i’m doing this because of you”, that’s because Dean is his prized possession. Spoils of war from apocalypse no. 1 [5.18 anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Entitlement?]. His trophy wife.
And no one can lay a hand on Dean and hurt him [michael, raphael, balthazar, atropos, crowley, demons] or even insult him [rachel]. Except of him, of course [ignoring him for a year, not even to say sam isn’t dead, grabbing and slicing Dean’s arm without asking and warning, guilt tripping him as hard as it gets re: Sam, agreeing to put him in harm’s way during crowley-related errands, keeping the lisa blackmail going due to convenience, re-making Dean’s reality and life without his consent BUT when that didn’t pan out, making him keep the knowledge just because he wanted to? Um, yikes? And of course hurting sam to get specifically to dean?]
Because
CAS: I’ve earned that, Dean. [6.21]
*mic drop*
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putris-et-mulier · 7 years
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I love this.
Terminally Beautiful is a book I published a few years ago (Kevin Shamel wrote a great introduction for me and although you should check out his books I’d say that’s the best thing he’s ever written and huge shout out to Robin Cracknell who is an incredible artist whose work I've admired for years) and so “terminally beautiful” it’s one of my Google alerts. It’s one of the most annoying alerts because of the results it gives me, like this.
So why do I love this? These articles and other media like this are the exact reason I wrote that book. The sexism, the heteronormativity/homophobia, ableism, beauty myth, bigotry in general and how ignorance and good intentions strip people of humanity.
I mean, as a human being I hate that this still goes on but it’s pretty validating in a perverse way because at least my work is still relevant.
Before we begin, this isn’t an introductory course. If you don’t know what inspirational porn is then you need to Google it before reading further.
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Censored by me.
Why that article is horrible:
The most annoying part is that I know to have any credibility in the following statements I have to out myself yet again as someone who is terminally ill because of a genetic mutation like this child. Because of poor funding and research they said I was only likely to live until I was 5. We now know that my variation lets a person live into their 30s but no one knew that at the time so this resonates with me.
A five-year-old child and a six-year-old child (the groom) are forced into a wedding, even if it’s a mock one
The children performed in the ceremony by pledging to be friends forever
Remember that this child is five years old, it doesn’t strike me odd that one of the things on her bucket list would be things like parties and even doing something special to affirm friendships but none of us are really under the impression that she discovered the term “bucket list” on her own or that these children weren’t coerced by heteronormative adults who think it’s adorable, especially because the best friend is a boy so of course it has to be romanticized/sexualized
It’s pandering. That disabled child can get “married” in situations like these because it’s cute but disabled children in these stories probably won’t live long enough to be denied the right to actually be married. No one seems to realize this but marriage equality is still not a thing, around the world and in particular in first world countries disabled people are given the choice between healthcare and the privilege to be married. It’s a literal death sentence, just because it’s a legal marriage does not make that marriage equality. And yes, America is among the worst. 
If this was a good idea, if these children legitimately wanted this extravagant mock ceremony to affirm their friendship how is it made any better by publicizing it? By making a spectacle of it?
Able–Savior complex™
The mother is doing this to “come to terms” with her child’s disability
The whole thing is about this child’s mother. “Her mother has been filling her world with magical experiences”
They literally say in the article that the “magic of the day” helped make up for a recent hospitalization for blood transfusions
Eileidh Paterson’s name was not given in the title and she’s referred to in the article as “Little Eileidh Paterson” which is condescending because this child has more knowledge and experience about life in general through their disability than anyone else involved, even at five years old
Despite everything, no information or link to charities that help terminally ill children or any applicable charity for this child’s mutation, Neuroblastoma which was sometimes misspelled in the article
Donate to St. Jude (charitynavigator.com gives them a ¾ and 100% in their transparency)
National Pediatric Cancer Foundation (4/4 and 100% transparency)
This article I'm criticizing was posted July 1, 2017. It’s only been one week since the ADAPT protests going on over BCRA (healthcare) and Romper has published nothing about it. This whole situation is disgusting to me. If you wanted to do a puff piece then how about on how Stephanie Woodworth gave her iconic zip ties to her adorable cats?
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It would be easy, you can even avoid talking about disability as much as you did here. You don’t even have to post or mention the footage of police dragging people from their wheelchairs and zip tying them. It would just be acknowledging that this is happening and people like Stephanie Woodworth are risking their lives while you shield your eyes.
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(Dawn Russell, pulled from her wheelchair and zip tied by Denver police while in custody)
At least be thankful, it’s groups like ADAPT that get these beautiful children futures and actual healthcare so you have more time to condescend to them until they hit puberty and then you can send them off to institutions.
Romper published 31 stories about Beyoncé and Jay-Z in less than 24 hours the day this article was posted. A celebrity having twins is absolutely applicable to their market, mothers, but is it 31 more times important than millions of lives?
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It’s less than a month until the first anniversary of the Sagamihara Stabbings on the 26th it was a mass murder under the declaration of a eugenics manifesto dedicated to the eradication of disabled people
We still cannot honor the victims because all of their names were withheld to protect the families from the embarrassment of being related to one of us. Don’t even go to the trouble to putting out flowers or candles, even on public property, because that wasn’t allowed either.
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Knife attacker… Accidentally only killing 19 out of the intended 150 demotes a serial killer to a knife attacker? And the reason he’s smiling in every bit of footage is because at least the ones he didn’t kill he still put in the hospital, he isn’t a total failure.
“Jesus Christ, it’s a blog about mothers”
Obviously disability is applicable to motherhood as mothers are disabled and/or have disabled children but besides that this is the news section which posted articles criticizing politics and engaging in the discourse of popular social topics.
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“Give the author a break”
No. 
No one gets a break anymore until we have to stop breaking our backs to carry your dead weight. Jen McGuire has posted about disability, but how does she do it? What good is it?
“Maybe Romper didn’t want to publish that kind of article”
They do
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but healthcare issues are never about disabled people, it’s about the NTAB people associated with them
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Okay, benefit of the doubt. If she has a Twitter, has been tweeting consistently and recently, and hasn’t mentioned the ADAPT protests only then will I pass judgment.
… I’m passing judgment. 
Not even a like on any mention ADAPT protests but then again, she is Canadian which she does expressly apologize for…
If only ableism didn’t exist in Canada, gosh darn it.
Yesterday Kate Letterick wrote a great article for the CBC News about how disabled people haven’t been able to attend event celebrating Canada Day.
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I’ll throw her a bone and give her link because I don’t think she can actually bear to type “disability”
Who the fuck cares if you’re from Canada? 
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If you blog about politics, sociology, healthcare, bigotry, history, current news, anything, but you just happened to never write about disability you are the reason things like Bexit happen and people like Trump get into power. People like Justin Trudeau. It will always be applicable to your target audience because you know what type of people are disabled? All types of people. And you know who it affects? Everyone.
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Romper quite regularly posts news about BCRA but they aren’t about us or for us, not pull a Kanye West but Romper doesn’t care about able-bodied mothers.
There is this contributor,
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Depression… Okay, it’s a start. It can certainly be a disability.
…Oh, that’s it? Then this sucks. No offense (all offense) but she’s a depressed mother on a mommy blog (redundant) and tweets but also has not touched anything to do with ADAPT.
High functioning depression… Okay. I'm going to try to be open-minded but a lot of people who refer to themselves as high functioning do so to distance themselves from people who are "low functioning" because it's ableism wrapped in privilege. Going through her recent work it looks as if she fits the stereotype.
This isn’t an issue of Cripple Olympics, this is an issue of representation. You need more than token writers who don’t even represent or care about a community they identify with.
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This is totally off topic to anything, but how do you survive high school I need some tips. PLEASE.😂
Um??? This is not off topic??? I’m always here for you guys. If you need tips on how to survive high school, then come ask Aunt Cecily. I’m legit ALWAYS HERE if you need advice for support 💕💕💕
So with that being said, oh boy do I have some tips for you. I don’t know anything about you, anon (other then that you’re likely 13 or 14 and going into high school, or are currently in it and have like 3 years left). As a result, I really can’t give you more specific advice. I’m honestly just going to give you some tips that I know helped me or things I wish I would have done. I’ll tell you some general tips, and then academic related tips.
Here’s the general stuff:
1. Music is so important. Have a good selection of singers on your ipod/phone. My go-tos were Lily Kershaw, Evanescence, Porcelain Black, Colette Carr, Neon Hitch, Trading Yesterday, Beth Crowley, The Cab, One Direction, Little Mix, Emilie Autumn, Kerli, Mayday Parade, Skillet, Simple Plan, Two Steps From Hell, and a lot of miscellaneous songs from various artists. My taste in music has changed and grown, but I still listen to a lot of those artists. Because I was so socially isolated throughout high school, I was constantly listening to music. It made me feel less alone. I had a lot of songs that I could relate to because of what I was going through.
2. Figure out what you love doing. For me, I started to love writing when I very accidentally found out fanfiction. And I mean accidentally. I was googling “narnia stories” or something like that. When I was 12, I was reading this critical analysis/theory book about C.S. Lewis and Narnia, and I was dying to know what happened to Susan post-The Last Battle. I did not find that; I find out about fanfiction instead on this website called Quizilla. It’s not active/online anymore - it was shut down way back in late 2014 or early 2015 for reasons I can’t remember now. ANYWAY. I loved the stories I found on there. I started to write my own (one of them was a Lord of the Rings one and another was with my first OC, Blaze, falling in love with Skandar Keynes. *cringe* *sigh*).
I obviously haven’t stopped writing fanfiction, but it’s because I discovered writing for fun, indulging your own ideas and interests with words and characters, that I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I mean, it’s also because I read this one specific fanfiction on there called Nothing’s Alright When You’re Bethrothed to Skandar Keynes (wow can you tell which celebrity 12 year old Cecily was OBSESSED with???). I was like, I WANT TO WRITE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE. Now I’m majoring in Creative Writing, because job security is for pussies (I’m kidding. I’m freaked out about what I’m gonna do post-college. Job security is some Good Shit, anon).
I also took a class in high school that was an elective, and it was called Video Productions. My teacher let me make my own vines, host some of my high schools’ weekly news segment, make a hunger games parody, etc. I also fell in love with making videos/filmmaking at that time. I knew that semester that that was something I was going to keep in my life and do something with.
Maybe it’s not as clear cut for you right now. But my point is that I discovered stuff in middle and high school that made me feel so damn alive and happy. Especially considering I was emotionally constipated and wanting to kill myself due to my major depressive disorder. So! Explore your interests. Give yourself room to create, learn, and develop skills. Useful ones and creative ones. Push yourself (safely) out of your comfort zone to try something that seems interesting. Even if you never do something like knitting or rock-climbing again, at least you tried it and figured out it’s not for you.
3. You’re in high school. You are not supposed to have your entire life planned. Some people know exactly what they want to do with their lives (go into medical field, go into law, do accounting, become a film director, etc) and that’s great. A lot of people change their minds. And then change it again. You are literally a teenager when you’re choosing a potential career in college, if college is where you decide to go. It is 100% okay to not have all the answers in life. It’s scary and can feel crippling. But guess what? It’s okay. It will be okay. Take deep breaths. Have a hot shower. Listen to your favorite song. But don’t wallow in anxiety forever. As I’ve said - start with figuring out what you love. Then figure out if you love it enough to make it a career, or if it’s just a hobby.
4. Have a job/be productive. After my freshmen, sophomore, and junior year of high school, I volunteered at a horse stable I took lessons at. It was a bunch of high schoolers helping out with summer camps meant for little kids. None of us got paid, but we knew we wouldn’t be financially compensated for our time going in. This guy I’ll call Micah ran the camp because he and his wife, Eva (also not her real name), owned the horses, barn, tack, jumping stuff, and some of the surrounding land. This was their business. In exchange for our four hours of volunteer work, we all got to have an hour or so to ride any of the horses for free and unsupervised (we were all advanced enough to do that and in a small enough group that it didn’t matter that we were left alone).
In my senior year of high school, I got paid like, $300 to write sports articles about the JV and varsity soccer teams at my school. Like give a detailed summary of each game for each time, upload them, and then I got paid in full at the end of the soccer time. That solidified how much I wanted to make writing my living, and that I didn’t want to be a journalist. I loved that job a lot, but I suspect part of why I liked it so much was because a) I knew it wouldn’t last forever, and b) I got to hang out with a lot of other girls my age. It made me feel like I had friends even if we rarely talked to each other.
I didn’t get my license during high school for a lot of reasons, none of which are relevant. If you don’t have money to pay for driving school, I’ve heard it’s a best to wait until you’re 18. That way all you have to do is get your permit, and then practice until you feel ready to take your driving test. Which I barely passed but lmao that’s a story for another time. Get your license when you’re ready or when you want it. Have a part-time job. Make some money. Make sure you SAVE your money. Don’t blow all of it on stupid stuff. Save half of your paycheck, anon.
5. High school doesn’t last forever. I’m not going to tell you some bullshit like “It gets better” (even though it does). Look, people can say that high school is only four years and doesn’t last forever, but if you’re going through a lot of rough shit in those four years, that sentiment doesn’t really help (well, in my own experience it didn’t). If you’re struggling with something like an eating disorder, parents who are divorcing, a death in your family, etc. it ends up sucking some ass to show up and care.
I think it’s more important to remember that you’re not alone. You can visit websites like 7 Cups of Tea to get support. You’re more resilient then you know. And you have more support around you then you know. There can be some dark times, but it’s possible to keep on keeping on until you find nuggets of hope and lots of help/support that help you out of your tunnel.
Also: high school only lasts four years. And that’s when most students start at 14 and graduate at 18. Those are not the best four years of your life. It’s the rest of your life that’s fucking amazing.
6. You don’t have to go to college. That’s not your excuse to be a burn-out, though, anon. If you don’t want to go to college, or can’t afford it, I’d suggest looking into going to a vocational school. From what I understand of friends who are currently in them or have graduated from them, you learn a specific skill/trade and can immediately go into the workplace you were trained for. It’s also apparently not as pricey as college. You could also consider going to community college. You can take a year or two off to do something with yourself, and figure out what’s best for you. Maybe it includes trade school or college, and maybe it doesn’t. It’s okay either way.
Below are two extensive school cheat sheets that tumblr user jwstudying put together. They’re more conscise and thorough then I can currently be (because it’s like. 2 a.m. where I am and I’m having trouble staying awake). I haven’t gotten a chance to look through all the stuff jwstudying provided, so I’m not sure if all the links work. Hopefully they do.
I hope all of this helps, anon! Good luck with high school. Message me again if you want to talk or need more advice. 
CHEAT SHEET 1
soothe yourself | self care
stationery
printables
helpful sites
music for studying | more music
note taking methods  | another one
studying methods
english | physics | chemistry | biology | maths | languages
how to learn a language
ultimate guide for writing | writing resources | writing helps | tips for writers
how to write a kickass essay | write a great essay | stuff you need to write essays | essay tips | essay checklist | grade your essay
how do I study for…
bullet journals | a guide to bullet journals
the testing effect
everything you need to succeed in school
time management
organisation
how to annotate | another one
guide to aesthetically pleasing notes | improve your handwriting
create a study guide
resources | helpful websites | there’s an app for that
get more out of google
productivity resources | 14 apps to become productive | how to stay productive
lazy night owl school survival guide
apps for a better life | useful websites for students
masterpost of studying tips
social media citation guide
college masterpost | another one | starting college on the right foot | packing for college | how to survive in college
how to ace that college interview
food to stay motivated | motivation guide
how to stay awake in class
balancing a healthy lifestyle
studying on your period
huge masterpost for the semester
a very long list to help you survive school
not enough time to finish an assignment?
100 delicious cheap recipes
53 posts for students
high school cheat sheet
CHEAT SHEET 2:
back to school masterlist
tips for exams
ultimate back to school tips
tips for the new school year
4 legal ways to get free textbooks
essential productivity apps
actual first time college advice | tips for lectures | how to take lecture notes
study breaks | studying hacks
bet your teachers never taught you this
how to take organised notes
text book tips
tips to make school life easier
how to do cover letters
studying a foreign language tips
dyslexia friendly fonts
writing about royal characters
language learning sites
tips for effective studying
travel cheap
23 editing tips
useful apps for students
words to describe someone’s voice
Joss Whedon’s writing tips | writing references
50 things to ask your character before you start writing
stop using google.com to search information
life hacks for school
how to write an essay
8 basics of creative writing | fantasy guide | songs for creating stuff
for crime writers
dear writers
a high school teacher’s list of 100 wisest words
confused what to underline, italicize and when to use quotation marks?
feeling anxious for school?
make pretty banners | another one | and another one | one more | okay last one i promise
how to study like a harvard student
how to do pretty lettering | how to make your notes pretty | handwriting and note taking | colour code notes | how to maintain good notes | take digital notes
using one note to take notes | another one
how to get shit done
things i wish people had told me when i was a freshman
handwriting reference
in class notes reference
20 things I found out about studying last year | things to do remember when studying
revising for maths
abbreviations for note taking | 2
12 things i learnt during 12 years of school
transition words
how to study from textbooks
how to make history timelines
what to do if you fail a class
backpack essentials
studying 101: how to stay focused, motivated, and on track.
secret study tips | top tips for studying in college
ultimate studyblr guide
hey, school’s hard
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sumofmanythings · 7 years
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When Black Men? When?
I’m so tired.  I’m tired of justifying my value to black men.   We are living in tumultuous times.  Last week, it was Tyrese condemning black women, this week we learned a teenage girl was kidnapped and gang raped live on Facebook and there are several missing black girls in Washington DC right now that no one is talking about….TIRED!!!! 
 A teenage girl is kidnapped, gang raped and it’s streamed live to 40 people who watched and never called police. That’s an unspeakable horror I can’t even fathom but to make it worse, her face and screenshots of the video are circulating online, shared by many who have never taken the time to think about, “what if this was my daughter?”.   She’s being victimized and raped all over again. Why can't you see the value in her humanity?  Why can't you see your own daughters, mothers, in her? Have we taken time to think about what this young girl needs most?  After being violated in the worst way…she needs to feel safe and protected by a community who cares about her.  Her face and identity should be protected as much as possible because you know what? If she wasn’t black, we’d never know who she was. Her face wouldn’t be all over the internet, she would have been protected.  Black women are never afforded that opportunity.  We don’t get to feel safe, even amongst our own. 
Several black girls are missing in Washington DC right now and you probably didn’t know about it? Why? Because they don’t care…black girls don’t matter in this society.  Our lives aren’t valued, we are automatically considered runaways, drug addicts, prostitutes, drop outs before any details are released. That’s the narrative and we don’t have our own to defend us. When unarmed black women are shot by police, we don’t see the outrage. We hear “Well why was she talking”?  "She should have just stayed quiet".  We don’t have our own to ensure the truth is told about our story. We don’t have our own to “humanize” us in a society that doesn’t see the value in our black and brown female lives.   
Black men routinely police our bodies, our looks, and our hair.  We are phony and fake if we wear wigs, weaves or makeup. We are plain and homely if we rock our natural hair and go makeup free.  (unless you are post pro-active Alicia Keys) Photos and images of fetishized black women are posted on social media on a regular basis not out of admiration but out of pure lust.  The same bodies you lust after are the same ones you criticize.  It’s ridiculous.  We aren’t allowed to simply exist in bodies, hairstyles, and looks that we like.  It’s a strange dichotomy,  our looks, hair, body types and styles are constantly imitated and duplicated and praised, but only when they appear on non-melinated bodies and faces. 
Why do we always have to prove our value to you? I don’t get it at all.   We gave birth to you, raised you, and loved you…yet now you spew hatred towards single mothers?  We’ve opened our hearts to you, birthed your children, pledged our loyalty to you in marriage and relationships, only to repeatedly have our hearts broken, be lied to, cheated on, abused and thrown away like trash.  We’ve stood on the front lines ready to fight for justice in your names; we’ve screamed “Black Lives Matter” even when we knew it didn’t include us, when you were too apathetic to care. IT WAS US! IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN US!!!  Yet, you disrespect, dishonor and undervalue us all the time.  When Black men? When?
Those of you “woke” black men who claim to love black people so much yet treat women like trash and sperm receptacles. Acting as if we are beneath you and your authority with your archaic ideas.   You can’t love black people and hate black women. That’s not how the revolution works.  We are constantly fetishized by you, lusting our bodies but not valuing our identities.  When women of other races run to doctors to reshape their bodies to emulate ours, you put them on pedestals, praising them while belittling the women they copied.  It’s unbelievable. You can’t uplift every other race of women, praising their features, body shapes, hair textures then condemn black women who try to be what you perceive as beautiful.  You can’t criticize black women who say to hell with your beauty standards and love the natural skin, hair and shape they are in.    You can’t spend your days on social media posting memes about gold digging black women then turn around and criticize an “independent one”. We are damned if we do, damned if we don’t. I’m exhausted by you…a living contradiction…I am a black woman who loves black men, raising 2 black boys but is routinely disappointed in your actions.    Black Women are routinely disrespected and disregarded by society but in no space greater than the presence of black men. 
I’ve watched you over the years; belittle black abuse victims and black rape victims. Even now, you question the validity of rape culture.   Yet, you fall on your swords for women like Rachel Dolizal?  Really?  You want loyalty, you want us to stand with you while you navigate through your bullshit and settle your mediocrity? You want us to “hang in there” and be a “ride or die” as you deal with “your issues” and find your way.  You want us to love you in your financially strapped state, constantly referencing women like Michelle Obama, when you don’t have the ambition, drive or desire to be better man like Barack?    When we decide we want better or more, then we are bitter bitches or crazy.  Fuck us for having standards, fuck us for saying, “I’d rather be alone”.   You want a woman “who has her own” but you better not be a woman who “doesn’t need a man”? Black Feminists are tearing apart the families? Seriously? It’s not the black men who leave their families and never return? Do you even realize the actual definition of a feminist is a woman fighting for equal rights? How does that diminish you?  I’m tired black men…I really am. 
And before you go with the, “you need to find new black men”, “you pick the wrong ones" narrative”, let me tell you, if you aren’t one of these men, WONDERFUL… however, chances are you know one who is.  You want to lead? Start with your circles.  Consider it fuckboy outreach.  Educate your boy; give him some knowledge so he too can live his life, “fuckboy free”, instead of getting mad at me for calling SOME men out on their bullshit.  Fuckboys and their theology are running rampant in our communities.  FuckBoys are outnumbering Free Thinking ones…it’s an epidemic of the “Strong and Wrong”.
I’m tired of being loyal to men who don’t value women outside of their sexual needs. I'm tired of men who leech off of women, draining them of their warmth, generosity, listening ears.   I’m tired of men who don’t know how to love and think inboxing and sending dick pics etc. isn’t cheating.  I’m tired of married men who cheat, then blame their wives.   I’m exhausted by the men who spend their days fishing for “fresh meat” setting thirst traps then calling the women they sleep with hoes or dumb because they didn’t have a working fuckboy detector that would scream “COMMUNITY DICK”.   I’m tired of men who have no idea how to protect the very women they lay down with and procreate with. I’m tired of explaining why beating a woman to the ground is wrong.  I’m tired of men asking “what a woman was wearing”, “why was she out so late”, “where are her parents” when she is sexually assaulted instead of asking the question, “Why did this man think it was ok to violate this woman’s body against her will”.   I’m tired of men blaming women’s frustration, anger, fear etc. on “Daddy Issues”, when most of you grew up with daddy’s out of the home, bringing your abandonment, commitment issues into relationships with women you claim to love, or better yet, your dad was in the home but so damn detached emotionally, he left you in a crippled emotional state and you continue the cycle of emotional dysfunction.   I’m tired of men, dismissing women’s heartbreak instead of acknowledging the role they played in it; you lied and schemed your way into a woman’s heart before you revealed yourself for the wolf you really were.  EXHAUSTED…
If there was ever a time to get it together and protect the ones we love…it’s NOW!!! WHAT WILL IT TAKE? When will you love us, value us, protect us, and stand with us?  When Black Men? WHEN? We need you just as much as you need us…that’s how the revolution begins…UNIFIED. 
I’m ready…how about you?
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jayne-hecate-writer · 5 years
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The Ocean of Self Hatred
Times have been hard and I was forced to step away from my writing for my own sanity. 
There are a number of reasons for my sudden departure from creativity and after several months, I am now back to a small degree and I can explain what small events caused this flight into fear. 
The first thing that happened was that I was given some very serious negative feedback about my writing, it ridiculed my sentence structure, made fun of my character development and was harshly critical of my cover design. I am aware of my own limitations so I could concede many of the points made, but not to the severity of them. It went beyond critical reviewing and stepped into mockery of my art form which as a new writer, took me right back to my childhood and the mockery I received for my poor spelling and grammar. 
As a child, I went to around thirteen different schools and I moved so often that I did not spend more than a couple of years in one place. The result of this was that I had huge gaps in my education and was missing some of the fundamental skills required to write and spell correctly. These missing sections of my education gave me some rather mediocre exam results on leaving school and a school report that wrote me off as educationally underwhelming. So on leaving school I jumped ship, right into college, topping up the missing sections and ended up going to two universities to get a degree and then a post graduate certificate. 
The same kind of thing can be applied to my writing. I have had no formal training as a writer, my degree was actually science, which is an entirely different form of creativity. Self editing long form stories takes a huge amount of effort and after reading the novel for the sixth time in a month, even simple mistakes made while editing are easily missed. I am also not a designer and I have not a single qualification in any form of artistic endeavour, so cover design was a real challenge for me. It would be very easy to take these things and add a negative spin, turning them from real reasons into bitter excuses. But I am going to stop that right now. They are not excuses. My first book was a great adventure for me. I had not the first clue on book design, despite reading so many books for my own pleasure. I did all of the work myself, which I then placed on Amazon Kindle to the complete indifference of the publishing world. My partner and I spent an entire year sending off the required details to agents and publishers, receiving well over three hundred rejections until we had one single bite of interest. (Technically, this is not true, we had several bites, but most of them were from vanity publishers who would take my work and simply print it, at great cost so that I could then sell them myself.) 
The one good bite came from a publisher who stated that they were greatly interested in the first two chapters that the submission required and they wanted to read the rest of the book. The book was supplied and we were told that after six months, they would be back in touch. Sadly we never heard from them again and that was why the book got put on Kindle. I moved on because I had other stories to tell. I also joined a writers group and began spending time with other writers, honing my skills. 
So my first full length book is amateurish and it has have many flaws, maybe even several spelling mistakes that I have not spotted and yet it stands as a real achievement. Some of my friends have been very kind with their comments, they understood what the book meant, where it came from and what I had achieved. 
The criticism I received for the book rocked me from my rowing boat of self belief, or maybe self deceit. It told me that I had not done very well, that my attempts were worthless and that I should not have bothered. Actually, that is not what the criticism told me at all, that is what I told myself afterwards. The criticism told me what I already knew, that the book had some flaws and some bits of it could have been done better. But my own lack of self love took a long negative dive into self disgust for having even tried. I punished me for being a beginner, for not being like Penguin Books, for not being good enough and in so many ways I am still doing this, acting out this brutal regime of self sabotage and it is fucking crippling me.
The second attack on my creativity came when I was set to be reassessed for my disability by the agencies that we have in the UK. There is currently a feeling here that disability is somehow shameful, that disabled people should be thankful for what little handouts the state gives us and we should shut up our moaning. Opinion on what makes disability has in some ways been handed to the common man in the street and the results of this are that there is a growing trend for hatred towards disabled people on social media and all of the other places where the angry hate filled slack jawed mouth breathers can find easy targets to attack with their bile. When I saw a sign on the door of a disabled toilet in a supermarket, that was clearly produced on the office printer and read “Not all disabilities are visible, please be kind to disabled people”, I knew that things had got nasty. 
The self sabotage set in once more and my guilt and shame for having mental and physical health problems went into overdrive. The assessment by the benefits team is far from over and right now I am living in dread of the report that will be written on me. Reports from several disability charities in the UK show that I am not alone in living with these fears though. Disability assessments are so stressful that disabled people would rather live in poverty and suffering, than go through the system that is supposed to support them. For me, it got so bad that in desperation I contacted my local politician and asked for them to step in and put a stop to one of the things I was facing. The bitter irony of this is that this politician is the same man who voted in parliament to reduce benefits available to disabled people, because disabled people should be out earning for themselves! The levels of selfishness and inhumanity shown by this Government disgust me and yet I was forced to ask them for help. 
The anxiety that grew within me, leading up to my assessment, got so out of hand that I was barely able to function. I stopped going outside, I certainly stopped driving and I stopped interacting as I withdrew into the shadows putting a stop to almost all of my artistic efforts. This was not a safe place for me to be because this was where my inner demons berated me and beat me down for my weakness. It seems that I truly love punishing myself, often far more brutally and to greater depth than any judicial system would consider sinking to. 
I may possibly say that I am now swimming in the bleak ocean waters of self hate rather than drowning in them, but I am not yet ready to walk across the beach of self sabotage or even step into the quiet cafe of self doubt to have a cup of safe, mildly chilled anxiety. I think that this analogy is starting to leak now, but I still have some way to go before we can let it flow away. Despite all of the dark waters of misery I am swimming in, stood on the distant seawall of happiness is a group of good friends who are waving at me and even holding the warm soft beach towel of comfort. These are the people who tell me that my creativity is good enough to play with, that I should try my best to do what I once loved and most importantly of all that my self sabotage is not needed. 
The last review I wrote for a piece of theatre (is this another analogy, like a slice of creamy mime or a side salad of death metal?) was praised by several people who mean a great deal to me or that I even admire. It was even commented on by the theatre themselves who were very pleased with it, because it was fair and it was balanced. Criticism has to be balanced. Some one once told me that there are no bad writers, just books that don’t interest us (I would dispute this, but then my Kindle recommendations were recently filled up with awful rubbish written by Holocaust deniers, after I looked at one such book because I did not believe that such things could exist!). So if my book fails to interest someone, so be it. I wrote that book because I had a story to tell, the people living in my head wanted to get out. At the moment, the sequel is stalled, like a broken down Morris Marina on a mudflat (what is it with the fucking ocean references?!) waiting for the tide to go out so that it can be recovered. I am not yet ready to continue my writing, but the voices of the characters in my unfinished story want me to continue. 
I don’t know when I will start working on my writing again, but it will happen. There are a few things I need to work on first (my obsession with miserable oceans for a start!) such as my self sabotage and self doubt. Trying to feel worthwhile as an artist takes effort. Anxiety and depression are exhausting and make such efforts almost impossible. Doing it without medication is harder still, but living on medication is even less desirable because although they make me level (like a flat ocean that is freezing over by any chance?), that level is lower than it should be and I lose all of my creativity all together.
So do I have any words of wisdom worth sharing? Maybe, maybe not. I can tell you that self doubt and anxiety are crippling. Good friends tell you the truth, but do so positively. I can also tell you that creating anything is a great achievement. Self publishing is bloody hard, to do it well requires a huge amount of effort or a bloody deep purse (full of doubloons from a pirate ship no doubt!), so if you are also working hard on making or creating, bloody good for you. You inspire me because you are a shining example of what it means to be an artist. Well done you, have a hug. 
If you want to see some excellent examples of creativity in action, buy the last book released by my writing club. You could also get yourself on Youtube and check out Adam Savage’s Tested because that is always inspiring. There is also Sariel’s Technic Lego channel which is amazing. Also, go and give some of your time to the awesome Bucket Head Props and their friend Ace Cosplay who frankly are both amazing. There is no end to the adventures that can be had in creativity of any type and all of these people prove that beautifully. 
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holisticfansstuff · 6 years
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Re Max Landis
DISTURBING
‘Bright’ Screenwriter Max Landis Accused of Sexual-Assault
MARLOW STERN
12.23.17 9:00 PM ET
FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY
Netflix’s first blockbuster movie, the $90 million fantasy-actionerBright, is a steaming pile of orc shit; a nonsensical garbage pile featuring elves, orcs, a checked-out Will Smith, Chicanx gangster stereotypes worse than those regrettable “Homies” figurines (a trademark of its director David Ayer), and a slow-motion shootout set to Bastille that’ll make you want to go full Sam Neill in the final third of Event Horizon—that is, rip your own eyes out and run around naked attacking people.
It is also, according to the testimonies of several industry people on Twitter, written by an alleged sexual predator.
Bright was written by Max Landis, a 32-year-old screenwriter who became a hot Hollywood commodity after penning 2012’s found-footage superhero film Chronicle. Since then, however, he’s been attached to a string of misfires, from his directorial debut Me Him Her to the forgettable flicksAmerican Ultra, Mr. Right, andVictor Frankenstein. In the wake of Bright’s critical drubbing, people have mocked Landis’ considerable privilege, given both the amount of opportunities he’s been given since Chronicle, a film that was more effects and performance-driven, and the fact that he is the son of John Landis, the celebrated filmmaker behind classics like National Lampoon’s Animal House, Trading Places,Coming to America, and the “Thriller” music video.
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Despite the poor reception, Netflix has reportedly green-lit a sequel to Bright, with Smith attached in the starring role. It is unclear if Landis will be writing the script.
In the early hours Friday morning, Netflix’s official Twitter account sent out a tweet promoting the premiere ofBright, set to debut that day. Anna Akana, an actress who appeared in a Landis-helmed YouTube video titled Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling, responded to the tweet, writing: “Written by a psychopath who sexually abused and assaults women, right? Cool.”
Written by a psychopath who sexually abused and assaults women, right? Cool
— Anna Akana (@AnnaAkana)December 22, 2017
The tweet from Akana, who did not elaborate further, led others to take to Twitter and accuse Landis of sexual misconduct—including Zoe Quinn, a prominent video game developer and artist, who unleashed a Twitter thread directed at Landis that began with: “Sometimes men who commit sexual assault are talented screenwriters and their work comes with baggage. other times, they’re Max Landis.” Quinn further alleged that Landis’ abuse was an “open secret” in Hollywood, and that she’d been withholding the story for a while because “him & his dad are powerful figures.”
Sometimes men who commit sexual assault are talented screenwriters and their work comes with baggage.
other times, they’re Max Landis.
— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017
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Folks were mad that a Pepe Le Pew movie was being made because who needs a movie about a rapist skunk but at least it meant max landis could switch from cringe fiction to finally writing his autobiography and writing what he knows
— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017
It probably has been an open secret for so long because it’s hard to talk about the seriously fucked up shit he’s done when you say his name and everyone within earshot has to seek medical care from reflexively rolling their eyes so hard they sprain. you can’t control it.
— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017
I’ve been holding in this shit for years as more friends have accrued “max landis stories” bc it wasn’t my place and him & his dad are powerful figures so naturally going against that is terrifying for survivors so I’m SO glad people are finding out what a piece of shit he is.
— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017
I hope each one of his teeth break individually.
— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017
my last encounter with him was watching him tell my friend on the night that her ex beat her up that since she’s gotten abused before she should figure out what she’s doing to cause all that drama for herself and not to reach out to friends about it on social media
— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017
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I hope this means I don’t have to avoid more cool parties that I know he’s been invited to too because life is too short to deal with someone who is like if a gross uncle and cocaine had a baby and the baby was also a rapist
— questionable rat currency (@UnburntWitch) December 23, 2017
Talk alluding to Landis’ alleged history of sexual misconduct has been floating around industry circles for quite some time. And back in early November, MADmagazine editor Allie Goertz sent out a cryptic tweet that read, “I can’t imagine who is more scared in a post-Weinstein world than a famous director’s son.” The tweet was, according to several people familiar, about Landis, and the thread prompted a reply from Akana, writing, “Believe you. Support you.”
Earlier this week, Jake Weisman, creator of the upcoming Comedy Central series Corporate, composed a tweet that appeared to be directed at Landis: “Definitely watch that big Netflix movie coming out, written by that fucking psychopath who is one of the worst people alive.” Mike Drucker, a writer for The President Show, replied to it with: “Jake, I have exactly entirely 100% no idea of whom you’re talking about but I just hope he doesn’t have a powerful father in Hollywood who’s covered up for the fucked up shit he’s done.”
Former BBC host and sketch-comedy writer Siobhan Thompson then responded to Drucker’s tweet, writing: “I don’t know who you mean but if that’s true I bet I have SEVERAL friends who have been sexually assaulted by him.”
I don't know who you mean but if that's true I bet I have SEVERAL friends who have been sexually assaulted by him
— Siobhan Thompson (@vornietom) December 19, 2017
Landis also has a history of making outrageously problematic statements. Back in 2013, the then 28-year-old rising screenwriting star did an interview with Shelby Sells (that has since been deleted), where he discussed sex and Hollywood—including an episode wherein he alleges that an extra on one of his films tried to pursue him, so he gave her his number “because i was like, why not? maybe i’ll hook her up with one of my friends.” 
“Women who are throwing it that easy—they’re not doing it because they think i’m cute, they’re doing it because they need some kind of validation. i’m a tiny, tiny bit successful, but in the scale of things you’re gonna fuck me for no reason? i don’t see it. i’m not on that level. i’m not a rockstar—i’m not in a band, you’re not going to be in my video. the only thing you could get from fucking me is getting to fuck me, and if so, lucky you,” said Landis. “i guarantee that’s not what any of these chicks who just throw it at me really want. granted they’ll have a wonderful time, but it’s weird. being a single guy in LA is fun as fuck and i love it. the fact that everyone here is so good-looking is intense and good and rewarding. something about everyone around you being a little bit better looking, it puts you in a good mood. i don’t feel bad or superficial for saying that. i’m also attracted to ambition and there’s a lot of that out here. but yea being a single guy in LA is great. sorry it took me so long to answer that question.”
Later on in the interview, Landis expounded on an ex he says he “gave a crippling social anxiety, self-loathing, body dismorphia, eating disorder to.”
“i mean you can’t really give someone any of these things, but the seeds of these things were there inside of her. we were in such a sort of unfair, fucked up relationship—not the kind where there’s a lot of yelling and screaming—the actual relationship was very nice and loving, but i was so fickle about her body. i’m not shy, i would just blurt out shit all the time. she ended up completely changing how she dressed and how she looked for me. that chick will never talk to me again,” Landis said.
It should be noted that this wave of allegations against Landis are, at this point in time, just that. The Daily Beast has reached out to Landis’ representation and will update if they respond.
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