#let ppl like what they want kid

[inkskinned]

they want to talk about mental illness and acceptance and how everyone is a little ocd it's cute and quirky and their "intrusive thoughts" are about cutting their hair off and you say yours are about taking a razorblade to your eye and they say ew can you not and everyone is a little adhd sometimes! except if you're late it's a personality flaw and it's because you are careless and cruel (and someone else with adhd mentions they can be on time, so why can't you?) and it's not an eating disorder if it's girl dinner! it's not mania if it's girl math! what do you mean you blew all of your savings on nonrefundable plane tickets for a plane you didn't even end up taking. what do you mean that you are afraid of eating. get over it. they roll their little lips up into a sneer. can you not, like, trauma dump?

they love it on them they like to wear pieces of your suffering like jewels so that it hangs off their tongue in rapiers. they are allowed to arm-chair diagnose and cherrypick their poisons but you can't ever miss too many showers because that's, like, "fuckken gross?" so anyone mean is a narcissist. so anyone with visual tics is clearly faking it and is so cringe. but they get to scream and hit customer service employees because well, i got overwhelmed.

you keep seeing these posts about how people pleasers are "inherently manipulative" and how it's totally unfair behavior. but you are a people pleaser, you have an ingrained fawn response. in the comments, you have typed and deleted the words just because it is technically true does not make it an empathetic or kind reading of the reaction about one million times. it is technically accurate, after all. you think of catholic guilt, how sometimes you feel bad when doing a good deed because the sense of pride you get from acting kind - that pride is a sin. the word "manipulation" is not without bias or stigma attached to it. many people with the fawn response are direct victims of someone who was malignantly manipulative. calling the victims manipulative too is an unfair and unkind reading of the situation. it would be better and more empathetic to say it is safety-seeking or connection-seeking behavior. yes, it can be toxic. no, in general it is not intended to be toxic. there is no reason to make mentally ill people feel worse for what we undergo.

you type why is everyone so quick to turn on someone showing clear signs of trauma but you already know the fucking answer, so what's the point of bothering. you kind of hate those this is what anxiety looks like! infographics because at this point you're so good at white-knuckling through a severe panic attack that people just think you're stoic. even people who know the situation sometimes comment you just don't seem depressed. and you're not a 9 year old white kid so there's no way you're on the spectrum, you're not obsessed with trains and you were never a good mathematician. okay then.

mental illness is trending. in 2012 tumblr said don't romanticize our symptoms but to be fair tiktok didn't exist yet. there's these series of videos where someone pretends to be "the most boring person on earth" and is just being a normal fucking person, which makes your skin crawl, because that probably means you are boring. your friend reads aloud a profile from tinder - no depressed bitches i fucking hate that mental illness crap. your father says that medication never actually works.

you still haven't told your grandmother that you're in therapy. despite everything (and the fact it's helping): you just don't want her to see you differently.

[lunarharp]

scribbles... pre-relationship onsen trip

[puppyeared]

Once upon a time

[boyfriendgideon]

as yr favorite local jason todd fan sometimes i get so fed up with the apparent inability of most dc comic writers to write a class conscious narrative about him.

and yes, i know that comics are a very ephemeral and constantly evolving and self-conflicting medium.

and yes, i know they’re a profit-driven art medium created in a capitalistic society, so there are very few times where comics are going to be created solely out of the desire to authentically and carefully and deliberately represent a character and take them from one emotional narrative place to another, because dc cares about profit and sometimes playing it safe is what sells.

and yes, i know comics and other forms of art reflect and recreate the society within which they were conceived as ideas, and so the dominant societal ideas about gender and race and class and so on are going to be recreated within comics (and/or will be responded to, if the writer is particularly societally conscious).

but jesus christ. you (the writer/writers) have a working class character who has been homeless, who has lost multiple parents, who has been in close proximity to someone struggling with addiction, who has had to steal to survive, who may have (depending on your reading of several different moments across different comics created by different people) been a victim of csa, who has clearly (subtextually) struggled with his mental health, who was a victim of a violent murder, and who has an entirely distinct and unique perspective on justice that has evolved based on his lived experiences.

and instead of delving into any of that, or examining the myriad of ways that classism in the writers’ room and the editors’ room and the readers’ heads affected jason’s character to make sure you’re writing him responsibly, or giving him a plotline where his views on what justice looks like are challenged by another working class character, or allowing him to demonstrate actual autonomy and agency in deciding what relationships he wants to have with people who he loves but sees as having failed him in different ways, or thinking carefully about what his having chosen an alias that once belonged to his murderer says about his decision-making and motivations, you keep him stuck in a loop of going by the red hood, addressing crime by occupying a position of relative power that perpetuates crime & harm rather than ever getting at the root causes, and seesawing between a) agreeing with his adoptive family entirely about fighting nonlethally in ways that are often inconsistent with his apparent motivations or b) disagreeing and experiencing unnecessarily brutal and violent reactions from his adoptive father as if that kind of violence isn’t the kind of thing he experienced as a child and something bruce himself is trying to prevent jason from perpetuating. because a comic with red hood, quips, high stakes, and familial drama sells.

it doesn’t matter if it keeps jason trapped, torn between an unanswered moral and philosophical question, a collection of identities that no longer fit him, and a family that accepts him circumstantially. it doesn’t matter if jason’s characterization is so utterly inconsistent that the only way to mesh it together is to piece different aspects of different titles and plotlines together like a jigsaw. it doesn’t matter if you do a disservice to his character, because in the end you don’t want to transform him or even understand him deeply enough to identify what makes him compelling and focus on that.

and i love jason!!!!! i love him. and i think about the stories we could have, if quality and art and doing justice to the character were prioritized as much as selling a title and having a dark and brooding batfam member besides bruce just to be the black sheep character are prioritized. and i just get a little sad.

[aalghul]

I don’t think it makes sense to assume that Jason was mocking Mia’s past. At all. The thing that got jason painted as violent back in the 80s was his anger against rapists…how does that turn into mocking a victim? and that entire story was written by winick. Do we honestly think winick intended to communicate that? The same writer who made Jason’s first kill a man who was trafficking children? Who had Jason pause in his mission of madness to make sure those kids were found by the right people so they wouldn’t be in further danger?

[thelilylav]

My one true gripe w the ending of hazbin hotel was Charlie did NOT get to go apeshit enough let my girl lose her temper I need to see her rage

Also here’s the actual comic lol:

[oatbugs]

pls i need to provide updates

[sieglinde-freud]

been thinking about the tharjabelle family unit a lot. i think maribelle spent five thousand years scraping through ye olden baby names textbooks in her family’s library and was like “We shall name our daughter Noire! It’s a lovely name, a reference to your love of the dark arts and [wikipedia etymology section] while still being classy. Just gorgeous. Now, what shall we name our son?” and tharja goes “brady.” mari’s like ???? fym brady what the hell is that and tharja goes “oh its traditional plegian” “Oh, really!? 😄” “no”

[bunnihearted]

🐰🌧️

[1pcii]

SHADAHKNKAS saw u in the notes of some kuina posts and that made me realize that there is simply a bond with kuina and tashigi fans, who may even often be the same fan, because AOUGHHH KUINA I CARE HIM SO MUCH episode 19 literally changed me forever. swords + gender struggles are all you need to hook me on a character sometimes Maybe. the whole greatest swordsman promise... sob. also. something about zoro promising his name will reach the heavens and trans kuina. which made me think.. what if kuina and The trans fear of dying then having your deadname on your tombstone that you can't do anything about because you're dead. kuina dying before they even get to figure everything out and all of a sudden he's just known as kuina forever, and then zoro making a name for himself in kuina's honor or something idk (i like zoro's backstory) (KUINA )

THERE ISS. people who theorise that they are secretly related or the same person or direct parallels are so close to getting it but don't imo (no shade to those theories tho, I just personally find them narratively unsatisfying).

like they are parallels in that kuina is symbolic of the sexism people suffer and tashigi is an adult woman who has come out the other end sword swinging but ultimately so unsure of herself as a result. also the (trans)genderisms, we are all hand in hand 🤝.

MAN KUINAS STORY BROKE ME DOWN ON A BASE LEVEL AND REWIRED NY BRAIN. I had to take a break from reading just to let it soak in it's so good, a swordsmans promise indeed, that scene was beautiful, I love zoro the world's first a accidental feminist <3. zoro carrying on her dream with his will never not have me in hysterics.

FUCK YEA THATS SUCH A GOOD IDEA. I have soo many thoughts about baby!zoro and kuina and trangenderism. egg kuina cis zoro, egg kuina STEALTH TRANS ZORO ABSVDJFBKSHDKDN <333.

little baby zoro looking at his grave with the uncontrollable urge to carve out those letters. to carry and rearrange them and make sure they get back to him in the afterlife spelling 'worlds greatest swordsman'.

trans kuina makes me so emotional because ultimately I don't know if they were canonically trans but it's my FAVOURITE 'what if' for them. they never really got to be anyone outside the dojo masters daughter. the failure of a heir and the girl who beat zoro 2001 times. who would they have been if they got to grow up? come to terms with themselves and unlearned all that heavy, painful biases pushed onto them? as a transmasc who's studying into a (cis)male dominated field myself ik, the feelings of 'betrayal' and 'proving misogynists right' and imposter syndrome and inadequacy issues and perfectionism they might've gone through,,, sobbing my eyes out HE MEANS EVERYTHING TO MEE.

zoros backstory is genuinely one of my favourite parts of the manga idc how 'simple' it was it's still beautiful.

[catboyfurina]

focalette / neuvalors whatever the ship name is orz

[inkskinned]

it is totally okay to be hurt and tired and fed up with the american schooling system but i need you to understand that we need to be better about loudly and routinely defending public education.

yes, many teachers suck, many schools utterly suck. i also got bullied and was absolutely not given the right support for my needs. i am not defending public education because it was kind to me. i am defending it because it needs to exist.

right-wing republicans do not want an educated population. they want kids to be homeschooled or in private school. there is a huge religious undertone to this.

the most common argument is that despite high costs, the "result" is not "good" enough. they point to failing schools as proof that public education is just never going to work out. there will be arguments made here that you actually agree with: that teachers can be bullies, that we taught online for 2 years and still charged the same amount of tuition, that we have no recourse for students to actually have agency or a voice, and that schools are now unsafe for kids due to risk of illness and gun violence.

these are all placing the blame in a fraudulent way, one intended to get your parents to homeschool you. the less kids in a school, the less federally-awarded funding for that school, the less any school succeeds. they will not mention the fact it is their legislation that takes away important funding opportunities, that teachers are living at or below the poverty line, that buildings are not kept up to code, that administration is overpaid and forces specific curriculums, that corporations like (my personal enemy) Pearson Education control certain classroom goals because teachers can't afford other options. they pretend to be ignorant of the gun violence and say "oh just get a gun" - but these are the same people who will be sending their child to a private school with a bulletproof backpack. they don't care if your kid dies, though. they "don't believe" in covid, but they did get their kid vaccinated, because of course they did.

it is a closed loop. conservative parents hear the fearmongering and remove children from the system. frequently these parents are also deeply religious. the kids are raised without access to other media & learn to parrot their parents. you have now created a new generation of conservatives. additionally, one of the parents/caregivers must stay home and homeschool the children, usually for free. i will give you 1 guess which parent tends to stay home to homeschool the children. these parents are encouraged to have many, many children. those children are most likely not getting access to safe sex ed.

we might laugh at fox news suggesting teachers are forcing children to use kitty litter but: first of all, there is kitty litter in the classroom. it's part of an emergency kit in case children are locked in due to a shooter. so that's fucking dystopian, and the fact they've completely reimagined the scenario to somehow make the teachers look bad when it's instead a fucking huge symbol of our failure as a country to protect our children.... it feels a little intentional.

secondly: don't just dismiss the situation. because, yeah, obviously, no teacher is encouraging kids to be a catboy. but the actual undertone that fox news is trying to sew is an outright distrust of teachers and of public education. they rely on the dehumanization of trans people as a common touchstone to hide the fact they're pushing two agendas at once. (which is ironic. because the thing they accuse teachers of. is pushing. an agenda.)

whenever someone tells you they want you to read less, you should be suspicious of that. when someone tries to separate you and your education, you should be suspicious of that. i don't even like incel rhetoric nor would i want my kids exposed to it - but i would not take away my child's (age-appropriate) access to the internet. i would just provide more educational materials, not less. the difference here is that i believe we can resolve ignorance with knowledge; whereas conservatives believe that ignorance is bliss.

they misappropriate funding and demonize teachers. they pull the same trick each time - the same thing we are seeing with anti-trans rhetoric. they do not want you to have access to safe sex ed, so they act horrified, claim sex ed teaches you how to thrust deep, claim that we have no idea what "age-appropriate" means. since the mid-nineties, the united states has spent at least 2 billion dollars on abstinence-only education, even though to quote the above link: "a preponderance of studies has found no effect of abstinence education at reducing adolescent pregnancy". conservatives want you to think less of any person struggling with addiction so they can continue their racist "war on drugs", so they spend up to $750 million dollars a year on the DARE program which has absolutely no effect. acting like teachers "must" be "grooming" children is just the same thing - so they can demand that funding either goes to their causes or the funding doesn't "exist" ("i'm not paying for our kids to learn that thing!")

and they want you to feel uncaring about this. they are aware that you will hate some parts of your school experience. pretty much everyone does. they want to lean into the parts that you hate so that you don't put up a fight about it when they take it away for not being "good enough."

i know i maybe sound like a conspiracy theorist. but truly. truly. it is beneficial for conservatives to reduce your faith in the american public schooling system.

one of the explicitly stated campaign promises of the conservative party: to axe the Department of Education in 2024.

i know we are all tired and burnt out and there is so much else wrong with their entire platform. but maybe just - pay attention to this one.

[martyrbat]

so many of you talk about the cruel adults in your childhood that negatively effected you and caused lifelong insecurity yet you're still perfectly fine with being that mean stranger to any kid that has the misfortune of existing around you and thats just really gross !!!

[stinkrascal]

omfg people on antinatalists subreddits are fucking demons. i get being childfree, i am myself and i have no intentions of having children ever. but being an actual child hater and seething whenever you see people having children, blaming poor families for their decisions to have children “maybe you wouldnt be poor if you’d kept your legs closed,” actively talking about people and primarily women who choose to have children in the most degrading and objectifying way possible, and relishing in the misery of real actual children who suffer the most under poverty bc these people dont actually care to fix the problem, they just want to point blame and laugh at people who are suffering with it. like u ppl are literally insane, how do u not realize you sound like a fucking fascist 😭 like these freaks will insist they just “care about the children” and “dont want children to suffer under capitalism” while blaming poor families for being poor (bc poverty is always a choice people make and not at all tied to generational circumstances which are often out of your control, duh) and calling actual living breathing children who exist “crotch goblins” and “failed abortions” like man shut the fuck up, we get it youre miserable and you wish your mother had aborted you too. just do the world a favor and take it out on yourself next time.

[squipdop]

sorry im a god gale truther btw i DO think he should get to usurp mystra and ascend to godhood and i do think that should be an absolutely awful thing to happen to him but also literally everyone else. sorry

[byleresque]

This thought has been hunting me. People out there insist that Mike still loves El romantically and they're endgame, but in the show El doesn't think so. She canonically doubts these things. She broke up with Mike over it. People watching a show where a character says "we don't work as a couple and he doesn't love me" and deciding that they can make better judgement. We as viewers only see the plot relevant shots and theoretically they hang out and talk in between those, they know each other and their bond better than us as observers ever could, how are we supposed to ignore what El thinks about it all? El and Mike are the only ones seeing the full picture here and if we don't listen to them then what are we even going by? Dismissing her feelings because "of course they're going to overcome it they're the main couple"? Isn't it that IF they overcome it they'll be ONE of the couples in this show full of main characters and dynamics? I don't enjoy this interpretation of canon at all. I'm also uncomfortable with the notion that our feelings don't matter and we're all bound to end in the relationships that are socially expected from us

the way milkman isn’t even for milkman...

it goes so much deeper than El is sad because Mike doesn’t say ily -> something happens to change his mind that she is not privy to (i.e. several talks with Will later) -> Mike says ily and now they are the strongest couple to ever couple.

and maybe i know this because i like to watch shows with my eyes open, but El and Mike did not in fact come out of that stronger!!

anon you are so correct that people are dismissing El’s feelings. she is a girl already insecure because she’s lost her powers, she’s being bullied, and her boyfriend hasn’t told her he loves her in several months (how many?? like eight??) even though she says it in every letter she sends. she is desperate for a win. that, and she has been lying about her life in california for that long as well.

i think we don’t talk enough about El lying in her letters. one of El’s core traits, one of the first things she learned in the outside world, is friends don’t lie. for her to lie and lie to Mike shows a deep fracture in their relationship. she doesn’t trust him. she has doubts. maybe she rationalized it as not wanting him to worry-- but like Mike said, he knows about bullying. he knows about being the black sheep. so why lie?

because El doesn’t feel like Mike is someone she can lean on emotionally because he doesn’t lean on her either. they can kiss and hug and smile at each other but do they talk?? ever??

both of them would rather pretend to be content than admit their one piece of social currency, the only thing that gives them a perceived link to normalcy, is circling the drain. their relationship feels like it’s one wrong move from snapping in half which is, uh, exactly what happened.

and maybe a problem like this could’ve been fixed by talking and opening up, but they CAN’T because they honest to god just don’t know each other well enough to do that. what they have is the result of a puppy love crush stretched long past its expiration date. 

but back to the viewers... i think it’s frustrating/hilarious that people are like yep, they’re good! they may be broken up and avoiding each other, but they’re the main couple so they’ll figure it out :) like?? the amount of awkward milkman keeps serving us is just painful to watch. fun fact i did not watch s3 when it came it out because their couple dynamic weirded me out. i was like. am i going crazy or are these kids going way too fast.

i’ll be real with you anon i don’t think ANY of them have the full picture. El doesn’t know why Mike can suddenly say ily except perhaps overhearing Will encourage him to do it. ouch. F in the chat. Mike is all jumbled up from all the stuff Will has been saying, plus the painting and the GUILT oh my god. that boy ain’t right but that’s a conversation for a different post. and Will (honorary mention for being the #1 milkman truther) has the least pieces but is doing the most and unintentionally pushing milkman further off the cliff.

what kind of dramatic conclusion would that be if Mike and El were just fine in s5? El isn’t going to have any questions? They will suddenly be secure in their relationship? incomprehensible. and i totally agree it’s uncomfortable to think that you should just stick to the socially approved relationship and your doubts in that relationship are completely irrelevant. and i HAVE seen people talk about them as if that’s the only course of action left for them. “ohh well i don’t like Mike and El together but the writers wouldn’t make them break up again” says who?? they did it once! and this sentiment is always said to me with this vibe of the writers not being competent enough to fix milkman. as if every other couple in the show isn’t very well-liked. come on. come on now.

a milkman endgame would feel bleak. you would feel like they don’t have much of a future to look forward to outside of 2.5 kids and tv dinners. it doesn’t feel genuine, it doesn’t feel like THEM. how restricting would that be for El? how depressing would that be for Mike? and i think the duffers know that. i think they realized it would be a downer ending to these character arcs and pivoted in s4 to show Mike happily hanging out with the outcasts in the Hellfire club and El going on a backstory mission to rediscover her worth. all a part of the byler agenda

(so instead of that lets now imagine a byler endgame where they can stand up to the world together-- not mistakes and not afraid to live a little differently. they make themselves better just being together. and now El is free to find herself outside of all the goddamn men in her life. duffers i believe in you)