#meaning me among other people

[coralsgrimes]

So Benny *was* made aware that his last show was a super spreader, but instead of addressing it he’s just asking people to be careful for his upcoming shows. I have to laugh 😂😂😂😂

Me though that it was more of a standard girls look after yerselves when ye out and about kind of talk cuz ye know, men are monsters?

But now when ye frame it this waaaay

I mean kinda not his fault cuz it's the overall society that decided to 'live with the virus' is just to say 'this is how it is now' and hit that ignore button lol ON THE OTHER HAND this is the pop up that comes up on his venue website sooooo idk seems to me like saying take care is easier than very possibly cutting ticket sales

[crippledasinfuckyou]

sometimes a healthy relationship isn't 50/50 because it can't be, and that's okay.

disabled people who cannot take on an equal portion of the work in a relationship deserve to be loved too, if that's what they want. and as long as their partner is getting the support they need, and is happy to take on that work, then what's the issue? it's nobodys business but your own the way that works in your relationship.

if you or your partner are disabled, and you can't split the work in the relationship 50/50, that's okay. you're not abusive, or a baby, or unloveable because of that. I promise

[fireladybuckley]

I can’t believe a boyfriend made a silly sex joke to lighten the mood after both partners had a moment of vulnerability. The audacity. The horror. The normalcy! Unbelievable. How dare a conversation about feelings turn to levity. How dare a couple have a light chat about trauma-related things over dinner that doesn’t turn into an incredibly deep heart to heart instead of a joke and moving on. Unbelievable. I’m never watching this show again! 👎🏻

[baldurs-gate-official]

Thinking about Astarion and trauma again (shocking)

He really is the first character I've seen that depicts PTSD/C-PTSD the way he does. He's angry. He's collecting the pieces of himself he had to chip away over the years and figuring out how to fit them back together again, and it's hard.

I rarely see good PTSD rep in media (and C-PTSD is even less depicted/understood). And when I do, it's always the soft pitiable side of it. The side of it that's more palatable and easy to accept. But the reality is that the trauma that stems from such abuse can be vicious, and messy. It can lash out and push people away. Bring out the worst in you, at times. It can be so, so angry.

I love that we see that in Astarion. Both because it's good representation, and because I'm a survivor too. I'm angry. I'm upset. I want to kick and scream about it, but I can't. I feel like I must always remain in control, or that displaying those feelings will only hurt those around me and push them away. I don't want that. I don't want to hurt others or be alone.

Seeing Astarion do those things, being angry and messy over it all... It makes me so happy. He says things to Cazador I wish I could say to my own abusers, with no regard to how others perceive it. He doesn't hold back. And I get to see a character with a very similar kind of trauma do/say the things I only dream about, and not be abandoned for it. He's given the chance to heal and grow as a person, and feel loved. He gets to have a happy ending.

And he gets to be mad. And that's ok.

[fatehbaz]

.

[belphieslilcow]

i think me and my friends are gonna have to take leviathan away from the larger obey me fandom until they learn how to behave and treat her right

[autisticlee]

sometimes people who struggle like to make jokes or find positives about their condition that causes them to struggle so they can escape the constant negative and struggle. sometimes autistic people will say things like "the 'tism" or use the "autism creature" or say their autism helped them have a *positive trait* to feel better about their struggles. because living your life only focusing on the struggles and negatives is depressing and makes it hard to want to live, even if those struggle take up 100% of your life and you can't actually escape them. sometimes any little seemingly positive thing can help a lot.

but there's so many other autistic people that hate when we do that and call it "reducing autism to a cute trendy thing" and say it takes away from *their* struggles and is bad and shouldn't be used. maybe *you* want to only focus on your struggles, but some people can't live in constant negative and need some positive or to find ways to make their condition more positive so they can feel better about living with their struggles. life is hard. I take anything I can get.

I cant get jobs. I can't make and keep friends. I can't get help and support for doing "normal" things so sometimes I go weeks without being able to shower and without eating more than a bowl of cereal a day. most times can't even do things I like. struggle to communicate. have meltdowns. i'll never be able to live independently. I struggle a lot. but instead of sitting here always depressed and having no motivation to live, i'd rather try to joke about "my 'tism is acting up again" when i'm struggling (just an example. don't think I ever actually used the 'tism thing but i saw others use it) or say "i'm just being a creature" when I need to stay in my dark room because everything is too much and I personally find it cute to be a little creature meant in a positive way. i'm not actually downplaying mine or anyone else's struggles. I still acknowledge them and that silly jokes dont make them go away. i'm not trying to be trendy. i'm not doing any of the things people say we do by making silly little jokes. i'm using the silly little jokes to convince myself life can be a little more than pointless, painful garbage all the time.

(continue in tags)

[pedropascallme]

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5SD3RBr2it/?igsh=NmViYTZiaGZmaGUy in case you still haven't seen :D

Thank you!! I hadn’t seen the full thing this is wonderful <3 posting this so everybody else who might’ve missed it can see!

(Also leaving my personal opinions in the tags just to clarify where I stand because I’m so tired of everybody being weird about Damien specifically throughout this whole thing)

[clowngore]

mental illness/personality disorder acceptance isn't "i should be able to do what i want forever with no consequences because of my disorder, and if you get mad at me for being an asshole then you are being ableist"

instead it's not believing in thought crime. it's not thinking that low empathy makes you a bad person. it's not judging attention-seeking behavior. it's not enforcing ableist societal standards on people who can't meet them. it's being understanding when people are trying their best. it's not thinking that doing bad things makes you irredeemably a bad person forever, and supporting people who want to do better.

you do not deserve to have your harmful behaviors 100% excused just because you are mentally ill. you are still hurting people. you don't have the moral right to hurt people, and it doesn't make you superior to not want to get better.

[scattered-winter]

every day i kick a rock and bash my head into the wall because i'll never get to go on a big space adventure and become tightly close-knit with my new found family up there <//3

[relicsongmel]

Was doing some thinking today and realized that one of the reasons I'm really drawn to Kieran is because he's a rare example of a character that's shy (and usually good-hearted) but still has some rougher edges to him.

I feel like all too often shy characters are shoved into being portrayed as either "smol bean who would never hurt anyone and just wants friends uwu" or "brooding loner who snaps at people to cover up the fact they don't actually know how to socialize" with not a lot of wiggle room in between. While I can and do enjoy characters that (arguably) fall into those respective categories, they're a bit reductive in the sense that things are very rarely that black and white in reality. Even the kindest people have a limit to what they can tolerate. They have bad days or respond poorly to events around them that cause them stress. And the same can be said in reverse as well—point being, people are multifaceted and don't always behave as predictably as we'd like to think.

And I think Kieran reflects that dichotomy perfectly. When we first meet him, he's meek, timid, and relies heavily on his more brash and forceful older sister to help him navigate social situations where he would otherwise lose out on something valuable because he's too afraid to come forward and ask for what he wants (like how she has to ask the player to battle him on his behalf). He's often quick to cower whenever she starts to get heated, but he's also not afraid to point out when he thinks she's wrong and sometimes even gets sassy with her himself. He's undeniably sweet and gentle and shows eagerness to make friends with the player, but he becomes much more curt when he notices we're lying to him about Ogerpon. The rest of the Teal Mask storyline shows him fluctuating even further—yelling at Carmine and the player for keeping secrets from him, punching things in fits of anger...then backpedaling and apologizing for the trouble he caused a few scenes later. Spreading the truth about Ogerpon to everyone in the village to help make her happy...then selfishly demanding a battle to see who's worthy of being her Trainer when she has already clearly chosen the player.

After being lied to and suffering repeated losses at our hands (including the Pokemon he's idolized all his life choosing us over him), he leans even more heavily into his bitter side during the Indigo Disk—being cold and ruthless to pretty much everyone around him, but at the end of the day it's primarily overcompensation for what he perceives as his own personal weakness (because he's still just a kid trying to be taken seriously). He's shown to drop the act on multiple occasions—most notably when he's caught off guard by our appearance at Blueberry Academy and at a few points during the Area Zero expedition. He antagonizes the player up until the moment of his defeat and tries to catch and use Terapagos in a last-ditch moment of desperation that ends up going horribly wrong, but after everything resolves he's quick to admit his mistakes and asks the player for forgiveness and if they can still be friends. After the epilogue he's mostly back to his old self, but still seems to get worked up when provoked (e.g. when he yells at Drayton for refusing to stop calling him "ex-Champ" in one of their League Club Room interactions).

And I think this varied and sometimes contradictory behavior is precisely why Kieran is such a cohesive and believable character—because it shows how even kind, well-meaning people may have a hidden darker side that can show itself under the right circumstances. How they might let their insecurities get the better of them. How a shy, timid kid might not have the experience to know how to deal with sudden feelings of frustration and/or jealousy that are far too strong to keep to himself, so he lashes out as a result. How despite all this he remains kind, sensitive and loving at his core and shows willingness to learn from his mistakes. And that is what makes him so compelling to me.

[rexscanonwife]

And by the way just to add some like...angst to my sea beast s/i I guess 😂 I was thinking about the research I did into old selkie folk tales and how they typically tend to go and how it applies to my s/i with Batterbie stealing her coat.

1. She did it when she was still just a child and had lost her whole family, so she probably holds that over her head by saying she's lucky to have had a place to stay and food to eat at ALL and 2. That she could have it...a LOT worse 😬

[deoidesign]

I have a question, but it may be already have been answered in the story (my brain is just not the best with memory).

Since vampirism symbolises for you chronical illness (which, omg, that is a hot take I've never thought off before and love from now on), does Steve count as chronical ill, too, with the whole halfvampire thing going on? So, would his uncontrollable time jumping each month be a symptom of that chronical illness?

not in the story, no worries! Just a possible interpretation and my personal intent when writing.

As a small aside I personally don't like to think of chronic illness as something that people "count" as, so to speak, it's an extremely personal label and incredibly varied between individuals and as with all disability there is never such thing as hard lines or black and white... but I understand why you worded it that way and I understand what you're asking.

So, yes, Steve is also chronically ill within this framework. The entire comic is sort of shaped around this, to be honest! I mean he canonically has some pretty extreme memory issues... He's also canonically homeless (not that this is an illness but I just mean it's something I think most people forget about him when discussing him). And, yes, his condition is uncontrollable and is severely impacting his ability to live the life he wants to live.

He has just been barely coping up to the point we meet him, and has been very desperate which is what led him to creating that list of deviations. He has periods where his body is out of his control, he is unable to form relationships, he hurts others without meaning or wanting to... Yeah. He's metaphorically relating to a lot of things, really.

So, yknow, you're welcome to interpret him as you'd like! for me I relate a lot with my various issues and conditions and thus that's why I've projected on him the way I have, but of course I would understand entirely different interpretations of what is inherently metaphorical.

[ihavedonenothingright]

I find it so interesting that despite using Latin surnames, Muir doesn't care about gender agreement until it comes to Kiriona.

Harrow and Ianthe both have masculine surnames (Nonagesimus and Tridentarius), as do most characters with Latin name endings (us, a, um), but Kiriona? Oh there's something very interesting there.

In Ancient Rome, male citizens were commonly distinguished by three part names: praenomen, nomen, and cognomen. Since I'm still feeling festive, take Gaius Iulius Caesar. His praenomen is Gaius, and is equivalent to a "first name." Iulius is his nomen, and tells which "gens" or tribe he belonged to, in this case the Iulia. And his cognomen is his personal last name, which is what he was known by in public life. There are a bunch of other names that were also used (why keep anything simple), but it's important to note that women, generally, did not have three part names, and were known by their fathers' gens names, feminized, as well as their cognomen (also feminized).

So as "Kiriona" is Maori for "Gideon," it ties Kiriona to her heritage; a gens name telling where she and Jod came from. And "Gaia" is the feminine form of John's "cognomen."

Which stands out first because Kiriona is not particularly feminine, and that could be Muir's attempt to give her that connection (which might have been harder otherwise since she's a prince now), but because her name is also the only one that follows Roman naming conventions, it ties her to him in entirety. It's not just that she's John's daughter, it's that she has no identity outside him now; she is him. A piece of him more than a full version of herself.

[serenpedac]

💐 so much love to you, darling and wonderful friend

you are so incredibly thoughtful, so sweet, so supportive, and such a delight and important part of this lovely fandom

your writing is incredible! i love your discussions and thoughts. thank you for being you and sharing yourself and your time with us

every time i see the stars i think of you! especially the pleiades

Question! for your twc ocs- what piece of media reminds them of their lis (books, letters, movies, music, memes, etc) 💕

hope you’re having an amazing day!

Wonderful person, thank you so much for your message *sobs* I've been rereading this message over the past few days and just want to hug it close to my chest <3

I hope you have an amazing day as well!

This was a great question to think about! I had so much fun figuring out which medium every OC would pick.

Yael for Nate: The painting 'Rough Sea with Wreckage' by Turner shown above. Although she doesn't know everything about Nate's past, the imagine of the lonely ship out on a rough sea makes her think about what Nate may have been through. It reminds her of the scene in the mirror, how could it not?

There's also the contrast between the light and the darker clouds, and it's unclear whether the ship is sailing into the storm or coming out of it. It makes her feel the tension of the unknown: the things she doesn't know about his past, the uncertainties of their future together. It's more emotion that she gets from this piece than anything articulated in words, but that suits her, I think.

Melike for Morgan: The poem 'i like my body when it is with your' by e. e. cummings. The physicality of the poem reminds them of Morgan, but there's also this sense of.. wonder, that "thrill" of something new that is mentioned at the end. Melike is very self-contained and it comes as a surprise to her how much they have grown to like Morgan's company. I can see her choose this poem because of the physical descriptions, but then get quiet and contemplative when going over it a second time, because of how those first lines suggest a change in her as well. It's about them, even though neither of them is quite sure what "they" are.

Gabi for Farah: The song I already like you by Dessa, because it's such an upbeat song! Gabi loves how Farah throws herself into their relationship, not holding back, she's open and honest and "Let's go!". The entire vibe of the song fits Farah so well, but what Gabi would pick out specifically is the "There's no sure bet // You just ride, ride, ride roulette" because she herself is the type of person who would want to be 100% sure before doing anything, but Farah is showing her that it's not all that bad to go for it.

Also, I can imagine Farah humming this song after picking it up from one of Gabi's playlists.

Laura for Ava: Laura is too cool for me lol! She would answer with a meme or a movie reference, but I don't know enough about either to give a good answer.

[braintapes]

Imagine being offhandedly told your brain scan, like a full-on preservation (via early technology but still for all intents and purposes a legitimate copy nevertheless), was “just something beginners used to learn how to program with until they can make their own AI models“ like. okay. so:

1) i’ve been used as a template. for the past 100 years. wtf. 2) i’ve been used as a BEGINNER template. for like college freshmen in their first year computer classes i guess. what the fuck. and 3) why would you say all of that so casually like it’s nothing, like it’s not someone’s entire being and experience. fuuuck!!