#my stepmom can be mean in specific ways for no reason

[l4tedawns]

Another day another incident of parent being snarky as a joke for no reason I Don’t know why I bother

[miss-oranje-disco-dancer]

and for dessert?

pairing: javi x reader

cw's/tags: smut, oral sex, spanish? (i don't speak spanish), unrealistic scenarios, steve voiceover dialogue at the beginning to explain the strange plot

summary: reader is a shy hotel housekeeper of sorts (probably a CIA spy), and brings javi his room service with a special treat

a/n: 'there's a reason magical fake-ism was born in liz's mind..."

this is for @undercoverpena's birthday bash! my color for the color palette was ganache brown, and somehow, ganache is what got us here.

wc: 2k

[Steve Voiceover]: And if I told you that the CIA gave us an all expenses paid vacation at a 5 star hotel with women dressed like French maids providing around the clock service, including "special favors", would you believe me? No? Good. Because that didn't happen. Even if it did, they'd be expecting something in return -- to talk about one thing or to shut up about another. Peña and I aren't liars, but if we were on trial, and the CIA had any stake, this is how they could've won us over. At least, this is Javi's version of the story. 

Sitting in a California king size bed, wearing nothing but a robe embroidered with hotel's logo, Javi sifts through his own guilt to find some self-pity that'll allow him to enjoy this period of respite amidst the general chaos that comes with his career. He and Murphy are given separate rooms -- must be a real special case, considering how much the DEA does to cut corners, thereby cutting costs, and god only knows how much this room would cost him for a week. Escobar levels of cash. 

He gets room service, fresh towels, and a cute girl who delivers them daily. When the CIA wants to influence your testimony, they've got to butter you up first. Actually, they don't. They could torture Javi, threaten his family, even disappear him. Maybe there's poison in his breakfast -- which he eats in bed while watching pay-per-view movies.

The steak you bring him for dinner is good, but the uniform you wear is great. He knows he's being sedated, and he takes it willingly. His dick takes it eagerly -- that specific part of him is the opposite of sedated. 

For the first time in his life, Javi gets tired of jerking off.

"Goddamnit. Really?"

He must be going stir-crazy, talking to his dick like that.

It'd be more convenient for him to stay naked, but he keeps his himself covered out of respect for you. He figures you probably don't get paid enough to wait on nude men, though he doubts it'd be the first time you'd walked into a hotel room to find a man in his birthday suit. Men are gross. Javi can be nasty, but he understands that timing is key. Keep it classy until she asks for it not to be.

Javi's not stupid enough to think the CIA can't hear his phone calls. He doesn't know why they even leave the phone in the room. Maybe for the typical American illusion of freedom or maybe they're just too lazy to come and unplug it.

He could call the concierge, he might even be able to call you. But for some fucking reason, he's on the phone with Steve, who's right down the hall. 

Just to fuck with him, Javi asks, "What are you wearing right now?"

"Uh, A T-shirt and boxers… why?"

"I was joking. Never had phone sex?" He figures the CIA doesn't pay whoever's listening to these calls enough, so he'll give them a little tease as a treat.

"'Course I have." Steve's not the stud that Javi is but his wife's on a different continent, so he'd believe it. "Are you trying to have phone sex with me?"

"I'm not that desperate yet."

"Haven't gone through all the porn on TV yet?"

"Not yet. Still making my way through the stepmom shit. Not really my thing."

There's a lull before Steve suggests something so out of character that Javi would think he was joking in any other circumstance.

"Is your, uh, housekeeper… nice?"

"By nice you mean hot?"

"Yeah."

"Very."

"Wonder if we have the same one."

Javi describes your appearance in detail to Steve - he'd do great as an eye witness if he only had to remember gorgeous women. Steve's description of his housekeeper is more brief but enough to confirm that they are attended to by separate women.

"Guess attractiveness is part of the qualifications," Steve remarks.

"Well, better hope you still have a job after all this 'cause you're sure not getting one here."

"Fuck off. Just 'cause you fuck around doesn't mean you're the hot one in this partnership. In case you've forgotten, I'm the one with the beautiful wife."

"Yeah, and she's way outta your league. Still don't know how you pulled her."

Steve ignores Javi's comment, and continues to brag, "plus, Little Miss Housekeeper said I'm very attractive."

"Oh yeah? How much did you pay her?"

"Nada. Did yours call you 'hermoso'? Did she offer you any extra favors?"

"Extra favors?"

Javi can hear Steve's smug grin on the other end. "She told me 'we do anything to ensure our guests have a pleasurable experience'."

"You think that's real or she was just coming onto you?"

"Dunno. You should try asking your girl- speak of the motherfuckin' devil." And Steve hangs up the phone.

In less than a minute, there's a knock on Javi's door.

"Agent Peña?" He hears your sweet voice say from outside the door, and while the fantasies fly through his head, he forgets a crucial mistake he's made which is not bothering to put on clothes after he'd taken a shower, leaving him in only in a towel when you open the door.

And he's rock-fucking-hard.

You walk in with room service. Fuck. He forgot he'd ordered dessert. Typical display, silver platter atop white tablecloth plus utensils and other expected accoutrements. You're focused on pushing the cart so at first you don't notice but when you do, you apologize profusely.

"Oh my god, Agent Peña. I am so sorry, sir." You turn away from him, fidgeting awkwardly as you stand facing the wall.

"No, it's my fault. I'm sorry. I forgot that I ordered dessert. I'll get my pants on so you don't have to see anything."

"Oh. I don't mind--I mean, that's not my concern. I just want to respect your privacy."

"My privacy? If I could walk around naked all the time I would."

"You would?" You take a glance over your shoulder and he's managed to put on his boxers, and is now reaching for a pair of jeans. "You don't mind people seeing you?"

"No," he says, stopping with one leg halfway in his pants, unsure of what you want.

"Well, you are an attractive man, so--I hope you don't mind me saying that."

"I don't. I just hope they pay you well to dish out compliments."

"The compliments are not required by my contract. I was just thinking out loud…" You trail off, shyly looking to the side.

"In that case, I hope you don't mind me saying that you're a very attractive woman."

"Thank you, sir."

God, it goes straight to his dick. There's not much he can do to hide it since he's given up on the jeans idea. (And, let's face it, those jeans leave nothing to the imagination). 

"So, I brought dessert," you transition. 

Usually, you're incredibly professional and prepared, like you've practiced every word in the mirror, but now, you look flustered. It's adorable when you struggle to find the words to describe the dessert. It's almost like you've forgotten what it is until you pull the lid off the tray to reveal it.

"Wow," he says, genuinely in awe of the decadence presented before him.

"It's a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and strawberries on top… as you can see."

"It's probably poisoned, but I'll risk it anyway. This looks really fuckin' good."

You smile hesitantly and nod, periodically glancing towards the door like you're trying to figure out how to exit the conversation.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," you say, turning to leave the room.

But before your hand reaches the doorknob, Javi says, "Stay."

"Huh?"

"If you can -- If you want to."

"I can, yeah." You walk back towards him, slowly, stopping at the edge of the bed like you're unsure where to go from here.

"Need help getting up here?" he teases.

"No, I can do it," you say, though it does look taxing to climb up onto the tall mattress in those heels.

You sit so prim and proper like a little doll, perfectly posed, which makes Javi feel particularly ill-mannered as he's already devoured almost an entire slice of cake.

"Want some?" he asks, sucking icing off his finger just to see your reaction. And it's even more delicious than the cake itself.

"O-okay." You nod.

He grabs a bite of cake on his fork and brings it towards your mouth like you're newlyweds at your reception. You let him feed you, maintaining eye contact while eat and lick your lips clean. You're playing his game. You must be.

"So, your job here- is it mostly delivering food and towels or is there other stuff you do?"

"We do whatever the guests want… within reason."

"Give me an example."

You not-so-subtly glance at his boxer-clad cock, and then back at his face. "As long as it's legal, we can do whatever we want for the most part."

"And what do you want?"

When you look down, away from his eyes, getting all nervous again, he lifts your chin. "Dime lo que quieres," he says, much softer.

"I want you. I want to make you feel good."

You get closer to him, he thinks you're going for his lips but you're not, your hand brushes his bare stomach and slides down, but you stop at his waistband.

"May I?"

"Fuck yes."

For a shy girl, you sure know what you're doing. You get him riled up with playful licks around the tip, a flick of the tongue up the slit that makes him gasp, and you press sloppy kisses down his length, leaving lipstick marks all along his shaft.

It's not long before he feels his orgasm start to build, so he swiftly pulls you up, so that you're on your knees. You look almost dazed, especially so with your makeup all messy. He coaxes your hips up further until your core hovers over his face.

Javi has a one track mind when it comes to these kinds of things. Pussy makes him stupid. Earlier that day he fantasized about what color panties you might be wearing under your skirt. He had to force himself to look away when you bent down to grab something you'd dropped, he'd feel like a creep knowing he'd get off to a mishap like that. But he imagined you in pink, red, white, lace, satin, and everything in between.

He's surprised to find that you're not wearing any of those, you're not wearing anything at all.

He quirks an eyebrow up at you. "Brought me dessert, huh, hermosa?"

You nod. Yes, of course you did. Warm and glazed with your arousal.

"Quiero saborearte," he whispers, dragging you towards his eager mouth. 

You're perfectly pliant for him. His grip on your hips, your ass, your thighs is steady but gentle. He tries to take his time. A woman is a delicacy. He should savor you. He gets lost in the sweetness, buries his face between your thighs and allows his restrained dedication to become messy and reverent.

You call him by his first name for the first time. Javier. It's all he recognizes in your jumbled sentences.

He hums an affirmation. Mm-hmm. You're okay. Mm-hmm. I know. Mm-hmm. Please, give it to me. Let go.

Your climax hits so hard you lurch forward and grab the headboard while Javi guides you through it. With how loud you're being, he's certain Murphy will be calling him to congratulate him on his good work.

But before that, he realizes the mistake he's made -- a cardinal sin if making love is a religion (and the way Javi views it, it should be) -- he hasn't kissed you.

"Dame un beso," he says.

When you kiss him, he finds that your lips are just as sweet as the other pair between your thighs.

[posallys]

okay so i'm in the process of rereading pjo and i just got to botl and i want to talk about my girl annabeth. i feel like a good majority of the fandom mischaracterization of annabeth comes from botl, specifically because she was rude to rachel throughout the book, and then everyone just assumed that because she wasn't nice to rachel she must be a bitch inherently, on top of being this fucking emotionless shell of a person, which is wild to me because i don't know how her being rude to one (1) girl automatically discredits everything she's done in the past three books. i feel like it stems from a complete misunderstanding of why she was rude to rachel. let's make this clear: she wasn't rude to rachel because rachel was a potential love interest; she was rude to rachel because she was scared.

everyone she's ever loved has been taken from her in some way: her mom being absent because she's a goddess and not really wanting anything to do with annabeth; her feeling like her dad and stepmom didn't want her around (losing her real family); thalia, her found sister, sacrificing her life to save annabeth, and then leaving her again to join the hunters; luke betraying the camp, but more importantly betraying annabeth on a much deeper level because he was her only family. he promised her that he would be there for her, no matter what, and then he leaves her, just like everyone else. even grover left her, in a way, because he went out to search for pan and wasn't around. the only close person who hasn't left her at the point of botl? percy.

but she knows about the prophecy at that point, so she's spent the better part of three years resigning herself to the fact that her best friend is going to die when he turns sixteen and there's absolutely nothing she can do to stop that. she's spent the better part of three years trying not to fall in love with him because it would only hurt worse when the time comes. if i had to bet on it, the reason she was thinking about joining the hunters in ttc is because if she isn't around him (and also can't because she's a hunter), she won't become more attached to him than she already is. if she separated herself from him, it would hurt less. except here's the thing: by that point, she couldn't make herself do that. she couldn't make herself willingly give up percy yet, because it might not have been him. if i had to guess, when thalia came back, annabeth stopped worrying about percy dying---just for a little while---because she thought that thalia was going to be the child of the prophecy after all. so when thalia became a hunter, she was mentally prepared to lose thalia again. but that means that every fear she had about percy being the prophecy kid before thalia came back to life resurfaced full force, and now suddenly annabeth has a year and a half left with him when she thought that she might have longer. so despite the thought of her joining the hunters to prevent herself from getting too attached, she hadn't metnally come to the point where she was ready to give up the small hope that he would live.

which bring us now to botl. like i said, i'm just now rereading the book (and i'm only on chapter 1 but i started thinking about annabeth and here i am). annabeth is mean to rachel because she's terrified of losing percy too soon. sure, at this point she knows the prophecy is his, she knows come next summer she probably won't have him anymore---but that's just it: next summer. she's preparing herself to lose him in a year, not immediately. so when someone comes along that presents a way for her to lose percy, of course she gets scared, and she gets defensive about it. it's not even the fact that rachel was a potential love interest, it's more so the fact that rachel was a mortal, and not part of their world. if percy was with rachel, there's a good chance he'd try to leave the magical world behind, and, more importantly, leave annabeth behind, which she wasn't ready for yet.

hell, that's exactly what ended up happening in the beginning of tlo! annabeth wasn't upset because he was spending time with rachel, she was upset because he was spending time in the mortal world rather than her world and, in her mind because of all of her past experiences being abandoned, that translates to "percy is leaving her," and it was way earlier than she thought, and she wasn't ready. so what does she do? she tries to protect herself. she puts walls up and tries to act cold and distant because she's coming to terms with the fact that she's already lost him. she's already lost him.

and like, was she jealous of the fact that rachel was a love interest? probably, yeah. but i think it's also just important to know that there's something way deeper to it. annabeth isn't being a bitch for the sake of being a bitch, and she's not just jealous of rachel because she was a girl that liked percy. she was upset because he was getting further and further away right in front of her. he was leaving way quicker than she was prepared for, so a lot of the stuff she said to rachel came from a place of fear of losing percy, and anger at rachel for trying to pull him into the mortal world, effectively leaving her behind and adding another person to the list of people she loves that have left her.

[pinkblahaj]

rick riordan's female characters pt 2: aphrodite's children

during my reread of pjo, rick riordan's portrayals of aphrodite's children was what made me first realize that his writing of teen girls might be problematic. it does make sense considering the demonization of femininity that used to be so popular, but it is valid to still be bothered by it. i have thoughts on how cabin 10 is described overall, as well as the specific characters.

cabin 10

in the earlier books, rick made the aphrodite cabin way too one-dimensional. yes, the goddess aphrodite is known for her vain and shallow personality, and yes, the other campers tend to possess well-known traits of their godly parents (ares' children are aggressive, hermes' children are tricksters, nike's children are competitive, etc.). but the way that aphrodite's children were portrayed as especially weak, preferring to look at their reflections and gossip rather than play capture the flag, did feel blatantly sexist to me. like of course because their mom is the most stereotypically feminine of the gods, they have the least battle skills.

at the beginning of HoO i thought rick might be atoning for some of these flaws. it was interesting that piper, a character who explicitly rejects traditional standards for femininity and beauty, turned out to be a child of aphrodite. but then her siblings were still very stereotypical and their cabin literally made her "gag". i found it unnecessary that rick specified in the lost hero that most of the cabin were girls. sure, it makes sense that aphrodite would want to have more daughters than sons, but that combined with the fact that they lack the skills of other demigods just doesn't look good. i liked that rick mentioned that despite her reputation, aphrodite was a war goddess and the oldest of the olympians, but i was disappointed that he continued to stereotype her children so harshly.

silena

i don't have many criticisms of this character, other than her being described as one of the few nice campers from cabin 10. i really liked that she valued love and kindness, which more of the aphrodite campers should have been like imo. although aphrodite and her children have a generally shallow reputation in the original pjo series, i appreciate the impact that silena had on the series and the way that she showed that aphrodite's children can still have bravery and strength.

i do wish that more attention is paid to how luke manipulated/groomed her and others (which i've been seeing the pjo fandom do more now, fortunately), as this is a big reason why i can't see him as a redeemable character.

drew

call me delusional but i am a proud drew tanaka defender. yes, silena was manipulated by luke and she sacrificed herself heroically. but she still betrayed camp half-blood and is part of the reason why several of them, including charles, died. drew likely looked up to silena and felt this betrayal extremely severely, and her bitterness is justified. i just don't believe that she became mean for no reason.

because rick is clearly capable of writing his characters with more depth, it's so disappointing that he put so little thought into drew. clarisse was a bully, but she is revealed to be under severe pressure from her dad and later becomes friends with percy. luke is a main antagonist but evokes sympathy from many readers. even octavian, who was unlikable from beginning to end, was suffering mentally and enabled by apollo, and thus didn't deserve all the blame. yes, some people are truly horrible for no good reason, but with all the trauma that the pjo characters go through, there was likely a much better explanation for why drew is the way she is. i hate that he just made her the most archetypal mean girl who immediately hates the female lead because they are interested in the same guy. (side note: it's funny that the only other living female asian character in pjo/hoo i can think of is annabeth's stepmom, who i do NOT claim)

piper

this character seems to be quite controversial, but i honestly was not as bothered by piper as i thought i would be upon rereading. her "not like other girls" phase lasts pretty much only one book... and it's realistic for teenagers to have cringey phase. since i do have a problem with the larger context of how rick wrote aphrodite's children, i do see why some are more bothered by it, bc rick portrays piper as better than her more feminine siblings. in this aspect, i do think piper had some lost potential. i think it's great that we have characters like piper and frank who aren't pure stereotypes based on their godly parents and who have to learn to embrace that side of them. but i wish we would have seen piper realize that being feminine does not mean you are stuck up and that she possibly had internalized misogyny. i really like the interpretation that her identities of being indigenous and queer affected her relationship with femininity and gender expression, but i doubt rick himself actually thought that deep into it. however, i've only read the first two books of toa, so there may be parts of her character i am missing.

i remember finding piper and jason to be boring characters during my first read of hoo, but after rereading, i think they are good characters who were placed in an extremely bland relationship. i personally am a subscriber to the lesbian piper + gay jason headcanon, as hera manipulating them into a relationship feels a lot like comphet. but i don't find their relationship unrealistic either. i feel like our standards were raised pretty high by percabeth, a relationship based on an actual friendship between two people who knew and loved each other deeply. but it's also normal for teenagers to get together quickly without knowing whether they are compatible. also, considering how short the expected lifespan of demigods are, it makes sense that we see couples like jiper and frazel who start dating less than a year after meeting. i also was never that bothered by piper being "obsessed" with jason... the other hoo couples tended to do that too, and her mother is the goddess of love.

piper's charmspeak was an interesting power, but i don't think it was super well thought out. obviously, there are some ethical questions about her using it on people, including her own friends, that are never answered-- especially because sometimes piper doesn't even realize she's using it. also, i found it hard to believe that in the lost hero she was already able to use it on gaea. i enjoyed the moments where we saw her other skills and would have liked to see more of them. her emotional intelligence (as seen in the way she helps annabeth defeat mimas) was underutilized and could have been a great staple for all of aphrodite's children.

[dollkichi]

QUESTIONS QUESTIONS AND ANGEL IS HERE FOR ANSWERS!! 💕 Alsoo how could you tell Kokichi was my favorite how did you knooww/silly in all honesty he was my first DR crush he makes me wanna fucking punt him!!!! (romantically) also also, yeah!!! I do YouTube for funises and I have videos on these 4!!! (Hayase has only gotten one because that one drained the life force out of me the pain of being a gachatuber is real....)

Angel originally wanted Roselyn to be the Ultimate Actress cause it fit her past a little more to me (Acting her way through life. Acting so she didn't get targeted next because her family has this wonderful little habit of absolutely slaughtering each other apparently- also Acting so she didn't get hurt for showing anything more than at least blank discontent, Acting to protect herself and her emotions from being flushed out so she wouldn't get eaten alive. The business world is harsh, after all.) and it helped develop her personality and the fact that she didn't really have one, at least she thought. I mean, in one-shot fics I've written, Kokichi was the only person to ever get under her skin where she shows actual personality, while the others usually saw her sweet and proper fake outside persona before chapter 1. Liars know liars I suppose~

But the Pediatrician talent came when my big bro figure suggested it, since Rose and some of her backstory (at least, her side of the bigger story) was based on Mikan (it still is, the actress talent was just a different way she handled it) and my friend said it suited her, and I guess I can see it? Taking care of kids because she wasn't taken care of. But I'm thinking of sticking with Actress since it made me super proud for my first ever DR OC to finally be fully fleshed out!!!

Sukoshi's Talent... she didn't know how she got it either. She was guessing it's cause she was constantly outcasted for one reason (whoring herself out) or another (having a son and being a single mother), or maybe because she was responsible for her family's death. Though she didn't mean to set their house on fire. They were already dead, why wouldn't they believe her? The second fire was her fault. But she didn't have a choice, she had to, lest she died in a house with residents that wouldn't cry nor care if she died.

Nothing was wrong with her. Sure, she talked to herself, but that's because she didn't have friends at school. She tried to make some, but she was either never acknowledged, and even if she did make any, they'd all distance themselves and leave her anyway. She didn't get it. Nothing was wrong with her, so why did they outcast her like this? Maybe she was crazy. That's why everyone hated her. So, she had her mind to keep her company. At least then she wouldn't feel judged with her friends in her head. They feel real, so it isn't harming anyone, right?...

She also pops up post V3 because she wasn't really supposed to be in any game? She was going to be a sort of OC in my head I fleshed out from a dream, but I decided to make a blog for her and here we are! She's thrown into the loop but she fights and kills for her family<3

Ai's whole thing is being stigmatized and stereotyped because she's a demon. Despite all of that, she was raised by a caring mom and and very sweet papa!!! She also made it out of her stepmom's house because Kaede was there she'd probably died otherwise- She wasn't broken down because her mom always taught her to see the best in people, so she tries that motto, sometimes, it gets her hurt, other times.. it actually works. So, she keeps trying no matter now bad it hurts her to do it. </3 Demons, and specifically Succubi aren't and were never treated well, usually either killed to cleanse the world of them, sometimes just ridiculed and judged, and in Ai's case, Used as sexual relief, whether they want it or not, only to either be cast aside or killed to keep their mouths shut. Most humans even HATE Succubi with a passion they'll become priests or demon hunters just to get rid of them, and other times a few judgemental glances, derogatory terms sometimes and whispering is enough to show how much people hate them.

Fun fact!!! All of the Kokichi ships other than Rose wasn't planned to happen at least mostly on my end I just went along and ended up loving them <33

Aaah I ended up rambling-- (｡Ŏ ᗜ Ŏ ̆ ｡) Sorry about that I'm very normal about my DR OCs (III╥_╥⁠)

– 🩷🎮

I AM SO SORRY FOR THE LATE REPLY. I’VE JUST BEEN SO BUSY AND TIRED.

YIPPEE!! THANK YOU FOR THE ANSWERS!!! Also don't worry about rambling, I love reading your asks! They're always such a delight 2 get :3

Oh my god, I used to love watching gachatubers as a kid. I never understood how to use the apps very well myself though. I have a couple friends who still use them and it amazes me what they can do with it!!

CRYING OVER THE REASONS GIVEN FOR BOTH OF ROSELYN’S TALENTS. SOBBING. ESPECIALLY “taking care of kids because she wasn’t taken care of” OH MY GOD THAT’S SO SAD. I’m sure whatever talent you give her will suit her, congrats on fully fleshing her out!! Always fun to finally figure out what you wanna do with your OC

Omg. Poor Sukoshi, the people around her failed her :((

Would totes be her friend. I am hoping she is much happier now post game!! That’s really cool that she came to you in a dream. If she wasn’t supposed to be in any game though, how does she get her talent? Don’t you need to attend the school to be given your ultimate title?

Oh yikes, doesn’t sound like it’s very safe for demons & succubi in your canon. I’m happy for her in the sense that what she went through didn’t break her down and she was able to continue going!! I love characters like that RAHHHH!!! What is Ai and Kaede’s relationship like? Are they close with eachother?

Sometimes unplanned ships are the best!! It’s fun when something isn’t planned between two characters and they end up just having the best chemistry :3

[icyfox17]

19 and 20

from this ask game (answered 20 with other options here)

19. 5 things you hate

lmaooo okay uhmm THE SMELL OF PEANUT BUTTER AND WATER OHMYGOD WHENEVER I HAVE TO WASH THE DISHES AFTER EATING SMTH WITH PEANUT BUTTER AND IT HITS THE WATER OHMGYOD WORST THING IN THE WORLDUDOHSGDUHAWEFOGAWKFESD

people who hate. like. ohmyfuckinggod. like. okay THE FUCKING PEOPLE ON TWT WHO HATE PPL WHO SHIP BUCKTOMMY??? FOR NO OTHER REASON OTHER THAN "oh they dont ship buddie U MUST DIE" OHMYFDO IT PISSES ME OFF SO MUCH WHY ARE YOU BEING SO MEAN??? I HATE PEOPLE WHO ARE MEAN FOR NO REASON LIKE OKAY YOU CAN NOT LIKE THE SHIP THATS FINE NO ONE IS FORCING U TO LIKE THE SHIP WHY ARE YOU GOING OUT OF YOUR WAY TO MAKE FUN OF PEOPLE/HATE ON PEOPLE I HATE YOUUUUU AWEFAJWOFJAWEIFADSJFKLASDFLASDFALDSKFJAS;DFASF

sorry. thats been. annoying me. for the past. few months. i hate twitter. in general TWITTER IS SOOO everyone becomes toxic on twt like its just so horrible i HATE TIWTTIEJRKELSFD

i hate when i see the bus that im supposed to be on pass me bc im on the other side of the stress of the busstop LIKE NOOOOOOOOO PLEASEEE WAIT A MINUTE I DONT WANNA MISS YOU IMLITERALLYSOCLOSEOHMGYODANDNOWIMGONNAHAVETOWAITAHALFNHOURFORTHENEXTONEOHMGYDDDD

saying it again. i hate people who are mean for no reason. like.ohmygod. why are you MEAN WHY ARE YOU BEING MEAN LITERALLY NO ONE DID ANYTHING WHY AREY OU SUDDENLY ATTACKING ME?!?!?!?1

i hate capitalism:( money stresses me out a lot :(((

20. 5 things you love

violin in music!!!! i hear violin and instantly my brain goes !!!!!!! it makes me so happy ohmuficingod i just. ascend

i love sitting on big rocks in front of the ocean. i love listening to the waves and feeling the breeze on my face and knowing that right now. everything is peaceful. i can dip my toes into the ocean and just be connected to nature

i love motorcycle rides!!!! feeling the wind rush as you nyooooooom it's so empowering omg (note: i have not driven one myself. my dad has a license and i just go with him on the back eueueu)

i love coconut hehehe like coconut shrimp, coconut cake, coconut snails (pastry not actual snails), coconut icecream. i do not like coconut water/milk though lmfao

OHMYGOD ICECREAM IL OVE ICECREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! esp with freshly made waffle cones :> my stepmom and i go out for icecream every summer and we have a list of places to try and when we do try them we have a separate doc where we write a review so when we want icecream for a specific reason we can look at the doc and know which place to go!! for example whether we want fun/obscure flavours, really good waffle cone, or just good icecream

[sadistic-softie]

My guilt is kind of "at odds"-ish with my stepmoms guilt. HUGE VENT (ignore if it bothers you)

my stepmom disagrees that i should cut contact and she keeps really pushing for me to see my mom and it literally makes my body involuntarily shake and twitch with stress because I'm trying so hard toe explain why I don't want to and she keeps playing advocate and it's playing into my self doubt and guilt complex bs i've got going on

and i feel bad because im secretly angry that she keeps comparing my suidical response to my mother to things like not liking a job, unfulfilled dreams, etc, because i was feeling suicidal because I felt helpless, trapped, exhausted, and like there was no way out, but she insisted on telling me to take my mom out of the equation and think about how im gonna be suicidal another time in my life too as if i don't know that.

She was saying that because she wants me to not be surprised by being suicidal later on and end up commiting and i had to reassure her i wouldn't commit but the reason i even bring it up in the first place is because it's not normal for a specific person to make you feel suicidal every day but she has so much of her own guilt and empathy about my mother that she's deadset on defending her in any any everyway possible and is all but saying that im making the wrong choice by going no contact and keeps insisting im gonna regret it in the future and insisting that i need to be friends with her as an adult

and getting visibly frutrated with me when i explain why I feel like that would be a bad idea for everyone involved and that I gave her so so so many chances but she feels like ive given my mom no chance but I know what it's like not to get a second chance. ajsdbbkskejnf I know i know shes telling me these things because she cares and loves me and wants me to have all the options so i can make the best decision but her opinion is very clear. I know shes only thinking this way and saying these things because she wants whats best for me and doesnt want me to have regrets later in life

and she keeps reiterating that she doesnt wanna step on my moms feet due to the nature of her role as a step parent and also that she understands that because she wasnt there, she doesn't know what it was like or how i felt. but...It all just makes me feel like she doesn't believe me. Like she thinks im exaggerating. she even asked me if it could maybe be that "Im being to hard on my mom" and that it "wasn't as bad as it seemed" and kept making me look back in retrospect to "find out" if it wasn't so bad or i was being "to hard on her" because of her experience with her sensitive son who gets his feelings hurt very easily.

"im not saying you can't handle it, but (son) can't handle it with me...hes too hard on me and im just wondering if maybe it's a similar thing with you ad your mom" I try to explain myself and i did tell her word for word, "I could sit here and tell you the way i feel over and over but it would never really convey the experience and the way I felt" i know she means well and her response is her way of kind of defending/helping the future me but god it's so complicated. AS IF i dont already constantly guilt and doubt myself and worry im being too sensitive and dramatic about it all.

This conversation keep happening and its gotten to the point where its so often i can already recognize it coming by the look on her face beforehand. That sad pitying smile. It makes me feel like such an asshole because i know that there's a huge chance that in her head im just being a stubborn cunt who can't see the way. the conversation gives my body the same involuntary response as it gets from standing out in the cold for too long.

I LITERALLY SHIVER WITH STRESS. I DONT FUCKING EVER DO THAT UNLESS SOMETHING ABOUT MY MOM COMES UP. DOES THAT MEAN NOTHING?? IS THAT INDICITIVE OF NOTHING??? like, im sorry, i love my mom to death. i used to put her on a pedestal. she was always right to me. i defended her tooth and nail because she was everything to me and i all but worshiped her until i realized how fucking unhealthy that was and how shit it made me feel and how shit it made my life in general.

holy shit. Like, fuck. I just need to know if I'm still making the right decision. That's all I ever wanted in my life was to just do the right things the right way to be a decent person and it seems like I never fucking can. To clarify, im not mad at her, im just mad in general because this whole situation is so FUCKING COMPLICATED

im trying to hard not to guilt myself for wanting to cut ties with the person who made me want to kms because i know i didn't do anything wrong but this kind of stuff makes it so fucking hard and frustrating. Im just lucky she talks about it like a civil fucking human being instead of shitting on me like the person she feels so bad for. I just hate being looked at with that forced fucking pity smile like im pretending and making this shit up because im being silly and don't know no better

God, i fucking hate it i hate it i hate it i know i seem fucking nuts but im telling ths truth and im not a fucking idiot!

[solena2]

So.

Tommy isn’t Theseus. Every time I see Techno’s analogy about Tommy being Theseus brought up I’m filled with endless rage and I’ve DECIDED!

That it’s about time I explained just why it’s so objectively incorrect.

-

First: a bit of backstory on Theseus, because I doubt many of you actually know much about him beyond what Techno said in his “so you want to be a hero” speech, which left out a lot of relevant details.

Theseus was a demigod with two fathers and one mother. His fathers were king Aegeus of Athens and the sea god Poseidon, and his mother was Aethra, Aegeus’ wife. Aethra raised Theseus on her own, far from Athens to avoid him being assassinated.

Aegeus left him nothing but a sword with the Athenian crest and a pair of sandals, buried under a rock so no one else could get them.

When Theseus came of age, he took the sword and sandals and headed up to Athens, slaying various monsters along the way. (It pains me to abbreviate it that much, but Techno left out everything before the Minotaur so it won’t help me much in debunking his analogy.)

Once he got to Athens, he met up with his dad, chased out his stepmom Medea, (yes, that Medea) and killed some people. Then comes the relevant part.

Crete had won a war against Athens a while back, and because of this, every seven years Athens was forced to send 14 tributes to be killed by the Minotaur. (Yes, this inspired the Hunger Games)

Theseus decided he’d volunteer and kill the Minotaur, thus ending the tribute system for good and getting one over on Athens. He promised his dad that if he won, he’d come back in a ship with white sails, as opposed to the standard mourning black that signified the death of the tributes.

So he went to Crete, met king Minos and his daughters Ariadne and Phaedra, and got sent into the labyrinth. Ariadne gave him a magic ball of string that kept him from getting lost, allowing him to find the Minotaur and then safely get out afterwards, providing he could kill it.

He killed it, led his other 13 tributes out, and sailed back home. On the way, Athena told him to leave Ariadne stranded on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean, so he immediately did so, because Theseus was an asshole.

He got home, his dad committed suicide because Theseus forgot the white sails and his dad assumed he’d died, Theseus became king and married Phaedra, and then the fun began, because again, Theseus was an asshole.

First, he cheated on Phaedra with Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, so she left and took the kids. Next, he and his other asshole friend Pirithous decided to kidnap themselves some new wives. Theseus decided on Helen of Troy, who was a child at the time, and Pirithous decided on Persephone, which resulted in both him and Theseus getting stuck in the Underworld for a while due to pissing off Hades.

Once he got back up, he killed his son for fucking his wife, which is messed up on many levels, and then left Athens because his people were rightfully not super okay with that.

Then he goes and meets Lycomedes, who throws him off a cliff.

-

Next, let’s talk about Techno’s speech a bit.

He starts off by accusing Tommy of being a power hungry dictator (paraphrased), before asking him if he wants to be a hero.

Then, he provides what is apparently the archetypal example of heroism, something often associated with selflessness, kindness, and generally giving at least one singular solitary fuck about other people.

Theseus! Heroic hero who does heroic things, like, uhhh *checks notes* cheating on his wife, kidnapping children with plans to forcefully marry them, leaving people alone on tiny islands with no supplies, killing his kid, etc. etc...

So we’re off to a great start.

Then, he gives a short summary of Theseus’ life and times! He skips the first part of his life completely, which is hilarious to me because it’s the only time Theseus ever did anything actually heroic or selfless, and gets straight to the meat!

“Let me tell you a story, Tommy. A story of a man called Theseus. His country was in danger, he sent himself forward! Into enemy lines. He slayed the Minotaur! And saved his city. You know what they did to him, Tommy? They exiled him. He died in disgrace, despised by his people. That’s what happens to heroes, Tommy.”

-Technoblade

So first off, he doesn’t mention... really anything other than the Minotaur and the exile, which is leaving out a lot of relevant details, like why Theseus was exiled. (You know, killing his son in cold blood?)

Second, he doesn’t give details in general. Not that he should’ve given a full telling, or anything, but I’m always surprised by the shortness of this speech when I go back and listen to it. He pretty much just gives the barest bones of an argument and expects his audience to take it at face value. (Which they do, but it’s still bad practice)

From the more accurate (if still brief) summary if Theseus’ life I’ve just given, I’m sure you can see why this might be more than a bit dubious, as an analogy. Given cc!Technoblade is literally an English major, and doubtless knows significantly more about the myth than I do, I’d imagine this was never intended to be taken at face value.

Over and over again, c!Techno proves himself to be an unreliable narrator, and over and over again, the fandom at large takes his word as gospel.

-

Now, as far as a more in depth argument for Tommy as Theseus goes, I will attempt to debunk that as well, because there are some genuinely good points to be made.

First of all, most people make Dream out to be the Minotaur. Given the time this speech was made, I imagine Schlatt was the intended target of that, but with latter events in mind, Dream does make much more sense.

I’d say this is honestly pretty fair, but I don’t think Tommy takes the role of Theseus in that narrative. I’d argue he’s much more analogous to the role of Ariadne, giving the tools required to defeat Dream but ultimately not doing so through his own power, but because someone chose to take those tools and make use of them. This also provides the very interesting characterization of Punz as Theseus, which is an incredibly unique take that I hope some a Punz enthusiast does something with, because I don’t know enough about his lore to make a good analysis on that.

The idea of Schlatt as the Minotaur, as was probably intended by Techno at the time, makes much more sense, though I still think other characters fit the role better. Firstly, Schlatt wasn’t killed, he died of a heart attack, and if someone had killed him I think it’s more likely to have been Wilbur or Techno who did it than Tommy, as Tommy was still very hopeful and idealistic at the time, at least compared to his character now. You could posit Tommy as Ariadne again in this situation, given he was the one to mastermind the final charge, and though I think Tommy as Ariadne is an idea that’s worth further exploration, I’d say Fundy futs the Ariadne role here much better, with him giving the spy’s diary before being effectively shunned and left out in the cold by both Pogtopia and Manburg, much like Ariadne was abandoned in the original myth.

I’d posit the Theseus in this scenario as Techno, Wilbur, or possibly Philza, as they were the ones to actually kill things in the 16th, though Techno and Wilbur’s killings were more in the metaphorical sense, taking the second life of L’manburg.

As for the exile, Tommy exile was alike to that of Theseus only in concept. Both were sent from their kingdoms for a crime, resulting in a falling out with someone close to them, and had a precarious relationship with heights while they were gone, but that’s about where the similarities end and even then they’re superficial.

First of all, Tommy’s exile was far more because Dream was looking for an excuse to do it than because briefing actually means anything on the SMP, given how Dream had been griefing bases and blaming Tommy for it for a while before it went down. (Fun fact, Bad and Skeppy were going to burn one of his discs over this, but one of them got sick so they had to cancel the stream.)

Theseus’ exile, on the other hand, was entirely deserved, especially when you consider how serious a crime killing family was in Ancient Greek culture. It was pretty much the biggest no-no in existence, and I’m almost surprised he wasn’t just straight up executed for it.

Second, Tommy’s falling out with Tubbo was almost entirely due to outside forces, (Dream) rather than because anything Tommy had done. Though Tommy’s cavalierness towards the trial and attempts to threaten Dream with Spirit doubtless didn’t help things, Dream surrounding L’manburg in obsidian walls and threatening them to exile Tommy was entirely his own choice, and not something that can be pinned on Tommy, no matter what the apologists may say.

Meanwhile, Theseus’ falling out with Phaedra had begun long before his exile with him cheating on her. Him killing his son was merely the last in a long line of dominos to completely destroy their relationship.

Last, Tommy nearly killing himself is very different from Theseus being pushed off a cliff. Tommy’s near suicide was the direct result of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of c!Dream for what was canonically, I believe, several months? (Correct me if I’m wrong on that one.) Tommy almost jumping off a pillar because he was deliberately isolated from his support systems is nothing like Theseus being killed because he was a cocky asshole who thought he was god.

-

So that’s why I don’t think Tommy is anything like Theseus, and why I’m filled with endless rage by the completely uncritical acceptance of this parallel, but it’s not the whole reason it pisses me off.

It also pisses me off because, as stated earlier, cc!Techno is an English major. He knew what he was doing with this. The fandom’s insistence on refusing to acknowledge his character as an unreliable narrator is, in my opinion, acting as a massive kneecap to what could be a great analysis of how he thinks.

Specifically: why does c!Technoblade think Tommy is like Theseus?

Of all the Greek heroes to pick, why that one? Was it just the tantalizing opportunity to parallel Schlatt with a horned monster, or was it because c!Techno has some genuine in-character reason to think this myth specifically applies to Tommy.

Now, we all know people in the SMP have a habit of analogizing Wilbur and Tommy. The assumption Tommy wanted to be president, the belief that Tommy nominated Tubbo directly, the belief that he was intentionally deceiving Techno about Pogtopia’s intentions regarding Manburg... all of these stem from Wilbur. There are more cases of this, of course, but several analyses have been done in the subject already, and this is long enough without more padding.

So why does Techno think Tommy is Theseus? Well, it’s simple, isn’t it?

Wilbur is Theseus.

To be continued, because this is already too long and my brain hurts.

[c-is-for-circinate]

Ok, Hades gameplay reaction time!

(Because I have been terrible this quarantine year about posting thoughts about stories I've been invested in, and I'm really enjoying this game, and I'm playing basically blind and I have theories, and what is tumblr for if not recording those things to look back on later.)

I love this specific kind of fantasy/speculative fiction, that straddles the line between 'allegory clearly designed to explore a real-world issue' and 'the themes of this reflect real-world issues but also everything is times one million for drama and setting's sake'. I love it so much. Because, look, this is a story about a teenager/young adult trying to gather up the skills and resources and help he needs to escape his controlling, possessive, emotionally abusive father's house. That's it. Strip away all of the trappings, and that's what the story is about. By comparison, I think about Star Wars. (I love Star Wars too.) That's also a story about a dysfunctional fucked-up family dynamic. But that family is fucked up because dad went on a magic-corruption-induced killing spree, and his twin children were separated at birth to be raised in seclusion with the intention of someday taking him down, and look, that's cool, but it's definitely not how people actually are. All of the dysfunction in that family is an outgrowth of the fantastical setting, which means it is fantastical dysfunction. It can occasionally mirror or remind us of real-life interactions, but it's a fantasy. Which is great and fun to watch and very comforting and so on, but I don't necessarily want that in every story, and I love Hades because it is not that, at all. When you extend out the basic 'kid trying to escape his toxic home environment', Hades is the story of Zagreus trying to get out with the help of his dad's estranged, complicated, wealthy and powerful family, who are absolutely part of the reason why dad is Like That in the first place, and may not be any more reliable in the long run but who he needs right now. And his stepmom and teacher, who love him enough to help him leave, unconditionally and supportively (ask me how many feelings I have about 'look, Hades can't hurt me for helping you, don't worry about me, I am going to take care of you and that means helping you get out of this house' coming from an adult authority figure, ask me). And his dad's employees, who like him but also have to fear the old man's wrath, and walk that line in different places the best they can. And stepmom's long-estranged parent, because this is a story about families and how they split apart and come back together. And all of that is so real, so grounded in actual, concrete, this-is-how-humans-work family dynamics. But it's also individual. The story works so well because Hades isn't just a silhouette of the controlling asshole father; he is clearly The Way He Is for reasons, complicated ones, good and bad alike. The Way He Is has details, particularities, paperwork, a dog he pretends not to love and rely on. He is specific. Nyx and Achilles are specific, not just generic kind stepmom here to be a trope inversion and cardboard cutout teacher. Nyx has backstory and personality of her own, Achilles has a complex history, opinions, a missing lover, and they BOTH have very particular relationships with Hades that aren't just boilerplate script. Yes, there's abstraction there, you meet these characters in brief visual novel-esque three-line conversations over the course of dozens of escape runs, of course there's abstraction--but there's the very real sense that all of these people have nuance, have good and bad days, that they've made choices to be who they are, even if we don't know what those choices are yet. And, like Star Wars, some of the ways in which this story is so specific rely entirely on the fact of the otherworldly setting! I've seen stories that go the other way, that try to use their setting entirely as window dressing, and they end up feeling so flat I can't even remember them right now because they don't let the environment lend complexity and nuance to their characters at all. The environment these characters live in matters. The absolute control Hades exerts over his surroundings is a divine power. The fact that everyone Zag runs into, for or against him, is either immortal or immortally dead, changes how the react to

one another and to the situation at hand. The shape of his attempted escapes (gauntlet combat with a variety of legendary weapons) might be an allegorical construct of the genre, true, but it doesn't work in any sort of real-world setting where there exists the possibility of authority figures above or aside from Hades and his extended fucked-up family. That's part of why the family is so fucked-up in the first place. But these changes still fit well within the realm of, 'yeah, if you took this extremely real-life dynamic and added these factors to it, I can envision people doing this thing'. I can envision these specific people doing this thing. They add to the specificity of these characters. Letting them be influenced by their unreal surroundings makes them more real. So hell yes for good storytelling!!!!

I'm still relatively early in the game (by which I mean I'm like thirty runs in but only just got past Meg for the third time, because I am not good at this game, although in my defense it's only the seventh video game and second button-mashing game I have ever played in my life so there's that), but I'm starting to develop suspicions about Persephone. Because, look, outside of Persephone's absence from the underworld, this story knows its Greek mythology, uses it, revels in it. And there is some kind of mystery still shrouding Persephone leaving in the first place. She left a goodbye to Cerberus in her letter but not to her own son. Nyx has warned Zagreus multiple times not to let the Olympians know she's his mother. He literally never even knew she existed. That's complicated! Add to that, Persephone left--the exact thing we are trying and failing to do again and again and again. She left with one note, which means either she managed a one-shot speedrun out of the entire realm or she had some other way to leave, because if she'd washed up in the Styx pool to plod back to her room and try again, she wouldn't've needed to leave the note in the first place. And, you know, she's Persephone. Really quite famous for leaving the Underworld! Also quite famous for being forced back. So. I'm wondering if Zagreus, so conspicuously absent from her goodbye, has something to do with it after all. Six pomegranate seeds condemned Persephone to six months, half a year, half her life. I wonder if a child that's half of her her constitutes a fitting trade instead. Which, of course Hades would be even more resentful and dismissive and cruel to the kid he got in place of the wife he loved (who he chased away by being cold in the first place). Of course Persephone would have difficulty saying goodbye to her son in those circumstances. It would make sense. The tricky thing here is how the Olympians fit into it, because I also suspect the rift between Hades and Zeus sprang from Persephone's departure. And yet, if the Olympians never knew Zagreus existed, let alone that he's Persephone's son--how can he count as payment into the deal in their eyes? So in that case, what does Zeus think is the justification for Persephone leaving, after the pomegranate thing? Or are we just not doing the pomegranate thing at all? It would be a shame to lose it entirely, out of a story that really seems to enjoy the myths it's playing with. And there should be something complex here, something more than simply 'mom fucked off and left because dad sucked and now I'm following her because same'. It feels more complex than that. 'Mom and dad had a baby to try and save their marriage, it didn't work, but when mom left she had to leave me behind because otherwise dad would have gotten the cops and her extended family involved' feels more right, while still just as grounded in reality as the story has been so far.

I sort of want to write some meta about how each of the six legendary weapons corresponds to their original divine wielder, but I haven't unlocked all of their codex entries yet (look I am very bad with ranged weapons in this game ok, I am working on it), and I still need to think about the details. Aside from, of course, fuck yes of course Hestia's the one with the railgun. Leave drama and elegance and traditional weaponry to her brothers and sister (Demeter, who knows how to get her hands dirty, gets a pass). Hestia is out here to get shit done. With a grenade launcher.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

My thoughts are all over the place lately. Apologies. I know what’s happening today; I got sent home from work early because I work in a government building and they were Anticipating Protests. I held my sibling while they cried today. So believe me. I Know.

But I also have to write this down.

I didn’t realize how Hungry I was for praise until just this week. Because usually my Internal Motivation is all I need. I’ve been practicing meditation for 17 years as of this summer (read: Disciplining my Mind and Emotions), and I’ve always done my best to keep a good attitude and work ethic up, no matter how depression and bad life stuff tries to get me down. (Because I know Very Well how to fight that battle within my mind.)

Praise from other people? Never happened except from my mother who I saw twice a month growing up, IF that, and thus I was never motivated by craving praise. (And occasionally from stepmom+dad and teachers about How Smart I Am, but THAT was always wrapped in some backhanded comment about how “You’re too smart to be doing this.”) I always figured my Internal Determination was all I needed.

But then a co-worker came to me to critique a paper in one of the cases I prepped. I told her the page had been copied like that already, and that there were going to be a lot like that because for some reason the CEs liked copying the checks over the forms instead of copying them separately. (It’s a quality control issue, and the people above HER look at those Forms Being Blocked By Checks and will come down on them like it’s THEIR fault. It’s messy. But she was able to tell the higher-ups that we couldn’t do anything about it, because apparently I was the only one who had noticed that and been Certain Enough that I wasn’t doing it myself to tell them about that Problem^tm?)

Anyways, to my immense relief and surprise (because nobody had given me ANY feedback on how I was doing that job before), she told me she thought it was weird that I’d do something like that, because “Your cases are always perfect.”

My cases are always PERFECT???

I was stunned, and then I was smiling one of those Rare Big Real Smiles, and though all I said aloud was “Good to know”, internally I’ve been repeating “Your cases are always perfect” in my head like a themesong. And I’m like 10x more motivated to Do It Right, because I want my work to Be Worthy of That Praise!

I think it was Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People that recommended giving people praise and a good reputation to live up to? As of that conversation, I can confirm, that shit WORKS!

And then today, I solved 3 problems because of 3 separate situations that had arisen, helped my boss plan how to get our jobs of the day done with less personnel, and then when The Higher-Ups Told Us to Go Home, I was going around helping people modify their timesheet because nobody foresaw this happening. (The new timesheet system confuses a lot of people. I only figured it out because I’ve needed to take a LOT of time off for doctor appointments already, and I’m good with computers and Learning New Software Systems.)

And then, my boss thanked me profusely and said “You’re a great asset to the office.”

And I lit up like a Christmas tree.

Like, yeah that’s a Very Business way to phrase it, but: 1.) She Singled Me Out Specifically! 2.) We WERE in a professional environment, after all. 3.) I’m really good at reading people and though the phrasing may not be Mushy Gushing Appreciation, I could tell that she MEANT it!

And, I mean, it’s not like the praise totally Changed anything in me.

But gosh, it sure is good to feel Appreciated. To know what I’m doing is Good Enough and Helpful.

(And also hopefully a sign that I’ll keep getting signed onto the next projects instead of having to find a New Job. ;P )

[theliterarywolf]

Can someone at Disney explain to me why, out of ALL the villains that you could recontextualize into sympathetic anti-heros, you picked the puppy murderer who wanted to skin adorable innocent animals into coats? Like say what you want about Maleficent and how it's ruined Disney and Hollywood as a whole, at least she didn't perform animal cruelty!

Silly Taka, no one at modern Disney can think more than two moves ahead. They needed a girl-boss anti-villain! Could they have created a new one and had their first new merchandise mascot in almost a decade? -- when I say 'Merchandise Mascot', I'm referencing characters that are plastered onto so much merchandise that a good percentage of the population hasn't even seen the original films they come from, i.e.: Jack Skellington, Tinkerbell, Stitch -- Yes, but that's haaaaard~

Anon said: To be fair they could pull a maleficent and have this be an alternate timeline where she doesn't become a villain and skin puppies for a coat and they just chose cruella for the aesthetics. Or maybe they'll have the cruella personality somehow split off and whatever her actual name will have to fight her to keep the dogs safe god that dropped my iq typing that

People keep telling me that that's close to what they did... Which leads further into my frustrations of 'Disney, do something original for fuck's sake *looks at Raya* Not like that'

Anon said: Not only do the dalamations actually kill Cruella's mom, they did it in the stupidest way possible. Do they bite or maul her to death? No, one of them jumps on her and pushes her off a cliff and into the ocean.

Well, I mean, everyone knows that an average of 3 British middle-aged women are killed by level 20 Dalmatians using Tackle every year. It's common knowledge, anon, gosh.

Anon said: Just to play De Vil's advocate, her Stepmoms death isn't actually used to justify her puppy hatred, in fact it's not even really connected to why she wants a dalmatian coat, she's shown to like them towards the end of the movie, though with the implication she still wants to skin their babies for fashion. Imo the movie was pretty fun and she's still very much a villain protag where that scene is really only meant to further her grudge with the Baroness. The scene is still stupid though.

Okay, even if I tried to look at this through a similar perspective of someone like Wolf from Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts where a character is actively wearing the pelt of something that tried to kill her as a symbol of 'Fuck around and find out', it still feels like they handled it in a clumsy way here. Especially with 'Oh, I feel no grudge towards your kind... But I am still going to commit a crime against your species in the future, so keep an eye out~'

More and my responses beneath the break

Anon said: Actually if I had to say a few things about Cruella it's that it actually never delves into why she's so obsessed with furs. Fashion yes, but not furs specifically. General consensus I've heard though is that the movie could've been a really good standalone unconnected to any prior ips.

THAT'S ALL I WANT! FOR DISNEY TO JUST MAKE NEW IPs! I wouldn't care so much if we were following a murderous girl-boss anti-villain as long as we're not trying to woobify a pre-existing character who is already evil for evil's sake!

Anon said: Hey, since we're all collectively ragging on Cruella, thought I'd share something I stumbled on during a 2am YouTube crawl. Some dude on YouTube made a fake trailer for a theoretical Live Action Origin Movie about the dude that shot Bambi's mom

... As bad as this is for me to say, I wouldn't actually be opposed to watching a film following a guy who has essentially lost everything (job, family, house, etc.) and is living as a hermit in the forest. One day he happens upon a clearing full of animals and he needs to stock his rations for the upcoming winter and he manages to snag a doe.

Of course, as he's retrieving his kill, he sees the poor, now-orphan fawn looking at him in fear and horror before it bounds away into the woods. The rest of the movie is about the hunter trying to survive, thinking about his (mankind's) place in nature and just how much he should be taking and hurting to justify his own existence. The climax of the movie could be the fire but now written as a forest-clearing event that takes out the hunter's shelter and meager possessions. As he's trying to see what little can be saved, he hears a crack. Immediately grabbing for his gun, he takes aim and sees a buck. However... As both man and animal stare each other down, the hunter recognizes the buck as the same scared fawn from all those years ago.

And, thus... He lets him go. Bambi turns away and guides his family away from the burnt remains of the woods, and the hunter finally decides to go back to the city to try and rebuild a life without encroaching on the natural world.

Or something like that.

Anon said: You know who's actually a well written, sympathetic, female Disney villain, Demona from Gargoyles. An animated series from the 80s did a better job at giving a reason for being a villain than "wah, my mom got killed by Dalmatians but I'll still adopt them and use faux fur." I might even say Eclipsa from Star vs was a better "villain" than 2021 Cruella. I put " " because Eclipsa didn't really feel like a villain, more of a morally grey character IMO.

Sad to say, I doubt Disney will ever give us something in the same vein as Gargoyles anytime soon.

God... *holds back a scream* Season 4 of Star vs. would have been so much better if we just focused on Eclipsa and the other Queens of Mewni! Why couldn't Seasn 4 of Star vs. focused on Eclipsa and the other Queens of Mewni!!

Anon said: I feel like you probably could do a decent Cruella movie. A young woman starts her career in fashion at the bottom with earnest intentions to make an honest living. Heck she could be against fur in the beginning, but finds that she has to compromise more and more on her ethics until her rise to the top were she has lost all of her morality and no longer recognizes the person in the mirror. At that point, she's too far gone, and in the pursuit of even higher fashion heights, is willing to make a coat from puppies.

Anon, are you in my head? Because that's close to how I rewrote the premise of a movie like this when the trailer first dropped.

[echo-of-sounds]

i don’t know

Okay, I don’t know where else to put this, so you can ignore it if you want, but I just need to get some thoughts, feelings, and anxieties out before I breakdown because of them. This’ll probably get long. And I’ll probably cry from frustration while writing this.

Two summers ago, when I was 21, my therapist said it was a possibility that I had Asperger's, mainly because of the social and cognitive symptoms. I have a horrible time understanding abstract information. In school, I cold never do a project unless I had concrete details. I just couldn’t grasp what they were asking of me. Teachers would narrow it down a bit, but it never helped. I need a clear outline. I legitimately could not do it otherwise. I froze and panicked and ended up nearly failing projects because of the lack of concrete direction.

I have a hard time understanding, what should be, simple sentences. I ask people to reword what they said or explain it in more depth. Some do. Some get angry and accuse me of not paying proper attention. I completely am. But I genuinely cannot make sense of their words and feel left out because they refuse to repeat themselves. It’s so frustrating. I loose track of the conversation, stop contributing, then they get angry again because I’m not responding to them.

My memory pertaining to certain things, is beyond amazing. I can recite the seating arrangements from all of my high school class. That was five years ago. But outside of that, it’s terrible (I know ADHD plays a role in this too). I always focus on the smaller details even if they weren’t important. I focused so much on them, I failed to see the larger picture. This also impacted so much of my schoolwork.

When I talk, I have no inflection. My voice is low and I often mumble. So many people have gotten angry at me for it. Then when I try to speak louder, to the point I’m genuinely strain myself and feel like I’m yelling, they still say I’m too quite. So I give up talking.

I had to go to speech therapy when I was younger (around 5 and 6 years old) because I still had trouble learning how to speak. My mom said I wouldn’t properly pronounce anything, use words wrong, and ‘babble’ a lot.

I’m so fucking clumsy. I bruise myself regularly because I just run into everything, even though they’ve been in the same place for years. I hit my hands off of things, nearly run into walls, and kick things often. 

And my sensitivities are off the charts. It’s honestly ridiculous (I know ADHD also plays a role in this, but sometimes I feel like it’s much more than that). People tell me to stop being a picky eater when the smell of fish makes me want to vomit and feeling beans in my mouth is just plain wrong. The only smell I can tolerate is vanilla. Anything else and I want to cry. Clothing is horrible. I’m so rarely comfortable. And noises are the worst. My dad says it’s quite, but I can hear the Tv, the Tv in the other room, the sink running, that beeping, the AC going, someone clicking, the sizzling on the stove, and it’s all too much. 

When I was younger, I used to have temper tantrums. A lot. They were bad. I’d hit myself, scratch myself with pens, and bang my head off the floor. I barely remember them, but I do remember it being more than just a ‘temper tantrum.’ The world was just too much and I didn’t know how to handle it, so I had a meltdown.

The severe self-harm eventually stopped, but the meltdown’s still happen to this day. My mom tries to get me to talk about it so she can help. But I can’t even explain why it happened half the time. It just did. 

I’ve had so few close friends throughout my life. The ones I do make, don’t last. It’s hard for me to keep them as a friend. They don’t do anything wrong or bad. I just can never keep that connection. I barely interact with people. Even when they’re around, I just don’t talk. I abhor looking people in the eyes. It makes me uncomfortable and I don’t even know why! People get angry at me. They think I’m ignoring them when I’m not. I’m just not looking directly at them.

Communicating my feelings and expressing empathy is something I just cannot do. So I fake it. I feel worse about not feeling bad about someone’s trouble than I do actually feeling bad for them (I don’t know if that makes sense). I fake it so I don’t sound rude. I don’t want them to be angry at me.

I’d get in trouble at school when I did something ‘wrong,’ but I didn’t understand what I did wrong. I still don’t to some point. Teachers just told me I broke a rule and was in trouble. When I would ask why, they said I should be able to know that by myself. But I couldn’t. No matter how hard I thought about it.

I have a morning routine. I do it daily. If it ever gets interrupted, stopped, or I can’t complete it for whatever reason, my entire day is off. I try to continue normally, but I can’t focus. I just now my morning was messed up and I spend the rest of the day obsessing over it. It doesn’t go away until the next day when I can complete it properly. 

I’ve always had hyperfocuses. ADHD affects this. I know. Some come and go, like a certain video game will consume my life or I’m suddenly preoccupied with writing poems for a week. But those go away. All my life, I’ve loved reading and learning about dinosaurs/megafauna/evolution, plants, and psychology. They’re easy for me to learn about. I retain so much information without trying. I never had to study for my psych. exams. Never. And I always aced them. I just obsessed about the subject and they remained in my memory so well.

As for stimming, I’ve done a lot of different things throughout my life, but I was always told to stop, told they were annoying, or questioned about them. So I stopped doing each one because I was scared people would get angry with me. Because some have. 

I used to rub my fingers together. It kept my hands busy, but it also helped me focus and relieved some anxious energy. I didn’t know why. It just made me feel better. I’d be on the computer, using the mouse with my right hand, rubbing my fingers together with my left. My dad questioned why I did it. I didn’t have an answer so I did it less. I did it in school, while taking a test, and the teacher told me to stop because it was disruptive. I eventually stopped doing it all together because people would constantly make me feel bad for it.

I also used to babble. It was one of the reasons I was sent to speech therapy. Instead of helping me learn how to talk properly, because I did need help with that, the workers there just forced me to stop babbling/humming/repeating a word because it wasn’t proper behavior for the situation I was in. 

Though I don’t babble anymore, as that was basically forced out of my behavior, I still hum and repeat lines (whether from a Tv show or a book) to myself, sometimes for days at a time. I also move my head and neck around and twist my wrists while I’m focusing on something. Half the time, I don’t realize I’m doing it. It takes another person to point it out.

My therapists said it was a possibility that I had Asperger’s. My psychiatrist said she didn’t believe so because I was able to connect with her. She felt I didn’t ‘align’ with the social troubles. I can talk to her, share feelings, look her in the eye, smile ate jokes (though sometimes I fake smile- I see another person smile so I match it), and I don’t have trouble going off topic and rambling about specific subjects.

I said okay at the time. She’s a smart woman and I trust her. But ever since, it’s been on my mind. I’ve always felt different. I don’t mean that in like ‘I’m special’ kind of way. I mean it like, ‘There’s something wrong with me and I don’t understand what it is. I don’t understand why others can do X while that takes me longer/more effort to understand. I genuinely felt ostracized. But I just accepted it.’

I don’t know how to bring it up to my mom and/or dad. I know my mom will be supportive, but I’m scared about other people. My younger brother makes jokes about autism. My siblings, dad, and stepmom don’t do anything. It pisses me off to no end. I’ve yelled and sworn at him for what he says. But he keeps doing it. My other siblings say it’s just a joke and I need to relax, but I can’t. They aren’t jokes. They’re rude, ableist, and most of them are making fun of things I do. He, nor none of family, just don’t that because I keep them hidden.

And I don’t know how to bring it back up to my psychiatrist. I feel connected to many of the symptoms and like it explains so much of my life, especially when I was young, but I don’t know how to explain all my thoughts on the subject. When she asks me a question, I often freeze and undercut my own troubles and downplay it. I’ve been obsessing over this the past few months. It’s partly why my depression got bad for a time. I don’t know it I’m making a mountain out of a mole or if I should actually seek professional help to help me, especially since I’ve applied for disability benefits because my mental health has been so bad the past couple of years.

Anyway, I’m done my ranting. Thanks for listening if you did. And I’m open to advice. I’ve just felt so stuck recently and I feel like it’ll only get worse.

[hiriajuu-suffering]

Reasons I believe in Polyamory

I’ll preface this by saying I’m not attractive enough to be able to have more than a single partner at once, but there is a reason for that, and really, the thesis of this wall of text below: heteronormative relationship standards in every culture have always been, and will continue to always be, more about possession than love in a post-imperialistic world.

Personally, I’m a huge proponent of engendered sexuality variance to the tone of males have a constant slow drip of libido and a female’s sex drive hits them like a freight train once a month (in mammalian bioepigenetics, this makes sense). I’m inclined to infer, because I’m not idyllically normatively attractive, only a fraction of a percentage of women will be attracted to me 24-27 days of any given month. As a cisgendered man who is regrettably straight, having the least attractive genoethnic identity intersection (South Asian Muslim) in Western culture, I’m never actually presented with the choices to act on a poly mindset (in fact, I would be ridiculed for it because people think it aligns with some other gross tribal stereotype when it couldn’t be further from the truth). In retrospect, I have everything to gain from interpreting the main benefit of an intimate relationship as ownership like heteronormative culture generally does yet I still think disavowing poly as a legitimate personal choice is immoral.

I know saying monogamous relationships are more about possession than love will offend lots of people, so before you throw hate at me for your emotionally defensive skepticism, hear me out. An unflinching, unyielding love is seen as the highest parameter in any type of romance. So why is it cheating is so much of a bigger problem than a dry spell specifically? Is it because it’s legitimately a breach of trust, or is it more about “if I can’t have you, no one can”? More importantly, does it go a step further and say “if I don’t want you, no one should”? To me, any sort of dry spell (whether physically, emotionally, mentally) signifies a much larger breach of trust than simply having been shared because it shows said commitment in the relationship was not unflinching, not unyielding. The monogamous lens looks at others like: I want to have the best partner, not just so that I’m happy, but no one else can receive the specific happiness I get. Doesn’t that whole mindset come off as brutish? Just me? Well, maybe your pitchforks will start coming down when you realize monogamy is a function of toxic patriarchy on both feminine and masculine ends.

There are bioevolutionary reasons for toxic femininity to value the possession aspect of a relationship over its substantive “quality of life” components, the birth-giving gender in any animalistic specie always had to be beheld to a provider they reproduce with. Does it not then represent a sense of feminine fragility when a single mother immediately demands a long-term relationship and nothing else? If I’m to believe said woman is capable of genuine lust in her system, having a child shouldn’t evaporate all carnal desires completely and, therefore, should leave room for compromise. Said stance also indicates she made some sort of error in judgment of her chosen reproductive mate and feels entitled another man ought remedy her strife even though, evolutionarily speaking, he has nothing to gain from helping to rear offspring not of his kin. Harsh, to be sure, but it does show in the obnoxiousness of the connotation of becoming a stepdad being a positive one and becoming a stepmom assumes the motivation of some gain in status (wealth, fame, power, etc.) which I would argue is negative. Where does toxic masculinity come into play? Desire for possession on the part of a male promotes the viability and exclusivity of his own children with his most desirable partner. While that’s damn near nowhere as compelling, it has to be stated because there are always two benefactors to patriarchy. Patriarchy is not a zero sum game, patriarchy seeks to concentrate all familial social benefits in the monogamously-driven, heteronormative genus, away from those who deviate from the ideal picture of stereotypical gender roles. The ill effects of patriarchal standards exist in every human civilization, but the ontological root to the specific brand of patriarchy that oppresses all genders today was spread by a culture that uniquely preached monogamy.

Polygamy, in a historical sense, was a testament to the more status a person of the provider gender could achieve, the more their genetics would proliferate. Many cultures globally practiced this, the issue is, the ones that didn’t were the ones who, often violently, “conquered” the ones that did. Christian fundamentalism is in every fiber of international morality, whether the nation in question believes in Christianity or not is often irrelevant. Monogamy is enforced, anything outside of that is deemed as necessarily being deviant (whether choosing to be alone or choosing more connections than a monocule). Fetishization of the step relation is eluding to this deviance in a not-so-subtle way because it’s something where its allure is derived from its forbiddenness moreso than its convenience, every one of these scenarios has a subtext of implicit gain, not loss, in engagement. Meaning, the idea is planted because a hot person is there not because a person in general is there and can satiate an urge. Tl;dr - we believe polyamory is a morally negative act because the Holy Roman Empire did and every nation that spawned from it spread, imparted, and coerced that ideal on every culture it came into contact with. Before the Holy Roman Empire, no historical documents made distinctions to behest multiple lovers as desanctifying of life itself, not even the coalescing of nations that made up the Holy Roman Empire before its inception.

We are now in an era when women have access to full reproductive control, yet we still see men lust more than women, e.g. archetypal lesbian tendencies versus archetypal gay male tendencies. Do we not question why this is the case? All lifeforms are hardwired with a desire to survive and reproduce, so why does that drive not reach equity when risk does? There are two answers, and it could even be both: women are only socially conditioned to have sex via patriarchal pressures and don’t have as much inherent desire to reproduce OR sex is a means-to-an-end to exclusively possess a desired provider, whatever said person provides. If said person has a trait valuable enough to want to possess, is it not self-contrived to keep that quality to oneself, not share it with the world where it can provide more utility? Heteronormative relationships, in a sense, are anti-altruistic at their very core. As facetious as this sounds, either of these trains of thought are validated by men being more willing to engage in polyamory than women, not because men are somehow any less loyal than women. On its own, I feel this line of reasoning is enough to justify a vehement disgust of polyamory as immoral, but I want to conclude on the most pivotal facet to this conversation and not just heavily imply monogamy encroachment on moral turpitude is problematic at best.

As I mentioned a few times, I am likely to be a spoke on a polycule, not a member with multiple connections. Exclusive possession is something I probably stand more to gain from than any woman, logically and realistically, given the current social climate and general global beauty standards. My advocacy of polyamory stems from me accepting I may not be enough to be the full extent of happiness my romantic interest desires. That doesn’t even come from a place of insecurity, it comes from a place knowing I could never be perfect even if its pursuit is a righteous cause. I see real insecurity as a fear of loss when the rules of engagement you put into place were exclusivity: you don’t want your partner looking at anyone else because it’s disadvantageous to you, meaning you’re not fixated on their best interest and looking at relationships in said manner is deliberately selfish. To me, the best frame of reference to morality in interpersonal social connections is altruism. Yeah, self-love is important and knowing your own boundaries is beneficial but everyone else’s boundaries don’t have to match yours. I’m not anti-monogamist, really. I’m more anti-polyamorist discontent.

Not having thought this deeply isn’t an excuse, either.

[jusky]

Well Adam, I talked with my mom last night for two hours and things were calmer and I’m feeling slight optimistim. Everything personal and moral aside, my mom's worried about me detransitioning + health effects. I guess at the heart of the matter I know this is the right choice for this moment and regardless of regret, I’m currently digging myself out of a number of ruts I’ve been trapped in. Dude! I hate feeling like a shitty kid. How do you deal with feeling like a shitty kid.

maybe i’ll just answer this one and not your multi-part background and question that i’ve been thinking about since you sent it. for everyone else, sorry you won’t have all the facts but i wasn’t sure how to post the multiple messages and i think you’ll do fine with context clues and general vibe if you even choose to read all of what i’m about to say which let’s be honest you probably won’t. anyway...

you’ll get out of those ruts. you’re going to be fine. and obviously like first off you’re not a shitty kid at all no matter how much it sometimes feels that way. like, i think your concern for them is a clear sign of that. but your bravery with respect to embracing your truth despite the difficulties and your willingness to be concerned about yourself if you visit these parents who might not be able to be supportive in the way you need right now is not being a bad kid--it’s being the kind of person every parent should hope they can raise.

to be honest i have a lot of thoughts on this subject. i’m not big on the idea that we inherently owe our parents all that much. i didn’t ask to be born and wtf for a lot of the years i knew my parents, especially early on, i was just a fucking kid! like the weight of responsibility and what is required of us isn’t automatic. a lot of parents in this world deserve absolutely nothing from their kids. obviously a lot of parents were like constant miracles who are rightfully held by their kids as like givers of something that can never be fully appreciated or paid back. but like it’s important to embrace the specifics of your own relationships. i think that there’s a way in which parent and kid, like, become funny labels and roles and like archetypes that haunt us and that rather than clarify can sort of confuse our perceptions about what we owe each other. sometimes growing up my father would be angry with me and talk about how i had like wronged “the family” and i would be so frustrated. oh is the family mad? ask the family to explain then. because don’t you mean you? or do you mean him or her? like in a way there’s no family, just us. people who can speak for themselves and have various and nuanced senses of what we want and need from each other. i just think the experience of feeling like a shitty kid is sometimes tied up in a framework in which you don’t get to be an equal party or like treated as someone who has the right to control their own life,

i guess this is what i’d say about being the bad kid. i’ve played that part. and i have felt bad about being the bad kid, too. to various degrees of intensity on both fronts at various times over the years. much of that experience is about how i have had a pretty major divide in outlook and expectations and many other things with my dad and stepmom. for so many years i had this deep sense of conflict with them. growing up i felt like i was always the bad kid and that i couldn’t ever fully be myself at all with them and that when they were involved in my life i had to be on guard and that i’d never feel like just being myself was safe. and when i grew up i didn’t like that experience and eventually we stopped talking for like a decade. i just kind of went off grid on them. 

now today we can talk and we can visit. and i can totally feel like myself around them. 

am i still sort of the bad kid? yes, definitely, but it’s kind of ok in my heart and fine ultimately. 

really for me i had to accept that i had to put my own oxygen mask on first, no matter how mad anybody was going to get at me. and then in those years of silence a funny thing happened. i think i began to feel solid enough in myself that there didn’t seem much threat from them anymore? and i think they kind of were humbled by the sense that i wasn’t a sure thing and that they’d rather have the bad kid than no kid. so like yes a shift in power happened for sure but it was also a softening and a kind of acceptance i never expected.

growing up i always had these imaginary battles and arguments and like imaginary trials in my head as if i was prepping for some vague future day where my dad and i would argue it all out ultimately and i’d show him he was wrong and do so so decisively that he’d believe what i believed and change things and everything would be fixed. 

needless to say that’s not how it worked out. instead we never fixed it really. we never sorted out who was ultimately right or wrong along the way. but you know what? it’s still fine. we can still hang out. we can still be a family. i don’t have to watch fox news with him and he doesn’t have to like my choices. there’s still plenty there that’s good. imperfect is fine. even fucked up is fine as long as it’s not hurting you. 

when you feel like a bad kid that’s the pain/worry of disappointing people you don’t want to disappoint. and that feeling can keep certain selfish or shitty impulses in check i think. 

but also the truth about being a real person, an adult who has to take care of themselves and navigate a tricky world, is sometimes you do have to disappoint people. it’s often the healthy and responsible thing to do. and parents--even disappointed parents--would do well to really see what’s happening in those moments so that they realize they’re not dealing with a bad kid, they’re dealing with an adult who is doing what needs to be done. it may be disappointing but it’s not unfair. 

i think you look out for your parents as best you can but you should make sure to look out for yourself even more sometimes. you seek love, health, and reciprocity. you try to proceed with a sense of both care and integrity. 

but mostly forget the guilt. guilt is very limited in terms of how informative it is. as kafka teaches us so decisively, you don’t even need a reason to feel guilty. you often just feel guilt and then start searching for reasons. that’s not where to put your energy with respect to your parents.

i have no idea if anybody else can follow this since i didn’t post the whole initial backstory but i’m really just trying to talk to you and be encouraging. i’m proud of you based on everything i’ve heard and i deeply relate to some of what you’ve said about your parents. it sounds like there might be some good signs now and i’m so glad to hear that.

embrace what’s positive and healthy from them and calmly reject everything else with as much kind patience as the situation allows, but also here’s a tip: reject the unhealthy stuff with a this-is-already-decided vibe, a strictly personal firmness that is declaratory rather than accusatory, you want to say stuff that’s more like “i am not willing to discuss this. i told you i am not comfortable discussing this and i expect that decision to respected.”  rather than like “you always do this” “please stop criticizing me!” or like just generally defending decisions or perceptions you have that aren’t actually up for debate. you get to set those boundaries and that really is that. you get set those lines and not tolerate them being ignored or blurred. you just have to be consistent and clear.

anyway i guess i’m saying to just trust your instincts about the visit, like either way. and just speak clearly about what you won’t be accepting from them because you do get to make sure you’re feeling ok. know what i mean? you’re strong and articulate and their worries will ultimately be calmed by the reality of the future you’re heading into. and i’m sure that beneath the stuff they bring to the table that feels unhelpful they must have a sense of the truth about you. their fears aren’t the reality and you may have to help them see reality by not letting them treat their fears as if they’re real and by i guess just fucking letting them see that the very same poise and sense of self that you possess as you make tough decisions and as you’re communicating with them is going to be exactly what you use to move forward and navigate your future--a future which will demonstrate that they didn’t need to be so afraid all along.

god i hope some of that is helpful or at least maybe makes some sense. please do get at me if you want to talk more about any of this.

[creek-cryptid-deluxe]

Oh man. So I just watched a documentary HBO released. It was fantastic but there's a TON of talk about violence & s*xual assault because it was a documentary about...

Woodstock 99.

Now when this happened I was 14. I liked a lot of those bands & thus watched it on MTV (because back then MTV still played music, although MTV2 played more music up my alley, less pop) so I watched this all happen in real time over the course of 3 days. It was bananas.

The documentary was a lot of footage from the event, interviews with attendees, music journalists, the event creators (who still somehow maintain it was a success & 'not as bad as the media made it out to be'), random staff (security & emt), and some artists.

Now, I must retract a statement made yesterday on my Queen of the Damned rant, as Jon Davis was interviewed on this doc. Jon, I apologize for & retract statements made yesterday. You have cleaned it up & it was good to see you looking healthier than I've seen you look in the better part of 2 decades. Proud of you man. Glad you're flourishing. Sorry I was an asshole yesterday.

Can't say the same for my boy Dexter Holland from The Offspring. I wouldn't have known it was him if not for the text onscreen identifying him. He legit looked like someone made a massive overly tanned balloon caricature of him. Holy shit. And this isn't just some "getting older" weight that most people get. This is like... Don Vito from Viva La Bam (rip) level shit. Like...wow.

Moby was interviewed & they showed footage of his bus coming into the venue and I gotta say... dude is still a pretentious piece of shit. I don't understand how he can have his head so far up his own ass & still be able to speak audibly for cameras. Dude wasn't even that good for his genre, much less in general!

Don't get me wrong, I grew up listening to a ton of different genres. Still do. That's what you get when your dad is a musician & your mom is schizoaffective & your stepmom is an 80s new wave/pop person who loves fucking John Hughes movies. Tons of variety. At the 'height' of his career, I was listening to The Prodigy (RIP Keith Flint♡), Chemical Brothers, Crystal Method, and Daft Punk. But jesus christ Moby was crap.

Moby: fuck you. You're a shit artist & a garbage person. If I ever meet you, you're getting a cane to the nuts just because of who you are as a person. Then probably again for assaulting the public with your crap electronic music. Wanker.

So the present day interviews did just talk about the events of the festival but also things that were happening in the world at the time because a huge part of why it became the shit show it did was that it catered to & drew in a very specific demographic: angry white dudes between 20-25. They probably weren't sure why they were angry but they absolutely fucking were.

So in talking about what was happening at the time they obviously touched on the Clinton/Lewinsky thing, the fears about y2k, and the like.

The best part of this entire documentary for me:

They talked about the napster thing & the stance Lars Urlich from Metallica took on it. There were actually a number of artists who disagreed with his stance. There was footage of a round table style interview with him & Chuck D from Public Enemy. Lars is over there looking pissy while Chuck D was saying "I think this is a great thing because it puts the music back into the hands of the people." The idea being that they can easily share it with friends & it ends up gaining them new fans. Hell, that was the entire basis for Dashboard Confessional's career. Their vocalist has openly stated that if not for sites like Napster, Limewire, & Kazaa, nobody would have ever heard their music.

Cut to an interview with present day Dave Munstaine (formerly of Metallica but has been the front for Megadeth for far longer. He may also be the reason behind my thing for redheaded dude. Hm.) Let me just say, for being a 59 year old rockstar who just survived throat cancer, that man is still fucking gorgeous. And the hair is still long & red, bless him.

Anyway, his interview is my favorite fucking part because this man said something along the lines of:

"I remember back when I was with Metallica trading mixed cassette tapes. That's how we found new music. This isn't different. Why did Lars do what he did? I mean, who knows why someone does something like that. Doesn't he have enough money? I certainly think so..."

Y'ALL. I legit had to pause it & out loud said "BROOOOOOOOO. That is the most serious but legit shade I've ever seen thrown IN MY LIFE."

Then text my dad (because Metallica is his favorite & he tries to tell me all the time how Lars was justified) & didn't quote it but told him the Dave just threw serious fucking shade at Lars for the Napster thing & that he HAS to watch this doc.

His response was: "lol yeah there's definitely no love lost between Dave & Metallica. You hear Megadeth is putting out a new album despite Dave having just recovered from throat cancer?"

(I had not known about the album or the cancer. I hope Dave is doing well. Love him.)

But yes, that was the absolute highlight of my fucking week much less the documentary.

A warning: the low point of the doc is when attendees & journalists are talking about the instances of the aforementioned assaults & they cut to one of the even organizers present day interview & he says:

"I mean, we aren't talking about thousands of instances or even hundreds. There were maybe 50 or so." (At which point I scream "THAT WERE OFFICIALLY REPORTED YOU SCUMBAG!" This was later confirmed for me by an attendee who set up an anonymous site for attendees to report if they had been assaulted at the event so they wouldn't feel alone & have there story heard. There WERE 1000s.) Then he went on to say: "All those women who were walking around topless or wearing body paint, expecting not to be touched, they are partly to blame."

EXCUSE SIR, WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY ON CAMERA FOR A DOCUMENTARY?!?!

Then he keeps talking about the event was an overall success & blames the artists for riling up the crowd (bruh you booked a load of bands that are angry. Korn. Dmx. Rage Against the Machine. Limp fucking Bizkit. What did you expect them to do? Come out and play fucking folk music? No. Their brand is fucking anger.) & of course the media for 'blowing it way out of proportion & scewing the narrative by only interviewing artists who were upset/angry.'

But every artist who was interviewed in present day was like "Yeah the energy of the crowd was fucking insane & hostile." Artists kept having to begin sets or stop mid-set to be like "Hey man! I'm seeing a lot of chicks getting groped while they crowd surf or out there enjoying the music. That shit is unacceptable. They deserve to enjoy themselves without getting groped. Ladies, if a dude crowd surfs by you, grab his fucking balls! Equality, right ladies?!" (This particular quote was from Dexter Holland mid-set with The Offspring. God love him.)

In short, good doc if you aren't triggered by such things, especially if you watched it in real time back in 99. Absolutely worth it for the Dave Munstaine shade. I'm still reeling about that. Fucking brilliant.

Dave, I know you're nearly my dad's age, but call me. I've loved you since i was like 6 yrs old.

(I also loved Sebastian Bach of Skid Row at the time, but let's keep that on the down low. What can I say, I love musicians with good hair.)

[sage-nebula]

Do NOT reblog, or I will delete the post and block you.

There are so many posts on here about “eldest daughter this” and “oldest sibling that” but there are no posts that talk about what it’s like to be the middle sibling when your oldest sibling is a complete and utter fuckup in basically every way.

I’m technically the middle child. I have a sister who’s 8.5 years older than I am, and a (technically step-)brother who’s nine months younger than I am. My brother became my brother when I was six and he was five, so the “step-” determination is really meaningless, but I added it to explain how he could be my brother when he’s only nine months younger than I am. Anyway. I have two siblings, one older and one younger, and so that makes me the middle child, right?

Well, yes . . . but also no. 

As you could surmise by the opening paragraph, my older sister fucked up in basically every conceivable way. I won’t get into her whole life story here because that’s not my story to tell (though believe me, there are doozies in there), but suffice it to say that every single choice she made is one that most parents would disapprove of. All three of my parents certainly did. And so what do you think happened when it came to me? 

I’ll tell you what happened. 

Because my older sister fucked up in every way one could possibly fuck up, there was a fear, I suppose, or a concern that I would, for whatever godforsaken reason, follow in her footsteps even though the two of us could not be more different in terms of attitude, outlook, goals, et cetera. As a result, if I did even the slightest thing wrong, the punishment hammer came down on me with all the might of Thor celebrating a delicious beverage. I failed geometry in junior year of high school due to an undiagnosed learning disability (along with undiagnosed severe depression and an undiagnosed anxiety disorder, all following years of abuse at my biological mother’s hands), and I was put under lockdown for the entire summer. I was not allowed to leave the house except to go to summer school, I was not allowed to talk to or see any of my friends, or play video games, or watch television, or be on the internet, or read, or write fiction, or do basically anything besides the aforementioned summer school and listening to music. To this day, my parents think this was a good decision on their part even though they now know about the learning disability and myriad of mental illnesses. They think it was a good call for them to punish me like they did.

And so you would say, okay, but if they punished you that severely because they didn’t want you to end up a drug-addicted high school dropout like your sister, surely they would level the same punishments against your brother, especially since you two were so close in age! Well, you would think that, but nope!

Instead, when my brother was around seventeen, he got pulled over and arrested for marijuana possession. (I think he was pulled over in the first place for speeding, but I can’t remember.) His punishment was to have his car taken away for six months. That’s it. He still had all of his other privileges, was not punished in any other way, he just could not drive for six months. He got in actual legal trouble, but he was still allowed to have hobbies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that my brother should have been punished more harshly, per se. I’m only saying there was a stark difference in the way that we were treated that my family refuses to acknowledge or own up to even to this day, and it all comes down to the fact that I was never cut slack in either direction. If I was compared to my older sibling, then the fact that she had screwed up so royally in basically every single way meant that I would be made to stand at attention so I could be yelled at for an hour for failing a math class, and then continue to be berated and insulted for how I was clearly never going to college (I have a master’s now, by the by) because of it over the next few days, and yelled at further for having “nothing to say to myself” in the face of all the lecturing. But if I was compared to my younger sibling, why, then it should be expected that he always gets off easier, because he’s younger than I am and the baby of the extended family and, well, I’m older and more mature, so I can handle it better, anyway. And I mean, I guess, for the record, true; I took my punishment in silence because as a victim of child abuse for basically my entire life I never stood up for myself against my parents back then and always just stayed quiet to try to make punishments worse, whereas he threw fits about having his keys taken away every single day for those six months, but also we have to consider how “mature” one really is if that “maturity” stems from a decade and plus some of child abuse.

Because see, that’s the thing, and what has made me really start thinking about this the past few days. I mentioned it on twitter, but a week ago I got into a fight with my mom (stepmom, the better of the two) over politics that has effectively led to her disowning me, I think, which in turn means that my dad has disowned me as well, I think, because I’m pretty sure he’s going to take her side on this one. I won’t get into the actual subject matter here, but the long and short of it is that she accused me of “attacking” her when I wasn’t, and has since then refused to speak to me, even when I tried to offer an olive branch by texting her that fine, I wouldn’t talk to her about politics, but I still loved her. She left me on Read. So the way I see it, she’s not talking to me until I apologize, and I won’t apologize, so she’ll never talk to me and I’m just effectively disowned, I guess. It’s not exactly the first time I’ve lost a parent, and actually, it’s kind of in the same way as the last time.

Fifteen years ago, I left my abusive biological mother to live with my dad and stepmom. (I’m going to keep using stepmom to keep it clear from here on out, just as I use biological mother, even though I do call my stepmom “mom” and consider her as such.) At first my biological mother kept trying to reach out with her pity party guilt tripping about how lonely she was and how much she needed me and yadda yadda, but in the last phone conversation we had, she called me a traitor for leaving her. Keep in mind, I was 15, and she was abusive to the point where the neighbors could hear every profanity and threat she screamed at me from down the street. They told me this. They also told me they always thought about calling CPS, but they never did, but whatever. The point is, on that last phone conversation, she called me a traitor for leaving her. I told her that I wasn’t. She said that I was. I told her I didn’t have to listen to that. She said I did. I said I didn’t, and hung up the phone. I expected her to call right back to curse me out . . . but she never did.

That was fifteen years ago, and we’ve never spoken since.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to speak to her. Actually, the one time it looked like it might happen (at my sister’s wedding), my Fight or Flight response kicked in when I saw her walking toward me and I bolted. I had a panic attack so bad I felt like I was going to vomit. It’s really embarrassing to admit that, but it’s true. The only time I’ve seen her since was at my nephew’s high school graduation (which is the only graduation she got to attend for anyone directly related to her, since my sister dropped out and she didn’t attend mine), but although we made eye contact I looked away pretty quickly and, again, didn’t speak to her. Again, I don’t want to speak to her, this isn’t me complaining, I’ve not lost a single wink of sleep for the fact that she never reached out again despite how my dad likes to go on and on about how she should have “never stopped trying.” (But also, he never picks up the phone to call me for a chat either, despite always telling me how I should call him, so.)

But I just can’t help but notice the similarity. Once again, I have a mother who is refusing to speak to me because she feels I’ve wronged her in some way, and if I want a relationship, then I have to be the one to reach out (even though I already did, but was left on Read, so she wants me to reach out in a very specific way that she won’t even articulate). This isn’t the first time that she (and my dad) have done this, either. When I studied abroad in London, we got into a fight over something stupid over Skype, and I hung up the call. I was 19/20, so you know, not fully mature, but expected to be. Two weeks of silence passed before I had to call them to apologize, because even though their daughter was in a completely foreign country and, hell, could’ve been dead for all they knew, they wanted to Teach Me A Lesson, with that lesson being that unless I behaved the Right Way, they wouldn’t be there for me. And I guess here we are now, about eleven years later, having come full circle with that.

And you know what? I’m tired of it. 

Because here’s the thing about being the second child when the first child is a fuckup in every way: you are expected to not only not fall into those same pitfalls, but also to excel in every single possible way. Not only in terms of grades or whatever else, but also in terms of emotional maturity and support for the parents. This veers into the abuse I experienced, I know (at least some of it), but you know how I mentioned that my biological mother kept going on and on about how much she needed me and whatnot? This is because instead of treating me like her daughter, I was instead treated like her combo maid-servant-therapist. It was my job to wait on her hand and foot when she was home, whether that was through fetching her coffee or being in charge of the refrigerator remaining operational (this sounds specific because it is; when I was about 13 the refrigerator broke and she yelled at me for a.) not knowing it was going to break and b.) not doing anything to prevent it breaking), but also she laid out all of her problems to me day after day, month after month, year after year. Do you know how many times I had to sit and listen to the “your father ran out on me after 22 years of marriage” speech? And when I finally asked her if she could stop she yelled at me because I clearly let him badmouth her but I wouldn’t let her do the same. (He actually didn’t, and neither did my stepmom. She was the only one remaining bitter.) She “needed” me because I was the emotional pillar on top of which sat her own degrading stability. The second time I told her that I wanted to live with my dad (because I told her to her face that I wanted to switch the custody agreement twice, and got browbeaten down twice, before I finally left in secret and didn’t tell her until I was already at his place), she picked up smoking cigarettes again after having quit smoking while she was hospitalized for undiagnosed diabetes and told me that it was my fault that she was smoking again, because I had stressed her out so badly by telling her that I wanted to leave. And like, one, obviously I wanted to leave, is there any question of why I wanted to leave or why that wouldn’t make me just want to leave more? But also two, the point I’m getting at here is that it was always about her, always about her emotional needs, never about mine. My emotional wellbeing was never a priority in that house. I was always expected to be there for her, that was my entire purpose as her daughter. 

With my dad and stepmom it was obviously different, and in a lot of ways it was better because, god, I hated having to be the recipient of the constant stream of stress and misery from my biological mother. My dad and stepmom had each other, so I never had to hear about their woes for the most part. But at the same time, look at what happened when I failed geometry; instead of looking into seeing if they could get me diagnosed with a learning disability, or maybe actually listening to me when I said I felt “burnt out” and pushing a little harder for me to go to therapy, my dad instead yelled at me for an hour and several days after, insulted me, told me I was never going to succeed, and put me under lockdown for the entire summer, cutting me off from my support network of friends. I came from a background of 15 years of abuse, and one fuckup a year or so later lead not to a reexamination of how I was doing, but instead a severe punishment so that I “wouldn’t do it again.” I couldn’t pass a math class in university and in my final year I finally broke and went to my parents about how I really wasn’t going to graduate college because of it, and they agreed to pay to get me examined for a learning disability which, whoops, looks like I had! And my dad still blames me for waiting for so long to get diagnosed and not telling him sooner, when the last time he found I failed a math class that summer lockdown happened. He still hasn’t put the pieces together between that lockdown and why I didn’t tell him about the math classes I failed in university. Amazing.

My point is, with my dad and my stepmom, it wasn’t so much that they used me as an emotional sponge or pillar, but rather that they were pretty much uninvolved so long as I performed adequately, and was the model daughter they could be Oh So Proud Of, but the moment I slipped, bam! Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not contact your friends. My emotional needs were still not a priority because it wasn’t about whether or not I was okay, but whether or not it looked like I was doing okay in ways that were quantifiable, such as my grades. And I mean, to be fair, I wasn’t exactly keen on opening up about my feelings at that age and I was a pro at masking how I felt and acting like everything was fine because my biological mother would berate me on the car rides to school each morning to the point of tears, and then would yell at me more about how I better clean myself up because god help me if any teachers saw me crying, which would make them think she was a bad parent and that, too, would be my fault. (Protip: Washing your face with very cold water helps clear away the puffiness around the eyes that can be a tell you’ve been crying.) But even so, again, that puts the responsibility on me to do the Right Thing so that they could be there for me emotionally as my parents, and that is just—

I’m so tired of it, man!

I have had three parents and yet have never had the unconditional love of one. Never. My stepmom once tried telling me that she and my dad would love me unconditionally when I was a teen and she was trying to get me to admit I was a lesbian (funny thing is, even I didn’t know I was gay at the time), and my dad walked through the living room and, not even knowing what we were talking about, was like, “No we won’t.” So that was great. But the thing is this whole thing proves that she was full of it, too. Because they tolerate me being gay (while still trying to set me up with men), but because I won’t apologize to my mom when I haven’t done anything wrong but she feels like I have, she’s giving me the complete and total silent treatment until I do. Because I didn’t perform in the way I’m supposed to, because I wasn’t The Mature One, I’m being cut off. Because it’s my job to be The Mature One, because I was always The Mature One, because I never had any goddamn choice in the matter and the dysfunctional environment I was in when I lived with my biological mother (+ my sister, her baby daddy-now-husband, and their two very young children whom I was often put in charge of despite being in middle school at the time because their parents were often too busy doing drugs and/or sleeping to care for them) required it. Because I had to be Kept In Line so that I wouldn’t end up like my sister, but also it was just me that had to be kept in line despite how close in age my brother and I were. And again, I’m not saying that I wish my brother had also been punished harshly, but more that I wish that, you know, maybe some mercy could have been doled out to me, except it wasn’t, because I had two siblings on either side to be compared to and as a result one toe out of the line resulted in a smiting.

But in the end, it isn’t even really about that. This post isn’t really about how I’m simultaneously the eldest daughter but also the second child. It’s more about the fact that I’ve had three parents and yet have never had the unconditional love of even one, even from the one who said I had it. It’s about how my emotional needs were never a priority for any of the parents in my life. It’s about how I basically had to raise myself and it’s a real goddamn wonder I’m not even more screwed up than I actually am because of it. And it’s also about how I really miss therapy and haven’t been able to go for a long time, and I think this rambling stream of consciousness post proves that I really, really need to find a new therapist so I can go back again, because goddamn.

Anyway, once again, do NOT reblog this or I will delete it and block you, I just needed to get this off my chest, but I need it to stay here. Thank you.