#no harm in being weird

[thottybrucewayne]

I think what I want to get into with the "Anyone can do harm." thing that I keep beating yall over the head with is that literally anyone, anyone at all can do harm it's not "in your DNA" to be an abuser or written in the stars that you'll be a predator. Whatever image you have of an abuser in your head, drop it and replace it with your favorite person in the world and you'll probably be closer to the truth than you realize. It's easy to address harm when it's coming from someone you already hate. I see it happen all the time. Someone you couldn't stand for no real reason does something heinous then all of a sudden here comes the avalanche of "I always knew they were a fucked up individual." No, you didn't. There is no possible way you could have known, you just already didn't fuck with them before they started doing something you could use to justify your hatred of them. I'm guilty of it too! I'm petty, mean, vindictive, and yes! I'm way quicker to believe something bad about someone I hate versus someone I love because I'm human. Still, y all gotta learn to move past that initial "Well, they were always nice to me!" gut feeling and understand that nobody truly knows anyone and anyone can be capable of anything. Even victims. Even you.

[krittec]

there’s something extremely extremely creepy about taking an actor that you have known since they were 13 years old, only JUST a teenager, and making them kiss a fully grown woman the second that they turned a legal adult.

Steve Blackman already has a ton of shit out against him which came out recently so it unfortunately doesn’t surprise me that he would write something like this but it makes me genuinely concerned for everything behind the scenes.

There has been a HUGE problem in the Umbrella Academy fandom since season ONE when Aidan was a 13-14 year old of people writing insanely disgusting stuff and defending it because his character was mentally an adult but oh my god did they make it worse. You’d think they’d protect actor & character by avoiding any romantic interaction but instead you have him kiss an actress 15 years older than him. The age gap being the age that he was when they filmed season two. Quite honestly I feel that if he could’ve done this seasons previously and gotten away with it then he definitely would’ve done it, given the jokes that are actively made.

Quite honestly may Steve Blackman never work again if this is how he treats his actors because this is awful. I’m not even done with the season but that gave me very little desire to continue and this show has been important to me in ways I can’t explain. Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion but it feels so insanely creepy and horrific to me and I needed to rant.

[fawn-tongues]

Safe Bet

[inkskinned]

this is sort of pathetic, but when you were younger, you were sort of puzzled by the cartoon representations of fathers: how a kid would be outside with a mitt, waiting to play catch.

it's not that your father never played catch with you, but you also didn't like when he did. something about a hard ball coming quickly towards your face doesn't seem exciting. not that you'd ever say you don't trust him. you trust him, right?

it's not like he never tried to teach you anything. or never tried to parent. on rare days, a strange person would walk in your father's skin. bright, happy, magnificent. this version of your father was so cheerful and charismatic that you would do anything to keep him. and this is the version of your father that would laugh and gently coax you try again. this is the version of your father that would break down the small elements of a problem and point them out so you have an easier time with them.

as a kid, those days happened more often. but somewhere around 11, you started being too much of a person, and he was often cross about it. when he'd try to sit you down to learn something, you spent the whole time with your shoulders around your ears, nervous, uncertain. terrified because you didn't immediately understand how to navigate something. worried you will run out of his goodwill and then you will have the Other Father back, and you will have ruined a good day for your entire family. something about you being visibly afraid - it just made him angry. he would accuse you of not wanting to learn and storm away.

on tv, it's not like there's a lot of versions of men-who-are-mostly-fathers. they can be good dads, but usually their stories are not told in the household. so it's normal that your father is there, but he's never around. you know he was in the house, somewhere, it's just not that you guys ever... "hung out". he just seemed to get kind of bored of you, annoyed you weren't made in his perfect image. frustrated with how much energy it took to raise a kid. over time, you kind of adopt a bittersweet band around your throat - he knows nothing about me. he says at least i never abandoned my family.

and it's technically - technically - true. he was there for you. sometimes he even made an effort and made it to the big moments; the graduations and the dance recitals. he grins and tells everyone that he taught you. it almost erases the days in between, where he complains because you need a ride to school. the weeks that go by where he doesn't actually ever speak to you. the times you say i am struggling and he says figure it out on your own. i can't help you.

and that's fine! that's all fine. you can call him if you are having a problem with your car. or if you need a ride to the hospital. he loves playing hero, he just doesn't like the actual work that comes with being a father. and you've kind of made your peace with that; because you had to, because you don't want to live your life like he does; the whole world at a managed distance, a little rotating and controlled orb he can witness and take credit for but never truly love.

as an adult, you are rewatching some dumb cartoon - and again, the child standing in the rain, with a mitt, waiting for their father to come play catch. as an adult, there's this strange creeping dread - this little thing? this little thing, and their dad can't even show up for that? oh god, holyshit, it's not about the mitt, is it. oh god, holyshit, your father spent most of your life leaving you hanging.

[alluralater]

reminder that people who enable/do nothing when it comes to acts of sexual harassment are basically just as awful as the aggressors. they normalize, justify, and regularly excuse those behaviors and sweep it under the rug. who you decide to call a friend does in fact reflect on you. if you're happy to be around people that engage in predatory behavior and you perceive a clear pattern of it yet do nothing about it, then i'm literally never talking to you again. that goes double for people on here where there's this strange idea that there are no consequences in an online space. there are. damaging other people by staying silent or sitting on the fence when you have the power to do something is a consequence and that shit comes back around ten fold to you. you'd deserve every bit of it. dangerous by association is a thing, and you are.

[immediatebreakfast]

A new detail that I noticed, or at least a speculation borne out of a specific observation, is how Seward's speaking cadence seems to deflate the more he talks about what happened in Renfield's visit while he pours out his feelings about Lucy rejecting him. One situation taints the other despite only being talked about in the last paragraphs to the point that I could picture Jack holding his head with both hands with a look of despair in his face as he just keeps talking despite his brain screaming to stop.

Because that is how it could sound like in the paragraph of 11 p. m. Renfield ate his sparrows to finish his first unsuccesful experiment to start another, then made himself sick in the process, and it seems that this incident made Seward spiral more into his own self isolation. The man keeps doubling down on his own words, drugging his patient to look at a private journal, and seemly has not gone out of the asylum since Arthur and Quincey's invitation.

All of this concludes in what I can only call a rambling of great magnitude where Jack's ableism, desesperation, and depressing loathing made him very uncomfortablely aware of how he is so close to being a patient himself by the societal appropiate standards of the time. Renfield may be mad yes, but at least he is rational, selfless, and goal oriented in his madness; what does Seward truly has except the system that he works in? Should he let his mind wander into the text step of unethical, and dehumanizing aspect of science?

The last two small paragraps just fizzle out of the stringed energy that contained the first, leaving Seward alone with himself.

Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work!

What does Jack Seward has except work from his perspective? Even Renfield has a clear goal to fulfill, and if the mad man is acting more rational than him, shouldn't Seward be inside the cell instead?

[thedreadvampy]

sometimes I forget that my experience has been. um. not 'your experiences are not universal' vibes but more like 'your experiences are EXTREMELY atypical'

[barrowsteeth]

[Article link image description: Text "Kit Connor Wasn't Ready" over an image of Kit wearing a muted purple shirt with his arms crossed in front of his body. Kit is not smiling as he looks directly at the camera.

Image quote plain text: He certainly would have had cause to be furious, but he couches his feelings to me a little differently. "I think I felt disappointed," he tells me, "because I was really trying, you know. I really was trying to set that boundary. It was my private life, and I can understand why people would want to know, but I was also, you know, an 18-year-old kid." End plain text]

[poorlittleyaoyao]

God, poor Zixuan. He makes the innocuous comment that his half-brother is doing a really great job with wedding planning and truly giving it his all, and his dad looks at him and goes “I HATE that he’s doing a good job. Fear not for your birthright. No bastard will ever inherit Lanling Jin. 😐” Like, what is he supposed to do with that? He can barely carry on a conversation that flows in a normal way! This is too much!

[nukacourier]

James being both a repairman/robotics expert and a medic is funny to me because he's 100% more gentle with fixing machines than he probably is with people. And it probably also makes Arcade jealous as hell and fuels his disdain towards robots when he sees James being so sweet about repairing them

[scrapimmortal]

"there isn't a single valid justification to support team green and yet people still do it" yes and? didn't realise i need a justification to like a fictional family in a fictional tv show about flying lizards. i don't care about the throne, i don't care about the realm, i don't care about "justification", and i definitely don't care about what viserys did and didn't want. team green has the most compelling and complex characters and most compelling and complex dynamics #tome, and they happen to serve all the cunt

[astralleywright]

for the record, nobody forced Sam to change Braius' backstory. he chose to do so after it got leaked, which sucks but wasn't necessary for Braius to work as a character (it's not like he had a dramatic twist backstory, like Veth). as several years of spoilers discourse can tell you, knowing something in advance doesn't necessarily make seeing it play out in the story any less interesting or rewarding.

[asexualsimonsnow]

A Shortened List of Simon Snow's Autistic Traits

because a full length list would be too long of a post.

1. His love of magic could easily be interpreted as a special interest

“No ones loves magic like I do,” (Carry On, page 9).

2. He is shown to have poor spatial awareness

“That’s when we hear the first scream. I stand up, knocking the table over and breaking the teapot more conclusively,” (Carry On, page 235).

“...before she starts treating me like a Great Dane who can’t help knocking things over with its tail… You’d have to be incorporeal not to knock anything over,” (Carry On, page 267).

3. He is always interpreting things literally

“‘Let hardship sharpen your blade, Simon.’ I thought he meant my actual blade… Eventually I figured out that he meant me,” (Carry On, page 9).

It even affects his magic: “And sometimes when [Simon] casts metaphors, they go viciously literal,” (Carry On, page 119).

4. He has his whole thing with lists to help him process things

“I keep a list—of all the things I miss most—and I’m not allowed to touch it in my head until I’m about an hour from Watford. Then I run through the list one by one. It’s sort of like easing yourself into cold water. But the opposite of that I suppose—easing yourself into something really good, so the shock of it doesn’t overwhelm you. / I started making my list, my good things list, when I was 11, and I should probably cross a few things off, but that’s harder than you’d think,” (Carry On, page 11).

^ Not only is the list thing autistic, struggling to take things off because he's grown used to the list as it is is autistic.

5. He has difficulty with verbal communication

“Half of Snow’s sentences are shrugs,” (Carry On, page 354).

“I’ve never been good with words,” (Carry On, page 107). They mention this like a million times.

This is the bit that really convinces me: "I don’t remember when I learned to talk, but I know they tried to send me to specialists… I used to see a counselor and a speech therapist. ‘Use your words, Simon.’ I got so bloody sick of hearing that. It was so much easier to just take what I wanted instead of asking for it. Or thump whoever was hurting me, even if they thumped me right back," (Carry On, page 108).

“Simon seemed conscious, but wasn’t saying anything. And he wouldn’t make eye contact,” (Carry On, page 427). The eye contact thing in here is also pretty autistic.

6. He does a lot of stimming

“Simon groans and rakes at his hair,” (Carry On, page 362). He messes with his hair a lot.

“Simon was pacing around my bedroom, swinging his blade,” (Carry On, page 454).

“I intentionally slam my shoulder into the wall next to the door. (People who tell you that slamming and bashing into things won’t make you feel better haven’t slammed or bashed enough),” (Carry On, page 274). This one especially stands out to me.

Again, just a short list. There are plenty more quotes for these traits, and other autistic traits that Simon has.

[confused-stars]

wriolette au where Neuvillette is a sheltered royal living in a palace far away from real contact with his people, and Wriothesley is a thief living on the streets he meets on a secret excursion and is immediately intrigued by

[dorkfruit]

ending off the year with ummmmmm...style practice?

[snzluv3r]

hey!!!! since pretty much everybody who’s made shitty, bad faith takes on this whole situation (that was never drama or some witch-hunt of the ‘puritans of tumblr persecuting thought crime’ as people like @fluziska wanted to refer to it) has ended up retracting or trying to reword their original (shitty) statements, because they realized they didn’t actually know what they were commenting on in the first place, let’s all just agree to one thing. let’s shut the fuck up and think before we talk for five seconds, especially when it comes to a marginalized group of people having a conversation that centers their literal distress and lack of safety