#not going to cause or contribute to discourse but my god it’s always someone that is *** saying that shit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ziskandra · 2 years

Text

I posted 3,294 times in 2022

That's 3,140 more posts than 2021!

130 posts created (4%)

3,164 posts reblogged (96%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@mxkelsifer

@ithoughteventheboneswoulddoot

@ziskandra

@illusivesoul

@ultraviolet-ink

I tagged 3,177 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

#the unreliable q - 2,029 posts

#dragon age - 1,352 posts

#ace attorney - 579 posts

#meredith stannard - 519 posts

#orsino - 225 posts

#mass effect - 171 posts

#about me - 152 posts

#miles edgeworth - 139 posts

#anders - 138 posts

#franziska von karma - 127 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#especially the pro tip about being about differentiating between having empathy for one’s friends and acknowledging that they’re being mean

My Top Posts in 2022:

Reply to this post for a DRUNKEN EFFUSIVELY COMPLIMENT okay

20 notes - Posted December 3, 2022

you are SO right for autistic Manfred lmao that is also my hc. This dude once screamed at the top of his lungs in the middle of court cause someone interrupted his routine. He's so fucking relatable unfortunately

TRULY. I too want to scream aloud when things don’t go as I’d planned in my head!

Like, there’s the other obvious things: law is clearly his special interest. He’s the kind of person who has a place for everything and everything in its place.

Then there’s the just fucking off-the-wall things, like, he retrained the parrot. Even thinking to ATTEMPT it doesn’t seem like allistic behaviour to me, and by god, Manfred succeeded.

But the biggest thing to me is just how … rigid he can be when things go wrong, and how he really struggles with emotional lability in times of crisis. I know relating villain’s crimes to autistic traits can often be controversial, but I believe in most cases with villains I personally headcanon as autistic, it’s the lack of support in their life and society that contribute to the crimes, not simply being autistic.

Which is why the part about the tragedy of it all — how it hurts more — if Manfred had been trying his best in your meta really hit home to me! I know for myself one of my autistic traits is obsessing over what people tick and what makes them do the things they do. I don’t think anyone’s truly evil, but I do believe that people so often act in the preservation of their own self image and … yeah, it that doesn’t explain Manfred’s actions … perfectly (ba dum tsch).

OH, and there’s also just like, his sense of humour? It’s so arrogant but dry: “My PIN is 0001 because I’m number one!” “My granddaughter’s dog is named Phoenix, are you saying you’re her fiancé?” “Defense attorneys are like bugs to me, needless things, to be crushed.”

God, I love this man.

21 notes - Posted November 29, 2022

introduction!

BASICS. Asha. Late 20s. they/them. autistic & adhd. brown. biracial. bisexual. shift-worker. Fascinated by fictional villains. FANDOMS. Primary: Ace Attorney & Dragon Age Dabbling in: Mass Effect, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Suits, Schitt's Creek (see fave characters and ships list here) LINKS. ziskandra on Ao3 ziskandra on Twitter ziskandra on Dreamwidth ziskandra#7191 @ Discord

Dragon Age Fanfic Masterlist [Ace Attorney & Mass Effect Masterlists TBA] ABOUT THIS BLOG.

I'm a fanfic writer and occasional art doodler & cosplayer from Australia. This is a personal blog, which contains everything from my own rambles about daily life, to reblogs of content I enjoy, to my own fandom creations.

I enjoy fannish meta but am generally disinterested in discourse. To clarify, I'm always down to read other people's takes and interpretations of media, but dislike being told what to think, or that there's only one valid way to perceive something. I'm more than happy to be friends with people who disagree with me over fandom things, if the same courtesy is extended to me in return. As a general rule, I don't talk about international politics in this space. I do, however, talk about Australian politics (#auspol) Big fan of curating one's own space. To that end, if there's anything I'm not tagging which you would like tagged, please feel free to ask! Caveat: I might not agree to do so, but would not hold any hard feelings for the request and/or if you needed to unfollow or block me as a result! Do what you need to for your best experience, as will I.

21 notes - Posted November 20, 2022

ngl but rewatching the first season of the handmaid's tale after watching season 5 is so funny. one of the first things serena says to june is 'i want to see as little of you as possible'. followed up with basically 'if i'm given trouble i'll give you trouble back'

and now they're going to be raising their babies in exile together and you know what. good for them.

22 notes - Posted November 24, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Fanfic Author Self-Recs!

@haljathefangirlcat tagged me to rec five of my own fanfics with you all — thank you, friend! 💖 I've tried to go with a variety of different fandoms and have mostly focused on older works. I also purposely haven't recommended any of my Dragon Age works as I feel DA has been occupying a lot of my brain space lately, and I wanted to give some of the spotlight to my other fannish interests! I'm gonna tag @mxanigel, @barbex, @joiningthefandomeightyearslate, @chocochipbiscuit and @fandomn00blr to share five of their works with us (if you so desire!) Without any further ado, I present my self-recs: 1. Retrospect - Mass Effect: Andromeda - Alec Ryder/Ellen Ryder (10k, rated M)

They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die and he's about to find out just how right they are.

A series of vignettes exploring Alec Ryder's relationships with his nearest and dearest, and the faltering steps he took to bridge the gaps between them.

Every time any sort of self-recommendation meme comes up, Retrospect is always the first fic that comes to mind. To this day, I still consider it my magnum opus, as I feel it really captures my strengths as an author. Character study of a morally grey, controversial character? Check. Non-linear narrative? Check. Experimental prose? Check. Vignettes? Check. Themes of family and struggling to fit in? Check check. If anyone ever wants to make my entire fucking month, please read this fic and tell me your thoughts on it. You will have my undying gratitude! 💖

2. Grounded - Mass Effect Andromeda - Calvin Kosta/Joelle Kosta (2.2k, rated M)

Calvin remembers the first time he held Liam in his arms. Big baby, nine pounds. His son is an ugly, wrinkly thing and yet also the most beautiful sight in the world. He smooths down the infant’s hair, kisses the soft spot on his head and whispers, “You’re gonna do great things." During the Reaper War, Calvin Kosta reflects on his relationship with his son.

This fic did really well on Tumblr (one of the few times I'd ever gotten over 100 notes on a post), but didn't quite get the same level of traction on AO3, which was quite interesting to me at the time as I'd never had that happen before (or since!) Honestly, it covers a lot of similar themes as Retrospect, but this time focused on Liam's family and how they deal with the Reaper War when they're left behind on Earth. IDK, I'm just obsessed with examining the human drive to live and survive, and what we struggle for, and how both our past experiences and our hopes for the future shape our actions, whether we're willing to admit it to ourselves or not.

3. Best Served Hot - Ace Attorney - Miles Edgeworth/Franziska von Karma (2k, rated E)

Franziska's gloved fingers seized Miles's jaw, digging into the sides of his face. "We were never siblings," she said. "Papa made sure of that. But if I can't best you in any other way, then I will have this."

If Retrospect is my ultimate magnum opus, then Best Served Hot is my franmiles manifesto. It truly is all of my feelings about this complicated and messy relationship dynamic carefully distilled into a fanfic! Anyway, I'm obsessed with the fact that Franziska regularly refers to Miles as her little brother, but Miles never refers to her as his sister.

However, the way that Miles acts with Franziska is SO sibling-like, whereas Franziska's a bit... weirder. She never really had normal familial relationships modeled to her (Miles, on the other hand, at least had something of a normal upbringing before his father's death).

Franziska is also a character who, for lack of a better term, weaponises her femininity. She's so young but she's built this whole aesthetic around tight miniskirts and kitten-heeled boots and carrying and using a fucking bullwhip. So, I 'm particularly fascinated by the cross-section of Franziska's obsession with Miles Edgeworth and her insecurities (and how she over-compensates for them).

Of course, if she stopped to think about it for a minute, she should have realised that Miles Edgeworth is perhaps not the ideal target for her feminine wiles, but Franziska's not exactly known for keeping a cool head in a crisis.

Finally, this fic also explores another point in Franziska's life that I'm fascinated by, which is her reaction to Phoenix Wright's disbarment. Phoenix is the only lawyer who has ever bested her (if she can even admit that much), and I think she would be INFURIATED by the insinuation that he owes his career success to forgery. Franziska von Karma would NOT be bested by a fraud! (And also she would be furious that Klavier Gavin got the chance to do what she's always wanted to do -- that is, defeat Phoenix Wright -- but that's a topic for another fanfic.)

4. Intermission - Crazy Ex-Girlfriend - Audra Levine/Greg Serrano (2.3k, rated T.)

Recently divorced Audra Levine visits West Covina to provide moral support during her frenemy’s open mic night. Greg has always had a type.

While gregaudra (graudra?) might be something of a random ship, I was really surprised by how well they worked together (although in hindsight, it should have been obvious -- Greg really has a type, huh). I love Audra as a character, and I'm always obsessed with giving her room to grow and move on as a character and determine the shape of her own life, the way she wants, much as Rebecca (and Greg) got to do in the course of the series. (Also, its sequel, Realization, still has one of my favourite lines I think I've ever written: Audra's been busy filing away the parts of her life that don’t spark joy while retaining the parts that do, like she’s Marie Kondo-ing the weight and burden of everyone’s expectations instead of her household possessions.

I so rarely write in contemporary fandoms that it was a fun exercise to write stories where the popculture references actually help ground it in time and place.)

5. Sink or Swim - Harry Potter - Percy Weasley/Oliver Wood (12k, rated T.)

Percy has always struggled to keep his head above water.

(Or: the story of Percy Weasley, from his youth, through to his estrangement with his family, to the end of the war.)

It feels weird to be recommending HP fic in this day and age, but my complicated* feelings towards the fandom aside, I'm still really proud of how this fanfic turned out and how I was able to cram all of my Percy Weasley analysis into a coherent story. I particularly loved delving into how Percy was pushed into positions of responsibility from a young age (and then simultaneously derided for the very same qualities his parents reinforced), and how he struggled with his conflicting desires to fit in but also to succeed and be recognised for his talents and efforts. There's a couple of sentences from the fic which really encapsulate how I see Percy's relationship to his family, which I'll quote here:

In bits and pieces, Percy tells Oliver all about the estrangement to his family: how he’d always gotten along with his dad best growing up, no matter how his mother had doted on him. How when he was younger, he’d wanted nothing more than to be the next Arthur Weasley. How he’d always thought that his dad deserved more.

How it was easier to blame his father’s idiosyncrasies and personality for his family’s struggles with money, than to acknowledge it as a failure of the society he’d been raised in.

How he’d foolishly thought that if he studied enough, worked enough, succeeded enough, he could change it all.

Percy's story really is that of every working-class child who's sought to improve their life (and their family's life) through education and I just... relate to that a lot!!

25 notes - Posted November 27, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #long post #not me reblogging myself the third most #what can i say i love the sound of my own voice #about me

8 notes · View notes

reflections-in-a-critical-eye · 3 years

Note

Hi! I just wanted to say that whatever I disagree on something that you've said about army as a fandom... I take it back. I completely agree with you. I just can't when they said something like this.

(screenshot not mine)

ARMYs really gonna ruined a lot of fandom experiences to a lot of people. It feels like being completely controlled by an authoritive figure. 😒 What? Suddenly ppl can't write OTPs? It's not like all writer armys are that stupid to share it to the members. Also not all condone delusional behaviour, it's a matter of escapism (fanfic) and favouritism (otp). Sorry if this part isn't comprehensible. God I'm so angry rn.

Moreover, just bc some ppl chose to do fanfic as a hobby or a job or whtever doesn't mean they never did contribute to the fandom?!

(these are some reactions of some ff writers)

Like I get it, not all people likes to read RPF/OTP fanfics but that doesn't mean you can shove your principals into someone's throat and make them swallow it! Just bc what? You're holier and clean than anyone else? What complete BS. Sorry for cussing alot I'm trying hard to not to.

Also, when you answered that one ask from an anon, saying that ARMYs gonna be the downfall of bts? I completely agree. Even tho' it's not relevant to this.

So this is the latest discourse on Army twitter. Wow, I am totally not surprised. I'm not sure what prompted it, but my guess is Jungkook's q&a on IG? Anyway, it doesn't matter, these opinions have been going on for a long time. It's always the holier than thou attitude and this is a striking characteristic of BTS Army.

It's ludicrous to take a hit at fandom creators. They are always quite a big and essential part of the fandom. Whatever fantasies they have, at least they put them to good and creative use. It's one category of the BTS Army that I appreciate. Not that there aren't bad apples, as everywhere else, but they're making art of their own. Do we really live in a world in which this is something to be mocked?

And let's not forget about the hypocrisy. While certain parts of the fandom are criticising fan creators and shippers, they have no problem saying that Jungkook has bitches after his q&a because they sure know how to pick and choose, discard any cultural and language differences and push their heteronormative goggles onto something that did not imply any particular gender/sexual identity. Same case with Jimin on stage a week ago during Airplane part 2. But let's judge shippers and writers, which regardless of their own particular faults, at least some of them are not such idiots. These people are not fooling anyone, pretending they don't care or it won't affect them when BTS will feel comfortable to reveal their partners. The are lying to themselves in order to sleep better at night, cause otherwise, why do they keep talking about it? Obsessed much?

Lastly, I have to laugh at them saying that streaming and buying is basically the only legitimate way of being a fan 😆. I mean, it's really just consumerism and doing things because this is required in a fandom. Wow, such fans who really appreciate music.

#bmt asks #bts army discourse

14 notes · View notes

iamanartichoke · 3 years

Note

I haven't watched any of the Loki episodes yet (I'm procrastinating) but I keep seeing vague stuff about some big chasm between how Tom sees Loki and how apparently a lot of fans see Loki. Could you give me some specifics? Other than Loki mentioning his interest in sexes other than female I've heard nothing that could cause this kind of discourse.

I don't know if I'm the best person to ask, as I know others have articulated it much better than I can, and who may feel more strongly than I do that their Loki and Tom's Loki don't align so much anymore. Not tagging anyone bc of reasons (but feel free to comment/reblog if you wish to talk about it).

But, I do know a decent amount, so I'll proceed to write five thousand words try.

My understanding overall, is that Tom has always spoken very eloquently about Loki as a complex, fractured character who was functioning from a place of deep pain as opposed to any real villainy or evil.

(cut for length)

He was never saying any of it as an excuse for Loki's actions but as an explanation of where Loki was coming from and how he ended up in that place to start with. This mostly refers to the 2011-2013 era Loki, before the "reboot." Because so many fans viewed Loki the same way - as complex, as broken, as coming from a place of pain - there was validation, I suppose, in knowing that the actor who played the character (and whose performance was largely responsible for the character being so enigmatic and appealing in the first place) shared this view.

After the reboot with TR, Tom seemed to lean more heavily on the "god of mischief" aspect of Loki - he'd often say that his job was to have fun bc Loki was always mischievously having fun. While Loki had always been funny in a snarky, sardonic kind of way, and the "mischief" he'd get into was always just for fun and relatively harmless, after TR he was more silly-funny or slapstick funny ("funny") and his mischief was framed as a little more malicious (such as using magic to trick and then stab Thor when they were children).

So it seemed like a big departure from the previous Loki that Tom always spoke so eloquently about, and I think it's notable that when promoting TR, Tom didn't really delve into the psychology of Loki much at all when he'd talk about the character - just the "fun." So there was that. At the time, people figured it was bc he had very little control or say in what the director chose to do with his character.

Now, though, Tom has a lot more creative control (although I don't think he actually has all that much, certainly not as much as some people think he does, tbh), but while he's once again talking about Loki's psychology and identity issues and trauma and whatnot as context and backstory, he also still seems to be leaning into the "god of mischief" parts and the silly-funny parts. The show furthermore has yet to address what Loki experienced with Thanos in between Thor 2011 and Avengers, has failed to address his identity crisis after discovering he is Jotun (a throwaway 'I was adopted' line doesn't really count), etc.

So there's a lot that Tom has spoken about in Loki's story that is very much not being included in the series. Furthermore, while Tom discusses Loki's complexity when doing press, he has also said things that imply he has an idea of humiliation being a core aspect of Loki, or that Loki is someone who constantly needs to be knocked down a few pegs, or that he thinks he's profound but actually isn't, etc. I know in the past he's also made comments about Loki's mental health and how Loki might go about recovering from it, but his perspective on that whole area didn't ring true to a lot of Loki fans who also suffer from mental health issues.

So all of these things together, to some fans, makes it seem like Tom's current idea of Loki - whether it's bc he wants to do something new, or has changed as an actor, or whatever the case may be - is still a departure from the 2011-2013 era Loki and, thus, does not align with their own interpretation of Loki. Hence, a chasm appears.

^^ All of this is for context, which I tried to give as objectively as possible. Now, as far as discourse about it goes, I can't speak to that very much. Nobody that I know is angry at Tom or "betrayed" by Tom or feeling anything negative toward Tom as a person. They are, however, feeling that they may need to re-evaluate how much of Tom's interpretation they put stock into as they engage with the character, and kinda where to go from here. But I can't emphasize enough that no one acts like this is Tom's responsibility or that Tom somehow did them dirty. I also can't emphasize enough that there's nothing wrong with Tom's version and he genuinely seems to be enjoying what they've created here, and that's fabulous. There's no wank about that, at least not that I've seen from my fandom corner.

So that's the situation from the tumblr side. However, because Tom has been the "face" of the Loki series all this time, and because he's been hyped up as having so much say and influence and ideas to contribute, a lot of people got the idea that the Loki of the series would be exactly the Loki that Tom wanted to play. And when, inevitably, the show went in directions that people didn't like (my understanding is that this is mostly coming down to shipping nonsense, which I'm not even going to touch), Tom was blamed. And that's where this "discourse" is coming from, as far as I know. I don't have any real first hand facts, but people are saying that Tom's been getting death threats on social media from fans who are outraged about the Sylvie thing, or outraged about how the bisexual component is being handled, or whatever. Since this is pretty much par for the course in fandoms, I believe it.

But it seems like the shipping nonsense has gotten all tangled up in the dissatisfaction in the aspects of Loki's story that aren't being told, and in the difference in Tom's comments about Loki now vs back then, and it just ends up being a recipe for discourse, wank, and drama. So to answer your question, the chasm between Tom's Loki and some fans' Loki is the result of ... *gestures at massive wall of text* this.

#thank you for the ask!#sorry it's so long #asks #charlotte replies #tom hiddleston is my favorite unicorn #tom hiddleston has the best loki meta #not using critical tags bc i feel like this is pretty ojective #objective*#re tom. his opinions. and pre-post ragnarok. but i mean #take it as you will

25 notes · View notes

curvedroygbiv · 4 years

Text

JK Rowling is dominating my dash right now. And not that any one cares about my 2 cents, but -

JK Rowling is an excellent case study of authorial intent, changing social tides, and the debate between bad representation vs good representation.

But I think there’s one other thing that get’s lost in there, I dunno if there’s a real term for it, but it’s how people grow and evolve over time, and how the internet makes that both harder and easier.

I didn’t grow up in an ultra conservative or overly bigoted environment, but it’s easy to absorb a lot of those values and ideas just from the background radiation that is mainstream media. I wouldn’t be who I am today with out the internet, and all the people on it, who laid down the foundation of education, activism, and really just sharing stories of their own lives as real people who are impacted by oppression and injustice so I can be exposed to experiences outside my own bubble. I know “keyboard activist” is thrown around like it’s an insult these days, but I’ll never not be aware that online discourse and tumblr specifically has shaped my political and world views more than anything else.

It didn’t happen overnight. It wasn’t pretty. Shedding layer after layer of what I know now are mainstream anti-feminism and bigotry was a long and awkward process. I can put my foot in my mouth easily and often talking about everyday topics; trying to wade through forums and blogs and comments was always going to have me opening my big mouth to say something I’m not proud of. But you know what? I learned. I grew. And most of those conversations exist now only in my memories, an anonymous nobody drowned in obscurity, lost to time, sometimes bombed from orbit as a site shuts down or is wiped out. No big loss, to be honest.

But what if they weren’t? What if I was a celebrity? What if everything I wrote or typed was immortalized and canonized and put on display for the world to see? What if my words, good or bad, existed forever and ever, for people to dig up and use as “proof” that this is what I said and believed then, so It must be what I believe now?

In short, What if i was JK Rowling?

Joanne Katherine Rowling has never been a perfect person or a perfect author. Her books were always flawed. She never did enough, never did it right, never created anything that wasn’t problematic somehow. Her works are a reflection of who she was and what she believed in the moment. But am I supposed to think that they are a reflection of who she is today? 13 years ago she wrote a redemption arc for an incel, retconned a straight character gay after the fact, flubbed an aids metaphor, flubbed a slavery metaphor, and tied off a series about anti-fascism with “and then they did nothing about any of the underlying causes and had babies ever after the end”. 13 years ago I was a dumbass voicing my dumbass opinions on representation, affirmative action, religion, and really really wanted to make sure that I “wasn’t like other girls”. Oh, god, the fanfiction, the homophobia in my fan fiction, cackling as I pwned the yaoi fangirls for having such dumb opinions about /my/ favorite characters.

Am I a bad person? Are those long-forgotten footprints an indelible mark on my character?

Intent isn’t magic. “But I’m different now” is the empty rancid promise of every fan-favorite character that gets an undeserved redemption arc. “oh, it was different time, that’s just how things were” is wrong for straight white men and it’s wrong for everyone else. But if change is worth doing then it has to have some value somewhere. If someone interacted with me or my online presence they would have a very different picture of what I believe and who I am, compared to what they would have gotten 13 years ago. It would be almost impossible to dig up my old comments and indiscretions and link them back to me. I would almost appear to have been born full formed at the exact level of “woke” that I am today. Ironically as a internationally renowned celebrity and millionaire this is one luxury JK Rowling can never have.

I’m not going to pretend that contributing to the ugliness in the word is something the perpetrators can put behind them when they fell like they, personally, have moved beyond that. And just because people change doesn’t mean they always change for the better. But 13 years is a long time to be absorbing and studying and evolving, and the internet makes it easier every day to interact with tens of thousands of people who’s lives and testimonies you never would have encountered if you were just meeting them in person one by one. A lot has happened in 13 years too. We take for granted that “woke” media has a chance to get published, for one thing. We seem to have forgotten that once upon a time her books were already so controversial as to be banned over and over.

So yeah. She wrote a lot of fat characters as being evil and slovenly, compared to thin characters being, if not good, at least intelligent and worthwhile. She had every last Slytherin, right down to the first years, slink off instead of fighting in the final fight. She had Voldemort be “born evil” because of something his parents were on when he was conceived. She had Ron/Hermione as endgame and then said that she regretted it and they would probably never work out long term. She named a child Albus Severus and expected people to be good with that. Why the fuck did she think we needed to know about wizard toilets? She is, and continues to be, an imperfect person and problematic writer. But to pretend that she, in 2020, can’t possibly be sympathetic to LGB issues, well-informed on trans activism, and more committed than ever to feminism and the liberation of women, just because 13 years ago she didn’t have the foresight to put more empty performative sjw talking points into an already bloated manuscript?

I’m standing /right here/.

127 notes · View notes

misinformedgenic · 3 years

Text

The last post on this god awful blog

Hello, I ask everyone who see’s this to unfollow this blog, if you are following me. I can’t look at the reblogs and posts I posted anymore, without feeling incredibly embarassed and I know that I am being aggressive to the people who gave me notes but you know what I don’t care.

(Overall trigger warning: trauma,syscourse,swearing and apologies.)

My message for those who are anti-endogenic:

(tw: abelism,mental ilness)

The truth is, whether all systems are formed by trauma or some can be born that way or it can be formed by something else, it really doesn’t matter. All endogenic systems are just trying to exist and communicate their experiences, and instead of listening and supporting those who might experience their plurality differently from you, you just villanize them and insult them and do the exact same thing that neurotypicals have been doing to us for YEARS. Calling us fake, saying we are trying to get attention, saying we should be ashamed of ourselves for “appropriaiting” from people who had a more severe form of an illness or was priveliged enough to get a diagnosis . If you are traumagenic and you haven’t had that kind of experience, I genuinely envy you. That shit was done to me and it really hurt me. People called me attention seeking for saying I was depressed,or had social anxiety or that I was transgender, or that I was traumatised or plural when all I was trying to do was be myself openly and to accept myself. Why is it that when someone who experiences some sort of plurality and they don’t feel comfortable assosciating their system with trauma, you jump straight to accusing them of something as awful as FAKING or BEING A THIEF!

And yes I know being endogenic means it’s not an illness, but being called a fake for expressing who you truly are when you’ve been forced to hide who you are is such a awful experience. How could you be so callous and careless to even risk that happening to someone else, even once more, in this cruel world. Even if every single endogenic system, who says I can’t help being a plural, was trauma genic, they still associate themselves with that word, endogenic. When you say something horrible about endogenic systems, you are doing so much damage to those people. I mean, to assume without a shadow of a doubt that every single “veritable” endogenic system is actually traumagenic with the limited amount of understanding of DID/OSDD IN ITSELF, as opposed to how this phenomenon could work outside of a disordered framework, really shows you have your head far up your ass. But even then, it doesn’t matter because whether they ended up being traumagenic or not, according to science, no one deserves that treatment.

Even then,in regards to the post on this blog that got the most notes, we need to understand that people with plurality are forced to label their pluraility as a symptom of a disorder. Many systems who needed psychiatry and systems who didn’t and just masked themselves mingled, and they shared terms. This is still happening today, more then ever.

(Just in case you want to know, fictive is not a term used in psychology or psychiatry. It literally came from the soul bonding community, and people who are anti endogenic are still using it. If you don’t believe me use a web browser, and provide some sources to prove otherwise. I didn’t know this, and I’m not going to tag the OP who told me this,because I’m not sure whether they want to be tagged, but thank you. I felt pretty humiliated but it helped to come to realize what I was doing was wrong and that my opinions were wrong, and it helped me to become a kinder and more understanding individual.)

And we need to understand that systems shouldn’t be forced to be involved in exploring their plurality through a lense of trauma, because for many it doesn’t make sense because thats not how they experience it. Even if it is repressed memories ,sometimes or always, systems need a space to be systems without talking about trauma or applying trauma to it. DID and OSDD spaces are not providing that and in those spaces trauma is going to be talked about. Systems shouldn’t have to force themselves to think about trauma and go through pain, just to be able to call themselves a plural and have people acknowledge and accept them.

My message for any endogenic systems and their supporters:

I apologize for everything that you had to go through, from me and my behaviour. My behaviour was terrible and none of you deserved it at all. You deserve so much more than what you get from the anti-endogenic crowd, and you are absolutely valid, and I hope that in the future things will be easier all of you. You deserve love, acceptance and support, and I hope that nobody will ever be able to take that reality from you. You are doing nothing wrong by just being a plural, and it’s really sad that people were and still are fighting about this. Fuck anyone who says otherwise.

Conclusion:

(tw: s***** abuse,ableism,self hatred)

I know I was guilty of what I criticized, and that is really embarassing, but I’m glad I realize that now. I admit I was angry because I was jealous and bitter and I didn’t understand the history properly around this community or how it formed. I went through a lot of online g******g and s***al abuse and my experience with being a system was horrible, I had to deal with alters who had horrible del****ns and wanted to incite gruesome s*** h*** and wanted to k*** me. My system has introjects of my a****rs and random men I see on the streets making pe****ted comments at me pretty much all the time, and I was really jealous of systems who could experience the joys of being a system while avoiding the horrible parts. It made me feel worthless and inferior, because all the interesting and fun parts of being a system could be paraded on TikTok or whether and displayed by people who weren’t f***ed *p and dis*****ng like I was. I am not saying that’s the only basis as to why anti-endogenics hold their opinions, but I am saying this because if you ever see those anti-endogenic posts of mine somewhere and I am very passive agressive or vicious, that’s where it comes from and it isn’t objective or fair.

end of abuse trigger warning.

I decided that I am going to delete all the mean comments I made on other people’s posts that didn’t get any response, so that not another person has to see it again, and for which did get a response I am going to apologize to all those I harmed. If you want to respond to my argument, I can’t stop you from reblogging and making a comment, and that’s your freedom on this website, but I am not going to be replying because discourse on here is so nasty and I’m just done with that. I would rather help contribute to a community of people who feel isolated and who will be empowered by building a culture around plurality, whether that be around trauma or not. I’m tired of focusing on my trauma, it’s in the past and I don’t give a shit about it. It just sucks and I hate it and I am done with it. I will need therapy for it of course,yadi ya, but in terms of my limited free time on this earth I would rather contribute to making people feel happy and supported then argue and be angry about something that is kind of pointless anyway.

So bye, I would like to make a normal system blog in the future and we’ll be using the same names but for now I need to shut the fuck up and reflect.

- Luca

Also hey, on a additional note, my name is Milo and I allowed my name to be associated with this blog and it was irresponsible and unkind for me to do promote this kind of thinking. I am really sorry for any harm I caused by being a part of this blog. Additionally Stanley understands that his post on pride flags was inaccurate and he made some very nasty comments/did some nasty stuff to, he is very sorry to all those he harmed with his previous posts. He is in a really bad situation at the moment, which has gotten worse over time, he is a trauma holder and he is in a lot of emotional turmoil,so neither me or Luca wanted him to be involved in writing this specific post, but that doesn’t mean what he did was okay and all three of us recognize this now.

Best regards,

Milo.

0 notes

thiswaycomessomethingwicked · 4 years

Note

What do you think Napoleon would feel about the Le Pens? Like I know he’d hate their guts but the extent 👀

God fuck the Le Pens. I feel dirty thinking about them. (Though weirdly funny that Marine kicked her dad out of FN. Like you know you’re too deep down the rabbit hole of fuckery when Marine kicks you out. [and yeah, of course it’s all part of her image cleaning up gimmick. Wherein I’m sure she thinks the same as him, but is trying to “soften” the image of the party. And, based on the last election, it’s working. So that’s horrifying.]) All this to say: fuck the Le Pens; white supremacy etc.

Anyway - assuming we’re still going for “Napoleon from 1815 woke up August 22, 2020″ base for our thought experiments here.

Overall, yeah he’d think them short sighted, idiotic, and would probably have some elegant-yet-crude insults for them in Corsican. Let us take a brief, and not at all comprehensive, stroll down the Le Pens (and FN by default)’s terrible policies. Then I can scrub my brain out because they are absolutely foul people.

behind a cut because it’s long.

Economics: First off, Napoleon and I are the same in that we neither know anything about economics. He did not have a firm grasp on how the economy worked. Which I sympathise with, because it seems very fake and made up.

Anyway, he did a lot of modernization, raised taxes, created a lot of public works programs to stimulate the economy and improve connectivity (gotta build all the roads and canals. Actually though, as a public infrastructure keener, I support this). He did lay the foundation for the centralized bank of France. (Something Biddle would get all hot and bothered over. Nothing sexier than centralized banks.)

Napoleon also introduced a whole loan system for businesses to try and keep them afloat and improve local industry. He was keen on protecting property rights, um, tried to regulate the currency to protect it against inflation. Idk, he did other things that I’m not going to get into.

Comparing Napoleon’s hot economic takes from 1815 to 2020? A bit hard. So I’m going to guestimate on this.

I think, once he understood how the world functions now, he would be pro-globalization and the various free trade agreements that are in place (CETA, PCAs etc). He might disagree with details therein, but the broad philosophy is one I think he’d support.

I don’t know if he would be pro-single currency. I suspect he might be anti-the Euro, while still supporting the broad intents of the EU.

He would support a strong public sector - so government controlled postal service, utilities, schools etc. In that, and the anti-Euro view, he would align with Marine, at least. Not sure about her POS father.

No idea what his views on the Havana Charter would be. Probably mixed.

EU: I’ve touched on this before, I think Napoleon would be pro-EU, over all. He’d just think France should be the hegemonic power. Why isn’t France making all the decisions? This is dumb. Who does Germany think they are? Etc. Therefore, he would disagree with the Le Pens who think the EU is the anti-christ and the cause of everything bad that ever happened in France (I exaggerate, but they do blame the EU for a lot of things so you know, it’s not that much of a stretch).

Immigration: This is where they would diverge significantly. Like apples and moldy toast kind of different. I’ve touched on Napoleon’s immigration policy before, so I’m not going to wade into it again. But yeah, needless to say Napoleon would be like “let everyone come. They want to come to France? They are French. More is better. The end.”

The only thing is, he was very pro-assimilation. Not really into the “patchwork quilt” approach to the philosophy (and implementation) of multiculturalism. Which, to be fair, is a very modern view and not something I would expect anyone from 1815 to agree with, or consider a general good approach to dynamic, multicultural societies.

But yeah, the Le Pens whole moratorium on immigration, hatred of anyone foreign, that would be an anathema to Napoleon. He would vehemently disagree with that stance. Napoleon believed alloys were stronger. You took different people, boiled them down, and melded them into a unified French identity. That was his Hot Take on the matter. Again, pro-assimilation, which is an inherently conservative stance by 21st century standards, but a very average stance by early 19th century standards. His immigration and citizenship views were overall liberal for the time.

Indeed, the whole creation of a unified French identity was in its infancy during his life. He contributed heavily to it, but for his lifetime, identity was strongly linguistic and regional. You’re Gascon before you’re French, you’re Basque before you’re either French or Spanish, that sort of thing.

And of course, his views on this were heavily informed by his own experience and identity as a Frenchman and how it was received, or not, by his own people, as well as other monarchs and countries. (Tsar Alexander liked to brag that he spoke better French than the Emperor of France. And I believe the Times once called Napoleon a “Mediterranean mongrel.” Charming. So, he had a fun and exciting adventure in European class, ethnic and racial politics of the early 19th century.)

Napoleon would also disagree with the Le Pens that citizenship and nationality are indivisible. He was into the whole “if you decide you are French then you are French, no matter which side of the Rhine you were born on”.

Secularism: They’d actually probably mostly agree on this. In that religion has no part or place in government and there should be a clear and strong separation of church and state.

The banning of religious clothing, though, I don’t think Napoleon would support that. I would argue that he’d think it infringed on personal rights too much, and he was keen on protecting those. Like, his policy towards integrating France’s Jewish population was to try and assimilate them, yes, because he viewed everything as being consumed by the monolith that was the French Empire. But he wasn’t like “no wearing a tallit or kippah.”

Abortion: Guys, Napoleon is a culturally Catholic man from 1815 who thought women’s crowing jewel were her children and that France really needed to increase its overall population. I think we can all figure out what his views on abortion would be. Marine is pro-legality of abortion, but she personally is like “it’s eViL and a serious MoRaL IsSuE” etc.

Gay Rights: Napoleon’s whole political approach was to bring in the people on the margins and normalize them (assimilate; one of us, one of us) as a means to increase the base of the population who would support him. As he viewed marriage as a strictly secular, civil ceremony, and not a religious one, there could be a possibility of slowly talking him around to it. That said, he also viewed marriage as a declaration of intent to make many babies (for his army). I don’t think he’d be pro-queer couples adopting, no matter what. So, who knows.

That said, he wasn’t like “lock up the gays”. And as gay marriage is established in France currently, I don’t know if he’d be pro-abolition since it’s mostly a popular/accepted law and he was all about that sweet, sweet public approval rating.

So if he came around to it, it wouldn’t be for altruistic reasons. At the same time, he wouldn’t be like “make it illegal”. He was very “w/e just show up to work on time Cambaceres, jesus.” (Cambaceres: It’s midnight, sire. This isn’t normal work hours. Napoleon: SAYS WHO???)

Women in Politics: Well he’s obviously 100% against that. Ladies belong at home with the bebes. Le Pens, obviously, aren’t. Though Jean, I think, is like Trump where he’s pro his daughter being in politics (until she chucked him out of FN), but he would expect his wife to be a Proper Housewife. That weird conservative man thing about the role of wives and daughters.

There’s my fly-over guestimation of Napoleon v Le Pens

It’s very, very hard to figure out what Napoleon, a man born in 1769 and died in 1821, would think about politics, economics and society in 2020. I tried to gauged based on his broad, philosophical views and how he acted as ruler. But he was also someone who was very analytical and would be capable of understanding the world as it is today and the realities that are in place. He might find them off putting or bizarre (ladies as heads of states?? what about your children??) but he was an imminently pragmatic man who would look at a situation and go “alright, this is the reality of the system and society I am now in” and would adjust himself accordingly.

In the end, trying to figure out how a man from 1815 would react to today’s politics is very difficult, if not outright impossible. His understanding of what liberal meant, what conservative meant, etc. were so different to our understanding that I would never place him in one camp. He had changing, dynamic views, and that would be reflected in his understanding of politics in 2020.

Overall, I think he would disagree with a lot of the stances of the Le Pens. Would he hate them? No. Because Napoleon didn’t really hate people based on their political views. He saw too much of the Revolution to go for extreme personal reactions to political stances; also he was too much a pragmatist and understood that you never know who might be an ally in the future.

Napoleon might look down on the Le Pens, he might find them personally disgusting, he might view them as stupid (honestly, he’d probably just think they’re dumb and quickly move on), but he wouldn’t hate them.

Because this is tumblr, I must now declare my political stance because I was too calm in most of that assessment.

1. Fuck the Le Pens & Front Nationale

2. Nationalism is spooky and I am always suspect when it comes up in political discourse in the year of our lord 2020

3. I am bi and non-binary, which isn’t actually a political stance (or a personality), but tumblr is Like That so I thought I’d include it.

4. I support: lgbtq rights; trans rights; universal health care; easy and open access to education; improved access to education at primary school levels (because that’s a huge impact on people); ACAB; separation of church and state; prison reform/some form of abolishment - I’m still thinking through my views on this and how it should be approached; land back; Aboriginal and Treaty Rights; immigration; no more kids in cages jesus christ; don’t drink bleach; democracy is good, punch fascists etc. etc.

#and by spooky I mean that I think nationalism is a plague on all our houses #napoleon bonaparte #napoleon #spicy fucking ask #I really don't want dumb comments or asks as a result of this #fingers crossed #ask #reply #anon #napoleon in the modern day

7 notes · View notes

gizkasparadise · 5 years

Note

how did you know you were pan? do you have advice for someone under the umbrella trying to figure out if they're bi or pan? maybe it's something i'm overthinking, any advice appreciated!

this is very long but LOL welcome to my Journey i guess. i bolded things to separate my figuring out “queer” and then figuring out “pan”

[homophobia cw/tw, mentions of abuse] figuring out i was queer took a long time. i grew up in a homophobic household and i was raised Very catholic. when i was coming into my teens/encountering was sex meant for the first time, it was during a time where legalizing gay marriage was very very much in the public sphere (i cant remember the exact legislature, but i want to say proposition 8?). i lived on military bases throughout my entire childhood.

i was also LOL living in wyoming at the time brokeback mountain came out & at the same time i was reaching the sexual curiosity stage--there were literally protests and sit-ins at the movie gates to prevent people from going to buy a ticket. wyoming is the most homophobic place i’ve ever lived and is where the matthew shepard murder occurred. it wasn’t uncommon for people who lived openly lgbt+ to be physically beaten up after school, and no one in authority cared when it happened.

so i spent my adolescence in a household, culture, and location that hated everything it meant to be queer and made me hate myself and my relationship to sex very deeply because that’s what i was taught. i’d have go on what was called an abstinence retreat but now realize was a lowkey pre-conversion session where some fucker named chad (literally chad) wore puka shells and played an acoustic guitar and sung songs about jesus in between diatribes on how being a lesbian causes your family constant pain and how women’s bodies were meant to “receive” according to god. that wasn’t an uncommon attitude in the catholic church, probably still isn’t, but for obvious reasons i am no longer catholic.

i had A LOT of internalized homophobia that likely registered as discomfort and fear around those who were out and made my relationship to sex toxic as fuck, which would later register in my relationships with men going forward. i’ve had a bad relationship to sex since i was a child, for reasons i wont get to here, but it was made even worse as i exited high school and began college. because of how i presented (”tomboy,” played softball, did construction, dressed punk, etc), people assumed i was queer. which made me uncomfortable because i was still warring with that identity, still very much living in a homophobic household and area, and still processing my own internalized hatred. then people insisted i was queer to the point of physical, sexual harassment--both from women and men. in the case of a particularly terrible relationship, the man i was dating insisted i was bisexual and constantly used that as a way to try to manipulate me into having threesomes (sidenote: when i came out i got a lot of ~i always knew and DO NOT DO THAT to people who are coming out)

so that set me back LOL

here’s what changed:

i moved. i cannot stress enough how important it ended up being to physically distance myself from the people who made my life so toxic (not just w/ sexuality, but again, that’s a whole ‘nother post). i was able to cut people out of my life who very much needed to be cut out of it. i moved away from my family (who i love, but love much better at a distance)

i made queer friends. eventually my number of queer friends outgrew my number of straight friends. i talked to people who made me feel like i belonged and feel like i didn’t have to hate myself

i took off dating for awhile after a particularly hard, emotionally abusive relationship. 2 years? i think?? (not that it matters. i was in a consecutive line of them for almost all of my adolescence) it was time i needed. and when i started dating again, it was with someone i could 100% trust (current spouse)

it still took a few years. comparatively i havent been out that long, but i am feeling so much better and emotionally healthier now that i am

why pan?

this is very flippant, but i said it out loud and it felt right. i dont experience sexual attraction based on gendered characteristics (which NO is not the same as ‘hearts not parts’ which is a fucking gross statement that i do not endorse. at all). i dont see it as more inclusive as bisexual. more that there’s a big venn diagram between the two

figuring out where you’re at under that umbrella of sexual fluidity, however you define it, is a tough thing to do. im gonna be honest in saying get the fuck off tumblr and talk to people you trust about it. tumblr is so inundated in discourse and vitriol it will make you think that every single person hates whatever you identify as in the current moment. it fosters toxic exclusive/gatekeeping behaviors in the LGBT+ community. tumblr =/= the world. it IS helpful to talk to people and follow blogs through careful curation. talk to individuals on tumblr instead of going into tags.

almost everyone i know who is under that umbrella has moved under that umbrella, ex: pan to bi. there’s nothing wrong with trying on the different hats until you find something that feels right. none of them are inherently better or more valid than the other. i feel like tumblr contributes to the pressure of identity politics, esp if you (you poor soul) stumble across pan vs bi Discourse. i, for instance, am pan but if im called bi it’s not the end of the universe. sometimes i even use that identifier when im with people who are not from the queer community and i am too tired to be an Educator

you don’t have to know right away. in fact, you don’t have to know at all. you can also change, because you change as you live your life. you could also use both! i know a few people who identify as both pan and bi. or identified as one and moved to the other.

long winded way of saying these two points:

don’t only listen to tumblr

take your time

it’s your life. take as many detours as you need and don’t let someone else take control of the navigation

#asks!#Anonymous

11 notes · View notes

galaeus · 5 years

Text

okay so i’ve updated my rules and posted them under the cut with some important explanations as to WHY i’ve gone from minimal rules to relatively extensive (for me, if you’ve known any of my indie blogs since 2013.) it’d be cool if you take a look ---- you can either catch them on my actual rules page (as I know marvel rpc right now is a little iffy due to drama and all that batshittery) or you can check ‘em out here. xoxo amy

+ ECHO IS MY OWN CREATION. What she says, does, and believes does not reflect who I am as a person. Please be able to distinguish character from mun – Echo is angry, mean, and can get a bit choppy sometimes.

+ THE FOLLOW BACK POLICY. I don’t always follow back. I’m super anal about how fast my dash moves, so when I see someone follows me I look for certain things. I will not follow back if—

The blog does not have a human face claim i.e: anime, cartoon, etc. (with the exception to Groot, Rocket, etc.)

You do not have a rules/about page.

The two pages have no writing samples for me to check out.

You are underage (I refuse to follow people under 20)

I come here to write, and I’ve noticed a lot of my time has been wasted due to the fact that there is tumblr drama and a lot of blogs are here to.... produce discourse and bitch about Endgame and make other people’s lives miserable. I’m not about that bag, so I’m getting very selective on who I follow back anymore. I used to be REALLY flimsy on this rule, but now I’m going to have to enforce it greatly going forward.

+ HOWEVER, NON-MUTUALS ARE WELCOMED.Send me stuff. Reply to my starters so long as it doesn’t say mutuals-only. So long as you follow the rules, I’m 100% okay with this.

+ I DON’T DO ELITISM. Bullshit isn’t in my agenda. I can’t stand dealing with indie rpers who think they shit roses, so I won’t. My philosophy is to be nice to everyone, so if I didn’t think you were an asshole initially & followed you, I will unfollow mutuals if

You post a lot of sub-posts/passive aggressive read mores.

You claim you love everyone yet you shit on other portrayals.

You are rude to anyone because of your own insecurities or anxieties. Just because you have anxiety, mental illness, a certain trigger, etc. doesn’t give you the right to be a cunt.

You shame others for their ships/headcanons/beliefs.

This is also a very big change. I am so sick of the current state of the mcu rpc. There is a very big blanket of fake individuals running around the tag who cause drama, hurt, bullying, and I know their names now and I know a lot of my mutuals are friends with them (I have three specific individuals I am avoiding like the plague.) I’m sorry if they’re your friends, but they will not be mine and if you’re someone who writes very often with the unmentioned three, I will probably unfollow.

I’m not into people who stir shit ooc and then cry victim. I’m not into people who bully and outright cause headcanon or portrayal wars. I’m not into people who think their portrayal is God’s Gift to the dashboard and then proceedingly shit on other people who are just trying to write. And I’m especially not into people who gloat about the aftermath of drama that finally went in their favor even though they are flat-out as toxic as the people they are fighting against. I’m not into it. It’s disgusting, and it’s very obvious that a lot of people need to go outside to smell the real world.

+ NSFW/TRIGGERING CONTENT. I don’t like rping with anyone under 20, so please state your age in your rules or sidebar. I say this because I often times writing dark themes, sexual content, graphic violence, and mention content such as abuse, torture, and death. Echo is a SHIELD Agent who has seen some shit. I only tag the big ones such as death, abuse, long posts, etc. are used, but usually I only tag my triggers for blogs I consider my true roleplay friends. You have been warned – I won’t apologize for this.

+ EXCLUSIVES/MAINS. I do not do exclusives and I believe ‘mains’ is a really ridiculous concept. People sometimes need exclusives and I totally get that. Mains, however, is showcase ponying your friends around like they aren’t real people & only names and I think it’s highly unnecessary.

+ PLEASE DON’T STEAL MY GRAPHICS. I made my icons, gif icons, theme, promos, etc. The theme code is from octomoosey. My screencaps are from various LF fansites as well as remote gifs. It’s not cool to steal.

+ PLEASE DON’T HOUND ME. I write at my own pace and utilize my queue frequently so I can write with as many people as I can. I try so hard to talk to non-mutuals and mutuals alike to get stuff started, but I’m only human.

+ PLOTTING. If you want commitment from me, we’re going to have to be friends OOCly (as in talk in discord, ims, etc.) I don’t write epics with strangers. I am in love with talking headcanons all day, every day, so be my friend.

+ SHIPPING. I am a slut for ships. Almost 90% of the time, I’ll be down for it. Echo, on the other hand, marches to the beat of her own drum and I can’t promise a ship will pan out.

+ MULTI-THREADS/DROPPING THREADS. Sometimes I drop threads without telling my partner. It happens. However, I love to multi-thread, so never hesitate to send memes or messages.

+ 1-2 WEEK INTERVALS. If we are mutuals and don’t write/plot within 2 weeks, I will unfollow. This blog is for roleplaying and I intend to do just that. So please, definitely get in touch with me like the moment we become mutuals or I’ll send you a ton of memes, it’s totally cool.

+ ABOUT THE WRITER. My name is Amy. I’m 26. I’ve been roleplaying for roughly 16 years at this point. I’m also a Social Media Manager who is also a contributing writer to our company’s sister magaziner, so it’s safe to say that writing is my life xo

#ooc #rules change #read more #long post cw #thanks everyone #if you have any questions feel free to im/disco me

7 notes · View notes

nasabeckx · 6 years

Text

Cold Ketchup

@meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian asked: id be over the moon if you wrote something with: "You just punched me in the face while gesturing wildly to a friend, your friend can’t stop laughing and im too shocked to respond to your apologies" with Bucky or someone idkk, whatever you feel love <3

word count: 1k

warnings: Cold ketchup discourse, possibilities of someone being a creeper/murderer, fluff, an au of some sort

a/n: this is a thousand words of me ranting about cold ketchup and it’s something I’m very passionate about. This is the dumbest thing i’ve ever written. Sara literally requested this months ago and i’m just now writing this. my life’s a wreck. Enjoy!

masterlist

The automatic glass doors slid open as you walked, not paying much attention to where you were going, as you had better things to worry about.

You and your best friend had to make a last minute trip to the grocery store, you insisted. And you have been ranting to her about a weird topic you were very passionate about for the whole fifteen-minute walk over.

"You go to a restaurant, and they keep the ketchup out on the tables all day, and it is ROOM. TEMPERATURE. And NOBODY complains. You just willing put it on your burger and eat it without a second thought, right? But, at home, when you leave the ketchup in the pantry, someone always gets butthurt?" Your arms were flailing around without a care in the world, not thinking about something that might be in the way. Natasha was hardly listening at this point, but it didn't matter, she'd heard this a million times before. If only she could go back in time to warn past Natasha to not put the ketchup back in the fridge.

"But when you put the ketchup in the refrigerator, it gets really cold, and then you take it out and immediately put it on your hot burger, or fries or whatever, and it just doesn't taste good. You're mixing two completely different temperatures, and your taste buds have no idea what's going on-"

"(Y/N) look out!" Natasha shouted, but it was too late. You could feel like your hand start to make contact with something as if it was slow motion.

You turned around to see what you hit- more like /who/ you hit. You made eye contact with him, and your heart dropped. Your face froze. Of course, out of all the soccer moms, and church-goers in the basically empty grocery store, you had to hit the man that looks like a literal god.

Not only was he attractive, at first glance, anybody would be terrified of him, and for good reason. He had a strong build with wide shoulders, dark hair that reached just below his ear tucked under a Dodgers cap, oh and maybe the fact that the dude has a freaking metal arm could contribute to that fear.

And to tell the truth, you were a little bit scared, but that was before you saw his face. He had soft eyes, but they also gave you the impression that this guy's got skeletons in his closet, and you were debating on whether or not you wanted to figure out if you meant it metaphorically or literally.

After what felt like too long, you decided to open your mouth to say something, and maybe that something was too much.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry," you apologized, but it was impossible for you to do so without laughing, as you could definitely hear Natasha's snickers from behind you. "I have no idea what happened- well I mean i do but it's hard to explain, see, I was just ranting to my friend about ketchup and how she always puts it in the fridge even after how much I tell her that I hate cold ketchup. So we came here to get another bottle of ketchup to keep in the pantry so we always have a cold bottle for her and a room temperature one for me, and I talk with my hands a lot so-"

"Yeah, I think I can fill in the blanks," the stranger piped up. At first, you took it as a rude remark, before you realized there was a smirk on his face.

"But, uh, yeah. I'm really sorry... dude," you immediately cursed yourself. Why did you have to call him "Dude"? He probably thinks you're a weirdo now, and you convince yourself that you've ruined every chance you ever had with this guy in a mere thirty seconds. How could you be such a-

"It's okay, really it is," he cut your thoughts off, "and uh, if it's not too much trouble, I was wondering if you wanted to go get dinner, or something, one night. And maybe you could explain to me why you don't like cold ketchup?" Now he was the nervous one.

"Wait, what?" He was asking you out? The guy that you definitely just punched in the face and gave a weird explanation as to why you punched him in the face?

He looked down sheepishly and brought his right hand up to the back of his neck, before looking back up at you.

"Yeah, um, well, I was headed over here anyway to ask you, cause I saw you when you came in and i may have been following you around trying to gather up the courage to say something to you, but I guess you did it for me."

You just stood there with your mouth open, not sure of how to respond. It wasn't until you heard an uncomfortable cough that you remembered Natasha was standing right behind you.

"I'm just gonna go... get some ketchup," she said before scurrying away.

"Uh, I'm Bucky by the way, and I promise I'm not a serial killer despite the fact that I just admitted that I followed you around the store" he introduced himself, "that's probably important information to know before you decide if you want to go out with somebody."

"Yeah, it kind of is," you laughed, "I'm (y/n). And, if you promise not to kill me or put ketchup in the fridge, I would be happy to do dinner, or something, with you."

He smiled widely at you, and you realized that for once in your life, you're glad somebody put the ketchup back in the fridge.

tags~

@ourghoststories | @beefy-james-barnes | @meme-lord-and-savior-sebastian

#bucky x reader #food mention #bucky drabble #bucky imagine #bucky fic #bucky barnes x reader #the winter soldier imagine #the winter soldier fic #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan imagine #cold ketchup discourse #marvel imagine #marvel fic #mcu imagine #avengers imagine

141 notes · View notes

him-e · 7 years

Note

this might be a dumb comparison but would you consider star wars/skywalkers in general to be kind of like a greek tragedy? or at least inspired by greek tragedies? i just really love mythology and would like to think there’s some sort of connection in some way. thank you! :)

Definitely! Star Wars relies heavily on archetypes and psychological motifs, and many of them come from Greek and Latin literature. In the original trilogy, taken in isolation, you see more echoes of arthurian myths and classic fairytale elements than tragedy. It’s when you think of the three trilogies as a whole, particularly in terms of Anakin’s arc, his rise and fall and redemption and the repetition of the cycle with Ben’s fall just a generation later, that the Greek tragedy vibes become evident.

To put it in very simple terms, Greek tragedy typically revolves around a good/average man who has one “fatal” flaw (usually an error in judgment or hubris). Because of this, but also because of the crucial role played in the genre by the inevitability of fate and the cosmic order dwarfing humanity, fragile and powerless even at its best and at the mercy of much bigger and incomprehensible forces, the hero is bound to fall. And one fundamental aspect of tragedy is that the audience knows he’s going to fall, and watching the events unravel to the inevitable gut wrenching conclusion is cathartic. (see how the whole prequels experience is built on the premise that you know exactly how it’s going to end.) (also, side note, catharsis is a major reason why even today we need fiction, including “dark” fiction.)

The fall of the hero often takes the form of a heavily immoral act, a horrific crime against the aforementioned cosmic order that the hero performs either in good faith, as a result of his hubris, anger or passion, or because he feels he has to—be it accidentally killing your father and sleeping with your mother, sacrificing your own daughter to the gods, punishing your asshole ex husband by killing your own children, or choking your pregnant wife who has come to confront you after you slaughtered a temple of younglings. As monstrous as the act can be, the audience can’t help but sympathize with the fallen hero, because it’s clear he’s motivated by a desire to do the right thing (or to fix some wrong), he loves fiercely and intensely, he is (at least in part) a victim of circumstances, and the pain and punishment inflicted on him and everyone who he loves and who loves him is disproportionate. What happens to the protagonist is a metaphor of the fragility of human condition, in which sometimes a minor mistake or an unforeseeable chain of events leads to catastrophic consequences. Individual responsibility matters, but it’s always portrayed in tension with the cruel irony of a blind, irrational fate who tears good people and bad people down alike, which it often succumbs to, or is proven to be eventually irrelevant.

You can see how Anakin is in this sense the quintessential tragic hero. A good man raised in humble conditions but destined to be royalty, to be the hope of a galaxy, the fulfillment of a long awaited prophecy, who rises to a state of quasi-kingship (becoming a Jedi master, marrying a former queen), but remains ultimately a slave—to his own passions and fears, to destiny (as personified by Palpatineworking slowly to corrupt him), to the will of the gods (the Force), to the trappings and limitations of a corrupt society (the Jedi order and the republic). His one fatal flaw, loving Padmé, backfires and turns him into the very cause of her death.

Ben’s fall is also deeply tragic, as it’s the result of a twofold lapse in judgment: Luke’s (who falls for a second prey of his own darkness and briefly considers executing his nephew for the greater good) and Ben’s himself (who mistakes this one second of weakness for a truly murderous intent, and violentlyretaliates, and never stops acting on the false assumption that his uncle was really going to kill him).

Hubris and madness are two other crucial themes in greek tragedy and I can see the dark side as a fascinating space opera portrayal of both. And then, vengeance, and family—and even more relevant to star wars, the cycle of violence-pain-revenge. The original crime opens a wound in the cosmic order (you could also say: the Force becomes unbalanced) that spreads like a cancer dooming multiple generationsand is only really healed when there is a genuine will to step out of this cycle.

This is imo the key to understand the three trilogies in their entirety, and what they’re trying to do with the sequel trilogy in particular. Many people struggle with Ben’s fall because he “had everything”—i.e. was born in a time of peace, from a loving family of revered rebellion heroes, with unique force powers and someone to teach him how to use them, etc.—so his turning to the dark side is thrice as hard to swallow. Was he a bad seed from the start? Or did he just infuriatingly squander all he had? Other people complain that the new trilogy is built on a nihilistic concept, that evil always come back cyclically one way or another, that victory is never complete, that the heroes are bound to make the same mistakes over and over again, or that everyone is inevitably destined to be corrupted and lose hope (see the discourse re: Luke in TLJ).

Both miss the point, in my opinion. The way I see it, it all ties back to Anakin’s original crime—his tragic, blood-soaked fall to the dark side, order 66, and most importantly Padmé’s death—and how that crime was a cosmic wound that tore the balance of the universe apart and was never fully healed. So it reverberates across the galaxy, onto his progeny, and his progeny’s progeny (Ben).

Luke did begin to make things right—by choosing to reject violence he gave Vader the chance to sacrifice himself to to kill the emperor and save his son, which earned him his redemption. And…it’s a good way to end a story if you want it to end there, but if you want the story to continue, then you have to face the fact that it’s only a partial, and in many ways convenient solution to a much larger problem. Vader’s redemption did nothing to eradicate the deep-seated political views of those who were still loyal to the Empire and fighting for a dictatorship in the moment when Palpatine was killed. It wasn’t enough for Luke and Leia to actually embrace their lineage and come out as Vader’s children, if Bloodline is to be believed. It wasn’t enough to shield little Ben from Snoke’s attentions—in fact, Anakin’s blood is exactly what put a big ol’ target on Ben’s back, with nothing of his grandfather’s post-redemption wisdom to keep him on the right track, only the myth of his legacy, a myth that as we’ve sadly seen can be easily misconstrued and exploited and that Leia and Luke never properly explained to Ben either. Anakin just died, and if that single sacrifice was enough to save his soul, it actually didn’t do much to fix the countless wrongs he contributed to create during the two decades he served the Empire as lord Vader. The galaxy bled because of him. And he just died and left his children to clean up his mess. Lucas’ original idea that Vader’s redemption brought balance to the Force is a good happily ever after, but only if you don’t really plan to deal with the consequences.

More on a thematic level, RotJ represents a perfect fairytale ending on almost all fronts but it leaves a question unanswered: was Anakin wrong to love Padmé? Is romantic love wrong? Aside from Han and Leia—whose marriage didn’t end well anyway—romantic love comes out of this narrative as a tragically negative force. Specifically, romantic love for a Jedi. If you consider the first six films, the logical conclusion is that the Jedi were right, after all, to forbid romantic attachments, because look at the mess Anakin made. Anakin destroyed himself and Padmé. It was only Luke’s familial love that made him come back to the light—Luke, the eternal celibate Jedi. Familial love is good, romantic love is poisonous. The narrative absolutely implies this reading.

So although RotJ’s ending fixes everything on a superficial level, the wound keeps festering underneath, there are still many things that weren’t made right, and this is why only a few years later Luke is still so haunted by the darkness and still so afraid that a new Vader is possible that he actually considers killing his nephew for a split second. This is why the ashes of the old Empire don’t die out, but instead give birth to a new tyrannical power; and why Leia cannot be free to live her life in peace with her family, but still feels committed to a rebellion that never ceased to have reasons to exist, even after the Emperor’s death.The gods (the Force) aren’t satisfied, if you will, so they keep punishing this family. The original evil has not been completely exorcised. Love, personified by Padmé’s unacceptable, unnatural death, hasn’t been vindicated. The balance is not restored. And Ben falls.

The sequel trilogy is set to heal this wound, for real, this time. It’s also why it has a much darker tone (despite the superficial humor) than the original trilogy. It’s not impossible for a tragedy to have a happy ending, but the resolution must have the same tone, the same gravity of the premise. The prequels are a tragedy, and the original trilogy is essentially a fairytale, a hero’s journey—they’re basically two different genres, and Vader’s last minute redemption seems (and is) inadequate once you’ve seen all three movies of his very detailed and nuanced fall to the Dark Side.

We’re watching, through Ben, the tortured redemption arc that should have been written for Vader if this story had followed a chronologically and stylistically linear narrative. Through Ben and Rey, we’re watching a reconciliation of the Dark and the Light side, whose unresolved conflict, worsened by the repressive puritanical policy of the Jedi order, originated the schism in Anakin’s soul. And we’ll also (hopefully) get the answer to that question I said earlier, and see the redemption of romantic love.

#anon #asks #sw asks #sw for ts #sw**#///#greek tragedy #house skywalker #reylo for ts #just a little #mmm i hope this makes sense

104 notes · View notes

psychedelictrashpanda · 3 years

Text

It’s been awhile, weird old blog with unspecified direction. How about more of me me me?

I finally did DMT again, and WOW. It’s been at least a full decade since the last time. I still didn’t quite “break through” enough to “meet the entities” again but mein GOTT was it healing. Speaking of God, we’ll get to that soon... But before smoking the dimitri, I was beginning to sustain a mania in slow motion with dissociatives again. Not to any extreme like I did with PCP long ago (btw, glancing at my Eyehategod poster, I realize that horror/metal fest when I was blasted on PCP the entire time was all the way back in 2013! It seems to much more recent, but the way these drugs interact with memory is very peculiar. or maybe it was the traumatizing effect of it and other things at the time that makes me block out and thus distort the time signature of the memory... I digress). And I don’t have the destructive tendencies I did in the past anyway, so I’ve never been apt to push it as far as I was when I was shooting up 3-meo-pcp and blacking out for days at a time. I mean, I did push it I suppose. For the main George Floyd protests I was loading up on a combination of things. Can’t even remember if that was my sober window between methadone detox and the suboxone I’m on now. But, I was combining bits of weird PCP offshoots with opiate offshoots (4-map iirc) and/or kratom with maybe a drop of benzo... straddling the line between going overboard and a “party dose” for lack of a better descriptor; between recreation and desperation. In retrospect, I was summoning the courage to act like my old self used to in these sorts of situations. That is, giving it my all, being novel about it, idk, summoning the spirit of Dr Gonzo I suppose (who, after reading his two books, was more slimey of a jerk than he’s presented in Hunter’s stories. well, I need to finish the Cockroach People book, he started getting into his attraction to underage girls as a young 20-something man himself and ugh, gross). My true wild & adventurous spirit has been hampered, weighed down with anxiety and depression and all manner of undiagnosed mental illness. Who knows if it’s more the drugs or the environmental factors that trigger drug use, but the spirit is tortured like Griffith in the torture dungeon, the heart is wrapped in a black grime guarded by the Beast of Darkness, the will is subordinated to authoritarian capitalist hegemony...

Where was I? Oh so I started suboxone for the second time in my life innnn... February I want to say. Last time I did it I was able to detox myself simply buying subs off the street, but I did it too quick. That’s been one problem, every time I detox rapidly it’s too harsh a push back into reality and I succumb to relapse less then a year into sobriety. The reason reality is harsh is the same reason my stance on anti depressants has been further cemented. I’ve articulated it better lately... Basically I believe it’s a weird solution to depression to force your chemical makeup into the right position to function properly in the same environment that caused it in the first place. “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” One of my conversations with a young college friend really illuminated why many don’t even consider this position. She was insistent there’s no cause of depression, you’re just born with a fucked up mind. Now sure, hereditary disposition is a thing, as a drug addicted child of an addict I should know. But for example she pointed to another friend with hard depression and was like “his life seems fine what explanation could there be?” But I put forth maybe his childhood of having to closet his homosexuality in a hard conservative family that had the possibility of disowning him if they knew about it contributed to that “natural chemical imbalance,” as it’s implied. YES, some people NEED it. But for the most part, it really seems to me to be what I’m gonna call the thyroid phenomenon. That is to say, a medical explanation for a small fraction of severely affected patients is used as a broad brush by the public to diagnose themselves. Forewarning: I am not fat shaming here, forgive the example. Dietary practices are a personal thing so my feelings are stronger as well. Anyway, it seems to me as soon as this thyroid malfunction became a hard biological explanation for obesity beyond the psychological, suddenly everyone was a candidate. It’s fine to think “maybe I have it” but when a growing and significant portion of the obese crowd started screaming they all had thyroid problems and can’t help themselves, when a teensy percentage actually do... well it sort of touches on the “addiction as a disease” narrative that’s never sat well with me. Addicts use the disease reasoning to skirt personal responsibility. I'm not denying it is a disease, but I believe calling it as such in the public discourse isn’t terribly constructive. (Okay, you’re seeing an opinion change in real time here... I changed my mind.) I was vehemently against the narrative, but I need to readjust to simply make people WARY of the narrative. As an addict, I could easily see myself using the excuse of it being a disease as a fatalist function; that is to say giving in, relinquishing personal control over my fate. Hereditary disposition, Rat Park, addiction as a disease... there’s also a severe lack of control it all conjures. Paradoxically, drugs can used to meticulously control your state of mind. I can’t control my desire to control myself?

God where was I going with this... Oh! God! May as well mention I’ve been warming up more and more to the spirit of monotheism beyond it’s structural and institutional dimensions. I could get deep into my recent past of not believing in the idea of a spirit, soul, etc. How the pendulum of my ideology swings between cold rationalism and loose spirituality, especially as I go through phases of rebellion against perceived oppressors. Growing up in a red state with a lot of Christian ideals, society around me was always telling me everything I seemed to like was the work of Satan. Naturally, I started reading into Satanism. I never self identified with occult-esque belief structures, except maybe chaos magick because it’s whole idea is to merge whatever practices work into something of your own, but I did staunchly identify as anti christian. Not a hard thing to do when you’re already a metal head, which definitely fueled the trajectory. Not to mention metal helped goad me into DXM use (thanks Velvet Cacoon ya bunch of goons), the first real psychedelic journeys I had. Because I never gave real consideration to myself having depression, I moulded my personal ideology around the symptoms it causes. Which is why for awhile after coming to terms with depression as a problem I probably have, I was only able to identify it in retrospect. I never felt it in real time because it was so old-coat to me, I adapted to it like an addict adapts to their drug of choice and ti becomes their world. So I would decide to skip social events, let my room get messy, watch only old comfort shows, etc... but only AFTER emerging from that state was I able to immediately look back and think “wait... I was doing all those things because I was depressed.” In the moment, it’s rationalized as “I don’t want to see these people for these reasons” or “I want to watch spongebob because it’s fun and an old favorite.” Rationalization, the concept of the west, serves as a detriment to the individual in a number of manners. This is one. I was a MASTER at rationalizing away my drug use. Statistically, more people die from this this and that, why be worried that I’m on this drug instead? Statistics quelled the perceived danger. It was also a formative tool in my skills of justification. I always felt I had to justify every action I took, but that’s getting back into family matters...

But why not bring that up? it’s a sore spot. I feel like the tables have flipped from my dad always saying “you all just think I’m an asshole!” to me thinking I’m the asshole. It’s too much to get into but I’ll touch on a couple important things... I’ve learned a major source of my anxiety is not being able to draw the boundaries between business and family and myself, because they’re not properly defined. When I’m told by my bossfather after explaining the distress I feel simply thinking about the family company, and he goes typically all-or-nothing when I touch on crucial issue and says “if you want out just tell me you want out”, I can’t separate between whether he’s saying it as a father or as a boss in the moment. He would say, “of course I just mean the company”, but where does company end and family begin? It’s also an intense pressure, maybe shame, simply typing this and thinking in the back of my head about someone who might read and think “what a spoiled brat, has a family company and blah blah.” But who put all that in my head? He says he’s changed from the days of putting immense pressure on me with the sort of sentiments that cause that shit in my head like always telling me how great I have it and all the opportunities, shit, I’m feeling it right now, the frustration and I can’t even identify these emotions. At least I am aware of them, that’s a huge milestone for me. But the only thing that’s changed is he sees me as a the broken mother fucker I am and treats me as such. Sometimes it’s nice, and sincere sympathy, other times his frustration with having to check his language all the time is palpable so it does no good to do so. The immense pressure, the intense urgency, the confusing complexity, all those market pressures haven’t changed. This is evident when we were driving somewhere and I suggested not worrying about the fastest route on the map because one minute isn’t a big deal and he insisted that one minute IS a big deal. Sweating one fucking minute indicates a mountain of reputational pressure. In a way, that one minute is putting business ahead of family, but I feel harsh saying it because as he’s pounded into my head the business is what allows the family to survive. Not to mention why put the crack head of the family above that one minute (not literal crack, but it was obvious as soon as he saw I was “fucking around” on ketamine he decided to not take me as seriously) Still, I’ve made my decision that survival reasoning is fucking bullshit already. He’s the one that wants a mansion and wants enough mailbox money for us not to have to worry ever again, so he’s the one deliberately creating the pressure. Maybe he hasn’t considered how hardened he’s become to those feelings after a lifetime in the street and in prison. I really feel for mom. She’s okay now, but her spirit... It’s part of the reason I can’t relax myself at home. He has always painted her as dead weight in the past, never getting a job, sitting watching TV, but he’s unable to connect the dots psychologically because we’re all layman that part of the reason she’s like that is because her actions have been demonized already so who the fuck she got to prove herself to? Same reason I fell into relapse sometimes. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t sort of deal. The damned if I don’t being the reputation of yourself you have to live with after getting sober. He says “don’t worry about it” but I couldn’t accept that because the reason he doesn’t trust me (never mind respect, that’s even further away) is informed by my past. I can’t complain that he never allowed me to contribute to a crucial decision like choosing the building for the dispensary, talking about whether we want a certain investor or not, etc, is because that’s not something to entrust to a druggie. I’ve always felt he let me play make-believe CEO and gave me an allowance for it, while telling me otherwise. He’d say “this is all for you” but he’s making the decisions that truly move mountains and then putting it on us. Which is why I have a hard time saying “I want out”, he can be a baby about things just as much as I am, and I fear he’d let his entrepreneurial drive be affected by my departure. Sigh, this is already getting to be a headache to think about... He’s tired. I’m tired.

There was also something I wanted to say regarding the role social constructs play in all this, but it’s getting long enough already. Suffice to say I’ve been getting into psychoanalysis lately and it’s scratching the right itch for knowledge and wisdom. I can see why Zizek is enamored with Lacan, and why it’s so important to mix it with Marxism. And not to toot my own horn, but what the hell... There are a lot of lofty ideas I’ve been coming across that are already parallel to ideas I’ve developed through my own life experience, and it makes me think I’m meant for this sort of stuff. If I’m lucky in my pursuits (not to put too much weight on the luck aspect), I’ll be a journalist of some sort. Articles, video essays, whatever. Need to rein in my indecisiveness and dispel FOMO tho.

Back to DMT. But not really. Earlier in the summer I got some straight Ketamine and it was also immensely healing. But it has a great abuse potential, especially for me, so it’s harder to “hang up the phone” after I get the message as TmK would say. It made me feel again, and start to understand what love is. Partly because it conjured all these lost feels I had for Kat. She’s great people though, I think I’d just stress her out too much. Idk. Whatever. My love life is a total mess. Anyway after I ran out I wanted more of course and stumbled on some DCK, a somewhat rare ketamine offshoot. Coupled with my increasing propensity to trip acid more than once a week, they started building on each other. I was happier and happier at home, but at work/fam was getting more and more distressed about my place in that whole show. In his show. Simply thinking about the company, especially after having read that article about procrastination and how much it resonated with me, caused me unnecessary levels of distress. Normally as quickly as I can feel that, my mind will tuck it away and bottle it up somewhere so I can go about my day. The problem with drugs is they cause you to act instead. So he was doing the usual “it’s so easy! you’ll have it made!” and I interrupted with this torrent of shit I’ve been holding back forever, and he would not yield on his “you didn’t let me finish...” Incidentally, has he really never picked up on every time I interrupt I already know what he’s talking about? I said as much, something like “it’s not the labor” and he keeps saying “no you’re not listening” as though a frivolous detail changed the main thrust of the fact he’s always trying to make it easier for me. I wish he could simply let me go off and have the strength to take it a little less seriously, but considering how often I take things personally I shouldn’t be surprised he does to. On top of this, his brother/my uncle was in the hospital for some serious shit. But another reason I picked this time is because I only feel safe even confronting him when non-involved parties are around. He doesn’t care that I don’t feel safe confronting him though, he says “don’t worry about me” so maybe I shouldn’t. I feel like such an asshole about it, but that feeling is conjured by the ideological structure he helped to create. Where does my shame end with him being the causation and start with my personal ideology? How much can a person create their own ideology, truly? It’s about as small a window as free will, I imagine.

SO after feeling awful for going off after having all this stuff build up in my mind, I felt awful and went home to drug up some more. Again, not recklessly to the extent I used to be. But I did a fat line of DCK while on a couple hits of LSD and a smidgen of Zolpidem (a wholly underrated substance). Everything was getting to me all at once. A perfect storm of my problems. All the while another doubt caused by ideology from without (society and family both) was making me think it’s all the drugs. But the developments I’ve made are huge strides, I’ve matured so much from it all. And I realized every time I do this, those developments are wiped clean because the validity of them is rendered null due to both the general social stigma of drugs and my history with them. And maybe that’s a major trigger fo rmy relapse in the past. I’m not suppose to be on drugs, but I dabble, have incredible experiences and make strides of maturity, but because it’s drugs the exact opposite effect is percieved from the outside; the experiences are simple chemical euphoria, the strides of maturity are false delusions. It triggers a sharp roll back down hill. I wish someone respected me for who I am, I feel so alone sometimes.

Drugs as an umbrella term, drugs as a vice for the worst dregs of society. There are so many problems in our world regarding drugs. I could write a book. But how much I’ve written here touches on another pressure I feel. IS it simply him again? When he asks “you’re gonna be gone in a few days right?” is that what’s making me feel like this is a waste of time? I’ve got to get out of here. It’s so hard though. I simply have to be strong. The strength is in me to take the massive cut to pay and benefits when I move. Maybe I’ll get a portion of my strugglers card back and shit heads like Blasey Shomas can’t simply say “why don’t you take care of yourself instead of daddy taking are of you?” anymore. Part of me wants to say he says that because he’s driven by his own emotions and not smart enough to directly debate my claims, his insults should hold no weight. Another part of me is truly trying to be... I don’t know a proper term for it without sounding egotistical, but “enlightened”? This is why monotheism is sounding more interesting to me. Jesus’ position about those dregs of society. I’ve always tried to be a trusting person, understanding of people’s struggles, the ideologies they function under that make them lash out or otherwise act the way they do, etc. I even changed my wording there from “I’ve always been” to “I’ve always tried to be.” Not so much for my usual reasons of dodging a committing claim (which I’m working on -- instead of “I think ___” just say what I believe to give the claim more sense of authority so as to be taken more seriously), but trying to be more humble. And not to think lowly and use myself as a punching bag like I used to... ugh, whatever. This post is messy enough.

So that night after having done DCK every day for a couple weeks and tripping every other night on acid, I was at my wits end on what to do, where to go next, everything. The outside world is crumbling, the inside world is lost. I finally whipped out that DMT I’ve had for a long while, something inside told me it was time. Oh duh it was the wits end part, I had no other chemical recourse. I sat in my bed with a foil sculpture loosely resembling a pipe, repeated to myself “it’s okay, just let it happen to you, it will be okay.” A part of me even had a small fear based on those rare reports of those interdimensional beings mentally raping some people, but I don’t know what to make of those experiences, seem like flukes. I took my three deep hits and set the pipe aside as soon as the rusb began and laid back. It wasn’t enough to break through, so I need to get a proper pipe, but it was enough for a “being” (which I am convinced is a part of your mind, not from another dimension or otherwise external source) to appear before me. At least I think. Whatever it was slowly came closer, reassuring me that I’d be okay. The most profound part was an overwhelming sense of all these puzzle pieces suddenly falling perfectly into place where they should be. As though the answers to all my struggles obvious and within me the whole time. For example as soon as I came back I adjusted my posture, as that’s something that I’ve been wanting to work on, and because I was reminded of that just now I adjusted my posture in my seat while writing this. I felt an overwhelming sense of forgiveness toward myself, I think. Amazingly, the inebriation I felt before the trip was largely dissolved, as though the stuff I was on somehow all lost it’s potency. The distresses melted away. At least, the power behind them was nulled. I’m still facing the same problems, but there’s a zen(?) quality to my thinking when they come up in my mind. No longer will a pin drop trigger everything I’m feeling all at once. When I came-to completely, I started BAWLING. In being overwhelmingly consoled by the trip, I became inconsolable. Tears of joy. Tears of healing. And that was the main takeaway. The loudest words of the experience were “Now the healing can truly begin.” At the same time, now the real work also begins.

Balance is key

1 note · View note

mulechurchyard-blog · 6 years

Text

What I mean when I say Ex-Gay

“Because you see we boys are like that. We are more afraid of the medicine than of the illness”

Pinocchio,Carlo Collodi

Over the 2015/16 festive period I had two epiphanies: (i) I wasn’t gay and (ii) there is a God.

There was a gap of around a month between the two. During that month, I unpicked my former identity, and I realised that I had been had: the concept of homosexual identity is lie, and the way that the lie is maintained is incredibly complex and damaging. At first, I wondered how I could become a secular voice who could help people see what I had seen, but God had other plans. In a few short weeks he had saved me for Himself, and now I knew that my message would be so outrageous there was no chance of being listened to. I knew what I was like before, and there was no way I would have listened… or maybe I would have listened a little bit, secretly. I might therefore have read on, if just to be outraged.

Having crossed the boundaries between the two worlds, I realised there is a problem to which there are four parts:

(i) LGBT people do not understand Christianity

(ii) Christians do not understand LGBT people

(iii) LGBT people do not understand themselves

(iv) Christians do not understand Christianity

So, as far debate and dialogue between LGBT people and Christians are concerned, things were never going to go well. As someone who has now experienced both, this blog sets out to address that a bit.

First, to state what I do not support. A couple of weeks back, there was an episode ofRupaul’s Drag Race (which I find fascinating) where one of the competitors broke down crying as he described his Christian parents subjecting him to an exorcism to rid him of a gay demon. That is spiritual abuse. No one can change for the sake of someone else. We each have a cross to bear, and it is our choice in how to bear it. It must be acknowledged that once a child is an adult, then they are on their own journey. Whilst love and guidance remain essential, that guidance must not be authoritarian (in fact authoritarian parenting may have been part of the problem in the first place). It goes without saying that verbal, physical, spiritual and emotional abuse (including shunning) play no part at all. I will write about parenting fully, later on.

However, there are a number of videos doing the rounds on YouTube, where people speak of amazing hole-on-one spiritual experiences where some charismatic preacher lays their hands on them, and they receive the holy spirit and “over-come” their sexuality all the same moment. If that is true, that’s great for them, I suppose, but it lies well beyond the bounds of realism for most. Maybe there is a leap of faith so profound that these people do just change their sexuality through belief, but as Rosario Champagne Butterfield, a Christian writer who also came through homosexuality, says, expecting it to happen is really prosperity gospel territory (the heretical and blatantly untrue belief that becoming a Christian is going to make you well, and bring financial prosperity because God knows you deserve it). What if these individuals discover that still struggle with same-sex desire? Who will they talk to about it? What if they don’t talk about it, and then act on it secretly? Either way, I am afraid to say that the euphoria of discovering God wears off overtime. You discover that you still do get ill, you still make terrible mistakes, your loved ones still die unsaved and you do still experience same-sex desire after all. Relying on Him and trusting Him can become harder. God doesn’t remove us from Earthly reality, he shows us what it truly is and if we understand what He is seeking in us, rather than us just expecting things of Him, He will help us to bear its challenges. That is why the prosperity gospel is absolute pap. There needs to be more credible and accessible explanations and courses of action, for the sake of everybody including charismatics.

It seems to be me, that most LGBT people who come to faith in Jesus, certainly within the UK evangelical culture in which I exist, still talk about experiencing same-sex attraction and choose to be celibate (Those who say that they are following Jesus and actively pursuing an LGBT lifestyle at that same time, aren’t Christians and I am not going to discuss that particular issue here). So, we have the two basic Christian views that seem to float around in culture and imagination:

I) Over-the-top, all encompassing, instantaneous, spiritual theatrics/histrionics

II) Celibacy

Celibacy is problematic though as it just says, “This is me and don’t ask question.” Although the way of dealing with it is different, this is basically the same thing as that that mainstream LGBT community says, often with extreme defensiveness, and there is a big reason for that. The thing that LGBT people fear above all other things is self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge is terrifying, because through self-knowledge an LGBT person will see that the person who is hurting them, the person who is humiliating them, who is filling their body with drink and drugs at the weekend (if they are that way inclined), who is causing their mental anxiety, who is generating these feelings of exclusion and who is preventing them from taking their role in God’s created order, is themselves. The sinful world has told them a lie about themselves, and they have believed it. They have not only believed it, they have run with it and through forging community with other LGBT people they have created a self-perpetuating social force that tells them that change is impossible, and any attempt to change is extremely damaging or laughable.

As these communities have sucked men and women in to them, grown ever larger and gained influence, they have taken it upon themselves to proclaim all science and psychology that suggest that homosexual or trans identity is even remotely changeable, linked to other mental health/personality disorders or liable to damage the individual further, have been irrefutably debunked. But they haven’t. My own lived experience show there is profound truths in much of the psychological writings of the pre-“liberation” era that have been excluded from contemporary discourse with such vehemence, it is almost impossible to access them, let alone hear them be discussed with any seriousness. There has been such a force of will and pressure from the LGBT community that they have managed to suppress the thought that these theories could have any truth in them at all. That is because discovering the truth in them is terrifying as it shows them that they are far less in control of their own bodies and minds than they think they are. This terror is as real for Christian LGBT people and those within the mainstream.

We can see this process happening just now with the gender-neutral debate. Previously, no one believed this thing existed as anything other than attention seeking linked in with certain pathologies, but slowly the debate is being crushed. Maintaining the idea that there even is a debate to be had, is portrayed as morally abhorrent. People become afraid to speak out. This is “not even up for debate” stance inevitably seeps in and affects the Christian world just as much as mainstream culture. Hence, I am not satisfied with the celibacy answer, because I think those who pursue it remain within the lie when greater and deeper recognition of your God-created reality is possible. And if full change proves elusive, at least there can come a greater ability to understand same-sex desire/LGBT-identity better and struggle with it less. To all intents and purposes, I am still celibate, and I don’t see that changing in the near future. But it’s not because I am resisting same-sex attraction, but because I am still beset with emotional issues from the past and I don’t feel able to cope with a relationship with a woman (again I will discuss this further later on). But more importantly I am saved, and I am not living within a lie that places a barrier between me and the true nature of reality anymore. In some ways, it is exactly like The Matrix. The world Neo wakes up can seem one hell of a lot harder to deal with than existing within the Matrix, but it is real, and that is profoundly more meaningful that living within the safe confines of a lie. And in reality, the lie is not safe at all. It cleverly disguises it dangers. Addiction issues, mental health issues, suicide, domestic violence, loneliness, anxiety, sexual promiscuity and narcissism are all far more prevalent in LGBT people than they are in the non-LGBT population. Their unacknowledged realties are screaming out against the lie that is being forced on to them, and this is without even going into the more metaphysical realms of damnation and exclusion from God’s Eternal Kingdom that lie will breed in time.

Christian celibacy is better, but it is not yet forceful enough to bring about the culture change that needs to happen. Ed Shaw has written a book called The Plausibility Problem, in which he discusses the problem of presenting celibacy as a plausible lifestyle choice for LGBT people as they seek Jesus. I think it is a huge problem, and it will always remain a minority choice. I think there is a more radical solution that even the church is now too afraid of. God create man and woman to be together. LGBT-identity is a lie, and we need to stop contributing to that lie. We need to undo it. Same-sex attraction is an issue deeply related to LGBT-identity, but it is also separate as it can exist independent of the LGBT-identity. Likewise, same-sex attraction is a lie. It is not part of God’s created order. We need to undo that too, rather than preach repression. The solution to both lie in language and how people and feelings are described. This process of re-description is deeply disturbing, often very upsetting and above all, terrifying. The road down which I have travelled in the few years has often been hard to bare; and I have found myself gasping with desperation “but who am I then?” To endure such mental turmoil and chaos, the individual must have security in something larger than themselves. Therefore, whilst I believe that coming to faith and overcoming LGBT-identity/same-sex desire are separate things that require separate processes, I doubt that the latter transformation is possible without a total reliance and trust in the peace, love and purpose that God has provided for us.

God and the goodness of his created order are the medicine, but Pinocchio is right, they do seem more terrifying than the illness, even when the illness promises death. That is especially the case when that illness is sin of our own making. So, my last word is this; do not be afraid of the medicine. Although it may seem bitter thing to swallow at first, it is very good indeed.

#christianity #homosexuality #lgbt #ex gay #philosophy #psychology #the church

13 notes · View notes

galaxyholly · 4 years

Text

Let’s talk about labels.

So, with all the “political” discourse around minority groups lately, I’ve noticed something that’s left a sour taste in my mouth every time I hear it. (Or really a lot of things)

Labels.

Every minority group has them. “Gay” vs. “Straight”, “Black” vs. “White”, “disabled” vs. “abled”.

Usually, labels are used as handy signifiers for a distinguishing trait, such as being homosexual. They’re used to distinguish something from a group, usually as some kind of utility of understanding. And they can be useful! Saying, “I’m gay” rolls of the tongue a lot easier than, “I am an X, and I am sexually attracted to X.”

But lately every time I hear labels like that, I can’t help but wonder if labelling is counter-productive to everything these groups stand for.

Language is powerful, its meanings, usage, and implications can change peoples’ minds like the snap of a forefinger and thumb. Obvious examples are like Cold War propaganda. We still have the majority of Americans assigning everything left of killing the homeless for sport as socialism (That’s a quote from somewhere, lemme know if you guess it.)

Labelling isn’t an exception to this. There was a study done in recent years that illustrated this power in ways not really studied before. It involved telling a group of kids that they were gifted, and telling another that they didn’t achieve the gifted status. Both groups were taught using the same curriculum and methods, and by the end of the study, the “gifted” group had an IQ difference of 10-15 points. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just labelling these students caused sort of a “placebo” effect on their academic performance/ intelligence.

[Citation at the bottom]

What does this have to do with minority groups? Well, I think it contributes to their perceived abnormality in our society. Most of these groups just want to be normalized, or treated just as well as the most well off groups and classes of society. Equality.

But the irony of campaigning for equality under a label, is that the label and the group status inherently separates and de-normalizes the group itself. If gay people are equal to straits, why do we even need a name for it? Can’t just saying, “I like X.” do the job? It’s nearly the same amount of effort to express, and it doesn’t involve boxing yourself into a narrow definition, nor does it separate. Does that make sense? You might have heard of this, but its called Heteronormativity and it sucks. As a wlw myself, I get tired of the label.

Maybe a more clear example would do good. If the color of your skin means nothing about who you are, why then do we call people “black”,”white”,”yellow”?

Before anyone tries to tell me that my idea is heading into culture erasure, give me a moment to explain. I do think culture is important, and I am by no means trying to force anyone to let go of any labels, or adopt others. I just want to open conversation as to what could be more helpful than the labels we have.

For instance, what do I think about when hearing the words black vs. white?

As a physicist, I would think of white as being the combination of all wavelengths of light, and black being no light present at all.

As someone indoctrinated into a protestant Christian belief system (I’ll be healing from that one for a while), white reminds me of all the imagery associated with god and angels, and black as associated with satan and demons (red too).

I mean, anyone can attest, it’s just classic symbolism. So what does it do when we assign groups of people those colors as labels. Well, it brings a lot of those connotations with them. Labelling in this way, using a noun as the label makes the label into something inherent in people. Think of the difference between, “I am a black person” vs. “I am a person comes from a unique culture and background.” In the first example, the person is black. It’s read as an inherent quality of someone. In a movement that’s saying that the color of your skin means nothing of who you are, the label of “black” only signifies a difference, which isn’t true. I don’t think POC or “People of Color” helps much either. It still plays into classic imagery, of white being pure, and other being less pure. It still makes the label out to be something that’s inherently part of the person. Which, yes, my skin color is a part of me, but as it means nothing about the content of my personality, so it seems odd to even mention its existence in reference to myself or my life.

This is my suggestion. Since skin pigment has no bearing on a persons life, why not just never mention it? Obviously this doesn’t do justice to the fact that people are severely oppressed due to their skin color. Fighting for rights or talking about culture that stemmed from oppression are the instances where sometimes a label is needed. So why not develop a better language model. Calling someone a “person affected by systemic oppression” doesn’t roll off the tongue, but the connotations are infinitely better. It conveys nothing inherent about the person, and the only separator is easily demonstrated to come from others, which means its not inherent, and not really a separator.

I think this can be applied to so many other groups. The most egregious example I can think of would be the term “transgender.”

This language, much like racial language is extremely outdated and inaccurate, and as always, created by WASPs (White Anglo Saxon Protestants). The fact that a label exists at all, much like with poc, really irks me.

This is a group of people who are essentially just forced into the incorrect gender/presentation from birth, and many are self and medically-described to have been born in the wrong bodies.

One such sub-group is called “Trans Women.” These people are just women. They were assigned the wrong gender/gender roles/gender presentation at birth due to the archaic ideas of gender in Western society. Science, all accredited medical institutions, and psychology all confirm that “trans women” are just women. It’s the same with the men of the movement.

So, if you haven’t seen the issue yet, let me point it out. If “Trans women are women”, then why on earth do we need so say the “trans” part in the first place? Mathematically speaking, if [trans women = women], then the trans part is equal to zero. It’s a useless term. And yet, it’s everywhere. If you go to the reddit forum r/asktransgender, you literally can’t find a single person referring to a woman as just a woman. There’s this obsessive need to always attach “trans” in front of everything these men and women are associated with.

This isn’t even getting into what “transgender” implies in the first place. Much like POC is to black, transgender is to transsexual. People fighting to get rid of discriminatory and antiquated language with a history of use in disparagement only to replace with another useless label that just has less bad history of use.

“Transgender” is defined as: denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

If everything says that these people are who they are, then why does “birth sex” even factor in? The use of this word makes it even worse. These people have to say, “I am transgender.” This is again, making the label inherent to the person’s being. Essentially relegating their whole life to being that person whose internal sense of identity and gender doesn’t align with their “birth sex”.

How about, “I am a woman”, or “I am a man”, or “I am a nonbinary person.

The label carries around so many connotations. If someone is a woman, then why do they need the classifier, “trans” before her description? What does that confer? Their genitalia? No, some get surgery, and some don’t, so how is that helpful. Also, why do people think they have a right to any information on a person’s genitalia? That’s so weird and creepy. I would argue that these women know more about womanhood, and have a more intimate relationship with it than women without the experience of having a gender incongruence.

It also implies that they are going from one gender to another, hence the “trans” part. Which, is just inaccurate, considering that these people just are who they are from birth. Looking like a man doesn’t make you one, and vice versa. Nor does genitalia. Hopefully I don’t have to explain that one to you.

So, why not say something like this instead. “I am a woman and I have a gender incongruence.” Gender incongruence is defined as the mismatch an individual feels as a result of the discrepancy experienced between their gender identity and the gender they were assigned at birth (GIRES, 2018, 2018).

First, this definition has nothing inherent about the person. “Having” a gender incongruence isn’t the same as saying, “I’m gender incongruent.” Once the person has fixed this incongruence through medical, social, or presentational means, they no longer have an incongruence, and are just a man/woman/enby.

Like said, if they’re just men and women, why the trans part? It only separates, and since they’re the same, the separator means nothing.

There are intersex women, infertile women, women who were brought up with tons of brothers, not being allowed to be “girly”, who never had a gender incongruence. So don’t try to say that there’s anything that can separate women who’ve had a gender incongruence to those who haven’t.

I know this was really long, but I hope you got something out of it. Let’s stop labeling everything we see. It’s often inaccurate, and a really poor way of approaching. Let’s use the framework of oppression and culture instead.

If you’re in any of the minorities I talked about and you want to correct me or talk about this post, let me know.

Love, Holly

-xoxo

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/alternative-truths/201005/why-its-dangerous-label-people label theory readup

#labelingisbad nomorelabels equalityforall

1 note · View note