#sure some fringe ppl may exist

[ladiablesse]

i hope yall know that this isn’t actually what happened and the person who initially made the post calling out motaz out for his insensitive comment is sudanese not “amerikkkan”. like this characterization is quite literally false and made in the worst possible faith but some of yall are consuming it uncritically and that’s v v weird

[iclaimedtobethebetterbard]

I HAVE. A question. Abt if ur going my way. If u r ok w/ answering it. Why did Roman not know how Virgil & other villains acted? Like roman thinks virgil has hurt ppl, when virgil refuses 2. Roman also doesn't rlly know that being a villain is more like a job than anything! Why doesnt Roman know superhero stuff if he wants 2 b a superhero ?

yeah i can answer that!! i think i very very briefly hinted at it in like one sentence in the most recent chapter, but i did not go into detail at all. and im not sure when ill explain it in detail in the fic, and it doesn't have a huge impact on the plot moving forward anyway, so i don't mind answering now.

roman doesn't know much about supers bc his parents really dislike supers, and have consistently done their best to prevent roman from ever learning anything about supers and to make him think supers are bad and that it's shameful to have powers. (he hid his powers from them as soon as he found out he had them.) so he only knows little bits and pieces of information about supers, plus a lot of incorrect stuff. the incorrect stuff either comes from things his parents said (much of which were outright lies, but roman has no way of knowing how much or what specifically was untrue, although he does suspect that at least some of it was false), or else just from roman not knowing much and so making incorrect assumptions. the little he does know comes from just picking up on things his teachers and classmates say in passing, or like, things in the media that his parents failed to keep from him - eg billboards, magazine covers in grocery checkout lanes, the news channel before his parents switch it, etc.

(side note, but roman's knowledge of queer and trans stuff was acquired in much the same way, under much the same circumstances—in particular, you may notice that some of the ways he understands himself and talks about his gender throughout the fic have been influenced by his parents' transphobic views on gender. virgil and logan are going to gently & lovingly teach him more helpful ways to understand transness, while also allowing him to describe his experiences however feels most comfy for him <3)

anti-super sentiment is pretty rare in the universe, but it does exist—most often for religious reasons, but not always. either way, being anti-super is viewed by the vast majority of people as a fringe position and a weird, outdated view to have. roman's parents, neither of whom have powers, don't hate supers for religious reasons. it's also not a position either of them have always had; they kind of developed it concurrently. both of them have become extremely abusive people over the last 12–15-ish years, and not being supers means there is a whole category of power that they can never access to leverage over the vulnerable people around them, and they hate knowing that. so that is their main reason for being anti-super. they have an extremely unhealthy marriage, but refuse to get divorced bc they both think it's "wrong," and instead keep making each other much much worse, and roman was the one who suffered most as a result. so as soon as roman got powers, he was very very careful to hide his powers from them bc he knew how bad it would be if they ever found out. i think he probably made up a story to his parents about an after-school activity he had to join for a class, to give himself time in the afternoons to go out and pretend to be a full-grown superhero like he was doing in the first few chapters of the fic. he very luckily did not get caught in the lie by his parents, and did not get found out to have powers by them, before virgil rescued him.

but now he is safe, and going to learn helpful correct information about supers and about how to use his powers, and is going to be taken such good care of!! <3

[trickstarbrave]

i get to make posts abt whatever i want and i like the long form ability tumblr has so im gonna make a post here abt it instead of a 29 tweets long thread abt it on twitter.com’s hellsite even if its a bigger thing there for ppl to yell at me: 

“how can you be NB and a woman? why even bother being aligned? why be more than one category? how do you know this isn’t a common experience with womanhood and it’s just misogyny?” 

there is no one experience of womanhood. this is true. i don’t know if this is a truly common or uncommon experience. i dont know how every woman feels. maybe a great deal binary women feel the same way, and maybe how i feel is entirely different from how women feel. but gender is not just an internal thing but an external thing. it’s, for me, both. no, wearing a dress or feminine clothes doesnt make you a woman and wearing masculine clothes make you a man, but how we live our lives and process our own thoughts is informed by the society and culture around us. all i can do is use that lens i have been given to interpret how i feel.

i dont think i am a binary woman. i use he/him and don’t like she/her or many feminine parts of language used to describe me, which isn’t something i see many binary women do. sure i can use pronouns i dont even like, much like how i can change my name to something i dont like, but im more so in the business of doing things that hurt no one for my own comfort and going from there. still though, not all of my behaviors are not unlike how i think womanhood is. i experience society primarily as someone interpreted as a woman. im okay to a degree with it too. i am subjected to misogyny and sexism. i am a primary target of those. i feel i have a vested interest in women’s rights not just because someone may mistake me for a woman but bc for all intense purposes i kind of am one. i love women and my attraction to women is based on that. i am attracted to other nb ppl with a relation to womanhood. 

for me it means i am partially out of the box. standing with one foot in and one foot out of it into something that isn’t manhood. for a while i assumed if i dont feel 100% like a woman the alternative was manhood. or gender fluidity. or that there is only a handful of experiences you’re allowed with being nonbinary like being entirely third gendered or agender. i relate to womanhood, and sometimes i dont at all. i feel it doesn’t quite fit, a label that applies only half the time and the other half manhood doesn’t apply to me at all either. for women’s issues and women’s spaces there are times i will be heavily involved and present bc they are issues that concern me and have resources i want and need. 

binary society, however, says you’re not allowed to have these varied experiences. you either feel like a woman and use she/her pronouns and look and act a certain way, or you feel like a man, use he/him pronouns, and look and act a different way. that if you don’t your existence is incoherent and irrelevant. it does not account for what each of these parts mean and serve (how pronouns can be very different from presentation or how people can be unable or unwilling to present a certain way), it just says “this is a list of things women do and this is a list of things men do”, and i say “well i do a lot of things on the woman’s list but don’t fill in the checklist entirely”. im on the fringe of womanhood, but orbit it enough that it’s still applicable as a category. 

not everyone will feel like me and reject being a woman and a man entirely, but i reject the idea that there is two distinct boxes that can only be solved by adding a third or fourth box. being nonbinary for me is existing in some level outside of strict boundaries or roles to any degree, and that means you dont have to reject womanhood or manhood to do so. you dont have to reject femininity or masculinity to do so. that some of us will be close enough to the box it might seem like it’s unnecessary to count us as outside it in any way but i say it does matter if we say it does. maybe most people exist outside of these boundaries to varying degrees and it doesn’t impact them, but it impacts me. being nonbinary means you may not be easily understood by other people. just like how bisexuals do not need to have an equal amount of partners who are men and women to be “real”, their bisexuality is important. if a bi woman dates 30 women and 1 man genuinely then she is still bi, not “basically a lesbian”. if a bi man dates 30 women and 1 man, he is not “basically straight”. i am not “basically a woman who should change my pronouns and language”, im woman aligned nb.

nb ppl can also be gay, or lesbian, or bi, or any other complicated sexuality bc they are unaligned and like women or men specifically, or only like nb ppl like them and we dont rly have good words for that ppl recognize. a binary gender system is like binary code, which means youre either a 0 or 1. theres no room for numbers between that, nor numbers outside it. all you can do is break the binary system that no longer servers a good purpose. and that also means we have to think in different ways about sexuality as we know, which was informed by a binary. 

nonbinary isn’t a clear cut thing. it isn’t as easy to understand as manhood and womanhood. our society wasn’t built to explain and understand it so i don’t fault people who dont. but trying to simplify nb identities into something easier to understand for you is wrong. being a woman or man isn’t smth as simplistic as people like to act like it is either. for now this is how i feel and communicate it. im a nb lesbian. i use he/him. pronouns dont determine my gender as unaligned nb ppl can use any pronouns like they as well, and manhood is more complex than simply using 1 set of pronouns. if you think im a man you look silly. if you think i share everything in common with women you look silly. it isnt entirely intuitive or straightforward but i am making due with what i have in a way that doesnt hurt others and isn’t based on bigotry. i dont reject womanhood because of bigotry, i know it exists and i fight against it. i love women and feel im close enough that women can love me too. i feel alienated partially because im a lesbian even, and other lesbians go through this to varying degrees too. 

[locktobre]

What other fandoms are you in besides Barbie & Frozen? Do you feel as passionate as those fandoms as you do about Barbie? Or are they just “meh” fandoms for you?

The funny thing is... I don’t really consider myself to be a part of any fandom, at this point. To me, being a part of a fandom means that you create things, and/or engage with other fans, and I... don’t really do that. I have done art and fics before (and I still plan to, for that matter), but I do it so much more for myself than for anyone else. And I don’t really engage with ppl bc of both my social anxiety and not wanting to clash over differing ideas about the media. So I feel like I exist on the fringes of fandoms, rather than actively participating in them. It may seem like a strange difference of semantics, but it feels very distinct to me.

That all being said, I have many things that are very near and dear to my heart that are not Barbie or Frozen, but I rarely talk about them bc like, if I don’t have any headcanons or theories or meta analysis, what is there to even talk about?

As for passion... I kind of sort things by tiers, in my head.

Barbie and Frozen are top tier, I think about Barbie every single day and Frozen almost as much (it’s been a lot less since F2). They’ve been top tier for 8 and 7 years, respectively. They’re definitely the big ones.

Second tier are things I love dearly but don’t really talk about. Smallville and Fringe sit here. Snow White and Brave, too. Chuck would probably be here if not for that awful finale.

Third are things I like but that I tend to forget about whenever it’s not, like, on my dash or right in front of me. Chuck’s here. Video games are usually here, bc I pretty much only think about those when I’m playing them. Superhero stuff tends to sit on this level. Most shows and movies I watch, actually, so basically anything on my tags page I haven’t already mentioned.

Fourth is the closest I have to a “meh” tier. Like, it’s stuff I’ll watch, but I’m not really invested, and only really keep following bc I kinda want to know what happens/already invested all this time/have a compulsion to see things through. I rarely give up on shows entirely, bc I’m driven a lot by spite and I want to see just how bad it gets, even if I’m dissatisfied with how it’s going. (The only ones I can think of in recent memory that I gave up on are Siren and Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.) Basically, fourth tier is anything ongoing that I keep up with, but if it ends, I’m not distraught. This is almost like the third tier so the distinction is very thin, but again, it makes sense to me. Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist is currently sitting here (unfortunately. The first season was better).

The fifth tier is actually a mobile tier, and it’s just whatever I’m hyperfixating on at the moment, so it can actually supersede anything else. Depending on how long I’m fixating, it may end up becoming a permanent part of a different tier. Right now that’s Psych and some other stuff, which may end up joining the second (or perhaps even first) tier, but it’s only been a few months so I’m not sure yet. (Hyperfixations can seem like they’re always gonna land on at least the second tier, but I forget about so many things as soon as the show is over, so it’s almost always the third.)

So... Yeah, a lot of things that I watch/read tend to end up on that third tier. Like, I’ll binge it and then probably forget about it until it comes up again and it’s like oh yeah, that was a cool show. And if it doesn’t end up there, then I usually just forget about it entirely once it’s over. Having a bad memory sucks a lot, except when it’s me blissfully forgetting a lot of bad media lol. I don’t really end up with a lot of “meh” stuff, bc I usually just forget about it and move on. The last time I got hate-fixated on something was Frozen, and I came out the other side of that in love with Anna, but that hasn’t really happened since. (Hating on things is exhausting, actually.) Ari Hauntington in the MH reboot might have been close, but I don’t really care about MH anymore.

And speaking of, as rigid as that all may sound, it’s actually very fluid, and some things move around a lot. Things fall off my radar, too, and I don’t end up caring about them anymore. MH and EAH are notable. MLP too (mostly the first 5 seasons). S*pernatural was once dear to me (also for the first 5 seasons). Etc. Sometimes that’s bc of the fandoms (all of those fandoms were god awful lol). Sometimes it’s just bc my interest drifts elsewhere. And sometimes you just have to say goodbye to a show bc it doesn’t bring you joy anymore. It just happens.

ALL of that being said, I can be very passionate about whatever I’m hyperfixating on, but day to day? It’s mostly Barbie and Frozen. We’ll see if Psych et al ends up landing on tier one, but it’s really hard to say.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep16: Rex and Weevil Do Not Understand “Rock Bottom”

Hey guys.

Hey.

So... kind of crazy out there, right?

Well, you know what they say. When life gives you lemons, you watch Netflix.

Anyway, Yugioh is racing down this canyon that should be going up alongside the 101 and through the middle of many cities. Don’t worry about it.

And then I found out the name of a card I haven’t seen yet and wow it’s a name.

I’m really glad that Rex Raptor, dinosaur enthusiast, has just no idea how to name dinosaurs and does so like a 6 year old child. Hornsaurus.

(read more under the cut)

So this episode is mostly about Rex and Weevil’s tragic backstory, and thankfully, it’s really not that tragic. We’ve had SO MANY bizarre and weird backstories under our belt, that to have a completely normal one is just...wild to me. They’re so freakin normal.

And on the way, our train just...

OK Train...anyway, I’ll do my best to show which scenes are flash back and which are not, but like bear with me because it flashes back like every other scene it feels like.

So Rex waxes long about that very short time in which he and Weevil were the best ever duelists in Japan (other than Kaiba, I guess, who they failed to mention in this flashback.)

(I used to have a very soft performance fleece sweater the exact same shade as Weevil’s jacket there, popped collar and everything, with piping outline. Don’t judge me, it was the 00′s, I’m just shocked that Weevil also shopped at Old Navy.)

(However I have no idea what’s going on with Rex’s three layers of clashing outfit styles that he has going on. A turtleneck under a thick button up jacket under an open fringe jacket is so much of a 90′s vibe.)

Up until now, bro has been PRETTY SURE every episode that Rex and Weevil are originally from America. I don’t know how I feel about being so right on the money about this one when the episode outright said that they’re from Japan. I don’t really want to out-Yugioh my brother, because at some point, I’ll accidentally let slip that in writing this blog I have accidentally gained all Yugioh knowledge, just like Noah did that one time when he was stuffed into that brain orb.

Just please don’t don’t ask me how this game works, I still have absolutely no idea.

Weevil and Rex had adoring fans in two-shaded polos exactly just like the type I used to wear in high school. But, their fans all left them the moment Weevil lost one single game against Yugi Muto.

Harsh. But granted, I feel like the people of Domino have rabbit memories and if you aren’t actively in the news every day because your blimp got abducted by sea pirates, then who the hell is EVER going to know who you are?

But youknow, Rex and Weevil are pretty sure that dodging getting murdered by Pegasus was actually their last shot at fame. It’s over forever. They’re done. Done until they beat either Joey or Yugi which...very specific, but, it would make you somewhat famous if you did that by simultaneously destroying the Caltrain.

And Weevil is like gunning for the King of Games title but...apparently no one in this episode wanted to mention to Weevil that the “King of Games” moniker actually went to Raphael?

That he needs to beat Raphael...not Yugi Muto?

Nobody?

Nobody feels like mentioning that neither Yami nor Yugi could possibly still be King of Games and that Weevil has no really good reason to be here? I mean it would save Weevil a lot of time. It would also save me a lot of time. We could just walk off this train and go back to what we were all doing before this happened, but nah, lets keep the lie going, because apparently Yami can’t bear to tell the truth, just like his host.

Waiiiit, isn’t Rebecca the King of Games because she beat Yugi in S1?

It’s the freakin Malfroy/Elder wand, it’ll be important in Ch 40 I’m sure of it. I’m sure they’re not going to just...forget...all of the people that beat Yugi before.

Man. Maybe that’s why Yugi is so hell bent on keeping tabs on Rebecca? Just to youknow...make sure she doesn’t tell anyone that she hella beat him that one time because otherwise Kaiba would have lost his freakin mind (again) that Yugi lost that title basically the same afternoon he came back from Pegasus’ island.

Also Rex and Weevil once charged for headshots and this makes them vile, terrible people for some reason.

Apparently this is a bad practice? I mean if you’re famous enough please charge for head shots, you need to make money between playing cards. Take it from this jaded artist, always sell out so you can save money for when you will absolutely get carpal tunnel.

Whatever. Back to Rex who is certain that he is not famous anymore because he lost to Joey.

S4 and still everyone is certain that Joey is bad at cards. Joey will just never be free from this.

It was beautiful anime food for like ten seconds until he did this. How dare. Literally though, how did he do that? Was that burger made out of potato chips?

Can we talk about what a freakin crime it is I can’t watch my Nick at Night retro shows on Netflix or Hulu? Like hell I’m going to get a third streaming service so I can watch and admire how bad “I Love Lucy” aged. I want to see how incredibly off-putting Fonzie is as an adult. But nah. Not even allowed. You can only watch Cheers.

Cheers. What am I? 65? Cheers wasn’t on Nick at Night. My Mom watched Cheers. Gross.

This show trying to convince me so hard that Rex and Weevils lowest point wasn’t when they were 5 seconds away from being set on fire and having their soul removed by Maxamillion Pegasus.

Like for reals, the lowest point for ANYONE (except for the Ishtars) on this show was when they were trapped on that island, without any camping supplies, surrounded by human skulls, Bakura pre-exorcism, and so many other duelists who were probably going to eat them had the tournament gone 24 more hours than it had.

The island that also had a basement that was entirely full of cultists who absolutely murdered a guy right in front of us.

Like when they finally got out of the island’s huge ass forest, their dinner included a soup filled with Pegasus’ eyes.

I would have gotten pissed on by like 70 stray dogs to get off that island, y’all.

So one of the best things about this blog is I don’t have to worry about the restraint of a.) looking professional b.) the fear of sharing my actual real deal opinion. Everywhere else I post, I can’t share anything. I’ve come to terms with this, and so I hide my hot takes deep, deep within this Yugioh blog and the only people who suspect my art rage are like...y’all in the corner of Tumblr who do not care about what I’m talking about.

++++++++++++THIS IS MY HUGE RANT ABOUT ART POLITICS AND ART BITTERNESS FEEL FREE TO SKIP THIS. WE’RE QUARANTINING SO MUCH OVER HERE DUE TO THE VIRUS THAT I AM GOING A LITTLE BIT HOUSE CRAZY+++++++++++++++

But like MAN I need to mention something. Both Joey and Rex are completely off base. Both of them.

Like I’ll be real, because of the sudden extra time I have on my hands, I was originally ranting quite a bit about art culture and stuff and I will admit it was projecting somewhat onto a TV show that was written before the recession and the gig economy basically came and laid a huge dump across the creative industry.

However, I really, really, really don’t like it when people naively say “I’m successful because I did the research, I did the work, and then I got a following despite doing no marketing at all,” LIKE HELL YOU DID, DUDE. And there’s certain places I go where this is the mantra of a hell ton of ppl who don’t believe in luck, and I have to just suck it in because they succeeded at a young age. Because inversely, if anyone doesn’t succeed right away--clearly they don’t work hard enough, right?

I won’t dig into real world stuff because that’s...the real world and the real world is a bummer, but even in the universe of Yugioh there’s this crazy disparity in duelers that the people on the top refuse to acknowledge and the people on the bottom have absolutely no way to cope with so they become insanely bitter about it.

Mai has mentioned that despite all of her hard work and success--because she isn’t the top 4 duelists of Kaiba’s tourney--no one knows who she freakin is. The card industry is so toxic, that even KAIBA dropped out.

And even without Kaiba to compete against anymore, Mai still wasn’t able to get in there to fill that void. The void that also has Marik and Odion in it, despite the fact that I’m pretty sure Marik will never touch a card ever again and might be back to living underground or on a boat in the middle of no-where. And we don’t even need to mention Bakura, right? Bakura who should have also been here to fill the void of fame, but his face probably only comes out fuzzy on camera like people haunted by that girl from the Ring. So we’ll just ignore Bakura, that makes sense, I can accept that canon.

But really...it’s just Joey and Yugi at the top of the crop when there should have been room for at least 4.

So, it’s interesting that the Oricalchos in this situation is the “get me popular quick” drug that will somehow give Rex and Weevil what they need for automatic success because I see people desperately looking for this SO MUCH online. I have seen so many post “This is how I got 100000 followers in 100 days,” and it’s always the same story that isn’t so much about hard work, but more how to game a broken system until all other competitors are invisible. And then there’s the hidden factor about...luck...that really offends people although we all know that it exists.

But just remember I’m not allowed to have this opinion that luck...exists...So if anyone asks, I never said this.

And also...if Rex and Weevil had any support up until now from these kids who have been stuffing them in the trunk for over a dozen episodes, they wouldn’t have done any of this.

So talking as a jaded Millennial, I’m not gonna judge you if you take your Oricalchos, if you know what I mean. Everyone has their reasons, and no one’s too good not to ever do it, lets be real.

+++++++++++++++END OF THIS RANT, WOW, I WANT TO SAY THAT WHILE SLAPPING A WHOLE LOT OF PEOPLE IN A GENTLE MANNER+++++++++++++

So I realized something. This cliff face is sort of an iconic train, but it’s the wrong train.

This is the Amtrak in the middle of Nevada/Utah, pretty sure. I know that shade of orange. I’ve done the Nevada drive a lot.

And part of the reason I’m even sleuthing into this is because as an artist I like to see where art inspiration comes from. It doesn’t just come from a void--they clearly did research and I just want to find out...how it happened.

So anyway, like I said last time, the Amtrak is in charge of the Caltrain management, although the Caltrain is not part of Amtrak. And so you get similar paint jobs--it’s just that Amtrak has blue topped cars, and the Caltrain cars are typically red. Yugioh safely did red, white and blue, which both cars do, to an extent, being American trains.

It’s possible that they decided to look up scenic trains in California and were like “this one looks neat.” This one is also named the “California Zephyr” which makes it seem super Californian but in actuality it goes from Emeryville, California to Chicago. Only problem is that Emeryville is North of Oakland, and we’re supposed to be taking the train “to the airport” when the airports are in Oakland or San Mateo. This train doesn’t go to the airport. You just drove by the airport.

This train also doesn’t go to Florida. Chicago is North, way north. This train exists to be a slow, scenic train for old tourists who want to sleep in cramped spaces or jaded millennials writing their award winning novel. It has no other purpose.

So, it doesn’t at all match anything story wise...but it looks cool. They would never take this train if the world was going to end, and Rebecca wouldn’t know it exists, but, it looks cool.

But anyway, onward to the next episode. I’ll be kind of bunking in my home for a while since my entire area basically shut down, so maybe I’ll get the next updates done earlier than usual? Maybe even catch up on my backlog? hm. Possibilities.

And if you just got here, this is all the Yugioh recaps in chrono order.

[hangingfromchandeliers]

Thank you sm for your answer! I had no idea about the specifics of top and bottom layers, and i take my showers too hot😔 actually i do have a specific question: do you maybe know what's up with those tiny bumps i get on my forehead & chest area? They seem like clogged pores and many can't be squeezed, it just looks really uneven in certain lighting and i can't seem to get rid of them. Don't worry too much tho, you already told me plenty of things ☺ n you're so right, none of this makes us ugly!

dont worry its no bother at all! i have tiny bumps too on my forehead when i get my period :( and on my arms! and trust me your faves have them too somewhere on their body. its only normal i ofc am no dermatologist so i cannot say for certain what they are especially without seeing them with my own eyes so what im saying may not be relevant at all but its a little general advice that for sure will not do any harm or make it worse. for your chest, wear loose fitting clothes. let your skin breathe and dont put any makeup on it. if you use creams or lotions for it make sure they’re not too rich and heavy in texture. if you work out or feel sweaty in general just take a quick shower to make sure the area stays clean. a few of these apply to your forehead too: dont wear makeup on that area and if you have a fringe try to wear it pushed back or parted often so your skin can breathe. dont pick at it! ONLY touch the bumps if you’ve washed your hands. drink a lot of water and... i always have a lot of trouble recommending things regarding diets bc i think restrictive eating is a very dangerous thing and a lot of ppl eat whatever they want and still have even skin. so take this with a grain of salt: it may be bc of your sugar intake too. but also bc of hormones or stress levels, etc. so if you’re out of options u can always look into what u eat. dont be too strict on that though. your mental health is more important than a few bumps on your skin. i prefer my fave brownies over a few bumps on my forehead.

as for skincare product advice, these are a few things to try but keep in mind that these may not work for everyone and like any product they take at least a month of regularly using them for u to actually see any difference. gel based moisturizers! so you dont add to the layer of oils that may be causing these bumps but you still keep the skin moisturized so she can thrive. a good face wash/cleanser for daily use can also be worth it. when looking at ingredients for those try to avoid sulfates, fragrances, or high amounts of alcohol. none of them are necessarily bad but low amounts of them are more kind to your skin. if you wear makeup id suggest trying a toner too. i use a gel based one with rose water but only ever use it in the evening after wearing makeup. none of this has to be expensive!! drugstore products are just fine. some people recommend scrubs too but i personally dont like them all too much bc i think its very aggressive :( but im someone who just lets pimples exist in peace bc they’re not doing me any harm and will leave more quickly if i ignore them. kinda like weird people on public transport who start talking to u for no reason. just put in your earphones and stare out the window. they’re gone before u know it and they won’t be there forever. and i know i alrdy said this, and you’ve said it too in your ask, but i always want to repeat this when i talk abt skincare: uneven skin is not ugly or dirty! its all just part of the little ecosystem of our skin.

[unproduciblesmackdown]

6:15am Gripes Post lads!! 🥂

im in one of those things where something innocuous bugs me for days b/c its just a personal irritation...i saw something for like a book or a game on twitter & it was like “this is about being a teenager” and it looked like it was about the kind of teenagerdom where you hang out with your friends after school & have a few romantic partners where it doesn’t all go smoothly because youre both inexperienced and havent figured things out enough to have a really healthy mature relationship but its complicated and there’s good things in there too so its all just a mixed bag and classic teenager

anyways theres nothing wrong with that in and of itself of course but i dont like getting what is a specific narrative conflated with a universal narrative...i.e. while that might be a common experience, being 13-19 isnt defined by that kind of usual teenage experience checklist. i mean, everyone who’s been a teenager has an experience in that time which must also be a teenage experience you know. and of course mine happens to be the kind that was nothing like the being out late with friends and having awkward date moments of bewilderment and figuring out who you are and all

i dont love to be reminded that theres a specific narrative thats meant to describe the General Universal Experience, when thats not my experience. what does that make my experience, and by extension, me

like i already feel invalidated enough by the course my life happened to go, i dont need a reminder that it was supposed to go This Way actually, and if it didnt then are you even a real person. and theres a ton of ways peoples lives could differ in major ways from whatever idea of whats universal that are also different from mine, so i dont know how not to be a bit annoyed from that angle either. i dont know its like....i guess ~Adolescence~ is especially treated as some flat, formuleic, predictable time in life where everyone is simple and shallow when its all really the opposite. its as complex and varied as ever and so are teenagers & people are completely wrong to act like teens are all just self centered immature kids—and not only wrong to do so but actually writing off really serious issues that affect teens as like “angst!!” or whatever...lord

anyways so i was like actively suicidal from like 14? 15? i say “was” when its just more like “have been,” but anyway. theres that part, and i didnt go to high school, which im sure would be for the better for anyone, and i wasn’t interested in dating anyone & also didn’t, and i was kind of having a version of the Universal Teen Story in that i was getting to be away from home for weeks at a time with only a weekend back every now and then (and breaks between semesters) and doing so finally let me like, even start to be a person who could exist outside the hellzone of my house. which made going back home for say, long summer breaks increasingly laden with friction. teens and their spats with parents right!! but actually it was that my situation was abusive & i had to figure that out on my own & in the meantime i did think i must be doing something wrong in trying to feel like i actually had the right to my own identity, because i must be doing something wrong if it makes me get along with my parents less. and really the idea that teens are just angsty & rebellious & argumentative was further damaging b/c i trivialized my own abuse as i always had (b/c all i had to go on was that it must be normal) & blamed myself for not succeeding in this impossible situation. it was really Not the universal experience even with the conflict and identity questions and growing familial pains

also i still had few friends, but i at least had a bit more room to Do Shit than at home. idek how to say how isolated i was for the entire like, well most of my life but a tiny bit less so during college. i had campus & a 1.5 mile radius and occasional trips and stuff, and being able to just do things as i wanted. at my parents house, the location made it so you couldnt really walk anywhere, and our town didnt really have a lot of hangouts anyways, and i didnt have any friends really. i did get a few from school and friendly acquaintances but i would rarely see any of them outside school, and that was mostly only middle school anyways. i was on the fringe even in preschool, which i imagine helped w how i read all the time at school and at home. and home and the abuse and having nowhere else to be also had to contribute to how i live in my head, i have to guess. i dont mind that, my head is great. but other people think im weird and in terms of being someone who grew up exposed to long term trauma & bad attention & memory & an awful lot of pretty specific things seem to align w autism but if i mention that ppl (irl) like to talk abt how well really everyones autistic in SOME ways (which well they arent unless you want to have a huge talk abt the entire field of what it means when usually nt ppl define Disorders) anyways the point is that i also dont trust people much because theres a slight history of taking a chance on ppl who seem interested in being friendly w/ me only to turn around & realize i was being laughed at to a degree for things that were just part of how i personally socialize, thanks. but not all of it. ive met some really solid people. but im not that eager to meet people as im wary of a lot of them & my instincts are usually justified when i take a dislike to somebody. and ive just never been in a position to make or have a lot of friends. and that sucks, coz the few times ive been able to be around multiple people i like is always a lot of fun, usually the result of some roadtrip or special occasion or something and very short lived. i WISH i’d had a period of constant access to a friend group, that i couldve left my parents house and had somewhere to go anytime i felt like it, that i had people i could do things with and all. i dont need adventure, i like parking lots and just doing nothing but hanging out and all, but that didnt happen. i was stuck in my parents house & i didnt even think i had maybe been cheated out of anything & maybe i wasnt just a inferior quality person until i started to figure out for myself around 18 that i might actually be abused, and it took me another couple of years to really believe that i didnt deserve it

and i mean still i didnt just take an “alternate route” to the same endpoint everyone else did. i cant do buzzfeed quizzes about You And Your BFF / Friend / Friend Group coz i cant even fake my way through them. i know i have an identity and am as much a person as anyone but i know that the chances to explore life that are supposed to be Common and Universal werent available to me, and that who i am as a person, aka a normal one, not a terrible one, was info i didnt know for most of my life and had to figure out on my own. and im still figuring out on my own, because shits never exactly been okay yknow

anyways my experience may be “worse” but its not lesser or less real or valid or makes me less of a person because i didnt get to do it your way. idk

tldr it annoys me like thanks for reminding me ive never got to have friends even though that’s still one of the few things i’ll feel bad about b/c i know just how much that hurts me & how much ive missed my fleeting chances to have a micro taste of what that couldve been like. and for a reminder that whats considered Real Full Person’s Experience is so default it doesnt even need modifiers, & so what does that make me if it doesnt apply at all?

funny how much an throwaway almost joke of a sentence bugs me but thats how it goes huh