#the haircut thing is a real example btw

[bestworstcase]

You've mentioned that hatedoms tend to be very similar to each other, if not outright identical across fandoms. What is it that causes them to be like this and so similar to each other?

well. to explain this i think it’s first helpful to lay out why hatedom… exists, because i think that is generally not understood in normative fandom space; what i see happening in a lot of conversations about hatedom is that there is a widespread presupposition that hatedom is kind of a side effect of bullies and bigots lashing out at fans for liking something they don’t, and… that’s a misconception because hatedom is a fandom subculture.

“but farran,” you might be thinking, “hatedom is full of bigoted bullies”—and yes, it is. that is true of fandom across the board and, frankly, the harassment is often mutual. it’s just that trolling hatedom or just being combative and nasty toward people in hatedom is broadly socially acceptable in a lot of fandom spaces and the perception that hatedom is demographically homogenous (white, cishet, male) allows fandom’s bad actors to spin aggression as self-defense by rhetorically invoking identity politics. 

which is not to say that hatedom isn’t ever reactionary or that hatedom doesn’t have a massive bigotry problem—it is and it does—but rather that those things are not unique to this one subculture. it is a Fandom Problem. 

so, with that said, what makes hatedom happen?

it isn’t about not liking something. it isn’t even really about hating a thing. people in hatedoms are… fans, actually. 

specifically they are fans who have reached the natural terminus of fandom’s “fuck canon/yay fanon” culture. this is actually the main reason i tend to get somewhat acidic with the anons i get sometimes kvetching about hatedom rewrites and the like, because… hello? 

inside every happy fan besotted with fanon is an embittered screed just one favorite-headcanon-shattering narrative turn away from getting out. it is the same. mindset. bifurcated solely by whether the preferred fanon resembles the real story enough to believe the fanon is real. 

this is why hatedom is disproportionately populated by shippers of torpedoed ships and hardcore believers of popular fan theories that flopped. (and once you notice this, perusing fandom tags and blogs becomes a fun exercise in forecasting the hatedom.)

anyway the point of all this being that hatedom arises when there is an irreconcilable break away from popular fanon in the actual text. when ships get sunk, popular fan theories get jossed, or the narrative status quo is changed, it’s really common for fans who were deeply invested in that ship or theory or paradigm  to pivot to hatedom because the emotional attachment they have to the story and characters doesn’t go away, it just hits an immovable obstacle and ricochets off in a new direction. 

again, fans do exactly the same thing at a lesser intensity. fix-it fic. headcanons of omission, ie, “i know x happened in canon but i don’t like it so i am choosing to pretend it didn’t, actually.” the entire sentiment that fandom itself is about stripping a story for spare parts to write bespoke au fic tailored exactly to suit the fan’s preferences. 

what distinguishes hatedom—& this is getting to the answer of your actual question—is that in hatedom the “fuck canon/yay fanon” principle is applied in the context of that irreparable breach opening between canon and fanon. in normative fandom spaces, the popular fanon kind of gets superimposed with the text in a manner that allows them to blend together, hiding any small discrepancies. that isn’t possible in hatedom because the discrepancies are always so large.

inevitably what that leads to is this feedback loop where the hatedom develops its preferred fanon through a combination of fanworks, meta-posting about why the fanon would have been better or should have been what happened instead, and cherry-picking whatever bits and pieces from canon people in the hatedom happen to like.

(which is how all fanon develops, yes.)

over time, it’s the meta-posting about the preferred fanon that causes hatedom to dissolve into the vindictive nitpicky circus. no matter where you go in fandom, there is always a huge social incentive to keep coming up with new things to talk about. obviously. in normative fandom spaces a lot of that is generated by excitement and joy and just a desire to spend more time with the story and share what you think and kick fun or interesting ideas around. but in hatedom, the passion binding these fans together is estranged from canon almost completely and the group identity is predicated on this really intense disappointment that the preferred fanon got left in the dust. 

so hatedom is fundamentally driven by a powerful social incentive to keep coming up with new reasons why the preferred fanon is better. that pushes the fanfic away from au and into spitefic territory, leaches nuance out of the discussions, encourages nitpicking and angry screeds. eventually it hits a certain critical mass and tailspins rapidly into bullshit because (and this is the key) people in hatedom are fans. 

as in, most of them like the stories they’re ripping apart. they largely do not actually have any deep problem with the story because they are fans having extreme reactions to disappointment. so they talk shit and nitpick and make melodramas out of molehills and sometimes fling bizarre identity politics around to either legitimize nonsense Story Bad arguments or score imaginary points in altercations with normative fandom. 

if that all sounds familiar, yeah. lmao

i will close with an anecdote to illustrate the broader point. 

once upon a time i made a snarky little post about an extremely stupid ironwood take i scrolled past while blogwalking. somehow or another that ended up in front of one of the BNFs of rwby’s hatedom; he misinterpreted my point (because it was a vague snarky paragraph) and wrote a fairly harsh response based on that misinterpretation. there were several followers of mine in the notes kind of signaling an expectation that i was about to receive a barrage of harassment over this. 

i responded by:

clarifying that i didn’t mean the (genuinely awful!) thing he thought i was saying

indicating that i understood how/why he’d read the post that way and no hard feelings

elaborating in detail on what i did mean and why i thought that

and what happened?

the dude apologized for jumping to conclusions and being so caustic off the bat, then explained his own opinion and the thought process behind it. and that was that. the number of hostile angry anons i received was zero. the number of inane bad faith reblogs i got on other posts afterwards was zero.

now this is a basic, basic deescalating tactic but it’s also really illustrative of what i’m talking about when i say that hatedom isn’t motivated by a desire to bully fans  out of fandom because if it hadn’t been for the handful of people in the notes going basically, “oh no! it’s him! brace yourself!” i wouldn’t have known the guy was a hatedom BNF at all. his initial response to me was indistinguishable from the tantrums the dadpin people or that one penny truther throw in my inbox every now and then and frankly he was a lot more reasonable and mature about our differences of opinion than them once the misunderstanding was cleared up. 

like…

i’m not conflict averse at all. anyone who’s been following me for any significant length of time knows that, lmao. but i do try to lead with reasonable and presume good faith until proven otherwise and the thing is? that shuts down hatedom aggro fucking instantly. because people in hatedom are just… fans, really. fans who are usually pretty stoked to be treated like fellow fans instead of the enemy and will usually make an effort to rise to the occasion. 

and once you grok that hatedom becomes really quite simple to understand; the homogenous pan-fandom slurry of inane bullshit happens because fundamentally most people in hatedom like the story but rode the “fuck canon/yay fanon” train all the way to its very toxic and unpleasant last stop and now they’re kind of… stuck there trying to shout the cognitive dissonance away. most of them would be 1000% happier if they hopped the fence back to fandom and went “here’s my wish fulfillment power fantasy au fic that i’m writing for a target audience of Me” buuut there are a lot of social and emotional headwinds against that. 

so instead they make up wildly entertaining bullshit reasons a story is bad like “the animation is ugly” and “it’s bad writing not to explain how [completely mundane everyday thing that children can understand, like haircuts or the concept of money] works” and “how could the disney princess show have monarchy in it?!/how could the fairytale show have fairytales in it?!” and so forth. it just gets sillier and sillier forever.

[shakespearean-dream]

TW!!! — blood, scarring and mild body horror ahead 🥲

benny’s turn!

before i start i wanna clarify i hesitated a bit on posting this because lovely mutual @vor-leser just posted his benny interpretation (go look at it and follow him btw), and idk if we like mind melded or smth but our human benny’s are super similar LOL. i damn near scrapped the whole thing out of fear someone would get mad at me but i Would Not be able to start over and get this done ever so this is as good as we’re gonna get. 😭 my apologies niko love u /p

this has been like a full 7 days in the making 😭😭 the art block that i felt coming on while doing ellen and ted hit me like an optimus prime sized semi truck this week along with a depressive episode so i definitely appreciate that happening and i am not upset about it at all! /s i’m totally good so don’t worry or anything /gen, mental health is just weird and i also wanted to explain the gap in my posts 😔

i do not know how to feel about this drawing if i’m so fr with you; i’m proud of myself for AM-ified benny cause i think i got the slowly rotting from the inside out primal freak energy down pretty good, but on the other hand this feels kinda empty?? i usually have a lot more commentary squished in here but i think my brain’s a little fried 🤦‍♂️ i love drawing me some beautiful buff men though so drawing normal ben was familiar territory. however his wack ass haircut i gave him is his punishment for being a PRICK!!! go sit in the corner and think about ur actions benjamin.

like ted n the rest of the sillies i’m not straying too far from canon with his personality, he’s an ass and a murderer and a hella smart dickhead who desperately needs to be punished by the universe (thank you for that one AM). hot take i did not like his “redemption arc” in his game scenario and i don’t think with how he was throughout the entirety of his life (and also throughout the game, main example his inner dialogue) he would actually go out of his way to help the kid because he means it??? n prove he changed to the guys he killed cause he means it??? i dunno maybe AM torturing him made him have a main character “omg i’ve been in the wrong this whole time!!1” moment like the game suggests i’m just not buying it 💀 i’m sure it’s just cause bennys scenario couldn’t be too long and they couldn’t fully flesh him out which i won’t fault the game makers for. i’m a steven universe fan, i know what time constrictions can do to a plot and redemption arc 😭 looking at you white diamond…

his wife n kids are up top and they’re kinda neat to me— i was considering the hc that part of the reason manya (his canon wife) left him is because she realized she was a lesbian which would be funny as fuck considering benny’s also One Of Them Queers 😭. i think during the brief times he was home and able to parent his daughters they got really scared and tired of him, one because he’s just a very threatening powerful and overbearing man, but also because i feel like he would’ve been on their ASS about everything. grades, extracurriculars, friends, wardrobe, this guy was micromanaging his family to an annoying extreme (ofc because of his perfectionist complex). he probably loved manya and the kids in his own weird way, but it was more contractual to him than any real personal relationship. maybe he inherited that from his own parents?? i doubt he ever talked to them after he moved out.

that’s about the end of my thoughts on this fucker. 🥲 funny storyyyy i just remembered i have laundry to finish so im gonna go do that, lord help me. thank you for reading all this if you did!!!!! we’re over halfway through so who do yall want next? wanna save AM or nimdok for last? i’ll see u guys later :]]]

[rileylastname]

extreme sensitivity and difficulty adapting to change is one of the most challenging parts of being autistic (to me, i am only speaking my for myself here, every single autistic person is different). small changes, even positive changes are liable to cause a meltdown. the world is such a scary place when you know that things changing, as all things do, could send you into a spiral. and it’s so difficult to explain to allistics why we’re reacting the way that we do, especially when you know it seems like an overreaction... but this is how i describe it:

you know that feeling when you got a haircut that you hated and were doing everything you could to hold back the tears? that “oh no oh no oh no” moment when you look in the mirror and realize you hate how it looks, and now there’s a sob bubbling up in your throat and you’re trying so hard to choke it back down so that you don’t cry in public but the more you look the harder it feels to bottle it all in?

i feel and often react that way to everyday situations and changes. i cut my nails a little bit shorter than I’m used to? meltdown. or we got a new toaster to replace the old one? meltdown. or my phone updated and everything is different? meltdown and now i can’t stop crying! (these are all real examples of real things from my real life that caused me to have real meltdowns btw.) and in the midst of my stress i can’t help but berate myself for losing it over something like that, and of course shame and self-loathing only exacerbate the meltdown.

i am constantly trying to work through my internalized ableism about this. I spent years being called dramatic and immature, confused about why i was unable to grapple with things my peers found entirely inconsequential. i wish that i didn’t feel guilty or embarrassed about the way that i naturally react to stressful situations (especially situations that are probably not nearly all that stressful to allistics) because I know that if I could hate myself into becoming someone I liked better, it would have worked by now.

[andsheoverthinks]

i don't think women are even more selective than men, incel/terminally online types just get all their ideas about women from porn/IG models' comment sections/that one OkCupid survey from 10 years ago no one will shut up about in order to come to the ridiculous 'all women want underwear model billionaires' conclusion which has the convenient function of protecting them from having to analyze their own behavior. if you go out in the world and walk around, look at the couples. you will see plenty of average-looking people together, oftentimes women are more attractive that their male partners as well, especially in interracial couples.

like, it takes One Thing for a group of girls/women to get mass psychosis and start hyping up a guy. it could be that he's >6 foot, or has a British accent, or is super polite and charismatic, or dresses nice -- these are all real, anecdotal, actually-happened examples btw -- and women will crowd physically around him and endlessly hype him up and stroke his ego and giggle. i have never seen a group of guys form a little praise circle around a woman. i've only seen (1) guy at a time behave like that around a woman if she absolutely gorgeous and gives off sensual energy and is super confident.

half the time on forums like r/purplepilldebate (halfway point for discussions about gender issues my ass, it's a total sausage fest) the guys there will whine about unattractive women having 'too high' standards because attractive men will slide in their DMs [Allegedly] and complain that if they ask a woman out they will risk getting rejected... well that's just par for the course, welcome to the circus. all the guys i know who actively, you know, talk to women, have a really easy time getting in relationships regardless of their height or their race or whatever else and at this point i'm pretty convinced that 90% of so-called 'incels' have never even asked a woman on a date or even had an acquaintance, they just expect a praise circle (of 10/10s only of course) for existing because they see women obsessing over certain guys. it's not so fucking hard for an average-looking guy to throw on some nice clothes and get a nice haircut and maybe some cologne and act normal (aka not like a foaming-at-the-mouth misogynist who sees women objects and approaches every conversation like the end goal is Just Chatting is to Get Sex). it's good that they're taking their maladaptive selves out of the gene pool but goddamn are they delusional.

[just-1other-nerd]

Decided to do a "live" commentary on a show I'm currently watching, so yeah Idk I guess I'll just write my unfiltered thoughts about Crash Landing on You starting with the end of episode 2.

She had depression and other mental health issues which explains why she acts so suicidal from time to time, for example when she acts really stupid, like the time she ran through a mine field, or when she displays a no-one-can-do-me-anything attitude whilst talking to the soldiers (because even if she is a spoiled rich girl and in shock, she is generally too smart to underestimate the situation) because she seems to not care that much whether she survives.

So I didn't expect that to evolve into a fake dating trope but I'm here for it. I mean we already had forced proximity and enemies to lovers so they didn't need to go so hard but they did anyways.

She really is going to girlboss her way through this crisis, isn't she?

Oh shit, the bad guy has a surveillance device?!

This guy really never saw curly hair like mine if he thinks hers is messy.

Okay update to epidode 5: Shit, the Major bad guy knows she wants to leave the country, the con artist bad guy knows she's in North Kroea and the real fiancé kinda knows about them?! How the hell are they supposed to get out of this mess?

The hair cut the fiancé's mum has in episode 6 is so feaking ugly, I can't.

"Oh fuck, not that bitch." I say as I smile and lean back to enjoy the drama that's about to ensue.

I don't know about you but I wanted her to be the one who shoots the attacker in episode 6.

Him speaking German (aka my native language) was just hilarious no matter how sad the scene was. Also damn, that Swiss guy couldn't be less sensitive when he told him his brother died. And why were the piano and his bags on that landing stage? I mean the pictures where nice but what's the logic behind that?

The thing about K dramas is that if they already kiss around the halfway point of the series, something bad is going to happen and make everything difficult...

Btw they really couldn't find an uglier hospital gown for him to wear.

Wow, the con man actually has a consciousness. And he actually gives the fiancé some solid love advice? I'm a little bit impressed, he's not as flat and one-dimensional as I initially thought.

Now, all of the antagonists know that she is a South Korean citizen, the angst this gives me is so bad.

It is physically not possible to hear a piano tune from that far away on a boat which's engine is on.

Idk using an ambulance for something personal feels very wrong.

The K drama obsessed guy translating the dialects will never not be funny. Btw I ship him with the K Pop girl.

She pushes him away to protect him, but she is hurting herself, him and me.

That one soldier is such a snitch, he is so lucky that the mum couldn't restrain her drinking.

I love how hearing that the main guys father is one of the mighty broke the brain of the queen bee.

This maybe a bit unhinged but when Se-ri says that the main guys dad looks like his fiancé and we've been told that her dad is dead I made up the insane theory that Dan could actually be the result of an affair. I don't think that's true but whatever.

His mum really just went "mother-in-law mode activated".

I want a scene where she is like "How can you say you're fine when you literally got shot, beaten and had fever in just the last few days?" And the parents giving each other the biggest wtf side eye ever.

As a booklover the bookshelf I love you kills me.

She really is that bitch that makes THE most dramatic entrance just to say "Guess what I'm back from the dead". A true girlboss.

The auntie squad found out who she really is. Idk their dynamic gets me.

WTF the end of episode 10 like what is going on?

Bro goes on a cave expedition and doesn't even have one of those forehead lamps? Poor planning and here I thought they were equipped better.

Finally he's got a decent haircut!

Okay but I actually ship the con man and Dan.

The auntie squad is being supportive and I love that, okay, let me fangirl, I somehow need that right now.

Their hugs mean much more to me than their kisses because they mean they're there for each other and comfort each other.

Did they really just kill the con man, I was so inversted in his love story with Dan!

Their goodbye at the border was a bit too melodramatic for my taste.

The ending is okay, I expected something like this but still it's sad that they can't have the future they dreamed about when they were drunk, the future where they marry and have children but I also don't want that to happen at the expense of their lives as they know them. So yeah the ending was the best compromise.

[diamondsandlemons]

Just finished my very slow quarantine rewatch of K-On!. Wanted to write down some of my thoughts and feelings. Several paragraphs under the cut!

I’ll get this out of the way first; the recurring “joke” where Sawako tries to get the light music club to wear sexy outfits is uhhhh terrible, borderline sexual harassment. Luckily they mostly cut that out in the 2nd season, (which is great because otherwise her relationship with them is really nice) and other than that the show is perfect in pretty much every way.

Isn’t it weird how the first season takes place across two years, but the second season (which is twice as long) takes place across only one year? No idea how they pulled that off without it feeling strange, but they totally did.

I love this show so much. It’s great as a “cute girls doing cute things” type of anime, but its also substantially different that others of that type (that I’ve seen). It feels much more real. For one thing there obviously aren't any brightly-colored anime protagonist haircuts, so I guess it is more realistic from a character design standpoint.

But also just, everything... I think the school is based on a real school building, which makes it REALLY stand out from the very generic appearance of most anime schools. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole town is based on a real place actually (if so I bet that's great for the people who live there- remembering my experience watching Steven Universe for the first time and seeing a real place I know quite well translated into animation)

But yeah, there’s just so much detail put into all the backgrounds and character animations. It’s incredibly,,, believable, I guess. It’s pretty timeless too, there’s hardly anything anchoring it a specific time period, so it can be relatable for all time (although, it is kinda funny on the rare occasion things do pop up, like when they literally use tapes to record music...)

And I was thinking about this recently, I think the opening and ending themes are somewhat unique as well. How many other animes have OPs and EDs that are rock songs actually performed by the characters? I mean, it’s catchy pop-rock, so I guess that’s probably not so uncommon (also I know nothing about music genres so this might just be entirely wrong). But I can’t think of many other examples of the characters literally performing the music. And the ending themes are like fully produced music videos! its great. Unfortunately its not diegetic; I don't think any of those songs actually exist in the lore. (and I haven't even mentioned the BGM scores... which are all perfect).

The third OP and ED are my favorite of each, btw (at least thats how I feel atm. I admit it could be because I like just finished watching the show so those are the ones I heard most recently). I love how the third opening is upbeat and energetic like the rest, but in the last 15 seconds it shifts into something slightly more melancholy. Reminding you that K-On! is approaching its end, but you should still feel happy and grateful for the time you spent with it. A nostalgic feeling.

I feel like nostalgia is an important part of the whole show’s tone, actually. (Though again I could be biased on this, I may very well just be nostalgic for when I first watched it (which was while I was in high school)). 

So much time is spent in the episodes approaching the ending focused on what’s going to come next for the Light Music Club; both the characters, who have to figure out where to go to college, and what they want to study, and the club itself, which will (hopefully) live on without them. (Azusa and Sawako-sensei will make sure of that). I can’t help but feel like that’s the point. HTT goofing off in the music room after school was never something that could’ve lasted forever, but for the time it did, it was incredibly impactful. Both the big stuff (live on-stage performances, trip abroad to England, etc.) and the little stuff (tea and cake every day, animal costumes for no reason, etc).

What K-On! is most of all is “comfortable.” That’s what lead me to turn it on again at the beginning of the pandemic, I just wanted something light and cute and comfy. It’s definetly “real” but it’s also “nostolgic.” It’s like what you remember good times feeling like. And since it’s immortalized in animation, it’ll always be that good.

Bonus thoughts:

... ... ...Hey, what happens to Ton-chan after the end of the show??? Hm. I think my headcanon is that he stays in the club room for a year, but then Azusa can’t bear to part with him when she graduates, so she takes him home.

Also its sad to think about, but HTT probably wont keep in touch with Sawako in the long run. I mean, I had some very formative teachers who I liked a lot, but I don’t ever talk to them. or event think about them most of the time. She’ll be fine though, she’ll have the future of the club to worry about. New students constantly cycling in and out with the years. Hopefully.

Mugi is definetly a lesbian, and I greatly appreciate that. (the others are less cut and dry but I’m gonna throw out some guesses. Ritsu is bi preferring men. Mio is ace. Azusa’s also a lesbian. Sawako is bi but she needs to keep a lid on it around high schoolers, as I already mentioned. Yui, I have absolutely no fucking clue)

These girls spend a lot of time at McDonalds.

(I haven’t actually rewatched the movie yet. I plan to do that within the next few days, then after that I may or may not come back to this post and add something, if I have anything new to add! edit: seen the movie, it’s great, better than I remembered actually. but other than that I don’t have much to say. Please go watch k-on if you haven’t already!)

[ourimpavidheroine]

Happy Belated New Year! I was just wondering if, during the pandemic, you found any new (or old, but new to you) tv shows that you've fallen in love with? Or otherwise liked enough to binge and/or watch on a regularly basis? I remember noticing you mention something about the books you've read, and I wondered if the same could be applied to another creative media.

So I suppose I should preference this by saying that sometimes I watch things because they are excellent television and sometimes I watch things because they amuse me regardless of quality. I am not above being merely entertained by media; sometimes that’s all I want and frankly, I think that’s fine. 

1. The Mandalorian. Which, if I am going to be honest, has saved the bloated, rotting carcass of my once-beloved Star Wars franchise for me. And not just because of Grogu, either; Pedro Pascal is great as a character who never shows his face (but still manages to express so much emotion and intent through voice and movement) and frankly, anybody who would bring Amy Sedaris in as a reoccurring character has my vote, so thank you for everything, Jon Favreau. 

2. RWBY. I am not a big fan of Rooster Teeth - that sort of frat boy geek club thing they do there holds no interest for me. But I do love RWBY and, no offense to the late Monty Oum at all, but the past few seasons have really tightened the storylines and improved the writing. Also, they’ve been making an effort to bring in some diversity there which I have appreciated. (For a very much adult show, I really enjoyed gen:LOCK and am looking forward to its second season. I’ve actually been wanting to write some gen:LOCK fanfiction, so that should tell you something!)

3. Snowpiercer (Netflix). Yeah, I enjoyed this! Great cast and plot twists and turns that were earned, not just thrown in there for shock factor. Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connolly have great chemistry and it works, especially in the sort of claustrophobic atmosphere the show has. I love it when characters are morally gray and both of them play morally gray characters and it works.

4. The Untamed (Netflix). I loved this so much I watched the entirety of it twice. Obviously China took out the love story between the two main characters in the book when they filmed it (hello, state-sanctioned homophobia!) but it’s still there if you are looking for it. Gorgeous, lush costuming and scenery (although terrible wigs on the guys, wtf, ever heard of a lace front?) and some inspired casting in some of the roles. It’s that sort of swooping, epic story that I love and you don’t realize until the very end who has been pulling a lot of the strings (and when you do find out, it’s glorious). 

5. Doom Patrol. This is a weird fucking show and I love it. I mean, it’s weird. But in all the ways that tick my boxes. And bless, but Brendan Fraser as a foul-mouthed Dale Earnhardt robot man is something I never knew I needed or wanted but I did, I really, really did. Also, Diane Guerrero is astonishingly good. She won’t get any awards for it - Doom Patrol is not the kind of show that gets awards - but she should.

6. Queer Eye. I watched the original when it aired nearly 20 years ago but the reboot is so much better. SO MUCH. The original was so elitist...I remember in one episode that Thom, the interior decorator, gave this couple with three small kids a glass coffee table and I was like, the fuck is wrong with you? Not only is it dangerous for them in terms of injuries but do you have a clue how often they will be cleaning dirty handprints off that thing? Same with Ted, the cooking guru, who gave complicated recipes with difficult to source ingredients which was just ridiculous. The reboot, on the other hand, is wonderful. Antoni not only teaches cooking techniques but gives recipes that people can realistically make (and pays attention to if the person has kids, is of a certain heritage, etc.). Bobby designs real homes that can be used by the people who live in them (including being kid-friendly, and disability-friendly, for example). Tan is an endless resource of real fashion advice that can benefit ANYBODY, not just sample sized people, and he doesn’t try to make people into someone they aren’t - he just enhances and polishes who they are and who they want/need to be. Jonathan is not only a joy to behold but again, is someone who gives people real grooming advice and haircuts that they can actually keep up with (as opposed to a fancy cut that will take a lot of upkeep that you know the person won’t do) and he gladly delegates to other professionals when he knows he can’t do what is needed (fixing some matted dreads, for example). Karamo is a former social worker who LISTENS to people and really connects with them one on one to help build their confidence and tackle issues. (His predecessor, Jai, was completely useless and to this day I have no idea what he was supposed to be accomplishing.) I love Queer Eye. I love how these five men show by example how men can be nurturing, caring, affectionate and supportive. I love how open they are about their own issues, how open they are with their clients about it as well. (Although I will never EVER stop being pissed off that the producers allowed that fucking white cop to pull over Karamo like that for a “joke”.)

7. The Expanse. Yes, there are a lot of differences between the show and the books. But I don’t mind them; if anything I just look at the TV show as a different entity altogether and judge it accordingly. This is the first “hard” sci-fi I’ve really enjoyed since the Battlestar Galactica reboot ended. (The reboot of Galactica remains one of my favorite TV shows of ever, btw. I’ve tried to re-watch it but it reminds me too much of my late wife and I just can’t. But that’s on me and not the show.)

8. Good Omens. This was a delight, from start to finish. I read the book when it originally came out (my paperback copy is battered and well-loved) and it makes me laugh just as much today as it did 30 years ago. What more can be said about how absolutely fantastic David Tennant and Michael Sheen are? Or the careful and loving way Douglas Mackinnon handled the source material? Neil Gaiman meant this as a love letter to his much-missed friend Terry Pratchett and it succeeded in every single way.

9. RuPaul’s Drag Race. What can I say? I watch all of its variations. It’s overblown and relies on cheap, drummed up drama and I don’t give a shit. I’ve been watching since it first premiered and continue watching. Although I’m not yet sold on the new Porkchop plot twist thing this season.

10. Killing Eve. Oh man. A love story between two women, one of whom is a sociopathic serial killer? It’s so wrong and yet so, so right. Great performances by Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer. I especially love that they don’t try to somehow rehabilitate Villanelle; that would just ruin the entire thing. Oh and Fiona Shaw is one of my favorite character actresses and she does not disappoint. If you like your TV dark then this is the show for you.

2020′s been a weird year for TV, for sure. Kind of scarce, thanks to the pandemic, but what can you do? Anyhow, here’s my top 10, Anon! 

[blue-mint-winter]

ST Voy s4e8 Year of Hell and s4e9 Year of Hell part II -  Voyager pulls off another time travel story and does it well. The crew is out through a real wringer and brought to almost complete destruction like in Kes’ vision, but details are much different, for example Janeway and B’Elanna don’t die and there’s Seven on board. I really liked how the bonds between the crew became even stronger in the hardship. Janeway became very extreme too, constantly taking risk on herself and making everyone worry (I mean myself too!). She also got a haircut. I really felt the stakes in this ep, the desperation they felt. Btw, Tuvok’s blind shaving with a big knife was extra too. I liked the symbolism of that pocket watch Chakotay gave to Janeway on her birthday. The main villain, Annorax, was detestable. The show tried to make us feel bad for him by comparing him with Voyager crew, but the key difference is that one was erasing other races from history as if that would bring back his family and other wasn’t. Chakotay almost buying into his way of thinking and methods seems to continue in line with his character’s tendency to get influenced by authority figures he encounters. Thankfully, Paris was there to say it how it was. I thought the ending solution to the problem was clever, how erasing his time manipulating ship from the timeline erased the reason his race got in trouble and Voyager was also restored back to normal. On the other hand it means the loss of memory for everyone, of the good ones too, but they still have the chance to make new memories, so they can make up for that.

s4e10 Random Thoughts - Voyager visits a peaceful planet of Mirians who are telepaths and B’Elanna get arrested for having a violent thought that caused one of them to commit an assault. The concept of this ep reminded me of that TNG ep with Wesley getting sentenced for trampling a lawn, but this ep’s story has much more finesse and complexity to it. It explores the idea of a society in which thought crimes are real and can be persecuted. Interestingly enough, it brings a dose of realism into something that at first glance was an utopia where everyone is nice and there’s no crime. Turns out outlawing something and memory purging isn’t going to make the problem gone, it just went underground. People will want the forbidden fruit and total control over thoughts is impossible. I liked that Tuvok once again took charge of investigation, it was cool to see him work. Though I do wonder since when Vulcans could speak telepathically like Betazoids? Btw, I like Seven’s friendship with Tuvok, they are both set apart from their human crewmates. I liked the moments with Seven questioning Janeway’s decisions to explore other planets instead of just going home as fast as possible.

s4e11 Concerning Flight - In this ep, I realized that the actor who played hologram of Leonardo da Vinci played Gimli in LOTR. Anyway, it was a fun ep. From the beginning, I thought that Janeway’s Leonardo holodeck program was a good idea and I liked those short scenes. It makes a lot of sense that she’d choose Leonardo da Vinci as her mentor and role model. He brings together two things - hard science she pursued in her career and arts which is something she struggles with. In this ep, Leonardo is part of an adventure to take back stolen main computer from the thieves. What makes this story worhtwhile is how thoughtful it gets, but still maintains the flow of action. It has a message about opening your mind, pursuing dreams - like Leonardo’s flying machine - even if others ridicule you for it. It’s just very hopeful and uplifting. Also, Janeway’s undercover clothes make her look like a working mom lol.

s4e12 Mortal Coil - In this ep, Neelix dies, but it’s okay because Seven knows how to bring him back. However as a result Neelix has an existential crisis because he didn’t see Talaxian afterlife he believed in. I think the episode was interesting in trying to explore Neelix’ problem, but it wasn’t done in a satisfactory way. They used Chakotay’s vision method, but it just made Neelix worse and he almost offed himself. I can’t expect a TV show to find an answer to the meaning of life, but Star Trek approached the topic of life and death and beliefs about what’s in the afterlife before with more thoughtfulness. Here, it was simplified and shallowed, everything just went away because Neelix was needed by the living so he decided not to kill himself. Idk, it just didn’t feel right after everything that happened with him. It was just a rushed ending.

[xbreathehopex]

10 Ways to Save Your Marriage From Divorce

When you think you may be on the brink of divorce, you may still have a glimmer of hope that you can save your marriage. You want to stay together. And by putting in the effort, you can do it. Find out more help by Amy Waterman

As soon as you feel that first flicker of unhappiness, start proactively changing your tune (well, as soon as you finish this article). “The sooner people start working on their marriage when they’re unhappy, the easier it can be [to get past your problems],” says therapist Maru Torres-Gregory, JD, PhD, LMFT, a teaching and supervising faculty member for the Marriage & Family Therapy Program at the Family Institute at Northwestern University.

Okay, but let's be real: You’ve been stewing in these feelings for quite some time. And you're not alone. “People don’t know how to stay in love. Life tends to get in the way, especially when you have children. The relationship stops being a priority,” says Bonnie Eaker Weil, PhD, a couples therapist in New York City and author of Makeup, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples. "But most marriages can be saved."

Every couple’s situation and circumstances are different. So, too, are the reasons they drifted apart, ranging from a lack of communication to cheating. Still, there are certain exercises you can do as a couple and individual, plus small steps you can take with your partner now to increase love, trust, and intimacy in the hopes of keeping you together. Here are 10 places to start:

1. Map it out.

Individually and as a couple, Torres-Gregory suggests writing down the following: how you started as a couple, what attracted you to your partner, where you are now, how you got here, and where you want to go.

“You won’t be able to have the marriage you had in the beginning, but you can work on having a new marriage. Think of it as marriage 2.0,” she says. To do that, though, you first have to know what that would look like.

2. Turn inward.

Thanks, romantic comedies, for giving us idyllic expectations for love. “You need to be fulfilled individually, rather than expecting your partner to fulfill everything,” says Torres-Gregory. Your partner does not have to “complete” you—and shouldn’t. (Hopefully, you've learned this before you said your vows, but alas...)

“You should be complete so that you don’t burden your partner or the relationship with the responsibility of making you happy,” she says. Take a deep dive into yourself: Why do you rely on your partner for this? Was it because that’s what was modeled in your parent’s relationship? Are you buying what popular media tells you?

By asking yourself these questions, you might be able to suss out what work you need to do to be a happier version of yourself, not just a happier wife. (The one begets the other, btw.)

3. Stop assuming.

Your partner asks a question: “Are the bowls clean?” and you lay into them—why are they always saying that you don’t do your part to care for the house? Can’t they see you’re swamped with life and work, too? “When couples have been together for a long time, they think they know each other. They begin to assume the other’s thinking and motivations and get angry and reactive to these assumptions,” says Torres-Gregory.

Here's the thing: The anger may be entirely coming from an argument that you’re having in your head—not the reality of the situation. Commit to stopping these assumptions, and if you think there’s a certain motivation behind a question or comment, at least ask. That'll help you get on a path to better communication, which can help turn an unhappy marriage around.

4. Set rules for the relationship.

Mutual respect and trust are necessary for a happy marriage, and if those two things have been lost, you’ll need to find them again. “Couples get into ways of interacting with each other and they don’t question it. They keep doing it,” says Torres-Gregory.

To minimize snapping and destructive comments, draw up some rules of the relationship when it comes to communication. “When you love and respect your partner, there are things you shouldn’t do or say,” she says. For instance, when you fight in the future, promise not to swear at each other or resort to name-calling. Again, the more constructive communication you can have, the better your chances of working through underlying issues.

5. Make a weekly date.

You two need to play together—ya know, like the old days. Go out once or twice a week for a date where you don’t discuss problems (or kids, if you have them). “Go back to the basics. What did you do before you were married that you’re not doing now? What did you do when you first fell in love?” says Bonnie Eaker Weil, PhD, a couples therapist in New York City and author of Make Up, Don’t Break Up: Finding and Keeping Love for Singles and Couples.

If the answer is playing mini-golf, bowl, or meet at a trendy bar for trendy drinks, well then, you’ve got your next date planned already.

6. Touch often.

I'm not even talking about sex here. “Hold hands when you’re walking down the street. Give each other a 20-second hug. Kiss each other hello. Dance cheek-to-cheek. Look into each other’s eyes for 30 seconds before you go to bed,” suggests Eaker Weil.

These simple exercises help deliver a rush of pleasure and bonding hormones (like oxytocin) to bring back the intimacy that you may be lacking now, she explains.

7. Show appreciation.

“I want you to have an affair with your partner,�� says Eaker Weil. Say what now? Yep, Eaker Weil says that one of the best ways to save your marriage is to treat them like you can't get enough of them. (Even if, tbh, right now you can.)

That starts with expressing gratitude and appreciation of the other person: Gush over their new haircut, text them that you can’t wait to see them later—all the things that people tend to say to each other when they’re in the throes of romance. Sometimes you have to fake it till you make it, but starting a flame does build a fire.

8. Fight fair.

Real talk: You’re not going to just wave your hand like a wand to make sometimes years-deep pent-up resentment disappear. But that's okay.

In this exercise from Eaker Weil, your task is to make an "appointment" with your partner that’s limited in duration. (Tuesday from 7:30 to 8, for instance.) During this time, you fight fairly. You’ll start by telling them why you’re angry or what grudge you’re holding onto. Finish by asking them for a change. For example: “I feel like you never make time for me. All of your free time is dedicated to playing golf/going out with the guys/holing up in your home office. I want you to make time for me every week, even if it’s for 10 minutes.”

Your partner then follows up with something they’re resentful about; you just have to promise you’re not going to get angry, hurt, or reactive as they express themselves to you. To help make that happen, she recommends imagining that you’re holding their anger in a container as they speak (so that it's something you observe, not attack).

9. Envision the future.

Some of the main ingredients in a loving and healthy marriage are shared values, dreams, and life goals, says Torres-Gregory. Sit down and talk about your vision of a future together and how you’ll support each other, she says—it's an important and ongoing topic long after you've walked down the aisle or even had children.

If that seems impossible to see now and you can’t or don’t want to have that conversation, consider couples counseling. “A professional can help you start building that trust and goodwill again so that these conversations can happen more organically at home,” she says.

10. Try a Hail Mary.

Let's say you want to save your marriage, but your partner doesn’t. (Sorry.) Eaker Weil suggests taking a planned, structured break. “This isn’t coming from a place of being nasty. It’s saying, ‘I want to save our marriage, but I see you don’t feel the same way. Let’s take some time apart,'” she says. This could be for just one night, but four to six weeks is the usual amount of time that gives the partner “a kick in the ass,” says Eaker Weil.

“It’s not a punishment. It’s a wake-up.” No calling, no texting, and no sex for the entire time—the point is to make your partner miss you.

And if they don't? Well, counseling is always a good idea—as is re-evaluating whether your life partner is living up to their vows. The hard truth is that some marriages aren't meant to be saved–but that's up to you to decide when you're ready.

[mattskeebah]

PLEASE READ

I know how much y’all hate “your fave is problematic” posts...but it’s necessary.

Summary: Matt Skiba, singer of the band Alkaline Trio and member of Blink-182, has nazi tattoos, is a fan of nazi bands, made tasteless nazi related paintings, is best friends with Boyd Rice, and in fact, owns nazi insignia. Matt claims to be a feminist but likes countless scantily clad pics of young models and sex workers and follows actual porn actresses on IG. Also, he never distanced himself from Asia Argento and still sells t-shirts with her face on them in his webstore. Matt supports the police and the military and he has a weird gun fetish. He attacked fans who criticized his behavior and his problematic associations.

---

WHY I STOPPED BEING A FAN OF MATT SKIBA

He supports the police as an instutition, specifically Chicago PD. He made a post on Instagram in favor of CPD which ofc received backlash from fans but he ignored the negative comments and brushed it off as “there are bad people in every profession” and then he deleted the post. Thanks to a Tumblr user who screencapped it: [x] please notice the tiny blue (lives matters) heart. Also, here are some “cute” pics of him wearing police-related stuff [x] [x] and check out this post of him “repping” new CPD merch on his car [x] (he disabled the comments).

He supports the military, which might be because his parents served in the Vietnam war, but that doesn’t make it less shitty. Examples for his military-support can be found all over his Instagram. [x] [x] [x] [x] [x] and so on... and in this post he’s delighted that a soldier in Afghanistan is wearing an Alkaline Trio patch. [x]

He’s close friends with Asia Argento / or had possible romantic relationship with her and he still sells t-shirts with her face on them in his merch shop. For those of you who don’t know her, she was one of the leaders of the #metoo movement but then it was revealed that she herself had sex with an intoxicated 17-year-old (!) and her bf Anthony Bourdain gave the boy money so he would keep his mouth shut about the incident, ((later Bourdain committed suicide))

Story of a fan who gave Matt a letter criticizing him for being friends with Argento, and the same night he posted a picture of her on IG (I think it was this post)… which seems like a subtle F*CK YOU at the person who gave him the letter. (he can’t take criticism, can he?)

His IG activity is .. something else. Matt’s major interests are motorbikes, cars, and young, attractive, half-naked models and strippers. One of his recent likes (nudity and bruises cw) [x] [x] [x] [x]….that one is an actual porn actress he follows and thirsts over: (more nudity cw) [x] he commented ‘cool butt momma. miss you xoxo’ [x] [x] (liked)…and my “personal fave” a picture with a sex worker [x] he deleted the picture ofc

HE LOVES GUNS (+said that he would use them) he has quite a big gun collection: SIG SAUERs, a Morning Star, many knifes, a shotgun, a Desert Eagle gun, a samurai sword, a faux snakeskin baton, and more stuff I can’t remember, he posted his collection on November 5th 2018 on IG, but unfortunately I didn’t take a screenshot!! but he posted them individually on IG. [x] [x] [x] [x] etc. and a recently deleted pic at the shooting range [x] ……also this pic exists.. edgelord (tw gun to the head).

In the comments of the same post (I swear on my life it’s real, you have to trust me) a user commented that he’s a Trump supporter but he would still defend Matt, even if he’s “politically left”. Matt’s answer: “I would defend you too, my man!”. o k a y. then Matt said he identifies as “quite a bit left” o K AY. MATT. Just so btw. the user also had a name including “88″ ( is a code phrase commonly used in fascist circles for “Heil Hitler”) or he just meant the year 88. but I saw some racist “memes” on his IG too.

Matt has a weird obsession with WW2. He literally watched a holocaust docu on HIS FUCKING BDAY (or at least he posted about it) and he said he collects WW2 books. Theoretically, nothing wrong with being interested in history, but in the context of everything… bad vibes……….

He really loves Nordic/Scandinavian-related stuff, like jewelry of the Hammer of Thor etc and he even uses MS runes for his merch. Runes are popular among occultists but they also have a really problematic history concerning WW2 and the nazis. Considering one of his most favorite bands Death in June mentions runes in their lyrics and they are a REALLY REALLY questionable band flirting with nazi imagery and being openly affiliated with fascist and far-right satanists, I have every right to question Matt’s intentions.

He literally has a crutch cross tattoo on his chest (which was used as the symbol of Austro-Fascism, and is also the logo of the neo folk - nazi band Blood Axis) PHOTO 1, PHOTO 2 and an EDELWEISS tattoo [x], which is the national flower of Austria and is considered a magical flower in occult circles. Nothing wrong with having a flower tattoo but it was used a lot in the context of nationalsocialism and “traditional values”. To add, it was also used as a symbol of the 1st Mountain division “Gebirgsjäger” in WW2 (Hitler’s elite formation of the Wehrmacht who were involved in large scale war crimes). 

Matt OWNS NAZI INSIGNIA. He is wearing a WW2 Edelweiss patch in this pic [x] and here [x] combined with a crutch cross patch (Alk3 used an iron cross backdrop at their concerts 2014ish and a crutch cross symbol on their guitar picks btw.)

He owns several Death In June patches, their merch [x] [x] [x] [x] etc. and other patches and buttons featuring nazi-related symbols. [DIJ WIKI]. He is also friends with their singer. Matt’s a huge DIJ fan, attended their concerts [x] and Douglas P. reads the intro of the Alkaline Trio song “I Found Away”. DIJ uses fascist symbols and “aesthetics” for the band, including an SS Totenkopf logo.

Matt painted the same logo and exhibited it at an art show [x]

HE LITERALLY DID PAINTINGS REFERENCING DOLLFUSS AND MUSSOLINI and another piece of “art” called “surf nazis” [x] what the actual f   u    c  k .. and here he is with his painting of Mickey Mouse as Hitler [x]

HE IS BEST FRIENDS with Boyd Rice, (here’s a picture of them holding Wolfsangels, a nazi symbol) they are REALLY CLOSE. According to Rice’s IG they meet every week and hang out and Rice considers Matt “family”… the entire Boyd Rice shit can be read in this post (important please read). Matt even attacked fans that were calling him out and called them stupid.

The first liked video on his Youtube channel is a video about neo-nazi biker gangs in Germany....... [x]

He is friends with Kat von D, she did a few of his tattoos and she appeared in the Alk3 video “Help Me”.

He collabed with Jeffree Star on a violent song [x]

He was at an art show of a friend who used nazi symbols (!)

posts like these [x] [x]

In this interview [x] he’s pretty much romanticizing that people got stabbed back then at concerts and that there was a big skinhead scene (he wasn’t “stoked” about the violence happening BUT “the energy surrounding” was “very ATTRACTIVE” to him. Make of that what you will.)

When he was a sophomore in HS (and on acid) he beat up a classmate who threw a U.S. flag on the floor. [x]

Matt made a racist remark a few years ago about Chinese people [x] and according to him //or he’s joking// he has a tattoo on his dick that says “welcome to Jamaica” which can be interpreted as racist.

Many of the movies he praises blatantly depict violence against women, like Blue Velvet, Funny Games, A Clockwork Orange (it has almost 3 rape scenes in the first 15 minutes), lyrics like “Radio” can be seen as misogynist, he literally wishes that his ex-GF (/or someone’s ex-gf) should take a bath with a radio and get electrocuted.

A person on IG commented that his ex-girlfriend accused him of domestic violence, I have no proof for that but he deleted the comments ofc and then a few days later he donated money to a women’s shelter in LA… which seems like he’s trying to avoid a shitstorm…

He compared L.A. women to zoo animals in this interview [x].

He cheated on his ex-gf(s) which I think should go on this list too.

Matt used to be a member of the Church of Satan, just leaving this here. you can argue if it’s good or bad but there seems to be a connection between satanists and neo-nazis .. sadly.

He listed the song* “Los Angeles” by X among his faves in this interview [x] (*edit: Someone has reached out to me and explained that the song was not racist, antisemitic or anything but from the *perspective* of a racist. However, we don't know Matt's reason for liking the song and considering his WW2 fetish, it's sketchy that he would consider the song as one of his favorites. Maybe he likes it because the song openly says things out loud under the veil of "sarcasm" that would be criticized under different circumstances. See also: [Oscar Wild was right.] Matt still listened to the band in 2014 and was at a concert of them [x], even months after their singer spew right-wing conspiracy theories concerning (school) shootings.

THIS FUCKING PICTURE OF HIM WITH A CHARLES MANSON DOLL AND A SW*STIKA. He still had the doll in other pictures [x] [x].

This picture I found on a fansite. It’s supposed to be Matt as a child.. where does that even come from and why is he wearing a military hat with something that vaguely looks like an eagle (?)

I can’t be the only one who noticed that but Matt had a vaguely ~nazi haircut thoughout the years and even some sort of nazi / white power aesthetic~ going on, even fans recognized it as such [x] [x] [x] and in the context of him hanging out with Boyd Rice like this in this picture [x] it’s safe to say he was EXACTLY GOING FOR THAT LOOK.

When he was in Germany during the Blink-182 tour 2017 he proudly posed at a famous Third Reich location in the Alps. Yk. nothing wrong with visiting historical locations but in the context of everything mentioned in this post. IT LOOKS REALLY BAD.

…probably more.. this man is a walking disaster

- - -

In this post I listed a lot, there are probably some things you would consider “minor” because they happened years ago but I thought I’d mention them anyway. Also, I’m not saying he has those beliefs but he definitely doesn’t distance himself from nazi(-sympathizing) scum like Boyd Rice and keeps being BFFs with him. And what’s up with the problematic tattoos and WWII insignia? I can’t be the only one who thinks this is not okay!!!

Thanks for reading.

[shadowkat678]

Story time: something really cool happened coming home using Lyft today

Now. By now you should know I enjoy talking about issues, especially ones close to me and people I care about.I believe ignorance to be the root of most of our issues, and I enjoy teaching and spreading information. It's something I think is important and I'm not shy about it. Ask for my life story and I'll probably be happy to tell it and use it to inform, because I feel it's important to use what you know to help others.

Anyway, I got picked up by lyft, and it started with smalltalk. What are you doing in school? Oh, you're taking Spanish? I never managed to get through that. Never got a hang of studying and ended up failing in high school. Then it got to the weather, and I mentioned how there's a Muslim girl I always pass, and how I overheard her joking with her soaked non-Muslim friend about her hajab being a good umbrella in the rain. (Btw, I swear she has some of the cutest outfits. Like. I'm not always much for clothes but man she has some really cool fashion sense. 👍)

He got quite for a moment, and confessed he never really knew what to do when he picked up a girl who was Muslim. I won't lie and say I didn't brace for the worst, but then he went on to talk about how he never really got a chance to go to college and be around so many different people, and how he didn't want to end up accidentally offending anyone. He admitted he was still trying to fight his reaction to finding it strange with different cultures, and I brought up how I know a lot of different people on here I've talked to.

It continued on down the line. About how his grandmother when he was little wouldn't step foot in any store if she saw a black person inside, and how shocking it is with how diverse the area has grown. How he doesn't often get into politics, and how he really doesn't trust any politicians. Trump, Obama, Hillary, or anyone else, even though he still votes.

This was all cool, especially as I brought up some stuff he admitted he hadn't completely thought about. Then I bring up the idea of relating to others based on a experience with another potintal group you belong to, and we get on disability. Then, more specifically, autism. And here's where I feel really good about the ride.

You guys know how much we all talk to each other about minority representation mattering? Here's a real life example of why.

The initial reaction was one I've gotten used to by now. After making a joke I often use about people often seeming to think we should all be wearing matching uniforms as a means of identification, he admitted to being one of those who never would have thought I could be autistic. He never challenged me on it, or acted in any way like he thought I was faking. I explained to him the idea of the spectrum, and how it's not simply a straight line from autistic to nonautistic. I used examples from my childhood. How I started talking early and got a college astrology book for my fifth Christmas due to it having been a special interest, while at the same time being extremely naive, was bullied, and couldn't leave the house without ear plugs to cancel out noise. How I wasn't any better because I was considered "passing" and how many different autistic people just I personally have met.

He told me he never knew autistic people could read, or had seen, or at least was not aware of seeing, autistic adults. He mentioned bringing the past part up with his wife a week or so back after seeing a commercial on autism. And how he'd never seen anything besides "young white kids sitting in corners with that same bowl haircut". How that's all that's ever showed, and he never really stopped to considered there being so much variation.

He said some things that were a bit offensive, but he truly didn't know. A lot of people don't know about a lot of things. They don't research every issue that's going on. That doesn't make them bad.

The entire time he was so worried about coming across as offensive, since he knew he didn't know a lot on the topics I brought up. Yet he was listening and actively engaging the entire time. The full trip was about 30-40 minutes, and at the end as I was getting out, he was thanking me about talking with him. Personally, I don't think I should be thanked for that, because it's a natural thing I tend to do. It's something I'm engaged in and am fully happy to talk about. But it was eye opening for both of us, I think.

Logically I know there are people who aren't exposed much. I know there's ignorance. However, sometimes the level of it still can be shocking. He thought all autistics were nonverbal and couldn't read. When I told him about the nonverbal dependent people I've talk to on here he really was shocked he didn't know.

It was a reminder that we still have a ways to go, and some people truly are just ignorant. It doesn't make them bad. Just uninformed, and it's not their fault all the time. Which is why we really need to work for media exposure. We need awareness.

Knowledge is the key to solving so many issues. I think we're making progress. Today I feel like I helped to make a little more, and It really is a nice feeling.

[strag]

odd question: is bungou stray dogs any good?

real talk? no. the easiest way to sum it up would be to say it’s one of the biggest examples of wasted potential i’ve ever experienced. i read the manga and watched both series of the anime and they’re both just... disappointing.

one thing that’s always bothered me might be sorta petty but it’s the art style. all the characters are that modern style of bishie that i goddamn despise. y’know the sort where they all have the hair from serial experiments lain with 2 hairclips shoved in it? that’s literally every male character’s haircut. it just looks bad, especially in the anime! i like the way the female characters look tho, and i like the designs for john steinbeck and hp lovecraft (who are the best characters btw, just saying).

the worst thing tho is that the premise for the series sounds cool. the characters are all authors and their powers are named after and based on one of their books? awesome! except it’s... done terribly. the powers are pretty much just based off the books’ titles, like john steinbeck’s grapes of wrath power is literally just grapevines. margaret mitchell is a character too and y’know what her gone with the wind power is? you guessed it! she controls the wind! it just feels so lacking in creativity. if you were gonna go this far with it, why not have the powers be references to the actual themes and plots of the books? i’m sure it would’ve been harder to come up with some of them then but damn, what they actually went with is lacklustre af

one of the things that really makes me uncomfortable tho is the character of osamu dazai. ppl have mentioned this before but... osamu dazai is a japanese author that committed suicide. and his anime counterpart? he’s constantly trying to kill himself. he even tries to drown himself in his first appearance, which is literally how osamu dazai died! this mightn’t have been too bad by itself but it’s passed off as a joke constantly and it’s like... can u not? can u rly honestly not? esp w/ how mental illness is already treated in japan, like... we didn’t need this lmao

also i hate kyouka. kuudere are the worst anime character archetype, i’m sorry but they are. she’s a dull personalityless blob and so much of the story is dedicated to her boring existence. i don’t care about kuuderes, japan! stop putting them in everything! they’re lazy and overdone! there’s literally 2 good ones! the others are all trash! you know it, you know it deep down inside! stop doing it! there’s better ways to portray a character with trauma than having her have 0 character traits!

tho whilst i’m on that tangent, most of the characters just... aren’t good. it’s hard to say exactly why but they all just seem to be lacking something. even the ones that are my type/that i felt like i’d like more as time go on never seemed to get a fleshing out they sorely needed. it’s probably because the series has not 1, not, 2, but 3 fucking groups of characters they throw in our faces really early on! i barely remember all the characters from the mc’s group, let alone the mafia group and the american group too. i really think it would’ve benefited from taking things slower and introducing a few characters at a time. this is especially true b/c they keep throwing them all on the railroads of rushed plots to get hit by the angst train and it’s like... i don’t care about these characters, honey. i don’t know them! if you want me to feel for them then take the time to tell me why i should! a lot of other anime does this too tho

to be frank, there’s probably other stuff i’m forgetting, but that’s what i remember pissing me off at the time

[nebulous-wanderings]

Tsukista TV Ep 6 Summary Notes

This last episode of Tsukista TV focused on Tomotsune Yuuki, who plays Shun, and Doi Kazumi, who plays Kai. (I can’t help but notice that Blue Moon beer logo on the side of the bar in the above screencap lol). These Tsukista TV episodes were a lot of fun to watch, and it gave us more insight into the actors’ lives and personalities. Also, the Tsukiusa Taisou will be stuck in my head forever... I still haven’t written anything for the first episode yet, but that should be posted next week. I’ll put links to all 6 of my episode posts on my Scans/Translations/Misc. page once I’m finished. Thanks for reading!

For the intro bit, they were all doing these weirdly serious faces/poses

(All of them being weird)

Because this was Procella’s seniors’ episode, Shuuto wanted to do the intro part that Tomotsune usually does. Tani shouted (directly into Shuuto’s right ear) “GANBARE!!!”

After that, Shuuto gave Tani the “Explain Procellarum” challenge again, but this time he was only allowed 4 seconds. (The first time it was 10 seconds and the second time was 6 seconds) Obviously, Tani did not have time to say much (lol)

Discussing a surprising aspect of Tomotsune:

Yuusaku says he’s like a professional sports player and Tomotsune silently motions for Yuusaku to continue speaking. Yuusaku says there’s various stuff like his powerful movements and his flexibility

Tomotsune said he wasn’t able to “open his legs” at first (I’m assuming this means doing a split or just being able to stretch his legs far in general) but because he stretches regularly he’s able to do it now.

Everyone calls him strong (lol)

Tomotsune’s Image:

Tani: “I’m glad he’s the leader.” Even during practices, Tomotsune would always be a leader. Tani also calls him a big-brother type.

Tsubasa was about to say something but then Tomotsune cut him off and was like, “Ok that’s enough.” Shuuto’s yelling “Let him talk~”

(Tsubasa being taken aback)

Once they let him speak, Tsubasa says Tomotsune has a lot of charisma. “Yoshiki-san [Tani] said he’s a leader, but I think it’s more than just that.” “I think he definitely has a charismatic aura.” “I get the feeling he was born to bring people together.” *Tomotsune high-fives Tsubasa after he says this*

Discussing an unknown aspect of Doi:

They call him Doi-chan (lol)

Tani: “Doi-chan is… an alien.” (Tani just said 宇宙 = uchuu, but 宇宙人 = uchuujin = alien refers to a person whose actions and thoughts are weird to you; you can’t understand why they do what they do)

Yuusaku: “He goes at a 45° angle” (meaning he does things differently than most) “As they say in baseball, he’s like a kunckleball.” (A knuckleball is a type of baseball pitch that has an erratic and unpredictable motion.) Tomotsune agrees.

Shuuto: “He’s a natural airhead.” Tani: “He really is an airhead, like an eel.” (idk what he means by that)

Shuuto: “That time it looked like the shoes he wore grew wings, (I think Doi bought some sneakers with external wing flaps on them or something) he said ‘Why is it difficult to move my legs?’ Isn't it because of those bulky shoes??!”

Tsubasa says he’s Doi is the type that’s liked by people both younger and older than him. “When I’m troubled, Doi is the person that says the kindest things.” Doi responds by saying he was once a young novice and he knows the feeling of wanting to be a better person, so that’s why he wants to see Tsubasa continue to keep working hard.

Yuusaku: “During the stageplay, I’d say ‘Doi~ Doi~ Doi~ Kazumi~’ and that projected a different image of Doi” “He has a strong [acting] talent.” “He was okay with me doing that gag, but the real Doi Kazumi and the Doi Kazumi we think he is are two completely different people. So maybe if we take these two separate Doi’s and put them together, it’ll make an even more amazing Doi.” wwww

(“Doi~ Doi~ Doi~ Kazumiiiiii” *shakes finger* This gag is in Yumemigusa)

Tani: “As was with Yuusaku’s private life, I know almost nothing about Doi’s private life. I don’t know where he goes after work or what he likes to eat. Doi-chan is the most mysterious.”

Doi: “I’ll eat anything.” Shuuto: “That’s like the opposite of Little Red Riding Hood! wwww” (I’m pretty sure he meant Goldilocks from Goldilocks and the Three Bears since she was picky and only ate the porridge that was ‘just right.’)

Tani tells a story about when he, Shuuto, and Doi were eating dinner together at the airport in Taiwan (this was from the time they went to Taiwan for the Tsukista fan event). Everyone else had gotten Chinese food (because they were in Taiwan, obviously), but Doi was sitting in a different spot so Tani went over to him and was like “Oh what are you eating?” and he was just eating spaghetti and meat sauce. Everyone’s reactions are “For real? Eating pasta in TAIWAN???” wwww Shuuto, sarcastically: “What a genius”

Doi tries to defend himself saying since they were in Taiwan, didn’t they want to try and act all cool and stuff? Shuuto and Tani just laugh lol

(Doi said “To be continued” in English lol)

Shuuto introduces the next segment by saying it’s learning about Tomotsune and Doi’s “origins.” Tomotsune said “What do you mean ‘origins?!’”

Tomotsune and Doi do a cute segway into the next segment. (“pyon” is the onomatopoeia for a rabbit jumping)

(“It’s starting, pyon~”)

Tomotsune’s “Everyday Life” video

Doi comments about how long Tomotsune’s hair is in the video.

(He starts combing his bangs over his eyes)

Cut to him getting his haircut at the salon. He says the next day he has a filming which is why he needs to get his hair cut. He wants the length to go back to how it’s supposed to be.

(Tomotsune getting a haircut)

Cut to him after the haircut - Tomotsune in the video: “It’s finished~”

(Showing off the end result)

Before he filmed that last part of the video, Tomotsune said he ate dinner.

Doi’s “Everyday Life” video:

Tomotsune goes to play the video and says “double-click” in English (idk i just found it funny lol)

The video starts with just a large July tsukiusa visible and Doi speaking in a weird voice as if he’s talking as the tsukiusa. Then as the tsukiusa he says “Today we have Fuduki Kai’s stage actor, Doi Kazumi. Doi Kazumi-san, if you please~” And then he moves the camera further out so you see him sitting next to the tsukiusa.

Doi: “Hello~ *looks over to the plushie* Thanks, tsukiusa.” The rest of the video is him with a generic message kind of thing about being a part of Procella, them working hard on stage, and that he hopes the audience continues to support them. 

(Doi and his tsukiusa)

At one point though, his Kansai dialect slipped out a bit but he corrected himself in the video. Tomotsune made fun of it anyways lol

Tomotsune was laughing throughout the entire video. Afterwards, he said sarcastically, “That’s some normal ‘everyday life’ stuff in the video, huh”

Doi said it took him about 10 takes to get that final video (lol)

Doi: “It was all for a lonely person, wasn’t it (referring to himself). *turns around in his seat to look at the large July tsukiusa behind him on the set* Right Blue-usa? Me talking to you…”

Tomostune: “Disgusting…” Doi: “Hey!!” Tomostune: “It’s frightening [to watch him talk to the tsukiusas]” www

Reflecting on the life of actors:

Doi tries to remember some date, as in calendar date, but then he thinks Tomotsune is thinking he’s talking about a date that you go on with another person so he’s like “not that kind of date” www

Tomotsune: “There was a time when I thought I wanted to quit. But the thing that stopped me from doing so was the support from fans. It really was the voices of fans. They’re important. And the closest fans are your parents.” “When I first entered the acting world, they were really against it.”

Doi says he gets scared/nervous every time he performs on stage.

I couldn’t tell if Tomotsune was making up an example or telling a personal anecdote, but he was talking about how everyone gets nervous. Like when something unexpected happens on stage, e.g. someone forgets their line, but then in a split second you think of what to do in that moment to fix the situation.

Doi recalling becoming peers with other actors:

Doi says when he was starting out, his butai senpais taught him everything.

Tomotsune talks about how when there’s difficult songs and dances they need to learn, he appreciates the kind of person that gets angry over them not doing well enough. To him, they get angry out of love and care. Doi says he’s glad Tomotsune said that.

(“It’s been fun!”)

Tsukiusa T-shirt Designs:

While drawing his design, Tomotsune realized he ran out of space to fit the word he was writing so he’s like “sorry, everyone T_T”

(Revealing their designs)

Tomotsune thought the wheels on the train on Doi’s design were takoyaki. Tomotsune: “Takoyaki?” Doi: “Nononononono”

Doi’s design is a tsukiusa riding on the SL Ginga (a steam-powered train that’s used for special events and excursions). It says “7” and “Fuduki Kai” in the steam cloud. (I couldn’t read what’s written on the bottom-left corner because of his handwriting and it’s so small)

Tomotsune’s design says “Tsukista.” “11” “Shun,S” (He romanized the katakana so that’s why the ‘s’ in ‘tsukista’ is missing. Btw idk if the “Shun,S” part is supposed to be short for Shun Shimotsuki or if that comma should be an apostrophe so it says “Shun’s” instead)

Tomotsune: “It’s very ‘Maou-sama’” Doi: “It looks cool”

[i-am-an-accidental-hipster]

this "Mataguy Madness" is interesting, sounds a bit r/nosleep-esque. Give us all the spooky stories! (If you wanna) :D

Heh, i don’t know if they’re spooky, but that may be because I’ve lived it.

Ok, so the camp that I work at is called “Mataguay”. It borders on the local kumeyaay reservation, as in if you wander too far up the slope of one of the hills they are legally allowed to shoot you. I’ve never tested it, and I don’t intend to.

We have ghost stories at the camp, but it is common knowledge among the staff that the stories are almost entirely made up. there is some true information to be found in it, though. the valley used to belong to the kumeyaay, and they had a conflict with the spaniards, a lot of them died and were supposedly buried in a mass grave on one side of the valley, and then english (or american? not sure) settlers moved in. most of the new guys were jerks, but this one guy (Trainer? Traynor?) was more nice to them, i guess. then he was crushed by a tree branch and died, and the kumeyaay created a memorial stone for him in his favorite part of camp, and his wife’s ashes were spread around it when she died. supposedly the stone is cursed, which of course means that people dare each-other to touch it. his barn is still standing, btw. then the portion of the land which trainer owned was donated by his daughter to the boy scouts. later, when the kumeyaay needed money they sold part of their land to the camp. and then some more later on.

also, the camp is infested with Datura Stramonium, a very potent and highly lethal psychoactive plant, so take everything i’m about to say with a grain of salt. but also, i’m not making any of this up. this is all stuff that happened as i remember it.

there were some red flags that the camp was a haunted madhouse right when I joined, because right off the bat one of the more experienced staff encountered a doppelganger. of me.

apparently she was walking over near the old observatory when she heard, very distinctly, my voice shouting a greeting to her “from the trees”. She ran up to me and literally asked me “were you in the trees? i heard your voice coming from the trees”. i had just come from the trading post, not the old observatory, so i said no, and she seemed very distressed by the revelation.

even back then, when the madness had not come over me, i could tell that there was something wrong about Mountain Man Meadow. Every other part of camp had a sort of natural white noise to it, with crickets, frogs, bats, and even just the wind making some kind of noise. But when we held an astronomy outing in the meadow that year, it was eerily, deafeningly silent. and there was a feeling of oppressive dread which seemed to emanate from the place, almost as if the shadows were moving of their own volition. it creeped me out enough to distract me from the astronomy, and I love astronomy.

mataguay madness always starts with one landmark event, which marks the point where you first start to crack. for most, it comes in the form of violantly intrusive thoughts, like “I wonder what my life would be like if I were a little french girl”, followed by an inability to process reality for a minute or two, and can strike even in the middle of a class in front of an audience (actual example, and no, the guy is not trans). It usually strikes at the end of the second year. mine was more... dramatic.

... i got high...

...on ice cubes.

i’m not kidding. I wasn’t even eating the ice, I was holding a large clump of ice cubes in my hands, watching them melt and feeling the cold run through my fingers. then, I started to snicker. the snicker developed into a chuckle, then into a loud, uncontrollable, almost painful cackle. one of the other staff came over to me to see if i was alright, but was rather taken aback by how utterly unhinged i looked, rocking back and forth and laughing like a stereotypical asylum patient. i calmed down after a few more seconds, but i was forever changed.

years later, a friend of mine who i would later date for a time suffered her bout of madness by tearing the bean-bag chairs apart, spreading around the little Styrofoam pellets, and giggling hysterically as she rubbed some of them into my hair. not as dramatic, but pretty similar. she had no idea why she did it.

anyways, the next year i officially joined staff, as the astronomy instructor. and for whatever reason i decided to take a plastic owl I had found in the upper room while I was sorting (one of the ones used to scare off rats and such) and carry it in my arms. for the entire summer. I named it Arcturus. Also, because I thought I was hilarious, I told everyone that I could use it to steal people’s souls if they displeased me. All the campers found it funny (for the most part), and so did the younger staff. The older staff, on the other hand, seemed to become afraid of the owl. They actually asked me to turn it away from them when I would set it on the table during meals. I thought that was hilarious too, until they kidnapped it and through it away during the last week of camp. I had grown rather attached to the thing over that summer, so i was notably distressed when I found out. One of the other staffers gave me a replacement owl, Spica, which I still have in my room.

the next year, i completely changed my look. I still wore my staff uniform, but over it I wore a lab-coat i had found in one of the drawers at my house, i changed my haircut, and i carried around a large “walking stick” i had found in the woods. this may seem irrelevant now, but it will become relevant later, as I basically kept this look for the next 4 years, and was instantly recognizable.

My eyes began developing a bit of a quirk. i could barely stand the daylight, but during the night i could see perfectly, as if it were day (I still have this). The constellations started to reveal themselves to me, but not as if I were learning their shapes but more like they were actual people, introducing themselves to me. sometimes, i could almost hear them speaking to me, and could certainly feel them. As soon as the stars came out, I would feel as if my body were humming with some kind of power. i can’t explain it. i began wandering around at night without a flashlight, sometimes crossing the entire valley just to play diablo 2. where i used to feel the shadows crowding around me, now I could kinda see them, but they always seemed to be fleeing from me. they looked like a shadowy haze in the vague form of man. occasionally, they would group up and try to bar my way, but i would just stare at them and start singing “Flying Fortress”, or reciting the Saint Michael prayer, and they would part around me. I was never quite sure if what I was seeing was real, or the result of an over-active imagination, though.

Back to mountain man meadow, my area was right next to it, and i began noticing some strange things about it, not the least of which was the blood-curdling scream which came from the forest just beyond it every once and awhile at sunset, a scream of a little girl. we actually sent in search parties to figure out who was screaming, but we never found anything. might have been a goat. but i also know that there were footprints that would appear in the meadow whenever one wasn’t looking. i checked.

apparently the meadow is right next to that kumeyaay mass grave I mentioned earlier. I could never get an exact answer on where said grave was relative to the meadow, though. other people have said that they saw actual apparitions there, a little girl in a white dress and a little boy in a small headress, both silent. One guy even claimed the first one followed him around, though he also he believes he saw the ghost from our false ghost story, so...

ok, so my madness was bad, but this one guy... i dunno. it was either madness or he was stupid as a brick. he ended up stabbing himself through his sleeping bag somehow, apparently while “trying to stab a rat that was on the wall next to him”. i don’t doubt the part about the rat, as i have had to bed a foot from a tarantula, but HOW DOES ONE MISS AT A 90 DEGREE ANGLE AND STAB ONE’S LEG IN A SLEEPING BAG WHILE TRYING TO STAB A RAT? anyways, he goes to the hospital to have it stitched up, and he comes back a week later with explicit instructions to stay out of the water or the cut will re-open

the first thing he does when he gets back is jump in the pool. he spends the rest of the week in the med lodge. he comes out the next week only to do the exact same thing, and repeat. administration began confiscating his knives, and he kept buying new ones and bringing them to camp, often playing with them dangerously in front of the scouts. he got fired.

now for mataguay magic. during that very same year, there was a revival of mataguay’s apparently very old practice of what is called “rain turtles”, though they are more properly called weather turtles. their purpose is to change the weather. it’s kinda like alchemy, ah-la FMA. first you draw a circle on the ground, and then draw four legs, a head, and a tail on it so it looks like a turtle as viewed from above. then you draw the kind of weather you want inside it, usually rain. you dig a shallow hole in the center, and then place something of the same “element” as what you want in the hole, usually spitting in it for rain. then you dance around it in a circle, counterclockwise while spinning around counterclockwise as well. The intended weather usually strikes within 48 hours. our “camp witchdoctor” earned his title when he had his class each make they’re own rain turtles in mountain man meadow every week, resulting in every weekend being covered in an absolute deluge. he actually got in trouble with administration, not for teaching his students magic but for doing the ritual the day before clean-up day every week, because even the administration believed the stuff actually works. as if to spite them, he then made a turtle with a picture of a fire in it and threw his lighter into it. low and behold, the next morning the other side of the hills from camp burst into flames. never reached us, but still. he was then banned from making weather turtles ever again.

now for mataguay religion. during that very same year, a cult began to form around the program director. largely because he was the first good program director we had in years. at first it was all in fun, with chants of “hail [redacted]” and much air-punching. then it got weird. some of the older staff began taking pictures of him while he was asleep (a rare occurrence, as he pulled way too many all-nighters to try to fix all the problems the previous directors had caused) and making said pictures the desktop background for every computer they could get their hands on. they changed the screen-savers to “hail [redacted]”, and taped that phrase on the wall of my area’s staircase in red tape, with the “hail” spelled the german way. because of course it was. I happened to share a name with said program director, so in order to keep people from thinking i was an egotistical nazi i would tear the message down, only to have it show up the next day. Then our camp witch-doctor took it too far, and signed it up with the state as a protestant sect and became a minister of it. since then, even though that program director left I haven’t been able to escape the cult, largely because we have the same name and everyone thinks that I’m the god of mataguay. I really don’t like it, and it may have contributed to the full emergence of my doppelganger last year.

the camp witch doctor mentions to me, almost off-handedly, that the spirits of the camp seem scared of me.

the next year was the first time camp begins to suspect there is something up. about ME. one of the administration comments he heard footsteps and the muffled sound of my voice emanating from my classroom in the middle of the night. he goes to check, but there is no-one there, but he feels a certain wrongness in the place. he goes back down stairs only to hear footsteps again, this time leaving the room, and then heading off in the direction of mountain man meadow. he asks me about it the next day, only for me to tell him that i had been on the other side of camp doing an astronomy outing. there is much perplextion on either side. it also comes to my attention that people have begun seeing what looks like the glow of electric lights in trainer’s house, even though no-one lives there and further there is no electric current running to the house, as no-one has ever bothered to run an electric cable out that far. i remembered a time when we were walking back from the camp ghost story as a tenderfoot and i saw a blue flickering light in that very same house which i had assumed was an old tv set.

by this point i have started to talk to the constellations and greet them when they appear, and also to yell at the sun to stop hogging the glory

the next year, near the end of the year, i come across a friend of mine who is trying to get out of working his area the next day. I catch him performing an extremely bastardized version of the rain turtle ritual and, even though i have avoided ever doing the ritual myself, i feel compelled to correct him. this turned out to be a mistake. upon completing the ritual, i feel a tugging sensation in my gut, and he and i and this one scout who was watching us nearby felt both the temperature and pressure drop in three waves over a course of 5 seconds, and clouds begin appearing on the horizon. the scout was awestruck and begins asking what i just did, my friend was elated, and i... i was highly disturbed.it rained from thursday to tuesday that week, and the forecast said it as supposed to be sunny with slight clouds. i have never performed that ritual ever again, because i felt like a bit of me seeped into the land when i did so.

this turned out to be a bit of a prophetic feeling, because at the beginning of the next year a series of disturbing events started to occur. the first evidence that something was seriously wrong was that, a week before we moved back into the cabins they already showed signs of being haunted for some unknown reason. only two people were on camp at the time: a new staffer and one who had worked there for nearly a decade and a half. the older one fell asleep in the cabins, with the lights off, while the new one went to the staff lounge to get a drink. he came back to find the lights on, and the older staff member still asleep. he woke u the older staffer to ask him who turned the lights on, only to have the older one look at him with confusion (the older one has very low-functioning autism, and has never been known to lie even in jest, so i doubt he was playing any kind of trick).

2 weeks later, I got annoyed when someone was vaping in the cabin and the fumes kept wafting over to my bunk and with the fact that they were going to press people into work parties as soon as we woke up, so I got up without telling anyone, left my sleeping bag on the bunk, and went to go sleep on one of the comfy couches in the staff lounge. keep in mind, i did this in the middle of the night. in the morning, the person next to my bed told me that he could have sworn that he heard me get up at 5am, say “they’ll never find me”, and walk out the door. he was adamant that he had heard me say it, and was baffled when i told him i was in the staff lounge the whole time. however, i also mentioned that i did wake up briefly at 5 am and think that exact thought.

soon thereafter, an even more anomalous thing occurred: the shadow people began to come back, and with such frequency and audacity that even the new staff began to see them clearly. many of them appeared at one of my old haunts, a concrete platform next to a broken shack known as the “old observatory”, though I never saw them there myself. one of them even walked towards a trio of new staff into the moonlight so that it was fully visible as a hazy, black mist in the shape of a man. that trio shortly fled the area.

even so, it seems the shadow people were still afraid of me. Once, when I was sitting up on the hill overlooking the dining hall at night, I saw a shadow flit past my shoulder, and it was running towards the staff cabins. I stood up and addressed it directly. I told it I would not harm it, and that I wanted to see what it looked like. It paused, turned towards me, and the shadow collapsed into a single point in mid-air, which shifted to become an orange-red light. It only stayed that way for a moment before changing back to it’s shadow form and speeding away from me as fast as it’s shadow legs could carry it.

but that was only the prelude of what was to come, because soon after that, IT started showing up, visibly. And by it, I mean me. Whatever had been copying my voice and footsteps before now was copying my appearance as well. staff became adamant that they saw me, walking silently between Mountain Man Meadow and the Fort, with my white lab-coat blowing in the breeze and my walking stick clacking on the asphalt in time with my steps. Two things were wrong with that: #1 I was on the other side of camp playing Warcraft 2 and #2 I never walk quietly. I always sing or chant or pray aloud when walking at night, as loud as I can, because I can. Me moving in silence at night is so out of character it was jarring to hear. In most cases when the staff member in question called to me in greeting, “I” did not speak up but instead glanced over in their direction without expression and waved mechanically back at them. we began calling this other me “[redacted]” which is my name backwards. when I later ask one of my friends who was into magic if i had indeed been it two places at once, she got back to me a day later and told me “that thing wasn’t you. don’t go back there.”

I think it was the first time in a long time I had actually been scared of something supernatural in nature. as silly as it might be, there is something dreadful about thinking that at any moment you might see your own face staring at you blankly through the window. even today, a year after having quit the job, I still have difficulty looking in mirrors, as it brings back foul memories of fearing the sight of my own face.

i had one regret upon finally leaving the camp, after so long, and that regret was leaving my friends, the constellations. sure, I had set up a promising successor to teach the badge (i never had anyone to teach me), but I knew that for a time the quality of instruction would take a serious nose-dive. And I also knew that I would miss seeing the constellations. i live in a place with a lot of light pollution, so it can be hard to find a place to see my old friends properly, whereas in mataguay they veritably blaze in the sky, cold and beautiful. and i knew, somehow, that the constellations would miss me too, miss me retelling their stories or explaining fun facts about the stars within them. Above all, I would miss Scorpio, the first constellation I would see each evening, the one I liked to talk to most. sure, i could see them occasionally on camp-outs and whatnot, but it wouldn’t be the same. call it madness if you will, but that day I feel like I lost some good friends.

[mightbedamian]

#TMIishTuesday #44 - Weird Sayings in English, German, and Dutch

Hey there, first off: I tagged some of my posts. You can find an overview of the tags I used on this page. So, if you are interested in certain topics like my life in the Netherlands, my coming out story, or posts about YouTube, you can now just click those tags and see only those posts. The page also includes a description of what #TMIishTuesday is. How handy, right? Oh and I also did some tagging for pics. There are like 10 pics of 3 people that I know and all of them are YouTubers, so… still check it out, if you want to? :D Let's start with the actual thing now, shall we? Hey there mighty people of the internet! And welcome to issue #44 of #TMIishTuesday - my weekly Tumblr post about what goes through my weird mind and what you guys want to know more about. It can be something very personal, it can be something political, it can be completely pointless - but in 99.9 % of the cases, it involves opinions. And mine as well. // Last week I went quite cliché - again and reflected on my personal year 2016. Veeeeeeery long post but totally worth reading, if you want to know more about me! // In other news, I held the first poll of 2017 and the first poll in like… 4 weeks or so (?) for you to decide today's topic on Twitter. And you guys were interested in what I have to say about those "Weird Sayings". And... you guys, I just love languages! Languages are everything: Strange, very straightforward, not logical, ridiculous, inventive, confusing, never the same, I could go on forever. This is probably gonna be a long post again. #ifyoucouldnttellalready I'll take some bits and bobs from my experiences of speaking three languages - within a minute at times - and bring up some examples from that. If you don't know German or Dutch, don't you worry. I got you! I'll translate to English. As best as possible. #notyetaprofessionalinterpreter Let's start with the initial reason why I came up with the idea to write about this topic: The word "fangirling". If you are not a fangirl yourself, you probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about. Let's take a look into the urban dictionary for help (that's a very handy website for checking what slang means btw, it has saved my life numerous times! Else I wouldn't have been able to understand a lot of videos). Urban dictionary defines "fangirl" as: "A rabid breed of human female who is obesessed with either a fictional character or an actor. Similar to the breed of fanboy. Fangirls congregate at anime conventions and livejournal. Have been known to glomp, grope, and tackle when encountering said obsessions." ...and "fangirling" as: "v. 1. the reaction a fangirl has to any mention or sighting of the object of her "affection". These reactions include shortness of breath, fainting, highpitched noises, shaking, fierce head shaking as if in the midst of a seizure, wet panties, endless blog posts, etc. 2. a gathering of two or more fangirls in which they proceed to waste endless amounts of time ogling, discussing/arguing, stalking, etc. the object of their "affection" " I first learned about "fangirls" on YouTube watching some international YouTuber. Might have been Tyler Oakley, who himself has probably more fangirls any YouTuber will ever have. Looking to the word "fangirl", it makes me notice two things: 1. It's an absolutely brilliant neologism! Perfectly descriptive of its meaning. A "girl" who is a big "fan" of someone: "fangirl". "Fangirling" then is just the act of being such "fangirl". 2. Why is the term "fangirl" so common, while I haven't even heard of a "fanboy"? Why do I have to be "fangirling" when I like to go crazy about a celebrity? Shouldn't I be "fanboying" instead? And thinking inclusively: What about non-binary people who I identify as neither "boy" nor "girl" but somewhere along the spectrum instead? It's that slightly discriminative thing that exists in lots of languages when they just use one word that has an attribute of one gender attached to it to mean both genders. As far as I have noticed, it's not that prevalent in the English language as it is in German and Dutch. Well done, you creators of English! When you talk about a hair dresser that is neutral. It can be either gender. In German ("Friseur" for male; "Friseurin" for female) and Dutch ("kapper" and "kapster" respectively) you don’t have a unisex form: "I went to the hair dresser's to get a haircut yesterday. She did an awesome job!" would be "Ich bin gestern beim Friseur gewesen. Sie hat es richtig gut gemacht!" in German and "Ik ben gisteren naar de kapper geweest. Ze heeft het heel goed geknipt!" (That’s probably not translated too well, but you get my point, right? :D) Notice how both languages use the male form instead of the (correct) female form. Just because you refer to the hair dresser's place instead of the hair dresser herself. Obviously the English language discriminates as well. Think about police men or post men. Have you ever heard someone say "police women"? No, you probably haven't. Granted, I've never lived in a country where English was the native language. But I think it's ridiculous that we have that separation in so many terms, especially with professions. If you want to use the politically correct form, it sounds incredibly unsophisticated. When I read German flyers that are published by governmental organisations, I'm close to puking. "Die Schüler_innen" - yes, there are not only male students in that class (and this form of writing also includes non-binary people - as opposed to “SchülerInnen”). But why make such a mess of it. I think we should introduce a neutral form to use in such occasions. We have neutral pronouns, even to describe people (think of they/them or ze/zir). Why don't we use them for these occasions as well? But alright, I can tell you are getting bored of my political correctness talks again. Let's get on with this post. How about false friends? You may have some in real life (though I hope you don't), but I'm talking about words that sound similar in different languages, but have a completely different meaning. First one that sprang to my mind: The German "Handy". I mean… I have to give you that: A mobile phone is indeed handy. But I've seen lots of people using the word in English to refer to a mobile phone, when native speakers would probably have no idea what they are talking about. Or take "actual" which is actually a great example! actual ≠ aktuell. The English word "actual" is translated to German as eigentlich, tatsächlich; the German "aktuell" means current or up-to-date in English. And there are obviously some with Dutch as well. Take the German word "allemal" and the Dutch word "allemaal". "Allemaal" is often added to a plural pronoun: "wij" (we), "jullie" (you), or "zij" (they), to underline that everyone is involved. And without a doubt it is one of the most frequently used words in Dutch. The German "allemal" is slightly old-fashioned and not used much anymore. It means “certainly” or “for sure”. Another example: The German "fahren" (to ride or to drive) is obviously used very often, while "varen" in Dutch isn't. It sounds very similar, but only refers to "travelling by boat" instead of including pretty much any means of travel, like the German “fahren”. Dutch and English are more fitting. In a way... For “actual” it’s the same story as with German (called "actueel" in Dutch). For the rest: "map" exists in both English and Dutch. But the Dutch word means “folder”, while the English word translates to Dutch as "landkaart". And finally: "room". If you ask a receptionist of a hotel for a "free room" (or a "vrije room") in Dutch, you'll probably get very puzzled and confused looks. Why would you look for free whipped cream? I mean... I'm sure you could get some at a hotel, but… The word you were looking for is "kamer". (And while we’re on it: The Dutch “room” is pronounced with a long “o” sound) When I write a post about languages, I certainly have to address the "Schmetterling" issue. The moment you leave Germany and start talking in a different language, everyone will make remarks about how harsh and really NOT smooth German sounds. And on the one hand you're right! German certainly won’t win the "Best sounding language" award. But on the other hand: Which language should win that award? Dutch also sounds very rough at times. Just think about the "harde G" (hard G) in Friesland and how it sounds to strangers. Let me tell you first hand: It sounds freaking scary! I mean… you'll get used to it, but at first it's very frightening! And English… I mean you basically get to choose between the incredibly posh British English and the American version that - sorry to you Americans out there - quite honestly sounds very wishy-washy to me. And at times the pronunciation is a little too drawn-out for me. Talking about drawn-out things: In an attempt to not draw out this post any more, I'll leave you with this. Tell me something cool in your language! What about "I really enjoyed this post"? :P Okay, kidding. But if you did enjoy it, please let me know anyway. You know the means to get to me: place a comment, tweet me, dm me, or do what else you can think of. And while you’re in it, share it around! Before I go, I'd like to introduce something new to these posts: The “TMIish Queer Shoutout” or so? (That's a working title - tell me, if you can think of something better, please :D). Long story short: In these posts I'd like to tell you about a cool queer thing that I discovered over the last week. This week: Jongens. A Dutch coming-of-age film about Sieger, a fifteen year-old who's forms 1/4th of an athletics team. The four will run at the Dutch championships shortly and over the course of the now intensified trainings, Sieger gets close to his best friend Stef. It's a great plot which shows the struggles of a gay relationship when one partner doesn't fully live up to it. Okay, enough of the spoilers! I suggest you find yourself a site that shows English subtitles with it and watch it! :D And if you know Dutch and don’t need subtitles, you can just head over to npo.nl. As far as I know, it's available world-wide. It surely is in Germany. So have fun! As always: Next #TMIishTuesday next Tuesday. If you have any questions in the meantime, just ask away. Whatever you’re curious about - I don’t bite. :) Until then: Stay mighty! Links for the stuff used/refered to in this post: - Urban Dictionary: Fangirling: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fangirling - Urban Dictionary: Fangirl: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fangirl - “Jongens” on npo.nl: http://www.npo.nl/jongens/03-08-2014/VPWON_1229280

Oh, and here’s some self-promo: - Last #TMIishTuesday: http://mightbedamian.tumblr.com/post/155355662606/tmiishtuesday-43-16-things-i-learned-in-2016 - More #TMIishTuesdays: mightbedamian.tumblr.com/tagged/tmi - Poll to decide next week's topic and more very cool stuff: www.twitter.com/mightbedamian - Even more very cool stuff: mightbedamian.tumblr.com