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x-liv25-jamieswife · 5 months

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people's reaction to avery getting kidnapped head canons

the person who requested the jameson kidnapping head canons also requested i do this for avery so here it is! this is my only post today cause i had no time to write last night (i write them at night but post in the morning). hope you like them <3. @never-enough-novels asked to be tagged and also inspired some of these hcs.

jameson:

he'd immediately get out his emergency alcohol stash for situations like this. it contains all of the strongest, most expensive alcohol on the market.

he is looking for clues day and night. he does not stop to eat, drink, sleep, talk (unless it has to do with clues or smth), breathe, etc.

at some point, though, he faints due to overworking himself and shit and he wakes up in nash's arms. he starts wailing and nash is there stroking his hair comforting him cause he can't breathe.

he would literally murder the person who kidnapped her the second he found them. he'd probably plunge a knife into his dick and electrocute his balls (if he's a guy).

he'd kiss her all over and cuddle her the second they got her back. he would literally not let anyone touch her and he wouldn't let go of her (not even to let the doctors and professionals give her a check up to make sure she’s alright, he’d insist on doing it himself with the doctor’s instructions).

grayson:

has literally hired all of the best private investigators/police officers in the world to help cause he knows that the longer it takes to find her, the more chances there are she's already dead (and he doesn't like knowing she's suffering)

he'd be thinking up the worst case scenarios in his head (jamie too). torture/murder/SA, etc.

he's being reminded of emily the whole time and how he lost her. he thinks the same is happening to avery

he's clinging onto xander the entire time bc he's freaking out and running around everywhere, and someone needs to make sure xander doesn't accidently fall out of a window.

ends up stealing from jamie's emergency alcohol stash bc he's dying on the inside.

xander (he's extremely worried and sad but im gonna make some slightly funnier hcs cause yk):

it happens so often he created some sort of emergency alert system that goes off on everyone's phone when she goes missing (dont ask me how this works).

actually considers buying cocaine to loosen up (and actually buys it). nash catches him coming back home though and runs around after him trying to smack his head whilst xander is also running and swinging himself off of tree branches to escape his scary ass brother.

the entire situation in my last head canon convinced xander to try to act like a monkey for an entire to day to see what it would be like and note the differences between how humans and monkeys act (although he doesn't do it while avery is gone cause he's too scared about her dying and shit)

doesn't actually end up doing drugs though and gives it to the police officers cause they are being run dry by grayson and he pities them.

he's creating a gift bag/care package for avery for when she returns. he's gaslit himself into thinking there's a 100% possibility that she is returning (the one time he's allowed himself to calculate smth wrongly)

trying to pretend this is an episode of keeping up with the kardashians (even though he hates the kardashians) to lighten things up.

nash:

steals cocaine from the police officers bc he needs it too. he is completely freaking out.

in a corner holding libby in his arms, rocking her back and forth, telling her everything will be ok, and that he'll do anything in his power to get avery back.

literally puts the handcuffs on the kidnapper himself and drags his ass to jail (not before giving him a good beating)

he's cleaning up all of the branches that xander ripped off of the trees somehow when he was running away from him.

after the kidnapping, he literally does not let avery out of his sight. he's is constantly following her and keeping oren company during his night shifts.

libby:

literally crying in the corner having a panic attack. she's trying to curl in on herself and make herself small in order to not bother the officers and stuff. (sad ik but i think this is in character)

she's binge eating bc that's when she does when she's nervous but can't bring herself to bake stuff.

at some point tried to go bake but thought the huge bag of cocaine xander got his hands on was flour and she ended up ruining the batch of cupcakes (this was close to when they found avery so it didn't mess with the investigation. also they realized not long after they were baked so..)

helping xander create the gift bag/care package bc he offered and she needs a distraction.

the second they find the kidnapper, she bashed this guy so hard he ended up crying. people just stared at her in shock bc they did not know she could talk to someone like that (but also impressed)

max:

she is considering taking the drugs xander bought but is scared her mom will somehow find out.

she's trying to convince xander that he is not capable of playing in the next tarzan film just bc he's capable of swinging on tree branches

when they find the kidnapper, she swears so hard (not her fake swearing) people are terrified. she looks like she'd be capable of killing everyone in the room in one sweep. (even grayson and oren are scared)

she's knitting a blanket with nan in order to get her hands to do smth other than shake and shit. nan tries to get her to talk about all of the gossip at her school and stuff to distract her.

she adds the kidnapper's name to her burn book.

alisa:

she is literally having an aneurysm trying to stop grayson from getting the entire hawthorne family canceled cause he's treating the officers like shit.

actually hugs and kisses avery's cheek when they find her. she was terrified but would never admit that to anyone.

oren:

he is constantly on coffee runs trying to keep everyone awake so they can find avery.

hooks up with zara after they find her bc he needs to unwind somehow.

#the inheritance games #jameson hawthorne #avery grambs #grayson hawthorne #nash hawthorne #xander hawthorne #libby grambs #alisa ortega #averyjameson #maxine liu #john oren

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9w1ft · 1 year

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Do you ever have doubts about all this? Like maybe we've gaslit each other and lsk isn't actually a thing? Like maybe Taylor never corrected the narrative she put out through songs and other stuff that Karlie betrayed her is because that's what she actually thought? Cause lately it's been creeping in for me. I mean what if they were vaguely in contact and Karlie going to Eras was a goodbye sort of to her and Taylor? Or what if it was actually an olive branch from her and Taylor didn't take it or was enthusiastic about it at first buy was convinced to not contact her afterwards by Tree or people like that?

hey anon. over the years i’ve had my off days, sure! but absolutely nothing from this year has shaken me. quite the contrary this year has made me feel more confident in my understanding than ever and dare i say it has probably been one of the easiest years in some aspects. which is wild to me! but it’s my truth. and i understand how that sounds and i’m not saying that i have the answer or that i cannot be wrong. anything’s possible. it’s just that there has been such a strong and growing understanding of what i believe that it just can’t be toppled so easily.

as for the eras tour… i say versions of this every other day at this point but at the risk of TMI let me be more specific, as someone who has also experienced being postpartum, i just do not see karlie wanting to physically and mentally go through going to such an event as some sort of sentimental farewell or hail mary, or on a whim, or out of spite. like i think about back when i was 2 weeks postpartum and both times i was literally sleeping most of the day, only waking to tend to the baby, wearing the same clothes i had been all week, probably hadn’t brushed my teeth or washed my hair either, wrapped up in bandages and pads because my body was still emptying itself of the extra lining and liquid called lochia that doesn’t all come out during childbirth, taking pain meds, emotional and weeping uncontrollably over tv commercials.

it’s just… no amount of money or greed would have been able to compel me to get up off my butt, put on nice clothes and to put on a face of makeup, and fly across the country with my kids to go to a stadium of seventy thousand people where half or more of them blindly hate me, where maybe even a hundred or so of them or more have personally threatened me in dm’s or on social media, and to be able to be open enough to smile for people around and enjoy a concert for someone who i wasn’t sure cared about me. not a chance in hell. so, i just do not see the situation like that, and it’s just another thing that builds upon my interpretation of the situation in general.

#karlie going to the eras tour probably felt like that scene in Prometheus. you know the one.

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royalcolls-cccc-au-act · 1 month

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HEART/JUNO LORE !!

This is up until the current timeline of the story

> Juno couldsay he had a pretty okay life. He wasn't the richest in town, but who was? No one, that's for sure. He lived with his mother and helped around the house when it was needed. His mother had to go out and had to work to bring money in to support herself and Juno, due to the fact that his father had passed a few weeks after his mother gave birth. His mother worked two jobs to just bring in enough for the both of them to survive, and to send her son to school. Juno didn't complain once. He understood and he could say he liked his life.

> But Juno had a dream. A dream to be a movie star.

> He knew it was a stupid dream for a lowlife citizen like himself, but he wanted to go to those big movie production companies and he wanted to act, to live his life on the stage and be a star at the picture show. He used to get lost in thought and his fictional worlds of how it would play out and he used to revel in the idea of wearing costumes and clothes made of silk and satin, and being surrounded by bright lights and flashing cameras. He wanted to live his dream and make money to make sure his mother never had to work a day more in her life. He wanted to help his mother and be famous, and people thought it was stupid. Kids at school relentlessly bullied him for it and he started believing he could never amount to anything with this dream.

> After all, boys don't do as well as girls do in the movie industry. (Which isn't a complete lie.)

> Around the age of 15, Juno decided to drop school completely. He found something he was passionate in, and he could make money from it. He had enough of an education to read scripts and be well spoken, so he dropped out. His mother wasn't entirely impressed for while, but as she saw what Juno was doing, she quickly decided that she didn't mind. She didn't need to put the money to school anymore, and therefore she could buy more food and help Juno with what he wanted to do. And what did he want to do? He wanted to make clothes and the reason behind it was because he thought it was one step closer to being a movie star. making clothes and practicing his own scripts and plays.

> There was one final obstical in the way though. He was a young man, and he didn't think he'd get anywhere like that. So, he decided on a solution to this issue, and that was to go his life pretending to be a woman. He brought the idea to his mother, and - even if she was cautious - she said she would help her son with this plan if he wanted to really go through with this. Which he did. He made dresses and let his hair grow long. He learnt how to put on makeup from his mother and how girls typically acted. And, from a well kept lie, everyone ended up being convinced that he was always a girl.

> They gaslit everyone in town. (Spoiler alert, it worked)

> After a year or so of preserving this lie and Juno working on scripts and clothing andall that jazz, he realised he needed a stage. A stage with enough room to actually act his plays out on. The local theatre wouldn't allow it without money which he lacks severely and he couldn't just make one. So, he went to the local farm, one that supplied most of the crops and food for the town. His mother used to go there regularly to buy some crops and basic meat or eggs, and the farmer seemed nice enough, well, nice enough to - on more than one occasion - give Juno's mother free things. He said he had enough to spare. And, as luck would have it, the farmer was nice enough to lend Juno his ranch for all his acting needs two days a week.

> This would start a nice and fast growing friendship between the two.

> The farmer, Atlas, was kind and supplied food to Juno and even rehearsed with him when he had the time and wasn't working on the farm. Juno enjoyed the company of someone that wasn't his mother, and Atlas enjoyed the company of someone who wasn't one of his animals.

> It all worked out.

> That's until an accident at the ranch happened.

> Juno and Atlas were in the middle of a rehearsal, and a spotlight was held right above where Juno was. The spotlight wasn't good and was a horribly made makeshift one that was hung from the ceiling by a tattered, old rope. He had faith in this rope due to it seeming to hold the light just fine when he and Atlas hung it up at first, but this time, as Juno stood right underneath the light, the rope snapped and fell. Juno looked up and it hit him as it fell. fell with the light and the glass that they both had used to make the light smashed, hitting Juno in the face and blinding him.

> Juno stayed home for those next few months, recovering and getting used to life with most of his sight gone. Those months turned into a whole year before he decided to even think about what would come of his acting dream now, but after a while of consideration and his mother's kind words, he ends up going back to the ranch to tell Atlas that he might want to continue using it for acting again.

> But as he walks into the ranch and calls out for Atlas, another voice replies.

***"So you're the famous lil' movie star Atlas has been talkin' 'bout?"***

#cccc soul #cccc heart #cccc #chonny jash #cccc mind #chonny mind #chonny soul #chonnys charming chaos compendium #chonny heart #cj hms #cccc hms

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viciousgold · 1 year

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things my very vivid, real feeling dreams that are often recurring convinced me of in real life, only for me to later realize they were not, in fact, real, they were fucking dreams:

dreamed I went to the grocery store, I remember buying milk, later on in real life I went to the fridge expecting milk to be there bc I remember buying it, but nope, no milk in the fridge, that was only in my dream, I did not, in fact, buy milk

I had a whole dream about accidentally missing an interview and woke up panicked thinking that I had and my interview was like, days away

I had several recurring dreams of working at a target that were so vivid and recurring that I had target on my resume. my actual, real life resume. it was on my resume for several years before I realized wait a second. I never actually worked at target. that was in my fucking dreams. why would I even dream about working at target???

had two dreams about a disneyland being in the state that I'm in. I'm not in california or in florida. but the whole dream felt so real the first time that when I had the second dream later, I was convinced that there might be a disneyland in my state and I literally googled to check if I was crazy or not. I was, there is no disneyland where I live, my dreams successfully gaslit me yet again

and as a bonus, some random dreams that I woke up knowing they were dreams but once again were so real and vivid that I felt like they were absolutely 100% real until I woke up:

cruella de vil kidnapping me and holding me hostage in an abandoned chuck-e-cheeses. I remember feeling the rope burns from my wrists being tied up.

a recurring nightmare of slappy the dummy from goosebumps, where he would stand outside of my bedroom door and move an inch closer every time I either looked away or blinked. eventually he would get to me and jumpscare me. if I kept looking at him without blinking, he would stay still for a while until eventually just running towards me and the dream would end that way

a very intricate dream about where I got adopted by a rich family after my parents were killed, the rich family got trapped in a kidnapping plot to permanently transform them into sea creatures to then hold in a show-tank to be on display for other rich people, and I ended up with the family in trying to save them, there was a lot more detail to it than that but that was the gist

had a dream that lasted for several years where Lena Heady played the role of my family's mother, I had some siblings, we moved into this new house, mom was clearly hiding shit, there was some favoritism, but like, there was a whole ass mystery horror plot

a dream where I died, me and some other people who also died woke up in this mansion that we were told was heaven, by the woman who said she was the queen of heaven, she was played by Julie Andrews, I still remember exactly how the food tasted because it felt so real, there was also a mystery going on, there was a random house away from the mansion that no one was at, and it's unlocked so I go in the house and there's a computer inside, and the computer shows two locations, our location and one in the mountains, and also we're apparently in Cuba???? I thought we were dead and in heaven??? but no, apparently we're in Cuba, and there was a LOT that happened in this dream but I found out that the queen was basically turning people into her horses, all of the horses she had were previously people, I run the fuck away to the other location in the mountain and it turns out we were, in fact, in heaven, the computer was just saying Cuba??? or maybe heaven is in Cuba??? I don't know, but I went to the mountains, and Satan was there, captured by the queen and held there, I make a deal with Satan to help him get out and in exchange he'll turn the horse people back into people and get us the hell out of there but the caveat is that we all have to go to hell, which like, he tells us it's not even that bad, it's like this place but warmer and like, there are just certain parts of hell to avoid and you'll be fine, so I agree, bust him out, we bust them out, and we all go to hell together and live in hell. also it felt like that dream lasted for literal weeks. my dreams are fucking wild.

#the mun; dani

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nahalism · 1 year

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What do you think of therapy, personally? If you are comfortable w answering: did you ever have one yourself and how was the experience of it? x

(sorry in advance cause this will be long)

cool so, i was made to go for the first time at around 12/13, and the experience was damaging. so every other time they tried to get me to talk to someone, go to school counselling or seek help not only did i not trust the therapist, i literally wouldnt speak or would try flip the questions on them. HOWEVER, since september 2022 - this march/april i went to a therapist voluntarily just to see if i was wrong, if i could make quicker progress with someones help, or if by having a non biased person to soundboard my thoughts against id find it helpful. heres what i found (:

what i liked:

- i wanted a therapist because i wanted a second opinion. i was around ppl making me think i was some kind of villain or person that i didnt feel i was, and so instead of cutting people out & spiralling or forgiving & overcompensating like i have a tendency to do, i went to someone unbiased to g check me. my therapist did end up giving me that assurance that i wasnt crazy, but also helped me recognise how much i doubt myself, accept bare minimum, or talk myself out of what i feel/want to accommodate/enable others. i knew i had those patterns, but i didnt know to what extent, so for people being gaslit or for those who are prone to abusers / having a warped sense of reality, therapists can really offer that objective, external reassurance that grounds you back into reality without you having to survive a nervous breakdown.

- going also checked my arrogance in thinking i was my one and only saviour. practicing leaning on someone other than me was cool and it was nice to see what that can look like. it also affirmed that i know how to communicate and share (something people at the time were trying to convince me i am not capable of doing)

what i liked less:

- a therapist is not your friend or a replacement for friendship. there were times my therapist would say shit like 'if you ever need someone to talk to im always available' cause i didnt have anyone to talk to. & dont get me wrong, it was super sweet! but .. ultimately, if there was no financial incentive that wouldnt be the case. so i feel like someone more vulnerable or less clued in than me would have heard that and got drawn in, when no matter how cool your therapist is, ultimately the relationship is a business transaction.

- from a spiritual perspective, i feel like therapists know what to tell you according to logic and science, but very few therapists are skilled healers. i dont want to go to someone who helps me rationalise what i think and feel so i can show up as a productive member of this society we live in. i want someone who challenges me to see the truth where id rather buy into soft illusions, and as such helps me show up as an authentic, elevated, expression of me. there were times i was in a session being told something that applied and was smart, but i could tell the therapist didnt even embody that themselves & forgive me for being judgemental, but because they didnt embody it, they couldnt fully understand the consequence of being about the shit they talk about. in that circumstance id rather find an elder whos embodied the lessons their trying to pass on, than someone who only feels comfortable telling me to do what society, their parents, or modern science has understood and approved. sometimes the answer thats right for you isnt a path someone can encourage you toward, you have to find it for yourself. and sometimes, the answer isnt 'self love', 'self work', or gaining a sense of individuality, which is what therapy usually points people toward. sometimes its being in nature, quitting your job, giving service to community, service to nature, service to strangers. healing can mean going off of the beaten oath and therapy doesnt always advocate for that.

- 2 be blunt as fuck, there were times i was simply spending £50 to chat to someone for an hour which is why i no longer go. :/. i personally wanted a therapist so i could gain !!strategies!! that would help me with actually asserting boundaries, & dealing with people who try to violate, in a healthy way. instead i felt like i got an hour session of me talking. maybe that works for some people, but personally i didnt need someone to talk to, vent to, confide in... so it just felt like picking scabs off of closed wounds, whilst someone nods and empathises, but cant give any real indication of how i can change my circumstances or show up differently. then after an hour of bringing up shit you've given me no indication of how to fix, i have to go back into the environment that caused the stress and try not to be triggered or pop off on people. long dayyy

sooo thats how i feel. bare in mind, i am me and i sought out therapy for very specific reasons that may not be your reasons. if you need therapy and thats your path, you need to do whats right for you. however for my needs and where im at right now, i dont feel the need for a therapist. if i came out of processing some heavy shit or was in a place where i needed help or an unbiased voice to check me or reassure me i wouldnt write it off. however i just feel like people need to be self willed and self governed in this life, & the more we tap into what we feel & follow what feels good, the more we know, understand & can walk in wisdomm

hope this wasnt offputtingly long <3 blessings

#ask

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dongsichenged · 3 years

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hi everyone, there's been a lot of false information and missing information going around regarding the lucas situation. in this post, i'm going to be summarizing and translating the accusations against him. this isn't to assign blame or to say if the accusations are truthful or not, but i see a lot of people with inaccurate information

there were three girls who came out with statements against him. details on each under the cut:

op 1, korean, posted on twitter 8/23

this was the account that was swiftly debunked. if you see any posts with a photoshopped plane selfie, edited bubble voice messages, hotel dates that don't line up, or a picture of lucas's trinity ring, this is what those are referring to

link to translation thread here - i don't speak korean so i can't directly verify

summary: op said that after they broke up, lucas would ask her to buy him cigarettes and designer gifts as well as rent hotel rooms for him. she also claims that he gaslit her and cheated on her

op 2, chinese, posted on weibo 8/24, this isn't a direct translation of the entire post and chat conversations, but rather some highlights

she was a fan since summer of 2019. she first met him on december 2nd, 2019 at a beijing fansign. she left her weibo username in a letter to him and in the early hours of december 3rd (the night of the fansign), she got a DM from him

in this DM, he asked her to go to the hotel and meet up with him. at 3am, she went to the hotel room. he told OP that he gets a lot of letters, but only opened OP's and that he noticed her at previous fansigns and would keep the things she gave him.

she said it was her first time in this situation and he said it was also his first time

op asked him if he had DMed any other fans and he said there was only one other from china, but he didn't find them attractive so they only had a meal together

they hooked up, then he told her not to tell anybody and to delete the chat messages. he suggested that they could meet up again, but not to come to the airport because he's tired at the airport and never thinks the fans that meet him at the airport are attractive

OP went to a bangkok fansign but they didn't meet up. they did call each other, and lucas said that he had a bad predebut relationship so even though he liked OP, he didn't want to talk about being in a relationship

the next time was at a shenyang fansign, OP couldn't visit him because she was sick in her hotel room with a fever, but her friend said that he was contacting another chinese fan. after the event, he came to find her

(tw - unprotected sex) that time, they had unprotected sex. she asked him to put on a condom, but he refused to. he said that he hadn't had sex in almost a year. she asked him about the other chinese fan he contacted and he said that this was the fan from before that he had a meal with but didn't find attractive. he was scared that the company would find out and smoked an entire pack of cigarettes in 2 hours

(tw - mention of kris wu) he also told OP that as a trainee he'd go out and party a lot, but he thought people like kris wu were silly and were just in the company to play and never trained.

he said on his show in korea where he pretended to be a soldier, he felt it was too tiring and pretended to have back pain to leave the filming sooner. he complained that chinese variety shows edited him to make him look dumb, so kept hesitating to join the next season.

before leaving to go overseas in feb 2020, he asked OP to just be friends, which she later found out to be his usual excuse.

if not for the first OP, she would have totally believed everything he told her, but now she realizes that she was played a fool

bonus about your fave - he uses secret weibo accounts to vote for himself in popularity polls

op 3, chinese, posted on weibo 8/24. this isn't a direct translation of the entire post and chat conversation, but rather some highlights

OP originally didn't want to come out with this, but after yesterday's posts, realized that she wasn't alone in her experiences with him and other girls had gone through the same things

he would badmouth and make up rumors about other girls just to appease the girl he's with

they first met at his schedule when she airdropped him a reaction image for fun.

he said he wanted to meet up somewhere alone with her. she asked if he had a girlfriend and he said no. she went to pick him up at his hotel and took him back to her house. the first thing he did was start smoking and then drinking.

lucas said that his best friend from trainee days was useless and that his group members don't listen to instructions, don't try hard, and don't practice. he said that one member stole a (modeling/fashion) opportunity from under his nose and that some people don't have any talent but still debut because of their face. he said he didn't like filming Keep Running because his industry seniors gave him a lot of pressure

he also started talking about his family's economic status and that his dad's investments failed. OP thought he was hardworking at first, but then realized that he was just making her feel sorry for him to pick her up

they would frequently see each other at her place, then she would call a car to send him back before his schedule the next morning

he would claim that he didn't bring enough clothes and tell OP to buy clothes for him and bring it to him. he always asked for saint laurent or balenciaga and that he didn't like burberry (the brand that he's an ambassador for)

afterwards, he would make up excuses not to meet. at the time she thought he was worried for her studies but now she realizes that he was actually seeing other people

he would ask if she had her own house and if she lived alone, etc. after confirming that she had a roommate, he stopped responding to her messages

in december, he used the excuse of being too busy as well as saying that they're friends and using that friendship to convince her not to expose anything when his group member was exposed to be contacting fans (t/n: i don't know what she's referring to here)

during the time they were meeting up, she repeatedly asked him if he had a girlfriend or was in contact with other girls. he always said no. he also claimed he never drank with another girl. at the time, she was naive and believed him, thinking that he was just looking for love. she didn't think that he would use his celebrity status and his fans' affection to fulfill his own needs, deceive others, flirting with others when he had a girlfriend

#wayv #lucas #.text #clarification

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missmentelle · 4 years

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How do I know if I'm being gaslit? What does that mean?

If you are experiencing “gaslighting”, it means that someone is intentionally trying to make you feel like you are irrational and insane. They will try to convince you that you can’t trust your own judgement, even about things that you experienced firsthand. The internet tends to use the term ‘gaslighting’ to describe any kind of lying or arguing, but it’s a lot more complicated than that - when you are being gaslit, it means someone is going out of their way to make you feel like you’re the crazy one who causes all the conflict in the relationship when in reality, it’s the other way around. A person who lies about liking your new haircut or starts an argument with you about whose turn it is to do the dishes is probably not gaslighting you - gaslighting is intentional, repeated, and specifically aimed at undermining your sanity and emotional stability. It is a pattern of abuse, and by definition, it can be very difficult to recognize and escape from.

Examples of gaslighting include things like:

Insisting that things did not happen the way you remember them, even if you have proof. Maybe you and the abuser had an argument over WhatsApp yesterday, and they called you a slur. You definitely remember that this happened, because it was devastating for you, and you took screenshots in case they deleted the message. But when you confront the other person about what they said, they flat-out deny that it ever happened - in fact, they have no idea where this is coming from, and they feel insulted that you would accuse them of such a horrible thing. They didn’t do that. They’ve never done that. In fact, there was no argument. You made the whole thing up in your head. It doesn’t matter that you have screenshots - they don’t want to see them, because they know that you are totally misunderstanding what’s in them, just like you always do. When you’re being gaslit, the gaslighter doesn’t care about reality. They will flat-out deny what happened and create a new version of events that puts them in a better light, and they’ll insist that you are the one with the faulty memory for not remembering it that way. Even with evidence right in front of their faces, they’ll stick to their guns and say that you are completely inventing things.

Constantly insisting that you overreact and blow things out of proportion. Maybe you saw a notification on your partner’s phone the other day, and you realize that they’ve been texting other people on a dating app. You are obviously very upset about the situation, and you aren’t sure if you even want to stay in the relationship. But instead of apologizing, your partner begins to get angry with you for how upset you are - they insist that you are blowing this completely out of proportion, that you’re being a huge drama queen, that you’re being manipulative and attention-seeking, and that it’s completely insane for you to be upset. Any time you are upset with the other person for genuinely hurting or harming you in some way, they flip everything around - all of a sudden, the conversation becomes focused on how unstable and dramatic you are, and the abuser’s wrongdoing is totally forgotten. The abuser paints a consistent picture of you as someone who freaks out over absolutely nothing and completely overreacts.

Playing up your existing mental illness or insisting that you are mentally ill. Your abuser sees signs of mental illness in everything you do. If you have a history of mental illness, they’ll insist that it’s coming back - if you don’t have a history of mental illness, they’ll invent a new mental illness for you out of whole cloth. Did you get upset because your partner screamed at you? That’s not normal, you’re having huge mood swings and you’re definitely bipolar. Did you stick up for yourself when your partner was trying to control you? That’s definitely not normal, you’re acting just like this person they knew who had severe BPD. Whenever you are upset about the way you’re being treated or just refusing to be controlled, your abuser will play the mental illness card - suddenly, they are the hard-worn, loving caretaker and you are the very sick person who refuses to let them help you. Sometimes, when you are getting especially angry about your partner’s mistreatment, they may flip a switch and go from yelling at you to acting like your caretaker in an instant - they’ll start pleading with you to get help, offering to drive you to the hospital, and begging you to understand that you aren’t well and that they’re just so worried about you. The point, of course, is to completely undermine you as a person; they want you to believe that you are seriously mentally ill and incapable of understanding what’s real and what isn’t.

Positioning themselves as the innocent “victim” in the relationship, even when they are the one mistreating you. To an outside observer, you are the one constantly being terrorized by someone who criticizes and controls you. But your gaslighter doesn’t want you to see it that way - according to them, they are the innocent victim who has to tiptoe around your constant unpredictable mood swings. They’ll claim that they try so hard to help you and avoid setting you off, but you’re just so unreasonable - they may even claim that you are the one abusing them. Any time you fight back, stand up for yourself or have a negative reaction to their abuse, they will find a way to frame things so that your response is the real issue, and not the abuse that provoked it. If they pinned you against a wall and you pushed them off you to get away, they will flip the narrative on you - they’ll swear up and down that they were just gently trying to keep you from hurting yourself when you violently attacked them. Somehow, every confrontation you have about your partner’s bad behaviour turns into you apologizing and feeling bad, even when you went into the conversation being pretty sure that you did nothing wrong.

Intentionally turning friends and loved ones against you. A gaslighter will sometimes try to recruit your friends and family to “their” side, turning them against you. They will tell your loved ones all about your supposed mood swings, “mental health issues” and how difficult you are being, in an effort to win sympathy and destroy your credibility. The idea is that when you turn to your friends to say “my partner freaked out on me over something small last night”, they’ll respond with “mmmm, your partner already told us this story and they gave a very different version of what happened. It sounds like you’re leaving a lot out to make yourself sound better. Your partner says you’ve been acting weird lately, what’s going on with you?” It’s much easier to warp someone’s perception of reality if you can convince their friends and family to reinforce the fake reality that you’ve created.

Dramatically misrepresenting your motives. A gaslighter will find ways to “prove” that you’re the kind of person they say you are, regardless of what you do. Even if you do something nice for them, they can find ways to twist things to suit their narrative. Did you buy them an expensive birthday present because you care about them? You’re clearly being manipulative and trying to bribe them somehow. Did you clean the whole house for them because you wanted them to be able to enjoy coming home to a clean living space? Nonsense, this was clearly you being passive-aggressive and trying to shame them for not being as clean as you. Your actions end up not mattering - no matter how hard you to try to prove that you aren’t the difficult, terrible person that your gaslighter says you are, they will always find ways to misrepresent your motives and lie about your intentions so they can turn your innocent behaviour into whatever they want it to be.

Being gaslighted is an immensely stressful experience - it’s designed to make you feel crazy, and if you’re subjected to it for a long time, that’s exactly what will happen. It’s unbelievably stressful to be in a position where you feel like you cannot trust your own mind or make rational decisions. And when that stress inevitably starts to affect your mental health, that becomes further evidence that your abuser is correct and that you’re the crazy one. It can be extraordinarily difficult for a victim of long-term gaslighting to escape from their situation, because they genuinely start to believe that they are the problem in the relationship and that they’re lucky anyone will put up with them.

If you suspect you are being gaslit, there are some things you can do to recognize the issue and break free from it:

Keep meticulous records. Write down the details of conversations and arguments as soon as they happen. Record fights with the audio recorder on your phone. Take and save screenshots of important conversations. Save voicemails. Keep a diary with dates and times of events. Nobody has perfect recall, but if your partner’s version of events consistently doesn’t match your hard evidence in a major way, that’s a pretty good sign that they are twisting the truth to suit their needs.

Talk to a neutral third party. Talk to someone outside the relationship that your partner doesn’t have access to - this could be a friend, a coworker, a neighbour, anyone that you feel you can trust. Turn to an internet group or forum if you have to. Show them the evidence you’ve collected or talk to them about what’s happening, and get a neutral perspective. People who have not been exposed to your gaslighter’s charms will be able to tell you pretty quickly that your situation is not normal.

Think about your past relationships. Have any of your past relationships followed the same patterns as your current one? Has anyone in your past made similar complaints about you? If your last relationship didn’t have these kinds of issues, there’s a good chance that the new person in your life is the problem - not you.

Trust your gut. If you get the sense that something isn’t quite right, don’t ignore those feelings. Remember, you don’t actually have to be certain that you’re being gaslighted to justify leaving the relationship - if your relationship frequently causes you stress and anxiety or makes you feel like you can’t be yourself, something is seriously wrong and it may be time to go.

It’s also a good idea to talk to a mental health professional or a domestic abuse expert if you suspect you are being gaslighted - they are experts at helping your recognize it and come up with strategies to have healthier relationships in the future.

Hope this answers your question!

#Anonymous

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blitzendoggo · 2 years

Text

You've Got to Be Kidding Me

Glib, Canyon, S.G., Goodbid, Prophis, and Callisto are trapped in an elevator together.

Callisto/Prophis (not main focus of story) Human!AU and Office!AU (2472 words)

~~~

It had been a relatively uneventful morning for most of the people in the office. They got their coffee, rode the elevator up with a bunch of strangers, got off on their floor, and went to their desk.

However, this was not the case for six unlucky workers at Symmetris Inc.

Glib is a painfully average man -shaggy brown hair, brown eyes, slightly tanned skin, plainly dressed, and stands at a solid 5'7"- who works a normal 9-to-5 on the second to top floor of Symmetris Inc. which has employed the most people in the city. He works IT because he figured out that he has a magic touch when it comes to computers. He doesn't particularly like this job, but it pays the bills with enough money that he isn't living paycheck to paycheck. He was the first in the elevator, quickly followed by his only "work friends" and even that is a stretch.

Canyon, at first glance, is nothing too special. He is pale, freckled, with green-eyes, and unruly ginger hair. Upon further investigation, however, people will come to the quick realization that he is covered in a number of strange scars and nearly seven-foot tall which explains his infamous air-headedness. He is smart, but not overly so, and only when it serves him. He is blunt and to the point, and some how works customer service very well. He takes the shit that is given to him, blinks at them, and gives it right back. It is really a miracle that Canyon hasn't lost his job, and he is well aware of this fact.

Behind Canyon is S.G., a strikingly gorgeous black genderless-being with vitiligo covering large patches of their skin. She used to work customer-service with Canyon but was swiftly moved after she gaslit and lied to many customers. Now he works in sales, specifically trying to convince people to buy into stocks. They love their job, even more so once a handsome young man started working there, Mercury. He works in the shipping department and can only be described as a himbo. S.G. was actually on his way to see Mercury when she got in the elevator with Glib and Canyon.

Before the doors can close, a pale hand sticks through before the doors reopen to reveal Mr. Goodbid. No one is quite sure what his first name is -there are many rumors floating around that it's Johnny, or Naethan, but his favorite is that his first name is literally Mister- so everyone just refers to him as Mr. Goodbid. He is a well-paid lawyer that can write and read a contract better than most people can spell their names. Glib rolls his eyes when Goodbid steps in while S.G. slightly glares. They got into a bad argument the first day Goodbid met them, and they haven't quiet forgiven him yet, and it doesn't help that Goodbid is friends with Mercury which forces S.G. to be kind to him. Canyon, however, just waves happily. He and Goodbid are friends for no reason other than Canyon thought he was chill and Goodbid offered to pay for his coffee when he left his wallet at his desk.

The four of them stand in the elevator and the doors are nearly closed when a frantic voice calls out, "Hold the elevator!" Goodbid reflexively sticks his arm through the door to open it for the stranger. Everyone is startled when two very familiar faces burst through the door.

Prophis and his husband, who is also his co-founder of this company, Callisto, had rushed onto the elevator, panting and slightly out of breath. They had gotten out of bed late -their shared alarm didn't go off- and were running extremely behind. It was seemingly their saving grace that the elevator hadn't closed on them as they had an important meeting to get to.

"Sorry about that," Prophis apologizes once he can breathe properly. "This morning has been awful, and Aldor would be upset-"

"Not just upset, he would be utterly pissy for the rest of the day," Callisto butts in with a sour look on his face.

"Yes, well, in any case it would not be good for us to be even a little late to this meeting," Prophis finishes, casting a glare at Callisto for interrupting him.

"Oh, of course, boss man," Goodbid says with his signature grin. "Can't be upsetting Mr. Order!"

Prophis flashes him a kind smile. "I take it that you are Mr. Goodbid?"

"That is it, indeed, Mr. Chaos!" Goodbid says with a beaming smile.

"Yes well, you are the gossip of the building it seems," Prophis says as Callisto pushes the top floor button.

"Ah shucks! I don't really know why my first name is such a mystery, people could just look it up on my file!" Goodbid says, fidgeting with his briefcase.

"Oh, that's because I removed it from your file," Callisto says without missing a beat while he straightens his tie and fixes his hair.

Everyone's eyes snap to him.

"You what?!" Prophis almost yells but catches himself at the last second.

"What? I get bored too," Callisto says with a sly smile.

Everyone is silent in disbelief before S.G. quietly grumbles, "why didn't I think of that?"

Prophis chuckles at her, easing the tension, and the silence becomes a comfortable one. Glib takes a slow drink of his coffee before Canyon plucks it from his hand, takes a sip, and drops it back into his hand. Glib opens his mouth to yell at Canyon, but before he can, there is an awful metal hiss.

Everyone looks up in alarm, as the lights flicker before cutting off entirely and the elevator clanks to a stop. There's a moment of extreme tension before the emergency lights come to life, casting everyone in an eerie light.

"You've got to be kidding me," Callisto hisses, more aggravated that he is going to be late than the fact that he is currently trapped in a crowded elevator, as he hits the emergency button and leans against the door.

The emergency lights flash slightly, causing Glib's and Goodbid's eyes to go wide. "We are having the most awful luck today!" Prophis says, completely unbothered as he also leans against the door.

"You're saying that like you forgot your keys!" Glib says, grabbing onto the railing and bracing himself against it. "Not like someone who is trapped in an elevator!"

"Relax, uh, I'm sorry I don't believe I caught your name," Prophis says, in his same unbothered tone.

"Is that really important right now?!" Glib snaps back.

"Well, I would like to know my employee's names," Prophis says calmly.

"Glib! The name's Glib!" He says through gritted teeth, his knuckles turning bone-white from his tight grip.

"Ah, thank you. Relax, Glib, help will be here soon," Prophis says that makes Glib question if he's even human. "Oh, and what are the two of your names?" Prophis asks, addressing S.G. who looks alarmed, but not scared, and Canyon who looks almost completely unbothered except for his grip on the railing behind him.

"Canyon," The ginger-haired man replies instantly, sticking out a hand for Prophis to shake.

"My name is very long, so most people just call me S.G." Prophis gives him an understanding nod and shakes their hand as well.

"I hate to say it, but I think I agree with Glib here!" Goodbid says, looking pale as he presses himself against the back wall. "Y'all seem way too calm about this!"

"No, we just aren't being overdramatic little babies," Canyon tells him bluntly before turning back to Prophis and Callisto. "How long do you think we'll be in here?"

"Ten minutes," Callisto says. He pulls out his phone before tsking. "Do any of you happen to have service?"

Everyone pulls out their phones and they all have no signal, except for Canyon, whose phone is dead.

"I forgot to charge it," he says as he sticks it back into his pocket.

They all fall silent as they look between each other. Canyon, Prophis, and Callisto look far too calm about this situation; S.G. is just irritated that she'll miss their morning talk with Mercury; and Goodbid and Glib are the only two who are a reasonable amount of worried.

Glib takes slow deep breaths, forcing his heart to slow down before it causes him to go into cardiac arrest. Goodbid seems to also regain his composure and sets down his briefcase. With two clicks he swings it open and pulls out a deck of playing cards.

"Anyone up for a game?" Goodbid asks, holding the cards up as he sits down cross-legged.

They get through three games of crazy eights and two rounds of go-fish before S.G. points out that help should have come by now.

"Its been at least twenty minutes," she says, still irritated that he will have to miss their morning conversation with Mercury. Prophis checks his watch, winces, but says nothing.

"Perhaps I need to hit the button again?" Callisto muses out loud as he hits the button. He hits it again but notices a lack of noise. "Oh, you've got to be kidding me."

"What?" Glib asks, already fearing the worst.

"I don't think it's going through, there's supposed to be a noise tied into that." He points at the button before sighing and sitting back down on the floor.

"So you mean to tell me that the emergency button isn't working?" Glib says, barely containing his rage.

"It would seem that way," Callisto replies. Canyon expects Glib to scream, but instead he just looks forward before letting his head thunk against the wall.

Glib doesn't speak again for several minutes, the others start a card game in the meantime.

"How long have we been in here?" Glib asks after a while. His voice is distant and tired, but at least he's still responsive.

Prophis flicks his watch up again, reads the time, and goes back to the card game. "Just over an hour."

"An hour?!" or some variant of it is said by everyone in the elevator, ranging from stunned whispering (S.G.) to full yelling (Glib).

"Yes, an hour. We got in here around 8:20, it is nearly 9:30 now," Prophis explains calmly as he returns to the card game.

"And no one's come for us yet?!" Glib yelps. He looks at the other occupants, surveying their emotions. Goodbid looks like he's going to pass out, S.G. looks shocked, Canyon looks confused, Callisto looks unperturbed, and Prophis looks bored. Glib gets to his feet and starts hitting every button on the panel.

"What on earth are you doing?" Callisto asks, eyes not leaving his cards as he places another one down.

"Hitting all the buttons to see if any of them work!" Glib hits the buttons for five minutes before sitting back down in a huff.

"It was a good try, Glib," S.G. offers.

"Nah, I really don't think that was worth the effort. We know the elevator's broken, what good would hitting the broken buttons do?" Canyon says with his signature lazy grin as he plays a card.

"Well at least he tried to do something'!" Goodbid snaps at Canyon.

"Relax, Mustache, shouting will not help us here," Canyon quips back instantly.

"It might not get this elevator movin', but it sure as hell is makin' me feel better!" Goodbid howls, seeming to boil over. He gets to his feet and starts gesturing wildly. "So Imma keep shoutin' until this goddamned elevator gets movin' or my voice gives out!" He stomps his foot, causing the whole elevator to shake, and in a miracle the lights flicker back on, and it hums back to life. Goodbid stares in disbelief for a moment before muttering," well, I'll be damned."

"Huh, note to self, if stuck in a broken-down elevator, start screaming," Glib says as he stares up at Goodbid.

With a mechanical shutter the elevator heaves up and everyone braces against the walls. Glib starts muttering prayers to the Kraken as it comes to a stop and the door open to reveal an irate Aldor yelling at the head of security.

"Sir, I have no clue where they are!" Zalkas says as if he's repeating himself for the thousandth time. At the sound of the elevator opening, he spins on his heels, hand resting reflexively on his gun. He stares, drop-jawed at them

"Uh, hello," Prophis says as he takes a step out, followed by Callisto who is desperately trying to fix his dress shirt.

"Where have you been?!" Aldor roars, shoving past Zalkas, who lets him. If Zalkas didn't want to move, he wouldn't have. He is 6'7" -the only person who is taller than him is Canyon- and works out religiously. He is a walking tank, but he also practically worships Aldor.

"Trapped in the elevator," Callisto says, striding up to his co-founder. "We really need to get them checked out."

"For over an hour?!" Aldor says, trying to catch Callisto in his lie.

"Yes, for over an hour! We lost power," Callisto hisses, his voice dropping dangerously low.

Glib clears his throat before Aldor can say anything else. "He's right, we were trapped with them." He takes a tentative step forward, almost worried that Aldor will start yelling at him.

Instead, Aldor clicks his tongue. He straightens his suit jacket while glaring at Callisto and Prophis. His eyes snap to the four still standing in the elevator. "Well? Don't you have work to be doing?!" He snaps, dismissing them.

"No, take the day off," Prophis says, stepping between Aldor and the group. "You've earned it." He and Aldor are locked into an intense staring contest when the others awkwardly shuffle out of the elevator and towards the hall.

"What do you think you are doing?!" Aldor growls. If looks could kill, they'd be dust.

"Using the stairs," Canyon, the bravest -or possibly the stupidest- among them says.

Callisto breathes out a laugh before shaking his head. "I don't believe any of us will ever use the elevator again."

"Well to bad, use the elevator!" Aldor says, leaving no room for discussion. All of them scramble back into the elevator. Aldor's eyes go to Zalkas who has been silently observing the interaction. "You are dismissed, return to your station."

"Yes, sir," Zalkas says immediately. He turns on his heels and gets in the elevator. The doors slide to a shut behind him and the elevator begins moving before the lights flicker and the elevator comes to a halt.

The lights go out completely and from the darkness there are a series of groans.

"Welp," Glib says tiredly. "Start screaming."

"What?!" Zalkas shrieks, and the lights flicker on just slightly.

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route22ny · 4 years

Photo

*Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your kids to Disneyland makes you: proud. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

What the trauma has shown us, though, cannot be unseen. A carless Los Angeles has clear blue skies as pollution has simply stopped. In a quiet New York, you can hear the birds chirp in the middle of Madison Avenue. Coyotes have been spotted on the Golden Gate Bridge. These are the postcard images of what the world might be like if we could find a way to have a less deadly daily effect on the planet. What’s not fit for a postcard are the other scenes we have witnessed: a health care system that cannot provide basic protective equipment for its frontline; small businesses — and very large ones — that do not have enough cash to pay their rent or workers, sending over 16 million people to seek unemployment benefits; a government that has so severely damaged the credibility of our media that 300 million people don’t know who to listen to for basic facts that can save their lives.

The cat is out of the bag. We, as a nation, have deeply disturbing problems. You’re right. That’s not news. They are problems we ignore every day, not because we’re terrible people or because we don’t care about fixing them, but because we don’t have time. Sorry, we have other shit to do. The plain truth is that no matter our ethnicity, religion, gender, political party (the list goes on), nor even our socioeconomic status, as Americans we share this: We are busy. We’re out and about hustling to make our own lives work. We have goals to meet and meetings to attend and mortgages to pay — all while the phone is ringing and the laptop is pinging. And when we get home, Crate and Barrel and Louis Vuitton and Andy Cohen make us feel just good enough to get up the next day and do it all over again. It is very easy to close your eyes to a problem when you barely have enough time to close them to sleep. The greatest misconception among us, which causes deep and painful social and political tension every day in this country, is that we somehow don’t care about each other. White people don’t care about the problems of black America. Men don’t care about women’s rights. Cops don’t care about the communities they serve. Humans don’t care about the environment. These couldn’t be further from the truth. We do care. We just don’t have the time to do anything about it. Maybe that’s just me. But maybe it’s you, too.

Well, the treadmill you’ve been on for decades just stopped. Bam! And that feeling you have right now is the same as if you’d been thrown off your Peloton bike and onto the ground: What in the holy fuck just happened? I hope you might consider this: What happened is inexplicably incredible. It’s the greatest gift ever unwrapped. Not the deaths, not the virus, but The Great Pause. It is, in a word, profound. Please don’t recoil from the bright light beaming through the window. I know it hurts your eyes. It hurts mine, too. But the curtain is wide open. What the crisis has given us is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see ourselves and our country in the plainest of views. At no other time, ever in our lives, have we gotten the opportunity to see what would happen if the world simply stopped. Here it is. We’re in it. Stores are closed. Restaurants are empty. Streets and six-lane highways are barren. Even the planet itself is rattling less (true story). And because it is rarer than rare, it has brought to light all of the beautiful and painful truths of how we live. And that feels weird. Really weird. Because it has… never… happened… before. If we want to create a better country and a better world for our kids, and if we want to make sure we are even sustainable as a nation and as a democracy, we have to pay attention to how we feel right now. I cannot speak for you, but I imagine you feel like I do: devastated, depressed, and heartbroken.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and J. Crew and Gwyneth Paltrow to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte with two pumps of syrup, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.

And so the onslaught is coming. Get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

But you did. You are not crazy, my friends. And so we are about to be gaslit in a truly unprecedented way. It starts with a check for $1,200 (Don’t say I never gave you anything) and then it will be so big that it will be bigly. And it will be a one-two punch from both big business and the big White House — inextricably intertwined now more than ever and being led by, as our luck would have it, a Marketer in Chief. Business and government are about to band together to knock us unconscious again. It will be funded like no other operation in our lifetimes. It will be fast. It will be furious. And it will be overwhelming. The Great American Return to Normal is coming.

From one citizen to another, I beg of you: Take a deep breath, ignore the deafening noise, and think deeply about what you want to put back into your life. This is our chance to define a new version of normal, a rare and truly sacred (yes, sacred) opportunity to get rid of the bullshit and to only bring back what works for us, what makes our lives richer, what makes our kids happier, what makes us truly proud. We get to Marie Kondo the shit out of it all. We care deeply about one another. That is clear. That can be seen in every supportive Facebook post, in every meal dropped off for a neighbor, in every Zoom birthday party. We are a good people. And as a good people, we want to define — on our own terms — what this country looks like in five, 10, 50 years. This is our chance to do that, the biggest one we have ever gotten. And the best one we’ll ever get.

We can do that on a personal scale in our homes, in how we choose to spend our family time on nights and weekends, what we watch, what we listen to, what we eat, and what we choose to spend our dollars on and where. We can do it locally in our communities, in what organizations we support, what truths we tell, and what events we attend. And we can do it nationally in our government, in which leaders we vote in and to whom we give power. If we want cleaner air, we can make it happen. If we want to protect our doctors and nurses from the next virus — and protect all Americans — we can make it happen. If we want our neighbors and friends to earn a dignified income, we can make that happen. If we want millions of kids to be able to eat if suddenly their school is closed, we can make that happen. And, yes, if we just want to live a simpler life, we can make that happen, too. But only if we resist the massive gaslighting that is about to come. It’s on its way. Look out.

https://forge.medium.com/prepare-for-the-ultimate-gaslighting-6a8ce3f0a0e0

#covid19 #return to normalcy #social manipulation #everything is broken #julio vincent gambuto

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the-gay-trashmouth · 3 years

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I feel like this is way off topic but I've been thinking about it so heres a long ass post about it.

I feel like a lot of people don't understand that someone can be a "Good Parent" and also do toxic things. Like, i was talking to my friend about how her dad yells at her and never apologizes, even when she's driving and he knows she has serious twitches when she anxious. She got upset that i would dare imply her father is abusive, or that he is in someway someone she needs to cut out of her life.

My friends dad is a kind man. Hes funny, he accepting, and he used the right name a pronouns within the month that she told him. He always wants what's best for her and shes the center of his world. Hes a good man and a good parent- but he screams when he thinks shes done something wrong, even if it wasn't her fault or its a dangerous situation. That's toxic behavior and any therapist would tell you that. I would know, three of mine did.

I feel like this idea that parents are either perfectly fine and good or terrible and abusive when, in reality, parents are still just people with issues and toxic ideas that need to be addressed. After all, parenting is fucking hard. That's a whole ass human you're shaping and its your job to try and make sure they arent fucked up more than they have to be. There's no perfect guide for every child, and a lot of these behaviors are passed down from their parents. No, it doesn't make them abusive or unfit to parent, but its still harmful and in need of correcting.

I know that no one wants to call their parents out on their shit, especially if they're the only one you have left. I've all but cut my dad out of my life and if anyone says ine bad word about my mother I feel that defensive rage bubbling under my skin. How could I not? That's the woman that gave everything for me, the woman who taught me how to read and dream, who taught me to be kind and polite to everyone and to question everything about the world around you. She was the first person in my family to completely accept my sexuality and even made a joke about having to buy two wedding dresses instead of one, because she was already changing her dream for my life to fit my new lobe interest. Shes kind and sweet and helpful-

Shes also an alcoholic. She also disappeared in her grief and left me to fend for myself when i was just nine. She also guilts me for not working hard enough because im the only one who helps her. She also made me smoke myself sick when she found out i stole some of her smokes.

Shes not a bad mother, and she certainly not a bad person, but shes not perfect. Shes taken things from her parents (the guilt and the smoking thing) and made up the rest as she went along. I've learned to see that and work to correct the behaviors shes taught me. It took a lot of therapy for the both of us to get over past traumas and correct toxic behaviors. And i know if i ever have children there will be things i have to work through and fix within myself.

When you say that any toxic or otherwise unhealthy behavior means a parent is abusive and or unfit to parent, people get defensive. They refuse to actually listen because you've just told them their mom or dad is an abuser. And i feel like when you equate fuck ups and bad parenting to serious abuse, it can make kids who are actually being abused feel like its not so bad. After all, these people are calling mister Carl or whatever abusive and hes kind as all hell most of the time.

Idk maybe this is just me, but i know neglect. I know being ignored and left to fend for myself while i waste away in my room. I know being gaslit and convinced that my trauma didn't actually happen, or that i was blowing it our of proportion. There's a reason i don't spend time with my father. Theres a reason my grandmother kept me with her when my old stepfather was drunk.

Yes, the behavoir is toxic and yes you should always call out bad parenting and behavior but automatically labeling a parent as abusive or unfit isnt helping anything. It just makes people defensive and unlikely to actually look into it.

That's just my thoughts though, as someone who's been in actually toxic and neglectful households, I just don't.. I don't get it.

#abuse mention #tw abuse #abuse tw #toxic parents #stari wont shut up #tw neglect #neglect tw #self harm mention #tw self harm #self harm tw

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kny111 · 4 years

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Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting*

by Julio Vincent Gambuto

Pretty soon, as the country begins to figure out how we “open back up” and move forward, very powerful forces will try to convince us all to get back to normal. (That never happened. What are you talking about?) Billions of dollars will be spent on advertising, messaging, and television and media content to make you feel comfortable again. It will come in the traditional forms — a billboard here, a hundred commercials there — and in new-media forms: a 2020–2021 generation of memes to remind you that what you want again is normalcy. In truth, you want the feeling of normalcy, and we all want it. We want desperately to feel good again, to get back to the routines of life, to not lie in bed at night wondering how we’re going to afford our rent and bills, to not wake to an endless scroll of human tragedy on our phones, to have a cup of perfectly brewed coffee and simply leave the house for work. The need for comfort will be real, and it will be strong. And every brand in America will come to your rescue, dear consumer, to help take away that darkness and get life back to the way it was before the crisis. I urge you to be well aware of what is coming.

For the last hundred years, the multibillion-dollar advertising business has operated based on this cardinal principle: Find the consumer’s problem and fix it with your product. When the problem is practical and tactical, the solution is “as seen on TV” and available at Home Depot. Command strips will save me from having to repaint. So will Mr. Clean’s Magic Eraser. Elfa shelving will get rid of the mess in my closet. The Ring doorbell will let me see who’s on the porch if I can’t take my eyes off Netflix. But when the problem is emotional, the fix becomes a new staple in your life, and you become a lifelong loyalist. Coca-Cola makes you: happy. A Mercedes makes you: successful. Taking your family on a Royal Caribbean cruise makes you: special. Smart marketers know how to highlight what brands can do for you to make your life easier. But brilliant marketers know how to rewire your heart. And, make no mistake, the heart is what has been most traumatized this last month. We are, as a society, now vulnerable in a whole new way.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not without purpose. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted, and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin. We have got to do better and find a way to a responsible free market.

Until then, get ready, my friends. What is about to be unleashed on American society will be the greatest campaign ever created to get you to feel normal again. It will come from brands, it will come from government, it will even come from each other, and it will come from the left and from the right. We will do anything, spend anything, believe anything, just so we can take away how horribly uncomfortable all of this feels. And on top of that, just to turn the screw that much more, will be the one effort that’s even greater: the all-out blitz to make you believe you never saw what you saw. The air wasn’t really cleaner; those images were fake. The hospitals weren’t really a war zone; those stories were hyperbole. The numbers were not that high; the press is lying. You didn’t see people in masks standing in the rain risking their lives to vote. Not in America. You didn’t see the leader of the free world push an unproven miracle drug like a late-night infomercial salesman. That was a crisis update. You didn’t see homeless people dead on the street. You didn’t see inequality. You didn’t see indifference. You didn’t see utter failure of leadership and systems.

#opinion #literature #lit #covid-19 #coronavirus #pandemic #writing #disenfranchisement #oppression #abuse

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incarnateirony · 5 years

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Look - off her rockers Kelios thinking that line was about Dean and Lee cutting a woman in half and violating her parts says everything about her mental state. But I disagree that the only SANE and LOGICAL interpretation of sharing a woman is that they took part in a devil's triangle. It's possible. I am not saying it's not, at all. But that wasn't my immediate thought. Mine was Dean had sex with her. Then she went with Lee. Perfectly valid, non sane, non-gay interpretation. Why are YOU right?

*Yawwwwwns* Any other nonnies want to come out and show that they don’t understand their headcanon versus the text and literally the most straightforward reading of the content? Is this just a loop I’m going to have to deal with? “VINDICATE MY BITTERNESS BY PERSONALLY PERFORMING FOR ME, FOR IT IS I! GLASSESFACE MCNOBODY”.

Calm down anon.

I’ll eventually write about it.

Given, I have more important things to talk about, first, than teaching what median stats tells me is somewhere in the wheelhouse of either a 17 year old that has no idea how storytelling and production works that’s been gaslit to death by a 40 year old conspiracy theorist; or, alternately, you in fact are a 40 year old woman panicking about dicks touching and/or pissed that they didn’t get to see the dicks touching and/or intentionally misreading anything and hoping to justify that with to a whole… *checks statcounter* 4 nonnies, probably all hiding in the same group chat and pretending to be unrelated while targeting different discussion angles from aggressive to sea lion – like, look. I’ve got mytharc meta to do. I’ve got general meta to do. I’ve got music videos to make.

“ELI5 what I already know better about but pretend the rest of the world doesn’t” is really not peak discussion.

But minding, of course, that I do often talk about things like false narratives, manipulated discussion and definitions, and fandom moving its own goalposts to a mix of idiot antis that already know better, a perceived GA resisting them that doesn’t exist in any metrix, and… *shrug* it’s about all you guys have to do anymore once you got lost to that bitter hole?

I’m sorry if your entire fucking experience has been subsumed by talking down your own textual LGBT content just because you… want to collectively imagine there’s a bunch of other people that don’t get 2+2 and/or get 2+2 but want to argue with the content. And/or you’ve chosen to or been convinced that “high visibility, inarguable text” is the same as deadass “text”. Either way it’s ridiculous.

That’s a you thing.

Is it fair to want more visible text? Sure! That’s the nature of the LGBT battle! Totally fair!

THAT DOESN’T MAKE THE TEXT NOT TEXT NO MATTER HOW HARD YOU CHOOSE TO MANIPULATE THE SANDBOX.

You are confusing “unsatisfactory text” with “subtext”.

I’ll eventually include this very event in my inevitable fandom discourse, but there’s a certain amount I’m going to limit you intentionally wanky, anonymous fuckers disrupting my general talk and analysis of the show.

I’ll get there when I get there. And you’re probably not going to look kindly back on the memorial of your own anonymous reflection when I do.

But one thing I will absolutely not abide, and not be party in, is deleting text, thin and unsatisfactory to some as it may be, that does, indeed textualize an element that multiple bisexual people in my mentions have been lamenting y’all *choosing to delete their representative text*. No, it’s not “fine” because you’re bisexual too. That’ll never be fine. Microaggressions against your own are never fine. Your internalized issues are yours, and once they spray on other people, you’re bringing *your* garbage to *their* footstep.

It’s *fine* to want that more visible text. It is *not fine* to delete existing LGBT text and your own fellow LGBT community members just because it was not *satisfactory text to YOU*.

If your fight for “visibility” is motivated primarily by “but I want to win every argument ever online no matter how much of an intentionally stupid fuckface this anti that might as well be a MAGAtrollbot this person is being”, you’ve left the field of fighting for representation long ago. Either you resonate with Dean Winchester as a character, or you don’t. There is no in between. The text may not be high visibility enough, but if you resonate with and accept the character, the canon, and yes, the text, it is what it is. That’s representative. It’s not high visibility. But it’s representative. Not every rep point is high visibility. And it’s fine to want better visibility. But circle back to the other elements.

And make sure you’re actually in this for representation. Not personal vindication for feeding the trolls under the bridge.

I am DONE watching y’all steamroll people’s representation in the interest of trying to push a line that is your personal satisfaction line. I’m done watching you delete actual fucking people in your course to prove… *checks list* Let’s see, Wincest or Samwitch at this point, the latter being a small contingent and not the sum of its fandom but a few pretty big names.

Yes, deleting Eileen is problematic too because it is *literally* a representation issue for disability, which Bobo went to the fucking NON-WB/NON-CW/NON-SPN DISABILITY REPRESENTATION PANEL TO LISTEN TO AND PULL SHOSHANNA ASIDE. AND INVITE HER BACK TO THE SHOW.

You know, the MIDDLE AGED LGBT MALE AUTHOR that y’all seem to fucking conveniently forget that while bagging on how he chooses to depict his queer content within his given regulations. For… a middle aged LGBT male character. So I’m curious, how many of you hit the intersectional demographic of “LGBT, male, age range” – I’m curious. All three. Everybody raise your hands. Nobody?

Jesus christ y’all. Stop and realize that your fanon ideals have made perception of canon and text become outright deranged, fucking hell. And it’s making you destructive to the representation we DO get.

So here’s how this works: You all forget we ever talked about this, or I ever said this, or even how you truly initially felt in the moment. You forget. You go back to writing agenda-based posts about some alternative ship and talk in circles. You end up fifteen yards right of canon, but at some point, some noncommittal “and then Jack comes back” clear as day like even a fucking toddler could see it coming, or IDK, you celebrate calling Dukes of Hazard as the song when literally several HUNDRED people on my list got it because it was clear as day, or *whatever* to make it sound like *your read is even in the ballpark of accurate and viable*, only to end up… let’s face it. Even people pretending they don’t, and making every bronly-esque excuse in the world around Saileen, fucking see it. People who wanted something else will continue to buy into the narrative as it falls apart more and more meagerly, and pretend common sense and text aren’t clear enough, for personally motivated reasons -- but it IS. WHAT. IT. IS.

But at some point some noncommital very general estimate of where the story inevitably goes on like a grade school level of story understanding will be used to try to prop up the rest of a crumbling narrative while you still don’t even understand how some people understood Michael was coming, or that Chuck was going to be the big bad, but damn if you won’t argue nonsensical headcanons against surface level text and then trumpet victory because *checks notes* Jack got possessed which 99% of us saw coming, but sure, good for you!

Why?

BECAUSE Y’ALL DO IT ALL THE TIME.

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pgoeltz · 4 years

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Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting* You are not crazy, my friends Julio Vincent Gambuto Julio Vincent Gambuto Follow Apr 10 · 9 min read

Gaslighting, if you don’t know the word, is defined as manipulation into doubting your own sanity; as in, Carl made Mary think she was crazy, even though she clearly caught him cheating. He gaslit her.

And what a perfect time for Best Buy and H&M and Wal-Mart to help me feel normal again. If I could just have the new iPhone in my hand, if I could rest my feet on a pillow of new Nikes, if I could drink a venti blonde vanilla latte or sip a Diet Coke, then this very dark feeling would go away. You think I’m kidding, that I’m being cute, that I’m denying the very obvious benefits of having a roaring economy. You’re right. Our way of life is not ruinous. The economy is not, at its core, evil. Brands and their products create millions of jobs. Like people — and most anything in life — there are brands that are responsible and ethical, and there are others that are not. They are all part of a system that keeps us living long and strong. We have lifted more humans out of poverty through the power of economics than any other civilization in history. Yes, without a doubt, Americanism is a force for good. It is not some villainous plot to wreak havoc and destroy the planet and all our souls along with it. I get it, and I agree. But its flaws have been laid bare for all to see. It doesn’t work for everyone. It’s responsible for great destruction. It is so unevenly distributed in its benefit that three men own more wealth than 150 million people. Its intentions have been perverted, and the protection it offers has disappeared. In fact, it’s been brought to its knees by one pangolin.

—

Note: The author and Medium have made minor tweaks since initial publication.

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goldenrathians · 5 years

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So, I would like to take some time to elaborate on who exactly has been cyberstalking me for the last 10 months and the context for nearly every personal post i make. I’m doing this because I haven’t ever really directly stated what happened to me beyond “my last relationship was abusive and my ex is not finished with me” and because i know she reads my blog constantly, i figure it can’t hurt to list some of her actions.

this year, i’ve done a lot of healing, gone to a lot of therapy. ive been able to distance myself enough from my ex to realize that not only was her behavior towards me during our relationship emotionally abusive, manipulative, and unfair, but that her behavior since leaving me has been even worse (harrassment, smear campaigns, lying, stalking). it took about 5 months to really even be able to acknowledge that it was abuse while we were together and that the amount of self blame i had been harboring was something she’d purposefully instilled in me. the unhealthy behaviors i’d been expressing while with her (mood swings, outbursts of anger, confusion, difficulty with overattachment) are literally symptoms of a trauma bond and began to go away almost immediately after implementing no contact. i also currently have doubts about the validity of any of her statements concerning her other exes and current partner because i know she enjoys lying and uses it as a tool to turn people against her victims. i also experienced symptoms of ptsd following the breakup that worsened when i began to fully admit to myself the extent of the emotional trauma i’d gone through (for context, i went from an unhealthy relationship with someone far older than me directly into my last one, so it was about 3 years worth of baggage).

i am capable of recognizing that not only was it good for me to be discarded by my abuser but that she only did so because i had become too vocal about my unhappiness with the way she was treating me. we fought pretty much every week because she continually neglected my needs while i tried to cater to hers and whenever i would bring it up she would accuse me of being controlling, violent, or otherwise unhealthy. she has gaslit me before (and oddly enough accused me of doing the same to her to a friend, despite me never having done such a thing) and convinced me briefly that i had undiagnosed bipolar disorder and that THAT was why i was always so unhappy with our relationship. she likes people who make her feel good about herself, and because i was no longer able to do that at a rate which outweighed my criticism of her behavior, she decided to fabricate an excuse to leave me and did so through text and would not allow me to speak about it to her for the next month. she also tried to get me to stay friends even though i had explicitly told her i did not want to do that, and when i told her i would on the condition that i be allowed to ask about the breakup or take time to express grief, she told me that she was “not my therapist” and that i was being unfair. i then cut contact with her, which began the now 10 months long (and most likely will be years long) period of harrassment and stalking.

i have dozens of screenshots saved of our discussions on discord, as well as detailed records of her activity since we broke up (all the times she harrassed me). i have evidence of her talking about me to her friends at the time of us dating in a way that paints me in a very poor light. i have screenshots of a conversation where she forced me to publicly apologize to her friend group after claiming that i was an embarrassment, which was prefaced by the phrase “i love you, so i cut you a lot of slack.”

she used my physical attraction to her as a tool on numerous occasions. first of all, she literally lured me into the relationship with it, as the one i’d had before had left me feeling disgusting and unwanted because of a transphobic partner. she learned how to make me feel whole and then used that to her advantage, because it was instrumental in getting me to stay (i believed no one else would treat me like a person in bed). sex became a bargaining chip and on more than one occasion i was told i was unnattractive or undesirable because of something i’d done, such as expressing the urge to be more submissive in bed. i was also encouraged to force myself on her sexually during a fight (something i am not and was not comfortable doing in reality), which i now realize was her way of using sex to keep me from staying mad at her long enough to raise a complaint about her treatment of me. as a result, i’ve had extreme difficulty with touch and sexual contact over the last ten months because in my head no matter who i sleep with the last person who touched me is her and i can’t escape that.

i constantly felt trapped, because i was aware on some level that people do not treat someone they love in this way, and yet any time i tried to leave she would act like she could change and treat me right. i kept staying around against my better judgement because i thought she would stop lying to me. i felt i owed it to her because she said so many people in the past gave up on her or got mad at her for being depressed. i truly thought she was a good person and that a good person would be capable of reasoning with me and we could both be happy.

she also maintained contact with the person she’d been dating before she met me, which was unquestionably cruel towards said individual. She would say hateful things about this person, yet never give them a chance to truly grow on their own and encouraged them to stay in love with her (i suspect they had a similar attachment to her). After dumping me she returned to this person only to abandon them again three months later to get engaged to someone she may have been cheating on them with.

i have proof of her lying about committments we’d made to eachother as a way to get out of spending time with me, and when confronted with evidence of said lies by people who’d witnessed her make the promise and fail to keep it, she would respond negatively and blame me, telling me i was a controlling person and then giving me the silent treatment. she constantly accused me of using our relationship as a threat in arguments, yet i never once said “if you don’t do __ i will break up with you,” only confessed that it felt like she did not want to be with me because of the lying and the refusal to spend time with me. she expressed desire to physically assault me once while angry, and made repeated comparisons between me and her abusive father, despite my voiced discomfort with being compared to men. when i once said (and immediately regretted) that sometimes i wished i could “shut her up forever” during a fight, she then began to claim that i harbored desire to physically abuse her...despite her having expressed violent desires towards me months earlier. anything i had ever said or done became fair game in an argument if i tried to voice my discomfort in the relationship.

she often compared me to her exes or to her friends as a way to make me feel inadequate or unenjoyable to be around. she would then private message me to start fights while around these friends, then accuse me of starting fights and preventing any further private communication. if i showed signs of distress publicly, i would then be “humiliating” her and she would tell her friends that i was overemotional.

She told me reasonably early on in the relationship (first six months) that she wanted to marry me. She said that since she was going to be in the military, we should marry soon so that we could live together. I was hesitant at first because it seemed strange to marry at 20 or 21. She would continue to bring it up until I said I was okay to do so. She told me in december that she wanted me to buy her a $400 bear and propose to her with it. Every month I was met with the same message of “I want to marry you.” In may, I mentioned that i might propose when she visited in july, since she had said to propose before she enlisted. She told me it was too soon and that she no longer wanted to be engaged to me. I was hurt and responded poorly, and accused her of having once again made a promise to me she had no intention of keeping. I recognize now that as an isolated incident, this was a total, blatant overreaction, but at the time i was feeling a lot of stress due to her racking up nearly $500 on my debit card and her repeatedly agreeing to date nights and cancelling last second while arguing with me if i was unhappy. She then used the military as an excuse to dump me in early june, which i now suspect was a total lie because i know for a fact she has not gone to basic yet and has been theoretically scheduled to for nearly a year. She accused me of being immature and pathetic, and told me that her life was much better without me in it. I asked her if there was someone else, which she denied, but i knew better. I had been suspecting it for a while.

since i told her to never contact me again over the summer she has:

in july, she began dating her ex girlfriend again, and told a mutual friend she had never loved me to begin with. Keep in mind that this ex was the one she’d left to date me, and that I never once pressured her to be with me. I don’t doubt that she never loved me, but not through my own personal failings. Rather, i don’t think she is capable of healthy love. She would repeatedly bring up that she did not ever love me and that I was stupid for believing her when she’d told me she wanted to be with me.

In august, i was still suffering the effects of the trauma bond and was still in love with her despite knowing she was being unnecessarily cruel to me. i couldn’t believe the person i’d loved with my whole being was the same person who was openly insulting me. I tried to ask a friend how she was doing in late july. He told me she was happy with her then partner and showed me screencaps of her doting on said partner with the same “we should be together forever” crap she fed me. I was later made aware that he would mock me behind my back with her. At the time i had her blocked on most social media platforms, but she reached out on a tumblr sideblog to tell me i was an idiot and that i should have known she never loved me and that her then-girlfriend loved her better than i could and that she had always been in love with her.

in october/early november, she dumped that person. she then began dating someone who i know has a history of low self esteem (she picks her targets like that) and purposefully liked a personal post on my blog (knowing that i would take the bait and try to directly engage her). I did. And she told me in the most condescending way possible that again, i didn’t know anything about her and that she was happy with this new person, who was everything i was not, and that i was the person who needed to grow and let go of bitterness. Please note that i had only asked why she was liking things on my blog. I told her i didn’t want to hear from her anymore and blocked her again on discord. She then reached out to me on tumblr (before i could block her there) to say “I can unblock you on my main account if you want to talk.” as though it were some kind of favor to do that to me. as though i had done literally anything besides say “i’m blocking you, don’t contact me.”

Also in november she had her new girlfriend send me messages telling me to stop stalking her, which is ridiculous because i made a rule to myself to not look at her social media back in august and had been reading about what to do with narcissists (no contact rule). The new girlfriend told me I deserved what had happened to me. I attempted to warn the new girlfriend that it was all lies, but then realized it wouldn’t do any good, so i blocked the both of them.

On january 1st, i recieved a discord call from a dormant group chat (unused for nearly a year). It was from the new girlfriend. She hung up and then posted screenshots of her and my ex together, along with a message @ing me saying that they were now living together (from long distance to cohabiting in my ex’s parents’ house) and that my ex had proposed to her. Multiple people witnessed this. It was entirely unprovoked on my part as i had not attempted to contact either of them since november. This was a post designed to demoralize me or upset me, which it failed to do because by december i was out of love and in full recovery. i had acknowledged that my ex was not the person i had romanticized so heavily in my head.

Late january, my ex posed as her fiancee on discord to message someone who was once a mutual friend but who is now only my friend. After he told her he wasn’t interested in talking, she revealed it was her and not her fiancee, made a very pitiful attempt to insult him, and then blocked him.

Early february, she contacted a friend of mine whom she had met twice in real life december 2017. she still had his phone number and snapchat, and reportedly sent him an image of a paypal receipt, which i suspect had something to do with the (expensive) items i’d requested she return to me when we broke up. This could have been innocent, but given her other patterns, i highly doubt that it was anything short of intentional because she knew he would ask me about it. I told him to block her just in case.

Following that, in early march, I recieved anonymous questions on tumblr about my relationship status. I have a brain and am able to easily spot her text speech patterns. I then installed a tracker on my blog to register page hits and responded to the ask, knowing she was bound to check for responses.

Around that time, i was made aware by a friend that someone i used to talk to no longer talked to me because of how i and my ex had treated them. i reached out because i felt like even if it was way too late at least maybe they could know i was aware i’d been shitty to them. we talked and i was told that my ex had pretty much lied constantly about my actions and that this person didn’t like me because they were under the impression that i was the abuser in the relationship. This is not the only time someone has come forth to tell me that my ex used to talk about me behind my back. I have had other friends and acquaintances mention it to me over the past year.

Since then, she has visited my page and looked through my personal tag numerous times a week, ranging from once a day to up to 6 times or more. I have evidence of her every move ever since she decided to start harrassing me back in July. I know she is likely reading this exact post. I also know she isn’t very smart, because a smart person would have stopped trying the first time they were blocked. I know that she secretly hates herself and that she represses the anger she feels because she likes to make people think she’s afraid to hurt them, but she enjoys starting drama and spreading rumors wherever she goes. I know that she probably had some sort of traumatic events in her early teens that caused her to begin serially dating/abusing people, but I also don’t really care at this point. I did a lot of emotional labor trying to humanize her up until I realized I didn’t owe her that anymore. It’s somewhat refreshing knowing that I’m allowed to speak now and that there will be no consequences. There is no relationship to lose. Anyone who wishes to challenge me is totally welcome to do so, because I have a shit ton of proof that supports my side of this story.

#ender.txt #long post

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protagonistheavy · 4 years

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Shitblast about the Pokemon Presentation incoming:

That sucked the life out of me to be totally, un-exaggeratedly honest. It sucked pretty much any care I could have about Pokemon for a good couple of years at least. The downward slant of the franchise is just ridiculously obvious, and genuinely I don’t think I want to buy into the series anymore -- I’ve gotten burned enough times to not even try and get hyped for anything as ugly as the DP remakes or Legends.

Before I even get into the games they talked about, I just want to rag on that opening video thing. The huge montage of all the different things the pokemon franchise has, uh, infected I guess. Am I the only one that was really, really put-off by this? It just seemed like such a huge ass pat for themselves, like, “woo-hoo, look at our millions of dollars we spent on NOT the video games.” And it’s not even structured in some kind of catchy song, it’s just people chanting out hashtags that pop up on screen. It’s so cheaply made and they do shit like this pretty much every fucking year, I’m sorry but I just found this whole thing to be a waste of time. It didn’t get me hyped for anything to come, that’s for sure, it just reminded me that I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting for Pokemon to actually progress itself and catch up with a modern market.

Pokemon Snap was the only cool thing from the presentation, and that’s a game we’ve already known about and is honestly too simple to fail. They would have to REALLY fuck up a game as straightforward as Snap. And this presentation didn’t bring any exciting new light to the game, just confirming that yes, yes you will indeed be taking pictures of pokemon, and then sharing those pictures with friends. Everything they’ve talked about is just the natural modernizations I’d expect from any game claiming to be about photography and made in 2021. The most exciting thing they could show off was the illumination item thing, which is just sorta, okay I guess.

The DP remake was disheartening. I honestly wish they didn’t even bother, and just ported the game as-it-was to the Switch.

I hate these graphics. And no, no it’s not some “style.” This isn’t a stylistic choice, this isn’t a “theme,” whatever this toddler’s toy aesthetic is supposed to be. It isn’t. It’s a budget constraint -- it’s a compromise. And I honestly hate that people are trying to defend it as some sort of art style, when I know 100% they would never defend another game like this nearly as hard. They would look at ANY game with graphics this shit and call it out.

There’s this excuse that it’s an art style theme, akin to Link’s Awakening remake on the Switch. Except, did people forget that Link’s Awakening actually looked good? Because it was actually designed to look like everything was a miniature. They used proper shading and texturing to sell that aesthetic, to make it look pleasing to the eye. Link’s Awakening is proud of its graphics and it does as much as it can visually to lean on that aesthetic. These DP remakes? There’s no heart put into this “art direction” at all. The textures are all plastic and flat and even downright muddy -- compare any screenshot of the remake to an original location and you’ll see how awful the colors are now, and how vague some of the models are after having been transformed from sprites. There’s no intent at all from the devs to actually include the polish necessary to make this style work -- it’s not an art style decision, it’s a budget constraint. They chose this design for the game because it would be easy to make, even easier to animate, and they could then justify slapping both of these games with $60 price tags. And yeah I get it -- “we don’t know how much these games are going to be!” -- no we do, it’s going to be fucking $60 like anything else released on the Switch, but if you seriously think this is worth $50 or even $40, then whatever, spend your damn money.

And yeah I am bitter that this is against precedent of the previous remakes. Every other remake before this had the time taken to update the graphics and direction to modern standards, and every remake was better because of it. It was refreshing to revisit these older worlds with modern sensibilities and an updated perspective -- the whole appeal of updating these older games is to give them the love and depth that technology at the time wouldn’t allow. At least that’s the appeal for me, I guess there’s a LOT of people out there whose appeal to Pokemon as a franchise is just buying whatever fucking comes out next and just mashing that A button into a state of satisfaction. This bums me out so bad that instead of getting something with passion and care, we get the absolute cheapest output; a remake that doesn’t promise anything new or exciting, burdened with absolute shit graphics.

And again, this style just sucks. It isn’t cute lol. I guess some people are gonna be into it, that’s fine I guess, but wow I don’t believe a single person that claims “this is what I imagined DP to be like.” No you didn’t, fuck the shut up? You’re really going to tell me that, in your most immersed state of playing this game, you imagined everything to be these fucking toddler toys? Okay you’re just on your own for that one -- I and every other normal human did not think of the DP world as some chibi fantasyland full of lego people. I hate that this is even excused as being some sort of “hark back” to the older art style -- the older art style wasn’t toy-themed or plastic-themed! What the fuck are people trying to pull here? It’s such a shame that DP had amazing sprite work and a wonderful world and an enticing story, but its remake is just going to underplay all of that, abandon it all just so it can have some gimmicky art style -- at best it’s a gimmicky art style riding the coattails of Link’s Awakening, and at worst it’s a budget cut done to make the game as cheap as possible to shit out.

I’m so disappointed in this. I was really looking forward to experiencing DP as a remake, I’ve never played this generation before. I wanted to play the remakes because I didn’t want to adapt to the older logic of the games, and I wanted to be able to bring in my own pokemon, have my own adventure. I wanted another experience like ORAS or HGSS. I didn’t want to go through the work of trying to play the original in a reasonable way. But since this is the direction of the remake, to make it look cheap as hell and totally heartless, then I’m just forced to play the original, and that sucks on a lot of layers.

And then Legends of Arceus or whatever.

Look. I want to like this game. And realistically I do like the idea of this game. But just like the DP remake, it looks like it’s the absolute cheapest response to what fans have been asking for, and it looks like it just wants to ride off the success of another, better franchise. I’ll make a wish now that I hope this game proves to be so much better than it looks in this presentation.

But wow, wow. I don’t think that’s going to happen. This looks like full-on garbage.

I wanted a BotW-like Pokemon game ever since, well, BotW. I think an open-world format would do wonders for the Pokemon formula, and SwSh had potential with its Wild Areas. But again, all the cheapest choices have been made. This game reeks of developers being told that fans want a BotW-styled Pokemon game, and then responding by just inserting pokemon assets into a beta test world of BotW. They didn’t show anything that looked promising for Pokemon gameplay, they just showed elements that are enough to convince an audience, “trust us, this is an open-world, with open-world mechanics -- like stealth! Rolling into bushes! Isn’t that cool? Isn’t this how you want to catch pokemon?”

It’s heartless. The developers clearly don’t care about making an open-world pokemon game; they’re interested in making pokemon an open-world game, the difference being that they don’t care about actually organically mixing the two. It’s just going to be a slop of open-world mechanics, set in an open-world that has no reason to be explored and is ugly as sin to look at, with mechanics designed to slow you down and fill in that 40-60 hour expectation. And I say this with as much confidence as I do because if they did have anything interesting to mention about Legends, they would have fucking said it -- they would have highlighted where pokemon gameplay intercepts open-world gameplay in a meaningful way, they would have brought attention to new mechanics that could only work in an open-world pokemon game.

They didn’t. They showed off a player character rolling into some bushes, and manually throwing a pokeball.

And that’s just the gameplay. Can’t we all agree this game is visual vomit? Just utterly fucking terrible to look at? There are literally fangames with SUCH better graphics. And there’s no excuse here like “oh it doesn’t LOOK like shit, looking-like-shit is its aesthetic!” No it just looks terrible on every level. The textures are so fucking muddy and stretched. The terrain is cobbled together and without inspiration; flat fields, angular hills, and randomly placed trees and bushes, all of which are rendered so badly that you can always see how 2D they are. The player models are uncomfortably stiff and expressionless. And the pokemon? The fucking pokemon?

Why do the pokemon look so fucking ugly? What’s the goddamn excuse? We see pokemon in the overworld, moving around and prancing about -- and they’re animated at like ten frames per second. That’s being generous! These pokemon look like they had three frames of animation to swap between! What the fuck is this?! Sword and Shield have overworld pokemon running around, and those didn’t need significant frame cuts! So how the hell did they manage to stumble so far backwards?! Why is this even a fucking challenge...?!?! Why do I have to be gaslit to believe that video games can’t do more than this? There are so many games doing so much, so much fucking more in even just one second of gameplay. So many games with intense graphics, explosive effects, tons of enemies and players on-screen, all this happening at once... sometimes online... and yet Pokemon still can’t even animate a fucking monkey dancing around in an empty field. What the fuck is the excuse here? How can they honestly show off this gameplay footage and feel proud of their work, without at least saying something like, “This is early-as-fuck test footage of the game, this is like one week into development, this is why it looks so ugly and unpolished.”

You know those throwaway junk games on Steam? That sell for like three or five dollars, and it’s just a really terrible FPS set in a generic wasteland environment? Yeah THOSE games look ten times better than this shit. There are so many pokemon fangames that exist that do this exact concept but DON’T look like utter garbage on the eyes at the same time. It’s baffling -- why is it so difficult for them to not make an ugly-as-sin game? Why does it have to be this way? How can the Switch host a game like BotW or Mario Odyssey but it can’t fucking handle Pokemon?

And this idea doesn’t even sound fun, the concept of being in the “ancient past” of the Sinnoh region just isn’t what I wanted. When I wanted an open-world Pokemon game, I expected it to be... you know, pokemon! I expected gyms or some kind of equivalent, I imagined it having modern sensibilities... But instead it’s this really gimmicky concept, because I guess the devs can’t possibly imagine the normal pokemon world even possibly engaging with something new and different -- no, we have to go to effectively a whole other planet just to let players have pokemon in an open world.

Ultimately these games are fucking disgusting to look at and it’s so disappointing to see them in this state. The DP remakes chose a cheap art style not because they thought it complemented Sinnoh or its story, but because it was the bare minimum to making the game and justifying a $60 price tag. Legends of Arceus has potential, but it’s showing right off the bat that it doesn’t have the manpower or passion behind it to actually live up to it, making it just another cash grab that relies on chasing the coattails of a more successful franchise. And both seem like insulting cheap answers to the two things die-hard pokemon fans have been asking for, making this situation all the worse.

The Pokemon Company doesn’t care, and neither do I anymore. I genuinely don’t see myself playing another pokemon game. It’s so sad because these games are full of potential, and a long-term commitment is obviously one of its appeals. But if this is the direction of the franchise, then fuck me. I don’t want to support ugly-as-hell spinoffs that exist only to shut up the fanbase, I hate how Sword and Shield came out and I hated how scummy the DLC was to add onto it. This series is blatantly trying to rob players by producing as absolute little as possible, they want to make money out of nothing, and I’m not coughing up that money anymore. This is ridiculous. Sword and Shield being so disappointing was one thing... the DLC being cashgrabs for material that should’ve just been post-game content was mind-numbing... but these two games looking like total garbage is on another level. It’s beyond disappointing; it’s insulting that they would even bother making these games with as little heart as they are, so clearly and obviously making games that they know players will shell out cash for regardless of its quality.

I hope the fanbase really matures and wisens up to this because that’s why we’re in this mess. You’re allowed to enjoy this “art style” of the DP remakes, you’re allowed to be hyped for the new gameplay of Legends... but please, for the love of god, have some higher standards than this. Please look at what other game companies can do with their games, and how much they charge, and how much fulfillment and content is in those games. We need to expect more from the literal most-profitable franchise of all time -- they have the resources, they have the capabilities, they choose to be lazy so that they can get as much money out of us as possible. It’s got to be put to an end. Please ask for more from these games. Please don’t settle for these games “because at least they’re still pokemon,” “because at least the pokemon battles are the same,” “because at least the older games are still technically playable.”

After all this, I just don’t believe Pokemon anymore when it tries to sell itself “to everybody.” That’s just plain not true. Their core audience is the dumbest of 10 year-olds and the dumbest of die-hard fans. They don’t care about their community any deeper than their wallets.

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