#whose to say that suicide is morally wrong

[parasiticallamb]

i wish i had a choice. i wish i could rot. i dont want to be alive. i dont want to be alive. i dont want to be alive. i dont want to be alive. why cant it ever be my choice

[anistarrose]

So, it's not a moral failing to be bad at what I'm about to describe. But collectively, most of Tumblr is bad at identifying polls that function as bait for bigotry and harassment. Polls that, either intentionally or unintentionally, encourage people to spew hatred about a marginalized queer sub-community — because that sub-community is considered, at least by some, an acceptable enough target.

Most of us have probably seen that polyamory poll go around (as of September 2024). Fewer people have probably taken a look at the notes on that poll — and in many ways, that's for the best, because a lot of the notes are fucking vile. I won't link the poll itself, but content warning for threats of domestic violence and suicide in just this sampling. I don't know enough about the poll creator to make assumptions towards their intent, but that poll was functionally bait, acting as encouragement for people to spew vitriol and bigotry.

And none of this is specific to that individual poll! In December 2023, a single person made a series of polls about friends with benefits, and the "question" of whether aromantic heterosexual cisgender men were queer — and those polls led to huge waves of arophobia and sex negativity (inseparable from, let's be honest, some mask-off radfem shit). On top of that, multiple polls about people's feelings towards sex, or experiences with such, have turned into a festival for bashing both asexuals and virgins — insofar as the people doing the bashing use those words as anything but interchangeable insults.

Polyamorous people. Aromantic people, especially aromantic allosexuals. Asexual people, especially those who are virgins or sex-repulsed. That's a clear and obvious trend — they're all people who do relationships differently. People whose relationships and identities are considered "cringe." Who are considered acceptable targets to mock within the queer community. Making fun of "polycule drama," making fun of "queerplatonic," making fun of a-spec microlabels.

So many people who call themselves sex-positive refuse to extend that positivity to polyamorous people and aromantic people. To casual sex, to sex without monogamous romance. They insist that the polyamorous, the aromantic, are in fact the predators, the abusers, the degenerate queers that the conservative pearl-clutching queerphobes were right about. They tack on asexuals to the "abuser" category, too, because allegedly no one could ever be happy in a relationship with an asexual; because allegedly it's manipulative to your partner to refuse sex! Meanwhile, asexuality and sex repulsion are conflated with the completely different concept of sex negativity, twisting the language of sexual liberation to demonize asexuals further...

And yes, polls play a role in all of this! Of course, not every poll about sexual experiences, for one example, is a poll intended to bait or to harm people! But if they blow up, there is a high risk of people feeling emboldened to comment things like: "so many people are okay with casual sex, or multiple sexual partners! this is what's wrong with the world, it's all just toxic hookup culture!" Or if not that, then things like: "look how few people on this virgin loser website have had sex! this is what's responsible for cultural sex negativity! they'd all be better, more progressive queers if they just got laid more!"

And that's not even getting into the obvious, and obviously intentional bait. The "cishet aromantic men" poll, most egregiously. Clout-chasers hide behind the veil of "I'm just curious about people's opinions!" and then, put out a poll catered to the most rancid, exclusionist, verging-on-radfem opinions. At the very least, catered to platforming them seriously, when people inevitably feel emboldened to say that shit they've been thinking.

And "emboldened" really is the key word here. These polls increase the social acceptability of saying cruel shit about polyamorous people, a-spec people, and whoever else becomes the queer community's acceptable target of the year. The groups discussed in this post are by no means the only popular targets for harassment and exclusionism, but they are some of the most egregious examples I've seen personally, and they are tied together by their non-normative approaches to relationships or lack thereof. Moreover, the groups overlap — I am personally aromantic and asexual, not polyamorous — but even then, my struggles with amatonormativity overlap with those of polyamorous people.

And I bring this up because for years, I've witnessed popular Tumblr bloggers attack a-specs and polyamorous people within the same posts. With the same tactics, using cringe culture in addition to demonizing alternative types of relationships. Now, polls are another weapon for harassing us. And, it is... absolutely exhausting.

Of course, there's obviously a sliding scale of how prone polls can be to harassment. I don't think polls just asking about people's sexual experiences need to be totally anathemized and blotted off the face of the earth, for example — but you know, maybe consider searching OP's blog for "asexual" and some other keywords before you reblog one?

Furthermore, maybe just don't reblog polls about "does X count as LGBTQ," even if you're in support, because you're still legitimizing the poll to begin with. Maybe proceed with caution with posts that mention polyamory, even if not in an inflammatory way, unless maybe you know that OP is polyam themselves. Maybe block, obviously don't harass, but just silently and unceremoniously block people that make a lot of clout-chasing polls about controversial queer issues.

I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I'm not an expert on catching these red flags myself — the first time I saw the polyamory poll, I ignored it just because it was irrelevant to me as a non-partnering person, not because I clocked it as something that would generate hate and threats. So really, if I do have a plea to end on — it's just to listen to people, polyam and a-spec and otherwise, when they say that some post is generating hate and threats towards them. And then, maybe, try to learn some red and orange flags from the experience.

None of us are part of every queer sub-community that Tumblr loves to harass. We all have blind spots, and that's inevitable, not a failure of you as a person. But after seeing so many of these bait polls go around, after seeing multiple rallying effects in the communities followed by people letting their guards down, and circulating a slightly different bait poll... well? I just hope that eventually, people will be willing to learn.

[communistkenobi]

something I’ve been thinking about is like, the internet is this magical system of technologies, never before seen in human history, and one of its capabilities is to answer virtually any question you ask of it. Which is not even remotely a novel observation obviously lol. But I’m thinking about this in the context of a point that Adorno & Horkheimer made (in The Culture Industry I think?) about the radio: that to expedience the radio, to live in a social context where there is this vast incomprehensible system of technological infrastructure that you do not understand or control, and which allows you, a mere peasant, to listen to news broadcasts, music, and advertisements, is effectively like listening to the voice of god. Like the average person’s relationship to modern telecommunications is so mystifying, incomprehensible, and abstract that we experience technologies like the radio as an all-powerful, indestructible authority, and this (obviously) shapes our relationship to the information that is shared through it. People make jokes on here about how transmission towers are angels, but like tbh that is essentially how we experience them - vast, incomprehensible, highly dangerous objects whose impact on our lives are at once all-consuming and unknowable. We do not just turn on the radio and listen to the news, we tune into what the voice of god has to say today - right now he’s selling toilet cleanser!

and all that to say, I always find something a bit incomplete about discussions about wilful ignorance online - that we live in an age of mass information and yet people still seem as ignorant as feudal peasants, or whatever. Nobody googles things, nobody tries to branch out and experience new kinds of art, nobody educates themselves on important topics they don’t understand. and like this frustration is very real and well taken, I feel it frequently, but what I’m grappling with is whether this is the correct framing - that maybe “why don’t people just google things” is the wrong question to ask, because I tend to find the explanations offered unsatisfactory. Like specifically I’m thinking of discussions on here that are about like, “anti-intellectualism”, kids these days are so ignorant even though they grew up with the internet, reading comprehension is piss poor, and so on. Recently I’ve seen a lot of weirdly moral-panicky posts about children not knowing how to type on computers because back in my day we were forced to learn how to touch-type by age 8 even though we couldn’t look up any tutorials on YouTube to help us, etc etc. And like I just do not buy that people are individually choosing to be ignorant, that people are “getting dumber,” and that this state of getting dumber is inversely related to the amount of information we have access to (which makes “getting dumber” even more dumb). An unstated assumption that goes into a lot of these “anti-intellectualism” discussions is that “information” is this universal object that has a standardised enlightening effect on the people who interact with it - that the only reason to have an ignorant, sheltered, or ill-formed opinion on something is because you have individually chosen not to Look At Information that will cure you of your ignorance. And so going back to the god radio thing, having regular access to the google search bar is not just having access to an encyclopaedia or dictionary - it is like having a direct line of communication to god, this authority that can answer any question you ask of it. But it’s not just one answer, it’s many answers, more answers than you could ever possibly read through. Google reports the number of hits it returns for whatever you type in - you will regularly get millions of answers to your question. And these answers are embedded with advertisements, just as radio news broadcasts are. Like if god is selling you toilet cleanser while telling you the number for a suicide hotline or news about what’s happening in the world, how do you psychologically deal with that, how is your relationship to capital-I Information shaped by this relationship?

The corollary to “we live in an age of mass information” is “we live in an age of mass misinformation,” but they both show up as answers on google (again, not a novel observation). but in the face of that how do you not simply stop asking questions? & of course this decision to stop asking questions is given form and substance by social circumstance, it reinforces systemic privileges and violences, and so this decision is not one free from consequence, and in many cases it is not an innocent decision. a white person deciding not to read the news because it’s too hard to figure out what is happening/too frightening/etc has the consequence of reinforcing the white supremacist outlook that is foundational to the social context of white people because they’re not reading anything that challenges that outlook. ignorance has many social contexts and many of them are violent. etc. like the consequence of “why does nobody google anything” is just a continuation of the status quo, just with this supposedly glaring and easy fix to it (simply google it). but that just leads us back to a discourse of individual choice, of people individually choosing not to “google shit.” it is a deeply individual fix to a systematic social problem. and so maybe the question is not, why doesn’t anyone google shit, but rather, why is the primary delivery system of knowledge a god that sells you toilet cleanser 

[zingingdesertrose23]

Sweet Dee’s Complete Backstory (1976-2005)

[cw: suicidal ideation, emotional abuse, bullying, body shaming etc..]

Deandra "Dee" Reynolds was born the older twin to Barbara (born Landgraf) and Frank Reynolds in 1976, the latter of which raised illegitimate children not knowing that their biological father was Bruce Mathis, a man his wife was having an affair with. Barbara was 28 years old at the time, and Frank was 33. Frank has claimed that Dennis and Dee would have had a brother, Donnie, had they not eaten him in the womb.

Dee was raised not by her emotionally distant mother, Barbara, or her father, Frank, but rather a "series of Mexican women" who served as nannies. Barbara, who chose Frank under the belief that he was wealthier than her former lover Bruce Mathis, consistently favored Dennis over Dee. Thanks to Frank’s real estate business and shady dealings, the twins had a financially stable childhood.

The neglect from her parents was supplemented by the dubious influence of her maternal grandfather Pop Pop (Heinrich Landgraf), a former SS officer, whose presence in her life introduced her to extreme ideologies and further complicated her moral landscape. Based on his uniform, he was a low ranking gestapo officer. He may have even been an acquaintance of Adolf Hitler. Barbara was certainly raised with a Nazi belief system, a tradition he would go on to continue with his grandchildren Dennis and Deandra. His home was filled with Nazi memorabilia including the German Shepherd painted by Hitler.

In 1981 when the twins were five, Pop Pop attempted to indoctrinate his grandchildren through a Neo-Nazi summer camp. All of this was so normalized within the family that the twins didn’t realize there was anything wrong or off with these things until their 20s.

Dee and Dennis went to Waldron Elementary school. They grew up in the Reynolds house that would later become the “Party Mansion”.

Frank was often away conducting business and Barbara was an absent mother addicted to amphetamines. Despite this, at some points they take trips to the Jersey Shore and the twins build positive memories there together.

Frank and Barbara were incredibly neglectful and verbally abusive to Dee, the “black sheep” of the family. Among other things, Barbara used to always say “Worst is first” because Dee was born first.

Raised primarily by a series of caretakers rather than their own parents, the twins were subjected to cruel psychological games like the Christmas "fake out," where Frank would show off the gifts the children had wanted most for himself, while Dee and Dennis received empty boxes. Frank would make home movies of Dee and her brother opening the empty boxes, laughing at their disappointment.

Such experiences contributed to her complex relationship with reality, where she often downplays or rationalizes the abnormal behaviors witnessed in her family, including those of her brother Dennis. For instance, she dismisses Dennis's violent act of snapping a crow's neck, revealing her struggle to maintain a semblance of normalcy against her better judgment. Later in life Dee still defends and downplays this behavior saying,

“Well, he kind of... snapped the neck, uh, off a crow one time a little bit. But that... but that's not not normal right, you know? (laughs) I mean, it was just like boys being boys. Yeah. That...Look, we had a totally normal childhood, and...Look, Dennis wouldn't hurt a fly. No way.”

To which Frank would say : “Whatever Deandra says is BS. She's probably just covering for him because she's afraid he's gonna snap her neck like that crow.”

While she does tend to minimize what she saw, she began having recurring nightmares about it that would haunt her for life. “I still have nightmares about it…And I'm old.”

Her tendency to put Dennis on a pedestal despite his glaring flaws also highlights her conflicted feelings of loyalty, envy, and shared identity as twins. Dee has always put Dennis on a pedestal, so when he does things that are clearly wrong she has to find ways to compartmentalize and rationalize it to herself. You can also see that Dee tells herself that her childhood was normal, despite all of the traumatic experiences.

Their extended family consisted of at least Pop-Pop, Uncle Max and Aunt Donna (Barbara’s sister) as well as their cousin of similar age Gail “the snail” who they found annoying, so they would frequently bully and throw salt at her.

Dennis:“No one likes salting the snail but she gives you no choice.”

Dee: “She doesn't leave you with any options.”

Barbara was a perfectionist about appearances, which not only made her extremely insecure about her own looks and aging but also incredibly cruel towards Deandra. She constantly told Dee that she “wasn’t pretty enough” for whatever she was trying to accomplish. She would also fat shame her when she was clearly not fat at all. (Also, Barbara later on dies from a botched neck lift after Frank makes one remark about her “turkey neck” after their divorce.) Barbara held herself and her children to impossible beauty standards, and Frank didn’t exactly help; he actually perpetuated it, going so far as to call Dee “a dog” and never calling her pretty. Dee grows to hate and resent her mother, and neither twin attended her funeral later on.

Dee was a successful child beauty pageant winner, winning several shows she entered on her own despite both parents’ constant criticism of her looks and lack of support. (Later in life when she performs for Frank’s Little Beauties Pageant, during her original song “Moms Stink” she throws a photo of Barbara in the trash onstage).

Dennis and Dee were also raised Catholic, frequently attending church and confessing their sins.

By the time she reached middle school in the late 1980s, she had been diagnosed with scoliosis and made to wear a back brace, which became the source of a lot of bullying down the road and earning her the nickname “Aluminum Monster”. Dennis began to fit in with the “cool kids” more than Dee was.

Later on Charlie reads her middle school diary entries from her childhood bedroom in the Reynolds House / Party Mansion and discovers the following snippets from this period..

“Dear Diary, the dance was a total disaster. I cried myself to sleep again last night. Mom forced me to wear the back brace. And all the school chanted "aluminum monster!”

and

"I'm totally gonna tell Eric how much I like him tonight. Even though Danielle was like all over him today in school. Mother said, "Don't bother. He wants a pretty girl instead. "'

This period marked a turning point for her depression and possibly the beginning of her s**** ideation.

In the early 1990s, the gang entered high school. Dee attended the Academy of Notre Dame an all-girls academy that was affiliated with St. Joseph's Preparatory School, which Dennis Mac and Charlie went to. By 1993 Frank was gone in Vietnam opening a sweatshop. Dee had already established herself as unpopular due to her back brace and horrible self esteem. However, she continued to try to fit in and become a “cool kid”. Having no friends, she hangs out with Ingrid “Fatty Magoo” Nelson, another girl in her class that is frequently bullied.

Other classmates of hers included the Waitress, Maureen Ponderosa, Stacy Corvelli, and Nikki Potnick.

She attended physical therapy twice a week with Matthew Mara, a boy from St. Joseph’s with a huge crush on Dee and whom the gang would tease. Dee found belonging and power in taunting him, making him do all of her math homework as well as embarrassing things (like making him eat horse poop before getting to kiss her then refusing because ‘his breath smelled like shit’) much to Dennis and his friends’ amusement. She would also make fun of Brad Fisher for his acne along with the other students. The gang would also drink and party underage frequently.

During this time Dee found an escape in drama class with Dr. Larry Meyers. He made her feel a sense of self worth when she was performing, as he encouraged her talents and cast her in roles.

Around 1994, the twins graduate high school. Around this time Dee decided to stop going to her church, which may or may not be linked to her newfound passion for the pro-choice movement. She got into University of Pennsylvania and chose Psychology as her major, and was assigned a dorm with a female roommate. Somehow Dee’s insecurity and possibly internalized misogyny created a strange dynamic between them of jealousy, rivalry, and obsession.

By 1997 her back brace was removed. Dee enters into a secret sexual relationship with her professor Dr. Gainer. Her roommate issues escalate as Dee finds her “annoying” and accuses her of copying her and wearing her clothes, which Dennis claims happened the other way around. The conflict came to a head when, as she puts it, she burned her roommate “Down to the box springs whilst she was sleeping” after she “crossed” her.

Dee is sentenced to be institutionalized, and presumably get no support from her parents during this phase. Not only does Barbara see her as even more of a disappointment, Frank probably wouldn’t set foot in another mental hospital even if he wanted to. The family becomes more estranged, and while the twins remain in each others lives, they distance themselves from their parents. [edit: this would actually be mainly after the roller rink era, as the twins were still very involved in with their parents’ expectations at this point]

By 1998 Dee was released with medication and a treatment plan, which probably caused her personality to seem more “sweet” than usual. Mac and Charlie were working at the roller rink where she also had a head injury around this time that went untreated.

At some point Dennis and Dee get involved with gay culture to the point of having an almost encyclopedic knowledge of gay slang. The gang also creates the board game “Chardee Macdennis”, during which in one game the boys emotionally abused Dee for two minutes straight, which led her into a deep depression and she attempted to commit s*** with pills. The guys purchase Paddy’s Pub and hire Dee as their bartender to help her get back on her feet. She manages to get a one bedroom apartment and a cat, as well as taking up acting classes again where she meets her friend Artemis. and that brings us to episode one!

[shadowqueenjude]

lolol Acofas rewrite to make a tamsand moment bc why not

Only I'm turning Tam into a bisexual female. Also changing the POV because Rhys sucks.

Warning: Bondage (No smut), Suicidal Tam

"Lucien claimed you would come," Tamlina said dully. "Funny, I thought his mate was the seer," Rhysand answered. A twisted barb, another dig. A reminder that Rhysand had a mate and Lucien did too. Archeron mates, no less. But Tamlina did not. The pain swooped through Tamlina again. A never-ending ache. She had screwed things up with Feyre, and she had run into Rhysand's arms. She still couldn't believe that the male who'd sexually assaulted her under the mountain turned out to be her mate. Tamlina had been whole-heartedly convinced Feyre was her mate. But perhaps same-sex mating bonds did not exist, for Thesan had yet to receive a mating bond with his male lover. Perhaps the system was just in place to pair up males and females who would make the most powerful offspring. And the Mother had manipulated Feyre into falling in love with a monster.

A monster she, too, had once cared for. Whose life she'd saved not only for Feyre's sake but her own. Bitterness flowed through her again. "What do you want," she asked shortly.

"I came to have a little chat," he said with a half grin. A handsome smile, but entirely soulless. Tamlina wanted to tear it apart with her bare hands. "Can I trouble you for a cup of tea?"

Tamlina led him through the house, knowing that Rhys noted the complete disarray. She couldn't bring herself to care. She only said, "If you've come here to gloat, you can spare yourself the effort." She already knew he had won, after all. Rhys put a hand on his chest in mock humility. "Why should I bother?" Tamlina ignored it. "What did you want to talk about?" He made a good show at surveying the house before saying, "Where's my dear friend Lucien?"

My. Not our, or hers. Another twisted barb. A reminder that Lucien had left her for Night. No less than Tamlina had deserved for how she'd treated him. Yet Lucien had come back. Yet he was the only one who remembered her. Probably the only reason she was still alive.

"Hunting for our dinner." "No taste for such things these days?" "He left before I was awake."

Rhys lounged in a chair, turning it into a throne. "What's this I hear about you not enforcing your borders?" He couldn't be serious, could he? After all, it was his whore that had caused this problem. Tamlina gestured around them. "Do you see any sentries to do it?"

"Feyre did her work thoroughly, didn't she." A combination of rage and sorrow rose to the surface once more. She bared her teeth at him. "With your coaching, I have no doubt."

"Oh no, that was all her. Clever, isn't she." Tamlina dug her nails into her armchair trying to resist the urge to cry. It was a miracle she still had tears left to cry. "I thought the High Lord of the Night Court couldn't be bothered to brag."

"I suppose you think I should be thanking you, for stepping up to assist in reviving me." He thought wrong then. There was a time where Tamlina would've expected such a thing. There was a time where Rhysand would've worshipped the ground she walked on. That time, that boy, was gone. The male before her was someone she didn't know. Tamlina wished she didn't have a moral code. If she had been a slightly lesser female, she would've left Rhysand to rot. But her stupid, soft heart could not bring herself to do it. "I carry no such illusions. I'm fully aware that the day you thank me for anything, Rhysand, is the day the burning fires of hell go cold."

"Poetic."

All those times in the war band creating limericks had served her well, she wanted to say. But she lacked the energy to say the words. She hardly had any energy at all.

"You saved my mate's life on several occasions. I will always be thankful for that." Again the word mate stabbed her in the heart. I didn't do it for you, she wanted to shout. But who had she done it for, then? Feyre, the girl who had shattered her heart and her court? Rhys, the male who was glad to do it with her? Tamlina had terrible taste in males and females, it seemed.

"Does she know you're here?" were the words that came out instead. "Oh, she certainly does. And she was as disturbed as I was to learn that your borders are not as enforced as we'd hoped."

As if it wasn't Feyre's fucking fault they were in this predicament. Anger surged through her. "With the wall gone, I'd need an army to watch them."

"That can be arranged."

The Mother herself would die before Tamlina accepted even a cent of Rhysand's aid. "I'm not letting your ilk onto my lands."

“My ilk, as you call them, fought most of the war that you helped bring about. If you need patrols, I will supply the warriors.”

Ironic- so terribly ironic that Rhysand blamed her for the war. As if he hadn't gladly licked Amarantha's boots for fifty years. Tamlina had worked as a double agent against Hybern to bring her love back safely from males who played with minds like toys, and she'd done it knowing that having an in with Hybern would give them a chance to control the inevitable war.

"My war?" She said quietly. "My war? Who gladly served as Amarantha's executioner for decades? Who was happy to murder a dozen children as long as you got off unscathed? And for what, Rhysand? Last time I checked, your people are still heavily oppressed."

"My people are not oppressed, as you would know if you-"

"I know about Velaris," Tamlina interrupted. She stalked up to Rhysand, looking up into his eyes. Most claimed the Night Court High Lord had violet eyes, but Tamlina knew better. They were blue- a very deep blue that in some lighting appeared violet. But blue all the same. "And that, Rhysand, is not equality. Separation of different people is not equality. It's not the Prythian I was fighting for."

"Then what exactly, were you fighting for, Tamlina? This?" He gestured to the ruins of the Spring Court. Tamlina hadn't been able to dredge up the energy to care anymore. Most days, she barely even ate. If it hadn't been for Lucien's constant visits and fussing over her like a nanny, there wouldn't be a bone in her body you couldn't see. But Rhysand's words drew up the hurt again. The pain that her world, her people, everything had collapsed around her. She welcomed the pain. At least it was a feeling, and that was better than nothing.

"Until you ruined it all for me," she said quietly. She could feel the tears coming to her eyes again, and she ran away, not wanting to cry in front of Rhysand. Like hell would she show that kind of weakness in front of him. Like hell would she give him that satisfaction.

She thought she sensed a flicker of guilt on Rhys as she ran away, but she ignored it. She waited until she was out of sight before she shapeshifted into a tiny creature. The waterfall of sadness had been replaced by anger. The two emotions always came together with Tamlina. She spotted the discarded bat with which she used to play fireball with Lucien, a sport native to the Autumn Court that he'd introduced to her. She fluttered near the bat as Rhysand searched for her.

"Tamlina?" he called. "Look, I'm s-" It sounded as if he was about to apologize before he choked on the word, his ego getting the better of him. He never could admit when he was wrong.

Quiet as a mouse, Tamlina shapeshifted back into her normal body. Then she soundlessly grabbed the bat and slammed it into the back of Rhysand's head so hard that he thumped to the ground with a rumble that shook the house.

(Brief Rhys POV)

When Rhysand woke up, his body was fully chained to a chair. He tried to move, to work his way out of the chains, physically and with his magic when Tamlina strode towards him. Even in her lifeless state, staring down at him, Tamlina was the most beautiful female Rhys had ever seen. Guilt originating from the mating bond slid through him, but it was true. Her wavy golden hair tickled his hands as her dark green eyes pinned him in place.

"Don't bother to try and get out of those chains," she crooned. A little more spark in her voice than earlier. "Those chains are made of ash wood. You will die before you can get out of them."

Ash wood? Why the hell did Tamlina have that? He must have said the words out loud, for Tamlina smiled bitterly. "Courtesy of Eris Vanserra. He has a collection, you know. He offered me just a little bit, though. For a cost. I kept it in case I ever decided to..." the words trailed off. But Rhys knew what she meant.

In case I ever decided to end my life.

What had he done? He had goaded a depressed female, Tamlina no less. He had just wanted to get a rise out of her, banter with her as they had in the past. But...he had gone too far. Much too far.

"Why so horrified, Rhys? Last I remembered, you used to enjoy being tied up."

Rhys felt hot all over at her words. Tamlina smiled. "Still affected by me. I knew it."

"Let me out."

"No. I have a reason for keeping you chained up, you see. Your little Inner Circle is going to get worried about you and come for you. And I've been longing for a good fight."

"They'll destroy you."

"I'm a High Lady. A real one, not the bullshit title you handed Feyre. Feyre only has power because it was handed to her. My power...it's raw. Straight from the Mother herself. They'll have a hard time beating me even if I'm alone. Plus," she put a hand to his cheek, and Rhysand shuddered, "I have leverage." She stared at him for a long moment before walking away.

Rhysand didn't breathe, couldn't breathe, until Tamlina left the room.

[sflow-er]

To August anon 2

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply! I don't know if you'll even see this as I've decided not to risk the backlash of putting it on the main tag, but I hope you do.

[Earlier posts: August anon 1, August anon 2]

I want to curate the discussion a bit now that you've shifted part of the focus on Sara. I don't share your position of liking both her and August for being 'morally dark' people, and I fear it may be a bit jarring to any Sara fans reading this. So I've decided to screenshot your message and put it under the cut instead of replying directly.

We disagree on some fundamental things when it comes to August's and especially Sara's characterisation, and I doubt we're going to reach consensus. But that's okay! I'm just going to explain some parts of my POV below, and then we can agree to disagree. There are also a few areas where we seem to be getting our wires crossed (e.g. what we mean by 'understanding' the consequences) so I want to clear those up.

Most of this rambling essay was written before the S3 trailer came out, so I'm not focusing much on the glimpses we see of them in the trailer. But I am still using the spoiler tags just to be safe.

CW: negative take on Sara (but the anon actually likes her); couple of suicide mentions

Okay so... I'm going to start by clarifying a couple of things:

Understanding vs. understanding

Infantilising vs. taking young age into account

When I talk about August and the consequences, I'm not saying he lacks the intellect or analytical thinking to know/predict them. I'm saying he lacks the empathy and relevant frames of reference to understand them. I think we're just using the word 'understand' to mean different things - maybe internalise, empathise or relate would be a better choice for what I mean by it?

To revisit my previous example, August as an incredibly privileged member of the elite cannot understand i.e. relate to Simon's experience as someone whose ability to make his own reputation and get by on his own merit has been permanently affected by the video. As a very confidently straight man, he also cannot relate to Wille's experience as someone whose non-straight sexuality, a deeply personal and private thing that he wasn't even done figuring out, has suddenly been exposed to the world and potentially even some homophobic hate.

I'm not saying this to infantilise, defend, or excuse August. I'm saying it because to me, it partly explains why it's so easy for him to dismiss the harm to Simon and see his betrayal of Wille as just a matter of loyalty - the only moral code he knows - instead of something that would've been wrong no matter who the victim was. It's a thought pattern that stems from his upbringing and worldview, and it would have to be dismantled for him to feel proper remorse. Which I think would probably take professional help at this point.

(I agree with you that August would be extremely prejudiced against Boris. A glimpse of him googling therapy providers or booking an appointment for after graduation might feel more realistic to me - but I guess it depends on what the writers want to do with him. We already saw very quick progress with Wille in S2 so it's safe to say they can take some liberties.)

I still believe that August will lose his social status in S3, likely towards the end. But it's fair that you don't, and the trailer is certainly edited to support your position. If he retains his status, then you may be right about him remaining the same old asshole! If he does lose it, then my original point about him likely not being resilient enough to cope with the consequences still stands. He is very much the kind of person to whom suicide is the "proud" way out compared to the shame of losing everything.

Now, the age thing.

Respectfully, I think you may be ascribing too much meaning to August and Sara being of age in S2 (note that Sara was still 17 when she made the deal with August in S1). Eighteen is the age of legal adulthood, yes, but it doesn't make them fully grown and mature adults in the (neuro)biological, psychological or social sense.

[This feels like a good point to say that I am not going to try to account for Sara's neurodivergence here. I definitely don't have the insight, so if anything I've written below is in any way inaccurate or offensive to persons with AuDHD, please let me know!!]

Firstly, it's important to note that that the human brain matures gradually and unevenly. The prefrontal cortex i.e. the 'reasoning centre' only matures in the mid-to-late 20s, while parts that handle things like right/wrong, risk/reward, and emotional responses (e.g. the amygdala) mature earlier. This can cause teens and young adults to struggle with things like impulse control, assessing the long-term consequences of their actions, understanding others' emotions, and rational decision-making in situations that trigger a strong emotional response. Reason can get overtaken by emotion on a chemical level; sometimes the young person can't even fully explain afterwards why they did something they rationally knew was wrong all along.

[I don't think August was in a particularly analytical state of mind when he decided to post the video. He was an intelligent but emotionally unstable and empathically challenged 18-year-old who felt like he had nothing left to lose and the only moral code he knew (i.e. loyalty) was obsolete. He was also still stewing in the emotional turmoil of his humiliation and likely stuck in a negative feedback loop. It feels very plausible to me that he could be in a very bad place for a pretty long time and still function enough to plan his revenge (more on the revenge part below).]

Secondly, both August and Sara have also had some pretty traumatic experiences (Sara's bullying, August's dad's suicide, the influence of both their dads while they were still in their lives). These may have impacted their emotional and psychological development in various ways and created some thought patterns. Not to play arm-chair psychologist, but I don't think it's a coincidence August's decision to post the video is related to his family estate and legacy, while Sara's decision to make a deal with August is related to the threat of being sent back to Marieberg.

[This feels particularly relevant for Sara, whose bullying was brutal and long-term enough for her to have to repeat a year. The negative attention on Simon after the video probably seemed less severe in comparison, and also like a 'first incident' (in fact, she might have even felt like Linda was applying a different standard to Simon's ordeal compared to hers by immediately wanting to take them both out of Hillerska).]

[I vehemently disagree with Sara's idea that the damage to Simon was already done and it wouldn't have made a difference whether he knew who was responsible, but I think it matters to some extent that she didn't know the history between Simon and August. To her, the video probably seemed like something that was mostly between August and Wille. That idea was likely reinforced by August consistently dismissing Simon's side of it - and also by Simon seemingly moving on with Marcus and no longer being the talk of the school after Christmas. This kind of rationalisation may have even made Sara feel better about pursuing a relationship with August in S2.]

[I also think Sara probably felt like she had the right to be selfish after everything she'd been through. Simon's support during her bullying wasn't conditional; she didn't feel like she "owed him" any sacrifices. It was clearly Simon's idea to follow Sara to Hillerska, and she may have even felt like he was hovering a bit (I doubt S1E1 was her first time saying she was fine now and he didn't have to be there). Then, Simon started to keep secrets and even see Micke for reasons Sara didn't know, altering the terms of their relationship, while Sara was finally daring to dream of things she'd been denied for so long. Friends, a better future, even romance. To her, it felt extremely unfair to have to give all that up and go back to a school that was a nightmare to her but not to Simon. Especially when her and Simon's lives weren't as intertwined anymore and she finally felt like she was gaining some agency in her own.]

Thirdly (circling back to the point about maturity), it's good to keep in mind that both August and Sara are still in the high-school phase of life. A phase when most people are a bit selfish, and their past and current dramas and dreams for the future are everything to them. They haven't really acquired much experience or long-term perspective yet. So I really don't think we can call them that much more mature in the social sense than, say, Wilhelm and Simon. They are still messy teens living their messy teen lives, shaped by their upbringing and limited life experience, all the while thinking they are basically grown adults.

So am I saying all this to infantilise August and Sara and excuse their actions? I'm sure it sounds that way; hence, not putting this on the main tag.

But the way I see it, to infantilise them would be to say they weren't responsible for their actions or didn't know what they're doing. They are responsible, and they do know. All the factors laid out above (and also in my previous August posts) explain their reasoning and actions to some extent, but they do not excuse them. The fact still remains that they both applied their best judgment and deliberately chose to do the thing that they knew was wrong.

You're right that they took time to consider their decisions in S1, although I don't think we can know for sure exactly how long August takes. The timeline is a mess at that point; he is still at the Palace wearing the same outfit when the others make their statement, and I doubt he could've been there overnight. But he does take several hours in any case, and although he isn't thinking rationally at that point, he still knows what he's doing is wrong. In fact, he does it with the sole intention of hurting others, which makes it all the more reprehensible.

I just want to caution against labelling him as some evil, fundamentally unfeeling mastermind. He's just a very selfish and immature young man with a very warped view of the world, who needs to see some consequences for his own sake as much as his victims'. I think part of the reason we saw him turn so soft with Sara in S2 was to underline that he is capable of empathy and caring; it's just a matter of unlocking those emotions. They haven't exactly been nurtured growing up, so he is only applying them to the people he deems "worthy", instead of all his fellow human beings. That selective empathy is another thing he seriously needs to work on, alongside the lack of accountability.

As for Sara, she takes several days to consider what to do about the video, which makes her betrayal of Simon more severe. But as explained above, it's so much more nuanced than her not caring about him. (Or indeed her being some poor victim who didn't know what she was doing and fell in love with The Devil! Don't get me wrong, August definitely let her believe she was guiding him in a better direction, which may have even pushed some Micke buttons in her subconscious and/or memories of Simon's insistence that everyone deserves a second chance... But she still made her own decisions and is responsible for them.)

It's easy to forget that we do in fact see Sara aware that her actions are wrong even before the end of S2. She looks conflicted/unsure when she and August make out in S1E6, cries when Simon earnestly proclaims "I like you when you are you" and "I'm trying to be your friend again because I need you" after she has just betrayed him, and again looks conflicted when the siblings talk about loving the "wrong person" in S2E5. She did some very selfish things and hid them for much too long, yes, but I believe her regret is genuine. It will take some skilful writing to make her and Simon reconcile in a way that makes sense, doesn't feel rushed or reduce her to an archetype, and doesn't just magic away her leftover feelings for August (as those will probably take some time to clear out). But I do have faith it can be done.

So I think that just about covers what I wanted to say. This isn't a comprehensive essay by any means, and I'm sure it won't go down well with everyone. I also don't expect it to change your mind about these characters, anon, and that's okay!

I mostly just wanted to push back on the notion that Sara and August being 18 means all their bad decisions are now on par with bad decisions taken by fully grown adults and their character development is now set in stone. I highly doubt the show will end with them both proudly standing behind their poor choices - I can certainly see August doing that if he doesn't see any repercussions, but not Sara.

In any case, thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view on these characters, and sorry again for taking so long to respond!

[twinsarekeepers]

Let me preface this by saying, I’m a pre-med student who works in a psychology lab as a research assistant and has also worked in a doctor’s office with actual patients. A lot of my opinions about this ending are informed by that aspect of myself, but that does not mean I don’t understand the incredible weight and horror of Joel’s decision either. I am also a writer and the narrative of a parent’s love being that destructive is so compelling.

However, it’s not more important to me than making sure people know how egregiously terrible the Fireflies are. Because the logic that something can morally outweigh informed consent is what has led to some truly horrific, catastrophic events in our REAL human history. Henrietta Lacks, the Tuskegee study, and the CIA’s fake vaccination drive in Pakistan come to mind immediately for me. These are all events that I encourage everyone to learn about.

Putting all that aside for now, objectively, Jerry Anderson was stupid and wrong in every way possible. You never ever want to completely destroy the subject you are working on, ESPECIALLY if that is the only one you have. Because wtf are you going to do if your experiment doesn’t work? You killed the one source! Literally anything would’ve been better than KILLING ELLIE?? Killing her should be the very last resort after exhausting every other possible avenue, which they didn’t. (Before someone tells me that I need to suspend my disbelief … no. The whole show is rooted in realism and that this is a possibility SCIENTIFICALLY … so I’m going to think about it with my science brain, I’m sorry!)

Now onto the part that I know y’all are going to get your panties in a twist about, Ellie herself and her capacity to give consent. Which in my opinion, coming from someone whose literal job it is to get informed consent, she did not have.

Bodily autonomy and agency is obviously very important but you would never let your child run into oncoming traffic because “oh, it’s their body and I’d be violating their autonomy and agency if I physically held them back!!” Like no. That’s a child that doesn’t fully grasp what they are doing or what is going on around them so you as the adult must make the decision to not let them harm themselves.

Ellie is a slew of red flags to someone who would be searching for participants for an experiment. For one, Ellie is a child. Getting informed consent from a child is already hard because their brains are not developed enough to fully grasp and understand what they’d be agreeing to. Two, Ellie has gone through immense trauma and is suffering from the worst case of survivor’s guilt to possibly ever exist. She literally feels like the only way to compensate for her loss is to die. She is the definition of passively suicidal. The way I would rule her out of a study so fast and send her links to every helpline I know. And yes, I know that she can never actually get the help she needs. But in my opinion, she is not in any way able to give consent and Jerry and nurses should’ve been very aware of that.

So, the fact that the Fireflies are just medically inept, and on top of that, didn’t care to get consent, and even if they had, it wouldn’t matter because Ellie is not in a position to be making that kind of decision, makes them very, very wrong.

Does that make Joel right? No. Because Joel wasn’t thinking about any of that. He believed that the Fireflies knew what they were doing, that they had a shot at making a cure and he also knew what Ellie would want (again, she’s still not a position to give consent but JOEL DOESN’T KNOW THAT BECAUSE HE’S NOT A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL) and he still chose to save Ellie over … the entire world. And then he lied to her about it.

(And the lie was to protect her emotionally because he knows she takes on so much blame and he doesn’t want to cause even MORE damage and pile on top of that insane survivor’s guilt … but lying to a teenager is never the way to go, they always know).

TLDR: it is very, very complicated!

[tortoisesshells]

I would love to hear your thoughts at length on Jeremiah sometime! where he fits in the gap between the family myth and icon over the fireplace — and the story that gets told to us in 1795? or whatever else you have to say about your special guy.

!!! Would I like to talk about Jeremiah? I always want to talk about Jeremiah. Or Jeremiahs. There's, at minimum, two versions of the guy - possibly three, if we count his remarkably ambulatory ghost/corpse/revenant as a separate version. Which - I think we should? Therefore, we've got three Jeremiah Collinses: Jeremiah, the Ur-Ancestral Collins, who's in no small way responsible for all of this; Jeremiah, Literally Just A Guy, who gets run over much the same way Collinses tend to run non-Collinses over; Jeremiah, the Ill Omen, who's broken free of life and death, but can't escape getting meat-puppeted by his own morals or the narrative, whichever is stronger. At the end of the day, whether he was a tyrant or not, Jeremiah's positioned as committing one of the original sins that haunt the Collinses down to the present - either, as he's first introduced, he enclosed the land that Collinwood was built on and ensured the family would be haunted by the ghosts of those they had wronged, or he married Josette (because of a love spell) when she was to have married Barnabas, and things ... got out of hand from there, leading to the present Collinses being haunted by a very different kind of undead.

I do know that this is a result of the writers either not caring about continuity, or simply not being aware of what was established in episode twelve after three hundred - or six hundred - episodes. But whether or not they intended it - here we are! trying to square the circle of continuity in a show that's allergic to it.

Jeremiah has two ghosts, in a way: the first is the legacy of the portrait over the mantle at Collinwood, who haunts the present Collinses as a man they'll never live up to (and perhaps don't want to live up to, which is a separate kettle of shame) - he was the founder of the Collins dynasty, the builder of Collinwood, whose marriage to Josette la Freniere du Pres Collins ended in the latter's suicidal leap from Widows' Hill. Liz names him as an ancestor whose example they must follow; Carolyn more cynically notes that he was a drunk and a bully; Roger, in the first recitation of the history of Collinwood, implies it was Jeremiah's eviction of the public from Widows' Hill that became some kind of original sin of the Collins line - all the misery Jeremiah had caused the town by the building of the Collins fortune, compounded by one last theft of the place the women of town had gone to watch for the return of the ships. If the Widows' Hill widows are unseen ghosts, present only in the crying of the wind - Jeremiah's ghost is Collinwood and Collinsport themselves, in a way? A more metaphorical ghost than the actual, literal ones we eventually get - Josette herself, starting in episode 70, or Bill Malloy, from 85, or the Widows, from 126.

Conversely, Jeremiah Collins in 1795 is quite literally just a guy. He may be the sanest and stablest Collins we've ever met (I haven't gotten to parallel time or the 1840s yet, so I could be wrong) - he tolerates Joshua arranging his life for him (though he refuses to entertain marrying Millicent, who he doesn't respect in the slightest - still, I suppose we know Jeremiah's a Collins because marrying his close blood relatives is just ... par for the course.), thinks that witchcraft is bunkum in the modern age of the 1790s, and generally tries to do the right thing. This is, of course, no defense against getting roped into Angelique's foolproof plan to dispose of Josette and marry Barnabas herself, and he gets shot in the face for his troubles. He's not the domineering tyrant of the Collins family history; as a living person he's - sort of a non-entity? An afterthought to virtually everyone - useful as a lieutenant/marriage pawn to Joshua, a marriage pawn of a different sort to Angelique, the dead albatross around Josette's neck.

(Then again! Jeremiah'd had a life before 1795, which included marrying Laura and being made a widower by it. There's always room to believe that changed him significantly.)

Jeremiah's literal ghost/revenant (and the second ghost) maybe goes partway to squaring the circle of Jeremiah the Empire Builder and the far more reasonable Jeremiah of the 1795 time travel trip - like most other ghosts (perhaps save that of his estranged wife?) he's out for revenge and to cause problems, though his ghost does appear in Vicki's dreams in the present to warn her that she's in danger from Barnabas. Maybe if he'd been up to those antics through the years that could shape the family's memory of him? A much better explanation is that Joshua simply did what he said he intended to do: edit the family history to be in line with the book that Vicki had brought back into the past with her, to cover up the enormity of what went wrong in 1795 (and, specifically, his failures and the conduct of his only son). Jeremiah gets rewritten as a tyrant because he has always been a tyrant: a neat little continuous loop in time? He gets the worst parts of his family - Naomi's alcoholism, Joshua's tyranny, Barnabas's driving Josette to suicide - as memorials, and the rest of them fade into the obscurity of the past by the 1960s.

By way of continuing to try to square the circle of continuity, and come up with a Grand Unifying Theory Of Who Was Jeremiah Collins, Jeremiah's also got his mirror in the present day like nearly everyone else in 1795: Burke. If we assume that people in the present are some kind of inversion of the people they resemble most in 1795 (stern, active Liz and dominated, conflict-averse Naomi; down on his luck Sam and the aristocratic Andre du Pres, etc.) Burke - something of a tyrannical, vengeful empire builder himself - fits the pattern for a more reasonable, even-tempered Jeremiah. Then again, they've both slept with Laura, and they're both at least a little weird about Vicki, so I suppose we could say they've got similar taste in women, at least?

Then again. Considering Jeremiah is the only past Collins to recognize Vicki in any way, it does beg the question of whether Burke and Jeremiah are entirely separate. I'm not sure that's a useful observation, but I do think about it a lot for a one-off line of dialogue in a 50 year old soap opera.

[obstinatecondolement]

Whenever I feel like this again I want to go back in time to tell my teenage self that they are not making it up and the pain they are in is not normal and they are not morally lacking for feeling too sick to go into school, or for having to come home sick so often with anxiety pain.

(um, having now written more of this post, I apparently have very intense feelings about this, so ... content warning for emotional abuse, ableism, and suicidal ideation)

Everyone being hard on me literally only made it worse and if even a token effort had been made to make school less upsetting for me instead of blaming me for being anxious and saying there was "no medical reason" for me to feel that fucking sick and in pain, so I must be faking it or being a wimp, maybe things would have turned out differently for me! It is not normal to be so sick and in so much pain people that think it might be appendicitis three fucking times! I was trying so hard and everyone told me I was a lying work-shy malingerer who refused to apply myself. I used to be so jealous when I'd hear about a distant cousin whose parents felt awful when they found out she wasn't faking being too tired to work and that she had a hole in her heart due to a congenital birth defect that made incredibly fatigued all the time, and they'd been getting angry with her and criticising her along similar lines to what people were telling me before she was diagnosed, when it "wasn't her fault." It wasn't my fault either! I used to fucking fantasise about being terminally ill, so I could die without directly killing myself, and so people would stop telling me there was "nothing wrong" with me and that "no one is sick all the time" (which, like, people with chronic illnesses and autoimmune conditions would like a word, lol).

People with psychosomatic pain are not faking it to get out of things! Psychosomatic does not mean that the pain isn't real! And feeling better if I was allowed to stay home doesn't mean that I was pretending to be sick to get out of going to school! Shockingly, when my acute anxiety was alleviated, I experienced less anxiety pain! But if it hadn't been I would have been in agony all day!

And like ... genuinely all that has changed is that this isn't a daily problem for me anymore. I still am treated like a naughty child when my mental illnesses flare up and I can't Meet My Commitments reliably. A friend once said to me, "Your family must be being very gentle with you right now" during a very severe depressive episode and it was like??? No??? Of course they aren't????? They are shouting at me every single day about how I am choosing to "opt out" of "living a normal adult life" and leeching off them. Like they always do when I get sick.

Whenever people are kind to me and don't treat me like a demanding lazy brat for being disabled, it's borderline triggering, because apparently it's that easy to be accomodating and to understand where I am coming from, and near strangers can show me more compassion than my entire immediate family do, and they can do it without even thinking twice about it.

If I was still in this much pain every day from anxiety they would never stop telling me it was my fault, and I would never ever get a reprieve from it, because they will never change.

[odonmytokblogs]

Kant Rant

Kant can suck it… suicide is not an immoral act, and I think that this is a major misjudgment. I can appreciate Kant for all he has done for the philosophical world, but to be quite frank, I think I would hate to be around him (I am not saying that my theoretical personal connection to any particular individual dictates very much about them as a person; I essentially have no authority over that. However, I do think that based on his philosophical beliefs, he would not be very nice, and kindness is an underappreciated virtue in my book, so I suppose I just over-prioritize it). Brudding begrudgingly about people’s inaction – I can’t help but think that he would just be a horrible person. Maybe honesty is the best policy, and maybe suicide is horrible, but to set the expectation that people should completely dismantle the thought patterns that are inherent to us, and then shame us if we cannot seems quite unrealistic. It is your honest truth to act the way you do, or so I believe due to determinism, and so why should we abide by the rules and regulations that Mr. Kant has set… I kant tolerate that type of behaviour! I just firmly believe that people who renounce judgment are better people, and that is a rule I am setting, hence I kannot support someone whose whole philosophy hinges on right and wrong as a way to rule moral judgment. 

[bookishfeylin]

Hey!

It's the Feysand from yesterday....agreed. Almost all the relationships are toxic (we can hope and pray that the next couple of SJM's book whether it's Elriel or Elucien or who knows what else isn't toxic but I'm not holding my breath), and some people need to remember that these are fictional people and no matter how much they want it Rhysand will not be dropping from the ceiling to come take them away for being so progressive. Another thing is- it's okay for the relationships to be toxic? Why do they all need to be perfect? Again, fictional characters. And the suicide baits and such are just absolutely not okay. As someone who has lost someone I know due to bullying until they committed, it is such a horrible thing to do. Also, in what universe is it okay to start harassing people over what characters they like? I'm actually a very small content creator and I was talking with another small content creator on one of their posts, and I won't say the name but you have a lot of experience dealing with this person saying that you are not allowed to talk about racism/SA/other issues, and this person jumped into our conversation and just insulted me repeatedly and said some very rude things just because I said I think Morrigan should have some character development beyond being a party animal, and she lost her everloving mind about this, got into a heated fight about how I was wrong and a horrible person for having this opinion because Mor experienced SA (if she thinks being SA'd means you are no longer able to have a life ever again, what kind of rock is she living under) and then blocked me (good riddance), but repeatedly stated that it's totally cool if she disagrees with me and she's entitled to her opinion just like I'm entitled to mine. I actually really enjoy speaking with people whose viewpoints differ from my own (hence why I like this blog, even though I'm pro Feysand I also liked book 1 Feylin, and reading the perspectives of other people is very eye opening), but not when it's a blatant attack on my reading comprehension.

I feel like Tumblr makes it very easy to get the fandom experience that you want, block the anti tags and block any people who post things you disagree with if you don't like seeing such things, block ship tags you don't like, and boom problem solved. And yet apparently this is too complicated for some people to understand that while the characters we're discussing are fictional, the people you're interacting with are not, they have very real lives and the suicide baits can and do have very real impacts.

Oh, I can guess who you’re referring to unfortunately. The entire reason why I started tagging my things “anti-“ was to avoid harassment and help people filter out my critical posts (I didn’t do this when I first came on tumblr largely due to not knowing how tagging works and it was. Not fun).

I mainly blame Sarah for this, though. I’ve made a ton of other posts about this before that you’ve probably seen lmao but Sarah decided to insert real world standards about abuse and domestic violence into what should have always been a high fantasy series with fantasy morals. And as a result of this and because people often view characters as their self-inserts people take this series way too seriously. It leads to horrifically rude behavior, from all sides I should add, and it’s so, so sad.

But I’m glad to know there are still other reasonable people in this fandom, and it’s been nice talking with you!

[gojuo]

it’s so odd of people to keep arguing that aemond did something wrong by claiming vhagar. at first it was “he stole a dragon”, then they learned that you can’t steal a dragon and it became “rhaena should’ve gotten the first try” when NO… just because her mother was one of vhagar’s riders doesn’t mean she was entitled to her, and had to try to claim her first.

i don’t think aemond had a suicide wish, meaning that he was ready to die if it doesn’t work out, but i also don’t think he would’ve been fine with just any dragon when he was already abandoned by his own targaryen dad and was bullied on top of it. he had to try vhagar and it worked and that’s it. i’m sending you this bcs i find myself liking your takes the most and was wondering what you thought of this whole situation… would you say aemond was morally wrong or whatever

First of all thank you so much for the compliment and flattering words and second of all I am literally so sorry for taking like 2 months to answer this oh my god I’m genuinely so sorry for ghosting you. I don’t know what the fuck happened and why I just let this sit in my inbox for months and I’m genuinely truly really sorry for making you wait so long … Really, I’m sorry.

Showrunners changed the scene from Jace, Luke and Joffrey attacking Aemond to Jace, Luke, Baela and Rhaena doing it. Why? Well mostly because they aged Joffrey down, and probably to give Baela and Rhaena something to do outside of being Rhaenyra’s cheerleaders who do nothing all season long but be her props. Like sidenote, but I still cannot believe that after everything, the Velaryons would side with her faction… I mean outside of that absentee deadbeat good-for-nothing who has literally never interacted with them on-screen being their father, Baela and Rhaena have always been more Rhaenys’ and Laena’s children than Daemon’s. Like the fucking DRAMA it would bring to the story if both Baela and Rhaena were actually against Rhaenyra, if Baela was against being betrothed to Jace and her rightful inheritance of Driftmark being usurped being a point of contention for the Velaryon family/Team Black overall. Or if it was Baela that was ok with becoming the future Queen of Westeros as Jace’s wife but it was Rhaena that was against everything, against becoming Lady Consort of Driftmark instead of Lady of Driftmark in her own right because, you know, she’s being forced into marrying Luke, essentially being usurped of her and her sister's inheritance. Or if Rhaena held Daemon in contempt for always ignoring her because she has no dragon and therefore no worth in his eyes or for forcing her into a marriage with a boy everyone knows is a bastard whose mother is usurping her and her sister’s (and their mother’s) rightful inheritance because of said marriage……. But nooooooooo we gotta have Baela and Rhaena do nothing but smile in the background bc Team Black has zero in-fighting at all everyone is just of the same fucking mind and gets along aaaaaall the time I guess……………..

Okay anyways sorry for the sidequest lets get back to the topic at hand… They put Baela and Rhaena in that scene to make it look like Aemond claiming “their mother’s dragon” was an issue or something. The writers put 3 things in that confrontation as to make it look like Aemond was in the wrong for claiming Vhagar:

The outrageous claim of being able to “steal” a dragon (that’s literally impossible; you cannot steal a rider-less dragon).

The other outrageous claim that dragons are somehow passed on from parent to child as if a dragon is an heirloom or something.

Putting Baela and Rhaena in this one specific scene which they actually had NO business being in because they are Vhagar’s ex-rider’s daughters.

If I remember correctly, Daemon, Baela and Rhaena were on Driftmark/Dragonstone for a whole month in preparation for Laena’s funeral. Aemond came to Driftmark for only 2 or so days… Rhaena had all the time in the world to claim any free dragon she wanted with the help of her father... And then she didn’t….. How is that Aemond’s fault exactly? She had the chance and she didn’t take it. That’s on her, not on anyone else (except maybe her father since he apparently disliked that she hadn’t claimed one yet but I digress).

Then the audacity of the writers to insinuate that dragons can be inherited by the ex-rider’s children??? The fuck????? Before Laena, Vhagar was Baelon Targaryen’s dragon. Baelon is Laena’s mother’s uncle … but he is also Aemond’s grandfather... So tell me again who had the “right” to claim her first by that logic? Then before Baelon, Vhagar was Visenya’s AKA Baelon’s great-grandfather’s sister. Caraxes for example was Aemon’s dragon before Daemon claimed him, who is his uncle. Meleys was Alyssa’s dragon, who is Rhaenys’ aunt not mother, etc. etc. The one and only instance we have in ASOIAF where a dragon is claimed by the ex-rider’s child is Balerion with Aegon & Maegor. And even then it wasn’t that Maegor got Balerion because he was Aegon’s son, it was Maegor claiming Balerion because he just wanted him and Maegor specifically waited for Aegon to die so that Balerion was free to be claimed. So these dumb lines of “She was mine to claim,” and “Stole my mother’s dragon,” need to go to Hell and I will never take anyone who takes that shit seriously… seriously. You cannot steal a rider-less dragon by claiming it, that is just outright not canon.

Dragons are also not family-heirlooms meant to be passed down onto children, that is also just not canon. End of discussion, really. The only reason they put the girls plus those dumb lines in the scene is because they needed Aemond to look as if he did something wrong, because Aemond did literally nothing wrong by claiming Vhagar. In the book Jace, Luke and Joffrey jumped him for no reason, and in the show Jace, Luke, Baela and Rhaena also jump him for no reason. 3v1 and 4v1 and we’re supposed to think Aemond was an instigator or something? Rhaena took a swing first then Aemond pushed her aside to protect himself. Then Baela punched him in the face FIRST then Aemond punched her back. Aemond instigated and started NOTHING and he was the only victim in that scene. The gall of the writers to make it look like Baela and Rhaena had the right to be mad or that Jace and Luke were justified in ambushing him and permanently maiming and disabling him because one Targaryen prince claimed a free-to-claim dragon is INSAAAANEEEEE and I hate that they took away Viserys mocking Aemond for not having a dragon yet which is what lead him to claiming Vhagar to begin with.

None of those children had any right to be mad at Aemond for anything and the writers knew that so they just had to put the children who had just lost their mother into that scene in order to make it seem as if what had happened had some ambiguity to it instead of what it actually was: Aemond as the victim and Jace, Luke, Baela and Rhaena as the crystal-clear transgressors.

[dosiracexmachina]

I read Solaris rn and God this book just makes me so mad. I mean it has so much stuff that I love: an alien sentient ocean with incomprehensible for human minds motivations, which after years of being studied by humans decided to study them back? Beautiful. It does so in the most morally painful way by sending to said humans projections of their suppressed and deeply regretful memories in the form of their loved ones ~which came back wrong~ to haunt them? Genius. It ultimately drove one of the scientists to suicide? I love it! But the main character is such an unlikable scrote. He literally said to projection that he loves her more than the woman whose form she took. Dude. That woman killed herself when she was only 19. A real woman, who was depressed, had real flesh, feelings, emotions etc. And you're going to say to your own projection created by alien ocean to experiment on you that you love her more??????? Fuck you and this stupid "born sexy yesterday" bullshit. I hope that when I come back to this book everyone dies in the end preferably by being consumed alive by the ocean it's my favorite character

[eldritch-araneae]

Not really a vent, just contemplating life and trying to figure out how to exist.

I keep finding evidences that I'm just not a human. I look like one, but my brain wired in such bizarre way its doesn't fit any neurotype in existence.

I am a truly an eldritch horror and people react to me accordingly.

I keep reflecting on my childhood, my teenage years, young adulthood and right now, and it feels like I'm living the same day over 30 years.

Same day of feeling depressed, alone and unloved, because ppl around me don't understand me, don't take me seriously, don't see me having worth.

People eventually leave me, they forget I existed, they forget all the times we had together. Logically you will think "what am I doing wrong?"

I tried all kinds tactics of to make ppl like me, like different attitudes, trying to please everyone. But it just doesn't work. People quickly forget me (or worse, turn on me and hurt me out of blue, like as a kid I was hanging out with others kids, and one kid just started to beat me up), and ppl who supposed to love me... they just there, but nothing I say has a meaning. I can educate someone about something, but anything I say gets thrown away the second a person gets different info from "source" they trust. Even if it hurts me, even if it makes me question my own senses what I experienced was real.

I guess I'm just very stupid, which makes sense bc I fully failed in education and all doors closed to me except art.

So I try to rely on smart people, whose opinions are superior bc of their expertise. And I think they are similar to me bc we share interests and struggles, but boom! A massive disagreement, and I'm are rejected entirely again and soon they'll forget me too! And yep that hurts, bc it proves my alien nature and my inferiority. All because I see the world so differently it just doesn't match any person this planet.

Its such lonely existence you have no idea.

Now I'm just lost. Because growing up I knew people generally dislike me, I knew no one will truly love me, and I will achieve absolute nothing in life and all my dreams about better life will never come true.

I knew those truths as a child, those truths were in back if my minds as I grew and now I just see more proofs, more confirmations.

The most logical and morally correct answer is suicide. But unfortunately, I fear death, and I fear pain, both physical and emotional, which is funny considering my life causes me emotional pain, but self-preservation keeps me alive no matter what.

So... what do I do? I guess keep living this the same day until I die? Where it's just static and people rejecting and forgetting me?

Shit like this really makes me question if I'm real creature! It's so bizarre it's not possible to make this up! And there's no person with experience like mine, bc yeah, I see a lot stories from different people. All vastly different, yet still can common things to them. My story? No matches at all.

It's feels like I don't actually have any kind of personhood. Just an empty shell absorbing the pain from world to keep it inside.

[edelgarfield]

last night my friends sprung a movie that has a TON of on screen self-harm & suicide baiting on me with literally zero warning??

like idk how to feel about it bc we don't normally give warnings, but this was a last minute suggestion that wasn't on any of the lists we have. I literally hopped on the call, they asked if I was okay watching this movie, I said "I have no idea what that is, but sure"

like it's not a massive Thing, I'm just more upset at like. the complete lack of consideration & respect towards me. like even when I suggest movies that I KNOW are intense but I haven't personally seen I say "hey I can't verify what's in this movie bc I haven't seen it" and one of the people on the call had SEEN this movie before. also I would never want to watch a movie abt something so personal with this group bc they're moral absolutists.

like "X character does nothing wrong, everything she does is justified" *X character later convinces the main character that her parents died & tells her to kill herself* like hey I get you're joking but maybe you shouldn't make that joke to your friend who tried to kill themselves, whose dad died 8 months ago. just a wacky thought.

[crash3warped]

if there is a hell i KNOW my father in law is going there when he dies. where the fuck do i even begin? this story will just Have to exclude little details. there is so very very much and it's been transpiring over the course of a few years.

so this dude is a manipulative, abusive, useless, garbage piece of shit whose gaslighting bullshit started decades ago. i won't go too in depth on this part bc i dont want to overshare someone else's information but there will be parts of this story where you may think jesus christ, how is this still going on? buddy i ask myself the same kinds of questions but let ye who has a healthy relationship with your parents cast the first stone. the context needed to have sympathy here is that this is a Long LONG complex situation that we're talking about. for a Bit if background, my partner didnt see or hear from his father between 2015 and 2019. so. take that as you will going forward.

it started about 3 years ago when a series of careless decisions left Me (somehow one of the most level-headed people involved!!!!! if you can imagine!!!!!!!) in possession of literal decades worth of my father in law's hoarded shit. being a hoarder is not a moral failing, but deciding to get rid of the stuff and pawning it all off on your son and his partner is Annoying to say the very fucking least. this was obnoxious but i thought At Most that it was a shitty but temporary situation.

WRONG

he expected us to hold on to it until he was ready to have it back. my partner being Too Patient and Honestly The Real Victim Here for having this man as a father chose to honour this wish. as you can imagine this inch became a mile quickly.

he started demanding to crash on the couch, threatening suicide and claiming domestic violence and things of that nature. i cant confirm or deny the domestic violence allegations but i will say that he has made these claims everywhere he has ever lived. this turned very quickly into him manipulating my partner into letting him move in with us. i knew it would go horribly but my hands were sort of tied (knew FIL could and would use any excuse to isolate partner from his loved ones so ive been treading the Bad Guy line very carefully here). i should also point out that FIL's girlfriend at the time was His Perfect Equal in every way and so my partner was biased towards hating her more, as she was someone he had just met.

immediately i had problems living with him. i have Always hated him because he used to misgender me constantly, so i should state this bias now. he seems to view me through a lens that is transphobic, homophobic and misogynistic all at once - that is to say, he believes i should be responsible for all the housework, and that i should listen to his every word and meet his every demand without complaint. it started out with him talking at me Constantly. i don't mean we were conversing, i mean that this man would sit behind me while i did chores and tell stories about pranks he used to pull in the 80s all day, getting annoyed if i tried to change the topic. throughout the course of these stories it became constantly clearer and clearer to me that he was absolutely an irredeemable piece of shit. to put it bluntly, almost all his stories put him in a bad light and he didnt seem to realise at all. he started to get really annoyed with me in general for not laughing at his bullshit, challenging his constant use of racial slurs, and not appreciating the homophobic comments he made about me on a daily basis. (i know you read "homophobic" and "use of slurs" and now you have a burning question, so i will answer; yes he Does call me a faggot). he quickly became my number 1 sworn enemy. to be extremely clear, yes, the fact that he is sitting and watching housework be done does mean he doesnt do any himself. he has outright stated that he thinks i should be obligated to take care of him. we'll return to this point. fucking trust me.

by this point in the story you're wondering why my partner has not kicked him out of the house. i KNOW. but it does become more complicated when you realise that at the time my partner was working 11 hour shifts every day and FIL was a completely different guy around him. still obnoxious and a bit arrogant, but nowhere near the human waste i had come to know. it started to get to the point where i was furiously angry at this dude 24/7 but my partner had never seen him do more than make an out of touch joke. this is the part where i say something vague about how i have mental health issues that i dont want to air out, but suffice to say that making me look paranoid and reactive is Not a hard task.

one night while i was doing dishes, i stopped to use the bathroom and FIL broke 3 of my wine glasses while i was gone. a gigantic fight ensued where he attempted to convince me i had actually broken them myself and my partner walked in on this happening. this is when i first thought the tides would turn and things would get better. partner atarted to see the issues but wanted to give him the chance to change. at this point he is still under the impression that his dad is someone who is perpetually down on his luck, who has had a difficult life and has been mistreated by everyone around him. basically is treating him like a shelter dog who is lashing out but still good at heart. he hasnt heard the same stories yet as i have of the guy who has had everything in his life handed to him for free, but is such a dickhead that he has fucked over everyone who ever tried to help him and fucked himself doubly in the process. after a certain point it started to wear on our ability to spend time together when i was constantly complaining about his dad instead of talking to him about literally anything else, so i honestly started to carry this on my own for a bit.

anyway, it becomes one of those "sit him down" situations. to remind you, this is a borderline senior citizen and not a toddler. they set out a timeline for him to stop drinking so heavily (alcoholism is also not a moral failing but it does have consequences for the people around you, so i get why he thought this would help) and as it became more and more obvious to my partner that his dad was not actually aiming to reach Any of these goals and had Zero respect for his boundaries, we set up our own little secret timeline for me to get a job so we could afford to move again. (i do have a job rn but i am often unemployed due to uhhh Obvious Reasons). so, things are going well yes? the veneer is cracking, he is proving himself selfish and unreliable. this should be about where it ends, yes?

WRONG

MIL passed extremely suddenly last july. the relationship there is somehow even more complex than this one so i won't even go into it, but we'll just say that this Fucked my partner up mentally very badly. he had a lot of trauma open back up and suddenly became very invested in fixing his relationships with his family members. i have never had to process grief on this level so i cant judge it. he decided to give his dad one more chance and for a little while i tried to be cool with this.

the relationship between FIL and i continued to deteriorate. after the wine glass fiasco i literally have refused to speak to him. this has not changed in about a year. i Hate this man more than i can say and my life is better for not interacting with him. i digress. me ignoring him becomes very Very contentious around the house, again it seems like i am the one Causing the majority of household tension because i am the most reactive to it. this sucks shit but is usually how things go when you are prone to being overemotional. a massive argument ensues between my partner and i where we eventually come to the decision that i will move out for a few months until our lease naturally ends. we obviously didnt break up or i would have referred to him as my ex at some point but i knew removing the buffer would make him see that his dad is a pure shithead. i dont know where else to interject this but the dude has also stolen a total of 26 full packs of cigarettes from me and this alone warrants the death penalty.

so. let's talk about the last 5 months, shall we?

turns out this dude was somehow putting on airs on my behalf. all of his behaviour immediately got more extreme because he felt like he had won. the buzzkill faggot (his words) was gone and he could really cut loose. cutting loose involved such choices as

leaving strangers in the house unattended for hours, resulting in theft on multiple occasions totalling thousands

physically removing important pieces from the shower (the knobs, mainly) whenever i visit and forgetting where he's hidden them so that no one can shower for days

continuing to refuse housework despite the fact there is one less person in the house now to help out and the house is in a neighbourhood with roaches

smoking in the house (we have a pet)

allowing strangers to smoke meth in the house (once again smoking meth is not a moral failing but to reiterate we do have a pet and she is just Two Inch Large)

turning heaters off and even opening windows in the dead of winter (i cant see this one as anything but an outright attempt to kill the mouse as even he ends up walking around in a coat and hat inside when he does this)

taking my partner's food out of the freezer and leaving it out on the counters all day long to replace it with his own shit (which he will not eat, he eats out every day because he cant cook)

tripling down on the racist shit

... and more!

not only did he do all of these things but at some point he has managed to blame every single one of these actions on me. he literally outright said that he doesn't do housework because i should be coming over and doing it. to be clear I HAVE BEEN STAYING WITH FRIENDS AND RELATIVES FOR THE PAST 6 MONTHS. at this point youre Really thinking "you've kicked him out, right?" and im pleased to report that we have. but the story is still not over because the cockroach refuses to die and the entire house is filled with his shit. (remember his shit from the beginning? yeah.) he has been given a firm date he Has to leave by but until then we're still dealing with this nightmare human (in my opinion, we should have just thrown his shit to the side of the road, but im trying to be Calm Guy lately). he's reacting to being kicked out by throwing a number of temper tantrums each day, making sure his schedule is Unknowable, and insulting everyone around him at every possible opportunity. also, doing all the same shit that everyone has been mad at him for for decades and continuing somehow to blame it on Me.

so, where does this leave us? well, at the moment we are trying to finalize our next steps. we do actually have a bit longer on this lease than we've led him to believe, so we have until the fall to sort this out. to be honest it is much easier and calmer knowing that i dont have to consider this horrible man or his shit this time. as for where he's going to put it all, i don't know and i dont care. if he chooses to leave without taking it and ditch it all on us, in our neighbourhood i promise you it will all last 3 hours max on the roadside.

im annoyed, angry, and frustrated that all of this happened. but moreso than anything i am so fucking pleased to say that i think i am Finally rid of my father in law. praise be to the unknown cyber being.

there is more to this story, more details of provable lies he's told, more offensive obnoxious and downright horrible shit he has said to me and about me as well as to and about others, the kleptomania, the fact that he has been trying to make me act as his secretary in addition to all of this and file government paperwork on his behalf, the fact he has been pretending he once slept with my mother since 1986, the list goes on so far and so deep that i couldnt possibly write it all down here. but, this is the abridged version of my personal nightmare in-law story. if you read it i hope you hate him as much as i do.