#you don't understand how shit my household is in terms of abuse

[yugiohnfts]

The Dahmer series was one of the most positive influences on my life.

There is just so many things I want to express here. This series changed my life. I don't normally pay attention to true crime dramas. It just never interested me. But Dahmer was just so relatable in this show. And before some ignoramus says some shit said a thousand times before about how Dahmer was a monster or a psychopath, you're the exact person who needs to read this or you can just get lobotomized like that brown kid did.

1: Dahmer explicitly states it's neither nature nor nurture specifically. Yes, he grew up a weird kid and had violent impulses. But so does Jeff Besos, and look at what a productive guy he is. Dahmer did have a lot more self loathing than Jeff Besos, this is where I can start relating as my parents tried to force upon me self loathing. All my life I had to hear shit about how I was schizo, autistic, this or that. Not once did I ever hear "maybe I was wrong, maybe I over-reacted, I wanna hear your perspective."

2: Dahmer actually had an ok upbringing. His mom was off her rocker and his dad was a stubborn mule of a boomer, but they still loved him as best they could and he knew that. Not everyone has that. And it was openly stated in the show and by records of Dahmer that broken households aren't the reason people turn out that way. If it were, you'd have to abuse moderators forever to turn them into the depraved lunatics they are.

3: We view Dahmer as this irredeemable force of evil because he killed some guys. Meanwhile you're getting banned right now by some paedophile loser and you're blaming yourself for it. There are a slew of people out there whose entire day revolves around harassing and assaulting you with bans, and you're worried about Jeffery Dahmer, whose dead btw. Talk about living in a bubble. Why aren't mods on death row? Wtf are my taxes going too? Not justice that's for sure.

4: Dahmer helped me come to terms with my heterosexuality. I've dated trans. FtM and MtF. I was in love with a MtF. I wanted to help her every step of the way and try to understand her pain. I was bombarded with accusations of being gay, degraded, and it was just incorrect. I never felt gay. I like feminine and petite things in a sexual way, I've never had a desire to BE the petite and feminine one. Apparently that's not a good enough answer. So these people wanna decide my sensuality for me, just like they wanna determine others gender. And unfortunately my ex gave into that. Her internalized transphobia caused her to detransition, and I tried to be supportive of that too, but she was not supportive of herself and she distanced herself from me. So she just kind of decreed we should both be miserable and alone because some stupid people who aren't happy with their own lives said so. This is the basis of all wrong-think. They LIKE being wrong, it's an orgasm and a religion to them to be wrong and it's all so disgusting.

5: As said. People will define you and take that shit to the grave. Dahmer wasn't known as the homosexual serial killer, he was known as the cannibal. The dude ate like one finger out of curiosity, now he's forever known as the cannibal. That's how people are.

6: Dahmer never wanted to be famous, he just wanted to be left alone, have his hobbies, have a boyfriend. I think what he needed more than anything was just understanding and patience but that's a very finite resource. He was not just devoid of emotions, he wasn't filled with bitterness and hate. He was just some guy with morbid curiosity and a bit of a sexual fetish. And the glorification of human stupidity is what escalated that. Dahmer didn't have victims, he had people who got exactly what was coming to them for their personal choice of being ignorant and homophobic. Everyone that died or was impacted, was at least semi self-responsible. What ought to happen is instead of just parroting the tired line of Dahmer was a bad guy, force kids to watch this amazing Netflix show in classrooms so they actually learn something. They learn about what the pressures of society do to people, all the people it hurts, they learn some empathy and putting themselves in others shoes. At the very least they learn that the only real villain in that show was the she-boon Karen who couldn't mind her own God damn business. Let people enjoy things Karen.

[7clubs]

ok not a yumimei ask this time but I’m curious to know what you think seb’s childhood was/how blaise treated her

whew. (TW for discussions/depictions of abuse [seriously tread carefully here...] brief mention of death/suicide in AA cases.)

tl:dr: Always walking around eggshells around Blaise. Awful mindgames. Might promote my fic chapter real quick actually since that delves into that a little... And I might talk about some of these more in a later chapter. But yeah...

I'd say she has some faint, nice memories of her mom, but she vanished when Seb was maybe 5-6. I think she was musically minded, though not financially powerful, maybe a teacher. Some of Seb's most vivid early memories are of sitting beside her, watching her play on their nice acoustic piano.

But after that, it was just her and Blaise.

Most of Seb's keepsakes of her mother disappeared except for that piano, only because it was too nice a statement piece to destroy. Though Seb only played it whenever he wasn't listening. (Thankfully, she acquired it after Blaise's incarceration, so she gets to play with her new family now.)

Straight off the bat I'm gonna say: I've seen a lot of people HC Blaise as having been physically abusive to Seb, burn scars, etc, in addition to the canon verbal abuse. Totally understandable, given the horrifying implications of this bit.

Which is to say that I don't see him """actually""" laying a finger on her even once. A big part of it is probably because it feels too heavy for the tone of AA, just for me personally... which is a WILD thing to think about considering the many murders and suicides and "matricide" AA DOES depict!!!

But they've always skirted around that kind of behind-closed-doors physical domestic violence (i'll be using this term in the familial/household sense rather than partner violence) as a serious theme in the games (as slapstick... not so much, unfortunately...)

Relatives do attempt to harm each other, again, see the "matricides" in the series and general Fey family drama... I don't know if this makes sense, but it's just less intimate and easier for the general viewer to stomach when these happen as part of grand schemes with robots and channeling thrown in the mix.

Seb flinching when they see Blaise approach and him taunting them when they do does Not hit that way. Seb willingly putting out the possibility that Blaise "wanted to kill her for being a nuisance" in her Logic Chess does not hit that way.

When I HC for stuff, I tend to find myself trying to match the tone of the original since I'm a boring stickler for canon. But I can't ignore how haunting that scene is, so this is the compromise I've found for myself. It's still really heavy, though.

Yeah, Blaise never ""actually"" laid a hand on her. But Seb was always, always keenly aware he could and was terrified for it. She's still terribly traumatized for it, and a big part of it is the second-guessing and guilt over how it "wasn't actually that bad."

One aspect of Blaise's deplorable character I find interesting and very characteristic of him is how he constantly dresses it up in being jokey and playful and, basically, layers of plausible deniability. It's a fucking mindgame minefield and I feel so bad for Seb.

Alongside the terrible verbal abuse and controlling her finances/life path/etc, one thing I could see him subject her to a lot is, yes, making a show of destroying stuff. Wrecking her stuff as punishment, or destruction for the sake of showing his own strength and, again, capability to hurt. I could see Blaise in a temper going on the warpath with Seb as a witness, and doing his shit apology later asking her to understand that his emotions just got the better of him, while Seb just nervously looks over to a chair he's reduced to splinters.

So that's really the undercurrent of their entire relationship: Insults and abuse dressed up as affection and jokes, constant uncertainty and tiptoeing on Seb's part because surely her pops really isn't that bad, he's provided for her all her life, she must understand how hard it is that he's a single father, it's not as if he's actually hurting her. He's scary when he's on a temper but at least it's not them. He's just got a peculiar personality, he's imperfect, but he's their pops. All the while wearing them down mentally so that they'd do anything for his favor, anything so he wouldn't actually cross the line, cling to a false sense of pride for stability. Always, always making excuses for him, to the very end. She eventually comes to terms with how awful it all is, through the 7yg.

(Re: Seb being trans... I don't think she'd describe her journey with the like "trapped-in-a-boy's-body but i was always a girl" narrative, more the "I was a boy for a long while and now I'm a woman" path of transness. She did hold back on some impulses though, wanting to experiment w/ presentation as a teen, because she knew that would Not go over well with Blaise. )

Anyway in the AAI3/AA7 I imagine in my brain the very first victim is Blaise Debeste. world is abundant, goodnight <33

[zerosums-blog]

im here finally

[nightswithkookmin]

A quick lesson on ships

Because why not??😌

No but seriously, bare with me, I'm trying to answer your questions. Sit if you have to. Hehe

Uban Dictionary defines shipping as this:

A term used to describe fan fictions that take previously created characters and put them as a pair. It usually refers to romantic relationships, but it can refer platonic [sic] ones as well. (Just think of “shipping” as short for “relationSHIP”.) 9 Apr 2015

Ships can be platonic or romantic or both.

There's fictional ships and non fictional ships too. You ship two people you want to be in a relationship or who already are in a relationship or who you suspect to be in a relationship- perhaps due to queer baiting, ship baiting, romance baiting etc.

In the shipping fandom, there are two sects of people. Those who are Proships those who are Antiships- antis are ironically considered part of the shipping community because for some reason they are always in shippers business💀

Antishippers are those who oppose a particular ship or shipping in general (more on that later.)

Proshippers are well- Pro ships.

Pro-Ship

A term mostly used in fandoms, but can stretch outside of this to include original characters. The core belief is that shipping two fictional characters, no matter if they are family, share ages gaps, considered to be unhealthy, or show blatant signs of being abusive or other generally unsavory behaviours, are valid in a fictional setting.

Pro-Shippers or "anti-antis" are also known as "rainbow meaties" and will use 🌈 + 🍖 emojis together often in their bio on twitter or other social media platforms- usually within fictional settings.

These shippers reinforce the idea fiction is separate from reality and shouldn't be confused with the other.

‘Anti’ is short for ‘anti-shipper’ or ‘anti-[ship]’.

Kindly read through this thread to get the gist of it.

III

IV

Shipping non-fictional individuals is a subset of Proshipping, in my opinion, known also as alternative shipping- as far as my knowledge on it goes.

As with fictional shipping, alt ships have their antis too. People who disagree with shipping real couples in a romantic way for whatever arbitrary moral reasons they have and who feel entitled to go out of their way to correct, stop, police and punish such shippers.

Then there are those who although may be pro real people shipping think they have the right to tell others how they should ship and to what extent they can ship.

Others too prefer to ship real people platonically because they view romantic shipping of real people as problematic.

So to answer your question on Anon's post- there is no such thing as a Proshipper who is also Anti shipping. Thats oxymoronic. Perhaps they might be platonic shippers who are anti romantic ships but not necessarily romantic shippers themselves.

I don't think there's anything wrong with preferring to ship platonically. It is when they assume by virtue of their false sense of moderacy that they are better than others that shit starts to get funny.

Those shippers are delusionally confused beings with a supremacist imperialist complex rooted in ignorance and absurdities.

I usually walk by those quietly. keep it pushing. Gotta mind my business somehow even though most times I just want to pull their hair and bite them and shit😭

I try to keep it classy.

Lord knows I try.

You are either pro ship or anti ship. There's no in between. Those shippers who are shippers but claim they are not are nothing but fraudulent, fake us, simps trying to bamboozle their way through life- pardon my Swahili.

There are a lot of anti shippers moonlighting as shippers in this fandom. It's fascinating.

Personally I think those people are either confused or their desires to appeal to other Anti shippers must have morphed their brains into ass dick hybrids.

Anti shippers in general are notorious gatekeepers, gaslighters, bigots, high key sanctimonious and often have a cis white westernized sense of morality and ethics through which they fliter others and expect everyone and everything to conform to.

They impose their values on others, their ethics on others, resort to manipulation, policing, intimidation and bullying to impose their will etc.

Within shipping, there are those who are Proshipping yet anti certain ships. Most Tuktukkers are anti Jikook. And assume anyone who isn't a tuktukker is equally anti Tae Kook and so go ahead and exhibit anti behaviours towards them.

Think of such groups of shippers as Proshippers with a preference for particular ships if you will.

There are Pro shippers who also feel some kind of way about Shipping real life people or alt shipping.

Here's further resource to help you understand what proshipping is

If you are intolerant with other shippers choice of ships or style of shipping and you traumatize them for it that's Anti shipping. Especially if you feel entitled and justified to traumatize others because you take a higher moral status over them.

You can be proship and not like how certain people, how they go about

Simply walk away, click off, mind your business. You are not the only adult in these streets and leave people to do what interests them.

I think for as long as I can remember, I've always been a proshipper and I ship both platonically and romantically, fictionally and alternatively💀

Some themes in fiction are a hard limit for me such as the R word, pedophilia, incest, child abuse- I just can never find the entertainment in those topics and will struggle through such themes.

But others believe it's just FICTION and those fictional characters aren't really dealing with the imaginary struggles we read about.

Yall do you sis.

I don't really know why people make a big deal of it or try to demonize the concept of shipping as if it were something strange or mysterious- just keep your moral values to yourself. I am not your mother's daughter. we were not raised in the same households.

Then again I think it all depends on the different cultures and social backgrounds we all come from and how entitled, supremacist or imperialist they are.

For Yoonmin, I shipped them romantically but didn't think they were a real couple at all. I just romanticized their interactions and found humor in it. At the back of my head I was expecting them each to one day find husbands or wives and go their merry ways and even harbored the thought they each could very much be in serious romantic relationships with others.

In similar ways, I shipped Minimoni and Vmin.

You can ship a pair romantically and not think at all that they are actually REAL.

A lot of jokers ship Jikook romantically and don't assume they are real. Just as a lot of people shipped say Elena and Stefan romantically even though Paul was married.

Some shipped Elena and Damon too due to their unscreen chemistry and even felt they could be a thing- that was before later it was revealed they had started dating in real life. Even that I was holding on to my Bonnie x Damon fantasies because Bonnie was my bias and I shipped her with everyone romantically- of course I didn't expect any of those ships to manifest into something because it was the character I was shipping not Kat herself. To this day I still love her onscreen chemistry and friendship with Damon and don't see how people could wish for it to be more than that😭

It was beautiful as is. Not everything should climax into sexual intercourse.

But if I felt at some point any of her ships had crossed into alternative ships I would have jumped on those and supported it whole heartedly.

If you assume a pair are a real couple and dating in real life that's alt shipping- a lot of alt shippers suspect a ship is real and that's why they ship them.

There is no such thing as platonic alt shipping.

And for me personally, because I believe Jikook are a real couple and have made that cross over I don't ship any of that pair romantically with other members anymore.

It's bizzare to me to ship someone I know has a partner romantically with anybody else- I make exceptions for Vmin of course💀

I know JK is side eyeing me but I don't care.

I want Tae to be happy too😭😭😭

Tae just wants his bestfriend and soulmate😭

It's too much😭😭😭😭😭😭

He stays shooting his shots🤣

Jimin Harem is real🤭

I must admit, I catch myself slipping on Vmin and Minimoni every now and then- old habits die hard and they don't make it easy 😫

But that don't mean I think Vmin is dating. THAT WOULD BE WILD.

Summary

Proshippers can be Platonic or Romantic shippers and you can ship a pair romantically and not assume they are real at all.

Anti shippers are just assholes trying to beat their values down people's throats.

Alt shippers don't ship their OTP with other players romantically.

I don't know what you mean by Jinkooker...

Do you ship Jinkook romantically or think they are real?? Sis...

Maybe you just ship them platonically or casually.

I ship all the ships platonically.

Especially all Jimin"s Tae's ships. I'd let my self flirt with the idea of romance every now and then.

JK's ships don't make sense to me as ships.

As nonplatonic ships I mean.

I'm fascinated each time I see a hardcore JK x any member ship besides Jikook swearing up and down JK is screwing Namjoon🤣🤣

I hope this helps??

GOLDY

[howboutthatbreadtho]

Gotta say, even though I'm luckily no longer living with my dad his obvious disdain for anything he either doesn't like or understand and the combination of looking for me to be his Little Him makes me want to say some really mean shit about how I'm happy that I grew out of being an inconsiderate, annoying, ableist pedant that took being an Anarchist as "his thing" so pretends that doing antifascist work irl since 2016 is nothing compared to being a programmer on Reddit that listens to Richard Wolff

Last time I visited he told a "funny anecdote" about an abusive ex who stalked his partner trying to get away from him to her jiu-jutsu gym and when my mom and I were like "hey it feels super fucking weird that your gym is allowing one of the few non-male members to feel unsafe because you're getting off on the fact that he bought a fake belt and sucks at the martial art so you can beat him easily when you're rolling" and he was like 'oh I don't get why you're mad at me for telling a story' as if it's incomprehensible that I had objections to the handling of the situation.

It's not a big leap to see that he thinks (but doesn't materially) understand/respect people who aren't cis men, but with his supposed egalitarian radical cred he can't understand that. Along with so many other aspects of actually living the reality of trying to build a non-hierarchical society, he can't wrap his head around why I drove myself into the ground picking up the slack on household maintenance tasks (dishes, laundry, folding/sorting, pest control wrt. food sources for bugs being cleaned up, sweeping, wiping down the kitchen, etc.) when it took my mom getting *literally fucking paralyzed with a neurological disorder* to do any daily household tasks with any regularity and talking shit about me for "being so hard on my siblings" when I had to pick up their slack every couple days without fail.

Really glad that he constantly belittles me while misgendering me, my long-term partner, and my younger sibling's partner, combined with my mother who built her identity around being "gay and trans friendly" but makes every conversation I start about how it feels shitty that my dad still conceives of trans people as their agab even if he hadn't met them before they came out as just "having a hard time like I am, why do you have to be so difficult to talk to."

[evilelitest2]

Please don't insult Tsar Nicholas II by comparing him to Stalin. Yes, Nicholas had commited many truly vile shit, but... he wasn't an evil person by heart, just an autistic boy who was unlucky to be born in the position of absolute power in the most corrupt and opressive country in Europe. Unlike him, Stalin wasn't born in absolute power. Stalin has many chances to stop going over Old Bolshevic's heads for absolute power and establishing personality cult of himself, but he didn't.

I mean...he killed a lot of Jews dude. Like his secret police wrote The Elders of Zion, one of his long term goals was to eliminate all the Jews in Russia (the imperial policy was 1/3rd of Jews would be converted, 1/3rd killed, and 1/3rd exiled). like there is a reason why I am not a fan of Tsar Nicholas II. My girlfriend's great grandfather had to flee the country because of the pogroms and then again later when he became an activist. In my mind, Nicholas and Stalin are basically two different flavors of horrible Russian autocrat.

Nicholas was certainly a nicer person than Stalin, he was a caring husband and a good father (in a time period when that was not normal) and he was a friendly affable guy to those around him. Meanwhile Stalin was just kinda a dick to everybody at every moment. But when judging a historical figure, how nice they are and how sweet they were personally doesn't really change their policies. Also like...Nicholas was born into the richest family in the world. Stalin was a disabled ethnic minority born into an abusive household in relative poverty, I'm not really sure why Nicholas being from a super privileged background makes him less of a monster? It's true I feel a lot more sorry for Nicholas than Stalin, since his son was a hemophiliac and his entire family is murdered (which for the record I don't consider acceptable) but if we are talkin about autocracy the fact that Nicholas is more likable shouldn't change the fact that again, killed a lot of Jews.

Now Nicholas II was born into power and personally didn't want to be Tsar but...he was given many many opportunities to give up some amount of power and he didn't. He clung to power in the face of the advice from almost anybody who wasn't an arch royalist super conservative. Even if we compare him to other conservative Monarchists at the time, Nicholas is so stubbornly unwilling to share power that it literally gets him killed. In the last two years of his reign he and his wife prefer to lose the war rather than accept aid from the Duma/Worker's Councils. After the disasters Russo-Japanese war (a war that he caused due to his incompetence and lost due to his incompetence) you have the 1905 revolution where after the death of thousand of people and the crippling of the Russian economy finally gets Russia Duma. And then Nikki's Black Hundreds brutally massacre thousands in order to make the Duma largely a puppet organization, and leads a series of nation-wide pogroms against Jews (who he blamed for all of his own mistakes). And what does he do with this absolute power he so furiously clung too? Help get his country into WWI and then does so badly in that war that his dynasty gets overthrown. And when you get into the details of the Russian Revolution, it becomes clear that Russia could have won WWI and the Romanovs could have kept power had Nikki been at all flexible. He is remarkable in that almost every decision he made as Tsar was the worse possible decision he could have made, it's like the platonic ideal of a bad monarch.

Nicholas was an absolute monarch with a brutal secret police and one of the richest men in the world. And under his administration labor conditions were some of the worse in the Industrialized world, political freedom was denied. None of this was for the good of the empire or anyone really other than himself and his rich friends, its just that Nicholas did it under the name of "tradition". Sure he inherited his horrible state whose national motto was "Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality" but he was an absolute monarch, he could change it if he so choose. And he didn't, when he oversaw two failed wars, two famines, and two revolutions, at no point does he ever take responsibility for his actions and go "Hey maybe I should take steps to prevent the suffering of my people."

In many ways, that is Nicholas II's greatest crime, he would have been happier as a Constitutional Monarch, but because he was so damn stubbornly conservative he wouldn't even change when it was in his self-interest. All of this was avoidable, had he simply accepted the reforms his people so desperately wanted, he could spend more time with his family, not have to worry so much about his heir, and could leave the governance of the empire (which he sucked at) to people who like....were at all good at it. He would have been great as a Constitutional monarch, he could just sit around and be sweet and then hang out with his family, but instead he stubbornly clung unto power and blamed all of his mistakes on the Jews. All to defend a job he didn't even enjoy. It was all....so avoidable, almost everything under his reign didn't need to happen if he had simply accepted reforms rather than retreat into his little fantasy bubble of pure Russian peasants loving their little father the Tsar.

And again, his secret police wrote the Elders of Zion, which is in competition for "Book with the Highest Death Count in History." And this document was written because Nicholas didn't want to share power. A ton of his loyalists are going to end up working for the Nazis.

Now most of Stalin's crimes came out of malice and most of Nicholas' (again, except the violent racism) came out of incompetence, which does matter in terms of understanding their motives and why they were awful, and I don't think Nicholas enjoyed the amount of death he brought the way Stalin did...but like if your family starves to death it doesn't really matter if it was done because the ruler actively was doing it on purpose or was too fucking stupid to understand how a supply chain worked--you are still dead. And in the case of the Jews, Nicholas was intentionally murdering them by the thousands for its own sake. Stalin was also a racist anti-Semite but you don't have full pogroms under his reign until the last year of his reign (and the Doctor's Plot is no in no way comparable to any of Nikki's pogroms). Again, Nicholas loved and encouraged the "Black Hundreds" who were basically Russian fascists.

And Nicholas wasn't just a raging anti-Semite, he was also a white supremacist and a Russian nationalist. Despite being mostly Danish and German himself, with barely any Russian ancestry, Nicholas got super into the whole Russian supremacy thing, and his empire actively tried to wipe out the languages, cultures and religions of the ethnic minorities in his empire, most infamously in Poland, Ukraine, and Georgia. In fact, part of the traumatic childhood that probably made Stalin so bad was getting beaten for speaking Georgian (his native language) in school. And Nicholas' anti-Asian racism led to him buying whole hog into the Yellow Peril conspiracy theory, the original "White Genocide," which was a huge factor in the disastrous Russo-Japanese war (he regularly referred to the Japanese as "yellow monkeys").

Now Stalin did kill a lot more people than Nicholas over he course of his reign, that can't be denied, so at the end of the Day Stalin is worse than Nicholas in my mind. But not by much: Nicholas' regime would have killed more if he was competent enough to pull it off, and his stubborn stupidity in the face of an empire in desperate need of reform still killed millions of people. And what's more he never seemed to care. So getting up in arms about even comparing him to Stalin is ridiculous, revisionist, and probably a little bit classist, as well as implicitly counting the murder of Jews as less bad than the murder of Christians.

[missmentelle]

I just watched the Netflix show You and it's been discussed but I don't really understand - in a relationship, how does one project their own views and fantasies onto another person? How can you tell if it's happening? Is there a certain point where it's normal or it can't be helped? It's happened a lot in the show but I'm having trouble identifying it. Also, I recommend watching You: it's a thoughtful take on how we view romantic relationships as a society and how that can be twisted

I absolutely love that show.  For those of you who haven’t seen the thriller show “You”, it’s about a charismatic but underachieving man named Joe who works as the manager at a bookstore in Manhattan. He meets a young grad student named Beck when she comes into his bookstore one afternoon, and is immediately infatuated with her; he is completely consumed by his desire for a relationship with her, and it becomes clear very quickly that he’s willing to go to extreme lengths to make it happen.  (Mild spoilers for Season One ahead) Joe is obsessed with Beck from the moment he lays eyes on her. But of course, he’s not really obsessed with her - he is obsessed with the person that he wants her to be. He decides - based only on her clothes, the book she buys and a three-minute conversation with her - that she’s a bookish “good girl” and an intellectual, a serious writer who values real literature and doesn’t crave men’s attention. And he’s very interested in that. She’s his Manic Pixie Dream Grad Student, whether she likes it or not. It’s clear from the very beginning that Joe thinks extremely highly of himself, and he feels entitled to a woman who is just as intelligent and sophisticated as he is - when he looks at Beck, he decides that she’s that perfect girl he’s been waiting for all along. Moreover, he decides that she’s equally interested in him - she pays for her book with a credit card, and Joe decides that she did that because she intentionally wanted Joe to learn her full name. And of course, as Joe learns more about Beck, he discovers that she’s not the artsy, aloof writer he had been envisioning in his head. She goes out drinking with friends that Joe dislikes, she has a trashy boyfriend, she posts selfies on Instagram, and doesn’t actually do any writing. But instead of deciding “oh wow, I was super wrong about this girl, I definitely got carried away”, Joe decides that the REAL Beck is the girl he fantasized about in the bookstore, and that she just needs his help to realize it. He decides that he knows what’s best for a woman who is a complete stranger to him, deliberately manipulating her life to turn her into more of the person he wants her to be, until... well, you know how it ends. 

When you first start watching You, it can be hard to understand how messed-up Joe actually is. He is the main character of the show, and the narrator. He is also capable of great kindness - he genuinely cares for the neglected child who lives in an abusive household next door - and it kinda feels like we’re supposed to root for him. After all, he just wants what’s best for Beck. He sees who she really is inside, and he knows that she deserves better than the life she has right now. He just wants her to reach her full potential and stop wasting time with people who don’t really care about her... what could be so bad about that?

The problem, of course, is that Joe doesn’t know jack shit about Beck, and he has no right to decide what is and isn’t good for her. She is a grown-ass woman, and he is a stranger she met at a bookstore. Joe claims to have good intentions, but his intentions aren’t the point here - nobody has the right to meddle in someone else’s life behind their back, no matter how much they love and care about them. When you truly care about someone, you respect their choices - Joe has absolutely no respect for the decisions Beck makes, and sees no issues with isolating, stalking and terrorizing her if it gets him what he wants. Joe claims that Beck is miserable, but we don’t know actually know that - he filters everything he sees through a very thick lens of his own self-interest. He doesn’t allow her basic autonomy to choose what matters to her. Beck is not actually a real person to Joe - she is a prize that he wants to win.

Think about the show from Beck’s perspective - you’re an adult, with your own whole, complete life. You have friends, dreams, a boyfriend, guilty pleasures. You make bad choices sometimes, sure, but they are YOUR choices, and you have the freedom to make them. And then you walk into a shop one day and the man behind the counter suddenly decides that you’re his soulmate and it’s now his job to make decisions for you. You barely know this guy, but he thinks he has the right to control your life - he wants to control who you date, who you talk to, and how you spend your time. Imagine doing something as ordinary as paying for a book with your credit card, and having the person behind the counter interpret this as evidence that you want them to Google you and come to your house. The very idea of it is terrifying. 

The plot of You is obviously a huge dramatization, but the same dynamic does appear in real-life abusive relationships. Abusers often have very specific ideas about what their ideal partner should be like, and they believe - consciously or unconsciously - that they are “owed” this person. When they meet someone, they tend to decide extremely quickly that THIS is finally the person they’ve been waiting for all along. They don’t really feel the need to get to know the person as an individual - they assume that they already know everything they need to know about the person, and that the relationship will be effortless. When that inevitably doesn’t pan out because their partner is a real person with needs and flaws, they get angry and the abuse starts to come out - they try harder and harder to control their partner and force them back into being the perfect person they’d envisioned, and they lash out angrily when that doesn’t work. 

Although it’s nowhere near as extreme as what happened in You, I’ve had my own experiences with dating someone who was projecting their fantasies on me. My long-term college boyfriend was several years older than me, and already finished with grad school while I was still an undergrad. As the relationship went on, it became very clear that he was looking for a meek, nerdy girl who would appreciate his geek interests but never try to overshadow him. He strongly encouraged me to do the nerdy thing he approved of - cosplaying, attending conventions, playing D&D - but didn’t want me wearing makeup (I wear winged liner every day of my life), dyeing my hair strange colours (which I used to do quite often as a student) or even wearing my contact lenses instead of glasses (I got contacts the moment I was old enough and haven’t been seen in my glasses since). He was hugely threatened by the fact that I took my academics seriously, and he freaked out when I was accepted to an Ivy League grad school because “it would be so humiliating to have a girlfriend who went to a better school than I did”. He had a very specific vision of the kind of girlfriend he wanted to have, and he was prepared to try to stamp out the parts of me that didn’t align with what he wanted.  It’s okay to have standards and expectations for the kind of partner you want to have. That’s normal. I’d argue that it’s necessary. Speaking from personal experience, life is a lot easier when you expect your partners to have mastered basic communication and coping skills. And sometimes you will need to look for a partner who has very specific traits - if your dream is to have 12 children and live on a goat farm, you need to find a partner who is on board with that goal. It’s also fine to have preferences in terms of aesthetics, interests and lifestyles - we’re always going to have certain things that we find appealing, and it’s okay to be into that. What’s not okay is to have such rigid expectations about how our future partner will look, dress and behave that we can’t cope with not getting our exact fantasy. It’s fine to think that dating a quirky art major with a nose ring would be awesome. It’s not fine to think that dating a quirky art major with a nose ring is the answer to all your problems. And it’s definitely not fine to latch on to the first quirky art major with a nose ring that you can find, and then punish them when they turn out to be a complex human with real issues and not just a living doll. Whenever you’re dating, it’s important to remember that you are dating a real, live human, and not a cartoon character. They are going to grow and change, and they are going to have flaws, off-days and traits that don’t match up with your fantasies. Your punky goth girlfriend is going to have days where she just wants to lounge around the house in her pajamas and watch Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Your tough, manly lumberjack boyfriend might have a super sensitive gag reflex and spend an awful lot of time on the phone with his mom. We’re all weird, and each of us needs to have the freedom to be our own kind of weird in a relationship - if you find that your desire to be with someone is extremely dependent on their appearance, dress, weight, hobbies, friends, job, etc, and you can’t handle not having control over those things, you aren’t ready to date.  The other big red flag to look for here is how fast someone rushes the relationship. If you’re projecting your fantasies on someone, you don’t really feel much need to get to know them - like Joe, you’re pretty sure that you know everything that you need to know about them soon after meeting. You are fully expecting this person to be the fantasy partner you desire, and so there’s no point waiting to see how the relationship goes - within weeks, you’re ready to move in together, adopt a pet together, and even get engaged. If you’re convinced that a person you met three weeks ago is your soulmate, it’s time to stop and take a hard look at things - you don’t know a person you meet three weeks ago, and you have no idea if they’re your soulmate or not. You are trying to date a fantasy and not a real person.  Hope this answers your question! MM

[link-of-asgard]

My brother's girlfriend is living with us because of family issues. (despite us not really having space for her). Which would be fine, but honestly she's getting in the way. Whenever she comes out of his room we're not allowed to talk to her, and she leaves a mess behind her wherever she's goes. I'm constantly having to clean after her and I'm getting tired of it.

She's also having so many deliveries ordered. And I'm the one who has to sign for every one of them cause she refuses to come near anyone or even out of my brother's room.

Now I understand anxiety, it gets in my way a lot, I understand being scared of people due to things that have happened to themz and it can be difficult, but if she's living here she needs to start actually being a part of this household.

She needs to pull her weight like the rest of us, if it's long term I don't see why she shouldn't start paying rent like me too. She clearly has enough money to do so with all the deliveries she's had since she came here.

Then there's feeding her. Most people tell you their allergies and what they like and don't like, before you make them food. Specially when you ask if something is ok before making it. Not after, wasting the food made for you.

She's also brought her cat. Which is fine. But it's also cooped on in her room because it was attacking our cats. And dog. And tried to get to my rat. Which means that room is not only a mess, but also stinks of cat shit and piss, and their sweat etc, and it's seeping into the rest of the house.

Not once have I been able to empty the bin in that room, and they haven't emptied it themselves. And not once have I had any of their clothes to wash, which they also haven't done (cause my brother believes them to be my jobs). So there's a pile of dirty laundry and rubbish in there too.

She's loud as fuck too. Doesn't seem to have any respect for others. And we can hear every word she says cause she doesn't seem to know how to be quiet. Due to this it's impossible not to overhear her woe is me stories, and the belittling she does of my brother. And the constantly telling him nothing is her fault and he should do whatever she says. And etc for what you can imagine a toxic relationship to be. We've asked him if he's ok and he just shrugs it off as cause of how she is. As well as not very nice things about me, including laughing when my rat died. Playing a flute at 3am is annoying too.

Quite honestly she's taking the piss, as is my brother. I don't mind her being here, I understand why she's here, despite a few inconsistencies in her story, but having a complete stranger living in your house who you're not allowed to interact with, but have to clean after and wait on is absolutely bullshit. It's effecting my mental health too having this person here that you're not even allowed to question just cause they've allegedly had a bad life, which we only have her word for. I had sympathy at first, but these past two months has eroded that.

If you've read through this rant about my brother's abusive freeloading girlfriend, have this picture of my good boy.

[grown-up-sally-face]

none of that excuses travis from what hes done, sal is not his outlet for his shitty life or issues. even if sal DOES forgive him doesnt mean hes absolved of what he's done since we already know sal to be an empath of sorts. with the toxicity that's there it's still not really the 'healthiest' of choices. i don't care for salarry either thats weird af but my thoughts still stand

No one said it does. I’ve merely said that that’s where the anger is coming from, and how it’s not do black and white as it seems. Not only that, but people change. Yes, Travis May have had to shape up in terms of attitude and shit, but he’s still gonna make an effort (as shown when he and Sal are saying goodbye to one another).

Again, and I’ll put this in caps so someone will read my fucking post for once: NO ONE IS SAYING TRAVIS IS ABSOLVED/PARDONED FOR HIS ACTIONS.

To be honest, I think the ‘’’’’healthiest’’’’’’’ option in terms of shipping is ash/Sal and Todd/Niel.

Also, of fucking course there’s gonna be toxicity in the terms of ‘hey! I grew up in an abusive household and am now being shown how my actions affect others and how I can change so I can stop being an asshole’!

The self hate doesn’t go away in one night. It’s like an unwelcome ghost that’s got its claws deep in your brain. It takes therapy and self control to get over it. Yeah, he’s gonna keep doing some things he’s been taught that aren’t okay. But he’s trying.

But god forbid a character actually learn from his mistakes!!!

It’s almost as if!!! People aren’t!!! Black and white!!!!! And being traumatized!!!! Can affect your actions!!!! And you’re only an asshole if you don’t make an effort to change!!!

Fuck off and fuck every Travis hater out there. Travis is black, Christian, and a high schooler. The odds are heavily stacked against him! So if anyone says he’s irredeemable (*cough* aka people saying his actions will never be forgiven for zero reason and saying that sals forgiveness doesn’t count- *FUCKING COUGH*)

I’m 90% sure that if Travis were white, a lot of people that hate him right now would be supportive of his ability to ‘change’ and ‘put his differences aside’.

Again, cause people can’t fucking read: TRAVIS IS A VICTIM OF ABUSE, WHICH IS WHY HE HAD SUCH VIOLENT ACTIONS. WHILE THIS DOESNT EXCUSE HIS ACTIONS, HE STILL MAKES AN EFFORT TO CHANGE AND THE PEOPLE THAT IGNORE THIS EFFORT ARE DEAD TO ME AND FUCKIN PROBABLY RACIST.

Take a page outta Sals book and put the goddamn past behind you. Clearly Sals the only person mature enough on this website to understand that Travis never truly hated him. But god forbid.

Also:

What’s this?? It’s years into the future. Surely, if Travis was a horrible person, then he’d be against Sally, right?

But what’s this?

There’s Ash, who’s on Sals side. Maple…. and… is that… Travis?!

They’re all sitting on the side for Sal! It’s almost as if people can change in the multitude of years that you can really get to know someone!

It’s almost as if…. people prefer to believe that a mass murderer (with good intent) is more forgivable than a young, impressionable teenager that wants to change his ways, but hasn’t been able to because he lives with his abusive pastor father. Clearly, he’s irredeemable

People change. Get over it.

[the-cryptographer]

I know you probably get asked this a lot, but I can't help myself. You can tell me to fuck off if you don't want to answer, though. Do you still want to finish Lottery Ticket? Because it's one of my favorite YGO fics and the idea of you dropping it makes me so very sad.

It’s fine anon. I mean, I appreciate the recognition that I don’t owe you an answer or free content or anything, but I don’t get asked too often so it’s not a bother. And I’m not gonna tell you to ‘fuck off’.

Short answer is that - No, I’m not dropping Lottery Ticket. I still want to finish it. And, although I’m moving at a glacial pace, I was working on writing the next chapter as recently as sometime last week.

I’m going to give a longer answer though - Yeah, I also get scared I’m not gonna be able to finish it sometimes too. Not in the sense that it’s not important to me, but in the sense that I’ve been writing it for over two years, am over 100k words into it, and I’m not even halfway through the the planned story. I hope that I’ll be able to pick up the pace at some point, but moreso I hope that two or four or however many years in the future I’ll still care as much about finishing it as I do now. I’m kind of lucky I had some experience under my belt when I first started writing LT, enough to be able to know that I need to have a rather concrete understanding of my plot and story structure to see a long project through. But what LT has really driven home is that I have a very poor understanding of how many words and chapters (and how much time) it takes to execute the ideas in an abstract outline.

Also, yeah, idk how obvious it is, but Lottery Ticket is pretty personal to me. Not in the sense that I grew up with a gambling alcoholic dad, started a long distance relationship with a classy older woman straight out of my teenage years, or worked as a gofer for the CEO of a multi-billion dollar company. But a lot of the themes it deals with - feeling trapped in a household with a deteriorating abuser, class struggle through the lens of the more personal relationships between employers and employees, codependency and not being able to trust that people love you bc they depend on you, the intersectionality of poverty, racism, and crime, etc. etc. are all pretty heavy themes that I care deeply and personally about. And you’d think that that would make this story easier to write at times, but it mostly just makes it more difficult. It often feels a lot easier to rattle off oneshots about characters and ideas that, while maybe not entirely without emotional gravitas for me, certainly don’t hit as many soft spots so consistently.

And, in a more immediate sense, yea- next chapter is killer. I recently complained on twitter about how the draft for it cracked 8k, and I didn’t feel it was remotely finished. I like to divide the chapters so that they individually have a crescendo of rising and falling action - or at least that’s what I tell myself - so, having established the previous chapter that the next chapter is going to be about dealing with this problem where Jou owes an ungodly amount of money to yakuza affiliates and has no paycheck to pay with, I don’t think it really makes sense for me to post until I’ve reached a resolution to that conflict eleven days later. But, in addition to the mad scramble for cash, the chapter also has to include Jou dragging an unconscious Kaiba home, Jou negotiating with his landlord, scenes with Honda and Yuugi that establish how Jou feels about relying on them, an extendend flashback with Mai (& Anzu) that does much the same thing in addition to giving more background on Jou’s living situation, all that foreshadowing, etc. Also, I was kind of up in the air about whether or not to include this scene in this chapter or next - because there is /so much/ this chapter and I have very little concretely planned for next chapter - but I’m increasingly coming to think that Jou should confront his dad about the stolen paycheck this chapter instead of next one. Like- Jou’s kind of avoiding coming face to face with his dad and directly asking him for the money back. And the idea is that Jou’s been in situations similar enough to this in the past, that he already knows what the likely result of such a confrontation is and that it’s probably a dead end. So he’d prefer to wait until after the situation with Kyoutarou is dealt with to speak to dad. But the more I think about it, the more I realise the audience doesn’t have the same information that Jou does, and would probably benefit more from seeing the outcome of that confrontation firsthand. And to see it firsthand while there is still a hypothetical possibility for Jou’s dad to somehow influence the outcome when Jou goes to pay his debt, instead of after it’s somewhat of a moot point.

And, yeah, that brings me to the last part, which is the anxiety for what comes after the next chapter. As I’ve said, the fic is plotted out pretty heavily, but the two-three chapters after the next one are the part of the fic I have planned out the least in terms of their concrete events. I know the scene that the chapter after next ends on, but I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to fill the first part of it in with beyond the extremely vague ‘need to have a scene with Mokuba and start filling in more foreshadowing before the shit entirely hits the fan’. This isn’t explicitly a problem, per se, because Lotto Ticket has a big cast and there are a lot of threads I can pick up with Mai, Anzu, Shizuka, Honda, Yuugi, the other secretarial staff, etc that will hopefully fill out the pacing gaps in a way that will hopefully be entertaining and insightful, before I get back to the more solidified chapters directly preceding and including the climax of Part 2.

And, mmm, in addition to the anxiety related to chapter planning or lack thereof, there’s also just anxiety about what I’m going to have the characters say, do, and think? Next chapter is going to start dropping some pretty horrible headcanons about Jounouchi’s misogyny and his criminal record that I think should reasonably turn some people away from a fic featuring him as the protag. Following this he will spend a while comparing Seto rather unfavorably to Mai, and I mean that in an extremely intimate relational sense. And while I, as the author, know this is him struggling with his own homophobia and that it’s not meant to reflect negatively in a meta sense on Seto or JouKai, it takes a while before Jounouchi even starts to get over himself. Also, like, I’ve dropped some hints already that Jou and Mai have an open relationship (and that it’s a setup Jou’s not very happy about and kind of considers cheating anyhow). But I think the further progression of the “cheating” as it exists in this fic has the potential to be increasingly upsetting for readers, and it’s also the first of multiple issues regarding Jounouchi not really having a very good understanding of consent. And, finally, although I started the fic with a rather stark and controversial picture of Mokuba, and have since tried really hard to communicate that he is the same kid from canon that loves his brother to death, we have absolutely not reached the worst in his conflict and anger with his brother and I’m sure at least a few people won’t like it. And, mmm, I’m not really willing to compromise any of these things or tone them down. Even the few that aren’t directly baked solid into the plot structure of the fic, even the ones that I’m really not going to be able to frame in such a way that I can address them in detail given Jounouchi’s POV, I think they’re all extremely thematic and pointed towards the story’s idea of the situation Jounouchi grew up in, what he learned from it, and how much is at stake or not at stake, when he tries (or doesn’t try) to escape the poverty and abuse that (at least in part) defined him. But, yeah, idk. Even though I’m decided in that ‘this is the story i’m gonna write and no other’ it’s still anxiety provoking to think about readers being upset with me or dropping the fic even if I think their reasons for doing so would be completely justified - you know what I mean?

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to ramble about writing (or not writing) one of my favourite fics, anon. I hope I’ll be able to get the next chapter out sooner rather than later.

[missmentelle]

I don't really know who to ask about this, but I think my bf might be emotionally abusive. The minute we started dating he started listing off all his "requirements" for a relationship, and I felt like I was signing a contract. Every time I tell him about something I like he ignores me or calls it stupid, and doesn't listen when I say I don't like something because I'll "learn to like it". I've never been allowed to choose what we do. He acts normal around others, being alone w himis the problem

This is definitely an emotionally abusive situation, and it’s important that you understand why. Let’s go over the red flags you listed in just five sentences of text:

He has strict terms and conditions for the relationship. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely okay to have general preferences, standards and deal-breakers. The last time I was on the dating market, I knew that I was looking for someone who had some sort of career and mostly had their shit together. But there’s a huge difference between “I have some dealbreakers to protect my physical and emotional safety” and “here’s how you’re allowed to dress, act, and communicate or we’re done”. The first one is a smart idea, the second one is completely unreasonable. Dating involves getting into a relationship with a real human being, and not an android you ordered off the internet; human beings are complicated, and expecting someone to meet absolutely all of your whims and preferences all the time is just not gonna happen. Being a good partner means compromising, looking for the good in your partner, working through any incompatibilities and understanding that your partner is going to have good and bad days, and grow and change as a person. Having a rigid list of “requirements” like your boyfriend does is a huge red flag. It’s a sign that he doesn’t really see you as a complex human being who will be his partner in life - it sounds like he was willing to get into a relationship with anyone who accepts his “terms”. You’re a person, you’re not a doll. I’m willing to bet that most of his terms are pretty self-serving, and that you didn’t get to place similar restrictions on him. Making a partner feel like your love is conditional and depends on them following your strict set of rules is emotionally abusive; you want someone who will have your back even when you are sick, stressed, or otherwise not at your best. 

He belittles your interests. In a healthy relationship, partners never call each other's interests “stupid” or imply that their partner is wrong for liking those things. In a healthy relationship, you support your partner’s interests, even if you can’t understand how they could possibly be interested in that thing. My partner is in a black metal band, which is a genre of music I enjoy about as much as the sound of coffee beans in an electric bean grinder; nevertheless, I support his band and his music career, and I listen to tracks he sends me. My partner doesn’t understand why I’ve turned my tiny Manhattan apartment into a book-hoarding den, but he got me a reading light so I can read in bed next to him and lets me explain the plots of books to him. It takes minimal effort to validate your partner, and it takes absolutely zero effort to not shit all over your partner’s interests. The fact that your boyfriend isn’t even willing to hear you out and that he goes out of his way to tell you your interest are stupid is a huge red flag - once again, it sounds like he has an image in his mind of a perfect, doll-like girlfriend who likes all the same things he does, and anything contrary to that image is not something he can accept. 

He sets double standards for the relationship. If he’s allowed to roll his eyes at your interests but you’re expected to shut up and participate in his, what other double standards will he be willing to set in the relationship? Is he okay with you turning him down for sex if he’s in the mood for it, or is he the only one who gets to decline sex? Will you both take care of the other if they are sick, or are you the only one expected to play nurse? Will you both be putting in equal effort to plan dates and romantic surprises to keep the relationship alive, or does he expect you to put in all the effort and get nothing in return? Double-standards like this in a relationship are a huge red flag. Again, its a big sign that he doesn’t view this as an equal partnership between two people who love each other; he only seems to care that his needs get met by you, without any need for him to be inconvenienced by your needs. That’s how you treat a household servant, not a partner. 

He is controlling. In healthy relationships, people care about their partner’s preferences. It’s as simple as that. A healthy partner would never ban their significant other from having input about what you do together; in a healthy relationship, both people want the other to be happy, and so they take turns planning activities so that both people get a chance to do something they enjoy. I personally would never be able to tell my partner that he was not allowed to choose what we do - I wouldn’t be able to enjoy activities that were 100% planned by me, because I would spend the whole time worrying that he wasn’t enjoying himself. Once again, this points to him being a very self-centered person who views his partner’s needs as insignificant and not worth his time. He chooses the activities every time because his own happiness is the only thing that matters to him, and for him, you exist only to prop up his happiness without having desires of your own. 

He is able to “turn off” his bad behaviour when he needs to. The fact that he can act normally around friends and family tells us two things: one, he has control over this behaviour, and two, he understands that it’s wrong. He is actively choosing to treat you this way, and that’s not okay. If he genuinely didn’t know that the way he treats you is wrong, he wouldn’t change his ways even if the Pope himself was watching. He is fully aware of the distinction between “treating my girlfriend well” and “mistreating my girlfriend". What’s more, he knows that other people would have a negative view of him if they saw him treat you and so he puts on a “loving, happy boyfriend” mask until the two of you are alone and his true nature can come out. Being a different person in public vs. being alone is not necessarily a red flag - a partner who is shy in public but bubbly when they’re alone with you is not a bad thing - but someone who is only kind to you when others are watching is a huge red flag. 

From the sounds of it, your boyfriend isn’t interested in a relationship with the real you; he is interested in having a relationship with a fantasy girl that he made up in his head, and he is willing to do whatever it takes in order to shape you into that fantasy, even if it means emotional abuse. That’s not love, and you deserve better than that. A loving partner celebrates your unique traits and qualities, and goes out of their way to try to bring happiness to your life; they don’t call your hobbies stupid and make you agree to a laundry-list of demands. Hope this answers your question!