#you have not done the work to unlearn that ignorance at all

[nururu]

I don't understand why there's such a pressure on representing your gender identity outwardly when it's literally so fucking dangerous. If you're brave enough good for you. If you have enough mental strength, good for you. But y'all need to stop taking that and using it as an example of how trans ppl should present themselves and then making them feel less than and invalid when they don't do it your way. It takes a lot of strength and a lot of bravery and a lot of mental strength, to be able to do that. Like an astronomical amount. Expecting everyone to have that ability is weird. And I know, logically, people don't expect that. When you actually sit down and have a nuanced conversation, everyone understands this.. but the way trans ppl who don't pass or don't outwardly represent a binary gender on their bodies, get invalidated and treated like they're not good enough bc they're not as brave as you,is ridiculous. It needs to stop.

[creaman]

—BECAUSE KUNG FU PANDA 4 KILLED MY GRANDMA, OKAY?

To preface, I watched this movie and I'm genuinely tweaking right now so I had to write down a very brief (lie) criticism on this film — which you should boycott, by the way.

Starting with the things I liked, before briefing my primary points of criticism:

Po's Character Regression

Po and Zhen's Dynamic

The Chameleon

I'd also yap about Lord Shen and the death of the art style and the entire narrative and pacing and use of the staff of wisdom but my therapist says being such a hater is 'unhealthy' or something. My heart is full of hatred.

SPOILERS for the entirety KFP4 for the 2 people who care.

KFP4 undermines and ignores the previous three movies — Unwriting character developments, outright removing the Furious Five, straying from the character design philosophies and is completely inconsistent with the established lore.

Things I Liked About Kung Fu Panda 4

The Chameleon's character design

Visual gag in the Tavern where Po uses a recently thrown axe as a hat rack (made me laugh)

When Mr. Ping did this:

so cute! the little heart!

Po — Character Writing

Po, as established in the previous movies, is confident in his abilities and identity — he’s learnt inner peace, he’s matured as a character. However, in KFP4, his character has completely regressed. He’s immature again (such as KFP1, possibly worse) and says verbatim, “only knows kicking butt and taking names” — UNLEARNING inner peace and insisting that “…being the Dragon Warrior is all I know.”

It’s childish, and sort of Hotel Transylvania-esque.

Which isn’t helped by the comedy, the dialogue — a large chunk of which are jokes in the style of:

Master Shifu says something philosophical

Po quips off of it / doesn’t get it (i.e. Whoa!! beat I don’t know what that means.)

Oh, it’s great, yeah, very tolerable. Po’s shenanigans are normally reeled in by the presence of the Furious Five who are generally more serious in nature, creating a much needed balance in the dynamic — So without them, it’s just Po becoming increasingly obnoxious and insufferable with every consecutive quip throughout the screenplay.

Po and Zhen — Character Dynamics

[No more graphics sorry I'm too angry]

As if it wasn’t obvious that Zhen was going to be the next Dragon Warrior the second she was introduced.

Zhen, as a character, has no depth besides being a quippy thief. She quips, she steals. This character has no motives — it can be assumed that the writers intended on a ‘change of heart’ thing, but she isn’t established as evil, her working for the Chameleon is written as a (albeit poor) twist reveal.

By which point, her taking either side wouldn’t make sense, given that she has shown no loyalty or attachment to either Po nor the Chameleon.

The movie artificially strengthens their bond by having Zhen start opening up about her backstory out of nowhere for no reason but they have done nothing to grow closer to each other.

Small tangent, her backstory is exactly what you’d expect it to be with no subversions or even emotional weight. Woe is me I was so small and hungry I had to steal to survive. Glossed over in about a minute.

The majority of the dialogue between Zhen and Po is spoken exposition — explaining how powerful and badass the Chameleon is, explaining how ‘we have to go here to do that’ and ‘this place was cool until the Chameleon did such and such’, and the rest of their time together is spent engaging in filler chase sequences and fight scenes.

The Chameleon

Where do I even start…

This is where it becomes apparent that the movie relies heavily on telling rather than showing —

She is the weakest villain by far, not only in universe but as a written character; which is particularly disheartening because I genuinely adore her character design and feel as though a shapeshifting character has great potential.

The movie artificially inflates her power by insisting through exposition that this is the most capable antagonist thus far (lie).

The audience is TOLD by Zhen and various restaurant patrons that the Chameleon is a powerful shapeshifting sorceress and that she 'dominates the city' whilst the film does nothing to showcase this.

'Dominating the city' meaning letting her henchpeople run amock and bully the civilians just like Lord Shen's wolves in KFP2... uninspired.

I just realised they didn't even give her a NAME what the FUCK is going on

She describes HERSELF as ruthless, clever and unsentimental when comparing Zhen to herself.

She says HERSELF that she’s “Stronger than every opponent you’ve ever faced.”

Let’s see what vile reprehensible things she’s done, shall we?

Gently push someone down some stairs

Her first appearance is through Zhen’s exposition, as opposed to the dramatic and memorable entrances of the previous villains. Her motives or character aren’t established until the final third of the film. She doesn’t even FIGHT anybody until the final third of the film; and even then, her fight sequences are uninspired and she never really poses a real threat. (She goes down in two hits.)

That being said, WE CAN STILL SAVE HER GUYS WE CAN STILL GET HER OUTTA THERE I'M COMING FOR YOU CHAMELEON I'M GONNA DRAFT YOU A PROPER BACKSTORY AND MOTIVE AND YOU'RE GONNA BE THE MOST THREATENING VILLAIN THUS FAR

There's a scene after the climax of the film where all the kung fu masters and previous villains from the spirit realm bow to Po. I'm not going to provide my thoughts on this because I fear I may burst a blood vessel. Good day!

Closing Statements

To put it simply, Kung Fu Panda 4 was my Megamind 2.

The film rejects its predecessors in every way. It really feels as though they brought in somebody with no prior knowledge of the franchise to direct the movie.

It's a film that relies heavily on telling rather than showing — banking on the previous three movies to carry it through the box office.

It's just really disheartening to see studio execs turn one of the best franchises into a safe sequel cash grab and regress every character's development.

Nevertheless. I do adore the chameleon's character design so I might do my own take on her character.

As far as I'm concerned, there is no fairy godmother, there is no tooth fairy, and there is no kung fu panda 4.

[drdemonprince]

i read in the comments to my last ask about "ordinary unhappiness" the idea of depression as a lack of agency and i feel like that is true? when i feel miserable and in pain, it's not because something is sad but because something is either unachievable or impossible (or at least there is the perception of it). and like i think that's what you were getting at too? this thing that drives you to keep going, this lack of satisfaction. i simply don't have anything i can give into such that i would ever even feel a lack of satisfaction. i've never had anything to give myself into and feel frustrated and perhaps sometimes successful in but instead i just envy the people who do have those things. nothing i've ever done has felt maintained a sense of emotional connectiveness in that way (positive or negative). i guess to wrap this back around to another potential talking point, i'm curious how you find that in your life? is it weird for me that nothing has ever felt worth putting myself whole ass into? idk, i find it envious you've got both writing and gay hypno fetish stuff you're able to just throw yourself into so wholly and utterly

Passion isn't inherent, it can be a choice too. I only look like I care a ton about writing and gay hypno stuff because I have deliberately chosen to pursue those passions, for many years, and cultivated a deep interest in them, anon.

When I was in my early twenties, I felt completely empty. I was a void. If you've read the first chapter of Unmasking Autism, this is the period I'm talking about in that book. I went away to graduate school (because I was good at academics, and I had some illusions about what a career in that field would do for me), but I had absolutely zero zest for the subject of psychology at that point. I had no research ideas. I read psychology books and publications purely out of obligation. I did what was required of me, but nothing additional beyond that, and I spent the rest of my time sitting at home, sometimes literally staring at the wall and crying. I had no friends or hobbies, aside from taking long, long depression walks listening to podcasts in order to fill the silence.

This was when I was at my most depressed, and my most suicidal. Just existing was a pain. I'd sob in bed at night and cry out begging for God to kill me, and I didn't even believe in God. The only thing that distracted me from my pain was a guy I was seeing, who was beautiful and very cruel and inconsistent, and I clung to him through all kinds of lies and abuse because it felt as though my happiness was located inside of him.

I had a friend that I wrote to about how miserable I was, and all the twists and turns that my horrible romance was taking. Her name was Heather. (Unlearning Shame is dedicated to her). She told me hey, you're a really good writer, did you know that? I really enjoy reading your emails, even when you're speaking about the most pitiful anguished shit, you really put it poetically and have a ton of insight. You should write more.

For a while, I ignored her. I didn't care about writing. I just wanted to get my pain out on the page because I had nobody to talk to, and oodles of time to waste. I had nothing otherwise that I felt I HAD to say. I had no PASSION. I did not feel like I was put on this earth to do anything. Other people seemed to have these drives, and I had nothing.

But then one day in a fit of depression I stopped by a bookstore right near my apartment, The Armadillo's Pillow, just to get outside of the house. I happened upon a book I had loved in high school, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. I took it home. I read it. It transported me for a few hours away from my pain. I went back to the book store and picked up some sci-fi. A John Varley collection, I think. I was also swept away from my suffering, even when the stories had flaws that I noticed. I was interested in the actual craft of storytelling: what worked and what didn't. And there was finally some beauty in my head instead of the usual dreariness and self-hatred and emptiness.

And so. I made the choice to write. I could have taken it or left it at that point. I didn't care about anything. Caring is a muscle that you have to flex. And when you're depressed, it can be very hard. I needed a lot of nudges from the external world and other people, to realize that I had some things I did gravitate toward, even if I didn't realize it.

All that time of course I WAS driven to write. I was churning out 5k word letters to Heather every day practically. I was reading stupid shit online. And when it was put in front of me, and I had no reason to feel guilt about not working hard enough on other things, I reached for books. But I didn't feel passion strongly under the heavy blankets of my depression. Or usually at all, really. I am a quite internally muted person whose emotions are suppressed. But they're there. Speaking to me softly. And to overcome my depression, I had to decide to listen to them instead of ignoring them all of the time, and give them kindling, and then fan them into a flame.

I started blogging regularly while I was in graduate school (right here, hello, you can check my archive dating back to 2011), and finding a reason to live. When I was writing, I felt like the world was interesting, and beautiful. It gave me new things to do. I attended literary readings and book launches all over town. I submitted work to magazines. I bought old copies of magazines and read them. I inhaled books. I listened to fiction podcasts. I joined writing groups. At first, it felt like a slog, like anything else. Doing these things, I was not "happy". But I was interested. I liked learning about the world of publishing, critiquing people's stories in my head, and commisserating with other Tumblr writers about the stuff that got featured on the Prose tag that sucked.

After YEARS of doing this, of choosing to fan my passions, it became a genuine motivation in my life. But even then? I lose track of it sometimes. I get busy, or there's no place comfy to sit and read in my apartment, and I forget that I like writing and reading for months at a time. And then I have to choose it again. It takes effort to care about something, every time.

It's the same way with hypno. I did have a fetish for this stuff all my life long. But it's a passion that people always thought was weird and gross, and that I thought was bad. I didn't tell anyone about it until my late 20's. I felt ashamed masturbating to it or looking up hypno content online. For years I snuffed out that flame of passion until I could barely feel it anymore. It wasn't until I was super depressed AGAIN in my later 20's that I took a bunch of weird off-label anti-depressant drugs under the table and had a weird dreamy headspace overtake me and make me insanely horny that I remembered how much I loved hypno, and because I was in search of an escape from my tormented brain, I sought hypnotists out.

And I had the time of my life. But I also had boring, awkward encounters, bad hook-ups, and had to do a ton of work.

My passions have drawn me out of depression because I needed them to. I had to find them, listen to them, and then give them lots of food. And it's one of the few things that a person does often have agency over, no matter how dispiriting their circumstances. You can make choices about where to put what attention you do have, in what free moments you do have. When you're on the bus or in line at the grocery store and you're thinking about how much you hate yourself, you can try to think about a story you read or a sexual fantasy you had, instead. It's a lot of work. But it's better work than the work of hating yourself, which takes a whole lot of energy and attention itself.

I hope you can find something like this for you. It doesn't really matter what it is. It can be some hobby you've always wanted to try, or something "childish" you've suppressed. Having a passion isn't like being chosen by the universe to care about something. It's not like love at first sight. Nothing fucking works like that in life. It's always work. It's always a choice you have to make, because no one else will give it to you. But there can be hints that you can follow, sometimes.

[dykeulous]

LEFTIST MALES

sometimes they can be a dangerous misogynist in disguise, wearing a red mantle. to many they are well-hidden.

given that the previous socialist countries never dismantled misogyny or misogynist practices, it is no surprise that so many marxist males today seem to have no consciousness of misogyny. they might be working-class, but that doesn’t outdate the visible and blazing male privileges they possess. some of them truly do aim to use it for the good, but the rest ignore & completely walk over the female proletariat. a lot of them even go out of their way to indicate that only the male proletariat should revolt, and that the female proletariat’s liberation lays in going home, cleaning & getting pregnant. their leftist views tend to cover their inner, and often outspoken & outward sexism.

“he’s a marxist, he cannot be misogynistic!”– can he really not be, if he refuses to talk about the numerous ways capitalism hurts women specifically, about female unpaid & underpaid labor, or about the abortion crisis? right-wing males see women as private property, whereas left-wing males see women as public property. some of them do just need guidance & education, but we aren’t on their disposal to do that for them 24/7. if they truly cared about women & oppressed groups of society, they would educate themselves, especially given that so many marxist feminist scholars’ work is available & easily reachable to them. men are not dumb. marxist men even less so. they can educate themselves if they want to. if your leftist boyfriend spews misogynistic bs, calls women slurs & watches porn– i would, please, ask you to stop calling him “one of the good ones”. he cares about oppressed classes only when he is also a part of them, while he participates in the further oppression of the marginalized groups he’s not part of. women weren’t made to explain everything to men. we shouldn’t always run after them & explain to them why calling a woman a bitch is a bad thing.

if he can educate himself on class struggle, he can also educate himself on class struggle of women. if he chooses not to, then that’s all you really need to know. the rest of us also read marxist feminist scholars. we didn’t go out of our way asking others to explain it to us. we also have to work on unlearning our own, internalized misogyny. we have always been expected to explain feminism to males in simpler, and less bitter forms. why are we expected to explain a movement full of bloodshed with a smile imprinted on our faces? how are we supposed to explain a movement that causes pain & gets you killed in “simpler” forms, especially to a highly intelligent male who just refuses to take you seriously & won’t even after you’re done explaining it to him? the burden of educating males is not on us, it is on them themselves, and if they want to, they will. i will not “debate” my basic human rights with a man who just wants to stress me out & covers it with a “oh but i just want to learn” or a “i just want to be a better ally”. i have no problem trying to explain it once, but do NOT expect me to be kind, sweet, or calm about it. we have always been taught to stop doing whatever we were doing so we can calmly, with a bright smile, explain in “simple” forms to misogynist males what misogyny & feminism are.

i can count the numerous times i have seen leftist men tell women how they can be better feminists. they are just telling us how to make our feminism more palatable to them. they want us to dumb our feminism down & make our girls feel comfortable in the asphyxiant arms of the capitalist-patriarchy. i’m so exhausted of having “feminazi” or “terf” or whatever new anti-feminist term of the day is popular shouted at me, having to tell men how no, i actually do not want to execute them all, even though they know damn well i don’t want to do that. they keep on treating feminism as an accessory. it’s like a crystal necklace to them they can wear to make themselves more appealing to women to get laid. they will pick & choose when to be allies in order to gain validation & attention of the women they want to possess, but when they are alone in a room with their male friends, they will show their true colors.

it’s beyond exhausting constantly having to watch men who claim to be our allies be violently misogynistic to right-wing women. they truly want socialism for each other & the patriarchy for us. there is no political standpoint, no worldview, no ideology that is free of misogyny. you cannot look at a leftist male who keeps a flag of the soviet union on his wall & says “proletarians of all countries, unite!” and with safety say he isn’t misogynistic. misogyny isn’t a big deal to them, although it is one of the oldest forms of oppression. we are angry for a reason. we are angry, and we are not going to sugarcoat our feminism just to “prevent them from hating feminists”. they will hate us regardless. feminism isn’t supposed to be comfortable, it isn’t supposed to make you feel good.

once again– the burden of educating males is not on us, it is on the males themselves.

[zee-the-zebra]

Being "Gifted" and the Standards for Oneself: A Personal Analysis of Veritas Ratio

So this really isn’t a traditional analysis of a character. This is more just my extended thoughts on the character through a personal lens and through my personal experiences.

So I love Dr. Ratio. Not just because his design is wonderful, and I think he's funny. But I also relate to him on a deeply personal level. Which may seem strange at first, but when it comes to the subtext of his character it makes sense to me.

To start, everything about him screams former gifted kid. Which usually translates to "Neurodivergent child who wasn't diagnosed until years later". And like most former gifted kids, he was probably told he was going to great things. In his case, he was probably told he would be recognized by Nous and welcomed into the Genius Society. He had already proven himself to be a brilliant individual, so he believed it would only be a matter of time before he was invited.

But he never was.

Look at every single "genius". They are all selfishly motivated in some form or fashion. That's why he is never considered a genius. That is why he never gain the gaze of the Erudition. Because he wasn't willing to be selfish for the pursuit of knowledge.

And the thing is, he really doesn't need to be a genius. He's already completing his goals of trying to eliminate ignorance from the universe as is. He's already a brilliant man. He's already done so many amazing things already. Even with his somewhat pompous attitude, he genuinely desires to help everyone around him. He's a genuinely selfless person.

But it's not enough. It's not enough because he's selfless. To him, it's never enough. Because he doesn't, or rather can't follow the same path as the geniuses, he feels he isn't enough. That even with all his achievements and work, he's not enough. Because he isn't what he's supposed to be, what people expected him to be, he isn't enough.

That is what really resonates with me. It's that belief that you have to be "normal" or something else to be worth something. It's that belief in a standard set by a different version of you that makes you believe you're not enough. That you've only gotten worse as time goes on. That despite your best efforts you're never going to improve. That the only way to go is down. That because those standards aren't met, you're worthless.

And that's what makes him resonate so much with me as a character. Because I've been there. I had that spiral. I've felt like that I've only gotten stupider as the years go on because I couldn't reach those standards set by being "gifted". When in reality I simply just couldn't deal with my ADHD or Depression without help anymore. I wasn't getting worse, I just needed some help.

And it seems Veritas is already heading in that direction as well. He constantly speaks of following his own path, but perhaps he thinks it doesn't apply to him because of those standards. Perhaps he still believes he isn't enough.

After all, it takes a lot of time to unlearn that.

If you got this far thanks for reading. <3

[nonegenderleftpain]

There are few things I hate more than "Jewish ally" anti-theists and atheists that spout complete bullshit about Judaism and our supposed beliefs as though they know better than we do what we believe. When we talk about cultural xtianity, this is the kind of shit we're talking about.

"You might not believe in hell but most Jews do, my ex-xtian interpretation of your holy texts is correct despite thousands of years of information on the subject, here's a video telling you that you're wrong." Spent several posts calling non-religious people "freethinkers," and continuously dodged the question regarding the harm eliminating religion would do to so many cultures. Not to mention going from "I think the world is better without religion" to "you have an anti-xtian bias that I don't like" as though there's not a reason for that.

Ex-xtian atheists - you need to address and unlearn your xtian belief that your way is the only right way. That you are objectively correct and everyone else is just ignorant. That you know better than the religious minorities you are addressing. People like this want an excuse to talk down to religious minorities under the guise of polite language, and if you don't want to be associated with them, you have to put in the work to not be like this. I say this as an ex-Catholic, and a former anti-theist - do better.

If you are making objective assertions about someone else's religion that you have not studied and cannot answer basic questions about, you're not being critical of religion, you're being an atheist supremacist. If you pull a "gods are more harmful than helpful" like this person but cannot tell me the impact of Kali or Sàngó on their respective cultures, you are not being critical, you're ignorant and self-absorbed. If you have not studied religion, you do not know what you are talking about, and if you are only accepting xtian interpretations of other religions as true, even as a basis for hatred of religion, you're just a xtian with a new wallpaper.

If you are advocating for anti-theism, you are advocating for the cultural genocide of hundreds of different cultures around the world. If you are advocating for anti-theism, you are inherently anti-Jew. And if you are talking over Jews when they correct you on your blatant misunderstanding of our culture, only to call us *liars* when we counter your misconceptions, or call out your cherry-picked sources for why you know better than we do, you're not just an asshole, you're an Antisemite.

I took this conversation in good faith, hoping that the ignorance was born from misunderstanding instead of malice. I should not have been so kind. And if you're going to come onto this post and whine and cry about "not all atheists," or "cultural xtianity isn't real," save us both the time and block me. I'm done entertaining atheists that will not acknowledge that y'all don't know better than the religious minorities you are insulting by assuming we're all just blind sheep being lied to by some hierarchy that doesn't exist outside of certain religions. My partner is an atheist. I was for a long time, and I chose to return to religion on my own. I'm still an atheist, but I am also very religious. I'm the "smart Jew" that ex-xtians love to talk about; enlightened and no longer clinging to the supernatural. And I'm telling you that you're a fucking asshole and I associate more with the most spiritual Orthodox Jew than I ever would with someone who thinks atheism makes you superior.

[flagellant]

Hey, this is a weird and heavy question that could land you in hot water no matter which direction you answer in, so feel free to just ignore me, it's not imperative that you answer or anything. But I don't have a lot of kink-positive (or frankly sex-positive) people that I trust and you seem to have put a lot of time and work into that kind of stuff (or maybe it just comes naturally to you! Regardless, I value your opinion).

I don't know how to make my peace with age regression as a kink, or if I even need to. I've done a lot of unlearning when it comes to a sanitized, puritanical mindset that I was raised with. My general opinion now is "if no one's in danger of getting hurt just leave it be". But I can't help but see people who participate in age regression as a huge red flag- depending on their role in the situation. If I'm friends with someone and they tell me they have a "little" persona or whatever sure that makes me internally cringe but mostly I just feel bad for them because they almost always have trauma. (Baby talk makes me wanna barf but maybe that's a me problem). But when I learn that someone is into people who essentially act like a child or a baby in the bedroom, I'm gonna run for the fucking hills. That just seems like a giant red flag to me- if someone is able to get into a mindset where they can be sexual with someone who's acting like a child, I have a hard time feeling okay around that person.

I know you're no professional, and I'm not here to get validation. Like I said, I just value your insight and I'm wondering if you can introduce me to a new way of thinking about this. Am I wrong to write off someone for a sexual preference as long as it's technically between two consenting adults? Should I be challenging my thinking?

If you do take the time to answer this, know that I appreciate you so much. If you can't answer, I hope you have a good day anyways.

I feel as though relatively often there is confusion when it comes to the idea of kink positivity with regards to this sort of context. It can seem confusing or even impossible, because there are those who act as though being kink positive is the same thing as being personally anything-goes, fetishwise. It's just a matter of vocabulary--we hear "kink positive" and logically assume "we need to feel positive about this kink", right?

Except that's really not the case, no more than landback as a movement demands for creating native american ethnostates by "giving all the private property of america back". The reality is always a bit more complex.

For your specific example of age regression as a kink, it's a pretty common sentiment to just not like it and not want to engage with it. I feel that way--it isn't a matter of value or moral, it's just something that on a personal level I don't like and want nothing to do with.

But the key part of kink positivity is that I need to recognize that I can not be into something without making it a moral judgement on those who are. As you say: If the people involved are all consenting adults, it isn't my place to pass judgement or tell them how to live their lives so long as no one is getting hurt. I need to trust that as adults, they are capable of handling their own sex lives without my intervention. It is not my place to butt in and tell people that because I find their kinks gross that they need to watch out for red flags, any more than it would be anyone else's place to do the same to you.

Anon, you seem to be sort of trapped halfway. You are capable of understanding what kink positivity is supposed to be, but you're not--and forgive me if I'm wrong--really willing to seriously examine what "supposed to be" means when your personal tastes are being challenged. You're saying you're not asking me for validation, but you are asking verbatim "Am I wrong to write off someone for sexual preference as long as it's between two consentint adults?".

I don't really feel like I need to clarify the answer on that, Anon. I'll just point out that you should imagine how you would feel if someone wrote you off morally for one of your sexual preferences when it takes place between yourself and other consenting adults, and whether or not you feel the justifications you'd make against that person could be meaningfully different than the ones someone who participates in age regressions would make to you.

At the end of the day, framing it internally as "It seems like a red flag" is just a way to frame your reaction as morally superior. It is a way of saying "I'm not judging this badly because I don't personally enjoy it, I'm trying to help people. Them doing this is dangerous and I need to be involved and even be against them doing this for their own good". It is the same pearl-clutching Puritan thinking as any fundamentalist Christian would, and it leads to the same thing: Telling full-grown adults that how they have sex between themselves is fundamentally wrong and that your dislike at the very idea of them partaking in it takes priority over their ability to partake in it at all.

I'd suggest asking yourself whether or not you feel as though you'd be respected if someone approached you and told you that, yes, they understand that you're a fully grown adult consenting to sex in this manner, but they don't trust your ability to consent because it seems to them as though there's red flags involved and therefore they DO have a right to get involved in your sex life. For your own good, of course. It isn't your fault that you're into something bad like this. You're traumatized. It's just that people who want to have sex with you are actually taking advantage of you and hurting you, and you just don't know it because you're traumatized, so it's up to other people to tell you how you should and shouldn't have sex and who you shouldn't have sex with.

[dross-the-fish]

Started hanging out with some new friends in a Discord server on days when work from home is slow but I'm not able to leave my desk to draw or write, and I'm honestly surprised by how good of a time I've been having, how at ease I feel. This is the first friend group I've had where most of, if not all of, the people in it are queer in ways that are similar to myself, and not just cisgendered gay or bisexual people, but people who are also non-binary/genderfluid and on the aro/ace spectrum. After a lifetime of being friends with people who were mostly straight or gay and almost all of them cis except for maybe the odd binary-transperson all of whom are allosexual. It also made me realize that I've been walling myself off from most of my old high school friends for the duration of our relationship and haven't even noticed it. I always tend to sit and let little comments slide because I don't want to get into a debate or call too much attention to aspects of myself I'm still figuring out. Dealing with behaviors that were vaguely phobic and excusing them as my friends just "not knowing better," because they seemed well intended otherwise and nothing said was overt. Feeling like before I presented ace characters to them that I needed to have some justification and explanation at the ready and brace myself for people to try and tell me that "well this character can still have sex right?" or "What's the point of making x aromantic?" because they were allosexual and alloromantic and couldn't enjoy characters that weren't "available" in that way. Debates about whether asexuality should even be part of the LGBTQ spectrum weren't common, but they happened. Being made to feel like not being attracted to my partner was unfair to my partner because "everyone deserves to feel attractive to the people who love them." "A stands for Allies" is a thing that came out of one friend's mouth. "Non-binary is trans-lite," is another. "I could never love someone I wasn't attracted to, it must suck so bad to have that part of you missing." When I eventually came out as gender fluid, they seemed accepting but never bothered to use masc pronouns because I still accept fem ones. So they just felt free to ignore my gender all together and one of them even slipped and tried to correct someone who called me "sir" because it was that easy for her to forget, even with me standing right there in a chest binder and men's clothing.

There was always been an element of being ready to defend myself, of weighing my words before I spoke them and agonizing over whether I'd have to hear empty platitudes, excuses of people just "not being used to it" and an obvious, palpable discomfort that no one was willing to unlearn, that would be left for me to bear and to feel like I was at fault for creating by simply existing. And I never noticed it because it was so prevalent and it was still preferable to the blatant hostility most of the conservative population around here has for the LGBTQ community. I can talk to these people about every other thing under the sun, call them when I'm in trouble and they'll help me and turn to them for advice and support in every other area...but the little things still matter. Even when I told myself they didn't. Being around people and feeling like I can be unguarded is such a bizarre feeling that I'm almost afraid of it. Hearing one person talk about how an aromatic character I write isn't broken and wanting strongly for that character to be told that by somebody made me want to cry. Being asked if I would prefer couple art to be sfw vs nsfw because the asexuality of one character was taken into consideration actually felt like a big deal because NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THAT BEFORE. I didn't know these things mattered so much until they happened and now I feel I'm at a crossroads and debating if I should make the effort to advocate more for myself among some of my old friends. Acceptance matters, community matters. I always knew this intellectually but it's a whole different level now that I've experienced it. I've learned that it matters to me.

[worldlytutor]

I think anarchists rejecting the history of socialism and communism is infantile and extremely offensive. Billions of people collectively believed fought built and died for these countries you decry as totally unacceptable. Like the Three Arrows thing. No racism no fascism no communism right? A secret third thing. I find the logo offensive, borderline reactionary. It was used by, historically, soc Dems. Calling the history of global class struggle and the workers states built from it equivalent to fascism is the most reactionary thing I can think of. If I see you with a patch, a tattoo of that, anything, it is genuinely on sight. I do not like you or trust you and I will not work with you.

Are you a socialist? Do you want socialism? What socialist hates communism but espouses anti fascism? Don't you know who the fascists hate most of all? Do you think communism has been achieved, and it was bad? Are you on the level of Homer Simpson, saying "oh sure in THEORY communism works"?

I used to be an uneducated, edgy teenager. And when I was, I spoke confidently that communism didn't work in practice, and couldn't work because of ethnic strife or whatever I read on /pol/ and I was talking along with my white friends and nodding sagely because I Knew What Was Really Up and had handy aphorisms to make my point seem well-reasoned and sensible. That version of myself was a fucking idiot. Uneducated, ignorant, and propagandized, despite what I would have liked to believe otherwise.

Unlearn the propaganda that so conveniently gets you to side with NATO in the global class war 1945-91. Learn how biased the western reporting on the soviets was. See how everything they accuse others of in dubiousness, they are guilty of themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt and more than we can possibly ever know. The soviets paid the price in blood for the freedom of humanity. No one else could have done it. Never abandon them. Give benefit of the doubt and analyze your research.

Anarchists have never had a revolution. Please don't abandon the history of workers states so easily because you accept the western smear campaign at face value. Never believe the US State DEPT! Don't believe a foundation created by a US congressional act with the express purpose of smearing communism, when they make unsubstantiated claims about the primary economic rival of the US committing genocide! Stop accepting their propaganda! Do better! Don't accept at face value unproven claims when you know they lie and will continue to lie! Look at how we create genocide in no uncertain terms. Look at what you know to be truthful and what is conjecture.

If I see those fucking arrows on your little battle jacket, or whatever, you are a certified tool to me.

[sophieinwonderland]

Personal story, related to the other diagnosis asks. Feel free to ignore

Diagnosis is sometimes more harmful than helpful. An upsetting number of psychiatrists and therapists still operate on the "make them a singlet" model of treatment for DID or any plurality, or will just pressure systems into "voluntary" committment

I am pretty sure it doesn't work, or at least doesn't work most of the time, and it causes a lot of trauma in the process regardless

Our system has a lot of internal communication issues, difficulty distinguishing ourselves from each other, and only the most abstract metaphorical headspace as a result of this "therapy". We're still plural, but now it causes issues, moreso than it did before we were diagnosed and treated

Of course this story is coming from a place of personal trauma to our system, so results definitely may vary, but when you're looking to get diagnosed make sure that your mental health care providers are safe first

That's totally fair. It's horrible that you went through this.

I think one thing systems need to know in these doctor-patient relationships is that the client does have a lot of power here even if some doctors might try to make you think otherwise.

I think it's best to approach psychiatrists as contractors. You need a job done so you're paying these people to do it for you. You need to be upfront about what you want help with and what you don't, and set clear boundaries. Make sure from the outset they know what you want the parameters of your treatment to be, and that they agree to that. And if they can't, that you would rather seek other providers.

Basically, if you don't want fusion, make that clear from the very beginning. And if they ignore your boundaries and still try to push you into it anyway, be prepared to drop them and find a better provider.

Your mental health belongs to you.

Also, it can be helpful to remember that doctors are humans. I imagine it's difficult to have to treat over a dozen people, and keep track of their lives and what they're trying to achieve. All while keeping up with current medical information.

Older doctors may fail to keep up with current psychiatric views and findings, and can have a "multiplicity bad" mindset that was prominent in their generation that they need to unlearn.

Conversely, newer doctors will be inexperienced. They'll hopefully try their best but if they haven't worked with a lot of patients, they might make mistakes.

The main thing I want people to remember when seeking therapy is that, even with years of schooling and training to deal with patients... it's still a fallible human being on the other side who is dealing with their own issues and will not have perfect judgement.

If people remember this, I hope it can make it a bit easier to not give in to being pressured into doing something you don't want to do or you believe could be actively harmful to you.

[humblefryingpan]

(Once upon a time au - spoilers for season 3 and I think season 6)

Ngl I kinda loved the Henry/Pan body swap I low-key wish it stayed like that. It probably wouldn't have been great in the actual show but I'd love to see that in a fic/au

Everyone really struggling at fighting Peter because he looks like Henry? Amazing. And I like thinking about if they kept it that way, imagine them trying to raise the kid who looked like their enemy

(this is an angsty and long post)

Rumple looking at his grandson and only seeing his father who betrayed him. Tbh, I don't think he thought of Pan as the same person as his dad in general. Like pre-neverland he only saw him like that twice and it probably would've been more "the boy my dad invented to get rid of me" yk? That's my opinion at least

So Rumpy knowing Henry was supposey fated to kill him and then looking like that guy? He would not have handled that well and I'd have loved to see him having more of a reaction

Killian seeing his stepson and trying to ignore that he looked like the man who killed his brother. Pre-neverland I think he only knew Pan from when he rocked up and tricked him into killing his brother/best friend/only remaining family? So going from that, as well as everything in neverland, to marrying Emma and having to live with someone in Pan's body would've been sad as shit and I'd have loved it. He was dealing with his own guilt a lot when he moved in and I think this would've made it just that little bit worse

Regina and Emma trying to raise their son while looking at the man who kidnapped him. Both of them are definitely "fight first, question later" girls and they would've had to try to unlearn that in order to not hurt their son. Especially since they knew Pan as the guy that kidnapped Henry and the guy that tried to kill them all.

If this happened then the way I'd have done it would be someone finding out he was planning the curse and killing him before he could kill Felix (to stop the curse and also bc I love Felix and I have plans for him). Since he was still in Henry's body when he did the curse I would've said they killed him before he could switch places (I forgot how and when they switched back mb, doesn't affect the au too much right?)

So somebody (Rumple would probably work best but readers choice ig) killed Peter/Malcolm while he was in Henry's body and he got trapped in that body with magic so that he couldn't escape. Since the body would've been messed up when he got killed, Henry stays in Pan's body.

And I mentioned I had plans for Felix - he was clearly very devoted to Pan, like he didn't even get that mad when he killed him. I'm willing to bet that if he survived he still would've defended him. But now "Pan" is actually not Pan, it's the boy Pan wanted to sacrifice and I think Felix would've been pissed about that.

So he'd also be struggling with this entire situation. Losing Pan, but still seeing him in this town. Knowing Henry he'd try to talk to Felix too. Felix would either fully isolate himself, seek revenge on anyone and everyone who took part in Pan's downfall or he'd follow Henry around, trying to cling to any remaining part of Pan's existence. Assuming Regina doesn't kill him that is

Or if you want to stick to the canon show a bit more then Rumpy could kill him after the curse was cast but before he could turn back to himself.

And side note- Peter actually looks more like Emma and Neal's kid tbh. Like Henry looks sort of like Regina's son, and I see the snow white in him, but I don't see the Emma yk? So in the "Emma loses her memory again and thinks she's a regular parent" storyline she'd just assume he turned out more like her, Regina could alter her memory into thinking he always looked like that anyway.

And in that version she'd have the two versions of her memory. One where she sees her son as he always was and then getting the memory of who he actually was dumped on her. And struggling even more with seeing both simultaneously, even worse because Henry also wouldn't remember.

Which brings me to the point of - imagine Henry trying to grow up looking like the guy that took advantage of his kindness like that? Every time he looked in a mirror he'd see Pan instead of himself (and there are a lot of mirrors around when you're being raised by the former evil queen).

He'd see everyone struggling to adjust to him, he'd know why, and he'd probably feel insanely awful about it. He blamed himself for Neverland anyway, now he'd blame himself for everyone's discomfort.

And like I said at the start of this lil au infodump, I don't think it would've worked long term in the actual show. I don't think the writers could've got it to work in some of the storylines, but Pan-Henry has been rattling around in my brain like a lego stuck in a jar since I first watched it. Basically I want everyone to be sadder and I want more Pan, the angst potential in this is incredible to me.

[spacelazarwolf]

To preface this: I am not someone who would be considered culturally christian.

I'm wondering how the concept of culturally christian is different from something like the idea of female/male socialization? I'm trans and I've seen the idea of male socialization weaponized against transwomen/transfems, and the idea of someone being culturally christian seems to follow a similar line of logic? I'm wondering how the two differ.

I don't want to start an argument, and I genuinely do not mean this in bad faith, I'm just trying to understand. I've done a fair share of research into the topic, and I'm interested in your opinion. Thank you.

i mean the thing is, socialization does exist to a certain extent. we are all socialized a certain way, because that's how being a human works. we are social creatures, always taking cues from each other, and kids are sponges for that stuff. where the whole male/female socialization thing goes wrong is that "male" and "female" are highly dependent on cultural and environmental factors. there is no one universal "afab" or "amab" experience, but assigned gender at birth does influence the way we're treated growing up, and we're all responsible for unlearning the patriarchal norms we learned as kids.

in the same way, someone who grew up christian doesn't magically forget all those christian teachings when they decide they don't believe in god anymore. a lot of atheists who were raised christian often hold very explicitly christian beliefs about the world, particularly about other religious groups, but no longer have god to justify them. it's like someone who has rejected bioessentialism but instead embraces gender essentialism. they're essentially the same thing, just with different language, and both still harmful.

and tbh i think there is a very similar reaction from trans people when we talk about socialization as there is from atheists when we talk about cultural christianity, because we don't want to believe that part of us is still influenced by when we were living a life that hurt us. but ignoring those parts of ourselves doesn't help us, and it doesn't help the other people who have to interact with us if we don't unpack all the things we were taught by christianity or the patriarchy. it's not an attack, it's a call for self reflection and improvement.

[wild-wombytch]

Ok, I'll pin this before shits go insane. The TL;DR is that I'll be temporarily uninstalling social medias so I have no idea whether I'll reply to about everything or when. All the following posts on this blog are queued. I'm probably not leaving radblr, just going on hiatus.

Putting the rest under the cut because I feel the best thing to do is being open-hearted and honest. I want to explain the reasoning nobody cares about behind it and I don't want to spam everyone's dash about this : (TW negativity, mental health, trauma dumping?, personal, pretty lengthy, blah)

I'm definitely overdramatic due to my own mental shits, but I'm getting SERIOUS anxiety from my reply to this post about poverty and middle class.

I don't regret it per se. I almost chose to ignore it because this is a painful topic and those who never experienced it wouldn't believe the amount of spits in the face you get from the middle-class as someone poor in the form of about daily microagressions and what trash you interiorize from it (you don't get much from billionaires because they don't even know we exist and they clearly don't frequent us, they fuck with us as a class but not on an individual level). As everything engaged with emotionally, it can quickly become a bomb. Yet, radblr has made (and still makes, we're all WIP after all) me someone less passive and more inclined to speak up. I'll never be grateful enough for that. So I chose to "woman-up" and make my voice heard. As insignificant as it seems. Because no one can talk for me better than myself.

Maybe it's absolutely nothing for a lot of people (and I guess it objectively IS nothing) but it is ENORMOUS for someone battling crippling anxiety (and I'm not choosing the word "crippling" lightly. My mental health literally gives me such tangible physical pains, gluing themselves to my already existing back issues/arthrodesis that I am physically disabled. I am heavily medicated. I am in a day hospital. I recently genuinely considered asking for a full-time internment in a mental hospital for maybe a month or two because I am becoming dangerous for myself and a burden). I used to be so passive, shy and anxious that I wouldn't voice my opinion at all in fear, that's how I got into the TRA movement so obediently. Exactly the example of Solanas about women completely conditioned out of their female power and inner worlds by their fathers, then becoming the emotional rags and handmaiden of every other men. I'm slowly unlearning that. Participating in something like that was part of the process. I don't know if I dose well. If I should dose and not be too "spicy" at all. Probably not. Radfems showed me the key to my shackles and I'm just starting to understand how it works. Yet, now I'm projecting all of my past experiences on this and fear I'm from one hand encouraged in a direction and going to get my neck broken for it from the other as a punishment. I shouldn't care, yet I still do at this point of my journey.

Again, I'm a mental mess. All is a bit blurry and unreasonable when we talk about anxiety/ptsd. I fear I'm going to get terfed out the terves and cancelled, do to speak. And it is oddly terrifying due to the mess I internalized and how highly and gratefully I look at radfems, with my tendency to idealize.

So when I was about 70% of my reply and I rechecked the whole thread to see it was Tepkunset out of all the Tumblr users I was "siding with"...fuck, did I stutter a nervous laugh. When I made this blog, I made a point to avoid interacting with hers, because I also used (and still do, to some degrees) highly look up to her. Like radfems, she is smart, brave and outspoken and I was all starry-eyed for her. She doesn't know of me and would probably block me on sight now (and probably will if that's not already done by seeing my reply), but she had genuinely been a model to me and got me in social justice and to think deeply about a lot of things, including myself as someone existing within bigger systems. I'm not making shits up when I say she changed the course of my life and I wouldn't be here in my journey if it wasn't for her. It was a process for me to actually embrace "heresy" and accept that I disagreed with her, my icon, about gender issues (which is a shame, because I think if cancel culture wasn't such a thing, she would genuinely be an amazing person to debate with). I've never been into celebs cult but that definitely was a close one. That's why I didn't interact with her blog, other than sometimes paying a visit and reblogging through other blogs as to not be blocked by her. Because I genuinely still respect her and want to hear about her thoughts even if I don't necessarily agree with them anymore, and want to see if she's okay and sometimes I rake my drawers to send money her way when life gets Bad™.

So that's some bullshit irony there that I feel torn in my "loyalties" among people I deeply admire yet disagree with and who themselves probably only intereacted with me anecdotally and know of me as much as they know of the flies in their kitchens. So essentially all that noise is in my head only yet what if I told you my back pains that almost miraculously vanished after seeing an osteopath yesterday just came back and now I can't lay on my back at all, no matter how many painkillers I take? Yes, I'm stressing out that bad over a Tumblr post no one cares about. If it was a telenovela it would be one of these scenes where a character is caught between a fight between their current crush and ex and has to pick a side and gets rightfully dumped by both.

So yeah, it also stirred a lot of things I haven't processed yet about my TRA days and even shittier moments of my life. I definitely wasn't ready for that.

I also genuinely internalized that I shine in society by not being very smart or useful or assertive like the women I admire so much. I'm not even sure about what I write, because I have no inner voice, my thoughts happen as I voice them, my brain is barren cotton, a perpetual state of dream. I don't know which of my memories are exact and which are dreams and past thoughts. I have amnesia of full discussions I had and consents I gave and I am completely stunned when people prove me I said something, because, in all good faith, I have not a shred of memory. Maybe a drop of a hazy memory you'd have in a dream. My past self and my current self both seem unreal, like other people. So I stick to ideas I have of my identity, shards of it, labels. I fiercely defend them because they are the only sense of self I perceive at all. Because I don't even feel human outside of thel. So I still have the same fear as during my TRA days that a breeze can make everything crumble. Most women here are very bright, it would take nothing to unmask the lack of ability I have to counter, to emotionally rein myself in, to construct a consistent data-based retort. That's why I was afraid of radfems in my TRA days already.

Anyway, that plus my irl social life being toxic currently makes me cope by going on social medias, which I know are awful for my mental health, yet I persist inflicting that on myself. There are several medical leaves at the day hospital so I'm ~aLoNe~ with my shits. Then you know the shit circle of life it is : not sleeping, not eating, being more anxious, sleeping less, being more anxious, eating less, reflecting too deeply on which way of sabotaging myself is the most reasonable...

So radical times call for radical measures. I'm deleting temporarily all of my apps instead of seeing notifications all the time and obsessively checking if everyone hates me yet or if nobody cares and pondering which is worse by looking at a wall for a whole day trying to not think about SH. That's stupid, and cowardly and pathetic and unfair towards people who reads me and puts thoughts in their replies and it's many other ugly things probably. But if I don't I'll implode. I just want to break the circle of feeling like shit and back pains that ruin my life so I can get back on my legs and maybe tackle one thing at a time. And I quite literally need to touch grass, even if I don't want to see anyone in my irl circles for now.

I don't know if any of this made sense. I'd probably also regret dumping all that tomorrow. Sedation is finally starting to work, so I guess that's why I m so talkative so I'll surf on it, post this, delete everything and pray I'll also forget about this until it randomly pops into my mind and gives me an existential crisis 20y from now. Should I even be given a right to vote and access to internet until I'm fixed? Are those rights part of the reconstruction process and of creating a sense of self?

Idk, I'm just tired. I wish you all well during this time. Radblr is wonderful despite occasional disagreements. I hope we can still be sisters after that and hope you won't think less of me. If you do, well, you're probably right, I also think less of myself every time I dare to exist and open the mouth. I am also the daughter of my father, after all, so I have plenty of reasons to think I deserve my own hatred and other people's.

I said I needed to be honest and open hearted so I've been. That's also why it's the over sharing website I guess? Here's a random gif to conclude this because I don't know what else to say and this is all fairly embarrassing:

[aspd-culture]

is guilt-based anxiety (example: scared of being a burden), depression (example: feeling guilty for being alive, for being a burden and all that low self-esteem nonsense) and guilt/moral-based ocd (example: feeling like youre an abuser or committed a heinous crime that you didnt commit, like S/A-OCD or P-OCD), or themes of guilt in schz (example: delusions where you think youre guilty of having done something you havent, like murder for instance, or hallucinations of voices who encourage the themes stated in the example i gave for depression) or ptsd/trauma (example: for experiencing trauma) etc. possible in aspd? and/or how would these things present in someone with aspd (as opposed to someone without aspd? people w/o ASPD (generally) feel a lot of (genuine) guilt and remorse and i experience... walmart-brand guilt. i feel anxious and "guilty" but only because of 1. whatever remnants of christian doctrination is in my brain 2. my phobias 3. my need for control, or 4. a byproduct of my mental illnesses. (probably a learned thought process for me - its not really natural for me, not really out of care for others (unless you count ocd), and the thought pattern is what ive been told throughout my life/otherwise originated from others)

All of that is very possible and actually very relevant to my experience as a pwASPD, as well as OCD, PTSD, and religious trauma. Hopefully that means I can give you a relatively in-depth explanation of what this feels like for me firsthand.

So all of these types of Great Value guilt are moreso examples of shame. Religious trauma causes shame, guilt OCD is generally a misnomer for shame, and shame is a *major* symptom of clinical depression and of PTSD. Shame is a more personal take on guilt, in that it affects your opinion of who you are as a person, and it can (and often does) exist outside of actually having done something wrong both in prosocials and pwASPD. Guilt is an instinct when you have done something wrong to admit it and work to change the behavior in the future and make up for the harm it caused or had the potential to cause. Shame doesn’t care if you’ve actually wronged anyone nor does it care if you change the behavior in the future - and it doesn’t believe you can *ever* make up for it. Shame says you are a terrible horrible no-good very bad person because of *insert reason* and for that you must work your ass off to try to be redeemed while knowing you are never ever going to be. Shame is irrational while guilt is (considered by prosocials to be) rational.

In pwASPD, shame tends to be polarizing. I have talked to pwASPD who felt shame *much* more intensely because they had no experience with guilt to temper it, so the feeling was entirely foreign (this is how I experience it, although I’ve done some work to unlearn that), and I’ve met other pwASPD who can completely ignore the feeling of shame because they can easily identify it as not beneficial and therefore ignore it. I think part of it depends on how you take on things like ableism as well - it seems to correlate that people who don’t internalize any ableism are better at pushing away feelings of shame, whilst people like me who struggle with internalizing ableism are more distressed by shame.

It’s also worth noting that shame specifically associated with PTSD from the same place that led to the ASPD (so in other words, related to childhood trauma) can end up being the pwASPD’s only definition of guilt, and feel very all-encompassing because of that. They may feel haunted by any little thing they do that would have been wrong in the eyes of the person who caused the trauma. This can result in a pwASPD who is very timid and/or shows few symptoms. In my case, issues with this led me to lean away from the more obvious symptoms of my ASPD, which is why I had to fight myself on whether or not I truly had it before I was diagnosed. I was fairly meek for most of my life, and the classic behaviors many pwASPD experience like violent outbursts leading to breaking things and/or hurting animals or other children, breaking rules and defying authority, etc. was, for me, replaced by the more covert versions of those things. I broke things - but they were my things that I knew wouldn’t be missed. I would get bursts of rage and take it out on things I knew could take it or that I could excuse as being lost, or better yet, things that could have easily been broken by other means. For example, I had a tendency to break pencils when I was angry, so I would intentionally pick up any pencils I found on the floor at school and break *those* when I was angry, and for the same reason I washed and saved popsicle sticks “for arts and crafts”. I fell into the manipulation and deception (besides of my main caregiver who is an Exception) side more than the rule-breaking and violence side due to that trauma. The shame for the actions was something I could only tolerate if I could tell myself “nobody but you knows what you did” or “the only thing you broke are things that don’t mean anything to anybody and would be in the trash otherwise”.

I would say the biggest thing that pwASPD dealing with that intense shame feeling would do differently than most other pwASPD is to appear more “in control”. ASPD forms from trauma, so if that traumatic shame (and yes, growing up with OCD without knowing it and without having safe support *is* very often traumatic) is constantly beating on you as a part of the trauma, certain symptoms may not show up the same way as they would for someone where they didn’t have that. It’s not the same as not doing something because you can control the urge/impulse - what I’ve described here is just redirection of said impulse - and it’s not the same as feeling guilt. It’s a symptom of one or multiple other disorders playing in tandem with the ASPD symptoms.

As for how pwASPD deal with this shame compared to prosocials, I would say that it has the potential seriously numb us in a way that it doesn’t to prosocials. Generally, prosocials have a better idea of how to identify between the feelings of guilt vs shame, which is how most of them learn to recognize and act on one while not taking in the other. At the point where they can’t, it usually creates an anxiety disorder on top of whatever is causing the shame. In pwASPD however, if we feel shame like this, it often makes us even *less* receptive to the feeling of true guilt. For those of us who easily ignore the shame, guilt just gets lumped in with that and they move on, and for those of us that internalize the shame, guilt pales in comparison and we don’t see it as intrusive enough to listen to.

All of this is, as always, fairly anecdotal, but this is how I experience it combined with how people I have talked to describe it. It’s worth noting that many elitists will claim that feeling shame means you can’t have ASPD. I simply do not have the bandwidth to go into the details of *how ridiculous* that is right now, but it is in no way true. There is zero reason, in my opinion, to say that a symptom of another disorder cannot exist at the same time as ASPD. Afaik, there is currently no disorder that excludes you from the diagnosis of ASPD. The only disorders that even come close are bipolar disorder, schizophrenia/other disorders causing psychosis, and substance abuse disorder - but none of these truly exclude you from an ASPD diagnosis, they just require extra examination to make sure the symptoms do not only occur when manic, in psychosis, or while h1gh/drvnk respectively.

Sorry if this is a bit of a novel, I’m getting used to being back and trying to be concise again.

[mushroom-trafficking]

bing bong ask meme tell me about them please

Benji 1, 18, 39

Max 2, 12, 23

Archie 13, 17, 28

Putting this one under a cut!

Benji:

1. What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

“Rarely is there truly ever nothing to do. There is always something I can busy myself with. The only thing I dislike more than boredom is wasted time. Any time not utilised is time wasted. I can barely withstand five minutes without engaging in something.”

18. What embarrasses them?

“Oh. Wouldn’t you like to know.”

It actually takes quite a lot to embarrass him. Usually he’s the one embarrassing others because of this. It took him long enough to get over embarrassment to just wear the clothes he enjoys so he tried to not let anything get in the way of what he enjoys. The worst thing you can do however is be direct with him, he’s very flowery and indirect about things if you get what I mean. Calling him out on his bullshit works wonders too.

39. How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people? 

“Name me someone who isn’t flawed! We’re all just trying to get by and do what we can, hard to be perfect when around every corner is someone trying to ruin your day.”

The answer is INCREDIBLY easily. He’s no saint himself. He’ll readily ignore quite glaring issues if you help him with whatever it is he wants done. Besides openly flawed people have no right to judge when they’re also working with a flawed idiot.

Max:

2. How easy is it for your character to laugh?

“Eh, not a lot of people are actually that funny.”

Max tends to steer towards dark humour as a coping thing, but not a lot of people find that shit funny. He rarely lets down his guard enough to enjoy the humour of those around him. It’s usually something really daft will get him going. Ya’know like when you send your Dad a funny animal video and he’s crying with laughter when it’s not really that funny? That kinda thing. Once you find that niche you’re in.

12. How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

“Sometimes if I’m lucky the mutt can sort it out, but not always. I gotta be careful on account o’ the whole, ya’know, claw situation. I shredded a shirt once trying to get to a spot on my back. Not my… Proudest moment.”

Max’s death is able to touch him at times, not constantly, but enough. Sometimes he gets lucky and it can sort it out for him! Personal back scratcher! Though if that won’t work he sometimes just fucking rolls around like a damn dog if no one else is around. Catch him rubbing himself on a tree like a bear and watch him run faster than you’ve ever seen in your entire life.

23. How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)? 

“I’ve started tryin’ to just go after the shit I want. I’ve spent long enough not getting what I want from life I think I’m deservin’ of shit finally going my way for a change.”

Envy itself isn’t something Max struggles with often. He’s a former rich kid so he knows how the other half have lived and he’s pretty much over it at this point. Though he is incredibly resentful overall, he’s got a lot of unlearn and get over.

Archie:

13. What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

“Oh, uh. Hmmmm. BEST? Oh man, that’s hard. I like most colours pretty equally… It’s so hard to pick a favourite… My Ma always said I look good in white… But I think everyone looks good in white! It’s WHITE! Hm. I think. I think it’s gotta be between turquoise or burgundy! But I don’t have much of either at the moment sadly…”

Archie hasn’t really been allowed to explore his options much fashion wise. But now he’s loose on the town there’s nothing stopping him from trying out new styles! He does struggle with picking a favourite colour though, his ideal thing to wear would be one of those colour block jumpers where each part is a different, bright colour.

17. Are they easily embarrassed?

“N…No… (10 second pause) Okay. Yes. I never used to get this flustered back home but out here in the dust it’s… A bit more. Intimidating. I know the wings are a lot but c’mon!! Quit staring!!”

The youngest of three Archie actually had a pretty thick skin back home. Especially being of demonic descent, people get pretty judgy. But that quickly faded getting out into the real world. With any luck he’ll build it back up over time once he’s a bit more used to it out in Red West.

28. Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth? 

“The truth is ALWAYS the best option!!”

Dealing with the ramifications of certain withheld truths, Archie wants nothing but the honest truth. Even if it hurts. Though it’s quickly becoming apparent that the truth is not something post people enjoy sharing around here. Archie only believes in lying for the bit.

[legionofpotatoes]

extremely bad faith mandalorian takes, do not engage please i cannot stop hysterically laughing at this season and thus am incapable of level-headed discourse. these are just words I want to write down to see if they look as unbelievable as they sound in my head

my favorite telltale sign of the embarrassing s3 story optics is their like. genuinely hilarious ostrich-neck-in-the-sand rehash of past story arcs down to the aesthetic fucking beats. that's the shit sandwich that really gets me in this whole stank buffet. It is astonishing. Like there was genuinely nothing else they could come up with as to not upset the status quo of their fickle, marketable story limbo, and so they, and I cannot stress this part enough, ignored established character progression beats and just did them again. they just did them again. from the top, using shockingly similar payoffs, right in front of our own eyes. and I just sat there and ate it!!

din has to re-love his toxic death cult after clearly progressing away from their value systems cause he's cooler with that helmet always on. gotta keep the limbo going. his main north star, set up as his way out of said cult, gets recruited into it instead, completely defanging the possibility of interrogating the entire bedrock of trauma and insecurity that kept uncomfortably clashing with his expressions of love and humanity in the past. now they're all one big happy gel of a Cool Dude With Gun and Kid. gotta keep the limbo going.

at some point he also has to re-learn his droid prejudices to then re-unlearn them again, a couple of times even, for no discernible thematic reason other than to make him act like an ass to some type of botched working class allegories (??? the fuck is going on with droids this season in general??). gotta keep the limbo going.

grogu, meanwhile, has to re-earn a mandalorian piece of armor to re-reinforce his allegiance (and here I was thinking the rond would be a pulpy setup for some shot-dead-fake-out but how can chekov's anything exist in this mangled mess), cause mandalorian culture is a live service videogame of tiered ranks now, so the potential upgrades are conveniently endless. gotta keep the limbo going. speaking of their culture, he also, hilariously, has to then be re-adopted by din to re-reveal their paternal bond and re-dramatize their love. cause he's not a foundling anymore, see; he's an apprentice now! the words are different. that makes the emotional meaning reset also. I know this from film school. audiences have no object permanence, right? they're all fish? we're writing this show for fucking fish, right? like in the aquariums? gotta keep the limbo going.

and they just keep doing this. they will dress it all up with technicalities and loud Plot Noise but it is all emotionally the same exact shit that has already happened and it is making me feel insane. same exact payoffs for backpedaled setups that were already, for all storytelling purposes, finished and done away with. it is comical. they're telling nothing. non-stories and recursive sisyphean plotlines that reset primitive character arcs every five episodes like it's the most unmoored bermuda triangle-ass time loop in space. you cannot even really twist it into some type of harmless expression in lieu of episodic TV, or even something more campy, cause like. it does have a rapidly progressing plotline about big and overarching stuff, stuff that is holistic, linear, and goal-oriented, like retaking homeworlds and reforging their broken nation and fighting mr gideon man. it's not a weekly detective romp with B plots galore, not anymore at least. but the characters somehow start and end in the same spots they always were. like the big ole smoking fucking gun that that is.

it feels like the most clear-cut example of plot moving forward - at breakneck speed sometimes - while characters progress either backwards or just. like. sideways and then back again?? almost like dropping a teabag into an empty mug and calling it a beverage. I see the pretty taste-making ingredient sitting sadly at the bottom there, but where's the substance? what is this all for? to wank it to how cool mandalorians look when they fly? I mean they can be pretty cool, no argument there. but some of them could be cooler if they felt things deeply and that changed them, fundamentally. you know, how A-to-B storytelling does sometimes.

and I am achingly aware that I am aging out of this show's target audience, I know that. but the death by comparison within the same bloody show's adjacent seasons is just as harrowing. what happened. it just worked too good is what. a corporation responsible for telling a myth will never allow it to finish if it suddenly starts hemorrhaging this much money. grogu and din can't progress, even aesthetically, past their season 1 selves, no matter how much that same season's story was setting them up to. cause inscrutable sad dad and cute doll baby combo. we'll either throw away those story hooks or keep resetting them. keep the limbo going.

groundhog day-ass show. it's hysterical. I can't be normal about how mask-off blatant this all is now.

and to follow this up to andor of all things. really clinches it, you know. no notes. just no notes, disney. tens across the board