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brainrockets · 10 months

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Some of the Suvi critics out there are... something. I mean, I get it if you don't enjoy media because of unpleasantness. I very definitely avoided Succession because it squicked me deeply.

So if Suvi squicks ya out. Like sure fine. But some of the interpretations of Suvi being irredeemable or 'not showing signs' that she might be 'redeemable' are just weird? To me?

I mean. I also was raised in one of the cristofascist American evangelical death cults and had to deprogram and unlearn a lot in my 20s and have done a lot of work to be in a healthy space now so... maybe I just have sympathy for being 20 and just suddenly seeing cracks appear in the way you understand yourself and the world around you?

One thing people seem real perturbed by is Suvi's behavior towards Ame (and Ame's seeming lack of correction of that behavior).

And I think there are a few things at play here.

1. Suvi was raised in a highly ordered hierarchy as a soldier from early childhood.

2. Ame is a witch of the heart and has been handling all manner of village nonsense and nonsense people for years.

3. Suvi has not had ANY sort of psychological safety or release since maybe the Cottage. She is more afraid of Steel than Orima.

4. Ame is worried about Suvi. Worried about the way she killed without trouble. The way she's not allowed herself to express feelings for the most part other than anger.

5. When you have a lot of feelings and no safe way to let them out. They still come out. Usually inappropriately. Often paradoxically they get vented on people you feel safe with. Not to say that's acceptable or good but it is pretty normal?

6. Paradoxically, while Ame is safe to be mad at, perhaps subconsciously, Suvi also views Ame as a threat. And she's not wrong. Ame is a huge threat to her. Ame threatens to upend everything that Suvi believes about herself, about magic, about her world. She also plays by different rules and has actively exposed Suvi to risk by divulging things Suvi wanted to keep private. (Not with malice but definitely flagrantly flouting basic rules because she doesn't know they exist.) She also is a threat to the defenses Suvi has built around herself in the wake of her parents' deaths. The way that she has used the notion of the Citadel's correctness as a shield against the pain of loss.

7. I think Ame has dealt with wounded animals and wounded people fairly regularly in her role as apprentice. I think that Ame knows that wounded creatures snap at someone even if they are trying to help. Snapping back at her isn't maybe the move right now. And she has expressed dissent, she's not leaving her nonsense totally alone. She's just carefully cutting away little pieces of net and tutting at her raging and getting a little closer each time. And when Suvi finally lets herself cry instead of rage, Ame reacts with the same patient care she'd use with an injured animal.

8. Also, i do think people are missing Suvi's actions behind her words. Particularly vis a vis redeemable qualities. She does talk mad shit and she says some truly terrible things. But her actions are in conflict with her words. She abandoned her training and her responsibility to help Ame break her curse. He outfitted her friends from the armory and rented out a whole floor of an inn just to be kind. She's kept silent on Honored Friends the entire time she's been at the Citadel. Steel told her to stay and wait but she ran after Ame anyways. She was making a lot of threats but now that Eursulon has promised to free the Great Spirit her only issue with helping do it is that Steel might kill her first. She is ready to throw down for her friends with extreme prejudice.

She's at a crossroads. I find it very hopeful. But like again, I relate pretty heavily to being young and afraid and angry as the world opens up before you and everything you thought you knew is wrong and harming people. Knowing there's a chasm and on one side is your family and your community and on the other side is the unknown and your friends.

#long post #wbn pod #suvi #worlds beyond number #aabria iyengar

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iersei · 7 months

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there's a certain sense of tragedy in how the close family only got worse.

at the end of season one, they left with hope. they were so hopeful that maybe, even with the tangled web of emotions and identity that the timeline shift left in its wake, that they could find a way to make this mess of a family work.

glenn explicitly said that he wanted to be in nick's life. he didn't want to be like his dad.

but that's not enough.

because you have to try. and you have to keep trying.

it's so easy to say that you want to try. you can want it all you want. but it requires change. it requires an active effort that you have to stick with.

there's a tragedy to how the outcome of the trial only made them worse.

isn't it funny? isn't it cruel? that the universe pretended that this was supposed to make him better? give him a better life? all it really ended up doing was replacing both of your traumas with different, worse trauma.

what are you even supposed to do? when the universe itself tells you that the only way you can ever do Justice to your son is to send yourself away? lock yourself up to suffer alone and let someone else, someone better, raise him?

what is it like to spend years locked up inside your own head? to have it all reinforced?

the only way that you can help him is if you leave.

what do you do when you leave this prison? what do you do when you never really left?

these patterns don't go away. not when they're baked into your subconscious. and obviously you can try. you can try. you can try. and if you try and if you have a good support system and if you learn and unlearn what you need to, then you can change.

it doesn't change all the hurt that you've caused. you can know that. you've been an awful person. you can know that too. but how do you fix that?

if the only way you know how to fix things is to remove yourself from the equation. to sink deeper into the hell of your own making. fall back into all that you have ever known. even if all that you want is to be better. what do you do when you don't know how you're supposed to change? when no one is there to tell you how to do it differently? to drag you out of the deep depths of despair you have lived in all your life?

what does it mean to change?

you have to try. but you have to know how to. you have to work against the patterns ingrained into your subconscious. you have to know what efforts to make. you have to figure out how to fix this.

there is no fixing this.

it only ever got worse, but they loved each other. they really did love each other.

the love was there. it didn't change anything. but it still matters that the love was there.

i am your judge, jury, and executioner.

#alternate title: the avoidant behaviors do be hitting #hi i'm still thinking about them i'm not sorry #dndads #glenn close #glenn close dndads #nick close #nicky freeman #dndads spoilers

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letters-to-lgbt-kids · 2 years

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My dear lgbt+ kids,

Do you suffer from "Sweet Baby Syndrome"?

You are always doing your best to be friendly, polite, and sweet to everyone. You try to guess and fulfill everyone's needs before they even speak them out loud, and you rarely dare to speak about your own needs because you never want to be a burden on anyone. If you are tired or sad, you will hide it. If anyone else shows the vaguest sign of being tired or sad, you will bend over backwards trying to help them. Long story short, you are a Sweet Baby - and that's why you (subconsciously) assume that everyone needs to love you.

If anyone is not immediately delighted by your eager sweetness - and especially if they refuse your help - the only reason for that could be that they are Big Bad Meanies. They are selfish and cruel and have a dead cold heart. Who else could be so mean to the Sweet Baby?

You probably never heard the term "Sweet Baby Syndrome" before - and that's because I made it up. It's just something I personally have been reflecting upon and trying to unlearn lately, and I figured that I am probably not the only one who does. So I wanted to share some insights with you:

Constantly trying to maintain peace with others and make them happy, even at the expense of your own happiness, is a common struggle. "People pleasing" often starts in childhood. There are many reasons a kid may learn these behaviors: maybe being overly sweet was a way to avoid conflict or danger, or it was the only way to get attention/praise/love or feel seen by your caregivers, or you simply saw your caregiver people-please and copied them... For lgbt+ kids, it can also be a subconscious attempt of "softening the blow"/securing their spot in the family, in hopes that your role as the Sweet Baby may override your (potential or lived) role as the Family Disappointment or Black Sheep.

The sad irony is that the role of the Sweet Baby is often born out of unhealthy, toxic circumstances - and can turn toxic in itself when you blindly believe the worldview that comes with it.

It's lying to you, in multiple ways:

Your worth is not linked to your sweetness. You have inherent worth as a human being. You don't need to be sweet to earn it.

It's impossible to always be sweet without burning yourself out emotionally.

There will always be people who do not like you. They may feel neutral about you or even actively dislike you. This is normal and it often has nothing to do with you. Some personalities just don't match well, no matter how much sugar you pour on yours.

Sometimes it has something to do with you. Sometimes you are in the wrong, sometimes you do and say unlikeable stuff. Sometimes you are the meanie. This is normal as well. You need to be able to admit that you are capable of making mistakes to be able to learn and grow from them.

When you think in absolute terms like "Sweet Baby" and "Big Meanie", you forget to think about people as "human beings". Humans can't be separated into 100% good and 100% bad. The world is not that black or white. We are all capable of both. Reminding yourself of this is important to avoid falling for conspiracies or cult-like thinking.

Too much sweetness can leave a bitter taste. Some people may feel like you are actually rude instead of sweet! Constantly offering help can come across as underestimating someone or they may feel like you are meddling with their life. You may also come across as untrustworthy when you want to know about their emotions and weaknesses but never show your own... or as plain boring. People usually want to be friends with people, not with helper-robots.

With all my love,

Your Tumblr Dad

#lgbt #lgbt+

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funkymbtifiction · 2 years

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hi! question about the frustration types/wings/trifix - is there a part of them LIKES being in a state of frustration? and if so can they ever really overcome that or be happy with how things are? i read a lot about how the purpose to learning the enneagram is to eventually notice when you’re doing personality things and unlearn them/realize you can choose not to. but can someone who becomes happy by being unhappy, negative or frustrated ever be capable of not only realizing life is okay as it is but also feeling happy/fulfilled/satisfied with how things are, without being dissatisfied with the lack of frustration itself? i know someone who’s type i am unsure of (i thought he was a 6 bc he’s very into the concept of allies and enemies and identity politics, you’re with me or against me, and he is often unsure of himself/indecisive, however i also see many traits of 1 anger at an imperfect world/perfectionism and 4 drowning in misery) who displays a LOT of frustration. i’ve rarely seen him happy or satisfied with anything. nothing and no one is ever quite good enough for him and something is always wrong with him/his life/his people and when nothing is objectively wrong he nitpicks until he finds something wrong and if you try to help or offer solutions, you’re wrong, they won’t work, or he admits maybe they will work if he tried but he won’t because he’s not in the mood or somehow isn’t capable of doing it. i understand to an extent because when i’m upset, i can act like this too. but once i calm down i want solutions and i want to fix it. he doesn’t seem to ever get to that part and if he did ever fix his problems i’m not quite sure what he would do with himself. is that how the frustration triad is? if so can they ever really feel content in life, even with enough personal growth to notice their personality style and choose differently?

Yes, that is correct. No one does anything without getting something out of it, and the frustration triad actively works to keep part of themselves frustrated and dissatisfied, because life doesn’t measure up to their desired ideal. It’s a subconscious choice.

It is possible to change this, but the person has to first acknowledge that the frustration is a choice, and then decide to change it. They have to see this habitual tendency to embrace chronic dissatisfaction as a pattern and recognize that it’s optional, and then want to do something about it. They have to want to change, and acknowledge that this current behavior is not working for me (it is self-sabotaging me in some way, by making me always frustrated by life, relationships, etc), and accept the burden of self-responsibility in changing it, for their own self-betterment. Frustration has become a pattern with them, but it’s not chronic – it’s a choice and they can choose to catch themselves looking for what’s missing and instead, choose to embrace the happiness of the moment.

Your friend sounds like a 6 with a strong 4 fix; double-reactivity – my life is awful, you need to agree with me how awful it is, and it can’t be fixed, because it just… wouldn’t work, and nothing is good enough, and cue the self-pity, the whining, and the drawing attention to whatever is wrong. To be honest, it sounds like a 649. There’s a reason they’re roasted online as the “Whiny Tears.” 6 is reactive and negative, looking for what’s wrong and missing; 4 over-inflates wounds, problems, and deficiencies and remains frustrated as a way to show everyone their life is broken and cannot be fixed; throw 9ish apathy and inertia in there, and you have two reactive fixes that obsess and complain and draw attention to problems, along with two twithdrawn fixes that don’t assume the problem is theirs to fix, leading to an endless state of “wallowing without seeking solutions.”

The 6 over-thinks, the 4 over-feels, and the 9 does nothing about it. A 469 in any order has to come to terms with their negativity and see that as a choice; with their ongoing frustration and realize that’s optional; they have to choose to look for the positive since their default is the negative, and above all, they have to learn to productively think about things (as opposed to ruminating on them, or thinking about them without ever instigating change) and figure out the direct actions they could take that would change their life for the better. It won’t be easy, but if they decide it’s worth doing, they can pursue it through self-observation and choosing to change their reactions, by not allowing themselves to dramatize their problems as “unsolvable,” but instead, asking themselves what they’re going to DO to resolve this ongoing problem.

#question #469 #enneagram

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a-shared-experience · 2 months

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Trapped. Restricted. Victimized. Paralyzed. Helpless. Powerless. Anxiety. Financial stress. Fear. Silenced. Crisis. Dilemma. Consequences. Psychological issues. Confusion. Fear of failure. Kept in the dark. Wanting to be rescued. Denial. Limiting beliefs. Pessimism. Self sabotage. Abusive relationships. Too afraid to speak up. Embarrassed. Not willing to communicate. Unwilling to take initiative in life. Hoping someone else will reach out first. Letting life pass you by. Missing out on an opportunity for true love. Not believing in yourself or feeling worthy of love. Actively choosing to not take action.

The letter of the day is Y and the word of the day is Yikes! I’m sorry if this resonates. Truly sorry. Abusive relationships can really do a number on your soul. When you find yourself in a toxic partnership it’s usually a subconscious effort to role play your own childhood. Your partner will remind you in some way of the parent who hurt you most and you will continue to play out dynamics in hopes of overcoming the trauma. The sad fact is that attachment injury doesn’t heal this way and therefore you find yourself in the hamster wheel chasing after a childhood dream to live carefree. You’ll reenact the pattern over and over never really gaining anything in life. It’s like a catch 22- the inner child wants to prove that he or she is worthy of being loved properly and the wounded adult wants to prove their pain is valid and therefore becomes a self fulfilling prophecy in the quest to be justified. Although I try to either block it out or process and heal from my abusive relationships I still recall how awful they were. You think it will be different because you can change your looks, change your surroundings, choose your friends, choose your career , everything in life is a choice unlike when you’re little and have no say.

And yet we forget the importance of having choice - we block out that we are in fact choosing the pattern because it feels familiar - a word derived from family. We tell ourselves it is a comfort zone because we don’t know what it feels like to be treated like gold and even if we were we simply would spiral and prove all the ways we were actually shit.

None of that is true. I used to meet new potentials and feel overwhelmed with the weight of everything that was wrong with me. I would engage and draw them in only to forcefully push them away, make them think I was psycho because then they would leave as predicted and I would feel in control.

The things which made me feel out of control were things like getting to know someone , sharing my self , not my body but my passions, my day dreams, my poetry, my singing , my aspirations, my hardships, my downfalls and my triumphs.

Trust was something I didn’t think would ever be possible. Most of my life I put every man in the same box- you will use me, steal from me, hold me back , cheat on me and ultimately not be there when I need you.

It became self fulfilling.

A very part of attachment injury is the core wounds we hold inside of us. Our self beliefs drive our behaviours and further cement the idea that we are our wounds and cannot be changed.

I personally have deep dived into attachment theory despite how painful it was at times because it made me understand that I was normal , that what was happening could be explained by forces that were external to my character. I began to realize that if I was taught these things that I could also unlearn them and replace it with positive self beliefs, positive behaviours and overtime I would learn to appreciate the calm.

Today was one of those prime examples for me. I’m the morning after breakfast a thought popped into my head that said “ call so and so and grip some meth” that is a learned behaviour. I said out loud, no. That’s not what I’m doing today” and instead of burying the feeling I explored it. Of course like anyone I’m affected by the full moon energy and I’ve been really torn over what relationships mean to me.

There’s a part of me which wants to hook up with someone and so I explored it- in my mind.

What it means is that I crave intimacy and connection and because I have difficulty dating I know this is a quick superficial attempt to meet my own needs. Sure it would feel good in the moment but it’s not actually meeting my needs- it’s deceiving my needs.

I long to live a truthful life. How can I do that if I’m not honest with myself. I wanted drugs because it would distract me from this truth and allow for denial of my feelings but I don’t want to live that way.

Instead I decided to paint , to self care, to find a new recipe I’ve never tried before and give it a go, I called my friends and family and made plans for middle of week to go out and meet people organically.

I started singing lessons online. I think back to how many times I tried to prove that I was loveable to people who simply didn’t love me and how damaging that was.

I didn’t have sex for 3 years following my most abusive partner. I couldn’t sleep, I felt insecure , I gained a lot of weight, isolated and eventually turned to drugs and then proceeded to hook up with people I didn’t even like to prove that I was still normal.

Abuse can do that to you. It’s makes you hate yourself for the ways your partner doesn’t care about you and even though you know you deserve real love you start to believe you’re a bad person.

You brush it off and restart the day as if there weren’t years of disappointment. You find yourself living in fantasy , dreaming of your ideal lover all while falling asleep next to the person who doesn’t respect you. You cheat, they cheat, you fight every time you’re meant to go somewhere and be social and usually just stay home, hurting each other until you reach a breaking point in the night and realize you can’t self soothe and so you take refuge in the enemy. It’s called love addiction but it doesn’t involve love. It’s quite sad and really difficult to get out of- because it becomes difficult to get out of our own way.

It’s taken me a long time to heal this part of myself and I’m sure from time to time little triggers will go off and take me back to that place. Chaos isn’t going to help that , I’ve had to recognize what my needs are and that’s a really challenging thing to do when you’ve never considered them before.

I want a love that makes me smile when I wake up, a love that is patient with all of my imperfections, a love that allows me space , that grants me trust, that respects me for who I am and encourages me to become whatever i dream of becoming. I want a love that is self aware so that they know when they need alone time too and don’t project their anger onto me. I want a love that’s imperfect but healing. A love that teaches my partner and I that we are in control of ourselves and our own actions and not each other , a love that is consistent , that makes effort, that is comfortable in calm and inspired in boredom to create, to play, to experience and to do so without hurting one another. I want a love that will compromise on the little things and stand up for what it believes in. I want a love that understands that love itself is a beautiful thing that we are both deserving of in its highest form. A love that doesn’t need status, appearance, Wealth to matter , I want wholesome love that appreciates that love is hard for me and that is dedicated to the hard stuff , knowing I can overcome my childhood wounds through the act of love , I want someone who feels honour in helping me on this journey and I want to provide the same.

So don’t take any chances on letting your life pass you by just because it’s all you’ve ever known- you’re meant to keep learning better ways , you’re meant to leave your comfort zone in search of where you feel most alive.

You really only get one life to do it

I can’t imagine doing it like I’ve done in the past- waking up alone or waking up next to someone that felt like a stranger , someone who was right next to me but felt a million miles away.

In choosing myself I’ve grown so much, I’ve proven to myself that I am worth loving- I don’t need anyone’s approval other than my own.

I can’t wait to outgrow all that bullshit - you won’t find me on a hamster wheel- I’m a fierce woman not a rodent :p

You’re fierce too, what hurts more ? Holding yourself back or that moment of courage ? The latter is exhilarating

A rebellious self love , an ending to your trauma

The beginning of your life

I believe the theory that life will withhold your blessings until you find yourself in the right places

Imagine if you got the dream job and the dream bank account and still had to wake up next to someone who didn’t love you?

You can’t have those things when you hold yourself in the wrong places.

They are protected parts of you meant to be shared with people who cherish you and live in integrity.

Because guess what , the person who doesn’t love you when you have nothing still isn’t going to love you when you have everything

Through it all , you are loveable for who you are

Not what you own

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roboticutie · 2 years

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We talk a lot about either being lumped in w women and being completely erased from medical narratives when we aren't lumped in w women, but we don't discuss cis men refusing to align with trans men enough. Trans guys already know as a given that cis men don't see us as one of them the majority of the time. Even some that try will have a subconscious divide between men w dicks and men without, which takes a lot longer to work on even when they're actively trying. The majority just don't try.

This is such a given that we don't end up bringing it up because it's a huge fucking bummer, and bc we live with this every day it's kind of an unspoken background truth that every trans guy in the room knows.

But no one else seems to realize this, because it doesn't get said aloud. So I want to bring it up and remind y'all that yes, the stories of cis male family members and guy friends at work or school giving us a "pass to the boy's club" is sweet and real. But systemically that's not what's going on. And the fact that there are a handful of these stories vs hundreds of daily occurences where we ARE ousted for not being men in the "right" way and are at risk of abuse by cis men for threatening their understanding of manhood is still a very real issue.

Trans people threaten every cis person's idea of what their gender is so long as we're all taught first that gender is what's in your pants and we have to unlearn that in order to feel comfortable with our identities. This means that cis men don't actually like trans men a lot of the time. They don't see it as gaining another to the team, often we're seen as a threat to their established male heirarchy at best and a delusional woman at worst.

Cis men's gender is constantly threatened and used against them, especially those raised in hypermasculine environments that took in the sexism prevalent in the American and Canadian militaries (the phrase "Alright ladies!" to a group of men working under the boss, "you fight like a girl", "this is what REAL men do", "you're not a man you're a coward", "are you a man or not?!"). Their "man card" is constantly under threat of being revoked by someone more "man" than they are. They don't even take each other's personal identities seriously a lot of the time.

This results in a lot of cis men being seriously defensive when it comes to doing literally anything out of line with what they're taught manhood is. This is widely known to contribute to abuse against women, feeling threatened by and then hurting trans women, but it's also a major cause of abuse by male family members to male family members, men in same sex relationships, AND attacking any trans man who asserts that he doesn't have to have a dick OR conform strictly to masculinity to be a man.

Cis men fucking hate us and do NOT want us to be recognized as men. Why does anyone think we are, en masse, totally chill and fine w cis men?

Obviously the answer here is not to divide ourselves from cis men further than they already divide themselves from us. It's most important to bridge that divide and be taken seriously as men, hopefully breaking down a tonne of sexism, transphobia, and racism fraught in our cultures in the process. But my point here is that that's not our reality right now, and just because your insular leftist echo chamber sees us as men as much as cis men are (though subconsciously you might have a bias still there too fyi), that doesn't mean that's actually trans men's day to day lives.

Trans people just aren't respected equally to cis people. Yes, even the men. Cis men don't even respect each other equally as men, why would they respect us? It's redundant and erasure to try and push otherwise.

#long post #transphobia #transmisandry #transandrophobia #my text posts #ok i went off on a rant here but man i am tired of folks acting like the grass is greener on the other side and manhood is all hunky-dory #fuck off with that! we weren't taken seriously when we thought we were girls/women and we aren't taken seriously as men either #and then we aren't even taken seriously when we tell you we aren't being taken seriously 🙃#it's hell really

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happysadyoyo · 2 years

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Sometimes I want to post about how I have been unlearning racist thoughts and stuff since moving to Philadelphia. I want to talk about how much I love my neighbors and my house is the only house on the block with a white family.

But I fear coming across as tokenizing these people who are in my life now and that I rub elbows with daily.

I mean there’s also the fact that openly admitting that you were racist and have to unlearn racism -- even when you thought you were very much Not Racist in the past -- is something a person will cling to and try to use against your every word. I already get shit for calling out non white people when they’re being shitheads.

God forbid you own up to your mistakes, because then they’ll never be let go.

But mostly it’s hard to figure out how to explain to a mixed race crowd how I, as a white dude, have had the past year or so realized how much my subconscious racism still existed and how quickly I realized and actively unlearned that shit because I was no longer in a majority white city. Like, it could come across absolutely horrifically you know?

idk. This may be something I end up paying someone to help me digest properly since, if I’m going to have a black person to help me with a script or video or whatever, they should at least get paid for their time, however much I can afford.

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gettin-bi-bi-bi · 2 years

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I'm the anon struggling with biphobia. I wanted to reply but I had an airplane to catch and I kinda forgot. As I said before I already knew that biphobia is bad and I have to do something about it, reading your answer was like reaffirming that these stereotypes are really stupid and hurtful. I'm a lesbian and I think that my prejudices come from the stereotype that being bi is a phase or something trendy (which I know it's not true), so it feels like if a bi girl wants to pursue me it's just for fun until she realizes she wants to be with a man. I don't know, I also struggle with my sexuality, I know liking girls is totally alright and I'm sure I'm a lesbian, but it can be very lonely and I live in a very heteronormative country, being straight would be so much easier. But I'm digressing here.

Also thank you to the anon that replied to me and gave me their perspective. I hope at some point to find a good therapist that knows something about lgbtq+ stuff, untill then I'll try to correct myself whenever I think of something harmful.

I hope what I said makes sense, English isn't my native language.

P.S. maybe there's also the fact that all the bi girls I know, whether it's irl or like youtubers, are in a long relationship with a man, and, idk, maybe subconsciously it makes me feel like heteronormativity is the only option. Once again, it's my problem and I'm the one who has to fix this. I just wanted to give all of the details(?)

Hi there,

thanks for getting back to us with some more background. I kind of figured that you're a lesbian but didn't wanna just presume. Honestly, I'm very glad that you asked about this. If everyone who had biphobic beliefs would a) acknowledge them as such and b) try to work on unlearning them like you are then already the world would be so much easier for bi people to live in.

Too much time and energy in bi activism is used up for proving that we even exist, that there often isn't any energy left to address biphobia. So I'm relieved in a way, any time that someone validates bisexuality and biphobia as real things. It's the bare minimum, I know, but it makes my/our work so much easier because you came to us with a foundation upon which we could discuss this. That's so much more helpful for both of us than talking to someone who doesn't even think biphobia is a thing.

Long story short: I think you are on a good way. You've already taken steps to work on your biphobia - that's more than most people can say for themselves. And I think the more you learn about biphobia (maybe just by following this blog and reading more first-hand stories from bisexuals) you will also get better at noticing it when you fall into a biphobic thought and you can stop yourself sooner. That's really all we can do when we want to unlearn prejudices - to learn to recognise them, take a step back and remind ourselves why this is wrong.

One last little thought nugget I'd like to add is that bi people who are in m/f relationships don't even necessarily "enjoy" the presumed heteronormativity that comes with it. Many of us actively reject heteronormativity and even if our partner is a straight person we might actually try our hardest to not "lose" our queer identity in the process. For example I often talk to my straight male partner about my own queerness and queer stuff because I want him to be a part of that as well.

I can only speak for myself and from what I've observed in others over the years but all bi people I know absolutely HATE it when someone assumes they are straight - even if they might have to rely on this for safety, the invisibility that comes with it usually translates into a profound loneliness and nobody likes that. It's a terrible feeling. And as a result, those of us who can come out (even if it's only to their partner and nobody else) often very much wish they didn't seem so heteronormative to the outside eye. Because we didn't choose heteronormativity, we chose a person who just happens to be of a certain gender that society deems to be The Correct One in relation to out own. It's a weird paradox to be rewarded by society for fitting a norm that we ourselves hate and would love to destroy.

Anyway... that was a long tangent but I wanted to get it out there. And by the way: your English is perfect (says I, who also isn't a native speaker lol).

Maddie

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metanoiamorii · 3 years

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Wip Re-Introduction: A Rope In Hand

❛Horror is like a serpent; always shedding its skin, always changing. And it will always come back. It can’t be hidden away like the guilty secrets we try to keep in our subconscious.❜

♧ Title: A Rope In Hand [ARIH]

♧ Status: First Drafting

♧ Point of View: Third Person, flexible between a few

♧ Genre: Dark Fantasy, Supernatural, LGBTQ+, Action, Drama

♧ Warnings: This story revolves around the occult. There will be talk of witch hunts and trials and cults. There will be torture methods used to gain confessions, and these methods will be justified under religious belief. There will be toxic and abusive relationships, particularly family; finding an escape from them, and healing from the trauma. There will be homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, and colonization. There will be major character deaths, but I can spoil after the book ends the main characters do get a happy ending. Each chapter and scene posted will have personalized warnings, but these are the main things to expect.

♧ Featuring: The majority of the characters will be LGBTQ+, from pansexual, homosexual, to asexual; genderfluid, agender/nonbinary, and transgender. Each character is complex and morally grey. Yes, they will do things that are blatantly terrible, or actively good. Overall, they will be morally grey and questionable at best. There will be complex world-building, from both the universe it takes place in, and the religious pantheons brought up. The religions brought up will be polytheistic and animism-themed. The romance between the major characters will be slow-burn enemies to friend to lovers, and them learning to love themselves through one another. There will be an exploration on generational healing, and unlearning toxic, and bias believes.

♧ Setting: The setting is influenced by Victorian London, and Medieval Ireland. There will be mention of other places, primarily western Europe, the Ottoman Empire, Ancient Rome, Eastern Asia, and Napoleonic France.

♧ Synopsis:

In the town of Arkaley, in the northwest of the Duchy of Ruairc, the people have been plagued by bad fortune and crime. Attacks of bandits on the road, raids from pirates on the shores, untimely deaths of children and young women, elected officials coming out corrupt; there is no end in Arkaley of the suffering the locals endure.

Rationally, to explain such a bad string of luck, there is only one possible explanation: Witchcraft.

The Duchy of Ruairc already has a history of witchcraft: the Ó Ruaircs turned out to be witches, the Abondé incident in Salem, the Liathain incident in Trakee; the Ruaircs have their record. Perfectly acceptable for everyone to assume the worse of the Ruairish, as they have proved to be nothing but.

To prove his worth, the young Reverend Prudence Clemency Frye, takes up the task of quelling this coven of witches and heading this witch-hunt. Young and naïve, witch only knowledge from books and little hands-on experience, he’s unprepared for this challenge. When he finally leaves the town, well… everyone would rather put this incident behind them.

♧ Tease:

My darling dear, a knave so clear

You appear, so bravely near;

Do you hear my darling dear, sneers of austere jeers?

Behave, my dear, when I am near;

For peers will lear, in their fear,

Allow me o' dear our persevere

So my fave you appear

And volunteer a slave so dear

in an atmosphere we fear.

my darling dear, wave so clear

Depravely as we leave, and give a souvenir;

My lips to yours, as you crave in these fallin' years.

Be brave darling dear, and give into hearts o' queer.

For mine you be, your darling dear,

To the stars you have swore in love, so crystal clear.

My peers shall sneer, but whore I be, and you I crave

Oh so bare. slurs and glares, just listen to my prayers.

Kiss me love, and leave o'they to a'crave

In this atmosphere that we fear

Their own, o' pure, knave so dear.

♧ Excerpt:

".... This is wrong." Prudence finds the words slipping from his lips, voice a quiet whisper; a breathless tone of voice. He allows his fingertips to falter against scarred skin, watching as Mastema turned his cheek, he pressed himself into the palm of Prudence's hand. Eyes closed, a smile curled on his face. Prudence couldn't help but smile at the scene, but slowly, slowly, slowly, he rescinded his hand; breaking the hold.

"Revered..." Matching his voice, Mastema replied. Maintaining such a soft voice, as he shifted himself forward on the bed. One foot to the ground, the other drawn beneath himself. Over Prudence he leaned, resting one palm to the sheets, the other lifting to seize Prudence's hand before he could recoil back. "You have made me feel something in which I've never felt before..."

From where he laid, Prudence could only form a soft frown. He knew he could draw his hand back, the grip was far from tight. But he didn't. He laid there, allowing Mastema to hold his hand. "... This is wrong, Mastema."

Mastema frowned; he matched the reaction Prudence wore. Through it, he forced a half-smile, tightening his grip on the other's hand, and forward he brought Prudence's hands to kiss the knuckles. "... If this is wrong, I do not wish to be right."

At the response, Prudence shook his head. "It is not for us to be right or wrong, the gods—"

At the angle he sat, Mastema shifted once more. He dropped Prudence's hand, to lean forward; to lean in close. Both of his palms found the other's cheek, as he touched their foreheads to one another. "... Do not force your will onto another." In that soft whisper, he spoke. Eyes closed, breath drawn in. "Is that not a Commandment of our Creator?"

"I..." Prudence faltered. In, he drew his breath, to try to steady himself. "... I did not take you for the religious sorts."

"I'm not." Mastema all too quickly retorted. But as he was, he laid; this proximity. "But you are."

♧ Characters:

The Order of Witchesbane

Prudence Clemency Frye; The Reverend

Half Fae/Half Human • Intersex • Genderfluid • He/They • Homosexual • Homo-demiromantic

The bastard son of Lord Zachariah Frye. Raised by his father, with his mother dying young, he took to following in his footsteps. He became a religious young man and an active witch-hunter. A part of him desires his father’s acceptance, his praises; the other part despises his father and everything the man stands for. In recent years, he has joined the De La Cruz household, becoming an apprentice beneath the famous Witch’s Advocate; upholding the beliefs that not every witch is evil and has foul intentions, and the ones that mean harm are the only ones that should be hunted.

Zachariah Frye; The Bloodhound

Human • Male • He/Him • Bicurious • Aromantic

The oldest living member of the Order. Now he is the man that holds the face of the Order, who you think of when they come to mind. Cold. Vindictive. Despotic. Violent. He is not a good man. He is firm in his beliefs and stubborn to change. Once his mind is made up, he cannot be reasoned with. He is blindly convinced of his beliefs and his cause to eradicate every living witch, unfazed if he has to fill a few innocent thousands in the process.

Calisto Ferzan Hermengildo Melchior Lorencio De La Cruz; The Witch’s Advocate

Half Fae/Half Human • Amab • Nonbinary • Genderfluid • He/They • Asexual • Aromantic

A witch-hunter in title alone, Calisto has been making enemies since he could first talk. He’s always enjoyed being the underdog, going against the expectations of society, being ridiculed by his peers. The sole reason? Proving them wrong. To ridicule his own peers for their outdated beliefs, he’s taken to defending witches, proving them innocent of their ‘crimes’, and going on to help them to set up a life in a country more accepting of witchcraft

The servant of Calisto, never seen far from his side. He is a servant in name alone and is more-or-less an assassin, a hitman for Calisto. Held in contempt by Athylian society for being a foreigner, he often treated by others more as a slave than a servant. To help be unseen, to help the De La Cruz Household, Michelotto endures the treatment and goes as far to be perceived as ignorant, alongside him being born a mute. Keeping his true intents and intelligence duly guarded, only a handful are aware he is also a witch.

Myk'loumihr [Michelotto Dougal] Siavash; The Man-Servant

Witch; Amab • Agender • He/They • Asexual • Aromantic

Austin Duvine; The Lord Without A Ring

Half-Human/Half Fae • Amab • Nonbinary • He/They • Pansexual • Demiromantic

One of the younger members of the order, Austin relies on his father's wealth and name. He doesn't care for responsibilities, he doesn't care for hard work. He's a playboy at heart. He's fit to hold social events, and use his natural talent to gib and fib his way through life. He'll keep his mixed feelings to himself, struggling with doing the right thing or upholding tradition.

Alistair Lavine; The Witchfinder General

Human • Amab • Agender • He/They • Bicurious • Aromantic

The best friend to Zachariah and his right hand. Where Zachariah is business and lacks charms, Alistair can charm a crowd and hold their attention. He knows how to feign being an ideal human, without letting on his own bloodlust; he's a monster in human skin. At the end of the day, unlike Zachariah, Alistair does have morals and standards he will abide by, even if they come back to ruin him.

━━━━━━━━━━

The Vakari Coven

Ausrine Baoghal; The Lady

Witch • Female • She/Her • Bisexual • Aromantic

The woman in charge of the town, widowed and inheriting the right to rule as her husband had no heirs. She is a manipulative and dangerous woman, eager to commit any sin or crime for more power. She, in truth, cares only for herself and would feel no remorse if she had to turn on one of her coven to further her own agenda.

The magistrate and also the chief policeman of the town. He maintains a calm, but manipulative personality. As a front, he presents himself to be fair and just, liked and favored by the people for genuinely caring for them. While in truth he has his own heinous and sinister agenda, aiding Ausrine in her plans.

Leary O'Laoghaire; The Magistrate

Witch • Male • He/Him • Bicurious • Aromantic

The oldest member of the coven, Dairine lives under the guise of an elderly woman, who lives alone with her children and grandchildren already leaving her to live their own lives. She is a kind and understanding woman and cares for the younger witches in the coven. She will not support Baríon with her agenda, nor does she care for the servant girl, she even despises the so-called ally Ausrine claims to have and who they all adhere to.

Dairine Ó Séaghdha; The Crone

Witch • Afab • Agender • She/They • Asexual • Aromantic

The acting servant of Barion, Anisha’s true loyalties lie elsewhere. She stays within the town, serving the coven while acting as the eyes and ears of someone, the person who is truly pulling the strings. She is the one to relay information and letters between the coven and her master. She is a quiet woman, that keeps her head down and her mind to herself. She only shows her true, confident and demanding, nature behind closed doors with the coven when they dare to question her.

Anisha Kaur; The Servant

Witch • Afab • Demigirl • She/They • Asexual • Aromantic

The charming son of Leary. Many whisper that is part fae, due to his charm, if it’s true or not many are unaware. He is a very sophisticated young man, that has managed to wrap the entire town around his finger. While on the surface he is alike his father is a caring, compassionate, charming young man, something sinister brews beneath. He is devious, demanding, domineering.

Nathir O'Laoghaire; The Magistrate’s Son

Half-Witch/Half-Fae • Amab • Agender • He/Him • Bisexual • Aromantic

Being the baker's daughter, Liannah helps around the bakery and family business. Unlike the company she keeps, she is a reserved young woman. She is polite and maintains her manners with whomever she is dealing with. She has the patience of a saint and rarely loses her cool. Liannah is a woman with a calm demeanor about her, being a woman many are comfortable around due to her peaceful and calm aura.

Liannah Ó Buachalla; The Baker’s Daughter

Witch • Afab • Genderfluid • She/They • Asexual • Panromantic

Ausrine's bastard son she had with a spirit she bargained with for more power. Since he was young, he was raised by the servants of the house, and the coven, over his own mother; the two have more of a business relationship over a family one. Since he cares less about what his mother does, he spends his time with Liannah and Reyes, either at the bakery or getting into trouble somewhere. With Reyes as an influence, Mastema is a flirtatious man that enjoys scandals and making the most of life

Mastema Baoghal; The Knave

Half-Witch/Half-Spirit • Amab • Genderfluid • He/They • Pansexual • Demiromantic

Rochan Misra; The Charlatan

Half-Witch/Half-Spirit • Amab • Queer • He/She • Pansexual • Aromantic

A foreigner to the Coven, born and raised in the Duchy of Incali. At a young age, he became a traveling charlatan, recently settling within the coven only as he befriended Liannah and Mastema and enjoyed their company. Now, he is the local bad influence: scamming locals out of their money at the taverns, wooing and seducing young men and ladies alike, always trespassing and vandalizing something. He is trouble but has a heart of gold when it matters.

ARIH: : @hekat-ie, @writings-of-a-narwhal, @silent-creed

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Taglist:

General: @endlesshourglass, @writerray, @poore-choice-of-words, @alexwritesfiction, @primusesgiantmetalballbearings

Both: @cecilsstorycorner, @little-boats-on-a-lake, @hazard-writes, @egg-shark

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batmanisagatewaydrug · 3 years

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Hi so my question is kinda weird and tmi but here goes: ever since I started masturbating when I was like 12, I can never just come once or twice and then stop like its probably closer to 10 times and I want to stop and tell myself "ok last one" but I cant until it almost hurts.. is that just the "normal" female experience? Im too awkward to ask my friends lol

hi anon,

don't worry. we don't do "tmi" here.

I'd first and foremost like to gently dissuade you of the notion that there's any such thing as a "normal female experience." "female" is a vast category that means wildly different things to different people, and "normal" means almost nothing at all, particularly in the context of gender and sexuality. here in my little internet bog, I prefer to chuck "normal" out the window and focus more on "statistically average" and "healthy."

so, let's unpack your question through those slightly more helpful lenses!

is this statistically average? probably not, but being a numerical outlier doesn't make something inherently bad. I'm going to be extremely presumptuous and read between the lines here to assume that you're a cisgender person with a vagina; please feel free to message me with a correction if I'm wrong. if this is the case, what you're experiencing may be a higher number of orgasms than average but not strictly surprising. people with clits and vulvas tend to (tend to, this is not universal!) have a much easier time being multi-orgasmic than people with penises, owing to a much shorter refractory period.

tl;dr, many people with vaginas are able to become sexually aroused and have another orgasm again quickly after the first climax. 12 orgasms is probably more than most people have on average, but it's also not implausible.

now - is it healthy and safe? it certainly could be, but the situation you're describing - continuing to masturbate until you feel like it can't stop and it actually starts to hurt - doesn't sound like it's particularly good for you. what it sounds like is that early in puberty you found a form of physical stimulation that felt nice, and then developed a compulsive repetitive behavior seeking to keep feeling the physical benefits of that stimuli even when you're no longer actually enjoying it.

talking about the negative side effects of masturbation always makes me feel like an unhinged puritanical preacher, but let's be real: it's as easy to learn unhealthy habits around masturbation as it as anything else. your body finds one (1) way to get free physical pleasure and goes "oh! cool, we're going it that way forever," and next thing you know you're locked in a repetitive pattern that you may or may not actually like or want to keep doing.

unlearning those patterns isn't easy, but you absolutely can if you put in the work. right now your mind and body are primed to expect multiple orgasms to the point of pain when you masturbate; you need to do anything in your power to break that association. when you've finished your first or second orgasm, physically roll yourself back out of bed and go get a snack, take a lap around the block, enjoy a particularly freezing shower, or anything else that jars your brain straight out of sexytime. sorry, no more orgasms today! we're actually not going to do this until it hurts, but nice try!

will that be annoying? god, yes. that's the whole point. but disrupting your current thought processes and subconscious expectations with sex is really the only way to go here. there's a REASON that I trained myself to drop everything and go for 20 minute walks any time my depression started to feel overwhelming, you know?

it may also be helpful to jerk it less frequently than you do now, however often that is, especially since you'll need to plan accordingly for your post-masturbation unsexy activity. I wouldn't necessarily recommend setting aside specific amounts of time for yourself, since that creates a negative pressure and could quickly create one bad pattern with another, but picking designated days when you know you'll have time for a post-sex wind down could also help shake up your current rut - and, of course, it doesn't have to be forever. hopefully, once we've disrupted this, you'll be able to transition to a more organic and less rigid relationship with masturbation.

"but Makenzie this sounds hard and annoying" yeah probably! but it's cheaper than a sex therapist, which is the only other option I have for you.

#sex edventures 2021

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shortkingvi · 2 years

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I think its interesting to be introspective about the way I viewed music when I was younger. There was a period of time where I was subconsciously being indoctrinated into a semi-incel circle and a lot of that was surrounded by making fun of shit like lizzo and mumble rap that was just thinly veiled racism. Its still something that im trying to work my way out of

i think that it’s good that you’ve identified this and that you’re actively working to resolve it!!!

historically, black musicians have regularly been discredited for their work. in the late 1800s to early 1900s, music moguls would specifically find illiterate black musicians, force them to sign contracts, and then take all their money and intellectual property

currently, this discrediting has taken another form and that is through rhetoric. even saying that “mumble rap” exists is a microaggression against AAVE and black inflection/intonation (not a dig at you! a clarification of that term as problematic!)

people will try to classify ALL black music as either rap or r&b because it’s easier to control a group when you can lump them all together and then systematically suppress the distribution of their work. rap is a very wide spectrum of music that encapsulates a lot of different styles and narratives and i truly think that, more than anything else, it is the genre where ANYONE could find something they like

diversifying your music taste starts with unlearning a lot of the rhetoric that seeks to make certain artists seem less valuable. notice how rap and hip hop have become mainstream and now everyone wants to make a song with a rap feature? it’s because black bodies are only valued by white supremacist society when they can provide something of value

understanding that value free of the mainstream opinion and what it seems profitable is the best way to truly respect the level of work and effort that goes into rap and hip hop. because it really is a beautifully narrative genre with deep deep historical and cultural roots

#sorry i used your ask to rant!#it’s just that so many people are missing beautiful music because of preconceived notions like what you said you used to feel!#putting my masters degree to good use with this one #asks #dabudder

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normal-thoughts-official · 3 years

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Fandom racism anon here and yeah absolutely (I didn't realise I had anon on lol)

Because while LOTR has problems within its themes (ie the orcs can be seen as to be coded as people of colour, especially since they ride elephants) the explicit message of the book is evil bad

Because the only people who work for sauron are evil. There are no morally grey people, they aren't misguided or tricked they just are evil and want to take over the world

And yeah I totally agree that this is more of a literal take on like empirical war (is that the word) and that makes total sense considering Tolkiens history

Whereas I would say that the allegories in shaowhunters is way more based on racial conflict within a country itself especially slavery, I can't remember if this is show Canon but is it that they have the warlock tropheys? I remember that in the books magnus talks about shadowhunters hanging warlock marks on their walls? (sorry to bring the books up)

Idk it's very hollow to me, unlike with LOTR though it's a different allegory it's totally irritating to show many of these supremecists as morally misled. LOTR says bad guys are bad guys, shadowhunters says well yeah they did follow a guy which thinks that downworlders are subhuman and should be eradicated but they just made a mistake

I want to compare this to tfatws which while it isn't really fantasy I just feel like it shows how the priorities of the writer can impact the message of the show so powerfully (I know u aren't up to date so I'm gonna be pretty vague)

There's a scene in tfatws where the new white perfect captain America does something bad and doesn't pay for the consequences - done to comment on white privelege and how America condones white supremacy and how Sam is in comparison to that

Mayrse and Robert revealed to be part of the circle! And paid no consequences Shock horror my parents were the bad guys (even rho they were either implicitly or explicitly extremely racist the entire time) also I haven't finished the seires but do the lightwoods ever try to get their parents to face the consequences?)

Only one actual really critiques the situation and the reality behind it whereas the other one is just to centre the white characters once again and present them in a further sympathetic light

AND ANOTHER THING! I was mostly talking about show Canon here and I'm sorry to bring up the books but I literally can't believe I hadn't picked up in this before.

So like downworlders = people of colour, Simon is a vampire so is coded as a person of colour. However in the books in the last one he stops being a vampire and becomes a shadowhunters instead, coincidentally that's also when he starts dating Izzy HOW IS THIS ABLE TO HAPPEN!!????

I mean I know cassandra clare is lazy right? The original seires is by far the worst of all her writings but come ON!!!!! By the allegory has he become the white man!????? These books made no fuckin sense when I read them at 15 and they make no sense now I'm digressing anyways

I don't know man I wrote this ask because I was trying to find some fantasy book recommendations on booktube and SO MANY of them were about slavery or general ly extrême préjudice with à White protagonist to save this 'poor souls'.

Also I was watching guardians of the galexy the other day and realised nearly every movie set in space is just bigger stakes imperialism - planets instead of countries. Literally star wars, star trek, guardians of the galexy 2, avengers infinity war - all are facing genocidal imperialistic villains without actually paying much, if any attention to those effected

Just writing this ask made me exhausted I'm so tired of lazy writing and exploiting other people's struggle. I'm white and I'm trying to be more critical about the movies, shows and books I watch and read but let me know if I said something off here❤️❤️ you gotta get up to date with tfatws man, Sambucky nation is THRIVING!!!!

i'm not sure i agree that the whole "the evil people are evil" thing is a good thing, because i feel like more often than not making the bad characters just like... unidimensionally evil just means that the reader will be like "lol i could NEVER be that guy" and when it comes to racism that is a dangerous road to take because white people already believe that racism is something that Only The Most Evil People, Ergo, Not Me, Can Do, which makes discussions of stuff like subconscious racial bias and active antiracist work become more difficult because people don't believe they CAN be racist unless they're like, Lord Voldemort

which is not to say that racism should be treated as morally ambiguous, just that the workings of racism should be represented as something that is not done only by the Most Hardcore And Evil, but rather as a part of a system of oppression that affects the way everyone sees the world and interacts with it and lives in it

yes the warlock trophies are mentioned in the show, albeit very quickly (there is a circle member who tells magnus that his cat eyes will make "a nice addition to his collection" and then it's never mentioned again because this is sh and we love using racism for shock value but then not actually treating it as a serious plot point or something that affects oppressed ppl). and you are absolutely right, shadowhunters (and hp, and most fantasy books) has genocide as its core conflict and treats it, like you said, in a very hollow way, treating racism as both not a big deal and not something that is part of a system of oppression, but really the actions of a few Very Bad People. it's almost impressive how they manage to do both at the same time tbh

i think you hit the nail right on the head with this comment, actually. for most of these works, racism is SHOCK VALUE. it's just like "lol isn't it bad that this bad guy wants to kill a gazillion people just because they are muggles? now that is fucked up" but it's not actually an issue. in fact, when this guy is defeated, the whole problem is over! racism is not something that is embedded into that world, it's not a systemic issue, it's not even actually part of what drives the plot. the things that led to this person not only existing but rising to power and gathering enough followers to be a real threat to the whole world are never mentioned. it's like racists are born out of thin air, which is dangerously close to implying that racism is just a natural part of life, tbh

anyway my point is, it is never supposed to be questioned, it is never part of a deeper plot or story, its implications are barely addressed except for a few fleeting comments them and there; so, it's not a critique, it's shock value, even though it is frequently disguised as a critique (which is always empty and shallow anyway. like what is the REAL critique in works like hp or sh/tsc other than "genocide is bad"? wow such a groundbreaking take evelyn)

about simon and the book thing: i actually knew about this and the weird thing about this is that, like... simon is jewish, and he's implied to be ashkenazi (calls his grandma bubbe which is yiddish, which is a language spoken by the ashkenazi ppl), and it seems like cc is always toeing the line between him being accepted by shadowhunters and then not accepted by them, which sounds a lot like antisemitic tropes and history of swinging between (ashkenazi) jewish ppl being seen as the model minority myth and thus used as an example by white christians, and being hated and persecuted. i'm not super qualified to talk about this since i'm not jewish and i'm still learning about/unlearning antisemitism and its tropes, and i don't really have a fully formed thought on that, tbh; it just reminds me of the whole "model minority" swinging, where one second simon is part of the majority, the other he's not, but always he is supposed to give up a part of himself and his identity in other to be "assimilated" by shadowhunter culture. this article (link) covers a book on jewish people and assimilationism into USan culture, this article (link) covers british jews' relationship with being considered an ethnic group, and this article (link) talks a bit about the model minority myth from the perspective of an asian jewish woman

it just really calls to my attention that cc chose to make her ashkenazi jewish character start off as a downworlder and then become a shadowhunter. i don't think she made that decision as a conscious nod to this history, because it would require being informed on antisemitism lol but it's incredible how you can always see bigoted stereotypes shining through her narrative choices completely by accident. it just really shows how ingrained it is in our collective minds and culture

and anyway, making a character go from the oppressed group to just suddenly become the oppressor is just. wtf. not how oppression works, but most of all, really disrespectful, especially because she clearly treats it as an "upgrade"/"glowup" that earns him the Love Of His Life

also, out of curiosity, are you french? it seems like your autocorrect changed a few words and i'm pretty sure extrême and préjudice are the french versions of these words, and since u said ur white, that's where my money would be lol

#anti cc #anti tsc #anti tmi #anti sh #racism tw #antisemitism tw #reference #ask #residenthottiesamwilson

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bestworstcase · 3 years

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"[Rapunzel] stops accepting blame for things that aren’t her fault". I've seen this mentioned before on other blogs talking about Rapunzel's character growth over the series, but I don't understand what it's referring to. Sorry if this is too vague/broad an ask, but what are you thinking of in seasons 1 and 2 when you say that Rapunzel has learned to stop taking the blame for things that aren't her fault by season 3? Apart from Rapunzel's Enemy and maybe QFAD, I can't think of anything.

i think this is one of the more understated things about rapunzel’s characterization in that there is never like, a specific moment where rapunzel Verbalizes acceptance of blame for things she clearly isn’t responsible for, but it still imo informs a lot of her behavior?

and it goes all the way back to the film. right out of the gate we see that guilt tripping and blame passing are two of gothel’s chief weapons: when rapunzel’s feelings get hurt by one of gothel’s “jokes,” gothel chides rapunzel to “stop taking everything so seriously,” which is abuser-speak for “nothing i say is wrong, it’s your fault if you’re hurt.”

then there’s digs like “oh, rapunzel, you know i hate leaving you after a fight—especially when i’ve done absolutely nothing wrong...”

and the big one, after gothel loses her temper and yells at rapunzel, and then immediately collapses disconsolately into a chair and says “ugh, great—now i’m the bad guy.” overtly blaming rapunzel for “making” gothel snap at her. (this of course gets called back to at the end of the film, though it’s less a guilt trip there than it is a threat.)

aaaand right before “mother knows best (reprise)” when rapunzel asks how gothel found her, gothel says, “oh, it was easy, i just listened for the sound of complete and utter betrayal and followed that.” this one imo is the clearest illustration of how all this impacts rapunzel emotionally, because she goes from scared/alarmed/startled to just. sagging, in obvious guilt.

but then of course there’s also the scene right after rapunzel leaves the tower, where we see her oscillating wildly from jubilance to despair and guilt as she frets over what her leaving will “do” to gothel, how mad / upset / betrayed gothel will feel, etc. so even when gothel isn’t there, actively reinforcing this behavior, we can see that rapunzel very much feels that gothel’s feelings are her responsibility—and if gothel is upset, that’s rapunzel’s fault.

anyway!! all this adds up to rapunzel leaving the tower with this subconscious mindset that all problems are her problems, and we see this expressed very early on in s1. i would even argue as early as before ever after... with both frederic and eugene.

BEA goes really hard right out of the gate with driving home how restless and uncomfortable rapunzel feels in corona; how stifled she is, and how badly she wants to go out and explore the wider world. but it also shows how hard she tries to stuff it down, because her success as a princess is “important to [her] dad.” she tries to bring up her discontent with eugene, but in a roundabout way so as to avoid actually saying she’s unhappy—and then when he says that he’s perfectly happy and content, rapunzel takes a deep breath and agrees with him. it isn’t overt text, but she’s still in “managing other people’s feelings” mode, and there’s a reason the only person she is honest about her own feelings with is cassandra—because cassandra signals very clearly that she is not going to feel hurt, offended, or disappointed if rapunzel is less than happy in corona. quite the opposite, cass is the one who suggests sneaking out in the first place!

now obviously, neither fred’s nor eugene’s feelings are rapunzel’s responsibility and i think both would be horrified to know that rapunzel feels like it’s her job to make them happy... but that doesn’t really matter, because rapunzel has been trained all her life to do this and that’s not a pattern that just goes away overnight.

and then also in BEA, we see how quick rapunzel is to castigate herself for doing something that upsets someone else... when eugene proposes and she panics and runs away, her reaction is “i feel horrible about eugene” and to feel guilty/upset about not wanting to marry him Right Now.

aaaand of course caine blaming rapunzel for stuff frederic did goes entirely unremarked upon, partly because things like the hair reveal took priority over that but partly also, in my opinion, because rapunzel just kind of Accepted That because she’s so used to being blamed for everything.

this is sort of a recurring theme throughout a lot of s1. you mentioned RE, but for the sake of completeness—i think the most telling thing in that ep is that, when rapunzel finds out what booing really signifies, her first question is what could i have done to this person?, because the concept that this might be a HIM problem doesn’t even cross her mind. she assumes that it’s her fault he doesn’t like her.

and then there’s stuff like pascal’s story, which i think is an interesting one because like... frankly, it’s not entirely rapunzel’s fault that she stood pascal up. yes, as the princess she could have stood up at six o’clock on the dot to say no more petitions, i am going to dinner. but also she’s the princess, and she’s busy, and pascal’s story is as much an episode about pascal learning that just because rapunzel is busy that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still love him as much as it is about rapunzel learning how to navigate work/life balance—but it’s also very clear that rapunzel’s perspective is “i have been a HORRIBLE friend and i need to put EVERYTHING ELSE on hold until i have FIXED my TERRIBLE BEHAVIOR” when the reality is more like “rapunzel and pascal are both going through a major adjustment period and need to have a realistic talk about expectations now that rapunzel is, like, training to rule a country.”

in painter’s block, rapunzel feels so traumatized by the (largely correct) decisions she made in QFAD that she can’t make any decisions at all and falls prey to sugracha’s manipulation, and i personally think this is the beginning of the tipping point for her where she begins to see that hey... she’s just a person, she literally cannot be responsible for every bad thing that happens, she can’t be in two places at once, she can’t fix everything for everyone... and sometimes she needs to prioritize one problem over the other. that’s why the emotional climax of that episode is rapunzel saying “difficult choices are what make us who we are.” that’s her letting go of the horrific guilt she felt about choosing corona over varian, and letting eugene and the others put themselves in danger to save her parents.

that epiphany carries her through SOTS and enables her to make the tough calls she needs to make re: stopping varian, but it also doesn’t mean that her tendency to blame herself for stuff that isn’t her fault goes away altogether. just look at BTCW: while she’s trying to make sense of how/why eugene could be marrying stalyan, her first instinct is to blame herself. to wonder if maybe this is a response to her kind of sort of turning down his kind of sort of second proposal.

and the rest of the vardaros arc is like... i would say half rapunzel delaying moving on because she’s scared of what waits for her at the end of the black rock trail (as freebird confirms) and half rapunzel making vardaros’s problems her problems and trying to fix them because she feels responsible.

curses is... not a good episode (canardist, why) but the plot basically hinges on canardist successfully making rapunzel feel guilty / dubious enough about taking back her own telescope that she starts buying into the curse stuff and psyching herself out.

*as a sidebar here, there are also instances in this same period of rapunzel acknowledging her culpability in stuff she DID do wrong, for example in under raps—but in these cases, it’s interesting to me to note that her apologies actually aren’t very good apologies. in the under raps example, for instance, she also foists off blame on cassandra (saying basically, well i wouldn’t have interfered and put you in danger if you had told me everything, even though i am terrible at keeping secrets and we both know it). and this makes sense, because gothel certainly did not model good, healthy apologizing habits for rapunzel, lol. so she’s in this weird zone where she tends to feel guilty for everything / feels responsible for other people’s feelings but when she DOES mess up for realsies she also doesn’t really have the skills to navigate a true apology. this poor girl

i would say that RATGT is about the point where rapunzel switches gears from accepting blame (both for things that aren’t her fault, like all this stuff, and for things that are, like when she apologized to cass for being a dick in goodbye and goodwill or when she apologized to pascal for belittling him in king pascal) to sort of... overcorrecting and entering her “i’m right, you’re wrong” phase. RATGT is when she starts overtly shutting cass down, and RATGT is when cass’s injury happens—something so horrific and scary that i tend to think rapunzel just cannot process the guilt. it’s too much, too painful, and not something she is emotionally equipped to hold onto or work through in a healthy way...

...so she shoves it away and blames cass instead, very openly. she transmutes her guilt into anger, lessening the pain she feels. and she sticks to that throughout RDO, throughout the rest of s2, and evidently through the rest of the series given she literally never apologizes for it. which is outside of the scope of what you asked alksdfjklsfd but i tend to think basically, rapunzel is not very good at distinguishing between “i feel guilty, but it isn’t my fault” and “i feel guilty, because it is my fault” so in the process of unlearning the former behavior she also forces away the latter, and at the end of s3 she’s in a place where she needs to re-learn how to feel guilt in a healthy, reasonable way. because guilt isn’t always a bad emotion, sometimes it’s just your brain’s way of saying “i did something bad, and i want to make up for it” and That’s Good.

#rta #im just rambling but bhjhjfhjdfs #i guess in the broader sense anon #'blame' here doesn't exclusively mean 'feeling guilty'#it also means 'feeling responsible'#anyway this is a bit of a mess but these are my thoughts #Anonymous

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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TFW you realize you relate more to a fave character than you ever actually consciously realized, lmao.

So I was just having a remote therapy session, and we were focusing on just some mental pain management techniques since my stupid metabolism makes most pain meds largely useless and my head has been waging all out warfare on me for the past week and a half, lololol. And we were delving into one of my personal fave rants, which is the fact that so many people - including vaunted medical professionals - just fundamentally don’t seem to get that having a high pain tolerance does not mean you don’t like, FEEL pain unless its really a lot or intense. Its just that you’re hard-wired/trained/geared via stuff like an abusive childhood, lol, to not SHOW or DISPLAY any visible or audible pain cues unless the pain reaches a certain high threshold where its impossible to hold them back.

But particularly over the past four or five years, with my ongoing medical shit, its super obnoxious trying to get your doctors to display a sense of urgency about your condition because they’re just fundamentally not grasping the degree of chronic pain you’re dealing with every day, since, y’know....I can literally be sitting there in the doctor’s chair and conversationally talking about the fact that no, I definitely am currently feeling like, an eight or nine out of ten on the pain scale, please don’t be confused by the fact that I’m literally LOLing as I describe this to you rather than gasping and moaning in a more obvious indication of it.

Its like, I’m not TRYING to undersell it or anything, its just, when you grow up since the time you’re like five or six years old, knowing damn well that the only appropriate response to someone asking ‘oh am I hurting you’ that won’t earn you MORE pain is a completely casual or cavalier sounding ‘nope, I’m fine, all good here, no problems.’......like, at a certain point in your development, that becomes pretty hard-wired in, like, you can’t shake it just because you consciously WANT to. (Though it is one of the things I’m trying to unlearn and ‘rewire’ in therapy now, via EMDR techniques aimed at like, literally reprogramming my nervous system and how I react to various stimuli. Its.....slow progress, lmao, but I mean there is some progress so its all good).

But point being, when you’re a physically abused kid and your physical abuser doesn’t want to believe or accept that they’re hurting you, and so they tended to just get angrier and MORE dangerous if they thought you were indicating or even just ‘implying’ that they were in fact hurting you.....you get pretty damn good at not showing even the slightest hint of pain or distress unless its literally a level you’ve never experienced before and thus have no practical experience in hiding or distracting yourself from.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t FEEL every bit of it. It doesn’t mean you’ve found a magical off-switch that means you can just mind-over-body yourself from acknowledging or being aware that you are in fact in a shit ton of pain. You just.....have learned the importance of masking it, and found ways to do that by necessity.

Except, even much later in life when you are in a safe place or more control of your situations or surroundings, there’s no easy way to just....stop putting that mask on by default, the second you’re experiencing any type of pain. And so even when dealing with medical professionals, too many of them just don’t GET that their vaunted ‘tell me how much pain you’re in from one to ten’ scale isn’t really the be-all and end-all of pain measurement, because its subjective and arbitrary as HELLLLLLLLL.....and one of the defining parameters for what that pain scale looks like and feels like for YOU, is....your personal history with pain and how you’re ‘comfortable’ displaying evidence of it. (And I know there’s a ton of people and even groups of people who can relate to this for entirely different reasons, I just can only speak to my own of course).

But its definitely frustrating and invalidating as hell to be in more pain than many people ever experience in their lives, and TRYING to convey that as openly and honestly as you can.....and literally being able to SEE the doubt and dismissal in doctors’ eyes, because all they’re seeing is the visual cues you’re putting out there and which they equate to ‘can’t possibly be in THAT much pain, not if he’s acting this casual about it’.....

And so the frustrating irony is that you end up dismissed as like, a pain ‘lightweight’ who is complaining about an apparent degree of pain that’s barely anything in their ‘professional’ estimation. And thus they’re disinclined to take your requests for heavier or more effective pain medication seriously, or not impressed by your attempts to imbue a greater sense of urgency in their approach to your treatment plan or procedures, etc......when in reality, the only reason you’re showing those cues of not being in that much pain is because you’re MORE used to and familiar with even extremely high degrees of pain than anything a lot of them are accustomed to.

Its invalidating as hell, being treated as though you have no idea what you’re talking about when you say “I am actually in a shit ton of active, ongoing pain, hey thanks, can we maybe do something about this,” when actually, the disconnect comes from you having MORE experience with MORE pain than some of them can even fathom. You just....also have more experience with reasons not to SHOW that pain, if its at all avoidable to any degree whatsoever.

THAT’S what high pain tolerance actually means, and the sheer volume of medical professionals who just flat out don’t get this, or worse, just don’t care or are too proud to reassess their viewpoints on this matter if that carries the implication they don’t actually know as much as they think they do......god, it grates.

(Once, when I was around twenty-three or twenty-four I think, I got caught up in the periphery of a bar fight that resulted in me getting a shard of glass embedded in the back of my forearm. Still have a pretty sizable scar from it. And it absolutely hurt like fuck, but I was conscious as paramedics arrived on scene and when going to the hospital to have it removed and stitched up, and like......kinda cracking jokes about it the whole time because I was uncomfortable as hell and didn’t really know what else to do or how to react, y’know? I mean, I had a few inches of glasses jutting out from the top of my forearm, lol, what the hell are you supposed to do or say about that? There’s not really a protocol, lmao. Problem was, they took one look at me sitting there with this spear of glass sticking out of my arm and making dumb jokes about it like it was no big deal......and they decided this meant I was in shock and kept trying to treat me accordingly. And it was just like.....useless, because lol no I wasn’t in shock, I had none of the physical symptoms of being in shock and benefited from none of their assumptions that I was.....I was just a dude with a shard of glass in his arm that hurt like fuck and I really wanted it out as soon as possible, and I was in full awareness of what had happened and everything I was feeling, I just didn’t know how to convey this in a way that they would believe, because I couldn’t come up with anything to say or do other than laugh about how fucking surreal the whole situation was.)

Anyway, so circling back to the point, or as much of one as I ever have, so today I was just learning and practicing various mental pain management/coping techniques with my therapist and discussing my issues with doctors and the High Pain Tolerance Quandary. Basically like, I would really truly like to know or learn how to display the ‘expected’ physical and visual/audio cues for being a person who is experiencing a ‘4′ on the pain scale, versus a person who is experiencing a ‘7′ or a ‘10′.....so they can stop fucking treating me like I’m only at a 4 when I’m actually at an 8 or 9, just because I look and sound like a person who really is only at a 4 no matter what they actually CLAIM to be feeling.

Course, easier said than done.

But yeah, so as she was coaching me through various techniques and surveying what I was doing with my body and facial expressions and cues, etc, she pointed out something that I had literally never noticed about myself before, even though once she DID point it out I could recognize that its something I’ve been doing for as long as I can remember, well back before I was ten and no doubt stemming from smack dab in the midst of the worst of my childhood abuse.

So, y’know on Teen Wolf, how Scott and Liam and various others are at times shown digging their claws into their palms and drawing blood to ground themselves with the pain? (And ironically, how I was just talking the other week about photo doubling for a similar such scene with gashes in the character’s palms, lmfao). Well, obviously I don’t have claws, and part of why I’d never really paid much attention to when I was doing it is because even my therapist wasn’t comfortable classifying it as a kind of self-harm or anywhere near punitive enough to carry that kind of weight or associations.....

But like, I’ve always kept my fingernails fairly trimmed but not completely. Like, just enough of an edge to them that at times, particularly when I’m in physical pain or distress already, I’ll just like....dig my fingernails into the pad of other fingertips, and use that little familiar spike of pain to not ground myself but rather distract myself from whatever else I was feeling. Like, she wasn’t comfortable calling it a self-punitive technique because as we got into it, it was clear I was never doing it to CAUSE myself pain....rather, its something I only do when I’m already in pain, usually far more pain than anything that brings up.....but by deliberately doing that and creating a focal awareness around it, even just a largely subconscious one......I’ve apparently long been using that to hook my attention up to a very specific, very manageable sensation/focal point of pain that lets me and my ADHD brain relegate whatever other pain I’m feeling (even if its much much worse) to the back of my mind for at least a little while, as I distract myself by focusing on this more obvious and consciously directed bit of lesser pain.

And a big part of why I probably never noticed I was doing this, we eventually concluded, is because as a kid I probably came up with it as a kind of survival technique specifically BECAUSE it was something I could do to distract myself/manage my pain covertly, without drawing my abuser’s attention to what I was doing either. And by extension, without the fact that I was doing it at all 'betraying’ that I was in pain or trying to manage or cope with painful sensations in the first place. A lot of other pain management techniques, like even just deep, deliberate breaths, tend to be a lot more obvious and noticeable, and thus would have been counter-productive for my specific purposes. No matter how much they helped me manage whatever physical pain I was feeling, they would have at the same time inevitably drawn attention to the fact that I was trying to do that at all in the first place....and thus only invite more pain.

Merely digging my fingernails into my fingertip pads, not enough to draw blood or make me cry out or anything like that, but rather just to distract myself and deliberately focus me on a source of pain I could deal with and more easily handle, as well as being ‘low in intensity’ enough that focusing on it didn’t bring any other obvious visual or audio pain cues to the forefront.....that I could do without anyone noticing. And thus this is likely why it came to be my go-to move whenever I was in any kind of pain at all, as just a quick and easy way to wrap my head around my physical sensations and shift focus to something more easily dealt with or managed (even if it didn’t actually dismiss or get rid of whatever other pain I’m feeling entirely). And just the low-key nature of it in general likely being a big part of why it became such an unconscious instinct for me until now, something that barely even registered in my conscious mind as I built up/hard-wired instinctive responses that incorporated it without me having to consciously direct myself to do that.

I mean, its still obviously not an ideal response, especially when I’m long past being stuck in any kind of external situations or need to fall back on that and the covert nature of it. So now its another of those things to just be aware of and work on rewiring on an instinctive level, making it a priority for me to focus on consciously using more helpful and positive methods of pain management.

But it was just interesting to me to have it pointed out as something I’ve been doing all this time, let alone being as unaware of doing it as I’ve apparently been. And its not hard to draw obvious parallels to when characters in media I consume do similar things even if for not quite the same reasons or in quite the same ways. So now I’m just kinda contemplating that and wondering how much even just some degree of unconscious awareness that I do that might have made me more alert to when characters or other people do similar things. Made me more attuned to noticing or even fixating on moments when they do things like that, that I related to even on an entirely subconscious level.

*Shrugs* Anyway, that’s all, like, literally not going anywhere with this, was just unwinding and felt like mapping my way through that all contemplatively, because oh no, inexplicable strangeness, therapy puts me in particularly contemplative headspaces, whodathunkit, lmfao. *Shrugs* Just struck me as particularly interesting, so felt like sharing for anyone else who can relate/see similar parallels themselves.

Or just chalk it up to random anecdotal wtf-ery from your friendly (err, mostly. okay sometimes. FINE ideally, let’s go with that) neighborhood over-sharer.

#that last bit is just to head off the usual 'friendly concerned advice giving anons' I tend to get after posts like these #plz stop doing that #i know i over-share its not a secret and I do it with full knowledge and intent because I feel like it #it suits my purposes #my purposes do not have to be your purposes nor do they require your approval #if it makes you uncomfortable thats where the beauty of tumblr being a largely opt-in experience comes from #there's the door #i can understand the confusion - its not actually a big blinking EXIT sign but rather an 'unfollow' button #its really that simple lmfao stop being so concerned with what Im doing particularly in posts where Im not even interacting with anyone #and for the love of god please stop assuming that everyone on tumblr is TRYING to post from a state of being on #an emotional plateau of zen #nah - some of us literally use the medium to vent and unpack stuff we dont have a ton of room to vent about or unpack in our offline lives #and like the relative(ish) anonymous nature of it combined with the potential for at least some kind of validation via #like-minded or experiencing individuals in a pseudo-communal setting #our purpose/usage does not need to be yours and it does not require your condoning #and I would just like to suggest that maybe people who put a ton of emphasis on telling others (like survivors) to do a better job of #curating what content they experience/are exposed to online #might be well served to put a little more focus on curating what content YOU experience if you find yourself uncomfortable with particular #posting habits #there's a bajillion other people out there to follow #you dont need to be here if you dont actually want to be or arent actually comfortable being here #BUT I DIGRESS

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gay-jesus-probably · 4 years

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When trying to change your perspective and unlearn harmful behavior, the most important thing to remember is that the human brain does not like being confused. If you act on an irrational impulse or subconscious belief, you’re not going to be able to instantly realize you’re in the wrong; your brain will come up with excuses to rationalize your behavior.

Most people have a loose understanding of the concept of the left brain vs the right brain. But what isn’t commonly known is that the two halves are essentially two completely different entities that just happen to work together - we basically have two brains, which are connected by the corpus callosum, a nerve tract that allows the two halves to communicate. One experimental treatment for epilepsy is to sever the corpus callosum, which permanently separates the two halves of the brain. On the one hand, the split brain patients did stop having seizures. But they also found their limbs began having disagreements with each other - they’d take a Snickers bar off a shelf with their right arm, and their left arm would slap it out of their hand and grab a Twix. And this was a common experience with all split brain patients - the two hemispheres could no longer communicate, so they would make different decisions. It’s worth noting what we perceive as ‘thought’ all comes from the left brain. Both hemispheres are capable of analyzing input and making decisions, but only the left brain can put it into words. When the corpus callosum is intact, there’s no problem; the right brain passes its conclusions over to the left, who translates it into thoughts. But when the right brain can’t communicate what it’s thinking, its response to stimuli seems to come right the fuck out of nowhere, which split brain patients can find confusing and annoying. In the earlier example with the chocolate bars, the split brain patient didn’t suddenly lose control of their left arm; it’s just that their left brain thought “I want a Snickers” and grabbed one, but their right brain wanted a Twix and didn’t like being ignored.

But the brain doesn’t like doing things without a clear reason. Studies have been done with split brain patients where a question or instruction is put on a screen only their left eye can see (as the right brain handles the left side of the body, and vice versa). The right brain is asked to pick up an object, and the left hand picks it up. Since the two halves of the brain can’t communicate, and the right brain is effectively mute, the left brain has no idea why its body suddenly decided to pick up that specific object. Except when the patient is asked why they picked that up, the answer is never actually “I don’t know”. Instead, they’ll say they wanted a better look at it, or they were curious about it. They don’t know they were asked to pick it up, but they’re not technically lying - the left brain saw its body acting without any obvious input, and made up a narrative to justify its actions.

So bearing that in mind, let’s say there’s a white person working in retail. They’re a progressive person, and actively try to combat racism, but on some level they’ve absorbed the extremely pervasive stereotype that black people are untrustworthy criminals. They don’t agree with that belief, and they’d throw hands if someone claimed it was a fact, but on some level it’s gotten lodged in their subconscious. One day at work while more or less running on autopilot they accuse a black patron of shoplifting, without any evidence. The white employee isn’t thinking “I’m going to be racist” or “That black person must be stealing”. The human brain loves finding patterns, and in this case their subconscious made a connection using bad information, then unfortunately acted on it. Now the employee’s paying attention, and the only explanation for their actions is “I am racially profiling”, but that’s not an explanation they can accept. They don’t believe black people are criminals, and they’re against racial profiling, so it’s unlikely their brain will even consider that as an explanation.

So their brain comes up with a narrative to justify its actions. They wouldn’t just accuse someone of stealing for no reason, so the black patron must have been acting suspicious. Even when the patron proves they weren’t shoplifting, the employee will walk away feeling like they had a reasonable reaction to a suspicious customer... while the black patron is left rightfully pissed off about being accused over literally nothing, and correctly assumes they were racially profiled. The employee won’t realize they were out of line until much later, if they ever do at all.

Which isn’t to say that people can’t help their shitty actions, or that acting on subconscious prejudice isn’t a bad thing. The point is that the human brain likes a clean narrative, and it automatically smooths over plot holes and justifies actions that contradict your perception of yourself. So when you’re trying to be a better person, or trying to unlearn toxic habits, you need to pay attention to your actions and question the real motives behind them. Was that person of color acting suspicious, or is your brain trying to justify acting on a subconscious prejudice? Is your best friend a chronic liar, or is your brain trying to rationalize why you broke down crying over them cancelling your plans to hang out tomorrow? Is the top student in your class an arrogant jerk, or did your brain make up a reason for you to hate them without admitting to being jealous?

The human brain is an unreliable narrator. Remember to read between the lines.

#in other news bio 30 is going excellently #and learning about the human brain is weird #dont think too hard about the implications of split brains having disagreements btw #becaus that's a fast track to an existential crisis #what we consider 'ourselves' is just the left brain #the right brain is a seperate entity that can't communicate and just plays along #OR IS IT? WHO KNOWS NOT US #anyways trust nobody not even yourself #thanks for joining me on another spontaneous essay

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