#bc often we are the kind of people who are SO used to being alienated and set aside and ''different'' that we AUTOMATICALLY assume

[inkskinned]

you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.

you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.

instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.

you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.

your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.

because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.

so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.

all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.

#spilled ink #woke up at 530 to write this lmafo #me in a cold sweat: #how do i be normal #edit in the tags: #hey so i've seen y'all talk about like ... wondering if ur ''allowed'' to relate #like if this is about X specific diagnosis #and when i first posted it i really almost labelled it ''please don't assume this is about a specific condition'' #because as an artist i am often walking this line of discussing a symptom or discussing my conditions etc #and sometimes yes ! i do want to talk about an experience that is specific to who i am and my condition #but sometimes the effort of the post is about the EXPERIENCE rather than the diagnosis #because yes i am not neurotypical and as a result that influences my work but it is ALSO true that there are many reasons #why someone might experience this particular vague horrible feeling that you are... almost being CHASED by what you ''really'' are. #that you're outrunning your symptoms... that you're not really normal you're just sort of a mockery of a person #.... that's a really isolating and horrible way to feel no matter why you are feeling it. and the nature of this PARTICULAR post is that #it is inherently talking ABOUT that sense of isolation & of feeling not-deserving & of minimizing your own experiences to make urself #palatable for society in a way that others find easy-to-deal-with.... #this post is about a certain experience such that my impression is there's a higher likelihood that those who relate #would have more difficulty thinking they ''deserve'' to relate - that it doesn't REALLY belong to them #bc often we are the kind of people who are SO used to being alienated and set aside and ''different'' that we AUTOMATICALLY assume #that things are not ''for'' us... they never have been why would it start now #we are the kinds of people to be ... ''too normal for X diagnosis but too symptomatic to be normal'' #[or as this post points out... so good at ''coping''/masking/hiding it that we essentially conform to whatever shape we're poured into] #but i have witnessed others already say in the tags ''thought this was about me but it's about X so it can't be'' #and im like ... of course it was about you. #art is not a resource that is diminished by greater appreciation . #you reflect in whatever mirror fits your frame. not just the ones in your bedroom. not just the ones i specifically give you. #there will be - and often are - times that i will talk about my specific conditions... but if you're reading this #regardless of why you're here... we are here together. holding hands through space and time. and i love you for carrying it #and i know you're exhausted. i am too. but i understand. and i see you.

[cybertron-after-dark]

I was gonna ask a question but i honestly forgot it 😅 so just tell me something you want to rant about

If you do happen to remember what you were gonna ask feel free to do so, do not worry about spamming my inbox bc I live for that shit.

As for the rant

Transformers Rescue Bots had some of the best, kindest, and most respectful representation of neurodivergence I have ever seen in media and I'm tired of pretending it didn't.

While there are obvious complaints to be made about neurodivergent traits (especially autistic traits) usually being portrayed in media by inhuman characters like aliens or robots, this being a case of both, I feel like thats a pretty negligible sin given just how human the show makes the robots feel. (Also it was like 2011 and we were STRUGGLING for any scraps of rep anyway)

But like. The behaviors all these robots exhibit are all shit that I do that was always deemed unacceptable when I was a kid and seeing it portrayed with the level of kindness and gentleness they do in that show has me fuckin crying a little man. I wish I had actually watched it when I was younger and it was first airing because maybe if I did I would've had an easier time explaining what the hell was going on with my brain a LOT sooner.

Blades being anxious, overly sensitive, and WHOLEHEARTEDLY queer (which they had the absolute unparalleled balls to just casually confirm by having him swoon over "hunky vampires" in one episode and NOBODY commented on it. Fucking iconic) and getting so so deeply invested in the shows and movies he loves that he acts out the roles with enough passion to steel his nerves and completely flourish.

Boulder getting really confused at concepts that are basic and intuitive for most people, but still being so fucking intelligent, and never being made to feel stupid for the mix-ups, as well as just being so wholely, unabashedly in love with the planet he's found himself on, even if he doesn't understand all of it (Also apologizing to inanimate objects when he knocks them over 😭)

Chase being obsessed with rules and law because he NEEDS the structure to not fall apart at the seams, even feeling the need to fabricate a minor crime to justify using the emergency line to get a hold of the firehouse when he can't find the other bots. As well as just fully not understanding comedy (BUT TRYING HIS DAMNEDEST), taking things super literally, and having a lot of trouble with tone and expressions (even though you know just how deeply he feels All The Time).

Heatwave being desperate for attention and recognition, but completely allergic to asking for it. And honestly allergic to showing any genuine emotional responses other than aggression. The constant sarcasm and sass and defensiveness that he POORLY maintains because everyone knows that underneath that tough guy front is the loneliest robot on earth that wants to be loved SO bad but would rather jump into unicron's mouth than voice it because if he lets his guard down who knows what will happen to him or the people he cares about.

Just. All of it man. Seeing them exhibiting all these behaviors and quirks that all too often get met with poor reactions from people who don't want to deal with what they don't really get, but here they're met with patience and understanding?? It's got me fucked up. They get to be functional adults that struggle with what they have going on but still push through. They get to have unconditionally loving relationships with people that treat them with respect. And that's the kind of shit that gives me a lot of hope for folks like me because maybe some neurotypical kids that watched it picked up on what's helpful when their friend who acts like one of the bots is going through it. And maybe some neurodivergent kids watched it too and for the first time they just felt SEEN.

Okay rant over, I'm gonna go cry over some plastic robots 👍

#post written while ugly sobbing a little #rescue bots was written with this complete and utter kindness baked into it #as much as i praise the show for the comedy and character aspects #which are still wonderful in their own right #it must not be understated how genuine and sweet and compassionate the writing is #the funny little flash animated robot show did more research than sia ever did with her shitshow hatecrime of a movie #maccadam #transformers #rescue bots

[plutonian-moon]

how it is to having 12h stellium/being 12th houser ? + my experience with it ! ミ☆° ♱⋰

writing this as an 12h stellium myself ! ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ ☆°

!! remember that most of this gonna be my personal experience but also what i observe with others peoples who r 12th housers so if u will not resonate with it and u r 12th houser too then thats okay everyone experience is different keep it in mind ☆° ✮♱✮ !! ☆° !!

▪ we can often feel misunderstood by others as if we are talking to someone but we don't really feel that the other person understands us we can talk to someone and suddenly someone interrupts us, feeling ignored and alone even around a large number of people around us can be something we struggle so much, apart from the feeling of alienation and loneliness and not knowing who we rlly are, sometimes we look in the mirror but we have a blurred image of ourselves as if we were but we were not.. ‧₊˚✩彡

▪we easily attract vampire energy and people who want to take advantage of us and suck all the good energy out of us, we are often unaware that we are giving too much to the bad people until it is too late and we become exhausted but not only these people make us feel overwhelmed.. the presence of other people in most degrees makes us feel overwhelmed ‧₊˚✩彡

▪peoples dont rlly know us we tend to take the form of a chameleon that fits into the character of people depending on who we r with atm not to mention that we feel things very easily, we simply feel that something or someone is not right we have a natural intuition which practically always confirms itself, and bc a lot of energy of people overwhelms us we find more comfort in being alone.. yk know what its like to know something but not know how we know something we just feel that we know without knowing how?? it is the influence of the energy of the 12th house that most likely makes manifesting something so easy for us so we have to be careful with our thoughts .. our subconscious also sends us signs that we can look for in dreams yes in dreams bc we can have them very realistic to such an extent that waking up crying in the morning can be a natural thing for us! often our dreams can also give us warnings and can manifest in real life ‧₊˚✩

▪when it comes to relationships with others, we can often meet people who at first it may seem that we have a great connection and then these people suddenly disappear from our lives it happens that the universe often tests us by giving us punishable relationships .. as the 12th house rules hidden enemies we can have many just people who will pretend to like us also attracting people who r going through a difficult life or struggling with substance abuse, mental health etc we can often meet these types of peoples bc they need healing in some way .. peoples will ask us about various kinds of advice bc others see us as a person who has been through a lot even with a lot of energy of the 12th house we often have quite hard experiences in various aspects of life (family home, relationships / friendships, etc.) ‧₊˚✩彡

▪ others have hard time seeing our personality its can be alot of confusing here bc thats what doing neptune. we r giving to others energy and personality that differs in reality from who we rlly r, which is a burden for us bc we often get lost in who we are, we often feel empty and lost, which leads to isolation with the energy of the 12th house, people generally trust us easily and can easily share their life experiences and secrets to us very easly! as our energy is very noticeable even if we don't want it and even if we are not aware of it, often others can know we are having a bad day, we r sad or smth is just wrong as we tend to wear our emotions on our face ‧₊˚✩彡

▪we r looking for deep spiritual and thelephatic connection with someone and most of the time we have so many deep connections its can be with our lovers, friends etc! ‧₊˚✩彡

▪idk if this is only me but when i am for example at an party and i feel that something or someone is draining my energy i need to leave and be alone to process my feelings and mind .. or just random i will leave something to just be with myself bc there is too many peoples ‧₊˚✩彡

▪sometimes i random disappear from social media, and i cant explain why but its happen alot idk if others 12th houser are like this too but yea ‧₊˚✩彡

▪we tend to have hidden enemies .. like we can feel bad energy from this person but we also hmm cant explain why we get this bad energy, we can feel something but we can have hard time explain whyy we feel this way and most of the time our intuition is very good about peoples and our friends/lovers even someone from families can easly becomes enemies ! so we need to be careful with peoples bc not everyone will have good intentions to us ! ‧₊˚✩彡

▪12th housers bc its pisces house right we tend to stucks in the past and not focusing on this moment that is here ‧₊˚✩彡

▪attracting peoples with addictions + mental health issues etc is very common ! also we giveee aloottt to the wrong peoples we can be very overgiving but others dont give us the same energy as we give ‧₊˚✩彡

▪we can have lack of boundries in friendships, love etc .. ‧₊˚✩彡

▪another thing that i wanna say is that we can have alot of proprethic dreams that can manifest into our life ! also we are easly manifesting what we think about : ‧₊˚✩

▪we tend to be very gifted with many talents so many of us have even hidden talenets ! alot of 12th housers r attracted 2 astrology, numerology, mbti, psychology, criminology, drawing etc ! so thats why u see alot of 12th housers who are astrologers ! also musicans and artistics gifts can be rlly very strong !! ‧₊˚✩彡

▪12th house also talks about escaping so with having 12th house placements we tend to escaping alot of the time and in many forms for example (escaping in form of listening 2 music, sleeping, going into walk by urself, even in some cases escaping in form of substance abuse) ‧₊˚✩彡

▪most peoples dont want the best for us and might talk random shits about us behind back, there are peoples here that gonna be jealous of us and they will want to destroy us in the most subtele way bc its 12th house so hidden enemies u cant see them .. !! its opposition to 7th house that rules open enemies so keep it in mind !! ‧₊˚✩彡

▪bc of having the energy of the 12th house we may have difficulty letting go of the past, therefore we tend to stay in relationships / situations that are bad and toxic for us and are causing pain bc we can get too attached to others, also most of us have difficulty cutting off from toxic peoples or they will keep coming back to us even if we cut them off from our live, as if they were returning because we didn't learn the lessons they came to us with, also we may have difficulty setting the boundary between the other person and often we are a therapist for most peoples, and others can easly vent to us and expect advice and help from us which can have also bad side peoples often can even abuse us and expecting too much so we can feel very overwhelmed and we can feel that we want to help everyone but in fact we realize that we dont recognive the energy that we give so we want to cut ourselves off from everyone and just disappear ‧₊˚✩彡

▪we have an issues with putting urself our needs at first bc we put others in the first place, which again can exhausts us mentally + emotionally ‧₊˚✩彡

▪very often peoples can cross our borders, an example of this may be that the person we offer something refuses the first time, the second time, the third time, etc and this person still puts pressure on us to go somewhere that we don't want to go ‧₊˚✩彡

▪we can have experiences in the past with paranormal things or we can feel the presence of someone, etc. we can very easily feel the energy, be it people or something else, it doesn't matter, we just have this ability and at the same time we are equally sensitive to some energies so we need to isolate ourselves from others and be alone, listen to music, calm down or go to sleep, do a self care routine, take a bath or anything that will make us happy or calm us down! ‧₊˚✩彡

▪as the 12th house also rules karma, we can attract karmic relationships that teach us earlier I mentioned this a bit earlier but also the point is that people who hurt us can quickly get their karma whether it's about relationships or other aspects of their lives they just get their karma sooner or later ‧₊˚✩彡

▪ want to mention is hospitals, water and mental health problems so the topic is not very interesting but we have to keep that in mind the fact that the 12th house is a hard house in astrology so it will also talk about more difficult things anyways going to the topic : the 12th house rules hospitals, water and mental health problems so peoples who are 12th houser may have either fear before being in the hospital or fear of water / swimming due to previous unpleasant events related to it or it just scares them for some unexplained reason as for mental health problems people with a strong influence of the 12th house can often struggle with mental health problems, whether with strong fears, paranoia, hallucinations or with severe depression, dissociation (derealization/depersonalization) etc ₊˚✩彡

▪when it comes to childhood and family because i want to mention that most of us didn't have the most colorful one often in childhood we could feel misunderstood, abandoned and we could get little support/love/attention just the care everyone deserves therefore, the consequences of this are that we often get into unhealthy relationships because even if they are unhealthy, this person can give us attention, and since we missed him, we will ignore who this person is just because (depending on whether we know that we are ignoring on purpose or not ) if we cut off contact with this person, we will be left without attention, which we may miss a lot, in general, we tend to idealize people who are not worth it and we are mostly blind to the red flags that someone is having. we could also have parents who were not present or one of the parents was not or was but was not physically or emotionally present ‧₊˚✩彡

☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩ ♱⋰ ⋱✮ *ੈ✩‧₊˚⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚☾⋆｡𖦹 °✩

#12th house stellium #astrology #astro observations #astro placements #natal chart #astro notes #astrology observations #astrology notes #astro tumblr #astro blog #astrology community #astro community #zodiac signs #astroworld #astrology placements #12th house #neptune #pisces #astrology blog #astrology tumblr #sun in 12th house #moon in 12th house #mercury in 12th house #venus in 12th house #mars in 12th house #jupiter in 12th house #neptune in 12th house #pluto in 12th house #birth chart #horoscope

[vexingwoman]

Uh not actually here to hate but to say thanks???? Ive been thinking alot on my self expression and trying to figure out how to word it, and seeing some of your comments with other people really helped to put in perspective what I was trying to come to terms with. Ive always struggled with my gender but acknowledge fully that I'm biologically female. (Stay with me here till the end please i know lol) I genuinely dont care what pronouns I'm called either and none have ever felt right if I'm honest and nothing I've read or tried has been adding up for me over the years to help me feel any better.

Kinda realizing over the past year or so that I just have this deep ingrained idea from being surrounded constantly my whole life in a woman hating environment that I just have a *really* heavily masked hatred for what general society treats women as and was trying to remove myself from it hoping itd somehow save me from the terrible shit we all go through daily. And it just made me feel even more alienated doing that to myself. Its been a long time of coming around to this and I know how it sounds but I dont wanna consider any of my time wasted. I dont remember what it was but something you said to someone in a long ass comment fight clicked for me and rn I'm sleep deprived and wont even remember what it was in the morning either but I feel like some kind of weight has been eased off me. Im doing my best to unlearn the sexist misogynistic bs ive had shoved down my throat my whole life that made me think being a woman was something to be shameful of and better off without.

Its been hard trying to look into this radfem community and find someone who didn't immediately just insult and exclude ppl that werent already on the ball agreeing. Basically I appreciate your ranting with strangers. Amd indulging some of their curiousity as clearly as you can+defining everything you say constantly so I dont get lost in a whirlwind of hard to understand metaphors. Idk you get it. Something clicked and i dont feel ashamed for the time gone bc I know it was heavily influenced by the oppression of all things normal-human-womanly around me. I hate that we're all so tied into these stereotypes. Its painfully hard to unlearn. Thanks for the help. Have a fat block of text as thanks cause I'm not sure how to sound as genuine as I feel rn. Have a nice day and an even better tomorrow. Im gonna get some sleep now💀(stayed up WAY too late painting lol) bye!

This is so wonderful to hear. I know how dreadful it is doing serious introspection and making yourself aware of how deeply and unconsciously your internalized sexism runs. I’ve been there, and I know it’s even more difficult to deconstruct the subtle sexist attitudes which have been ingrained into to us since birth. Often it seems as hopeless as chasing smoke, because some of our internalized sexism is so deep that it’s invisible, and worse, inarticulable.

Some women will never think on these subjects beyond their surface level—will never dissect their preferences, will never concede that their choices are influenced by sex-based socialization, will never seriously reflect on why they are so desperate to identify out of womanhood. And in a strange way, I sympathize with these women, because I understand that it’s easier to shut your eyes and convince yourself that you were born in the wrong body than it is to open your eyes and acknowledge how much sexism has seeped into and corrupted our own minds.

Basically, I’m proud of you for putting yourself through the pain of deconstructing your own internalized sexism. You are better for even attempting it, and I hope you continue to do so.

P.S. I know exactly which long-ass comment fight you’re referring to, because I only put myself through that once. At least someone benefited from the literal month I spent arguing with that stranger. They blocked me, so unfortunately I can’t even go back and analyze the conversation if I ever wanted to. I would love to know what you took away from it, if you ever do remember.

#terfblr #radical feminism #terfsafe #radblr #gender critical #radical feminist safe #misogny #sexism #trans logic #gender abolition #answered asks

[spacelazarwolf]

Can i ask why people seem to only refer to black and brown people? I'm east Asian, and it can feel kind of bad not really being included in the language surrounding talk about racism. We're one of the groups that faces the most discrimination and hate crimes, especially with how covid started. Me and nearly every Asian person i know has faced racism over our lives and many of us have very pale skin. It feels very alienating to be, in a way, left out of the discussion. I understand that often we're included somewhat implicitly, but it doesn't look like it when the language doesn't represent it.

so before i get into it, i'm giving two caveats: 1. even though i'm jewish and my family and i have had a complicated history with being racialized as non white, i'm still racially white. so while i always try to take into account all the things that my family has experienced and that the people of color i know have taught me, that's still the individual perspective i'm speaking from. 2. i live in the us, so that's the culture and society i'm talking about. it may apply to different places in the west (or even outside the west idk) but it may not so like inb4 "#american centric" bc i am literally talking abt america.

re: your actual question of why people seem to only refer to black and brown people, i think it's mostly used to talk about issues that affect darker skinned people of color, but sometimes used as another variation of "people of color" that's meant to encompass all nonwhite people. i've definitely used it that way before without really thinking about it, but i can see how that could make groups who may not see themselves as being black or brown feel left out of a conversation that still absolutely pertains to them. i think we as a society are currently struggling with what vocabulary to use when we talk about racial issues. there's a bunch of different acronyms and phrases people use, and listing out all the different racial and ethnic groups we can think of always leaves someone out.

but i also think our struggles with vocabulary are caused in part by the way our view of race has become very black and white. especially when it comes to east asians, i think people fall way too easily for the model minority myth + think lighter skin = less oppression, so they think east asians don't need as much advocacy as other groups. but as you said, especially since covid, there's been a massive spike in anti asian racism, and that's something i don't think people are really taking seriously. there's this one scene in station 19 (cw for discussion of anti asian hate crimes) that i feel like addresses this so well. people are afraid to downplay the severity of anti black racism (which is understandable considering that anti black racism has been downplayed for hundreds of years), but they end up gaslighting other racial and ethnic minorities or even themselves about the other kinds of bigotry that exist. and as one of the characters states in the clip, "it's all bad."

and like, as a jewish person, i definitely feel a lot of solidarity with east asians because our struggles are dismissed in similar ways. for those of us who are light skinned, we're often told (in my experience, usually by non black people) that basically our skin is too light for people to care because "black people have it worse." people use any success our communities have had as a reason why what we experience Can't Possibly Be That Bad. but what they're missing is that it's all connected. the same people who are perpetuating anti blackness are likely perpetuating anti asian racism and antisemitism too. you can't get rid of anti black racism without dismantling white supremacy, and part of dismantling white supremacy is addressing anti asian racism and antisemitism. we can't just keep hacking away at one brick and expect the entire wall to come down. we have to bulldoze it all.

#ask avishai

[thedreadvampy]

I think the thing about relationships between people who've experienced a lot of trauma is

idk. I think of it as concave and convex. There's a whole bunch of hand motions I do to explain it IRL.

but it's like. convex people's response to their experiences is to need a lot of positive support and reinforcement. often it's like, people who've been neglected or left without support so much that they've come to a place where they know they won't get what they need unless they push for it. they have lacked, and really need, someone to offer them comfort and reassurance and structure and support. their emotional and physical needs are often very dominant and very fragile. the thing they struggle with most is containing themselves.

concave people are most comfortable taking on responsibility for others. they don't really feel comfortable or able to prioritise themselves, and get most of their positive reinforcement from Feeling Useful. there may have been times where they've felt or been made to feel like a burden or like they're taking up too much space; they may be carrying a lot of guilt about having had a lot of support needs in the past. the thing that they struggle with most is making space for themselves.

and we're all different people in different relationships. we have definitely all at some time been both. being one way in one relationship is often a reaction to having been the other in other relationships.

buuuuut. my observation of my own life is that this way of thinking helps me categorise a lot of types of relationship issues:

| | : This is relationship equilibrium. Everyone is getting what they need. I don't think this relationship exists, because relationships are dynamic and stuff changes, but as an ideal baseline - you're close enough to support each other, but both retain your own space. neither of you are getting pushed into unhealthy patterns.

)( : this is going to be a very chaotic and exhausting relationship. Both of you feel simultaneously undersupported and like you're taking on all your partner's shit. However, if you are able to work through conflict, it can help you grow a lot - you're both pushing each other out of your space and into alignment, figuring out how to balance your needs with other people's. But it's a process that involves a lot of overwhelming pressure.

( ) : alienated and cold. both of you are trying to be there for the other one; neither of you know how to let someone be there for you, so you end up shutting each other out while also yearning desperately to get closer. like this one )(, it can be super helpful - you're both trying to pull each other closer, and over time you do. but it's a process that involves a lot of hard, uncomfortable work and stretching.

(( : This is, for my money, the Least Helpful Kind Of Relationship for healing. it's also the easiest to get into. concave people want to pull loved ones in towards them. convex people want to push out towards loved ones. they're two relationship approaches which dovetail exceptionally well. and once you're in it, there's no room to move towards | |, because the convex is filling up all the space the concave could move into, and the concave increasingly is the only thing supporting the convex, who's a long way out on a limb now. Relationships that start out ( | or |( are pushed towards this too - if they seriously reach for closeness, | starts bowing past the centre line, and ( has way further to go than is fair for them to have to do alone.

like I say, we're different people in different relationships. And in particular, what I often notice is that social groups (and it's most noticeable in polycules just bc there's more of a linear relationship chain than in friendships) sort of look like this

|(((((((((...

where one person being the concave of a (( relationship means they're bulging out into another relationship, pushing the other party in that relationship into a more convex shape in their other relationships, etc. (and vice versa - someone getting more concave in a relationship prompts their partner to follow in order to stay close)

anyway, in a lot of cases, this (( kind of mutually destructive codependence is a nasty trap we all set ourselves. where a )( or () will move more towards equilibrium over time, (( moves further from it. the concave has less and less space or confidence to self-advocate or to ask for support or space, and takes on more and more responsibility for the other's wellbeing; the convex becomes more and more reliant on the relationship, and feels less and less able to survive without that support. the change also tends to happen so gradually and incrementally that neither of them notices that they're way further out of balance. you get to a place where one person takes everything on and never talks about their feelings or allows any vulnerability, and the other has no control over their own life, doesn't know what's going on with their partner, and feels like a burden all the time. it reinforces and entrenches every maladaptive coping mechanism and shitty feeling about yourself.

What's required to make this fixable is that somebody's got to actually make things really immediately, critically uncomfortable all around.

if the convex person withdraws, that's going to be so painful and alienating for the concave, whose only model for seeking closeness is to ask people to come to them. someone pulling away - or not following when they try to pull them even further in - is a terrifying rejection that they may not have a model for how to solve. if they can ride that out, though, they've got space to learn how to go towards the other person, instead of trying to pull them closer.

if the concave person stops bending to the convex's pushing, then the convex will come very abruptly and unexpectedly up against a hard surface they were expecting to be soft. They're going to feel hurt, betrayed, pushed away, rejected - they might feel like it's a confirmation that they're awful/a burden/too much, which may drive them to seek more comfort and feel even worse if rejected. but if they can ride that out, they can learn to start moving away and giving the concave space to follow.

like I really do believe it is possible to have a good, healing relationship that starts out )). But it's hard, uncomfortable, gruelling work. It's super worth it but it's HARD. it's somewhat easier to make changes if you start out at )( or ( ) - it's still difficult and painful, but there, the path of least resistance is to get better, whereas if you're dovetailed together it's way, way easier to get worse.

doing that work isn't just good for one of you though. it's good for both of you. the less your Shit dovetails together, the more you're giving each other the space and impetus to change.

(you also don't like. get to choose this. you can't be on dating apps like 'seeking person who pulls people close rather than leaning into them for cold, lonely, but ultimately useful mutually unfulfilled relationship'. anyway these are emergent properties. we take different roles in different relationships at different times. I think I've found thinking of it this way at most useful in retrospect.)

#red said

[trainingdummyrabbit]

Woe

9, 14, 27

uouoauhg... explodes of Quemstions(tm)

9- tell a story about your childhood this one is . really funny actually bc i thought abt several stories and Most of them revolve around pokemon in one way or another .. there Have been several different times i was directly responsible for a boom in pkmn card popularity in my school, subsequently causing them to get banned. one of those times, there was a kid who just. he just fucking sucked man. id bring stacks of my cards in my backpack bc i loved sharing and trading them, and he just. apparently snuck in and stole like half of them? at some point? and i Knew, because my favorite card was one of em, and it had been out of print for Years at that point, and when i confronted him, he said he 'got it at walmart.' which was obviously fucking bullshit but i was too much of a pansy to confront him about it. iwas still solidly in the Polite School Kid thing, yknow? and at some point one of my friends from a lower grade went 'hey. check this out.' and pulls out a fucking wad of cards he stole back from the guy??? INCLUDING all of my missing favorites. im honestly still kinda baffled to this day about it, but it doesnt matter bc my beloved is safe at home with me even to this day and i wouldnt trade her for the world. <33 (if youre curious. 2006 salamence ex delta species. her name is sally :])

14- what’s something you’ve always wanted to do but maybe been to scared to do? roleplay. i used to spend hours and hours and Hours rping literally everywhere at any chance i got, and for some reason i just... stopped? ive tried again a few times, but its never really managed t pick itself back up again... ''> > im. unfortunately Very picky about my own writing, and even more picky than that about the way im perceived, which doesnt really mix well... and then theres the active rping communities which are so alien and... weirdly strict? i always end up pushing myself too hard and exploding about it. metaphorically. outwardly its more like i just fucken disappear off th face of the earth KJNGKJD;; itried picking up an old forum acc i had about two or three weeks ago, and um. well... bbbbad timing on my part iguess... = = storytelling is still one of my biggest loves though, and i know im still deeply passionate about it, its just. ouhhhhh the struggles. oh and also cosplaying in public. id love to do that too one day, if i manage to find some friends willing within a country's radius maybe. i used to Love videos of people hanging out semi-incharacter in cosplay and just being dorks... idont really see those too often lately though :< sad..

27- any nicknames? a couple! most of them are variants of my normal name, like pika or piko or pikkles or smthn. nobodys called me those in a long time though.. my names already short n shrimple, so there hasnt rly been much need for it isuppose. a personal favorite of mine is 19, though. i used t be in a discord server w a loooot of people, and we started a joke of a 'number cult,' in which we would all call each other by numbers and kept a list of who claimed what. mine was 19 :] (since 9 was taken already.) that... lasted well over a year actually, im still 19 to a lot of people out there ithink. kind of a comforting thought.

#i dont think im 19 anymore; but theyre still very close to me. if that makes sense. #icant claim the name like i used to; but i still carry th banner. yknow. #ithink someone in my friends list still has their number in their disc user. 34 if ur out there........ o7 #anyway this got Ridiculously wordy hai KJSNFKJDNG #piktalk #ask game #um um. th nicknames one also isnt including any aliases iwent by for awhile... i used to go by 'lulu' and 'john' in afew places. #something something if you know you know or whatever. those r too important for me to not mention also tho.

[alicenpai]

Have you answered Q21 and 30 yet? Would love to hear your thoughts on those :o

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

hi chiko!

I think I tried so many different styles over the years, and bc of art school I can probably draw in cartoony or anime styles pretty alright, so I won't pick any kind of animation adjacent styles for this one!

Edward Gorey, Ronald Searle

Norman Rockwell, J.C. Leyendecker

Dean Cornwall, Mead Schaeffer

30. What piece of yours do you think is underrated

this one is tough! as I haven't been drawing a lot of full pieces/posting very very sporadically this year.

like what is considered "underrated"? is it notes? funny enough I think before the pandemic my art used to get more notes, so, would someone consider my recent works "underrated" in that sense? it's tricky. 🤔 I know it's easy to blame the algorithm but there are so many factors at play that we cannot qualitatively control for. being on the right platform at the right time, drawing for the right fandom at the right time, catering to a suitable audience, how you format the post (like do you show closeups or just post the full illust or crop your art? do you just post a video instead??), and a suitable caption (e.g. something witty, relatable, funny, or just something basic like emojis or just 1 word)

for me I consider a work "underrated" or underperforming (I think is a better word for it), is if the drawing is not interesting enough that nothing is said about it. either about either subject matter or artistic techniques. for me connecting to others through art is so integral to the artist experience. if a post gets 1000 notes but it gets 0 comments, then i consider it a failure. if something gets 100 notes but it gets many comments, i would consider it the opposite of "underrated'.

like would original drawings be more underrated than fanart? 🤔 people have trouble connecting to ocs since they don't know the source material, so often those kinds of posts would get less notes or less comments. just interesting things to think about.

it's easy to go into the archive and look at the older stuff that possibly didn't get seen around as much, but i'll try to pull some more recent pieces.

I think this 6 fanarts did badly in comparison to other works because the trend appeared in 2020 but I wasn't able to complete this that year ^__T and the trend didn't come back in 2021... guess I'm not a trend setter..................... sighs 😔 haha

I do want to try this kind of fanart compilation again though! I'm bad at drawing under pressure though so I would have to come up with my own prompts...

this Kekkai Sensen x Trigun piece! I think the crossover alienated fans of both series bc you had to enjoy both T__T and I also didn't draw characters from either series interacting so I don't think it ended up that interesting? bc I wanted to make this a diptych (it's clear that there's a middle divide now that I mention it) but the triptych didn't end up happening!

besides both being created by Yasuhiro Nightow, I haven't come across that many fans who are fans of both, actually...? it's not in the case where the author's work is more or less similar in tone (or same universe), like Baccano x Durarara, Pandora Hearts x Vanitas no Carte, Higurashi x Umineko. I think something like trigun x cowboy bebop would have worked better because people are always unfortunately comparing the two hahahaha.

#ask #i had this in my drafts for a few days then forgot about it sorry! #chiko akihari #q

[team-council-two]

So how is Spy a special case?

*is excited*

(for context, in a previous post, i added the tags " i could write an entire book on how unfamiliar french people in medias seem to actual french people, spy is an odd case; ask me about him")

aiight, you know what you signed up for, get ready for one hell of a presentation, ft terminal verbosis frenchosis ! this will be in three parts, of course, because three is a good number and the mere concept of having 3 parts should give you all a headache (look ray i didnt add a n this time)

wait shit im not even sure mistral is a spy, hold on,

aw fck thats for real ones

anyways femme fatale trope, next question

HA gotcha, you didnt think id let yall go with just one sentence huh ? so. our fella is french. our fella is a spy. our fella is a huge piece of shit. extremely common, alright ? outright overused archetype. eeeexcept that the combo's execution here REALLY stands out. how so ?

well, let me ask you a quick question. do you think the fact that he is french, and the fact that he is an evil bastard, and the fact that he is a spy are linked ?

well ill answer that for you. nope. valve treated these three traits remarkably separately. the way he speaks french in game is relatively polite, and the insults he throws around are, i checked, exclusively in english. he is surprisingly free of the usual way medias make "being evil" and "being french" be a hand in hand thing, and similarly free of the one that seems to indicate that Because you are french Of Course you are a spy. in other words, rather than being a walking glamour stereotype of sorts or an obnoxious asshole the likes of which we have seen hundreds of, this is a godawful guy that also happens to be a french snob, and that also happens to be a spy.

compare with, say, our lady mistral above who has a shitton of taunts in french, who embraces that whole sexy lady deal, deliberately plays on it and so on. difference is miles.

and now if you followed you did catch i said french snob rather than just french, there is a reason behind this, so allow me to get on part 2, which i promise will be WAY more verbose-

so

im not sure why but american medias love to have peppy rich french fashionistas in their shit. theyre cute, hyper, sheltered as fuck, and the entire deal is weird bc these people seem like aliens to actual french people who tend to care about fashion in pretty normal amounts and definitely do not have that many grands to bust into it. *yes* we pride ourselves in having a pretty neat fashion industry, but in a similar way as the american and the german boast about their cars. we are NOT obsessed with it okay. anyways, sometimes writers have the decency of making these characters cunts, but not always. but what doesnt vary is the trope seems to play out like ah yes, your average french- which is fucking baffling. and is the part taking us aback.

see, we HAVE the evil breed of those characters too in our shit. comedic shit, to be precise. a rundown of our humor is it often is situational humor - stupid outlandish situations with equally stupid archetypal characters, their personality equally pushed into the absurd, all of that more often than not thinly veiling some pretty heavy social commentary. in other words, you often laugh at the evil cop/rich factory/big restaurant owner/politician/etc getting karma'd in mind boggingly bizzare and hilarious ways, while clearly showing them as evil for mistreating subordinates (and often getting shit for it sooner or later) and as simpering cowards towards literally anyone who has any kind of superior position to them whatsoever.

in other words, context matters. where in american shit they are often allies or friends or comedic relief of sorts through being french/annoying or just villains, in french shit they more often than not are *targets* of some kind of events and shown to be ridiculous through other means than their obsession for fashion or whatever.

am i saying that valve did this ?

...yeah. thats a very bold statement, but yes. i mean, cmon,

see, i am overall basing this on the fact that ingame spy is so fucking similar to many, many, many of Louis de Funès' roles, and even his face, it outright had me searching around the wiki for some kind, any kind of claim of inspiration from valve-

he reads exactly as one of them ! rich cunt obsessed with money, constantly mocking people, constantly complaining about everything ever, fakely polite, not opposed to doing vile acts to have his way, extremely menacing face, *the same fucking laugh*, and the fact that characters played by this guy have remarkably often have what we call a couillon de fils, a dumbfuck of a loser ass son, if you will.

the only differences really are from comic spy, who reads far less like this. he's still well executed mind you, but he (especially @miss pauling) reads as far kinder than this dude's characters usually are, and he is a bit more... stretched, both physically and in behaviour, than the actor's goblin build and attitude, as game spy seems to be unable to stand straight whereas the comic one seems to have no difficulty with this, and the similar range of expressiveness that also ports 1:1 is game exclusive as well. and finally, comic spy also was not given the occasion to cuss people out, so.

anyways my point mostly amounts to, if you manage to make french people think of an emblematic actor beloved by many, rather than just make us go through the usual whiplash of "how is that a normal french person to american people ???", you are probably doing something right.

in addition to this wall of text, i am begging you all to watch this, it should help understand what i meant by our breed of humor, and what i mean by "spy could have been played by this dude no problem"

now, onto part 3,

well once you said he is a pathetic wet cat man you summed it up really.

for all the class he has, for all the money he has, for all the. everything ? he still is pathetic. he still is simply seen as a mean as fuck loser either trying to drown his failures as a father with expensive tastes, or simply amoral and unsympathetic because of his concerns being about money rather than about humans. he still is headcanoned as stinking by most of the fandom. nobody respects the fucken spy. he comes across as haughty and it only makes people want to shit on him some more.

really, it is pretty much everything I explained in the two points above. the patheticness helps with making it so he is not a stereotype, and it helps making it clear he is supposed to be representative of rich pretentious cunts rather than of french people.

so, he is a huge bitch, and ironically, this makes him a blorbo to us, bc who doesnt love a good ole flawed character ?

his whole french deal is not shown as eccentric or what makes him a loser but just a coincidence, in a sense. and you'd be surprised by how much of a breath of fresh air this is to french people. shitty in a realistic way rather than a made up clown, and in a way we can recognize in our own medias. it also is neat from the, err, fandom pov ? because you get to develop his frenchness and assholeness and spyness separately, since they are elements implemented for the sake of themselves rather than as a stereotypical whole. you get to have *fun* with him.

SO i think i ran out of things to blabber about. hope it makes sense tho. but i guess it really is about. not *quite* representation because we do not see ourselves in spy, of course, but way more about our culture not being bastardized and being turned into a joke about eccentrics at best, or hatred about seductive women and effeminate/homosexual men at worst, + having a fresh execution on tropes that else usually would get our eyes rolling.

alpha, over and out

#tf2 spy #langage language #tf2 #The Council has spoken #god my tags are a mess #hope yall can bear with how im basically the messiest member of the council #comes with being the frenchman i suppose

[fagcrisis]

NUCLEAR CORUSCANT????

*loops vode an* buckle the fuck up. this is really long and doesnt really make any sense

nuclear coruscant really came from that time i pondered energy sources in star wars, because they seem to only really exist when someone need to be thrown in some sort of strange shaft? sure lightsabers get their power from the kyber crystal, but thats not how this works really, i mean the crystal can focus light sure but it doesnt generate the laser! or the power required for it! or does it. if we assume the kyber crystal is an energy source somehow that explains a lot about the death star as well and its probably something force related which im not gonna go into rn bc this isnt about that, but if we take that as fact we still have to consider that

no one but the jedi have access to kyber crystals until the empire comes along at which point they take over that monopoly to do increasingly stupid shit that benefits no one

for a very long time even after the jedi order was formed kyber crystals were not known to them hence no lightsabers

nuclear weapons do exist in star wars! the mandalorians have used them during the mandalorian wars and they are hence banned, but obviously palps has used one bc hes evil like that. wookieepedia has a brief article about nuclear power and it was apparently used in the pre republic era. fusion reactors are also a thing in star wars altough i dont know what kind of fuel they use

so the only reasonable conclusion i can make that at some point in the early days of the republic alternative energy sources were integrated to the point where nuclear power is a legend of the past, although one mandalorians know of very well. mass scale destruction is not at all an alien concept to star wars so nuclear bombs are not especially unique there, but radiation is certainly something that would be difficoult to deal with. yknow. in general

coruscant being incomprehensibely ancient definitely had nuclear power reactors and i absolutely am sure that the nuclear waste was not dealt with correctly, making many areas on the oldest and deepest levels an instant cancer event for anyone who enters, and also mutating the fuck out of some bacteria . and other things.

stay with me here, but this ties in with my whole sarlacc thing, i really love sarlaccs. the sand people of tattooine have a legend (if youre planning on playing kotor please please please befriend them and listen to this story yourself) that the sarlacc gave birth to itself in the core of tattoine before the twin suns split in two, and will one day devour the entire planet and itself in the process, and this actually makes sense from what we know about sarlacc biology because theyre sort of plant-animal-fungus beasts? there are male and female sarlaccs but the actual reproduction happens via spores called sarlacci that drift through space until they find something they can latch onto and burrow down into and grow and feed and they dont really like, stop growing kind of like lobsters so at points in their lives they can be prayed on by things like the krayt dragon but after a certain point only natural disaster can kill them so theoretically a sarlacc could grow until it consumed an entire planet if left to its own devices

and this really is the natural version of how the city engulfed coruscant and so i think it would be super interesting if in the very deepest tunnels of the city an absolutely ancient sarlacc that planet itself there before the zhells and the taungs and before the jedi and even before the force stream the force is a living creature and also a parasite by rumini szajkó anyways and then coruscant grew and grew and less and less people ventured down to the sarlacc but it doesnt need to feed that often, right, and some type of creature will always live down there and people will always go back deep to find things of old or out of neccesity so its slowly growing and as the people flee ever higher it becomes a larger and larger part of the planet itself. coruscants core has gone colt so many generations ago theres just rock there. it can burrow forever

so what happens when a massive beast resembling a cave (but it isnt) grows and engulf a massive beast resembling a cave but it is a city slowly being abandoned as it grows too large to sustain and the heart of the galaxy moves away from it because the the republic falls and the empire is defeated and the fucking yuuzhan vong blow up one of its moons but coruscant stays. and the tunnels of the city rife with radiation become a part of the largest sarlacc ever to live

#this honestly barely has anything to do with sta wars canon i just think it would be cool if there was a radioactive sarlacc #star wars meta

[x-tetrodotoxin-x]

i am the person who sent the last ask, and i have finished playing the game and watched most of the anime, and im now a Changed Man.

pleaaaaaase can you give me your hcs on zack's time in the hell orphanage? that whole thing is really interesting, and it's a shame it's mentioned like once

Hii what fun! Yeah I can give some hcs. Honestly it's kind of a shame the orphanage wasn't really touched on for very long, but the shit we did get on it was dark.

So like i said I really think that orphanage was a front for human trafficking. It seems at least implied to be based on the caretakers mentioning the money aspect so often. What's fucked is it sounds like not only were the caretakers trafficking the kids, but the kids parents sold them to the orphanage to get rid of them, probably knowing the shit was shady as hell. It's pretty straightforward that those kids were abandoned there for money, it's stated in canon in at least the manga:

(Little Zack is so freaking adorable btw omg hes so tiny)

So like the whole aspect of the dead kids being buried in the yard; they clearly made Zack do that more than once. Totally hc that while yea some of those kids died of starvation, exposure, lack of medical attention, etc some of them were killed either on purpose as an example to the other children or on accident during incidents of abuse and Zack saw that a lot, contributing to his violent nature later on

ik he apparently started killing because he "saw a violent movie on tv" but I think that's bs and the caretakers were killing people in front of him or making him kill the other kids

Back on the programming shit, it's mentioned a lot that as a child Zack did whatever the caretakers told him to do despite not wanting to do it, hence him being referred to as a tool so often. So uh. Programming.

He's scared of fire, so they used fire to frighten him into doing things, following orders, being obedient, etc.

A lotta his abuse was like severe neglect and making him sleep outside, do a lot of physical labor, starvation, etc. I usually hc there was a lot of physical abuse too, especially early on to condition him into doing thinhs.

Sexual abuse but they targeted him differently in that way- like they really wanted to push the idea that he was a monster on him just because of his burns so incidents of noncon weren't as frequent as some of the other orphans, but were really horrific like refusing to touch him during it, using objects to do it, lots of degrading and insulting comments, not letting him bathe after, forcing him to isolate, etc.

If we hc the incidents of sa were less frequent with him (or done in private) the other orphans being kind of cold towards him not only bc they see and learn from the way the caretakers treat him, but in their mind he's "getting off easier because he's too hideous to sell off" so they project onto him, leading to more alienation.

It's not really clear when Zack got burned besides that it was shortly before his Mom abandoned him at the orphanage but if they were fresh they probably healed badly due to improper care- the orphanage caretakers refusing to let him properly clean and bandage his burns.

Also, like, the fact he still wears the bandages as an adult despite the burns being scars by now makes me think they probably forced him to keep the burns and scars covered up and made him wear the bandages even after his burns healed "as to not cause disgust to others" or some shit. He definitely wouldn't say it out loud, but he's self conscious about them.

I'm sure I've got more on that but like that oughta cover bases for now. So much dead dove potential with that orphanage, that series in general tbh omg

#tw noncon #ask to tag

[asfierceaslions]

The unfortunate reality of it all is that this blog is going to turn into a diary of stories about the person I love and that's fine because I don't think there are enough people left here who are gonna care but like.

My entire life, I have had to deal with shit alone. Like. Everyone has always just kinda been like. Eh. Bri can handle this. And left me to my devices, whether that was what I needed or not. I have had many a meltdown where everyone knew I was hurting and left me to do so alone. Often it was because I said to, but usually it was a case of people being like well Bri is usually so tough so it doesn't really matter they'll pull through and I don't have to worry. My family has always relied on me to deal with all the literal and figurative blood that came up. I've had to euthanize many an animal, clean up many a wound, deal with things I wish I never had.

I have literally NEVER had someone call me on my bluffs and force me to be cared for. I don't think I've ever known anyone who I would allow to do it.

I remember months ago, before I had ever really allowed myself to consider romantic feelings, I was having a very dramatic autistic meltdown. These are rare, but people usually treat me as something to be feared when I'm like that bc I get bitchy and loud and it's overwhelming and I don't stop crying. I don't even remember what it was about. I was just storming from room to room, and they were following me, and watching what I was doing, and stepping in without a word whenever they saw a way to help. I ended up being like "look, I don't know what this is, but you don't have to be scared I'm gonna hurt myself and you don't have to be scared I'm gonna do anything like I'm sorry if this is overwhelming you but I can't stop," and they were like, "I'm not worried, I'm not scared, I'm just trying to help you." And I was kind of stunned, you know? I'm used to being that person, not having anyone else be that for me.

Last night, and like, TW for animal death, but last night we were out driving when I passed a possum that had been hit but not killed. I couldn't bring myself to ignore it, and after catching it and assessing it it was pretty clear there was not going to be any help for it. I talked to both the emergency vet and the police and neither would do me the favor of just euthanized it. The entire time I looked for a solution, Bijou sat in the passenger seat of my car, rocking the possum and singing it Portuguese lullabies and trying so fucking hard to comfort the thing. When it finally became clear I was going to have to do the deed myself, I tried very hard to insist that they let me be alone to do it, and they just. Wouldn't have it. I didn't want anyone to see me do it, and I didn't want anyone else having to deal with that upset, and everyone else I have ever known has just done the easy thing in these situations and left. The one time I needed stitches, I had to go to the ER alone and I had to deligate tasks to other people to get the entire situation dealt with. I never got to just be cared for.

But they don't let me do that shit, even when it would be undoubtedly easier.

And it's so jarring and I can't even get mad because I know I'm lying when I say I want to be left alone to this shit. I want to be seen as strong and solitary but I want to be cared for and it's like. Fucking alien to have that and to also feel safe being given that. I don't sit and worry they'll use this against me. I don't sit and worry about what I'll owe them at the end of it all. There are literally so many things I could say here and I know that I will likely say many more of them eventually but it really is just like. Ahhhh this is what it's like to do the hard things with someone who won't just shrug and look away. Like what the fuck. What an absolutely precious jewel of a person that I get to hold every day. Truly astounding!

#personal

[tsunflowers]

I've been reading stars in my pocket like grains of sand by samuel r delany thanks to @dangerouscommiesubversive but very slowly bc I only read it on the bus when I remembered. but I finally finished it and I thought it was incredible. it's rare that I read a book that I thoroughly enjoy but I still wish I had read for a class so I would have people helping me pick it apart

the two main characters are korga, a man who willingly undergoes a procedure to remove his sense of fear and desire and sells himself into slavery, and marq, a woman (male) who comes from old money and works as a kind of interplanetary diplomat. korga's planet is a deserty scifi shithole with little nuance regarding gender and sexuality. marq's planet is in constant tension due to the relationships between human settlers and the natives, six-legged dragon-like aliens, but where marq lives things are fairly smooth sailing and she is part of a large family with mixed humans and dragons. after we meet both of them we learn that korga's entire planet blew up and he is the sole survivor, and a friend of marq's suggests he stay with her bc she ran a simulation and marq and korga will be extremely sexually compatible. so korga comes to marq's planet but there is intense culture clash that even peak level horniness can't solve

one of the most interesting things about the book is that in marq's culture, spanning a large range of planets, all people regardless of gender or species are referred to as women and with she/her pronouns. unless you're sexually attracted to them, in which case you use he/him. it's such a fascinating choice! in a way it's a complete reversal from real life where the object of desire is often feminized. there's still an understanding in this culture that some people are male or female or neuter, and that people have sexual preferences based on that, but everyone is blanket women. marq is aware of herself as being a male exclusively attracted to other males but she's also a woman. there's so much to say about this book, you could write an essay on the treatment of gender alone

it's pretty heavy on dropping scifi words and concepts on you without explaining so I think you might have to be a scifi reader to enjoy it. but if you're interested in the intersection of gender and sexuality with scifi it's a must read

#my book review corner

[shadeslayer]

 it is,.. Frustrating, to be a queer native academic. because there is a big trend of anti-intellectualism going around about how “oh experts dont know anything dont trust anything academics are stupid blah blah” which is just dumb but it has people on alert for pushing back against that kind of talk. but on the other hand theres a lot of issues i have with academia and its history and its current standing, especially wrt colonialism and only colonial approaches and perspectives being seen as worthy or factual, and often it gets slammed as anti-intellectual bc its critiquing academia

and the more i do indigenous academia the more it seems that we just have to do it ourselves. always. and we’re not going to be let into the club or let sit at the big kids table. ive run into it with general philosophy, race philosophy, anthropology... and every time its that i have to go out of my way to find a non-colonial/decolonial perspective, and its always separated and isolated from the main discussion(s) and its written by a native scholar whos usually like hey why is everything so fucking colonial. and then was only picked up by other native scholars, or was read as a one time “interesting read! unique perspective!” by other scholars and then never applied to anything

it feels like usually only native scholars are the ones pushing against the colonial narrative in academia and when its someone else using the words colonial or decolonial they use them wrong or use them to service their own, unrelated, point

the isolation of decolonialism and colonial critique not only is setting aside that concept but is alienating and isolating all native scholars and academics. either bc they feel they cant be understood or theyre dismissed for not fitting colonial standards, or bc all their works are labeled as ‘decolonial’ just bc theyre native, even if their writing is not related to colonialism

#anompolili #and i didnt rly go into it but being queer just makes it worse #as u can imagine.

[upagainstthesunset]

Metron x oc talk: AU fic edition

I like AUs alright. They're fine, they're fun. But so often those stories let the personalities slip, which loses me. Just because they're in a different setting shouldnt mean they suddenly act differently as well. Its the reason i usually skip AUs in the infrequent times I read fics.

But sometimes i want to entertain ideas of AUs for Heartbeat and Metron. Some of it's hard bc in all honesty, neither of them are very well fleshed out. And the other reason it's hard is bc their dynamic just doesnt hit as well if one of them isnt a god of vast power. But as an experimental exercise, im going to think through an example just for fun.

Lets go with a classic: flower shop AU.

First off, what tf would metron want with a flower shop? Nothing. Even if he were human. And ngl why would i want to read a fic where metron is human anyway? I wouldnt. So from the get go this is a hard sell.

We'll put Heartbeat in the flower shop then. She owns the place, having learned everything she knows from her late mother. Great, now how the hell do we get Metron there?

There are ways this could go if we keep superhero stuff in play. Theres some alien plant causing problems and he needs help, or a villain is using a spore to control people so Metron shows up for plants that can counteract it. Im not very creative so idk maybe theres something better, but both those seem pretty weak. Either way, maybe he mistakenly assumes HB has masterful knowledge of botany and so whisks her off to help before she can even explain. And okay that could have some potential but theres a problem.. we've left the flower shop. It's just an AU that is only circumstantially flower shop adjacent, and has only altered HB's origins but not much else. So other than that is it really too different than the story they already have going? Not so much to be worth exploring more in my opinion. I might as well put that energy into writing their actual story in that case.

Alright what if Metrons a human after all. Ugh, im not a fan but we'll walk through it anyway. So who the heck is he? Probably a teacher. A brilliant scientist with a lousy personality who works at a university purely so he has access to facilities and resources for his experiments. Im already cringing, like just with this much i feel we've lost so much of his character already. Bleh whatever, let's continue.

Now we need them to meet and have a reason to continue interacting beyond that meeting. The flower shop is next to the university and she sees him walk by every day. Okay sure. She wonders what hes like and starts imagining a personality for him (While You Were Sleeping style), only to have it all dashed against the rocks when it turns out he's an asshole. Maybe she attends some botany thing for work and he's there. She approaches him and he inevitably shows his arrogance. They argue about something he maintains is not possible, but she says it certainly is and she has a plant back at the shop that can prove it (im not a plant person so i have no idea what this macguffin would be). He doesnt believe her so she tells him to come into the shop sometime. He shows up later and is proven wrong but then demands to be given the plant to take back for study. But besides that being such a rude, selfish request, this plant was something HB had put a lot of work into and it was started/theorized by her mom so there's that too.

Um alright so we're now at a point of conflict. Every story needs it. But i dont know how to get us out while keeping people in character and pushing these together in a quasi-romantic way that ideally ends in friendship and one sided attraction on HB's part. Im not a strong writer, and as i said before, not very creative. But that's why this kind of exercise is needed sometimes.

Anyway, uh maybe he tries to recreate the plant experiment thing but just cant get it right, which frustrates him to the point of obsession. He storms into the flower shop demanding this time that HB come work for him, which she has no incentive to do. So more conflict there.

Um something something time passes. He walks by every day still but now he knows she sees him so he makes a point of scowling, and she makes a point of turning her nose up. That goes on for a little while, which makes me laugh, both of them being indignant and caring way too much what the other thinks.

And then im still stuck. What kind of event would cause them to become closer despite themselves? It'd have to be metron showing some appreciation of her, or showing some vulnerability. I mean what, is he gonna walk by in the winter and slip and fall so she has to help him? Im sure that works for tons of fluffy fics but i just dont see it for these two. So in order to save me some grief we're going to skip forward.

For whatever reason, they find themselves together not by choice. Maybe another botany event and they are randomly paired up idk. They first bicker as they go around at this event but eventually find they have more in common than they think. Eventually he mentions the thing he worked on that was a failed attempt at what her plant was, and they talk about that. Their unexpected new found rapport plus the topic of his own experiment incites him to invite her to see what hes working on. She wants to say no but shes also always dreamed of seeing the university's private greenhouse. So at night after this event is over he takes her there. Shes in awe of all the stuff he has going on. Crazy experiments. Lots of weird plants. She thinks its fantastic but doesn't want to admit it bc of his arrogance. He shows her the thing hes working on thats based on her plant and shes ends up helping him to solve his problem bc she sees he truly cares about this stuff. Idk what the specifics are, again im not a plant person, but imagine its a clever thing theyre doing. And so he gains a respect for her, and recognizes that just as important this science is to him, this specific plant thing is to her.

Um then they become friends and visit each other and bicker all the time and nobody can believe shes friends w such an asshole and shes like eh hes alright. The end.

So how was it? How was this little brain storming session? In the end i do think it became out of character and really the story didnt have a purpose other than me wanting to come up with something, anything. But thats how AUs often go. I think this story would be literally no different if it were about other original characters. Like, it doesn't rely on specifically Heartbeat and Metron. It could've been anyone. And to me thats sort of a weak spot in the writing. Likewise, it dint have to be plants and a flower shop, it couldve been any field. Besides that, it was very tropey but thats okay and where a lot of the fun comes from. If i were reading this id probably give it a 5 out of 10. Its not a terrible story, but its unoriginal and doesnt do anything special for the characters. But if the goal is to have the archetypes that represent Metron and HB interact, that was accomplished.

#i dont usually do writing exercises #especially as unedited tumblr posts #but hey maybe this is interesting to someone idk #ocheartbeat #metron if i fits i sits #otpsmartbeat #longpost