Something I realized (which was obvious to me subconsciously) is that... The family that vehemently didn't accept me when I first came out but now do accept me are still the same family that I am most unwilling to be open about things I feel protective over.
I remember that my dad reacted so poorly, not to my coming out, but to my transition specifically that my therapist was the one to ask if I wanted to put it on my file that I wanted nothing to ever be shared with him about my health after I broke down multiple times due to my anxiety that I would never transition. While there are and were protections for me, I was incredibly fearful at the time because I was a minor, and I was so worried that he would have prevented my transition that I couldn't have said for certain what (if any) lengths he would have gone to to prevent that.
He's grown a lot as a person, and made some commendable strides. But he didn't find out from me when I medically transitioned the second I turned eighteen, and I think that's among the things that truly made him realize the scope of the issue.
I'm not here to guilt trip parents, guardians, or other members responsible for the care of the children or teens or young adults in their care.... but this is a cautionary tale. You aren't saving the people in your care when you do this, you simply reinforce an idea that you will never care for them, never want them as they are, would rather them be shoved away.
When you give people reasons to be secretive, they will behave secretively. When you give people reasons to doubt their safety around you, they will become sneaky, defensive, and withdrawn. When you give people reasons to doubt that you value their life, they will believe that you don't care if they live or not.
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i think that the major misinterpretation that people have with taco is that she didn't get attached to mic because of her sad face in the end wanted to show regret because "she hurted her friend". like. no, she wasn't sad because she regretted what she did. she was sad because she's alone again, but she knows very well at the end that she had it coming. the reason as to why taco was so desperate of wanting mic to tell her that she did gain something is because. she SAW pickle in mic, but of course their situation is very different. "Oh but Taco couldn't have done what she did to Mic to Pickle, Mic was fully aware" but she did do that. Mic herself says it. That is pretty much what II is telling you. Taco isn't a good friend, and is not exactly a good person either. Mic was aware that Taco was/is a bad person, but Mic's nature makes her believe in whoever acknowledges her. Taco made Mic feel like she needed her, just the way she made Pickle feel back in s1.
she didn't really change thanks to mic. her faces of "regret" aren't her actually lamenting all of the stuff she did to microphone, but rather just her realizing that she proved what everyone said about her as a result. i will give it to that she might've tried to change, but not because of mic. she wanted to win the prize so she could prove others wrong on her being a loser and a coward, by being a loser and a coward. if anything, mic made her realize that she hasn't changed. she pretty much just ruined everything for everyone who saw her as a friend, and for herself.
taco's whole arc is constantly just downgraded to questionable takes and listen. i do agree that she is heavily flawed as a character. she is morally gray, but ii doesn't portray her as a good person with good intentions, nor she should be really be treated as if she was. neither she had those good intentions with mic at all, i mean, their "friendship" pretty much started because of taco wanting the prize money, taking a part of microphone's prize if she made mic won, you know, an offer. she would get the prize and mic would get recognition. but everyone seems to forget that probably, the main reason as to why she's doing all of this, is because she does regret how she acted on s1. she doesn't exactly regret doing all of that to microphone, and even if she does, it's for the wrong reasons. (that's because she did the exact same thing to you know, pickle, her once best friend, the only person she truly ever cared about)
people do tend to forget that taco keeps sending letters to pickle, and that's often just used for pickle angst and making it his only character trait, but. it's not that. it's the fact that taco keeps on writing those letters, despite fully knowing that she did hurt pickle because of her actions. taco's biggest flaw is that she can't accept that she has ruined everything and wants so desperately to be back on pickle's life because she ended up caring about him deeply as a person. as a friend. but she was never there at all, either.
taco can't seem to understand that she has hurted people badly. sure, she seemed like a "friend" to microphone, and you can argue whatever you want but a fact is that taco IS smart, and she knew that the only way to possibly keep mic by her side is pretending to want to be better, you know, the same way she pretended to be just a odd fella so pickle and her could remain together and have an advance at the game. she played with both of them. because both pickle and mic believed in her but were just used by her for the game.
however, taco does seem to regret the way everything went during-post s1. you can see how she yearns for another chance and is saddened about not getting it, but that's not only for comedic purposes, but that's because the writing is telling you that she won't get a second chance. at least not here.
what i want people to understand is that, yes, taco is a complex character, however trying to sugarcoat what she did is pretty much missing the point of her writing as a whole. she isn't a good person neither was she a good friend. she hasn't grown because she was never able to let go of something that she thinks that she can fix with some words and a prize. she thinks that she can still fix her friendship with pickle, she thinks that she can clear her name (even if she was the one who tainted it), but she only ended up proving knife right. she proved everyone right. she hasn't changed. a morally gray character is that. they're not exactly fully bad or fully good, but it's taco's actions that speak a lot. words are cheap, and taco's title is "The Liar", and that says a lot, because she kept on lying to microphone and to pickle on both of their games. she won't heal unless she lets go.
and i want to be clear here: i do think that taco can go through redemption. i do think that taco can become a better person, but not in the way people portray her to do so. because it just pretty much goes against what her arc has settled in for us, and the other arcs that were involved in hers as well.
taco's arc is meant to be somewhat a parallel with nickel's in a way. hell, even with knife's arc if anything. she treats knife as a simple bully, but when she saw that he became smarter and way more emotionally aware than what she had expected, she felt attacked by that, because he was stable. he became a better person and he was rubbing that on her, and it made her feelings of anger way worse regarding him, but it is true. knife is pretty much everything that taco wants to be, but here's the thing that made them so different:
knife stayed. taco didn't stay.
knife is accepted by everyone in the hotel because meanwhile he hasn't explicitly said that he had a change of heart, he has shown it through actions and a big difference too is that he was there for pickle, even if they weren't close in s1, and taco is on the woods because deep down she is aware that she can't go back. not if she doesn't have something to offer as an direct apology, but here's the problem. whether or not she got the prize, she still wouldn't get forgiven by anyone due to what she said that day.
again. her problem is not being able to let go and to accept when she has messed up badly. she has been lying to everyone but she has also been lying to herself as a whole. she can't keep on doing this because it's just hurting everyone and herself. keeping grudges and holding onto past friendships that were doomed to fall is just hurting her. she is not on the state to keep on trying, she wasn't at all ever.
taco's arc most likely will have closure on a way that fits her character, and i feel like that would be with her letting go of inanimate insanity as a whole and of what she can't fix anymore. her trying to find herself after years of lying to everyone and to herself. she's not a good person. but she can become one. only if she knows what she did was wrong and that her second chance isn't there, and never will be, and if she recognizes that meanwhile she did that damage, she can still become a better person. just not there.
pickle and mic don't owe her anything, especially pickle. taco does owe them an apology, but they won't accept that. the least she could do is to accept their wishes, understand that she needs to leave them and grow to be a better person. maybe, if she does that, she would actually heal.
she doesn't need anyone to fix her. she needs to fix herself.
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hello /waves shyly/ i am the anon who recommended red as a timkon song, and i just want to tell you too that i think The Lucky One by taylor swift too fits naive, just-out-of-the-test-tube, teen celeb kon sooooo well!! esp the last verse of the song where it goes "and they still tell the legend of how you disappeared / how you took the money and your dignity / and got the hell out" > parallels his decision to go live with the kents in smallville and completely change his image as well.
i like to think the image change (while we all lament t-shirt kon sometimes) was necessary for kon to truly examine who he wanted to be. and it only grew after he died and came back (re: adventure comics 2009 where he makes lists of what would superman/lex do). and idk i just feel like this song encapsulates that!!
rambling aside, i love your art, and your song reccs on IG too! thank you for always sharing your timkon/kon-el brainrot with us <3
Oh my god love this songs vibes it’s very “getting disillusioned with fame” vibes
Also I big agree! Kon in smallville just…the vibes are too good. I guess I’d prefer it if they changed his haircut at least. But It’s very fitting for 2000s I guess. I also like how some artists draw tshirt Kon tbh (Francis manapul, Marcus to), but I can’t get behind how the artist for tt03 draws him tbh…And design wise, i wished they at least let him keep some accessories…and then let him transition into a new style that’s somewhat punk but something new and different too? In my head, that era of Kon in the 2009-2011 comics should have led to someone who was more sure in himself. Not insecure and not falsely confident like when he was younger, but like healthily confident if that makes sense…
Like this was just a doodle for what my version of tshirt kon would be like
Also random, i could literally rant for hours about how superboy’s written in both the 90s and 2000s bc both have good and bad, i have traits I prefer in one vs the other etc etc, but while in the 2000s he gives more…”macho” or “serious” Vibes based on appearance—I feel like he’s still pretty snarky at times, and surprisingly emotional and soft still? Sorry that was a random ramble. Kon in smallville is just vibes if u get it u get it
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alright, i have come to the decision i am keeping this blog up as an archive and leaving the gt tumblr community for the foreseeable future.
when i made my post about chamomile-g-tea’s damaging treatment of my story, gtms, my goal was to acknowledge the situation so i could hopefully move forward and restore gtms/my blog as mine again, without her influence. and while i anticipated backlash, some of the responses were just...downright disturbing. lots of comments echoed a victim-blaming sentiment that i am responsible for the emotional and creative damage done to me by another person because ‘why didn’t you just say no or tell her to stop?’ not only does this ignore the several attempts i did make to express discomfort and set boundaries—which were not respected—but even if i didn’t manage to express a ‘no’, that doesn’t make what happened ok; it doesn’t erase the year of crippling pressure and guilt i lived with and still struggle to shake daily. realizing that so many people in this community think otherwise is just...disturbing. it’s disturbing. that’s the only word i can think to use.
the response to all this does not make me feel safe being here—that’s what this situation has unfortunately showed me: that the audience i hoped to allow to view my reclaiming process would also contain the same crowd who make me feel so unsafe—and why the fuck would i let those people see something as personal as that? why would i let them see anything? it’s made me understand i can’t continue to heal myself and my writing if i am posting it for other people, especially harmful people. and even though it turned out this way, i’m glad i gave it a shot; that i made that post as an effort to see if it was even possible or worth it to restore this space—even if the answer was no! absolutely fucking not!—because it saved me from even more time spent sharing my work with people who do not respect me as a person or a creator. i’m glad i tried, however much it sucked, because it allowed me to understand: it is not just one person in this community i feel unsafe with, but a solid percentage of the community at large that i just cannot healthily engage with, and no amount of blocking will fix that.
but of course this is not the only situation that showed me this community’s true colors—the dismissive or outright aggressive response to the calling out of racism in our tropes has also been deeply disturbing. to clarify, there is no problem in identifying with and finding comfort or catharsis in problematic tropes such as the pet trope, but there is a problem with using that comfort to make others feel unsafe and speak over people of color. and the solution to this trope problem is very simple—generally apply critical thinking skills to the media you enjoy, and tag your shit properly (dead dove, particularly when the giant owner/abuser doesn’t face consequences and/or if the abused/abuser fall in ‘love’—dead dove is not actually currently used in this community, that’s the problem). but rather than taking this as an opportunity to listen and improve, it was instead used as a chance to lash out at and make clear that poc are not welcome in this community and come secondary to the feelings of white creators and readers.
over the last few years, this community has fostered and been exposed for bigotry such as terfs, ableists, racists, etc, and especially in the current political era, this is no longer a community i want to share my work with or even just lurk in. and i know on the surface this community seems progressive, but take a better look and you’ll find members of the community doing and saying…questionable things, or keeping quiet and enabling their friends who do and say questionable things because they would rather be passive and polite than be genuinely kind and compassionate through active accountability.
of course this is the risk you take interacting with any person ever—but it’s especially taxing to look around at such a small, close knit community you know is riddled with these problems and wonder if the people making innocent posts are actually harmful; if they prioritize their comfort over the safety of marginalized people, if they even see you as a full person, and for me, personally—if they are willing to overlook consent to blame you for your trauma and defend the person who inflicted it. it’s taxing to explain basic basic concepts to strangers over and over in a place that prides itself on being a safe space, where people just have fun and mentally escape from irl hardships. it’s taxing to ride out shitty, hateful treatment when you are just simply one person (voluntarily providing free services btw) with only so much energy and fucks to give. it is not worth the strain it puts on you as a person, nor is it your responsibility to sit there and accept it, and i am not the only creator in this community who feels this way. we are fucking tired.
quite simply, this is not a community i feel comfortable participating in or sharing anything with. and that’s a shame, because there are wonderful, creative and caring people here who i have enjoyed sharing this space with, and maybe someday i’ll give this community another chance, but currently it’s just not worth the time of day. and i want to make it clear: my leaving is not simply because of just one person or just one situation—that i could handle—it is the community itself that is the root problem; that continues to be harmful, in multiple contexts—that is the reason why i and several other creators are leaving for greener pastures and more enjoyable communities—or just simply for a fucking moment’s worth of peace, because lord knows you won’t find it here.
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