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am-i-the-asshole-official · 2 months

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aita/wibta for NOT breaking up with my bf ?

i'm not sure if the title is phrased weirdly, bare with me. my bf and i are both 18, he is cis M & i am FTM (relevant).

My bf and i are both currently in first year uni, both living at home due to high cost of living in our country (also everywhere else lol). We met about halfway through highschool, and were friends for a while before getting together. we are coming up on two years together in a couple months, and have not really had any major bumps in our relationship. we see eachother i would say 1-2x per week, with both of us living at home and being broke it gets a little challenging sometimes but we call most nights and generally we make it work. Also worth noting that I am my bf's first everything, down to his first kiss, while he is not really this for me. this is the longest relationship i have been in (probably because i'm 18 lol), but not at all the first. however, the only "serious" relationship i have had outside of of him, aside from just casual stuff, was very abusive & toxic, so i do sort of see us on equal footing as neither of us has ever been in a normal, functional relationship before.

Now, the issue: while we are both currently living at home, i see this as a very temporary arrangement and something i am counting down the days until i can get out of. while living with my family is not abusive or anything, it is just very straining as i am not very close with them, and also cannot transition while living at home. as previously mentioned i am ftm, and while my mom is tolerant it would just put even more stress on the relationship if i were to start changing physically while living at home or even asking her to use different pronouns for me and is just something i prefer to leave until i'm not 100% reliant on her. that being said my dysphoria causes me very intense depression and without getting too detailed, i don't know how much longer i can take living here and putting off any sort of meaningful transition outside of close/online friends calling me he.

my bf, however, plans to live at home at least until he graduates, which is six years away. i understand that this is a very normal thing, especially culturally (he is middle eastern + muslim, i am white + agnostic), but the issue is that his mother is, among many other things, extremely homophobic. she already hates me for reasons i'm not really sure of (my bf refuses to go into detail, i think to protect me, but i have seen extremely graphic and nasty texts about me by name on his phone and have been told by him that he doesn't even mention me around the house or else she gets extremely upset, though she is always extremely nice to me the few times we have interacted), but anyways, me transitioning while he is still living at home would be essentially putting him in legitimate danger.

my bf does not like to think about this, which i understand. it's hard enough dealing with what i get from my family, and that is absolutely nothing compared to the fact that everyone he knows from his culture/religion beleives he should be dead just because he is gay (i know, as does he, that there are queer muslims. but they do not exist openly in his personal community). but the problem is that anytime i adress to him that the idea of waiting until we are in our mid-twenties for me to even think about transitioning is a really big issue for me he basically refuses to talk about it and just says that "it will work out". on top of the transitioning thing i just generally don't want to be twenty-five (the age he has told me is when he plans to move out) and still having to cancel dates last minute because my boyfriend's mom was in a bad mood and decided he's not allowed to go out tonight. i know this is how life is for many people and they learn to deal with it! and i respect them very much! but it is genuinely my nightmare. i understand why he cannot/does not want to cut himself off from his family, especially since his dad lives overseas and is extremely wealthy so therefore paying his entire tuition out of pocket. i'm just saying it's not a lifestyle that meshes well with my future plans.

this is where the asshole part comes in: my bf genuinely thinks that we are going to spend the rest of our lives together. this started with small comments, things like alluding to the idea of our potential future kids (i love kids and raising my own is genuinely my end goal in life, something he knows just because i am very open about it), or talking about our future apartment/house, but now is basically just a constant conversation in our relationship. i try not to feed into it, but i also feel badly responding to his sweet comment when i point out a house i like on the street about how we'll buy it one day with something about how i don't ever see that happening. i generally just respond neutrally, but i will admit i get caught up in the fantasy sometimes and contribute to it as well.

he is such a lovely guy with a beautiful heart and i do really adore him, and it's not a situation where i don't want to spend the rest of my life with him. to be honest, that's the dream. i love him with everything i have and i would literally do anything for him. the problem is just that when he talks about this future together all i can picture is all the million ways our relationship is doomed to implode.

but we are happy right now, because me moving out of my family home is not something that is going to be possible for another 1-2 years, so none of those issues are something that are going to come up right now. i just forsee them being pretty much impossible obstacles between us and spending the rest of our lives together down the line. but i have this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that even though i want more than anything to be with him forever, the fact that i don't remotely beleive it's something that will actually work out still constitutes as leading him on.

so, am i the asshole for staying with him, because we are happy right now and these issues are not going to be relevant for another 1-2 years, and a solution might somehow present itself in that time? or is the right thing to do to just leave now, and rip off the bandaid?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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daydreamtoropova · 1 month

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Claustrophobia

I might be claustrophobic.

Maybe not in the general sense though...

I feel claustrophobic because of the skin, muscles, organs, and everything that's covering me. I think that's why I always have that feeling to throw up, because I want to throw my physical self up away because I always feel claustrophobic.

I keep talking about wanting to throw up. I now have the answer to why.

I think that's a reason I am part of the queer community by being AroAce (because I physically can't stand the physicality of people, and myself), but being Fictoromantic/sexual (because I tend to like the mind and not the physicality). And why I am Xenogender/Genderless because I don't identify with human norms.

I realized I'm scared, no, absolutely TERRIFIED of humans, human norms, human constructs, EVERYTHING.

Also, I realized I had a God Complex. And technically? I'm not wrong. From my perspective, NOTHING exists. I have no proof! I have no proof other people have the same mental capabilities as me. I have no proof ANYTHING exists! It's all fake!

If I were to kill myself, none of you, NONE OF YOU WOULD EXIST.

I realized this is why I'm suicidal. I don't want to mentally destroy myself, no! I want to live forever in that sense! I want to create art and stories and keep on living. I want my myself to be immortalized.

But what fears me, what destroys my whole image, the thing I want to get rid of, is my physical self. I can't stand being trapped like this, feeling so many things that I don't want to. Emotions are chemicals in the brain produced by the physical self, and I try my best not to feel them.

I just feel... wrong.

I dealt with a lot of derealization, depersonalization, and maladaptive daydreaming problems. And I may just have found the reason why. Because I CAN'T STAND my physical self, so I end up leaving, feeling detached and better off in the mental world.

I don't think it's "normal" to be claustrophobic about engaging in basic human functions such as eating, drinking, sleeping, speaking, and everything else.

A lot of things have been explained as soon as I realized my claustrophobia of the real realm.

I just don't belong here, not like this at least.

And I don't know how my Autism plays into this but I KNOW something about all of this is related in SOME SORT of way.

I remember from a young age I felt this.

Why must I have existential crises, every second?

I want to throw up.

I want to bash my skull against a wall.

Everything feels so... wrong.

Something's not right.

I feel insane.

#get me out of here

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pluckyredhead · 5 months

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My Favorite Comics of 2023

Sometimes I think I should review all the comics I read as I read them. Then I realize I read like...40 comics a month and decide to not do that. But I figured I could at least round up my favorite books of 2023!

So as not to bury the lede...

My Favorite Comic of 2023: Green Arrow

Was there ever any question? All I have ever wanted for like 20 years at this point is Arrowfamily shenanigans, and this book has been all about reassembling the gang and letting them romp through the DC universe. This is an Ollie who is overflowing with love and bad ideas, and that's perfect. Every character and relationship has gotten a chance to shine so far, and I can't wait until they bring the girls in. I especially love how clear it is that Roy is Williamson and Izaakse's favorite. ME TOO, GUYS, ME TOO. The fact that this is now an ongoing instead of a limited series is the best gift DC could have given me.

The rest of my faves...

Alan Scott: The Green Lantern: I did not expect to be as moved by this book as I am. The overall plot is a bit hard to follow, but that's not really the point of the comic. What blows me away every issue is how unflinching and occasionally brutal the book is in its portrayal of 1940s-era homophobia, including Alan's internalized self-hatred, and yet how simultaneously incredibly kind the book is. The love and validation, especially in #2 and #3, is so generous and beautiful. Also, it's the best and most beautiful I've ever see Cian Tormey's art look - he gives everything such a hazy, heartbreaking softness here. Please read this book.

Batman/Superman: World's Finest: This continues to be one of the most enjoyable books DC is putting out right now. Mora is one of those artists, like Doc Shaner, who draws the DC universe exactly 100% the way it looks in my hindbrain, and Waid is absolutely in his sweet spot of classic heroes, Silver Age lore, and extremely comic book-y adventure. Plus, Tamra Bonvillain is doing that thing she does with colors that taps directly into the happiness center of my brain - they are so rich and sunny and joyful.

Birds of Prey: I love everything Kelly Thompson writes and I'm so glad we finally have her at DC. She is the absolute perfect writer for this book, too - she gives such good superheroine. The banter! The action! The way she mixes and matches her cast in such fun combinations! Leonardo Romero's layouts are so kinetic and fun, and Jordie Bellaire's colors, YOU GUYS, JORDIE BELLAIRE'S FUNKY SEVENTIES COLORS! I can hear the soundtrack of this book. Love love love.

The Flash: To be clear, I mean the Jeremy Adams run that ended earlier this year with #800. I will forever be salty that DC canceled this delightful book, which was all of the action and humor and heart and love of continuity that I crave in comics, in favor of the so far completely mid Spurrier series. RIP Adams run, you were too good for this world.

Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville: This book got off to a slightly slow start, in my opinion, but every issue just gets better and better. It is so funny, and I want Natacha Bustos to design every outfit I ever wear for the rest of my life. Plus, Tamra Bonvillain is doing the color thing here, too! I want to live in her world.

Poison Ivy: I trust G. Willow Wilson with my life. This is such a good, complex, nuanced take on Ivy. (Also messy and poly and queer.) I have no idea where this story is going but I'm on this ride 'til the end.

And finally...

Favorite Backlist Title: Starman (1994): You guys. YOU GUYS. I mainlined all 80 issues of this series this year at an absolutely blistering pace because I did not want to stop reading it for even a single second. It's everything I love about comics: truly serialized storytelling with a huge cast and lots of intertwining subplots, tons of twists and foreshadowing that pay off in immensely satisfying ways, a deep dive into continuity that's still accessible to people who know almost nothing about Starman (me), a love letter to a fictionopolis, and one funky little dude trying his best at the center of it. I am BEGGING you to read Starman. Please.

#comics #meta

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avidbeader · 7 days

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I bought and read the first of the "Dead Boy Detectives" comics collections yesterday, because I was curious about what else they'd done to adapt the series for television besides the necessary aging up of the characters. (Kind of hard to portray the idea of ageless ghosts in a live-action program when your main characters are twelve.)

Doing a keep-reading for both spoilers and because I have no idea how long this might get.

One of the first things I noticed with reading "Free Country" was how child-like Edwin and Charles' thought processes were: the constant references to the detective stories they'd read, being a bit too trusting of others at first. The first DBD trade left off a lot of detective references other than Charles imitating 1920s-30s noir stories in his notes. It's amusing to see them snipe at each other in those notes, especially over the next thing that I saw. Comics Charles in the first stories is clearly a boy who was on the brink of discovering teen hormones and seems very stuck there. He is all about the girls and Edwin is very impatient with it. I won't know until I read more if the comics if they move into queer territory (or even let the boys grow mentally as their experience widens), but right now Edwin strikes me less as being gay and from a repressed upbringing and more as simply a boy who has not yet gotten past the stage of seeing romance in general as something grownups do. With the older characters, there is absolutely nothing holding the TV team back from exploring queer relationships and I do think they have done an excellent job so far. Charles at this point seems to be het but absolutely okay with LGBTQ+ people and issues - until it was mentioned that he was defending a Pakistani boy from the bullies in his era, my first assumption was that the other boy might be attacked on the basis of being perceived as queer. I so very much want a second season because it would be all too easy to tip Charles' general protectiveness of Edwin and flashes of jealousy into realizing that maybe his own feelings are a little more than platonic.

Edwin's development is just as excellent. He spends so much time and effort in repressing his feelings, because that was the era he grew up in and decades in Hell didn't give him much time for introspection. He keeps his compliments to Charles about their work but will reassure Charles in a heartbeat that he won't let Death separate them if she catches them. He spends the first part of the season being confronted with the possibility of romantic/sexual feelings coming from Monty or the Cat King and then the Cat King makes the subtext text by flinging the illusion of Charles in Edwin's face. And in what I think is one of the smartest moves in the writing, Edwin tries to talk about what he's feeling with Monty and Monty makes his move. Edwin's response is gentle but determined as he says that these new and terrifying feelings are not for Monty, and while Monty is clearly hurt, they get past it enough to keep talking. I think that experience is part of what makes Edwin brave enough to admit his feelings to Charles (yes, on top of the possibility that things are going to end up in the worst possible way as the demon is chasing them). And because Charles is a good and kind and generous soul who really does put Edwin at the top of people he loves and wants to protect, he says exactly the right things to make sure Edwin knows that he's not mad or put off by the confession.

The other major factor in the comics so far is Crystal. I love the changes to her character as, like our boys, she's older. She's had much more time in the toxic environment her parents created (judging from the brief glimpses we get in the show) to absorb their behaviors. Assuming that the memories she got from David are true (as Edwin said, demons lie and David had plenty of time to make fake memories if that's a thing he can do), then being hit with a giant reset button and dropped in the laps of two good-hearted lads was the absolute best thing that could have happened to her. I'm glad that David is only temporarily interred, as Crystal is getting close to being dangerously overpowered at a storytelling level by the end of the first season. It'll be fascinating to watch the possibilities if we get a second season: the price for getting David out of her life for good being giving up some of this extra power? Learning that she can only achieve that level when her friends are in mortal danger? Giving up that power in exchange for Niko's return? She's not in the comics yet (if she ever appears in them at all), but I fully expect we'll get Niko back in some capacity in a second season. Which means everyone who hasn't watched DBD but read all of this blather anyway....go. Watch. Add to the numbers so Netflix will renew.

#dead boy detectives #dead boy detectives spoilers #dead boy detectives show #dead boy detectives comics

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pbscore · 2 years

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Y’all know that like…the conservatives in Texas didn’t just suddenly start ‘attacking’ queer people because of terminally online ‘kink at pride’ discourse, right?

Like, y’all are aware of the fact that this reactionary conservatism was already on the rise for the past 10 years or so, right? And that whatever squabbling on the internet that this community has been doing with one another literally is not the reason or basis as to why emboldened conservatives feel comfortable toying with our basic human rights…right?

This is literally why I have been such a proponent for active and inclusive spaces for queer people of ALL ages… which absolutely includes minors. Which is something that (depending on your region) has been a common thing in many queer spaces and even during pride where you will find various events such as inter-generational lunches and youth camps.

Now, we are seeing these super conservatives use one of the most vulnerable and easily impressionable groups of people in society to project their horrific ideologies onto in the name of their ‘safety’ while y’all…are too busy complaining about how kids don’t ‘deserve’ to be at pride. Do y’all not see how this was a missed opportunity to create better community opportunities for kids and teens, especially if they’re queer/trans? Do y’all not realize how important the youth in any community, but especially in minority communities, and their education and (physical/mental) safety are to making sure the future of that community can continue?

This is the nuance that has been consistently missing in these conversations about pride and community, overall, and it’s genuinely baffling to me how y’all only give a shit about your personal adult endeavors being affected by this wave of conservatism. As if everything else, especially the autonomy of minors, is some kind of pit stop in the grand scheme of activism when it’s literally the bedrock of so many current social issues that we are seeing and experiencing today.

Everything is connected. Everything. So, if your ‘queer activism’ doesn’t even include the health, safety, and education of minors…then it’s genuinely worthless. I don’t care if you want kids or not because that’s not what the point of this post is about!

Your personal hang ups with your parents regarding children has nothing to do with the bigger picture of needing to create a better society for the future generations of human beings who did not ask to be here, like the rest of us. Y’all have spent far too long seeing the forest for the trees and that’s what’s been putting so many ‘leftists’ on ice when it comes to actually organizing and making real structural change.

Some of y’all may not like hearing this but we do have a responsibility to be just as supportive and compassionate towards children and teens as we are towards anyone else in this world. Think about your own foundations as kids and teens. Wouldn’t it have made your life easier knowing there are communities of adults and peers you could trust? Wouldn’t it have saved you some anxiety to just know that you could have more than one or two people to reach out to when you were in pain?

NOTE: yes this can be reblogged, but if you respond with some annoying ass ‘uwu but I don’t like kids’, you’re getting blocked.

Also: THIS POST IS NOT FOR ‘PRO PARAPHILIA’ CREEPS! STAY OFF MY POSTS!

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raayllum · 11 months

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not really appreciating or understanding still the whole purity culture accusation for pointing out that people are well in their right to find a unhealthy power dynamic ship between Aaravos and a 19 yr old more uncomfortable than Aaravos and a middle aged guy well into adulthood - this isn't purity culture, this is, like, a really normal perspective and perfectly fine for the fanbase of primarily young people (if not children) to have, I don't understand what's worth getting upset about, is this just rehashed proship discourse or what

and I don't think you're really in the mindset to be having this discussion, considering I've said your main point of contention - that it is understandable and ofc absolutely allowed for the age gap to be what people find off putting about Claudia and Aaravos - over and over again:

like to be clear whatever makes you uncomfortable makes you uncomfortable, nothing wrong with that, block tags/people and curate your experience all you want

and I'm gonna be honest with you, on tumblr? TDP is an extremely adult heavy fandom. To the point that when I first joined the fandom back in 2018, I was one of the youngest, and still am, even in my early 20s now. And tumblr is a 17+ age site anyway, so young children shouldn't even be on here (and if they are, they had to sign a button saying they were older, and it's on them and their parents to figure out how to curate their online experience, soo).

So let me reiterate:

People are allowed to be squicked out by Claudia and Aaravos' age gap. But to act like there's a moral slant to it - Viren/Aaravos being better/fine/less morally problematic - is a facet of purity culture and culturally Christian attitudes towards sex. The issue isn't the discomfort, that's something that's often very personal and subjective, the issue is the moralization of that discomfort. Which, as a queer person, is very very similar to how discomfort and morality are utilized and weaponized against queer people and 'taboo' literature in general. Which again, as someone with a degree in English who also teaches the humanities for a living, is something I'm acutely familiar with.

"We have to be careful about what we portray in art because impressionable people may get confused between art and reality" is not a new take. It's the backbone of Plato's The Republic. It's what essays were written in opposition of in the 1600s. It's what 19th century British grammarians were concerned with when codifying 'proper' English down into the first real dictionaries. It's the same mindset curbing portrayals of LGBTQ+ people in media today, because when you moralize certain things, you put up emotional barriers than get in the way of actually dismantling the thing you're talking about in the first place. It's all the same shit. It's all the same moralized thought crime. And to say you should never question WHY something is uncomfortable is a surefire way to never question any bias you may or may not have - because biases aren't always bad, but they should absolutely always be examined so you can see where it's coming from. Yours and others personal discomfort is not a Standard, the same way what I'm personally comfortable with or discomforted by is not a Standard, but I'm not acting like mine is, and you are

'Rehashed proship discourse' is what helped cultivate the environment that led to a massive wave of harassment of the aro and ace communities online from 2013ish to 2017ish (which I saw first hand). It's also what led to me, a 16 year old, being harassed by grown adults and called a pedophile somewhat regularly for what cartoon characters I wanted to kiss, because I had the same opinions on not moralizing what people do in fandom as I did at thirteen, and as I do now.

If you look at any ship or dynamic with a large age gap and write it off solely because of the age gap, you're not engaging in critical thinking. It's a "you don't need to know why this thing is bad, you just need to know it has a label of Bad". It's as simple as that, and that's precisely the problem.

If you want to do more reading and to expand your horizons on the subjects I'm talking about (literary analysis, societal purity culture, upacking biases, etc.) I suggest this tag on my main blog, and feel free to come back and discuss. If not, have a good day, but I don't feel like continuing this conversation any further, simply because unsurprisingly, it seems that critical thinking is something you are struggling to apply, and I don't think we're going to get very far without it.

#thanks for asking #anonymous #bangs head against a wall #fandom nonsense

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wildflowerteas · 3 months

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hey, hello. i’m not sure if you’ll recognize me, but this is mania.sama on ao3, and i just now found your tumblr on my for you page. i havent had tumblr very long, and it’s surprised just how many people i’ve enjoyed works of (writing, drawings, etc) are here. especially surprised to see you — not in a bad way, of course!

i’m not sure what to say. sorry, maybe, for not reading / up to date with your current fic. i want to be reading it, i really do, but i was caught up reading “crime and punishment”, focusing on my academia, etc, among other issues that’s kept me away from committing to any long-form fanfictions. i wasn’t even reading one-shots or writing anything for a little while. hopefully i will be getting back onto your fic so, because from what little i’ve read already when you first posted it, it’s going to be life-changing.

i want to say more, i think. ask a question or two? i’m just very excited to see that your also drawing — amazing artwork for the second perspective!! i genuinely couldn’t believe it was real at first — and also a similar age to me, which i find nearly unbelievable due to your insane talent and skill.

hm. i think i’ll ask this question: what are your top favorite books? this could be fanfiction, short-form stories, novels, series, etc. you can list as many as you want; if they seem significant to you, have changed you, or were simply that well done and enjoyable. you dont need to treat this as a book recommendation; think not what other people should read. just express your own thoughts on why you have chosen these works as your favorite! i’m excited to see what you have to say (should you chose to answer, of course!)

again, hopefully i will read the second perspective soon <3 thank you so much for all the work you’ve done so far.

OH MY GOD IT'S YOUUU !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to start this off by saying you quite literally changed my life. I go back from time to time and I read our little conversation in my comments threads and I get a little teary-eyed ( embarrassingly ). You gave me such a different perspective on my own writing and I've spent a while wishing there was something I could do to make you feel the same way in return. Do NOT apologize for not reading it!!! I'm absolutely in awe and so grateful you enjoyed the first one so much and if you enjoy TSP too that would actually make my head spin. Also, we're the same age?????? Hello?????? I'm so glad to hear about your life in the interim, though. I hope you enjoyed Crime and Punishment ( isn't it so good??? ). Also, you briefly mentioned writing yourself, so I may have to go back and stalk your profile for your works now.

Hmmm . . . to answer your question. This is pretty difficult because I've loved a lot of books over the years for nothing specific at all ( some of them are quite ridiculous if I'm being honest ). But here goes nothing:

When I was little ( maybe three-four ish? ), I loved Tumtum & Nutmeg, a series about a mouse couple living inside of a refurbished cupboard, because the books always came with recipes at the back ( that I would make for my family ). When I think about reading/my favorite books when I was a child, I always go back to this blurry rose-colored vision of me sitting on the couch at seven a.m., Tuesday morning, waiting to go to school, and talking my mother's ear off about the pastries in the book while Planet Earth plays on the TV. Lately, though, I've enjoyed reading Breasts and Eggs by Kawakami Mieko. Which, for a lot of reasons, has deeply resonated with me and kind of ruined my life. Womanhood in Japan, and womanhood in general, is dissected so well and explored with a lot of different character perspectives. It's just an incredible work and deeply personal to me as a queer, Japanese, and afab person. Empire of Pain, which was recommended to me by a friend, has become one of my favorite books as well. I've never really done well with non-fiction, but reading about the Sacklers definitely changed that. No Longer Human, and School Girl by Dazai Osamu. NLH I read in a school context ( Japanese language-learning classes ) and I wasn't really allowed to love it because of that ( who likes required reading? ). But I went back to it a few years later, when I was really struggling mentally, and it became something to me that I can't quite name or place. Not really a comfort. I'd actually say it was more of a wake-up call to teen me that actually prompted me to seek out help and rip down the fourth wall I'd put up between myself and others. School Girl I love for more technical reasons. Dazai really was a once-in-a-century talent. Poor Folk, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, was my reading-for-enjoyment book during spring semester of my first year at college. I loved a lot about it, but it's on this list because I'm emotionally attached to the characters because we were together for so long. On a less serious note: Bungo Stray Dogs ( Obviously, despite whatever Asagiri is cooking up) and Yona of the Dawn by Kusanagi Mizuho. Next to BSD, it's one of the manga I've been a fan of for over a decade, and I just could not imagine my life without it. Flowers for Algernon. I read this . . . oh gosh. Years ago. And I never reread it. That's all I'll say about that. Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata. Again, a Japanese author ( there would be more, but I'm keeping myself contained here ) who would have thought? I think, by now, it's pretty clear I'm Japanese myself. Kira-Kira ( a Japanese onomatopoeia/mimetic word meaning 'sparkling' ) was a tearjerker, yes, but it also made me look out into the world and at my own identity with a much kinder lens. I fell in love with my own name ( which is the mimetic word for 'smile' --- niko-niko ) all over again. And I think, for that, it makes the list.

Honestly, I'm not sure these are my favorites. They're just the ones that come to my mind when I think about reading and liking literature in general. I'm sure if I was an English major or a CompLit major ( or if I was feeling particularly pretentious today ), I'd have more to say about them in terms of actual 'quality' or about their themes, but I don't.

I also want to say thank you so much for reaching out and asking this!! it's been so fun ( especially since I just got done writing a mind-boggling mess of a chapter for TSP hehe ). I really enjoyed talking to you the first time around and now that you're here on tumblr!!! I hope we can interact more I'd really love to be friends :,) <3 tysm agh. I hope you're having the loveliest of days. niko <3

#ask #writing

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idiopathicsmile · 1 year

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Hello!

I know you probably get countless messages like this, so I know that it’s unlikely that I will ever know if you do read it.

I really despise not telling people the (positive) impacts they’ve had on me, though - probably something for me to look into, but that’s not the point.

The point is that when I was in 7th grade (~13 years old), I went through some really horrible shit at school. I got outed, as bi and then trans, and that escalated into threats of hate crimes. I went to a small private school, and the kids who were tormenting me had rich parents who donated inordinate amounts of money. So nothing happened.

I had never read fanfiction before. I don’t really know how I stumbled onto AO3, to be honest - my older sibling had read Les Misérables recently, and I wanted to be able to connect to them through it without reading the brick.

I did not know any of the characters from World Ain’t Ready when I read it, but they were familiar to me. I saw myself in Jehan, but I wanted to be as brave as Grantaire. My older sibling, who has protected me my whole life, and was the only one who made sure I was safe, was clearly mirrored in Enjolras.

I’m sure I’d seen queerness in some media before I read WAR, but I don’t remember it. It didn’t hit as hard as this did. I read the whole thing in one night and I’m pretty sure it fundamentally changed me. School still sucked, sure, and I still have issues from it. But one of the ways I survived was because every time I thought I couldn’t get through it, I found myself thinking about Grantaire and Jehan and how they might be if they were in my shoes. WAR isn’t dark in the way that I was experiencing, I don’t think, but I could still understand them, and I felt understood by them.

Maybe if I hadn’t found WAR, I would have found something else - after all, there are more that I’ve found now. But it was World Ain’t Ready that I found and that introduced me to fanfiction, which has helped me through so much past that year.

Now, World Ain’t Ready is the first bookmark on my account. I’ve finished my first semester of college. I am here, and I don’t know if I’m happy, but I’m so much better than I was when I first read WAR. I’m not saying that it made me better, or absolutely was the one thing that saved me, but it did change me, and it did help me.

I still haven’t read Les Misérables. I’ve read bits - mostly surrounding Grantaire, or Enjolras and Grantaire - but not the whole thing. I’m rather happy with my current understanding of the characters and general plot via fanfics, wiki pages, and friends, though.

So, if you ever do see this, and if you ever do feel like responding, let me know if I should read it.

Thank you for everything - and I can’t wait to read what you write next 🤍

hello!

thank you so much for reaching out. i definitely read every message and comment i get, but sometimes i get too overwhelmed to reply. that said, it felt important to reply to this one.

i am so sorry that people treated you so horribly, and that you were in that whole awful situation. not just the bullying, but knowing that the adults in charge of keeping you safe had bent to the pressure of money and the status quo must have been really hard to grapple with at that age.

i am so glad you had a sibling in your corner, and if my fic—and fic in general—was able to help you at all. as you may know, getting any message that says "hey, this had a positive impact on me" even if it's just "this helped me pass a few pleasant moments" is one of the main reasons a lot of us write to begin with. (including me.)

thank you for this message, and please take care. please be patient with yourself if it takes a long time to heal from your trauma. you have a lot to process.

as for whether or not you should read les mis, i should probably tell you that i have only read parts of it too, and mostly the parts about fantine. much like your own patchwork intake of the story, my characterization is a mishmash of the musical and reading meta that other people wrote back in the day. i feel like my advice here would maybe be to get it from your library—here is a guide to the various translations; my understanding is that the denny version is not very good—and try it out for yourself before committing to buying a book that big.

thank you again for this kind note and i wish you a lovely 2023!

-jess

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shutupeiffel · 24 days

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4, 8, 12 for the bookworm asks?

Thank you for these prompts!

4 - Favourite sci-fi books: This is going to be a very abbreviated list because otherwise i could go on for days but some of my favourites are:

The Wayfarers series by Becky Chambers - hopeful and character driven sci fi that weaves some amazing anthropological world building in and also convinced me after a reading slump that actually I didn't hate books, I just needed to read the right ones

The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir - there's nothing I can say about these books that hasn't been said by twenty thousand other people. They're amazing, they're the perfect blend of sci-fi/fantasy, go read all three and then suffer with the rest of us in anticipation for book 4

Dreadnought by April Daniels - Trans girl inherits the powers of a superhero, including giving her the perfect body - aka transition speedrun, aka my personal dream. A really interesting look at superheroes and what it would actually be like to be thrust into that world - if you want to know more, The Hidden Bookcase did a great episode on it!

8 - Favourite Queer Fiction Books: Again, too many to count, but here are some highlights

The London Calling series by Alexis Hall - The gay rom com we all deserve. Starts off with fake dating, ends with a book dedicated to the complicated relationship queer people have with marriage and the experience of reaching that weird age where all your friends are getting married and you don't know what to do with yourself. Will make you laugh, sob, then laugh and sob simultaneously

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters - don't let the title put you off like it nearly did me, this book is not weird TERF stuff. Instead it's an incredibly powerful look at trans experiences, motherhood, loneliness and, yes, detransition. Every character is messy and flawed in a way that trans people - especially trans women - are very rarely allowed to be, and honestly its so refreshing. 10/10, would not recommend to cis people unless they're really chill with trans people.

Infamous by Lex Croucher - Found this in a bookshop for £2.50, took a chance on it since I recognised Croucher from their YouTube days, instantly fell in love. Croucher has an absolute gift for writing complicated female protagonists, deconstructing the 'not like other girls' mindset from within and exploring the dangers of being caught up in that idea of yourself and the kind of superiority complex you get. Also it's Regency and it's lesbians, which are two things almost guaranteed to get me into a book.

12 - Favourite Horror Books:

How To Sell A Haunted House by Grady Hendrix - Absolutely gripping horror - I spent the entire book trying to work out if I was enjoying myself or genuinely terrified, but my god did I finish it. All the best horror is secretly a metaphor for something else, and this one is no difference. There's some amazing explorations of generational trauma and the impact of keeping secrets, even when you don't even know you're keeping said secrets because you've just repressed the memories so incredibly hard. Also - terrifying murder puppets.

A House With Good Bones by T Kingfisher - Apparently I love a creepy house/tale of generational trauma? I found T Kingfisher through her fantasy book Nettle & Bone, so was apprehensive about horror, but this book was amazing. Also has some great Suburban America Horror and a really solid mystery running through, which is absolutely essential for me with horror - I am, at heart, a murder mystery boy who happens to also vibe with ghosts, especially rose based ones

#asked and answered #ask game #bookworm ask game

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vaguelyprophetic · 1 year

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ok okay so stewy hosseini thoughts/general headcanons? because that man is the love of my life and he does not get the recognition and attention he deserves!!! What’s your hc sexuality for him? What’s his family like? Is he close with them? We are completely disregarding the “his family was in the oil business” hc so what do you think, are his family similar to Logan in how they built the success, the complete opposite? Anything and everything you think about this man, let us know!! Did he ever have a crush on Ken when they were younger? Fuck it, whose his celebrity crush? Does he totally judge Kendall for his music playlist does his Spotify wrapped actually look the same as Ken’s? What’s his love language? Does he believe in love or has he always been a no commitment-hook up kinda a guy? Some general stewyroman hc’s as well because I cannot resist. Because if the writers of Succession will not give us these details, dammit we have to do it ourselves! (also, yes yes to your comment about him having sisters)

I am kissing you DIRECTLY on the mouth for sending this ask bc holy fuck I love stewy so much and he needs all of the attention in the world. a lot of my thoughts about stewy come from what arian has said about him in interviews and online, but I also have my own ideas about him!!!! putting it under a read more because this is way longer than I thought it'd be lol

first of all that man is gay. 100% homosexual kinsey six has never had interest in a woman GAY. I don't see how there can be any other interpretation of him.

his family is VERY intriguing to me. arian has said that he has an idea of what stewy's backstory is but that he didn't want to discuss it in canon, so we'll never know for sure. my personal headcanon is that stewy's parents are immigrants and that he's first-gen -- I think his parents and his older sister came to the US from iran a few years before stewy was born. I don't want to speak to an experience that I know nothing about so I won't expand too much, but that's just my basic idea! he 100% grew up with sisters -- one older, one younger (yes he's a middle child. I know he is). I think there's probably like a 4-5 year age gap between each of them, maybe slightly more between stewy and his older sister. he had the experience of being the Only Boy in his family, which I think makes sense for how he acts in canon lol.

and he's close with his family!! absolutely!! it's fascinating to me that we now have canon info about stewy's dad -- that he's still alive and older than logan by like 10-12 years. but that's all we know! I think he's also very close with his mom (only son = total mama's boy) and his sisters. he texts his sisters at least every other day and I just KNOW that man is an uncle and absolutely spoils his sisters' kids.

I do think his family is well-off, but definitely not roy levels of rich. they had enough money to send stewy to buckley, which is a ridiculously elite and expensive school, so clearly they were at least relatively wealthy. maybe his dad was also involved in business, similar to logan, but just not at the same tier. I think probably his fam made enough money to get their kids started off and then stewy was able to take his share of it and make himself ridiculously rich.

I think stewy had feelings for kendall when they were younger in the way that queer kids always have crushes on their best friends but don't really understand it. and that probably lasted until they were in college -- stewy always knew that there was no chance, but it didn't stop him from having those feelings :( but I think that when they went to harvard he was able to start meeting other people and having his first few relationships with guys and eventually got over his childhood crush.

I think he's not really a relationship guy in the sense that he's never had a serious, long-term relationship, but that he doesn't really feel like he's missing out on anything. his mindset is just that if he meets the right person, then that's great, but if not, then he's fine on his own, too. and hmmm I think that his love language in terms of how he shows love is through gift giving and quality time. he just likes to be around people he likes and is also a master at gift giving -- he knows exactly what people want and always finds something that's very high quality without being so expensive that it's a stupid purchase. and on the receiving end I think he's a physical touch and words of affirmation type of guy :) he's a cuddler for sure.

I could keep going on about him forever and ever but I think I'll stop there for now lol. please keep sending asks though!!!!!! I have so many thoughts abt stewy hosseini and I am so happy that people want to hear them <3

#my favorite man in the whole world #stewy hosseini #succession #ask #anonymous

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katierosefun · 2 years

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hi katie!!

i dont watch kdramas but my mom is obsessed with them, ive been loving the gifsets you post bc it gives me new shows to recommend to her. her favorite so far that ive recced from ur account is 25+21, that one absolutely wrecked her haha

she’s looking for some new ones rn and i was wondering if you had any faves i could send to her? in return ill tell you her favorites, ‘Descendants of the Sun’, ‘Crash Landing on You’, ‘Vincenzo’, ‘Yumi’s Cells’, and ‘Soundtrack #2(i think thats the name????)’

siarra, hello!! !!!! ! i'm so touched that you find the kdramas i reblog about interesting, esp. as i was a bit nervous about posting all of that stuff at first. but anyways! of course, i can absolutely rec some! if your mom liked the vibes of twenty five twenty one in particular, here are some below that have similar vibes . . . but i've also recced some that are from other genres but are still absolute faves, if your mom's interested in expanding her horizons!

be melodramatic (available on netflix, dramacool, kissasian, etc)

i absolutely adored this kdrama. like, my entire family's been listening to me laugh at it for the last month or so because i just took so much delight in the show. basically, it's about a group of thirty year olds living together: one is currently an aspiring drama writer, another is a single mother working in a production company, another is a documentarian who recently lost her partner, and the last one--although he's a side character, so he won't get as much screentime, but he's incredibly lovely--is an out gay musician. (and the representation is FANTASTIC. admittedly, he doesn't have a whole ton of scenes with his boyfriend, but whenever he does, they're very quietly sweet, and given that this show was released in 2019 and kdramas are unfortunately very heterosexual, this representation was genuinely . . . so good, in that queerness isn't ever a joke or a Token thing.) anyways, this show in general is just so . . . good. there are so many laughs, and the characters feel very real. you see them struggle, you see them achieve, you see them learn and heal and, i think what i loved the most from this show, was that you got to see them support each other over and over again. genuinely one of my favorite shows in the coming-of-age/slice-of-life genre!

2. age of youth/hello, my twenties! (available on netflix, kissasian, dramacool, etc)

this is another one of my fave coming-of-age/slice-of-life kdramas, and if your mom's still digging the "people in their twenties growing up and learning" vibes, this is another show that should be on her list! basically, this show is about a group of college-aged girls living together in a share house and all the highs and lows that they have to deal with because they're all in their twenties. this show, like be melodramatic, is very much so full of laughs and tears and everything in between. the characters are all so complex and nuanced, and they all make such a lovely group of friends. i find myself wishing i could revisit them :')

3. because this is my first life (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool, etc)

this is another really fantastic slice-of-life drama about two people in their thirties--and they get married for financial purposes. nothing more, nothing less. but of course, some other things happen along the way.

i really can't express enough how genuinely . . . sweet this drama is? one character is a drama writer who's taking a break from writing after some not-so-great things with her boss, and the other works in the software design field. so they've got pretty different personalities, but they fit together well? and you can tell that they do support each other or they want to support each other, even if they just feel like weird roommates at first. another plus of this drama is just! the power of female friendships! (can you see a pattern here?) they're great. you've got women in their thirties who are all at a different place with different dreams and different wants, and no dream is considered somehow lesser than the other, which is really fantastic. so in general: a really beautiful drama, with some genuinely beautiful lines as well!

4. our beloved summer (available on netflix, kissasian, dramacool, etc)

this is a drama that i knew was going to be great . . . and it didn’t disappoint me! a genuinely soft and heartwarming drama--this is about a young woman and a young man who went viral in their high school years for being in a documentary together. now, they’re living different lives . . . and feeling still very frigid with one another because they dated after doing the documentary together. they broke up, but now, ten years after that documentary, they’re supposed to be filmed again, kind of as a “where are they now?” project.

this drama was just. i knew the premise was interesting, and the story was just perfect. lots of bittersweet feelings, as well as genuinely thoughtful insights into why someone might want to break up in a seemingly loving relationship. all about growth, maturity, as well as coming to terms with how to heal. this whole drama feels like a ray of sunlight.

other genres, that are not necessarily about youth/coming-of-age but are still genuinely lovely and i would recommend them anyways:

1. beyond evil (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool, etc)

i don’t know how your mom feels about the thriller genre, but on the chance that she might be interested: i need to recommend beyond evil almost every time, just because i think it’s genuinely one of the best korean dramas--or tv shows in general--ever. it’s about a man who, 20 years ago, was accused of kidnapping and potentially murdering his twin sister. when a new detective comes to this small town, the murders start up again--and now this new detective and this once-accused man must find the truth of the murders together.

i can’t express enough just how much this show is . . . so good. i would say it’s less a thriller and honestly . . . a little bit of melodrama as well, a bit of a romance. it’s also different from other thrillers in that this show never feels like trauma porn (esp. since so many thrillers/crime shows, unfortunately, tend to express overkill on the violence to largely female victims). this show also centers itself on exactly how much a tragedy impacts the victims--and how it’s never too late to heal or find justice or love or belonging in general. genuinely one of the best shows ever. the mystery is great, and the acting is fantastic, and the music and the writing and the CHEMISTRY, good grief, shin ha kyun and yeo jin goo’s chemistry is off-the-walls legendary. also worth noting that it’s won 3 baeksang awards (one of the most prestigious awards a drama can earn): one for best leading actor (shin ha kyun!!! my love!!), one for best script (because writer kim su jin put her everything into this show, and it’s quite insane to think that she’s actually still considered a very new writer), and one for best drama of 2021. because. because it really is, even though this show was slated for the worst time when it was airing. beyond evil was considered the underdog of the jtbc company, and yet it wound up coming on top in 2021, so that should tell you a little something about exactly how wonderful this show is!

2. miss hammurabi (available on viki, kissasian, dramacool)

so, this is a courtroom/legal korean drama about three judges, but mostly about one kind of unusual judge, who seems especially tenacious and determined to execute justice. the fact that i think this show was written by a former judge themselves, so it’s much more realistic and less melodramatic than most courtroom dramas you’ll find. (like, sometimes someone’s working in the legal field because they’ve got some personal scars, and that might influence the way they feel about the law, but not every legal kdrama needs to be about some personal agenda for revenge or anything . . . which! those kinds of kdramas can be really fun, but it was nice to see a kdrama about the law and how it works with an emphasis on exactly how simultaneously frustrating and hopeful the legal system can be).

i just . . . i love this drama so much. you really do root for the characters, and there are so many scenes that just bring me a lot of comfort. there are also some themes about how important it is to lean a little bit on another person--and even though this show isn’t really romance-heavy, the main duo in this show is really :’)) wholesome :’))

3. w: two worlds (available on viki, kissasian, dramacool)

this is honestly one of my fave supernatural-esque/contemporary fantasy-esque kdramas, and the fact that it’s been one of my faves for about six years says quite a lot. basically, this story is about a young doctor who accidentally winds up in the world of a comic written by her father. along the process, she keeps saving the main protagonist of this comic--and that has all kinds of consequences.

it’s just . . . this show is so good. it’s so meta, and it’s genuinely smartly written, dealing with stories and the nature of stories and characters and it’s like ! there’s something so quietly metal about it. like! one of the lines being about “i am rooting for you to have a happy ending” is honestly one of my favorite lines ever, and i’ve heard myself saying it whenever i want to comfort someone as well. there’s just. like. a quiet determination about getting your happy ending, and the fact that this was working in a contemporary fantasy brought me a lot of joy.

4. the crowned clown (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool)

so, if your mom’s interested in historical/period dramas, the crowned clown is absolutely a must-watch. basically, this show is about a king who, after an attempt on his life, decides to use a commoner to take his place--a commoner who just so happens to share his exact same face. (think prince and the pauper, but now darker and in the joseon era.)

besides the insanely good acting in this show, this show is just so great in the period drama sense because a lot of historical dramas (also known as saeguks) can be kinda boring in between the political jargon, but the crowned clown is so genuinely good in that the political court drama is very easy to follow, and it’s so rich in that like . . there are so many things happening at once, but each part is so intriguing. you won’t be bored for a single second! (also worth noting that yeo jin goo, who was the lead actor in this show, made history by being the youngest ever actor nominated for a baeksang award in this show. i think he was only 21 or so when he was filming this show, maybe even younger, which is genuinely. insane. insane.)

5. my mister (available on netflix, viki, kissasian, dramacool, etc)

this drama is just so . . . good. i don’t really know what genre i would label this, because it’s partly thriller, partly . . . coming-of-age? i think? partly slice-of-life? but it’s a bit morbid at times, but it’s also healing? god, how to describe this show . . .

basically, it’s about a fortysomething man working as a structural engineer. he’s not . . . really happy with his life, although he never admits it. in his same company, there’s a young temp who’s currently paying back a bunch of debt to loan sharks, while also taking care of her deaf grandma. along the process of this show, they start to support and comfort each other. a win for platonic soulmates, because this show is just so . . . it means a lot to a lot of different people, and it’s not really a surprise that it got so much critical acclaim, despite its initially low rankings. a gem, very much like beyond evil in the sense that you go in expecting it to be dark, but you have zero regrets about watching it to the end.

6. tomorrow (available on netflix, kissasian, dramacool)

this is another contemporary fantasy/supernatural kdrama, and i honestly adore it. this show follows a bunch of grim reapers, only instead of escorting someone to their afterlife, these grim reapers prevent people from committing suicide. as you might imagine, this show might cover some pretty difficult themes (some of them including miscarriage, bullying, ptsd). however, this show is special in that it covers all these themes with so much compassion. so much compassion. this show never really feels like it’s overdoing the suffering that people go through in order to want to kill themselves--they show just enough, and they do so in a way that’s almost like . . . it feels like it’s genuinely out of respect for the people who might have suffered through these similar situations. they show enough necessary pain to demonstrate that these are legitimate problems, but they never go overkill where it feels like trauma porn.

i should also note that the characters in this show are just . . . god, i love them. i love them. the trio of grim reapers we get to know are genuinely just . . . chaotic and adoring and i haven’t loved a trio like this since like. the clone wars. which says a lot. (also, if you or your mom likes the sunshine/sunshine protector + sunshine protector dynamic, this is def. present in this show.)

anyways. it’s a healing show. a must-watch for anyone and everyone, i think. it made me want to be a better person, and it brought me so much comfort, especially when i wanted to not think about reality for a bit.

#answered #caroline recs #OH BOY yeah these shows are all EXCELLENT i highly recommend

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samaelwinchester · 2 years

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what is proshipping? proshippers? saw your reblog and I'm confused

the way it's evolved into a stupid ass dichotomy pisses me off so i actually hate the term proshipper but i'll explain it for you (tldr at the end in case you didnt want a whole speech). and i'll stick it under a read more in case the rest of yall know the drill:

so a "proshipper" is someone who either supports, consumes or creates problematic ship content, like fics or art that contains romanticized rape, incest, abuse and/or pedophilia. they often also use the term "dead dove" after the arrested development joke that basically means "there's romanticization of really fucked up subject matter in here but it's okay because i labeled it so you can't be mad at me!" instead of understanding that the majority of people on this earth are disturbed by such content, they make it their entire online identity and act like an oppressed group because they like reading about pedophilia and rape fics. they call themselves proshippers so it sounds like a noble cause of general artistic freedom when all it means is they like gross shit for the sake of it being gross.

in direct opposition to proshippers are "antis", who you'll hear proshippers bitch about like their lives depend on it. they also call them "fancops", as if strangers on the internet judging your weird paraphilias is even slightly comparable to the heinous shit police do every day. they like to paint antis as ill-informed, entitled and puritanical teenagers who will dox your whole family and ruin your life if you like a ship with a 1 year age gap.

now, do some of them go too far? absolutely. i don't consider myself an "anti". i don't doxx or threaten people that i find gross. i personally believe dark and upsetting topics such as rape, pedophilia, racism, etc. can have their place in a piece of media when it's done with care and nuance and not as a backdrop for your fetish material. i don't want everything i read or watch to be sunshine and rainbows either, but i think using these things to get your rocks off is fucking weird. "but it's fictional! the child being sexually assaulted isn't real!" you are, though. and you're getting off to the fantasy of a child being abused. people are gonna find that weird. if someone's a proshipper, i block and move on with my day. not interested in affiliating or even engaging with people like that.

what pisses me off the most is how many times lgbt+ proshippers try to pass off the shit they do as queer culture. they accuse antis of being homophobic, conservative puritans who are censoring queer media whenever they take issue with them. but nothing, in my opinion, cries "homophobic conservative puritan" more than insinuating a connection between queer culture and things like rape and pedophilia.

TLDR: proshippers like to read fics about romanticized rape and pedophilia and other morally reprehensible topics. antis oppose them. not everybody fits into either side, so making it a "them vs. us" issue was the worst possible outcome. thank voltron legendary defender, whose horrible, brain-rotted fanbase almost gives supernatural a run for their money.

#having been in a fandom where the majority of antis were destiel shippers and the proshippers liked wincest... not too fond of either!#but i def hate proshippers more just because i find being aroused by that stuff much worse than whatever antis are doing #this is probably the most i've ever said in a long time but god damn i have thoughts from seeing a lot of stupid bullshit!

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dovesndecay · 2 years

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If your criticisms of media aimed at people under the age of 21 consists primarily of "it's baby media for babies, wah" (kindly infer the whiny voice I'm saying this in) then your opinions mean nothing to me because you're not approaching the content with any level of nuance or even the basic common decency to acknowledge that something doesn't have to be for you to have value for someone else.

The number of y'all that I see out here watching these popular middle grade range of cartoons and absolutely ripping them to pieces is honestly baffling to me -- if you're not enjoying it, why are you watching it?

Like, don't get me wrong -- there are plenty of criticisms that are legitimate and should be talked about by some groups of people.

But y'all are out here accusing Queer Jewish creators of fascist apologism, ignoring the contributions of Black creators (if not outright saying that their work is racist) [please go read Ian Jones-Quartey's commentary about the Pizza family on Steven Universe, where he talks about how they were directly inspired by and designed to reflect his Nigerian [edit] Ghanian immigrant family], or accusing those same Black creators of being predators for not being upset over NSFW fanart (like, WOW y'all gotta stop), and a wide variety of other utterly unhinged hot takes that I cannot even begin to list here.

If you think that it would have been better for Steven Universe to depict the SIXTEEN YEAR OLD (as of SU:F) sentencing the Diamonds to be shattered (essentially and literally executed), congrats, you missed the entire point of the show.

It's not about fascism.

It's about intergenerational trauma.

As someone who has suffered the effects of multi-generational abuse and toxicity, I wish I could sit my grandmother down and point out the ways she hurt my mother and help her find a way to be better. I don't want to hurt her; I want her to heal. (I have not always felt this way; my own self-healing journey has led me to this point.)

It's not wrong to want zero contact with people that have hurt you, or have been the catalyst for hurt you've experienced.

But it's also not wrong to want to help them heal.

People process things differently, make different decisions, and shows like Steven Universe, and She-Ra, etc, they show that healing is not a zero sum game; the healing process is not one-size-fits-all, but also, no one is beyond helping.

You don't have to be the one to help them, but you don't get to tell anyone else that they aren't allowed to.

Anyway, if y'all don't even like kids' cartoons, don't fucking watch them.

[go ahead, clown in my notes; i'm just gonna block ya, bud]

#original post

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sophieakatz · 2 years

Text

Thursday Thoughts: Questioning

Being a Jew helped me realize and be comfortable with my queerness.

I’m not saying that Judaism is inherently more welcoming to queer people than other religions. Unfortunately, you’ll find bigots anywhere. But growing up with Judaism as my cultural background – my structure for how I interacted with the big questions of life, the universe, and everything – was a major factor in my journey of coming out to myself.

One of the central features of Judaism is questioning. We’re supposed to ask why we are who we are and why we do what we do. We encourage it from an early age. For example, a main event in the Pesach seder is the recitation of the Four Questions. Each of these questions are about why we’re doing what we’re doing tonight, and they are traditionally asked by the youngest person attending the seder. Nothing in Judaism is so untouchable or absolute as to go without question. We hold the Talmud, a collection of rabbinical debates and interpretations and counter-interpretations of Jewish law, with as much esteem as we hold the Torah, the word of God. And the Torah is full of examples of our ancestors questioning even the word of God. When God told Abraham, the first Jew, that God would destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their wickedness, Abraham asked God if he would spare the cities if there were just fifty righteous people living there – or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or ten.

Once a stranger told me that if I was still a member of the religion that I was born into, then I must have never put any thought into it or questioned anything. I had to laugh – clearly this person had never met a Jew before! When it comes to questioning literally everything, I had been given a head start.

There’s a common narrative that people in the queer community “always knew” they were queer. That’s true for some people, but not everyone. A lot of people are never told that other options exist, and if you don’t know that an identity exists, you can’t identify with it. In middle school, I didn’t know that the ace and aro spectrums existed. But I knew that my classmates were going crazy for crushes, and I wasn’t. I knew that the behavior of people in romance stories made no sense to me. So I looked at that expectation, that truth of the world that said everyone is drawn to other people in this way, and I thought, “Why? Why is that the way it is? If what I’m feeling is the same thing that everyone else is feeling, then why is everyone else behaving so differently from me? If it’s true that everyone wants this and feels this, then why don’t I?”

I didn’t have an answer, but I had the questions, and thanks to my cultural upbringing, I was more comfortable questioning than I was simply accepting the narrative that didn’t make any sense to me. And because I had those questions, when I finally found an answer, I was ready for it. I was ready to believe that I was not straight. And I have been ready for every subsequent realization about my identity. I’ve never struggled with it or hated myself for it, because I never accepted the idea that my queerness was impossible or wrong in the first place. Everything about myself, everything about the world, can be questioned.

Of course, not all questioning results in a change in how you identify. Though that stranger wouldn’t believe me, I have questioned my Judaism plenty, and I still proudly consider myself a Jew. I’ve questioned my gender and I still identify with the gender they assigned me at birth. There’s no danger in questioning, and there is everything to gain. Once you’ve asked “why,” you can end up with a wonderful, powerful, sure-of-yourself “because.” In my opinion, anything that’s worth being can be made better by being thoughtful about it, and I have generations upon generations of Jews before me to thank for that philosophy.

#thursday thoughts #judaism #aroace #aro #ace #queer #aromantic #asexual #demisexual #coming out #queer community #jewish #jumblr #questioning #torah #talmud

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olderthannetfic · 2 years

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I need advice and this blog seemed the place... I have some irl friends who are the fandomy type. They like to read fanfiction on ao3, like to ship things and headcanon characters as queer, the like. One of them at least also considers himself educated on politics, particularly left leaning politics. Generally we get along but there's one snag we keep hitting and it's in the pro shipper vs anti debate.

Thankfully my friends aren't full blown antis, at least most of them, but the rhetoric is similar. Any age gap is problematic and on one occasion (which I went ballistic over) they outright stated I needed mental help because I liked age gap relationships. I let them know this was absolutely not okay for them to say and they looked appropriately chastised but I felt like I was dealing with a child. As a problematic pro shipper, I also tend to like problematic characters.

For example, in the anime sk8 the infinity, there is a character who is violent and romantically comes on to a 17-18 year old. I could get into the whole religious aspect of that show and the plot and what not, but generally as far as anime goes this was extremely tame. It's a very stereotypical sports anime otherwise. The problem arises because I like this character, and one of my more prudish friends refuses to let me be about it. She calls him ugly whenever I mention liking him, a pedophile, has borderline called me a pedophile for liking him, and has called me crazy. This same girl was raised in a christian household and was put into a christian private school for most of her life, so I understand why she's more of the puritanical type, but at the same time she is queer and likes romance. I am queer and like romance. We could not be more different in how we approach those two aspects of our lives.

She's also the type of person to go always, and I mean always, go with the unproblematic (sometimes) guy that a story sets up in the beginning for a love triangle. Think that between Edward and Jacob she goes for Edward except for every single other piece of media she consumes.

Also, she doesn't consider herself educated on politics like the other guy, but somehow the both of them feel comfortable bringing up inherently political topics when it comes to this stuff? They mention abuse and sexuality in media as an anti typically does but their arguments are as flimsy as anti ones usually are, and they can never carry on a conversation of that sort with me for more than a sentence or two. When I bring up problematic aspects of media they enjoy and tell them they are bad people for enjoying it, they get obviously disheartened and scared. I tell them that that's how it feels but they forget the next day like it's nothing.

I really like these people when it comes to things that aren't fandom but I just can't put up with how rude they are. I wonder if someone ever taught them manners, or how to speak to people without being incredibly offensive. A lot of my other friends don't act this way even when gentle ribbing is concerned. They know when too far is too far. One of my friends doesn't even like queer media (not as in she hates it, just not her thing) and she is more polite to me when I want to talk about it than the others.

Do I just tell them to knock it off for good or keep slapping them back when they go to far? Is it even possible that I can teach them manners simply from stating boundaries?

With their kind, you probably need to be more explicit that it is a boundary. Express it as them violating a previously set boundary. Tell them you cannot hang out with people who constantly try to trigger you with unhealthy 'thoughtcrimes are real' fundie mindsets.

Basically, call them on forgetting the next day like it's nothing.

They don't get to both repeatedly hurt you and be your friend. They're trying to get away with it now because they think your beliefs are wacky and stupid and a minor part of you that you'll outgrow. Don't give them the moral high ground. They're being shitty friends.

There must be consequences for their actions (in the form of you staying away) or they will never take your complaints seriously.

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