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the stuff going on at columbia campus rn is genuinely incredible

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i don't feel the need to post much about the stuff going on with watcher, but one thing i will say is people are being real weird about shane. like for one it stinks of racism to say that he's innocent while blaming everything on ryan and steven as if they aren't all grown ass men with agency and equal stake/say in their company.

and secondly, everyone saying "HOW could he have done this, comrade shane would never sell out like this," like how far down your throat does the boot have to be for you to think you know this random man on the internet well enough to know his personal politics. has he EVER taken any real, consistent action to back his supposed leftist ideology? or has he just been using radical language to appear #relatable to his audience? critical thinking goes out the window when its the internet's favorite white man

and the issue isn't even so much that he doesn't act on those words, the issue is that fans seem to believe he does act on them just by saying them, and then they put him on a pedestal for it. the argument over whether or not celebrities should be obligated to activism when they are oftentimes very tone-deaf and out of touch people whose opinions I would caution you against putting too much stock into is a different conversation for a different post. just let it pass through a few braincells before you jump to defend someone in the most parasocial and uncritical way imaginable

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there was a tiktok I made a while ago basically saying "your abusive ex boyfriend is more likely a misogynist than a narcissist" and while most people agreed some said I was victim blaming(?) and that I couldn't know what their ex is like, and while obviously I don't, every fucking person describing their narcissistic ex is describing a typical misogynist. ask yourself, is this behavior you associate with narcissism directed at women or does he treat his male friends the same way? is his general functioning in life impaired?

many people don't seem to know this, but a mental disorder is NOT based on symptoms alone, it's based on how much the symptoms actually impair you in daily life. most people could look at a list of mental disorder symptoms and identify either themselves or someone else with them. as far as a narcissistic personality, we all know people who appear more self absorbed than others, but this is typically subclinical narcissism (presence of narcissistic traits without significant impairment of functioning) which is not a disorder. there is also a misunderstanding of what npd is. a narcissist is not a supervillain invincible to emotion. npd is a defensive reaction to trauma that lead to deep insecurity and fear of being seen as weak or vulnerable. so narcissists aren't actually "in love with themselves" at all and often are diagnosed when seeking help for other issues such as substance abuse resulting from their struggles.

this focus a lot of abused women in online pop psychology have on narcissism is particularly concerning because it completely glosses over misogyny which is literally a huge factor in violence against women. people really only know misogyny as a surface level thing. they don't know it can lead to family annihilation, for example, and is one reason most family annihilations are committed by the husband. it's always "this man is a sociopath" "this man is a narcissist" when the man's behavior is driven by ideology. I am so fucking tired of everything being tied to mental illness and left at that. you know what this leads to? courts "fixing" abusive men by...giving them anger management therapy. guess what? it doesn't fucking do anything because the problem isn't mental instability leading to anger, it's targeted, purposeful abuse. we are getting nowhere

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no way there's a self identified leftist defending sanctions against iran in the notes of my post...

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I really can’t stress enough how important it is to talk to your friends, family members, and partners regularly about their right to set boundaries, even ones that inconvenience you.

We absolutely live in a hierarchial abuse culture where people can and do impose their will on each other in a million tiny ways. A lot of people just expect it - they’ll make choices according to the assumption that you, too, are invested in controlling them to whatever degree - because unless you consciously make a point not to be, it’s possible that you are.

In a healthy relationship people ask for consent often - “Do you want to do this? Are you comfortable with this? Is there anything you think we should change about this plan?” And then, they clarify that negative answers are totally normal and okay.

Checking in can sound like, “Hey, you know I love doing X but if you ever don’t want to you know that’s okay, right?” It’s paying attention to nonverbal cues that someone is uncomfortable and giving them an out - “You don’t seem excited about this party, I want you to know it totally won’t be a big deal if you’d rather not.”

In a healthy relationship there’s a huge difference between “no” and “you shouldn’t have asked”. “No” is normal and expected and it’s assumed that sometimes it will be the response. There’s an intentional effort not to punish each other for not always giving each other what you want.

Normalize “no” in all your relationships. Seek it out! Give people extra opportunities to say no! And accept it. Recognise that it’s a good sign when your loved ones feel safe enough to not agree to things they don’t want out of fear of your reaction.

Just - check in. I don’t care what kind of relationship it is, don’t assume people know it’s safe to say no to you unless you remind them and show them regularly. Making space for healthy boundaries is one of the most important things to communicate with the people that you care about.

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Like I just don't think the way towards effective disability solidarity is doubling down on how all disabilities are basically the same. I think what we need to do to get anywhere is take a step back and listen when someone who is disabled in a different way than we are has different experiences and needs. Because while ALL disabilities are real, valid and serious, there are differences in lived experiences worth acknowledging and exploring between, let's say, being a wheelchair user and being autistic and being psychotic. There are even differences worth noting between being a low support needs autistic person and a high support needs autistic person. We're not all the same. And our solidarity should not depend on claiming that we are

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Playing with my dolls in my mind palace. Making them fight

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the sandwich price to minimum wage ratio is getting so fucked up

#$7 dollars for a mid sandwhich....kill yorself

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been thinking about how it’s pretty interesting that thus far the general belief has been that claudia’s diaries are an objective record of fact which is how I’ve thought about it too but I was reading a monograph where the writer treats later oral interviews with similar if not the same gravity of contemporary diary records and I thought about how historians generally think of diaries/journals as a performance rife with inconsistencies and forgetfulness or misremembering etc especially for ppl who have undergone great trauma. and with the awareness that Claudia reads ppl like Woolf and Plath whose published private diaries/journals are notably deeply subjective, I wonder if we’re supposed to be more critical about Claudia’s diaries than we are. she was also curating a version of her life, and especially as she gets older, it’s reasonable to believe that she became more aware of the like meta? of diary writing, even after her fathers discover and read her diaries when she’s still a teen she must’ve surely realized then that diaries are only a semi private affair. if Woolf was a vampire like she thinks, then continued existence doesn’t make her writings any less subjective and complicated than if she really did just die. and Claudia is so much more attuned to mind reading and having your private thoughts exposed and used against you than even Louis is, so what precludes her diaries from being their own sort of odyssey as well? I also think of how many vampire media has their memory perfect and pristine, and iwtv is already challenging that idea, so it’s reasonable to wonder if they’re challenging the frozen history we associate with diaries. these vampires are permanently frozen as representatives of their contemporary moments, but they’re still misrepresented or misunderstood or actively warping our perception of their lived reality even when they should in theory be stagnant frozen fact. the archive can’t be assumed as objective fact just bc the manuscripts were written en media res… just as the archivist manipulates into a narrative, so too did those historical actors… much to think about

#iwtv

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Yoshi Busan (부산대타투)

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This is fucking insane

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10k words in my drafts about how much claudialestatmotherdaughter sharpobjectsisms annoy me sobad that really never need to see the light of day bc like it’s pretty self explanatory but . ohh it’s so insulting

#iwtv

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I think it's really funny when younger people rip on "millennials" (I don't believe in generation labels) for saying cringey shit like, "doggo" and "I did a thing" as if most people under 30 aren't butchering aave and Ballroom terms and calling it "tiktok slang". like, what's cringier? calling a character you like a cinnamon bun, or being racist. quickly.

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we all have that one homie whose aphorisms are superficially witty but lack a certain intellectual verve

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Diver convince octopus to trade his plastic cup for a seashell

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I love how on Tumblr, "media literacy" has become "Um, just because someone writes about this doesn't mean they're endorsing this. I hate all these media puritans ruining everything."

I'm sad to inform you that knowing when and whether an author is endorsing something, implying something, saying something, is also part of media literacy. Knowing when they are doing this and when they're not is part of media literacy. Assuming that no author has ever endorsed a bad thing is how you fall for proper gander. It's not media literacy to always assume that nobody ever has agreed with the morally reprehensible ideas in their work.

Sometimes, authors are endorsing something, and you need to be aware when that happens, and you also need to be aware when you're doing it as an author. All media isn't horny dubcon fanfic where you and the author know it's problematic IRL but you get off to it in the privacy of your brain. Sometimes very smart people can convince you of something that'll hurt others in the real world. Sometimes very dumb people will romanticize something without realizing they're doing it and you'll be caught up in it without realizing that you are.

Being aware of this is also media literacy. Being aware of the narrative tools used to affect your thinking is media literacy. Deciding on your own whether you agree with an author or not is media literacy. Enjoying characters doing bad things and allowing authors to create flawed or cruel characters for the sake of a story is perfectly fine, but it is not the same as being media literate. Being smug about how you never think an author has bad intentions tells me you're edgy, not that you're media literate. You can't use one rule to apply to all media. That's not how media literacy works. Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! Aheem heem. Anyway.