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kaija-rayne-author · 11 months

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Would you recognize an autistic or ADHD person if you saw one?

What about an autistic or ADHD fictional character?

Many of y'all will say, of course.

And you'll be wrong.

I'm not talking to hatched autistics and ADHDers. We can usually spot others like us and autistic/ADHD coded characters in fiction.

Definition: A 'hatched' autistic or ADHDer is someone who knows they're one or the other or both, AND they understand and accept that pretending to be neurotypical is bad for us.

It actually kills us, so, yeah, bad. The leading causes of death for autistics is unaliving or heart attack from the stress of living in a world that was most certainly not created for us. In some ways, this world is antithetical to us.

We also experience the stress of what's known as 'masking'.

Our average age of death is 36 years old. Think about that for a second. 36. And the rates of unaliving in autistic and ADHD kids is utterly obscene. The suicide watch for parents of autistic kids starts at 8 years old. 8.

(I don't say this for everything, but self-diagnosis is absolutely valid for autism and ADHD. In a world where people can still be institutionalized or lose their kids because of an autism diagnosis--this is fact for Britain and several US states. France is awful for autistics-- self diagnosis must be valid so we can figure ourselves out without endangerment.)

Masking is where a traumatized autistic (and I've also never met or even heard about an untraumatized autistic/ADHDer) will create a, persona, almost, that lets us function in the world.

It's rarely intentional, my youngest son started masking at 4 in pre-kindergarten because he wanted other kids to like him and want to play with him. Even though our home is very supportive of diversity, especially about autism and ADHD, y'all... he was *4*.

Being autistic and/or ADHD is so damned lonely. Especially if you don't know why you're different. So we do our best to adapt. That can cause issues.

Masking isn't meant as a lie. It's survival instinct. Because even though the world absolutely doesn't treat us like we're human beings, we still are. We want to survive and thrive as much as the next hominid. We have all the same needs and desires as any other human.

But what about the rest of all y'all? Can you recognize us?

Last week, a music teacher banned a 6 year old autistic kid from the school concert because 'they would ruin the experience for the other children' this is after making the autistic kid learn and practice the songs for weeks. 6 years old and that kid already has scars from discrimination about a genetic condition he can't help. It's cruel and so damned inhumane. At worst, the kid probably sang off key and maybe fidgetted a bit. But that would 'ruin' the concert. It's not the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, lady, it's an elementary school concert. It's absolutely not worth scarring that poor kid over. It also happened back in 2022, and again in 2017.

People will have seen 'Atypical' or 'The Good Doctor' or, gods forbid, Rainman and think they know what autistic people look like. (You should probably know that the majority of autistics loathe those shows because the rep is so bad.)

But here's the thing.

You can't see autism or ADHD. Not just by looking at us. It's purely a brain wiring difference. People don't even believe me when I tell them I am if they've seen me in person. And I'm professionally diagnosed as both autistic & ADHD.

Sometimes, there are co occurring issues, like intellectual disability, that are confused with autism, but they aren't actually the autism or ADHD part of things.

I'm an autistic and ADHD advocate. I have a consultant option on my Patreon for people who want advice either for themselves or so they do the right thing by their kids. I'm autistic/ADHD, my kids are too. I've been researching and learning about the topic for close to a decade at this point. I truly know what I'm talking about. I understand the different flavours and experiences of these two types of neurodivergency extremely well.

As an aside, while I have you here, ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) is never the right thing. You know how gay conversion therapy is bad? The same person (Ivar Lovass) came up with ABA, and it's meant to do the same thing. To torture people, most often children, into pretending to be what someone else wants them to be. It doesn't support or help the autistic person.

Almost unilaterally, ABA causes a PTSD breakdown of self coming into our 30s. I say almost, but I've never even heard of an autistic person who has been tortured by ABA who hasn't developed severe PTSD.

If you tried to use the methods used in ABA on a dog, you'd be guilty of extreme animal cruelty.

Yet, because it's practiced on human children, it's fiiiiine. Big money lobbying has even made it so that ABA 'therapy' is the only one covered by a lot of insurances.

We can thank Autism $peaks for that. They are a hate group. They fit every bit of the definition of one and then some. (So please don't donate to them at the till. They love to pollute stores like Toys 'R' Us.)

Adult autistics have been speaking out against them forever. But since most autistics (80%) are under or unemployed, we don't have the kind of financial sway we'd need to get rid of them. Yes, this even counts for 'the new ABA'.

You can't save ABA. Putting a 2 year old human child through 40 hours weekly of 'training' so that they can look and act neurotypical is just flat out torture. Making a child 'extremely hungry or thirsty' so that they will do what you want is torture. There's just no other way to slice that apple. It's rotten to the core.

But back to my point.

Recently, someone disagreed with my opinion on a fictional character. I feel the character is autistic/ADHD coded, the other person disagreed.

That's cool. Opinions are like assholes, everyone has one. And it's fiction, whatever. I'm not mad or upset. (I'm slightly insulted, because if you're not autistic/ADHD, [and a comparison they suggested made me think they definitely weren't] it's definitely not your place to disagree with one of us who says a character is autistic/ADHD coded. It's disrespectful and more than a little ableist. Simply because so many people have the completely wrong idea about both conditions.)

Regardless, the important part for a fictional character is that a person was able to see themselves in the character, to empathize with them. So it's not a big deal.

But it got me thinking about this.

Would most people recognize the subtle signs? They're almost always extremely subtle.

Ever hear of 'resting bitch face'? It's an incredibly common autistic trait because we either emote less or we emote differently than neurotypicals. In our world, it's known as 'flat face effect'. I have it, and I've been harmed many times because it looks like I'm pissed off even when I'm having a good time or I'm just deep in thought. I've got a firey temper, trust me when I say you'll know it when I'm pissed off.

So. You see a character (or even a person) who doesn't emote a lot? Or emotes extremely subtly? Wellll... that's a good clue.

So, X fictional character (or person) has odd or esoteric knowledge or hobbies. That's a good clue.

Are they nerdy or geeky in some way?

Most autistics and many ADHDers experience what's known as hyperfixation on special interests. Ever see someone get so fascinated by a topic or skill or activity that they get lost in it?

Forget to eat or drink?

Learn to do an obscure craft just because they wanted to know how it's done? That person is likely autistic or ADHD or both. It applies to fictional characters too.

Are they stand-offish? Many of us are for various reasons. One is that we're trying to figure out the 'rules' of wherever and whoever we're with.

Why all y'all insist on staring creepily at each others eyeballs is beyond me. I find it either too intimate, painfully so, or just ridiculous.

That quiet character (or person) who warms up slowly? There's a hint.

Another reason we tend to be cool with strangers is that ever present trauma thing. So many autists and ADHDers get to the point in life where we just don't have it in us anymore to keep trying to make social connections. A very common trait of both autism and ADHD is a lack of understanding of neurotypical social rules. And trust me, y'all have them.

Does the character or person fidget? Either subtly or more obviously?

It's called stimming. I had to learn to do it unobtrusively, so I'll suck air through my teeth (my dentist isn't impressed by this), circle my pointer finger around my thumb, tap the pad of each finger on my thumb in a rhythm, count silently to myself... the list is probably endless. I intentionally leave the cuticles on my thumbs rough, because I often rub the forefinger or ring finger of that hand over the rough cuticle as a stim.

Maybe they rotate their ring around a finger?

Play with their hair?

Stimming is something that calms us down and helps us regulate our emotions. (It's also one of the first things ABA robs us of. It's called 'quiet hands'.) It's really bad to deprive an autistic or ADHDer of stimming.

I used to click the button on a pen so much that I banned myself from having clicky pens because of how annoying it can be to others.

There are healthy stims and unhealthy ones. (Head banging is an example of an unhealthy stim.)

So a character or person who is just, always moving somehow? There's a hint. Or they're rhythmically moving a body part? Tapping fingers? Wiggling a foot or leg? Fussing with their clothing? Rocking?

Is the character or person 'a walking encyclopedia'? In other words, do they know a lot of information about either one or two topics or about many topics?

That character (or person) is often stereotyped as being a computer genius who can make any computer work just by looking at it for a few minutes. But it can honestly be any topic or combination of topics. That's another clue.

Many autists are almost hard wired to be painfully honest. Unless we've been traumatized into it, we tend to be shitty liars. I'm, unfortunately, a very good liar. It's not something I choose to do, because I don't want my trauma to change something so innate to me as my honesty. I had to learn to lie to survive. I don't recommend it.

Does the person or character truly believe in things like honour? Justice? Mercy? Peace? (Many neurotypical people will call these things social lies that keep the world working.) I'm talking a bone deep belief in honour etc. Are they a shitty liar?

I think I've blathered enough for now. I want to make it clear that I don't speak for all autistic and ADHD folks. I'm just one person attempting to share some of the more common traits with whoever wants to read about it.

A final thought.

Nothing can make someone autistic or ADHD. It's a genetic condition. Which is why so many parents find out they're autistic or ADHD when their kids are diagnosed. It's not more prevalent now, it's just that more people are learning about the actual parameters of it. Diagnosis is easier now than 50 years ago. It's been around since ancient Egypt and probably evolved as a way to keep the clan safe in prehistoric times.

We often have heightened senses. Sometimes we have what I call 'predator vision' which sounds awful but just means that my gaze is automatically drawn to movement. Our sleep cycles are also commonly very different than a neurotypical's. We probably ended up being people who would take night watch, stare at the stars for hours, or warn people when food has gone off so no one eats it.

I think we evolved right alongside neurotypicals because we're both needed for a successful society.

Many, many of the world's famed thinkers/creators are considered to have likely been autistic/ADHD based on records about them.

These people include:

Leonardo DaVinci

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni

Nikolai Tesla

Albert Einstein

Thomas Jefferson

Charles Darwin

Emily Dickinson

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

William Butler Yeats

Vincent Van Gogh

Benjamin Franklin

People who are autistic or ADHD these days that you may not expect?

Dan Ackroyd

Darryl Hannah

Anthony Hopkins

Jerry Seinfeld

Eminem

Courtney Love

David Byrne

Wentworth Miller

Satoshi Tajiri (creator of Pokemon)

There are also many, many people who have shown autistic or ADHD traits and haven't confirmed or it's impossible to confirm because they're deceased and we don't have the right records.

It's considered a massive faux pas to assign a diagnosis of anything to a living human being. So everyone living I've listed has in some way confirmed it. There are many, many other people (especially in creative industries or hobbies) I believe are likely one or the other, but I wouldn't label. That's for them to do.

If you enjoyed this or learned something and you can, please consider a tip or becoming a Patron. My work of words is my only income.

Every historical person is just a 'likely' because we'll never actually know. All we can do is point at the exhibited traits via records and say, probably.

#being autistic #autistic things #actually autistic #autism #ADHD #actually adhd #autistic problems #autistic adult #autistic #late diagnosed autistic #late diagnosed adhd #fiction #fictional characters #fiction critique

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theflyindutchwoman · 8 months

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What is your opinion in Lucy being UC? Because for me it doesn't make sense. She has literally been in like 3 documentaries. I feel like that is too much exposure for her.

And there is the whole Tim issue. I don't think Tim will ever be truly okay with her being a UC.

I think i would rather her just be a detective.

Personally… I'm relatively divided on the whole UC storyline, documentaries aside. I can't say that this is the path I imagined Lucy taking, as it seems rather antithetical to who she is and what she wants. At the same time, I do like seeing her undercover, playing different characters, getting more and more confident... There's one aspect in particular that I love : it's how covert ops taps into her background. Being a former psych major helps her create these different personae and adapt to the situation at hand. But more than that : she can draw on her life experience to guide her. She has tried different things before joining the Academy and that gave her a wealth of knowledge that she can use to her advantage. Psychology alone isn't enough for her, she needs the action, the danger… Undercover work gives her the opportunity to combine both aspects.

That said, I'm curious to see how this type of work could affect her. Being isolated, constantly being on edge, not seeing her loved ones for long period at times, leaving people behind, living a lie… It can get too much, real fast, especially for someone as empathetic as her. So far, she hasn't really seen that ugly side of the work, the one we've heard so much about… I think this is something she needs to experience so she can make an informed decision. But even if she decides that being a UC isn't for her after all, she can still work in covert ops. There is more to it than just being undercover. Or she could indeed just be a detective. At the end of the day, she is beginning her career, it's normal that she is still figuring it out. She deserves that chance. And that's why I want her to make the final decision on her own terms, whether she stays on track for undercover work or change path. So as nonsensical as it might be to send her undercover after the documentaries, I'm at least glad that this isn't used as a random reason against her, to prevent her from going forward with her career (at least, for now).

As far as the documentaries go… I actually already discussed this, so I hope you don't mind if I basically repeat what I wrote. At this point, I think we should simply take these documentaries for what they are : an opportunity for the writers to develop ridiculous plots and have fun, even though they don't make much sense… The last one was so over the top that I loved it - but I can understand that it's a bit hard to suspend your disbelief here… especially regarding the UC arc. I didn't mind Lucy being in them at first - or Nyla for that matter. Not to stereotype here, but I'm not sure the criminals she goes after watch these type of documentaries. And even if they were, they would still have to remember her specifically. I mean, only one person in-universe has ever referenced these episodes… and that lady was a director herself, who didn't apparently recognised Lucy (5.06). That last one, on the other hand… Let's just say that outing her as an undercover cop was definitely a choice… When the promo aired, I thought for sure that this issue was going to be addressed. I even wondered if I had missed a conversation or something after watching the episode. I guess, we're just supposed to pretend that it doesn't matter since not one single person raised the issue of Lucy being in the spotlight when she should be in the shadows. Then again, the LAPD doesn't see a problem with advertising a whole conference about covert operations… So we clearly have a very different definition of secrecy. That said, maybe this will come back later and someone will recognise her. That's always a possibility - though it would seriously make the whole department look incompetent for not considering that ahead of time…

I also touched on the whole Tim issue in another ask, so here's what I wrote. Tim absolutely knew about all of this and still decided that it was worth the risk. He was aware of her choice of career long before he even realised his feelings for her. From the moment she graduated, he's been nothing but supportive towards her goal. He was the one to convince her to go to the UC Academy. He asked her out mere days/weeks after she last went under (seriously, that was the episode right before). Undercover work is even the reason why they got together in the first place… which is so ironic when you think about it. When he said they were worth taking the risk, he meant it. Just like when he told Isabel that Lucy was different, I have no doubt he also meant it. He has some experience in the matter, he has some inklings as to what being separated for months truly means. And let's not forget that he knows what's it like not to be supported… Ashley was trying to make him quit his job because she suddenly wasn't okay with it - I can't see him doing the same to Lucy. I believe that Tim's biggest challenge will be to express his feelings, since he tends to internalise them. That's why I'm glad that he and Lucy were able to set boundaries and open up about this. They can only make it work if they're both honest and communicate with each other.

And last but not least, your last point about preferring Lucy to just be a detective. That's perfectly fair - and I know you're not the only one feeling this way. For what it's worth, even if she were to stay in covert ops, odds are she would mostly work as a detective (provided that she passes the exam, of course, and she doesn't get blocked). I seriously doubt the writers will create a different persona for every episode - it would get old fast - or let her spend too many episodes undercover… It's a procedural after all. I'm a bit unsure as to where the writers are going here… But The Rookie was first and foremost a show about patrol. That was what distinguished it from other cop shows. So far, we already have Nyla and Angela as detectives… Having Lucy doing UC might simply be a way for them to keep things fresh and avoid having three regular detectives.

I hope this answers your questions :) (I also hope you won't mind the copy-paste of previous answers but since the asks were pretty similar, it was faster this way - this isn't a knock against you at all. It's also a good reminder that I need to up my tagging game).

#ask & ye shall receive #the rookie #chenford #lucy chen #tim bradford #The Undercover Discourse

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spookyfbi · 7 months

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I don’t think I’m saying anything especially new here but it’s in my head and I gotta get it out:

Stede doesn’t object to violence per se, he objects to bullying.

Additionally I have more thoughts but I’m not really sure how to organise them.

Something about Ed thinks that Stede objects to violence because Ed feels a way about violence because violence is part of his trauma and he wants to get away from it and he also thinks he need to exorcise violence in order to be worthy of Stede

Also something about how the bloodthirsty pirate persona Stede is trying to adopt to impress Ed, while it isn’t exactly who Stede is, it also isn’t completely antithetical to who he is either. There is a bit of bloodthirsty pirate in him. He can’t just go back to being the mermaid because that’s what Ed wants, because that’s not who he is either. He’s somewhere between bloodthirsty pirate and goldfish mermaid.

Not really sure what they’re gonna do about all this though…

#gentlebeard #ofmd spoilers #ofmd #our flag means death #blackbonnet

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nemirutami · 2 years

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Hello your art is gorgeous! What artists inspired your particular art style?

Hewwo! I can't say my style is influenced by anyone in particular, because the artists I have followed for years have vastly different styles to mine, but I'll link a couple that I adore and have followed (and will forever follow) until the end of time! Yuumei - Pinnacle of storytelling without words. Impactful imagery with deep meanings and personal stories that captivated me and made me cry since I was 15. We don't need to speak the same language to understand each other- With Yuumei, their art does all the talking. Shillin - Stylistic, memorable, captivating characters that you don't need to know much about to love, but will appreciate more if you know the lore. Cyanparade - Gorgeous and well-composed, sensual artworks that breathe with a feather-like lightness and brings out colors that pop out of the screen. Honorable mentions not to clog everyone's timeline: rosebesch, kuvshinov ilya! I'd love to do a separate post for friends/mutuals because I love their art SO MUCH and their styles are so different and appealing in very various ways that- but I don't think it would be fair to throw them in here with artists I've followed for over a decade. I also know I'm forgetting some of them but that's all I can remember at the top of my head.

I actually had a french artist that I adored and was my ultimate favorite when it came to color composition, however... he has fallen into the NFT hellscape, which has tainted my view of his work. I sadly can't enjoy it anymore. Yet another male japanese artist (who actually illustrates for the pokemon franchise- or used to :) karma, i guess) recently got into NFTs and it horribly killed my view of their art. I don't want to say their names because I want to keep them out of my mind when it comes to art. Their direction when it comes to art is entirely antithetical to mine from what I discovered when they shifted to NFTS, and I'd like to disassociate them from what I consider "art". Other than that, my favorite games are: PMD Blue/EOS, Bravely Default/Second, GRIS, Mary Skelter 2, Digimon Hacker's Memory, Persona Q and Persona 3 FES, Devil May Cry 3, and Uncharted 4, and Kingdom Hearts Days. All of these are really different in playstyle and overall artistic direction, but what they all have in common is an emotional story or message. When it comes to my art, I focus more on drawing in a way that will evoke emotion rather than what will look best. If something looks broken but fits the artistic direction, I'll leave it in to evoke the emotion I want if it fits the theme (aka broken or exaggerated limbs/bones etc).

#tnt answers asks

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tinylittlecubby · 4 months

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I just had the WEIRDEST fucking dream about jj like?????????????????

Okay it was tied into another dream cause thats how dreams work but that part isn't important (I will say that someone was wearing 2 bags of frozen vegetables like they were dresses and yes there were still vegetables in the bags and yes they did get in trouble) but anyway!!! It changes to some brawl in the parking lot of someone's business and everyone needs to get the fuck out (but it was like a bunch of children and some adults I do not know why I was there or any other of the adults. I think the kids were trying to do some legit property damage so the adults were trying to stop them?) So jj (in a tesla for some reason I feel like THAT was unrealistic) drives me and him away from the scene but bro this nigga was SPEEDING!!!! Like got the attention of the police speeding. Like two other cars did aggressive u turns to avoid him speeding!! I literally started hyperventilating cause I HATE when people speed (specifically men, women scare me less when they speed in a car so my reaction is realistic) I tell jj to pull into a busy mall parking lot so we blend in with the rest of the cars and that somehow works. We are now just sitting in the car and I start talking about our relationship (didnt know we were involved but we roll) and I said "I'm scared you're going to hurt me" (yo I FELT SO for real vulnerable saying that in the dream it felt so real im never dating irl I woke up pissed off) and HE GOT POUTY AND UPSET 😡 he said "oh because we are getting more serious you are getting worried about these things" (first of all bitch! I have clinical paranoia issues and anxiety okay I've done been worried about this and 2 I can feel however I want to feel at any point in time and 3 you LITCHERALLY just out ran the police okay I do NOT find that hot its only hot when I do it,its irresponsible when other people do it. Unfortunately I did not say any of this in the dream.) What I said in response was essentially that "im not worried about you hurting me with your hands or words -even though fucking high key his reaction fucking pissed me off which is a type of hurt but I digress- which only leaves one type of you hurting me left and that is physically losing you. Like you dying" and then we started talking about it and he tried to break the tension by making a comment that I wont write here because I feel like its a comment that I shouldn't even be dreaming about (its enough im dreaming about the nigga but im not trying to read his life like that either) and during this i saw my older sister in the parking lot with her friends????? And then she saw me????? And then she came over and was like "haha ******* is with a guy romantically!" And honestly to that I say based,she was valid in that reaction cause outside of this dream thats never going to happen intentionally!! I will make sure of that!! But yeah thats pretty much where the dream ends but it was weird as fuck and whats sticking out to me is how pouty he got when I was vulnerable I felt like saying "fuck you!! I'm out" I was absolutely anticipating him being like "omg honey what have I done for you to think that oh no nono" but instead I had to pivot. I know in real life I would've gotten out the car and been like "yknow what bye boi im walking home have fun speeding in your iPad car" but I felt feelings for him???? Fucking gross. Not gross cause of who he is,he is an extremely attractive man in real life and I would most likely,like 98% break most of my rules for him in real life BUT it was just so antithetical to his public persona his reaction (but then again I dont know the man so it could've been actually spot on) honestly the first red flag that it was evil jj was the speeding away from the police,don't think he would do that irl. Anyway anyway anyway this is what you get when you stay up all night listening to the podcast amongstotherthingsthatilegallycannotdisclose

#thoughts #weird shit #should i listen to the pod less or more #tss t t tss t t tss thats the only clue im giving to who this is aside from the initials which is a much bigger clue

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w-ht-w · 1 year

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Judginess can outlive its usefulness in the modern digitized world

Social media gives onlookers the opportunity to scoff at a person’s every choice

in pre-modern times, judgment helped keep people safe. Judgments were alarm bells allowing humans to distinguish between toxic and harmless food, trustworthy and untrustworthy tribe members, and hardworking and lazy kinspeople, ... The role that automatic judgment plays...is social signaling, social norm reinforcing.

Judgment is also a signal that someone’s behavior is unusual or out of context to your particular in-group

But in today’s mobile, digitally facilitated world, judgment can take on new, toxic forms, ... When you silently cast judgment on someone from afar based on an Instagram story, you don’t get feedback from other people — or even the subject of your judgment — and you don’t learn how to make comments or critiques in a constructive way. (1)

Judgment is biased/personal, discernment is more ethical (serving the greater good):

Discernment, on the other hand, can help you identify unhealthy and toxic behaviors, ... it’s important to detect when someone’s attitudes and beliefs pose a threat to others’ rights and well-being. Unless someone’s behavior is actively harming themselves or others (in which case, you should name the behavior, tell the other person how you’re feeling, and set boundaries on how you’d like them to act moving forward), learning to curb petty moral righteousness is possible, but requires slowing down your thoughts and having some empathy. (1)

be mindful of + reframe your judge-y self-righteous impulses:

In order to reframe judgmental thoughts, you need to catch them in the act. “We have to pull back and go, ‘I’m being judgy, I don’t really want to do that,’” ... “If we come to notice we’re doing something that is unhealthy and pause and stop it, then we are far less likely to go down that path,” (1)

At the end of the day, our digital personas are part of our personal personas because it’s how we choose to share our lives, our interests, and what matters to us to the world. If anything, most people only represent a curated version of themselves on social media, so shouldn’t it be a representation of what they hope and aspire to be as a human?

I do think there’s an important distinction though to make between thinking less of someone because of their social media presence versus realizing you’re just personally not into what they’re sharing or portraying. “Good for them, but they’re not for me” should be the motto. (2)

Empathize/understand where you can, but don’t compromise on the important:

it can be easy to assume that someone who doesn’t share your beliefs is “evil or stupid,” ... Instead of reacting aggressively in an attempt to change their mind, [try] thinking of a good-faith reason why someone would think this way as a means to slow down the judgment process.

For example, when it comes to relatives with differing political opinions, [think] about how the loved one ended up believing what they believe: the media they consume, the people they surround themselves with.

“Curiosity is the antidote for judgment,”

Of course, you should never compromise on important moral and social issues, ... Relationships with people whose views are antithetical to your own will have to be renegotiated ... if you want to maintain contact. But you can control your initial assumptions of them based on their beliefs. “What function is expressing those judgments serving right now?” ... “Am I trying to build consensus about an issue or am I just trying to wave my flag ... (1)

You can’t force others to change, or single-handedly save them from themselves

There are very few things you can do to convince people your way of thinking and living is ideal. Save for the occasions where someone’s behavior is dangerous and harmful, ... [it’s best to] focus only on what you can control. ... our behaviors, our thoughts, and our actions.

“You can’t make somebody value the things that you value,” ... “All you can do is try to gently demonstrate that valuing the things that you value makes the world around you better and people will want to move there in some intellectual or moral sense.” (1)

1. https://www.vox.com/even-better/23188518/be-less-judgmental-tips

2. http://thecoolestlife.com/is-judging-someone-on-their-social-media-presence-shallow-or-accurate/

#social media

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ragingstillness · 2 years

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Personally I think the greatest redemption arc for Izzy (if he does need one but that’s a whole different post) is for Izzy to realize that what Ed has become in becoming the Kraken is actually antithetical to the persona of Ed or Blackbeard. The Kraken has become a danger to the crew and to Izzy personally. Ed has previously expressed not caring if some of his men die but he’s never actively attempted to kill or harm them until The Kraken. I think the most poetic way to solve this would be for Izzy to reason all this out and against all of his previous views and even knowing this could make Ed hate him forever, I think he needs to lead a mutiny against Ed. Maybe this could be done with the crew that they currently have, maybe with the help of Frenchie and Jim and Lucius who is probably hiding in the secret passages. Maybe it involves secretly contacting Stede (with great bitterness) and using a night when Ed is plastered to sneak the whole crew onto the ship. Either way I think Izzy leading a mutiny against all of his previous values but for Ed’s own good would be the best possible character development for him. For many reasons:

1. Izzy seems to consider himself the caretaker of Ed’s mental health (more people have posted about this and how accurate it is or isn’t) and in a way this would be an extension of that only Izzy is finally realizing what is genuinely good for Ed not Blackbeard.

2. “Above all is loyalty to your captain” seems to be the motto Izzy lives by doing this could be both a way of holding to that motto and letting go of the interpretation of it that Izzy used to justify his betrayal of them to the British.

3. It’s poetic because Izzy was almost overthrown in a mutiny due to his abuse of the crew (emotionally and verbally) and now he’s using the same technique himself to protect himself and the crew from Ed.

4. This would be the first time Izzy would truly be aligning himself in opposition to Ed since the time he almost resigned.

5. It would be an almost completely selfless act, knowing that with Ed the way he is, this could lead to him never wanting to see Izzy again or even to Izzy’s own death in a way the deal with the British wasn’t.

6. It would be an acknowledgement that the Muppet world that Stede and the others live in is not only one you can survive in, but one that benefits Ed over any other.

(I may add more reasons as I think of them but I am feral over this au)

#ofmd #ofmd meta #izzy hands #ofmd season 2 predictions

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ask-artsy-oncie · 3 years

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what kind of pokemon do you think the ducktale crew would have if they were trainers?

I'm only doing main partner pokemon bc I don't think I can flesh out teams for everyone

Scrooge - okay so this one was actually really difficult. I really see him as specializing in steel-types, because aside from his immense wealth, a major defining trait for Scrooge is how he's self-made (through his adventuring) and, less notably, his distaste for magic. I think all of this has a lot of cohesion with the steel type, but finding the right pokemon was a challenge. I was hoping for something from Galar, but nothing really jumped out to me as vibing particularly well with him, so I think the best fit I could find would be Aegislash, which is, at least, also from a European region, and fits well with his adventurer motif. If anyone has any better ideas feel free to send them in, though, cos I'm still not entirely sure.

Donald - Specializes in water-types. It would be entirely fitting of Donald's luck for him to get stuck with a magikarp. But with hard work and dedication (and a decent amount of rage) he ends up raising it into a Gyarados. He would also have the mega-stone for it.

Della - Specializes in flying-types. It was so fucking tempting to give her a celesteela, but not only would that be kind of mean, but I also want to refrain from using any ultra beasts. That being said, I think that Skarmory might be a good fit, because it still does retain the same flying/steel mix, and I do think that Scrooge has rubbed off on Della, significantly (for better or for worse). Plus I think it fits her motif very well (planes, metal flying machines, while Donald sails boats, watercraft that catch the air in their sails, and goes well with a water/flying type). I was also really tempted to give her a rayquaza, but I also wanted to refrain from using any legendaries. Mayhaps she went to space chasing a rayquaza, tho?

Huey - eclectic in his type choices, he likes to have an extremely varied team. Obviously this makes it harder to narrow down his partner pokemon, but I feel like it suits him. I also feel like Girafarig suits him - I think he initially relates to it as he ascribes his own rage to a persona he feels is an antithetical "side" to his "normal" personality that he needs to supress, yet ultimately, he learns that the Duke is simply an aspect of himself and a part to his whole, just like how Girafarig is not comprised of two separate pokemon, but is instead just a single creature.

Dewey - Electric-types for suuuure. It just fits his high-energy personality so well, and I think it also has synergy with his desire to be a media star, since iirc most reporters, interviewers, and camera-people in the games carry electric-types. I think Jolteon would work well with him, since as much as he would hate to admit it, he does tend to gravitate towards the basic and popular, which the eeveelutions definitely are. And though pikachu would have been the obvious choice in that case, I think Jolteon fits his aesthetic, best.

Louie - ooookay I am going to cheat on this one a little because I do have two pokemon in mind for Louie. Firstly, I think he favors both normal- and dark-types, though he isn't too hard-pressed about types. His main partner pokemon would be either a Meowth or an Alolan Meowth, though either way he never intends to evolve it. Cats. Money. Louie. It works. I am very adamant about Louie having some kind of Meowth as a partner. I also believe he would have an Absol. Absol just seems like such a good pokemon for anxious people to have, since it can easily sense and warn about disasters. I think Louie would value that, a lot.

Webby - with Webby's high value and priority on friendship, I think the fairy type would be a very good fit for her (especially since she is a part of Team Magic) though, I also think she would at least try to keep a varied team. Her partner would be Mimikyu - because oh my god look at this little guy, it needs a friend so bad!! Webby will be its friend!! And she'll give it all the love and attention it needs. Of course, it knows Return.

Lena - Ghosts, Dark, Psychics, Faeries, anything that exudes a magic and mystical energy to match her own. Lena would definitely be one of those "psychic" trainers who absolutely has powers of her own, but still takes the time to raise pokemon. Her partner would be a Gardevoir - a pokemon very in-tune with emotions that compliments Lena in her struggle to control her emotions and magic. It would also be a shiny Gardevoir and Lena would also have its mega-stone, because then they would share the blue-black-and-white palette. And when they're both powered-up, Lena loses the black in her palette while Mega-Gardevoir gains it.

Violet - Violet also has an affinity for the more "magical" types her sister and friend are. I think that, due to her interest in witchcraft and metaphysics as a field of study, I'm a bit torn between Gothitelle and Hatterene. She probably would have both, I'm just torn on who her partner would be. On one hand, I could lean harder into the metaphysics aspect, since that's what one of her fathers studies/teaches, and go with Gothitelle, but Hatterene also gives her more synergy with Lena because their partner pokemon would be the exact same type combination. I'm not sure.

BOYD - A Ditto!! Not just for their implied connection to science and the steel-type, but because BOYD (in-universe) was also designed to replicate (and ultimately be) a real person.

Hahahaaaa that took a lot of thinking! Thank you for the challenge!! I do have more ideas but I think I'm going to stop there before it gets too long. Also sorry if you meant "ducktales crew" literally. I don't know those people well enough to assign them pokemon, lol.

#Ducktales #DT17 #Pokemon #Also - Ty's partner is Joltik he specializes in bug-types #Kit's partner is Tropius and he specializes in flying-types #GLOMGOLD'S PARTNER IS SHARPEDO OBVIOUSLY!!!

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redpeng · 3 years

Text

Alright, (spoilers for Persona 5, Persona 5 Royal, and Persona 5 Strikers)

I've been thinking (because Persona 5 Strikers' main human antagonist is considerably better than Shido, and so is Maruki, but to a greater extent), specifically about Shido. Masayoshi Shido. And how he's really just a terrible villain.

Like, not "terribly powerful" or "very very evil," more like "written very poorly and not an actual threat." See, the dev team created a villain to tie all of the villains together. Madarame, Kaneshiro, and Kamoshida all fund Shido's exploits, and the connection with Okumura, Sae, and Wakaba are... Well, they're obvious. Those last three, they make sense. All of them are connected. Alright. But what about the first 3? It makes no damn sense. Kamoshida was a god damn PE teacher, how was he making enough to be a major donor to Shido? Madarame doesn't seem like the type of guy to give a shit about politics, he never mentions it at all, and maybe Kaneshiro makes sense as a donor, but why Shido specifically? They never seemed to actually interact. And Shido himself. They talk about how he's "power-hungry" and "trying to steer the country" and "uncaring" but none of that is... Villain. It's bad guy, sure, but it's not worthy of the Main Antagonist.

And they fixed up Akechi's motivations in Royal. They made a main villain with actual fucking motivation. So why couldn't they fix Shido? In fact, fixing Shido requires so little effort, I'm going to do it, step-by-step, in this post. Alright, buckle up, chucklefucks (jk):

So, let's start with the glaring flaw. Akechi says this himself: without both Thesis and Antithesis, there is no advancement. Akechi plays the antithesis to Joker, and, especially in Royal, he's a damn good Anthithesis. But there's no antithesis to The Phantom Thieves. Don't get me wrong, the palace rulers before Shido work well as bad guys, but they're only mildly opposite to one or maybe two phantom thieves at most. Shido, though, would be the perfect opportunity to have this bundled antithesis. How?

This may sound stupid, but hear me out. Make him a fascist. It's clearly what he is: Militaristic, corrupt, uncaring, almost certainly racist, sexist, and homophobic, anti-intellectual, large police force, rallying against a common enemy (Phantom Thieves and their 'ilk'), but they don't actually sell it. He's toothless. It's barely even implied that he's any of these things. Now, I don't want him hurling racial slurs or anything, but I think it should be at least actually heavily implied that he is blaming groups of people. Him being super pro-corporate would be antithetical to Haru's abuse at the hands of her father and his corporation's power, him being sexist is antithetical to the struggles that Haru, Ann, and Makoto struggle through, him being anti-mental illness is antithetical to Futaba, him being anti-disabled is antithetical to Ryuji, him being super traditional and patriarchal is antithetical to Yusuke and Ryuji, him being super against the arts is antithetical to Yusuke, him being anti-intellectual is antithetical to Futaba and Makoto. As he stands, though, it's not actually clear what he thinks about any of these things.

The game goes far enough to condemn these societal issues, but not far enough to condemn the types of people in power who actually spread the idea that any of the behaviors shown in the game are okay. Shido is just "a politician," whose opinions are up to the player to give a shit about enough to think about, but the game never shows him giving a shit.

And then that gives the Phantom Thieves all an opportunity to realize that there will be people who will hate them just for who they are and that they just need to stand strong and say FUCK YOU to these people. But no. None of this.

Think about, as well, how this would apply to the earlier villains. Kamoshida is allowed to continue his abuse without being stopped because people like Shido enforce the idea that "results are all that matters" and "those lesser on the heirarchy/meritocracy (like women and the disabled, for instance), don't matter." He promotes the ideas of a "traditional family" and the "unquestioned familial piety" that Madarame inflicts on Yusuke. Or the sexism and corruption that affects Makoto. It also strengthens the ideas that are already strong with Sae and Wakaba (and arguably Okumura).

Even his treatment of Akechi is indicative of fascism. Akechi is an orphan, born out of wedlock, which is a super big stigma in Japan. But Shido? He doesn't seem to actually mention it, even when he talks directly about Akechi.

Anyway, yeah, I'm running out of steam. Just a little rant. Peace out. Have fun. Nice internetting.

#persona 5 #persona 5 royal #persona 5 spoilers #persona #persona 5 royal spoilers #long post

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starry-sky-stuff · 3 years

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Sorting the Grisha Trilogy

For this sorting I’ll be using the superb sorting system created by @sortinghatchats. A brief breakdown, there are Primaries, the why, and Secondaries, the how. For a more in depth explanation check out @sortinghatchats or @wisteria-lodge. Here’s a link to a great and succinct explanation.

Disclaimer: Spoiler warnings apply both for the Grisha Trilogy, the Six of Crows Duology and the Nikolai Duology.

This turned into a very long post so I cut for length.

Alina Starkov has a very loud Lion Secondary that she increasingly grows into as the series progresses. Alina has literally no chill ever, about anything. She’s always ready to throw down. In Siege & Storm, she’s quite ready to tear the Crown Prince a new one for his suggestion that they lower the draft age. All the while Nikolai watches in exasperation because they very much need to keep the generals and royals on side. But Alina can never be anything other than what she is. he is genuinely disturbed by Nikolai’s ability to switch personas because it is so antithetical to her entire personality. Alina is the same kind of Lion Secondary that Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games is — someone who inspires an army and is ultimately used as a symbol and martyr by others for their own gains.

For her Primary I would also say Lion. Alina has very firm beliefs and they all come from within. She’s also got that lone wolf outlook that Lion Primary’s often struggle with. Repeatedly, she pushes people away and is intent on doing things alone. There’s also elements of the unhealthy Glory Hound Lion Primary, in that, as much as Alina is motivated by doing good, she’s also motivated by gaining power. Greed and power are such integral parts of her storyline. A Snake would claim they were gaining power to protect their loved ones, a Badger just people in general or maybe Ravka as a whole. But Alina gains power so she can defeat the Darkling and save the world. When she kills Mal, as much as it is to save the world, a part of it is also to gain power, for which she pays a price by losing said power. The very core issue in her relationship with Mal is the conflict between a Loyalist and an Idealist. For Mal, his main priority is Alina. For Alina, her priority is defeating the Darkling.

Loyal and dutiful Mal Oretsev is an incredibly obvious Snake Primary. His entire motivation is centred on Alina. Everything he does is for her. He volunteers to hunt the stag for her, he deserts the army for her, he stays in the capital to protect her even though he hates it. “You’re my flag, you’re my nation” is a very Snake flavoured declaration of love. Mal is not in this fight because he wants to save Ravka or defeat the Darkling. He was completely okay with him and Alina escaping to Novyi Zem at the end of the first book and leaving Ravka to its fate. He commits to the fight when Alina does, and her cause becomes his cause.

For his secondary, charming, likeable, Mal is a Badger. One of the first things we learn about Mal is that he can fit in anywhere and has no trouble making friends. Although he has a bit of a Lion Secondary Performance, at his core his a team player. He enjoyed the army because it was a community, and he’s at his lowest in the second book because he has no friends and no community. Part of why he’s much healthier in the last book is that he has a community again and a position within that community. In the White Chapel he can train and teach, and once they leave he has his own little team again. He falls into the leader role in the last book, not because he inspires loyalty the way Lion Secondary Alina does, but because he caretakes and looks after people. When they’re underground, and he constantly goes back to check on everybody and talk to them to make sure they keep up, that’s a Badger Secondary looking after his community. It’s probably not at all surprising that Mal has what @the-phoenix-heart has dubbed the love interest sorting. His priority is Alina, and he shows his love by following her and joining her quest, and in the end, sacrificing himself for her. Mal wasn’t going to die to save Ravka. He was sacrificing himself to save Alina.

Nikolai Lantsov, whose entire motivation in the original trilogy is to gain the throne of Ravka to save Ravka, strikes me as more of a Loyalist than an Idealist. Either he’s a Badger whose community is Ravka, or a Snake who just has a very wide circle. Considering there’s no evidence of him dehumanising people, I would lean towards Snake. We later learn that part of why he wants to fix Ravka is a promise he made to a childhood friend who died in his arms, which strikes me as a very Snake motivation. An Idealist would be more motivated by the cause of helping Ravka, and a Badger would focus on Ravkans being in need of good leadership. I think much of his character arc in Nikolai Duology makes sense through the lens of a Snake Primary moving his priorities, as Ravka as a whole becomes less important and Zoya becomes more important. His primary was very difficult for me to accurately gauge because I think he actively hides it behind his secondary performance. Once we’re in his head, his motivations are very focused on the individuals he cares about. I think he and Zoya also bond over this Snake Primary that was let down by their parents and so transferred their loyalty onto Ravka as a whole.

Initially, I thought he had a Snake Secondary. After all, Alina’s description of him being similar to a Matryoshka doll, always putting on different personas, is quintessential Snake Secondary. But when you actually look at how Nikolai solves problems, it isn’t with his charm or guile. Yes, he saves Alina by pretending to be Sturmhond, but they get into Ravka because he came up with a flying ship. In the last book, he saves the group because he just happened to have a secret military base he’d developed for a rainy day. In the Nikolai Duology, he literally came up with a plan for someone else to masquerade as him just in case he ever went missing. He solves his problems by pulling out some old tool or plan he’d previously developed on the off chance he’d need it. Total Bird Secondary. Now, Nikolai has a very good Snake Secondary model. It was something he developed in children to deal with his emotionally neglectful parents, by becoming whatever he had to be to get attention. But at his core, he’s an inventor, it’s what he enjoys doing, it’s what he does for fun, and it’s how he solves his problems.

The Darkling, who views ozatskaya and even other Grisha as beneath him is a Dark Badger Primary. To the Darkling, only the Grisha are human, and even then he still thinks of him and Alina as above other Grisha. When parts of the Second Army turn on him he dehumanises them in turn. There’s an argument for an unhealthy Lion Primary, who believes wholeheartedly that all the terrible things he does are justified and he’s the only one who can save Ravka. But building the Second Army and Little Palace as a place the Grisha could belong seems to me like a Badger Primary looking to build his community. It’s also explains why he can kill all these people and feel no guilt whatsoever because to him they’re not really people. In the Rule of Wolves he even explicitly says that he whilst he values human life in general he does not value human lives specifically.

The building of the Second Army is proof of his Badger Secondary. A skilled manipulator, he nevertheless uses genuine emotion and pieces of himself in the manipulation that I don’t think a Snake Secondary would find necessary. If you believe he did develop genuine feelings for Alina, then that would probably be a Badger Secondary who fell for his own performance. A Snake Secondary would probably have pretended to want a relationship with Alina without developing any feelings. His primary and secondary work together to explain why he was so affected by the Grisha turning against him. That’s his community, the community he built up from the ground, and when they turn on him he punishes them for their perceived disloyalty.

Zoya Nazyalensky is a Snake Primary whose circle includes the Second Army and eventually the whole of Ravka. There’s an argument that she’s a Badger Primary who might’ve been a little burned, and she does treat ozatskaya as lesser than Grisha, but I don’t see the evidence of dehumanisation. Her reason for turning against the Darkling is that he killed her aunt, her only family and to her mind the only person who loved her. A Badger Primary might’ve been more motivated by him massacring Novokribirsk as opposed to a particular loss. Also, her feelings of failure are specific to her feeling that she failed her people — failing to stop the Darkling from killing her aunt, failing to protect the Second Army, failing to stop Nina from being captured. Throughout the original trilogy she’s burned. She’s lost her only person and so latches on to what is hers — the Second Army, Ravka, the Little Palace. She protects these things because they’re hers not because of any ideal. In the Nikolai Duology she unburns and opens herself up to admitting more people to her circle (or admitting that they’re actually in her circle and she does care about them).

Zoya’s secondary was harder for me to pick. She’s definitely an improvisational secondary. We never see her making plans or being worried about being prepared, she just goes into dangerous situations and things work out for her. Snake Secondary in neutral state is possible. For the most part, she’s not particularly chargey for most of the original trilogy and could be a Snake that just doesn’t care. But she treats Nikolai’s Snake Secondary Model with awe and is, I think, too genuinely impressed by it to be a Snake Secondary herself. Lion Secondary makes more sense given that she’s a natural leader who inspires others more than makes herself likeable. The ending of Rule of Wolves also makes me lean towards Lion, since it’s her running headfirst to save Nina without any plan of attack and she doesn’t try to work her away around the situation like a Snake. She just runs straight into danger.

Genya Safin, who wants nothing more than to belong, is a Badger Primary searching for a community. It’s why she stays loyal to the Darkling even after he destroys Novokribirsk, because he gave her a community and sense of belonging, and she believes these things are reliant on her loyalty and service to him. For her secondary, probably Badger too. Like the Darkling, she falls into the trap of believing her own manipulations and actually becomes friends with Alina. Also, the fact she spent years working on her tailoring skills seems like a Badger to me.

David Kostyck, the quintessential inventor, has a glaring Bird Secondary. He’s the one who comes up with inventions, like the discs and the portable light, and is more comfortable in his lab than in the field. As for his primary, I think he might also be a Bird. He’s not a loyalist. If he was a Snake Primary then he probably wouldn’t have turned on the Darkling after Novokribirsk because Genya was still with him. He could be a Badger Primary who turned because of the massacre. But I think he’s a Bird Primary. He desires knowledge, not for the sake of power but purely because he wants to understand things. He strikes me as having a very decided morality. Merzost is bad because that’s a core Grisha teaching that he has adopted in his own system.

Tolya and Tamar are harder to sort because they get less screen time. Tolya’s probably double Lion, considering his concern with being honourable and his qualms with morally dubious actions. Also, his faith seems to me to be very felt and that is more Lion Primary. Considering his main role is as the muscle, definitely Lion Secondary. Tamar, who is totally okay with the morally dubious actions her brother abhors and, as of the Nikolai Duology, is in charge of spying is probably a Snake Secondary. Her motivations are less clear. Could be that she’s a Snake Primary who based her loyalties first of Alina then on Nikolai. She seems to be more attached to individuals than to any cause or country.

In summary:

Alina: Lion Primary/Lion Secondary

Mal: Snake Primary/Badger Secondary, Lion Secondary Performance

Nikolai: Snake Primary/Bird Secondary, Snake Secondary Model

The Darkling: Badger Primary/Badger Secondary, Snake Secondary Model

Zoya: Snake Primary/Lion Secondary

Genya: Badger Primary/Badger Secondary

David: Bird Primary/Bird Secondary

Tolya: Lion Secondary/Lion Secondary

Tamar: Snake Primary/Snake Secondary

#sortinghatchats #sorting hat chats #character sorting #tgt #the grisha trilogy #shadow and bone #siege and storm #ruin and rising #alina starkov #mal oretsev #nikolai lantsov #the darkling #zoya nazyalensky #genya safin #david kostyk #tolya yul bataar #tamar yul bataar

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streetsandsodiumlights · 2 years

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TWEWY....i bet you'd love a reason to talk about it OwO

oh my god THIS is how i remember that i completely forgot about twewy 2 and haven't played it ;o; googles where to get $60 fast...

anyway all of this is with the caveat that i haven't actually played the game in YEARS nor do i know or care that much about all the lore. i just based an entire core facet of my personality on the message i took away from this game as a 15 year old, as you do

i've picked out the ones i CAN answer bc im not involved in any way with fandom for this game so i dont know who's underappreciated. i know who's overappreciated tho

anyway

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

neku......

listen you might have talked to me once about this game. and i might have spent an hour and a half talking about a character who is NOT neku. that doesn't mean anything.

to even understand what this kid MEANS to me you'd have to go back in time seven years to little high school me playing this game for the first time and the actual revelations about the world that it gave me... the way it inspired me to actually change the person i am and how i choose to live and interact w the people around me... it's like one of the core memories from inside out the movie, but it's just this game in the orb

alternatively i would have to explain the entire game from the ground up and the way this single character, THE main character, starts as an antisocial boy who sees no value in relationships with other people (as a defense mechanism, perhaps, bc he doesn't want to lose anyone else... idr if i was projecting or not at the time but i think he had a friend die. so) and who goes about his life like he doesn't NEED to bother with people at all, like they're entirely separate and never need to be acknowledged... and then he develops into someone with not just one friend, but SEVERAL people who he values so highly he manages to bring them all back to life. it's a really fulfilling story that i think about to this day, and i COULD talk for hours about how interesting i find this character, how perfect i think he is for the narrative that gets told, and how much i love the friends he makes and how complex his relationships are with those friends...

look out bc im gonna replay the game and go full brainrot now. you've done this

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

you 🤝 me hating to baby our characters... usually the characters who might fit in this category are VERY dimensional, and choosing to baby them ignores the deeper and more interesting parts of their characters. i don't love to do it, and the POINT of this game is that people aren't all just the front-facing persona they choose to put on, and it just feels antithetical to hold someone up and go hee hee look at how baby he is... that being said twewy DOES have a character who is SO shaped. i think mr mew speaks for himself

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

listen he's not unpopular but he's also THE image that pops into my mind when i envision a poor little meow meow... it's joshua kiryu, who is probably the character i talked about the most when i talked about twewy with you bc he has so many layers to peel back and it's fun to look at a miserable little liar with powers akin to a god and go Yeah, This Guy, Love This Guy. love this guy.

i really do look at him like noooo don't go into this game with total disregard for the beauty of humanity and come out of it having learned the value of trust and friendship along the way!! which COULD put him in blorbo territory, except that he's the nastiest little shithead in the whole game, and that's counting people like kariya whose literal jobs are to make people suffer in new and inventive ways. i have feelings for him

his core personality trait is that he never tells anyone anything, especially not the things that would be important for them to know, and decides to go about his business like he's above every other person in the world and doesn't need to bother with them. i love a good foil to my protagonists, but i especially love characters who shine a light on the ways they're different from my protagonists by being so similar. talk to me about him again sometime

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

also josh :) by the end of the game i remember feeling like i hadn't seen enough of him. neku and shiki and beat and rhyme all grow into people with a better understanding of themselves and the world and josh remains kind of aloof and above it all. makes me feel like he got something out of it all, but not the RIGHT things. not ENOUGH things. i would like to see him go through more events, and perhaps some of those events would be torment flavored

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

minamimoto. he made me do bad math and he's definitely gay

and even though i have no contact with whatever fandom still remains for this fifteen year old game i see TOO much of him and he can go away. i know he comes back in NEO but i dont know what happens in NEO so maybe i'll like him more after i actually get a chance to play it but until then he's just some GUY with a MEGAPHONE who needs it to be TAKEN AWAY. eeby deeby for him

#answered asks #twewy #you unlocking ancient memories bc it's GENUINELY been years since i played this game and yet somehow #somehow i managed to remember everything i love about two major characters in minutes #the other guys are still fuzzy but i have spent a significant portion of my life thinking just about neku and josh as characters #like. literary analysis type stuff. how are they written and how effective is that writing and what does it mean to me #and it just all came flooding back.... i adore them. i love the game #if anybody sees this who knows more than me about twewy.... dni i am right even when im wrong

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leefi · 3 years

Text

Starira MBTI III - Frontier

1. Seisho

2. Siegfeld

3. Frontier

4. Rinmeikan

Aruru Otsuki: ENFP

Just go and reread Karen’s entry.

FJDKSLDKL in all seriousness leaps and bounds of Ne from both of them. There’s a reason they often catch themselves saying the same things and why Karen sees so much of herself in Aruru. Not only are they both Ne doms, they’re the exact same type! Ne and Fi together hold that naturally sunny and joyful disposition they both have, and that extreme, passionate love for the people they’re close to. And her Ne may be even higher off the charts than Karen’s. From the entirety of Captain Twins, to improvising lines on stage with Misora as kids, to being the embodiment of Frontier’s free-spirit, pioneering nature - all of this is extroverted intuition, chasing at every possibility under the sun, no matter how absurd it may seem. Her STRONG tertiary Te -- which is much stronger than Karen's, by the way -- supports her dominant Ne, and this is where her gung-ho attitude comes from. “We have to write our own play?? No problem, wheel out the whiteboard! Nobody has an idea yet?? That’s fine, I’ll throw one out and get the ball rolling! Misora and I need three more people for our play? What are we waiting for, let’s go find them!!” All of this is tertiary extroverted Thinking, implementing your ideas out in the world.

Misora Kano: ISTP

She is so compelling!!! I wish we got to see more out of her!! She's already cultivated so many of her talents (and her function stack is pretty strong for such a young age too) - she'd really shine if you just gave her the spotlight! The second ISTP in this series who had her inferior Fe develop super early due to having 1) a ton of siblings and working with so many people from such a young age and 2) a gf with Fi in her dom/aux slot. I’m gonna start with her Fe again because, like Futaba’s, it’s so strong for how young she is - she is quicker to pay attention to social convention than Fi-aux Aruru, scolding her whenever she refers to older Karen by her first name, for example (don't let her see Aruru call Akira -chan). We see aux Se in how energetic and in the moment she is - she grew up acting and doing backstage work and helping her family with their troupe, and we never really see her stuck in her head or wondering about things that aren’t in the here-and-now. Her partnership with ENFJ Michiru to create a new Troupe is going to be SO SO GOOD in the future. They really are going to draw the best out of each other. As polar opposites, they have the exact same functions, just in reverse (like Karen and Junna, or Hikari and Ichie)! So Misora has Ti-Se-Ni-Fe, and Michiru has Fe-Ni-Se-Ti. It’s the perfect setup for them to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Honestly, I really wish we saw more out of Misora - she deserves more than just being Aruru’s sidekick, and that Feeling function in her inferior slot (extroverted, no less) means that it’s difficult for her to communicate what exactly it is that she wants, both for herself and from others. Like with Mahiru, it’s intuitively hard for her to speak up and say “Hey, I feel like I’m being left behind”. Somebody needs to tap Aruru on the shoulder and communicate that to her - Fe-dom Tsukasa, maybe, or ideally, Misora herself. I think that she’s been kind of shouldered into the straight-man role not just by Aruru but everyone at Frontier because they all have such big personalities (like...she’s got Aruru and Lalafin taking up space, which is already more than enough), and she’s likely been in this position before. She’s been helping her parents run a troupe since she was a child, and now she’s (unfortunately) playing second fiddle to Aruru for the most part at Frontier. She’s been mostly stuck using her Ti and Se, and I really really hope that AA has us seeing her use more of that tertiary Ni and advocating for the goals she has for herself. She deserves to shine so much!!

One final note - I find it so interesting that both ISTPs in this series have such strong senses of faith - Misora is cast as the Faith arcana (and, unlike some of the other girls who are cast as the “opposites” of their personalities, Misora’s seems true to hers), and Futaba obviously has that reverent faith in Kaoruko (and is canonically religious???). It’s a bit antithetical to the ISTP personality type, which values its individuality above all else and tends to be a bit of a rebel. I don’t have much to add here - it’s just an interesting observation.

Shizuha Kocho: INFJ

Lalafin: The Count was such a great actor! I’m sure he would’ve been great on stage too…

Shizuha: Heh heh, maybe!

Shizuha: But still, he never went back to his original persona even after his revenge. He had to stay as the count for the rest of his life.

Shizuha: And he was able to do that because he was good at becoming other people.

Shizuha: ...Although I cannot say if that meant he was happy.

Lalafin: Even after his revenge, he still wasn’t happy...That’s one point of view to make his sadness stand out even more!

Shizuha: Right?...Yes. I think I’ll stick to how I’m doing things now.

THE!! LOVE!! OF!! MY!! LIFE!!!!!!! I CANNOT OVERSTATE ENOUGH HOW MUCH I LOVE SHIZUHA KOCHO!!!! She was my first favorite character in the game (and still is!! But frontier gets no content :’)). As I said with Maya, INFJs are old souls - wise and idealistic, but typically reserved. Auxiliary extroverted Feeling shows up in how she suppresses herself so as not to intimidate or make others feel inferior - we see the exact same thing play out with INFJ sibling Koharu. She’s mysterious but amiable, kind and awe-inspiring - just like INFJ sibling Maya. And we see that token INFJ loneliness playing out with all three, as well. What I love most about Shizuha is that she’s a person of extremes. She is so cerebral and intelligent and dignified in a way that reminds you of Maya but she’s also so!!!! Fucked in the head!!!!! Ni doms baby!!!!!!! (I am fucking crazy. But i am free).

Unhealthy INFJs can develop this obsession with making themselves martyrs, and I don’t think I need to rehash out her AA conversation with Aruru (and her entire philosophy towards acting - see above quote) to get that across. I want to dive into this more. Truly I do. Shizuha deserves 10 pages of writing. But she is one of the last I'm writing and I've clicked through 3 different AA stories and accidentally found Rui and Yukko's first so I diverted and finished writing Yukko's entry and I've already spent so much time on this oh god the doc is already 18 pages single spaced uhhhh Shizuha my loveliest love I will write your character deep-dive later I prommy <333

(Also, seeing her synergy with Aruru is soo so cute. INFJ/ENFP supremacy!! Same dynamic as MayaKaren!)

Lalafin Nonomiya: ESFP

(Se dom).

She’s so athletic and energetic and in-the-moment and improvisational and quick on her feet (Se, Se, Se)! Fi over Ti aux because she has a much more subjective view of what’s “fun” - “what do I want to do? Where do I want to go? What kind of character do I want to play???". She’s got that trademark genki energy that so many ExFPs share, particularly that childlike zeal that she and ESFP sister Ichie both have. In her own way, Lalafin embodies Frontier’s pioneering, fun-loving spirit just as much as Aruru.

Tsukasa: Lupin is usually portrayed as mysterious and polished, no? But the way you perform him is more fresh and open -- almost like the main character from a children’s book.

Lalafin: Oh! Come to think of it, the book on Lupin I read when I was younger was written for kids!

Lalafin: It was about this big and had a realistic image of Lupin right on the cover!!

I don’t really have too much to add. She’s just a perfect embodiment of that excitable, fun-loving Se and Fi dom/aux duo. Childlike and simplistic-appearing at a first glance, but there's such a fire in there - just compare her to her ESFP twin Ichie!

Tsukasa Ebisu: ENFJ

I can see that use of Se - love of fashion, sweets, dancing, going out and enjoying life - yes, she had overprotective parents and could just be making up for lost time, but I think that nice material things are something she just genuinely enjoys for herself as well. So at first I thought ESFP, but we can’t ignore that enormously caring attitude she has for others and the way she gravitates towards caretaker roles, which indicates more Fe than Fi. So ENFJ it is! She has that Fe and Se, and we see that inferior Ti in how she struggled to realize something was wrong when she was trapped in the play. I love, love, loved her leading role in the Arise All You Sons event and how she and Yachiyo interacted to bring out the best in each other - we saw Yachi using a lot of that aux Ti to support Tsukasa’s inferior Ti and dominant Fe!

Her dominant Fe is SOOOO clear and contrasts to every other girl in Arise All You Sons. She’s the first to go “hey, wait, hold on - I’m not sure what (inferior Ti) but something about this feels artificial, and I don’t think it’s actually going to help the kids”. Inferior Ti/Dominant Fe speaks before thinking too - “Why did I say that?! Why did I do x?!” - it isn’t until aux Ti Yachiyo shows up to help her that she’s able to work through her thoughts. While she can get stuck in the rut of her own mind sometimes, Tsukasa is one of the most caring, empathetic, and mature characters in the series - and she does all this without sacrificing her own autonomy and individuality, which can be difficult for an Fe-dom to do.

#i'll link later this is scheduled and i'm lazy #revue starlight #starira #frontier #otsuki aruru #kano misora #kocho shizuha #nonomiya lalafin #ebisu tsukasa #me: i don't play favorites :)#also me writing shizuha's: ...i'm so sorry queen i will give you justice later #also also me: i don't have an ISTP bias.#also also also me: *cracking knuckles over keyboard for misora's entry* let's go girls #one last thing: I've mentioned the range that ISFPs have. BUT ENFJs??? jesus christ #see Michiru's Ni is more developed than Tsukasa's but Tsukasa's Se is more developed than Michiru's

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laikuh · 3 years

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okay okay let's think through the hannigram au. there are a couple different threads that need to be merged here.

1st) incest as the samdean version of murder. the temptation of this unholy, impure (in dean's mind) act, the ugliest thing in the world to dean, not being to take a life, but to carnally desire his brother

2nd) the cannibalism. the nature of consumption. i don't see dean and sam as cannibals, but i like the idea of conflating their shared desire for one another with wanting to eat, one another and sam as hannibal drawing out the metaphor of cannibalism to dean bc it's both accurate and ALSO further unsettles dean, which sam would obviously like

bc the other aspect of cannibalism, especially cannibalism filtered through hannibal, is "cannibalism as an act of dominance" and the fact that cannibalism in that show functions as both an expression of power as much as it functions as an expression of love.

this version of sam is closer to soulless sam, but not all the way because his soul is very much in tact through his love for dean. hannibal doesn't understand what it means to love after mischa until he meets will, and sam doesn't care to love or understand anyone outside of himself, except for dean. we can credit john's shitty parenting if we want, for breaking sam into pieces he had to carefully stitch back into his people suit he uses to dominate others and for breaking dean down into something that desires to be dominated.

i know this is sort of antithetical to what we love about a lot of samdean stuff, with dean as mr. alpha who wants to control and possess sam, but h o n e s t l y i actually think this can be super complimentary, bc sam isn't going to get anywhere with dean if he acts like 5.4 samifer all smug and ridiculous. no, sam in this fic for me is way more like lucifer with nick, soft and gentle and wide-eyed. and i am obsessed with the idea of alpha dean still trying to do what john says and look out for his brother while craving to have those responsibilities taken away, which, like, enter hannibal!sam finding every chink in dean's alpha persona by whispering about their shared love for one another.

this is not a dean who perfectly matches will, already suffering and withdrawn, but a dean systematically broken down by a determined and skillful sam, who--if this is still in a universe where they hunt--is constantly drawing obscene connections for dean between the fucked up life they lead as hunters, the blood they both enjoy drawing, the wrongness of reveling in that violence, why can't we revel in something else, dean?

the first time they fuck, and the terrible aftermath. "you delight in wickedness and then berate yourself for the delight" sam tells dean in the bed they just messed.

"you delight," dean says thickly. "i tolerate."

also circling back up to the cannibalism/consumption track, dean having those thoughts as we all love to imagine he does. dean finally unleashing on sam every terrible secret thought he's had, how he's so fucked in the head he can't think of loving sam without protecting sam without possessing sam without controlling sam without touching sam without BEING INSIDE SAM.

and sam listening and smile and encouraging every confession, eat me up, you love me so.

#i am unwell #samdean #wincest #cannibalism #hannibal au

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thyandrawrites · 4 years

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im losing my shit over 265 so i gotta ask. do you still think hawks could become a villain? bc dabi straight up roasting him at a five foot range seems pretty antithetical to it. what’re your opinions?

Call me a fool who’s setting herself up for disappointment… but this arc hasn’t yet given me a solid reason to despair about Hawks’ fate yet.

For one, I expected his betrayal. And I expected it to be awful. Did I foresee him going all Hero Supremacy Rhetoric on a poor man begging for him to stop, to have sympathy, to be less self-righteous and cruel? Well, no… I don’t think anyone quite expected him to pour salt over a gaping wound. But I think we all foresaw him sticking to the ideals he’s grown up with. I had hopes that Hori would make use of Shigaraki’s incubation period to show us Hawks actually bonding with the League and starting to see them as people, but Hori skipped narrating that part, which means that he never had the intention of developing Hawks’ cognitive dissonance as a linear process. After some pondering, I can see why. That would’ve been a little too convenient narrative-wise.

I don’t mean this as a justification for any of his actions, because I think he deserved the punishment the received, but let me reiterate for a moment that the current Hawks literally doesn’t know any better. Hawks has been raised from a tender age to be a tool. He’s been taught to prioritize the greater good over his own morals and his own needs over and over, until the point he internalized that he must always strive to save as many people as possible, at the cost of literally sacrificing his limbs. Hawks is constantly running at his topmost speed, even when he’s technically off duty, because he’s been raised to believe that if he slows down people die. He’s constantly thinking of a faceless majority of people who will benefit from his heroic sacrifice, and he devotes it all of himself in hopes of one day eradicating all villainy and finally gain the freedom he so longs for.

So how does this relate to Twice and to what’s going on?

Twice is the collateral of that mindset. Sacrificing Twice for the sake of saving hundreds should technically be an easy choice for Hawks. It’s just one person, isn’t it? It’s the Trolley Problem I talked about before, and that since then has been explored by other meta writers, too. Sacrificing one person for the sake of a majority of people. An utilitarian mindset that privileges collective good over individual happiness.

But Twice is also the first individual who treated Hawks like a person, not a tool. Twice is Hawks’ first real human bond. His first friend. Suddenly, the choice to kill him in cold blood is not as easy anymore, even for the sake of a supposed greater good. Suddenly, Hawks allows himself to be selfish. He wants to preserve what little bond they have. He wants to keep Twice in his life.

Here’s where feelings get in the way of duty, making him commit his second mistake. He talks to Twice like a cop. Like a law enforcer, rather than as a person, as a friend. He completely disregards Twice’s feelings, and doesn’t react to Twice’s (on point) accusation that Hawks’ justice is self-absolving and self-serving.

This is another sign of how depersonalized Hawks is when he’s carrying out his duty as a hero. He pushes down his (selfish) wishes and openly denies having grown attached to Twice. He puts on his cop persona, his unfeeling mask, and starts almost bragging about how easily he managed to pull off his lie of trying to tutor Jin before the meeting. Except his speech reads more like a desperate request for confirmation than a real brag. “I did my job right, didn’t I? That was flawless of me, wasn’t it? I didn’t slip up, I got you exactly in the harmless position I wanted you in, didn’t I? I did my job as I was supposed to. No one could question me.”

This was the second crack in Hawks’ hero mask.

We can see him visually struggling to stick to his duties even as he points several dozens of feather knives at Twice. We see him begging for Twice to choose the scenario that would be easier on Hawks’ guilty conscience: stop resisting, or pass out. Both of those options would take the choice to kill away from Hawks, and would make it easier to live with himself afterwards. Because, no matter what he says out loud, he has grown attached to a person he’s not supposed to have befriended. Sparing Twice is not what Hawks has been trained to consider a feasible option. Yet, we see him hesitate several times.

Still, in the end he chooses to kill.

Which is incredibly ironic, if you ask me. I’ve seen people frame this moment as the peak of his heroic agenda. As the proof that Hawks’ character will always stick to his cop ideals, and never shift from them. After all, he’s sacrificing a friend. It cannot possibly get worse from here, right? Nothing else could make him sway, if feeling sympathy for a target never stopped him from oppressing a minority that never had his same privileges.

Except… I will argue that choosing to kill Twice is quite literally Hawks’ most villainous moment. Heroes aren’t supposed to kill. Not even for the sake of saving hundreds of people. Not especially kill preemptively.

He done fucked up

Ironically, his most villainous choice happens while he thinks he’s doing his job as a hero.

Just like Endeavor

Which is when Dabi chooses to waltz in and give him a satisfying roast for all the shit he pulled. if there’s one thing Hori can do well, it’s dishing out fitting narrative punishments for wrong choices. As well as building perfect foils and set ups.

The thing is, even with how dire things are looking right now, there’s only one possible way out of this situation I can see, unless someone else arrives there last minute to interrupt.

I already explained elsewhere why I think Hawks won’t die here, so what’s exactly the point of keeping him alive? Well, there’s two points imho. One, Hawks needs to start questioning the legitimacy of his methods, and compare his community-focused approach on justice to the League’s individual-focused one. Two, Hawks needs to correct the wrong he just did and thus begin proper character growth.

There is a short-term and a long-term way I can see this unfolding.

The short-term one is that Hawks will save both Dabi and Jin’s life from the crumbling building, just like @waxwingedhawks predicted. This makes too much sense theme-wise not to happen. See, the thing is that Dabi’s hang-up is that heroes are supposed to save people. And Twice’s hang-up is that heroes only ever save the virtuous. Both of them believe that no hero will save them. Which is exactly why Hawks must. Because, for all his doubts, his inflexibility, and for how much he thinks he can distance himself, Hawks is still primarily a rescue-based hero. And Dabi managed to catch him off guard and torch him exactly because Hawks wasn’t sticking up to his role as a saviour, and was trying to kill instead. It makes perfect narrative sense for him to do something that will prove, on a base level, past the hero/villain dichotomy, that he can see Dabi and Twice as humans. That his mask can crack, because even though he’s convinced himself he needs to do this, the truth is, killing Twice was never the most sensible option he had.

The long-term route is that after this raid is over, and most likely will result in an overwhelming loss for the heroes (because it makes no sense for the heroes to annihilate the League here, as we’re not yet at the end of the story), Hawks will be blamed for this loss. Possibly discarded, too, by the hpsc. After all, his cover with the League is blown. He stopped being useful to them, and his failure to stop Twice will likely have ripples.

I mentioned in another post that it would be real neat if Hawks lost his wings or his ability to fight with his quirk as a side effect of Dabi’s attack, and I still stand my ground on that, too. It makes a lot of sense when you consider the story’s themes. The lov is entirely made up of people who have no place in hero society, and all of them are either part of some marginalized community (like disabled, mentally ill and lgbt folks) or people who were straight-up discriminated against on accounts of their weak or unheroic powers. I’m just saying that if Hawks suddenly lost the very power that made him a useful tool for the hpsc, he’d finally get to see the other side of the medal. Maybe he’d even come to learn the truth in Twice’s words: that their society only ever cares about the virtuous, the sane, the heroic. That their society openly discriminates against people who don’t have flashy and strong powers, straight up calls them villainous, and lets them fall through the cracks without a single fuck given.

But anyway. Even if Hawks doesn’t end up with permanent damage from this fight, I’m still positive that he’s not getting out of this as a hero. And I use the word “hero” here as in, someone commendable XD

Anyway, all of this to say that I expect Hawks’ process of undoing of his own hero brainwashing to be a non-linear process. It’s far too convenient to make him suddenly realize that the worldview he’s upheld for 22 years actually make him a horrible person. Think of how Hori had to punish Bakugou over and over, almost every single arc, for sticking to his harmful mindset. But there’s no doubt that Dabi attacking him should be also read as narrative punishment, so I’m fairly positive that Hori intends to give Hawks proper growth, eventually. I can’t be sure if the way I envision it is how it’s gonna unfold, but this was my hot take XD

Oh, and by the way… all of this doesn’t even take into account how much the Touya reveal would fuck Hawks worldview up further, considering that his ideal of enforced justice has always been………… Enji.

#bnha spoilers #bnha meta #bnha 265 #meta:hawks #my post #bnha #hawks #dabi #twice #Anonymous

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blackroseraven · 4 years

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I'm relieved, and happy.

The terrible thing is that an election shouldn't make someone "relieved" or "happy." It should be boring, just the gears of democracy grinding forward, a replacement of one figurehead for another. Maybe one that will guide the nation using different methods and ideals, sure, but the agenda should always be the same: the betterment of the nation. There shouldn't be celebrating and dancing in the street, and we shouldn't feel the relief so many of us clearly are. Any more than people should feel a sense of doom or defeat; we should be Americans, together, and democracy should be a monotonous ritual where we can all feel confident that at the end of the day, no matter how much we might disagree with the next person in charge, they're still going to do their best.

Trump wasn't that. Trump played golf and visited his own properties over 500 times. Trump never had a functioning cabinet, any more than he was ever a successful businessman. We know that Trump's taxes are... not good, even if it's hard, actually, to pin down why: tax and tax law are very complex, but the obvious patterning shows a laziness, almost an arrogance that would draw the attention of any accountant.

Trump had a nation put children in cages. I don't care "who built the cages" or "who was behind the original law" or anything like that: I don't care about talk, but about actions, and this is what ICE did. I care that over 500 children cannot be reunited with their parents after being separated from them at the border. Trump created tariffs that hurt America and his behavior has been antithetical to global peace and prosperity.

Was he a racist as well as an incompetant buffoon? Probably. But that doesn't matter: we know for a fact that white nationalist groups supported him, from the KKK to neonazi movements, and that he had his own personal cult, QAnon, even though he was never cunning enough to wield the power of Q himself, always just a figurehead of the conspiracy. What matters to Trump is Trump, and Trump alone: I don't think it matters how racist, how cruel, or how he feels about things. As Mary Trump attests in her book, he is like a toddler: he only cares about things that care about and benefit Trump.

But the worst part was his incompetence. The worst part, and the entire reason he failed as an autocrat: he is a bumbler, who can only gain the help of fellow bumblers, and who is easily manipulated by anyone who makes it into his orbit if they have the necessary selfishness and cunning. Look at Parscale, who is now writing a tell-all book, after having done pathetic little work to help Trump's sinking ship of a campaign.

And yet people will tell you he is Alpha, even though he's a fat man who eats nothing but McDonald's in spite of being in the highest office in the land, and had to pay to have sex with a porn star shortly after the birth of his youngest son. That he's a genius, in spite of the fact he has trouble stringing a coherent sentence together and repeats the same lie over and over again. That he is a Lion, even though he fires by tweet and has his underlings face the world for him, while he runs off to golf or hides like a coward. That he only speaks the Truth, even though no Covid vaccine has materialized despite his promises, we STILL don't have a healthcare plan but at most, vagaries, and of course his blameshifting with regards to the pandemic when he is President and should have been showing, oh, I don't know, leadership?

Could I even maintain my friendship with someone who supported Trump? I don't honestly know. I say that as someone who doesn't like to go to extremes, but Trump impacted me and people like me so much, and so many of his supporters took such joy in it, I would spend a long time musing on it. People go "oh well gosh you can't judge ME by what OTHER PEOPLE did," but these are often the same people who refer to the "liberal elite" as one monolithic structure. Because people love to generalize, but hate being generalized. And how much do you really care about "me" beyond what you perceive of me as, if I have these very real concerns about hardening of rules around immigrants and immigration, about the lawlessness and overzealousness of ICE, about how "my kind" are treated, and the response is always "well, but..." or "I'm sure you're exaggerating."

People have made Trump into this persona that doesn't exist. I'm sorry, but the Emperor is just a fat orange man, addled in all the ways that his sycophants have accused Biden of being... or have you not noticed how often the very people accusing various Trumpian enemies are themselves guilty of the exact crimes they're describing? We aren't in the era of gaslighting: this is the era of projection, where we avoid guilt by blaming other people for our sins.

Take the election, for example, and how PA legislature purposefully delayed ballot counting as part of a known plan, a “campaign strategy” by Trump to undermine the election. And I’m disgusted with the people complaining about “mail-in” ballots being used when Trump himself was doing nothing but discouraging them, essentially handicapping himself. Furthermore, how do you think military people overseas vote? By magic? Or do our soldiers no longer matter when they’re no longer useful to your cause and your ideology?

Don’t answer. We all know the truth. The screaming red hats showed us that, just as they showed us how people want to be ruled over, and the real people living in a bubble aren’t the “liberal coastal elite” but the now-minority that’s desperate to keep itself in power in a country that is trying to adapt, change, and evolve as the world does so.

Biden is far from perfect and not at all my ideal candidate, but at least he’s a decent human being, who stays off twitter. And I look forwards to having rational ideological disagreements rather than living in fear and disgust. I look forwards to being able to speak my mind again, even if it will be a long time before I feel again like I am actually welcome in this country, if I ever was at all; like I’m not an outsider to this nation, and that if many of these vile people had their way, I would be removed, no matter what good I’ve done, or how much of my blood and sweat has been spent working alongside them.

If Trump is your idea of a "strong man," then you need to reflect on where you are in your life, honestly, and how happy you are with it, and how you got there. And I pray you find your answers and your peace. And if this "offends you..." what was that popular MAGA motto?

Ah, yes.

Fuck your feelings, snowflake. Facts don't care about your feelings.

#politics #life #election 2020

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