#yeah no one is able to overcome the inherent human flaw of emotion and anyone who thinks they can is in fact mentally unwell | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

whoaffle · 5 years

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Sometimes things that shouldn’t annoy me annoy me anyway because of disproportionate and nearly-irrational, however usually very logical, over-thinking leading to a negative analysis of the given thing.

I’ll leave an example that is what made me rather annoyed now. You can skip this whole thing if you don’t feel like reading about my moody complaints about modern society. Have a nice day anyway. ♥

WARNING: this post is mostly negative, and may trigger you if you are sensitive to a lot of negativity.

Now, about what made me angry today... There’s this add that always plays between my music in Youtube where the woman goes “We are people who don’t like to stop. We don’t have time for pain! That’s why, when it shows up, we need *painkiller name*!” -- and by then I have already skipped it, like... I skip it every time because I hate this first sentence.

“We are people who don’t like to stop” - that is not inherently bad, I mean, there’s no problem in disliking to be idle, to have nothing to do, it could be interpreted as “we dislike boredom” and that’s mostly correct. But still, doesn’t apply to everyone, some people do like to stop sometimes and just stay the whole day doing nothing and looking through the window feeling a cold breeze, some people can’t stand NOT stopping, they hate to do things in a rush and like to have time to breathe and think in between when they have to do a lot of stuff. So yeah, not 100% relatable for everyone, but not a sentence that would piss me off on it’s own.

But “We don’t have time for pain” - oh, baby, you just triggered my “mad at society” mode right now! That part just gives the first sentence a whole new meaning... It’s implying that the fact that we do not have time for pain (which is, in my view, a major flaw on how today’s society works and a disrespect to human health and quality of life) is NOT because we are basically forced to work 24/7 otherwise we literally can’t afford food, or because we are expected to do a billion times more than it would be humanly acceptable in most jobs otherwise we are considered to be “not giving our best” and may be fired... BUT BECAUSE WE DON’T LIKE NOT TO WORK OUR BUTTS AND SOULS OFF! That makes me mad.

The fact that we (in general) “don’t have time for pain” is not at all because “we don’t like to stop”, which is the connection that the add wants to establish between the two sentences, I suppose. It’s because we ARE NOT ALLOWED to stop! And this is so unhealthy! And this makes me so mad that adds and companies and society in general are promoting surviving through our insane days of work with painkillers and energetic drinks (I’ve already written before about why those make me mad as well) as something not only acceptable, but normal and even good! It’s so common... I see this a lot, I think I’ve actually become sensitive to it, because every time I see something that slightly implies this, I notice and usually feel moody about it.

What I’m saying is that it feels to me that... “Look! Now whenever your body starts warning you that maybe living under that much pressure all the time is not really healthy or tries to show you with a symptom that there MAY be something wrong with your body, you can just IGNORE IT! And keep doing the same unhealthy things you always do, instead of taking it as a warning and taking some time for yourself, to heal mentally, physically and emotionally and check your health with some professionals!” is a SUPER COMMON argument nowadays... Like, we are subtly normalizing the notion that we should “kill the symptoms instead of the disease” as a metaphor for society, not literally (most of the time), and that is, that we should find a way to ignore the consequences of our limitations, instead of rethinking our habit of constantly pushing ourselves to our maximum. We somehow managed to turn “give it your best” into an unhealthy culture!

I agree with giving your best as long as it’s in a healthy way. Because whenever it’s not healthy anymore, that is no longer “your best”, it’s now more than what your best really is. Makes sense right? I mean.. “your” best is not other people’s best! So “your” best is as far as you can go without hurting yourself! If it’s damaging you, then it’s beyond your limits! I mean, ask people who do sports, you shouldn’t force yourself beyond your limits, otherwise you may ruin your body! As an example, a story that runs in my family about a family friend who wanted to be a ballerina. She was in ballet class and couldn’t do the exercise properly because she couldn’t bend down enough. And then her teacher SAT DOWN ON HER BACK, putting her whole weigh on her spine, in order to push her down, and she literally had to go to the hospital! The teacher fucked up her back so badly with that she literally had to stop dancing and could never become a ballerina!

That’s what happens when we don’t respect our limits and the limits of those around us! And I feel like this is almost never taken seriously. Sometimes, if it’s about physical health, it gets some attention, but not as much as it should. Our society keeps expecting each day more and more out of people, not giving anyone the proper conditions to live a healthy life. Society doesn’t respect human limits. And this is not beautiful, this is not an example of “being a fighter” and being awesome and shit! I mean, yes, sometimes we must fight beyond out limits, give it more than we can, to overcome problems and all... And it’s not like this is not inspiring. But we shouldn’t see it as something so positive! The positive thing is not that the person went beyond their limit, but the fact that they survived it. The fact that they had to go beyond their limit should be tragic, it should be seen as a problem. They were in such a big pickle that they had to give it more than they could, good thing it worked! That’s how we should see it! But instead we kinda set those examples as the norm, as the goal. If they did it, you can to it too! Yeah, maybe I can, perhaps, but should I?

Don’t get me wrong, again, this involves reinterpreting several common-place sentences such as 1 “being a fighter“, 2 “give it your best”, 3 “you can do it too”... I’m not saying those are inherently negative, destructive or toxic sentences. Far from that! In fact, used in the proper context, those are great sentences that can be super inspiring and true! But I think we are witnessing some sort of radicalization of those sentences, turning them into unhealthy statements that, instead of saying 1 “we recognize and admire your effort and the fact you overcame such a tough situation”, 2 “don’t hold back for fear or laziness, do the best you are physically, mentally and emotionally able to do right now” and 3 “you should try to do it because I believe in your potential, another person has done it before, so it’s not impossible”, are saying 1 “This person who suffered a lot is better than you for that reason, so you must suffer too and that’s beautiful”, 2 “I don’t care if it’s hurting, keep going! I don’t care if you feel like dying, it’s not good enough yet, you have to do better and better and better” and 3 “If one person made it once, everyone is expected to do it as well, doesn’t matter if you’re a different person with different traits. Just. Do it.” - You see the difference? It’s turning good things and positive messages into destructive and toxic thoughts that can be extremely unhealthy for us.

Yeah I know I’m over-interpreting. I know it’s “just an add for a painkiller”. I know it’s intended for situations like “oh you have a headache at work so you can take it not to feel pain”. I’m not saying that the add or whoever made it is actively trying to transmit the message I criticized above. And I’m totally not saying people should go home every time they have a headache or anything such. I just... I just really can’t disassociate this aspect of our society and how it generally promotes unhealthy practices in the benefit of companies and economy and whatever (capitalism in general) with this kind of speech that is so common in painkiller adds, energetic drinks adds, coffee adds and other adds... As well as in those “beautiful: girl works collecting trash everyday to pay for her mother’s cancer treatment” news we sometimes get...

Also... Nothing against taking painkillers, by the way. Specially because no one really likes feeling pain, and not every pain is serious enough to actually stop you from doing what you want/must. What I really dislike is the way it is put in the add. What I dislike is this weird subtext that seems to be present in this add. I don’t like this association of sentences - we don’t like to stop, we don’t have time for pain - as if they were 1- cause and consequence and 2- universally relatable as cause and consequence.

Anyway. I’m sorry if this whole thing made no sense to you, I know this is over-thinking and I know this is rather negative, so I’m really sorry if you chose to read the text and it somehow made you feel sad or anything. I’ll try to compensate by leaving a cute cat picture! And I hope you can feel better.

I just want to add that the reason why I write those huge texts all the time, often criticizing stuff, is because it’s good for me. It works really well for me to relieve stress and take negativity out of my chest. I just don’t really want to take it out of my chest to put it in someone else’s, so I hope no one feels bad because of this. I really like to write about things when I feel frustrated and mad, it really calms me down and makes me feel better.

Anyways.... Have a lovely cat, please! And I hope you have a good day! (Also take care of your physical, mental and emotional health please)

#triggers #overthinking #social analysis #criticizing #negativity #bad mood #mental health #health #society sucks though #adds #vent post #triggering content #may be triggering #warning

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monkeymindscream · 6 years

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Same Mandarin leader anon (which btw thank you very much for the detailed response. It made me look at things in a whole new light that made a lot of sense. Particularly made me appreciate even more Chiro being their link to a greater sense of humanity and in general). Since you were strictly trying to keep to what the show offered only, what are your headcanons/theories about that time regarding Mandarin and the team? Go crazy. =)

Don’t have to ask me twice!!

Literally my biggest headcanon for when Mandarin wasleading the team is that I don’t think he was actually evil at that point. Imean tbh I don’t think he’s (completely) evil after his time leading the Team; he definitely does a lot of evil things – in fact if we go off onlywhat’s seen in-show he’s even more monstrous than even Skeleton King himself –but I personally think that’s more the result of him being a deeply flawed individual rather thanfrom him being inherently malicious.

As I’ve said, I don’t think Antauri was just being optimistic when he said Mandarinhad once had a “good heart.” All other flaws aside, Antauri is incredibly perceptive, and I feelimplying that his character will overlook the bad to focus on the good is doinghim a huge disservice. Also wouldn’t it technically be oxymoronic if he was overlooking the bad to focus on thegood? Considering at that very moment he was also going on about how he sure he was that Chiro would be swayed by Mandarin, I mean? I find it more likely in this case that,while Antauri would have been awarethat Mandarin had… problems, let’scall it (otherwise we’ll be here all day), he’d have been able to see pastthose to the person(/monkey) he actually was underneath. It’s just thatunfortunately those problems were too much to for Mandarin to overcome, andthus began his downward spiral.

Adding to this, we’ve got the moment where Sprxsays “the kid is nothing like Mandarin.” Nothing is said to dispute this; thecamera simply cuts to Antauri and Otto who both look skeptical, which to meactually says more than any line of dialogue ever could.

Breaking it down, they could have cut to Mandarin and Chiro right after Sprx’s line. Infact considering the next shot we see of Chiro has him wearing both Mandarin’sold helmet and armor, they could have easily used it as a joke. “He’s nothinglike Mandarin!” *cut to Chiro straight-up jacking his style* ha ha funny. Butthey didn’t. The fact that theyincluded a shot of the characters just reacting to what was said, anddisbelievingly at that, draws attention to it in a way that makes the nextscene seem completely separate. Sprx’s line isn’t being used as a segue. Theinclusion of Otto in that shot is also interesting, considering his was thefirst one to speak out againstAntauri’s suspicions against Chiro.

Overall from a meta-standpoint it doesn’t makesense for the writers to have Antauri make this statement if there was nomeaning behind it.

I’d also like to point out that Antauri isn’t theonly one comparing Chiro and Mandarin. Freakin’ Skeleton King kind of did it too. Snidely, granted, but whenMandarin’s like “I’m keeping the kid feck off” SK asks him if it’s because heviews Chiro as a “reflection of himself.” You can interpret that as himsuggesting that Mandarin viewshimself as similar to Chiro (which is how I take it, tbh) rather than SK makingthe comparison, but I figured I’d point it out anyway. Food for thought.

“But Mandarin’s always been a jerk!” I hear someof you cry. “We were only ever shown him being horrible! And what about all thethings he did after he betrayed the Team, how can you defend that?!” Well firstoff, Phantom-Voices-From-Nowhere, I’m not “defending” anything. I’m saying thatI can make the argument that Mandarin isn’t evil,just fucked up on a number of levels. Second off, behold my counterpoints.

Prior to being booted off the Team, we’re onlydirectly shown two examples of how Mandarin might have behaved: the trainingroom incident with Nova, and how he behaved under the Alchemists care. With theAlchemist, we saw him both growl and Sprx and Nova, and then make the DarkOne’s containment grid malfunction. With the Sprx and Nova thing we couldconceivably attribute his behavior to the fact that the Alchemist had just toldthem to calm down, and they hadn’t. Any of y’all have younger siblings? You everdo the “Mom/Dad told you to (insertwhatever they’d said to do here)!” –thingin an effort to score brownie points? I did. I did that frequently. I was acomplete nark. Look me in the eye and tell me you can’t picture Mandarin beinga nark in his youthier years. Or maybe he was just annoyed by the racket theywere making and snapped (I did that alot too). Both are perfectly non-evil explanations for his behavior. Dick-moves,but not evil.

As for the grid thing… okay, tell me honestly, ifyou found out that a scientist hadlet a bunch of monkeys run rampant around his work station, and it resulted inone of them getting him seriously hurt, would your first thought be “oh my Godthat monkey is such an asshole!”? Or would it be “well what the hell did you think was gonna happen dumbass??” I loveya Al but this was poor planning on your part. I’m surprised you lived longenough to even be possessed by a Dark One in the first place tbh.

The Nova-thing is, let’s all agree, one of thedickiest moves anyone’s ever committed in the show, and it’s mind-bogglingalmost to the point of actually being impressive that the same monkey somehowmanaged to top it later. But I have never been of the mind that it was done forthe sake of sadism. Because okay, we’re never explicitly told that Nova hatesthe cold because of the training roomincident. We’re told that that’s why she has to control her anger. It still makes sense that thecold would now make her temper touchier than usual (poor girl’s probablytraumatized), but it seems more likely that Nova had always had an intensehatred of the cold, to the point where it debilitated her at least slightlywhenever the Team had to go on missions in cold climates. Not to the point towhere she couldn’t function in it, but enough where she wasn��t at peakperformance.

EVIDENCE: Regardless of her hatred of the cold,she is, as stated, still able to function in it. Apart from repeatedly voicingher discomfort, her rage being amped up is the only reaction we see her havetowards it. Given the extent to which the training room incident clearlyaffected her (so much as referencing it, even vaguely, is enough to make her and the rest of the Team stop dead), Ikind of feel that she’d have a more visceral reaction to the cold if the reasonshe hated it was because it had become a trigger for what happened. So if thiswas a problem before everything went pear-shaped, I can see Mandarin – after aseveral instances of going “come ON woman, get it together!!” – being like“Okay yeah no we’re not doing this anymore. Nova come down to the training roomlater we’re ironing this out tonight this is getting ridiculous.” Because he’s Mandarin and he has the sensitivity of amalfunctioning chainsaw, so of course immersiontherapy is the way to go (you absolute fucking walnut). Again, not evil, justan asshole.

Also, regardless of what I said here, another headcanon I have is that he did care about the Team, if only in hisown demented way. I mean I stand by what I said about him using/enjoying theposition’s ability to give him power, and I’d have to be snorting somethinghardcore to believe that a considerable portion of his motivation in-showwasn’t vengeance, but there ain’t no damn way that he didn’t have any emotional investment in the Teamitself. I made a tiny post that pointed outtrace evidence of this, but basically when it comes out that Ma and Pa Cinco arecrazy cult people, Mandy’s clone, upon seeing how upset Chiro is, sneers athim: “I see Antauri hasn’t taught you life’s first lesson: trust no one.”

Like… where the hell did that even come from??Why did he specifically pick Antauri to be teaching Chiro that “lesson”? I meanyou could argue it was because Antauri is Cheerio’s mentor, but wouldn’t heknow that Antauri’s the kind of person who’d teach the exact opposite of that message (and does, at the end of the same episode)? Isthere literally any other way to interpret this than he feels that Antauri (andby extension, the rest of the Team) taught himthat lesson when they threw him in the HOOP? I’m genuinely asking here, I’m inso deep I can’t even tell anymore.

Anyway what I’m getting at is that if the Team did teach Mandarin to “trust no one”with what they did, then it implies that he did, in fact, trust them.Apparently to such a degree that he decided that if they couldn’t be trusted, then noone could.

(Or y’know alternatively this was his solely his clone speaking, and doesn’t necessarily completelyreflect the original’s current views. Basically like “Look where trustingpeople got him. That’s not going to be me. I’m smarter than that.” Either wayit still suggests the original to have held some degree of trust for the rest.)

And I just realized how long this response is getting. I have a lot more to say, and I’mnot entirely certain I stuck to topic and didn’t just ramble for 2+ pages, soif you want me to continue or would like a more specific opinion on anything,just shoot me another ask. Thanks for sticking with this longass thing if yougot all the way to the bottom here!

#srmthfg #Mandarin #muttering about monkeys #Anonymous

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