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majaurukalo · 22 days

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To understand disability issues better there needs to be a serious talk about the link between disability and freedom of choice (or lack thereof).

Western society loves to brag about freedom of choice in terms of being free to do and say and think whatever (we have seen a lot of it during lockdown and regarding vaccine and such and from that it became clear that people don’t really know what “freedom” really means).

So let me straight up tell you that we, disabled people (not all but a lot of us) don’t have much freedom of choice.

First of all, if you consider inaccessibility, we are not free to go wherever we want or socialise or work wherever or attend any kind of universities or schools (yes, I know people who had to give up going to the uni or school of their dreams because they didn’t want/couldn’t provide accessibility).

If an able-bodied person has to find any kind of job to not end up homeless or starve they can do whatever minimum wage job that involves physical strain until they are back on their feet. This is not possible for some disabled people (like me). So this leaves me (us) out of some choices. And in a precarious financial situation.

Some disabled people aren’t free to go to certain shops or restaurants or bars or shows or events etc. because of inaccessibility.

Disabled people who need assistance to travel with public transport can’t choose to travel on their own terms or jump on a last-minute trip because assistance needs to be booked 24 hour earlier in most cases (and some require even 48 hours).

Disabled people can’t always choose the cheapest option because that is usually inaccessible for us so we have to spend more money and not because we like fancy stuff. Also, disabled people are the poorest community and in some countries you can’t have more than a certain amount of money in your bank account if you don’t want to see your benefits gone (benefits that, I highlight, are essential for our survival) so we cannot even climb the social ladder. Another layer of choice stripped away from us.

Disabled people can’t chose where to live or who to live with. Some disabled people need assistance and, since finding a PA is hard and they need to be paid, some of us have to live with our parents or family members and if they are abusive or the relationship isn’t working we can’t just decide to walk out. Because who is gonna help us then? That’s why a lot of abuse towards disabled people remains undiscovered. Some disabled people can’t even acknowledge it and report it.

Many of us can’t just move away from a city or a country because our well-being is tied to a supporting network that we wouldn’t find anywhere else. Not to mention doctors and medications that might not be available somewhere else. So if we complain about the situation of the place we live or that we don’t like to live where we live, it’s not so easy for us to leave everything and move somewhere else (for some it’s impossible).

Disabled people aren’t always free to choose to have kids. The medical system and society’s prejudices make it hard for disabled parents to have kids and there is always a lot of judgment towards disabled parents, especially mothers. Many of us risk to have our children taken away by social workers.

Disabled people don’t have the freedom to choose for their own bodies.

I’m sure I’m forgetting something else but these are the things that worry me the most, regarding my own life and the life of my community.

The only thing this society seems pretty happy to make us choose is assistive dying.

But please, tell me again that we are in it for the money. That we have benefits so we don’t have to work and lazy around all day. Tell me that our lives must be easy.

Even on my off days I’m not free to choose what to do because I might have a flare up, I might be in pain, I might have to go to the doctor.

Oh and one last thing: your freedom to not get your vaccine hinders someone’s freedom to go around. Someone’s freedom to live.

For some reason, this society is quick to judge and justify everything that keeps away disabled people’s choices.

Some able-bodied people think that it is okay to equal disability to a lower quality of life but that lower quality of life depends only on external factors and could be easily improved.

Fuck you!

#cripple punk #disability #cpunk #cripple #crip revolution #crip punk #disability justice #disability rights #disability pride #freedom of choice #disabled #disabled woman #actually disabled #physical disabilities #intellectual disabilities #mental disabilities #sensory disabilities #discrimination #ableism

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sukifoof · 11 months

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I was thinking about Asriel as the Royal Scientist, and I remember in one post you said in the tags, how you considered drawing him as one for your Asriel survives AU, before saying you can't imagine him holding down any job without freaking out

Now, I'm not asking you to draw him anyway, I'll be fine either way. It is just important context cuz that's what gave me my personal thoughts right now about him, and I wanted to spread them because I think they're optimistic in the end, if cliché and generic (warning, I'm really bad at sympathizing with other people, so I might be just, completely wrong about what I say next)

I have little doubt Asriel would be very lost at first about what he is going to do with his life now that The Barrier is gone. Typical confusion after exiting a time loop, compounded by the years of untouched trauma and other mental health issues. Maybe spiralling further as he may consider himself a burden for all those problems he can't handle on his own

He would try resuming being The Prince, go back to what he thinks people want of him, but it's not going to work, he distrusts himself too much after everything he has done. When he inevitably fails, he hits a new low. But eventually, perhaps with Frisk's encouragement, he finds it in himself to open up about it, talk to other people, seek help

Alphys, who in a very real sense is his creator (slightly more metaphorical in this AU, but she's still the one who woke him up from his coma), and one of the few people who know how he works, might be one of the first people that Asriel speaks to about his problems, feeling that she'd understand. They talk to each other about the regrets that they have, bonding over similar troubles, and maybe shared interests (bonding as friends. Alphys is faithful to her wife, and Asriel is on the aspec, so it doesn't go further)

At some point one of them might just naturally suggest that Asriel help out around the lab, and while he's helping, and they're talking with each other, Alphys realizes just how much knowledge about all sorts of things Asriel has, and one day she offers that he become a full-time assistant at her lab. This freaks him out, and in the moment he rejects it and runs away, which both of them later despair over, in a sense of "oh god I was to hard on him/her, now I destroyed our friendship, I'm the worst, I can't do anything right"

But eventually they talk to each other about it (encouraged by their friends) and they realize that neither is harboring any resentment towards the other, and they make amends. Asriel starts out working with her part-time, and while it's initially very scary for him, and he probably has several other freakouts along the way, I think Alphys, being prone to freakouts herself, would be more than understanding. Eventually he becomes her full-time assistant after all

Hopefully combined with therapy which he really, really should receive, he eventually starts feeling good about himself again, even if it takes years to get there. And he realizes, yes, this is the job he wants to do. He can help people without actually having to be there, with a much more manageable amount of responsibility to handle. He's finally happy, as the Assistant Royal* Scientist (* although at this point it is possible that Asgore and Toriel would abdicate, seeing as their son won't take over from them, it might just be easier to end the monarchist government right then and there)

Of course, while Asriel is immortal, Alphys is not, and as the decades pass, she will get older, weaker, less able to do her job. The day when she resigns from her post to let the (physically) younger Asriel become the next Royal Scientist will be a difficult one for both of them, and even more so when she finally turns to dust, although I hope that by this point he would be better equipped to handle the loss of those close to him. It will still hurt, but I hope with new experiences and skills he's learned over the years, he'll be able to deal with that pain, or the pain when his parents or his other friends die, better than he did with the pain of Chara's death

Frankly, not being seen as royalty anymore, especially by the younger generations who won't remember monarchist rule, he might find life easier as he's no longer so isolated as he was as a prince, no longer has to reach the same standards as before

The trauma, and other pain that follows, they will never fully leave him, but he's got a quite literal eternity to learn how to live with them and not let them control his life. And if mortals can do it, then I think he too can, over the course of several years, or even decades, figure it out. I think, as fucked up as he is, at the end of this nightmare road there is happiness waiting for him, however long it takes him to get there. I just want him to be happy goddammit. And I think that a 30-or-40-something Asriel will be happy

Thanks you for listening to my TED talk, and have a magical day

HI IVE BEEN MEANING TO ANSWER THIS FOR SO LONG CUZ ITS SO GOOD AND IN CHARACTER!!! u are so right for this i LOVE this i dont have much to add on cuz ur points are all so good. asriel has so many issues and i think he would probably feel a Bit Better if he was able to put his knowledge to use to help people and it might help him come to terms with death a little better..... anyway they are siblings and they occasionally bother each other. extremely kind mayor who took over after papyrus and local freak scientist who is seemingly some kind of sludge <3 i may draw more of this when i get the chance cuz the idea of these middle aged freaks is so funny to me i love them dearly

#undertale #utdr #asriel #asriel dreemurr #flowey #frisk #livingprinceau #utdr analysis

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thelikesoffinn · 5 months

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hello - hope you're doing great! I love your analysis, and I wanted to ask about something I've been thinking fanfic wise but also applicable to real life (I think).

So Astarion gets paired a lot with Tavs who also have tragic past experiences (hard to be at his level of tragedy, but some get close). Which is all well and good, cause I see how writing these characters and reading about them is cathartic to many, but I also see plot-wise, it makes it "easier" for him to connect with Tav in a way, kindred souls and all that.

My Tav's background is one of someone who either had a fairly good and regular life, and, if trauma occured, it's been healthily overcome. So at the beginning of the BG3 story she's actually at the end of her own initial "character" arc.

Now my issue is, can Astarion connect with someone who has no idea at all of what he went through? My idea is that's he'd infantilize her, or openly antagonise her (in his charming way) because she's got no right to understand (especially with how he thinks it's fine to be racist and hurt the weak in the first act).

And she'd be understanding and wanting to help and all, but how can people with no/little traumatic experiences connect with those who went through hell, even with the best intentions? It's a dynamic I'd like to explore, because I've seen it played in real life a few times.

Sorry for the poem!

Hello, flower! Thank you so much, I'm glad that you enjoyed the analysis ❤️

As for your question: Eh, I do see why that dynamic is a rather difficult one. People who've survived through a lot of traumata tend to be somewhat hesitant and guarded in front of those who had normal lives at the best of times, and we all know that Astarion rarely has a "best of times", especially early in the game.

Infantilising them is something I definitely see with him. He's the type to do that with anyone anyway, but especially so with those he considers "sheltered". And sheltered is likely something he inevitably will consider Tav, as that is often the case with those who experienced trauma.

Trauma tends to age and harden you, in a way, so oftentimes people who simply grew up normally, with normal ups and downs, are viewed as "sheltered" or "spoiled" by those who didn't, even if that wasn't necessarily the case. That label isn't used or assigned maliciously, and it's simply based on the fact that other people's "normal" seems like the very best to someone who had it worse.

I can also see a huge amount of antagonism, yes, but how it shows will depend on when your story is set.

Is it while he's still dependent on Tav? Then I think he'd try to refrain from being more antagonistic towards them than necessary, since he needs to stay on their good side. So, he'd likely stick with his base-line arseholeishness, if a bit more intense at times. You know, in a sense that you side eye him and wonder if he just actually insulted you or if he's still joking around.

But if he's not dependent on them? Oh boy. Yeah, very likely that he'd be extremely mean and Tav would definitely 100% know that he means everything he says, even when it's uttered with a smile. Think how he talks to the Gur hunter in act 1 because let's be honest…that was far from subtle.

Astarion as a whole doesn't take kindly to anyone prodding his weak spots, albeit he mellows a bit towards Tav over the course of the story, and if would be even worse with "sheltered" Tav. He would likely flip his shit really hard and become extremely cruel with them, staying on their good side be damned because how dare they prod where they have no business being?

It's something I've seen at work before, and let me tell you: It's never a pretty sight. Many people who experienced trauma usually don't want to hurt others - quite the contrary, a lot of them would rather sacrifice themselves before watching anyone else get hurt like they were - but that doesn't mean they're not good at it. Precisely because they're often so hypervigilant, they have a talent in picking out your weak spots and if you test them enough, oh boy. They'll hit them with such aim and grace, you'll find yourself reeling. And that's the super sweet and kind clients, not the Astarions.

Here it's important to mention that the things people say in those situations are rarely what they really believe. It's mostly is just a well aimed assassination of your soft spots to get you to back off and leave them be.

So "sheltered" Tav will have to be extremely careful regarding any sore spots if they don't want to be hit by the full force of protective-malice.

Does that mean Astarion and your Tav won't be able to bond? Aabsolutely not, but it will be a tad bit difficult because he'll likely take a lot longer to open up and their bond will have to be built entirely from scratch. The shared understanding of their trauma can’t function as a temporary foundation – temporary because a bond entirely based on [shared] trauma will eventually become instable, if not fortified by other things – so they’ll have to put in a lot of work to even get to having a solid foundation to build on.

I'll give you a bit of a general rundown on how I was taught to tackle clients like that, maybe any of that will be helpful for you!

So, firstly: "Sheltered" Tav will need to be careful and understanding and they'll have to be able to take a blow and live with it if they accidentally step to close too early.

Important to note: They'll have to be able to take a blow but they can't be too lenient either.

Astarion seems like a person who's attached to 'respect'. Not in the 'respect your elders' way, but in the sense that he treats those he respects a lot better than those he doesn't. It's the nobility’s definition of respect - some "deserve" it and some don't and who is who is entirely based on personal understanding - so it's very in line with his background.

So, while your Tav will need to be able to take a hit, they'll need to know when to call him out on his bullshit. If you let Astarion walk all over you, he will eventually lose all respect and then this is a lost cause. Don't let him push you around.

If he's being too cruel, don't be cruel back, but definitely call him out on it and let him know that he can always ask you to stop prodding but you will not stand around and let him insult you.

Be understanding, but don't be a doormat.

Then, in order to get someone to open up, you'll have to have a lot of patience. Don't demand anything, don't force anything. Every question you ask has to be careful and phrased in a way that won't corner them, which can be really difficult in casual conversation. So, mishaps can and will likely happen, which is great material for a story anyway, so that's great! (Not so great at work though, haha.)

In case of "sheltered" Tav, it's probably best if they wait for him to come to them. Listen when he rants, listen to the tiny things he mentions and if you ask questions, make sure they directly relate to what he's told you just then.

So, if he talks about Cazador essentially making him choose between eating putrid rats or getting beaten, a question like: "Did he do that a lot?" or "Was it always those two options?" could potentially be alright because the red string is easily visible for both parties. Astarion can tell why you would ask something like that and he can follow your line of thought easily.

But a question like: "What else did he do to you?" or "Did he do other things as well?" would probably have his defences going up. It's too broad, too unspecific, and how is that any of your business anyway? What is this, an interrogation? An interview so that you can ghost write his sad memoirs? Back off.

While a question like: "How exactly did those dinners go?" or "Beaten? How?" is too specific. You're practically asking him to relive a painful moment in great detail for your own "enjoyment". Why else would you want to know? Why else would you ask how exactly he'd been hurt and humiliated, if not for that? Maybe you were planning to do the same to him. He won't let you. The past is the past. Let. It. Rest.

So, as you can tell, it's basically playing question-hot-foot!

But even if your Tav should cross the lines in that regard every once in a while - it happens, every question is a gamble - it'll eventually be fine. The closer they get, the easier it will be to ask questions, because he'll realise that he can actually trust them.

The one word I would really really avoid - and I cannot stress this enough - is 'understand'. God never use it. Tav, omit it from your vocabulary, you'll never "understand" anything ever again!

"I understand what you went though was horrible, but/and/however…" - No, you really do not. You can't understand, can't even imagine what he's faced over the years so never pretend that you do.

"I won't pretend to understand what you went through, but I want to/you can trust me/I can still listen." - Always said with kindness, but that one really is nothing but an empty platitude, at best. Hearing someone say that they don't understand you so directly is never really encouraging either.

"I just want to understand you." - Great, but you don't need to know the barest parts of a person's soul to be able to understand them. If you can't do it without that, maybe you shouldn't. And, all in all, this phrasing of the last one feels really iffy anyway, personally speaking, because it has a very manipulative edge to it. 'Hey I'm just overstepping your boundaries because I want to know you and understand you better. It's all for you..." and blegh. I hate that one, but that might be totally personal so please feel entirely free to ignore this paragraph.

Anyway, as you can see…never "understand", even if it’s just meant to encourage him. Just don't. I've seen clients who asked to be transferred to a different social worker or ended up leaving completely because someone used one of those lines, so I'd really strongly advise against them.

Instead, opt for things like "I'll listen to whatever you want to say." or "Can you explain it to me?" because that way you're not lying to his face and you're leaving everything up to him. He gets to decide where this conversation goes and, more importantly, how far it goes. Not an interview, not an interrogation, but a conversation that he controls.

And well then, flower, that’s it! Of course, there’s a lot more to it, but we’d still be here by the time Baldur’s Gate 8 is released if I went over every tiny thing, but I hope this was enough of an overview to help you build your story 😊 If you end up sharing it, don’t be shy to let me know, I’d be excited to check it out because, as you said, it’s a really interesting dynamic that isn’t explored as much as it should be. It’s a difficult dynamic, but it is so rewarding to write, read and experience. I wish you all the best ♥

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate #baldur's gate #bg3 tav #tav #astarion x tav #baldurs gate tav #astarion #astarion ancunin #astarion romance #bg3 astarion #bg3 asks #astarion x reader #ascended astarion

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tiodolma · 3 months

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Did Merlin need to tell Morgana that he had magic too?

This question always bugs me. And it is true that I have written some stuff about it.. But it's been a year since I studied Merlin x Morgana dynamics. There's always countless ways to answer it, so many things to consider, so many issues both personal and political that have to be reviewed.

Do we go the pro-Morgana route and immediately say "Yes he should have been helping her in every way that was justified?"

or do we go the Pro-Merlin route and value his self-preservation more than anything else and straight up say "No, he didn't have to, that wasn't his job"?

And at this 1 year checkpoint I want to review myself.

At the very least, Merlin needed political backing for his cause very very badly. He had a job and a life mission, which was to bring freedom to his people using a specific trajectory (arthur). However, At s1-s2 Only Morgana was the nobility in the right position to accept and countercheck his views on magic. It's a risky move, true. He's been told that she was going to go evil and be more dangerous, true. She might revealed him to be the sorcerer way too early, true ...But if Merlin really needed to get a move on in his grand scheme, telling her and working with her was the only practical option to get his movement actually off the ground.

They were already friends. She trusted him more than anyone else. She was the prime person who would have understood. They already were indebted to each other. I mean, what more could you ask for in an ally?

If that means him being exposed to rebels like Alvarr, Tauren, Morgause or Mordred, wouldn't it have been better in the long run? His actions would have been in constant review and scrutiny by actual suffering AND Fighting members of the magic folk. If Merlin was destined to help rule them all then he needed critics, he needed social pressure from the other magicfolk too. Morgana was the right bridge for him, magic and Camelot. She was the best point of diplomacy anyone could have ever had. This would have made Merlin step up to a better diplomat/representative role as the face of his sect too.

I am not saying that he throw caution into the wind and immediately assist the rebels do atrocities, no. But it would have put Merlin in a position of learning and understanding on why rebellion/revolution/arms struggle was the only option left for so many of them, and that simply waiting for Arthur to become king someday will always receive heavy amounts of backlash from other magic sects and important magic people. Merlin needed to understand the reality of his people living on the ground and how it matches with the thing he was fighting for.

To me, ultimately, it's a check-and-balance thing.

Merlin had to be kept in check, just as Morgana had to be kept in check. That's what they should have been for each other. That's why the truth was important and valuable in the series. That's why it was wielded by Merlin as a weapon. That's why Morgana chased after it.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"

"Who watches the watchmen?"

Yes. Merlin owed Morgana the truth. For the sanity and survival of all and himself, then he should have risked it.

#mergana #bbc morgana #bbc merlin #adventures of merlin #merlin critical #failure of negotiations #its an extremist vs extremist game #wars of truth and privilege who would win #i learned this concept from discworld btw

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circlemidnight · 9 months

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If we consider the fact that this season seems to be about each character finding themselves and their core, it is especially outstanding that Jughead and Veronica started to date each other and found back to each other after their sudden break-up. Every character seems to know or at least get a sense of what they need in their life, and then, without all the emotional disturbance and baggage - like Anon said before me - Jug and V realize that they are happy, when they stay together. Like, come on, this season's endgame pairings give me a feeling of "that's what we actually intended"-vibe.

Yes they obviously know they work better as a team, they are sharing their connections, their creative ideas, being supportive of each other. They don't have parents to look out of them, so it makes sense that they lean into each other while both trying to grow up as fast as possible to survive. They showed Veronica missing Jughead and they showed Jughead going directly to her when he had a problem he couldn't solve on his own and they fall right back into their late night pattern of always going to each other to talk it out. And it's obvious they have a lot of respect for each other, so they are just comfortable together in a way that they are not with other people. I love that they actually had Veronica say she wants to connect over intellect with someone, and didn't have her wasting all her wit and intelligence on a jock again. I don't think it ever made sense for Veronica to be deeply in love with someone who didn't understand her references or share any interest in her hobbies. But also like, the pairs put together during the show don't fit because it creates the most amount of drama. They clash over feelings for other people, class issues, beliefs, family etc. When the story ends it makes sense for there to be some peace, they have left behind the conflicting relationships that caused so much pain during the seasons, and can have their happy endings with the right people once there is no more need to create storyline conflicts.

#jeronica #jughead x veronica #ask cm

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lemonlimebitcoin · 7 months

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#I feel like for a long enough franchise the ''you don't need to x the whole thing'' works because #general nature of it means that it expects you to hop on whenever #and some things get outdated or inaccessible so it's like #yeah sure whatever #but homestuck is LITERALLY one comic with a *few* spin-offs #like yes you can survive off of tangential knowledge but #ind going so you have to understand you waive some right when it comes to discussing iti #general fan of the fandom issues i suppose of which i'm not immune to #like fair that you can't finish it for reasons or another but like #maybe that means you should probably jsut get into something else

@dash-n-step I totally agree! There are a lot of valid reasons to not finish homestuck. It's valid enough to just... not like the comic. But the way that half the homestuck community proudly brands itself on not liking or reading the actual thing but also equally (if not moreso) participates in reactionary outrage at poorly paraphrased events in homestuck stuff is such a problem.

The amount of times people will produce analysis or rage about things that just didn't happen because they misremembered someone else's mediocre extrapolation/analysis is too many. In my humble opinion it sucks!

#dash-n-step #text #Obviously this is even worse with hs2 posting because the epilogues are so over the top that ANYTHING is believable when isolated #But then you read HS2 and literally nothing happens in it ever #the assigned reading fiasco

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olderthannetfic · 1 year

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As an Autistic+disabled person who survived a bpd mother... No, terms like "bpd abuse" and "narc abuse" are NOT ableist and I'm sick and tired of that argument.

And people who say "ohhh is just the person not the disorder uwu!!!" The numerous amounts of support groups for family or loved ones of someone with a pd, the tonnes research papers and talks from psychologists on the subject, and also my pile of books specifically for victims of bpd abuse would beg to differ.

Mental illnesses and disorderes primarily affect the people who have them, yes, but they can also cause behaviours that harm other people. Especially in personality disorders that cause things like emotional dysregulation, delusions, black and white thinking, derealization , etc, and pointing that out is not ableist. These types of behaviour cause massive amounts of harm, especially to children!

If people do not want to be called abusive maybe they should work on themselves and their behaviour. Disregarding the outward harm these types of disorders cause, it cant be nice to constantly be thinking everyone is out to get you, that everything is so horrible. The mood swings, the instability... Why would you WANT to live like that? Why would you not want to get better?

I miss when mental health discussion was focused more on getting better, healing, recovering, thriving. Not the wallowing in despair and misery and the "ohhh I'm mentawwy iww uwu. I can't do anything wrong and you can't be mad at me! It's not my fault because I'm mentawwy iww!!!" shit that has permeated even public perception on these issues.

I do not wish my childhood on anyone, truly. I wish that no person has to experience abuse. It is just very very frustrating that people who have not experienced the specific types of abuse that people with pd's inflict will never truly understand what people like me have gone through, and will often side with abusers and vilify their victims. I get that a lot it is with misguided good intentions, and no surprise there considering that people actively try to make personality disorders look akin to Autism or Anxiety and you'd probably just think yeah, terms like bpd abuse and narc abuse are ableist. But please, listen to survivors, many of witch are disabled and/or ND ourselves. If anyone wants to know more about issues like this, please educate yourselves. Listen to the other side of the story first before getting out your pitchforks.

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formulatrash · 2 years

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Hi! If you feel comfortable speaking about it, could I ask for your take on the red bull/ sky sports issue? And would you agree with audiences seemingly holding sky sport to a higher standard because they are the global feed? Would like to hear it from someone who’s actually a journalist and I trust your ethics, but only if you’re comfortable of course! Thank you!

well, there's a lot here. firstly: Sky are only the global feed because until recently F1 couldn't be arsed to do its own broadcasting, so the British contract got used as the world english language feed because Bernie didn't want to deal with that, so just signed something and made it go away. so Sky being that isn't really any kind of official endorsement or extra responsibility on their part, it's that F1 was like aw shit we need one of those ok fine let's just use yours.

what I think is that Ted's a journalist and he's allowed to say what the hell he likes within that. the clip that seems to have seriously set it all off this weekend (where he said Lewis was "robbed") was him talking about how Lewis has said he felt, so wasn't even editorialising it, he was just talking about how this past year and developing what turned out to be a dog of a Mercedes had played out for Lewis. I, honestly, do not see an issue with reporting what Lewis has said about how he's felt this past year and tbh it'd be much worse to make up shit he hasn't said. so, that is what it is.

Red Bull are smarting very badly from the budget cap thing. both because it has put question on this year's car and because it has dug up 2021 again. I get that this is a sensitive issue for the team and people invalidating achievements that hundreds of people have moved heaven and earth and utterly exhausted themselves to get is incredibly frustrating and disheartening and annoying. social media this season has been exceptionally toxic - think about what was aimed at Hannah Schmidt - so I think that Red Bull have a case for saying that they feel protective of their achievements and

they also have suffered major reputational damage, which can be sponsor damage, via the drawn out budget cap enforcement process. is that part of the appropriate punishment for screwing up where other teams managed not to? yes but also everyone is very tired, at this stage in the F1 season and people are running to breaking point in stress terms.

is it wildly rich for a team that dishes out some of the biggest verbal lashings to get precious about it? I mean, yes but that's Formula 1 for you. Ferrari can get remarkably mouthy for a place that can't go more than half a decade without putting something illegal on their car, y'know. Mercedes certainly have said some shit. even Haas and Williams'll give it out if someone'll listen.

so: I think it is all a bit of a case of everyone being tired, emotional and stressed right now. Ted hasn't done anything wrong and the fans pillorying him are the actual problem in any case; that amount of mental noise is insane. Take last week when for three days there was a different member of F1's presenting team trending every hour over fucking Brad Pitt of all the complete arseholes. and it wasn't Brad Pitt trending! Brad Pitt, this super-famous celebrity we're meant to be sticking our tongues up the butthole of and ignoring serious abuse testimonies about, was not trending, it was the guy who does bits about how qualifying works on Drive to Survive. having been in the eye of that stuff often enough myself (much too often, given Buxton is a Pitt-level celebrity compared to me) it's just like being blasted in a wind tunnel only the only data you receive is the knowledge you are, indeed, a cunt.

anyway, I digress; I think it's an overreaction but contextually an understandable one, given the landscape of abuse and the intensity of the season. and I don't have to hear Christian Horner on the pit wall, so.

#f1 asks

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brightgnosis · 2 years

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“Wicca Bashing” Round 1: Your Problems With "Wicca" Are Really Just Community Issues- And We're All Responsible For Solving Them

This is by no means a new trend at all. It's been a constant issue for a very long time. But it's tiresome watching people pull down their pants and take what amounts to a massive crap all over Wicca in particular- and do so with incredibly ignorant (and often hypocritical) statements that betray their lack of knowledge about Wicca in the first place; statements which ultimately show that they haven’t actually bothered to ever sit down and learn anything legitimate about our history; about the history of the 20th to 21st century Witchcraft Revival ... And are really only parroting the same 5 basic talking points from whichever neoEducator they’ve attached themselves to online this popularity cycle.

In truth, the behavior annoyed me when I was your run of the mill early 2000's Eclectic NeoPagan ... It annoyed me when I was a Reconstructionist in the 2010's ... And it's annoying me now, still, as a Traditional NeoWiccan and Noahide now converting Jew in the 2020's ... It's something we really need to talk about, however, because it was childish and petulant then- and it’s still childish and petulant now. But more, there’s a particular issue of hypocrisy about the whole thing which runs along its undercurrent that needs to be heavily addressed.

First of all, however, before we really get started: As we've always said (and have been required to repeat a trillion times over, every time this conversation comes up) ... What most people keep calling "Wicca", which exists in the mainstream marketable materials, and which is often what they actually have the most problems with? Is not Wicca at all. It's Eclectic NeoPaganism. There is a difference, and it suffices to say that difference matters a lot. Especially because you cannot actually have any kind of legitimate criticism about Wicca when what you are criticizing isn’t even a form of Wicca in the first place.

The newest, biggest parotable problem people now seem to have with Wicca, which I see most commonly first named ... Is that "it was created by a racist white man". And I hate to say this but ... Yes … We know. We're not idiots; we're not ignorant about the origins of our own religion, and the fact it was created by a white English government employee who worked in India during Colonization, was an Orientalist (like most people of his generation), and had a lot of other problems. The only people who actually seem to be legitimately shocked by this are people who are not Wiccans.

We're also not ignorant, however, about the fact that Gerald Gardner completely eclipsed (to the point of almost erasing) Doreen Valiente's right to be properly recognized as Wicca's co-creator; the fact that she did an amazing amount of work rewriting Wicca's early liturgy in order to remove a lot of the unsavory elements- especially elements contributed by Aleister Crowley (who was not a founder and was only involved insomuch as he lied to Gardner and contributed his materials under the guise of also having been a member of a surviving Witch Cult). Otherwise it could be a lot worse. This conveniently gets left out of the conversation every time, especially by people with a bone to pick about Wicca, however.

But that's besides the point ... The ultimate point- and I really need people to understand this- is that we live in a western, racist, colonialist, white supremacist, Antisemitic (etc) society at its very core. That kind of stuff is baked into the very foundation of our society and culture- and it ultimately has been for a very long time. There's no denying that. There's also no getting around it, either. You cannot avoid it.

Pointing it out in Wicca is kind of obvious. It's so obvious that you really don't even need to do it, honestly. It's just a given, especially because of the time and place of its creation, and the dominant social ideologies at the time. And we're already aware of it. We know about the faults of our own religion. We don't need outsiders pointing it out to us and demonizing us ... Especially because what most people refuse to recognize the most whenever they do this- and which is what truly makes this behavior ultimately hypocritical? Is that so is everything else, too.

The fact of the matter is that there's nothing in our culture that hasn't been touched by all of these exact same issues in various forms and quantities at one point or another. And that carries over into Witchcraft on every single level; you can't walk 5 feet through the 20th to 21st century revival Witchcraft traditions (religious or otherwise) and not touch every single one of these problems, in every single tradition which ultimately exists. Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, it's impossible; it may be subtle in some cases, but it’s still there and must be addressed.

And when I say everything, I do mean everything: Cochranite traditions ... Sabbatical craft ... Hermeticism ... Ceremonialism ... Thelema ... Folk Magic and Traditional Witchcraft. The Grimoire Traditions ... And yes, everyone's favorite Big Bad Evil Scapegoat: Wicca ... All of it, and more; even Revivalist and Reconstructionist traditions- all of them- must address the fact that they were largely started by Nationalists in their countries of origins.

In the end it's all influenced by the same people- many of whom were friends, regularly corresponded with one another, sniped materials from each other, or were even actively cross initiated into each others' traditions (Robert Cochrane Himself was even a 1st Degree Initiate of Gardnerian Wicca- why do you think Cochranite TradCraft and Wicca look so similar in the first place) ... More, the vast majority of it all stems from the same finite pool of sources and resources which were available to them at the time of many of these Traditions' productions. And we still share that same finite pool of resources today, even though that pool has grown and has improved over the decades (and even centuries in some cases), and we have a better understanding of much of it.

The end result is that we're all "guilty" of the same thing; the same influences; the same inherent issues; and we all have to be careful of and address that ... And so you can't actually point your finger at one single tradition and say "they’re specifically the one that has all the issues. They’re specifically the problematic ones and we're not allowed to associate with them anymore" ... It's not only incredibly disingenuous to point your finger at any singular tradition like that- but especially Wicca in particular, only- but it's also incredibly hypocritical to do so.

The only thing we can all realistically do is acknowledge that these are all legitimate living traditions- and that as living traditions things change. Things have changed already (significantly in some traditions). Things can continue to change; we can educate ourselves on what these issues are, how they manifest within our own traditions and what it looks like when they do, and then actively work on deconstructing them within our own traditions ... Not with malice, purity culture nonsense, and hypocritical finger pointing ... But with the proper historical understanding, nuance, and (most importantly) human compassion and understanding.

Significant headway has been made in correcting many problems across the three true Wiccan denominations (and their thousands of independent traditions) over the decades. However, this fact continues to be ignored in favor of a penchant towards actively locking Wicca into what is essentially a 1950's time warp; refusing to recognize it as the living set of religions that it is ... Based wholly off a false image that is perpetuated by the lies of a mainstream informational market only set up to make money, and which is ultimately completely divorced from the reality of those actually living within the faith themselves- and a penchant for modern practitioners to blatantly ignore us when we tell them about the realities of our faiths as they have changed in the present day. And it is both unfair and disingenuous.

In other words: You cannot stick your nose over your neighbor's fence and complain about the stench when you have the exact same piles of trash in your own back yard … It just doesn't work … You have to clean up your own crap, too. To do anything less is ultimately blatant hypocrisy and a complete lack of integrity ... And I don't know about anyone else, but I want better from my religious and spiritual community. Because we do deserve better.

This is an opinion piece based in 20+ years of experience and research. If you found this helpful or interesting, please consider Tipping or Leaving a Ko-Fi; even $1 helps

This account is run by a Dual Faith «(Converting) Masorti Jew + Traditional NeoWiccan» & «Ancestral Folk Magic Practitioner» with 20+ years of experience as a practicing Pagan and Witch. If that bothers you, don't interact.

#Original Content #2022 #Original Witchy Content #Wicca #Witchcraft #NeoWicca #Religion & Magic #Magic #Witchblr #Paganblr #Wiccablr

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lurkingteapot · 6 months

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during therapy this week, we ended up on what changes we haven't tried that I could try to make to make life easier/more bearable for myself. and we went back and forth for about ten minutes (this is on top of the months and months of work we've put into this up to now) and I was kinda tearing up because I cannot reduce work hours by the amount I'd have to to function and feel better because I need the money, and I cannot reduce the amount of money I need to survive – by moving someplace cheaper – without fucking over both the people I live with and myself and losing what little community each of us have locally.

and my therapist put on that very serious therapist voice and admitted that they were out of their depth and would like to consult with a colleague if I were okay with that … and said we may need to get in big guns, as in social workers and/or some kind of welfare program, because I am developmentally disabled twice over and that's not going to go away. That what I'm dealing with isn't a depressive episode that may get to manageable levels within a year, after which I'd be 'back to normal'. That my attempts at 'normal', at living up to the potential other people seem so convinced I should have, have been burning me out for years. And that they understand why all the words of advice people tend to have for folks in my situation will not work for me, in one way or another.

I cried like a fucking baby.

They believe me. It's rare enough in general – but someone with actual authority on the subject? believing me?? not acting like I'm "just looking for excuses" or "not actually interested in finding a solution to my issues" or "being difficult on purpose"?? (and yes, every single one of these has been thrown my way by people who were supposed to help before, some of them more than once)

I'm still not over it. that doesn't solve anything. but it's such a relief nevertheless.

#tbd #shut up tpt

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slow-drowned-angels · 1 year

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Stress Modeling

I am not a professional in this field, I am just an anxious person who likes plots. These are not meant to be exhaustive, but merely explore my own experiences.

When I first complained about high anxiety levels, I was recommended to go to a Student Anxiety Program run by my university. There, they referred to a graph of Stress vs Performance which looked like this:

Aside from the inherent issue of judging my quality of life through academic performance (productivity), this graph didn't really make sense to me in a few other ways. I didn't really ever feel "stressed but not so stressed that I could still comfortably work" and often I was so stressed past overwhelmed that I was able to work again... because I was forcing myself to meet a deadline and mentally hurting myself in the process. At the time, my stress vs productivity graph felt more like this:

("Avoidant" is like "This thing causes stress so I don't want to think about it because I don't want to be stressed." Personally, it's a big factor in my procrastination.)

Given my experience, I really didn't understand how there was an "optimum" amount of stress.

Because my "optimum" was really fucking painful. It turns out, that's because my brain skipped through that entire first section really quickly! It would dump me right at "overwhelmed" with very little warning:

(Yes, this mechanical engineering major has made a stress-strain curve for their own brain.)

So my real problem was that I couldn't access that part of the stress-productivity curve. Very few stressors would cause really high stresses. Note: Other people may have the "Expected" stress-stressor curve, but still experience a stress-productivity curve like mine. They are not necessarily dependent on each other.

I also had a higher-than-normal "zero stressor" stress, which I always called my "ambient stress." It was never really identifiable what the cause was, but it would make me unable to relax or fully calm down.

I did 2 years of therapy and took a fairly extensive CBT group therapy course and things were not really getting better, even though I had some tools which helped with certain situations. However, it's near impossible to CBT your way out of anxiety when it is not thought-based (and if it was somehow thought based, I couldn't get to the thought easily). Meditation and deliberate relaxation helped, but only while I was meditating -- afterwards I'd be the same amount of anxious as before. I used a whole schedule of breaks and tricks to get myself to work when I needed to and rest when I needed to, which allowed me to survive through school, but really not much else.

All of this made me really interested in trying medication for anxiety. And it works! It allows me to actually experience the "optimum amount of stress for productivity" (which btw doesn't hurt) by moving my stress-stressor curve down towards the "expected" line.

For when I'm wondering which peak I'm are experiencing (the "optimum" or the "oh fuck"), here's a comparison:

"Optimum" Peak:

Able to focus on the work in front of me, without worrying constantly about other things

Maybe tired or feeling the pressure, but not panicked or overwhelmed with the amount of stressors

"It's a lot, but I got this, let's go!"

Fueled by desire for completion, if not interest.

"Oh Fuck" Peak:

Constantly worrying about other things. May have to constantly use CBT or other coping methods to avoid these thoughts.

Feeling depressed or hopeless

Panicking, overwhelmed

Often sets in close to a deadline

"If I don't get this done, something terrible will happen"

Fueled by fear of consequences

These will obviously be different for different people, as different people respond differently to stress and have different base states.

So uh. Yes it actually exists and it's fucking wild that so many people can operate like this without medical help.

Also @ anxiety programs... You Are Working With Anxious People. Showing Them That First Plot Is Not Helpful. Please. It made me feel like I was the only one who was struggling this much with anxiety and stress... when it turns out I actually Had More Stress.

*Judging quality of life using productivity as a proxy is fucked but also I live in a world where I have to have some amount of resistance to stressors in order to function! Being constantly anxious even with minimal stressors wasn't good for my well-being either.

#brain thoughts #alx.txt #long post #undescribed #I'll try to describe the images later

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msfbgraves · 11 months

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Certain things are so normalised we don't talk about them anymore. Even though when looking at them, I find them deeply disturbing.

Ever since I was six, six, mind you, I was working to stay "on top of things". I was a slow learner, which may have had something to do with the impaired motor function. But I had to try to "keep up".

Keep up with what?

And here I am again, thinking "OK, right, I need to stay on task, to stay on top of bills, and housing issues and bodily needs and family demands and office politics and actual politics and why does simply being a part of daily life feels so much like a fight for survival? Why do you have to stay so alert that something or someone doesn't trip you up? It's not only money. In a job you're trying to stay relevant you need to keep your eye out for the next opportunity or some boss on an ego trip or some coworker trying to sabotage as well as doing the damn work. School was dealing with classmates and schoolwork and bullying from either teachers or classmates or parents as well as cultivating the fun parts. I've been functioning on adrenalin since first grade, as you do in this society, and we get two to five weeks a year off from that, and maybe a part of the weekend because you know, chores.

And very, very occassionally someone points out that maybe life is not supposed to feel like this. That maybe my favourite meow meow is wrong when he says: "Life isn't a fairytale (gruesome though they are), it's a competitive sport!"

I'm no absolutist. Competition can be fun. Focus can be thrilling. Work can be fulfilling. But constantly being on the alert because you might need a new job there's a storm coming you're managing a health condition they've raised prices with 20% you need to check your heating a family member needs assistance wtf man? Necessity I understand but we accept this stuff as 'normal life'. Sure there's stuff about "smell the roses, it can be over tomorrow," but if I suggest, Modern Times like, that this normalcy is weird people look at me blankly. It's normal to work what amounts to six days out of seven, more sometimes when money is tight or your job is very demanding. Which goes for 99% of people but we accept the struggle. Life is supposed to be a struggle.

Says... says who?

Everytime I return to the ratrace - because illness has thrown me out of it for actual death matches a few times - I keep thinking: "But this is ridiculous." I see no immediately apparent alternative, but I keep thinking we're in some capatalism imposed, somehow accepted insanity. And some people think the biggest revelation about this is that capitalism creates those conditions to benefit those with the most capital, which duh, but my question is not "Why was this system put in place?" but "Why tf do we accept it?" Maybe because it is somtimes rewarded but why then do we reward it? AI rearranges stolen artwork and writing and it makes them rich. Supermarkets price millions out of staples it makes them rich. People invest in oil companies that constantly provoke bloody wars and it makes them rich. The least discriminatory way I could make cold hard cash would probably be to give some company money to kill other people. And it makes me sick to my stomach, but that is called business savvy. Making our own lives, that of others and the planet itself unlivable is something that pays. Why tf do we accept that? We could regulate it out of existence. Why don't we? Why is it a harsh truth that if you can find a way to make as many people as possible as desperate as possible you make the most money?

Yes we also strive for a healthy society but that is not what capitalism rewards. We treat decency as a luxury we can't afford; riches erode whatever inherent decency people may get born with.

And yet we keep on racing lest we get crushed by it.

It boggles my mind and keeps doing so.

#personal #capitalism #internalised oppression

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fanganedit-beach · 2 years

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Iroha... the painter... baby..

I apologize for the late response , gathering the screenshots for the analysis was difficult lol. So i'll cover Iroha's fte's on this post and if this analysis gets support i'll reblog with a follow up analysis of her actions in game (though i'll mention stuff about the kg here of course)

Iroha isn't a decieving character, so analyzing her fte's were much easier than the other ones i've watched and tried to analyze (which i'll try to cover later) Anyways let's get started, First lets start with this.

In iroha's first fte, she explains painting helps to calm her down when she's in a rough spot. We'll stick a pin on this as this point will become importantish later. Taking what she says and thinking about what happens with her throughout the game I believe she means rough spot as in when she's stressed, I think it'd make the most sense she'd paint while stressed since this has probably been a built in response to pressure since her childhood, so its not necessarily the painting itself that calms her down than it being just a natural response after such a long time of being pressured to paint.

Also in her first event, Sora asks iroha if she can watch iroha paint, iroha says yes of course but she also responds with this as well. Iroha doesn't stutter much during her events so I think this is a way of showing the pressure of having someone watch her paint, once again because of her backstory iroha was watched a lot while she tried to draw so even if sora had no ill will, her watching iroha paint probably reminded her of that time (only a little bit) and it caused her to feel pressured, thus her feeling the need to work extra hard in sora's presence.

This isn't really too relevent, but I thought it'd be a neat thing to add

These are the kind of paintings iroha usually paints, she does all sorts actually.

But she also on rare occasions also draws

Manga. However her events make it clear that she's not very good at drawing it. For whatever reason the talent given to her with divine luck seems to not apply to her manga drawings.

This is also another addition I thought would be good to add

This is something iroha says during her second fte if i remember right, its one of her responses to sora's multiple choice answer. From what I remember sora clarified something she said to iroha because she didn't understand what she meant the first time. This is actually pretty common for iroha in her event to not really understand what sora means at times, So Iroha has difficulty understanding stuff people say sometimes, which in full honesty I actually kinda relate to, I'm sure a lot of people can relate to this too.

Now, iroha's favorite types of manga!

She likes slice of life and comedy, its understandable that iroha going through what she did would just want to enjoy light hearted things, I could just be reading into it too much here though.

But what really gets iroha into a certain manga is the characters, if she likes the design of the characters and they are cool she'll enjoy it no matter what genre. This is also just another relatable moment with iroha tbh.

Back to deep analysis, I thought this would be important to add because usually iroha is depicted as selfish but when she realizes she's only talking about her own interests, she apologizes (again relatable) So I thought i'd just add this to remember that while iroha acts selfishly its mostly survival wise and as a person iroha is pretty considerate of others feelings.

After this sora actually encourages iroha to draw her own manga, and while iroha is hesitant at first;

Because sora told her so iroha decides to, though with the amount of dots i think iroha honestly wasn't sure about doing it but since sora insisted she didn't bother to talk back. I might be looking too deeply into this part but this might be a small piece of evidence showing that iroha has a in general issue of saying no.

On to her next event, iroha shows sora her manga but as mentioned earlier, it didn't turn out as great due to her given talent not working with manga drawings. So sora says it doesn't look that great and the story wasn't understandable.

Iroha obviously doesn't take it well, and while she quickly cheers up I can't help but feeling bad for her in this moment, it makes me think of all the times back during her past where she would be constantly scolded for not drawing in a way that was satisfying to her family.

Like I said she quickly cheers up, though with her using her nervous sprite during this line I can't help but think she just said this to comfort herself. Honestly it just made me think about all the times iroha tried to tell the cast to think positive, and how maybe this might be a common thing she says to herself for comfort and assumed this would work for the others too.

So she tells sora she'll remake the manga and it leads to the next event, and sora's response is much better saying the story is more understandable (though the art is still not great) and she responds with this.

The line itself isn't anything too big, but its the sprite she uses during it that interests me. She responds with her crying smile sprite, and honestly its just heartbreaking. Sora was probably the first person to compliment her on her manga.

And she is, she's the only person who's ever liked iroha's comic's, its genuinely such a sweet moment when you think back on it.

And a bit after iroha explains why that's the case.

Yup. Iroha's parents are those kind of art snobs. Iroha's parents don't see manga as an art and what counts as art to them is only the ones in museums.

And because of that iroha wasn't allowed to read manga, she had to hide the manga she had just so she could. And when her mom found her secret stash she ruthlessly tore the manga apart, so iroha never really got to enjoy what she liked.

After this we get the most infamous scene in iroha's events, the uh two boys kissing drawing on the back of her manga. Of course its obviously a shock and kinda odd but the one notable thing about it is iroha's response to sora seeing the doodle.

She actually gets super embarrassed by it, it doesn't matter what choice you make she still responds with her insisting sora forgets she ever saw it. So i'm pretty sure its just a private thing she doodles for one, and another is it kinda makes sense? I guess? Iroha didn't get much freedom as a kid so she probably never got the chance to actually explore things like relationships or sexuality, and seeing how the lgbt is commonly viewed i would like to believe this was just iroha trying to show a bit of rebellion and explore sexuality now that she can and not...the other thing.

And finally iroha's final event, she invites sora to her room so she can paint a self portrait of her. Remember the first point I made? Well now I can finally take out that pin.

As Iroha doesn't actually like to paint, in fact its upsetting for her.

Her entire family does all these types of art, and all have a name in the art world and influence, and probably enjoys it possibly more for the fame though.

But iroha doesn't, she draws everday and can paint with such skill, but its not what she actually wants to do in fact with all that's been done to her she's upset by it and probably can't stand it. But comic's, the one thing she's not an art master at is what really makes her happy.

After this explanation sora encourages iroha to stop painting and instead focus on drawing manga, which iroha states she'll try to do. obviously this doesn't happen considering the multiple times she paints in the game, which brings back my first point that painting has sadly just become a reflex for her at this point when she's under pressure.

And this is my analysis on iroha's fte's, I hope I did good with this its my first time doing something like it after all. If anyone would like a follow up analysis like i mentioned in the beginning, just send an ask :)

#analysis #character analysis #sdra2 spoilers #super danganronpa another 2 #iroha nijiue #sda2

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skylarcrossing · 1 year

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I'm gonna get really real here for a minute because I understand there's a level of privilege in the statement I made in my last reblogged post, and it's new for me.

CW: Homelessness, Abuse, Trauma

I have spent the entirety of my adult life struggling to make ends meet. First World Problems memes used to piss me off because I live in a first-world country, and had not once been able to even think about being in a position where experiencing this kind of issue was remotely possible. My experience had taught me that living in my particular FWC was to avoid Healthcare, fight to find any job at all (I ended up going into SW for more than 10 years) and to wonder every damn day if I was gonna find myself homeless again at the end of the week.

To this day, my parents will not accept the role they played in this when my mother allowed my grandmother to control our family to the extent she did- she forced my Mom to send my sister away multiple times growing up or kick us all out, regularly beat my sister and I then gaslit us about it, and later kicked me out regularly and lied to my Mom about it saying I had ran away.

There was years of denial after that I was homeless as a teenager and continued to be homeless until I was almost in my 30's because I had some form of a roof over my head, but I had no address and often no phone, couch surfed at friends while attempting to finish high school, and then later bounced around from motel to motel for years.

To top it off, I spent the majority of those years as an adult in relationships with people who treated me like garbage and had actually drug me back down to that point and worse- There's a reason I will forever be against people who say that an age gap of 4+ years is no longer a problem when someone is in their 20s. There is mountains of experiences that happen during that time that shape a person, and my experience has been that when there is even that may of an age gap there will always be a predatory power imbalance in that relationship.

It has taken decades for me to get to a point in my life where I can say some first World shit like "Yep, definitely getting another Switch because I don't want to delete my current island but I'm dying for another aesthetic."

It has taken years of therapy to get to this point, to see my self-worth, and to not accept the types of relationships I accepted. Years to get any sort of diagnosis for how my brain works and to find out that I can never get a full diagnosis because of the amount of trauma I experienced from a young age and through the entirety of my developmental years makes it hard to tell where the ADHD and Autism ends and the PTSD begins, as if those aren't generally intrinsically linked for so many people. Years to attain any level of stability in any sense.

So yes, I understand the mountains of privilege in that statement- and I have fought and bled and nearly died to survive long enough that saying it was even possible. I understand that there are a million and one ways I could spend $300 that would help other people- but I am learning that it is okay to choose me, and this is huge progress that I would consider spending that kind of money on myself, ever.

I have the rest of my life to help other people who are in the shoes I left behind.

#in relation to my last post #first world problems #acnh community #trigger warning #homelessness #abuse #trauma #life experiences #neurospicy #neurodivergent

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