One Of My Favorite Types Of Stories Out There, Is The One Where The Story Shows Multiple Different Perspectives

One of my favorite types of stories out there, is the one where the story shows multiple different perspectives and scenarios in which the same SPECIFIC real-world problem is explored from different angles. Bonus points if the problem is categorically something that mainstream media is incentivized to overlook.

Example: so I just watched Beetlejuice 2, and I legit really REALLY loved how the story of "girl/woman feels isolated from society because of problems in her own life that are legit too much for her to handle, gets involved with guy who really fucks her up", which in the real world, happened too many fucking times to count, got explored in this film through three different stories, WHICH ARE ALL REAL.

Jeremy's the edgy asshole you thought was really awesome when you were way too young to recognize red flags when you saw them, who you thought was so charming and cool because he was just so sweet at first, who dragged you in when you just wanted someone to listen and ended up locking you into genuinely dangerous situations because he just didn't fucking care. That's real. That happens. And I'm glad it was shown.

Rory's the exploitative fucker who will find you when you're in a low point, love-bomb you when you're too emotionally drained to do anything but cling onto his support and manipulate the hell out of you in order to turn you into a codependent object for his use. Now, the Rorys of the real world are usually not as often in it for the money as much as they are for the emotional validation that comes from satisfying their savior complex, but there definitely ARE cases in which they financially exploit their partners. That's real. That happens. And I'm glad it was shown.

Beetlejuice is (and this one I actually have quite a familiarity with) that equally broken enabler who feels so much more free than you to walk around fucking other people's shit up according to his whims in ways that genuinely terrify you but you don't dare to say anything about, who keeps clinging to you and saying that you and him "understand each other so well!" And you can tell that his behavior is basically what your behavior could be if the societal trauma forcing you to repress and turn your untreated mental illness onto yourself was gone, so that you genuinely DO feel a sense of comradely with him, even though he's fucking scaring you, won't take no for an answer and treats you as an equal target as anyone else for his own issues which he insists on turning into everybody else's problem. That's real. That fucking happens. And I'm SO FUCKING GLAD IT WAS SHOWN.

Also, another reason I'm glad this specific scenario was shown- women in media are so often portrayed as these perfectly put-together centers of reason and balance, and GOODNESS am I glad to see a movie that for once actually explores what it looks like when they get crushed under external pressure. Because like. That happens a lot. There's a lot of pressure to living as a woman in society. It often crushes women. And people really only want to explore that in specific case studies of discrimination and abuse. But not here, and I love that.

And also, like. Presenting MULTIPLE socially-outcasted women who's personality isn't immediately turned into a prop that is then used to further the development of their male love interest IN THE SAME STORY? LOVE THAT LOVE THAT LOVE THAT.

So anyways, yeah, that's why I consider Beetlejuice 2 to be an incredibly feminist story which does an amazing job as showing female characters as real people while also presenting specific gendered struggles which they face. Love that.

Hey runners (and walkers)! Thought this might be helpful :)

Do you guys know it when you're just... Feeling empty-neutral for most of the day, in a way in which you're really not feeling BAD, cuz you're just going through the motions of your usual whatever, so you're not feeling like it makes sense to complain about anything, until the moment when you're faced with a thing someone else wants you to do that you don't want to be doing and your head just spins around and breaks and you suddenly really want to walk into traffic? And then you start doing visibly suicidal shit (doing scary stuff with the knife in the middle of a conversation, sharing your fantasies of self-destruction absent-mindedly, walking into the highway the moment they ask you to get out of the car, stuff like that) in front of someone in the hopes that they'll leave you alone because you just don't have the energy to turn on your brain and figure out how to handle the situation properly, and then they just go "please don't, it really scares me to see you do that" and you kinda get sad in the back of your head, like "oh. Guess I just made it worse. That's sad." And you're just... Left like that? Until your brain starts doing normal emotions and awareness again? Or is it just me?

Edit: okay so a few seconds ago I found myself laughing in pleasure and jumping in the air thinking about SH, and I thought maybe I could try and hold onto this emotion to feel a bit more emotion chemicals and maybe find the way back to them again, but then I couldn't and even if it worked out might have been bad to do anyways so idk

Okay, but like... As an aro person who actually has problems with connecting to people in my life in emotionally acceptable ways, can we not turn something that is more often than not a symptom of an underlying mental disorder into a pride thing? It's just kinda giving that whole... Pop-ification of neurodivergency and queerness that is sold to young people online that I'm... Actually kinda sick of. And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that not experiencing platonic love towards your friends and family makes you bad or broken. Mentally ill aromantics are not any less worthy of respect, and I am saying that as one. But the way to talk about something that is most likely just the most easily recognizable and categorizable symptom of a deeper underlying serious problem is probably not through the language of normalization.

hi reminder that aromantic people don’t have to compensate for their lack of romantic attraction with familial or platonic attraction. “aros still love their friends!!” sometimes they do. other times they don’t, and that’s okay! using non-rose attraction as a stand-in for romance invalidates loveless, afamilial, and apl folks. we don’t have to make up for our existence :3

The best way to make a mentally ill person not give up on learning tap is to show them SpongeBob the musical. They'll gather up all their strength in the hopes that one day they'll be able to perform "I'm not a loser" on a stage ironically.

That whole "stop accusing queer men of upholding patriarchy, we shouldn't divide queer people by gender lines" thing... Like, on one hand, yes, queerness is about breaking down gender roles, not taking them to war, and we absolutely shouldn't take queer men and tell them that we are not about to support them because they're "too privileged", Fuck that. But on the other hand, ignoring how patriarchy DOES EXIST in queer spaces is just wishful thinking. Like, gay men get higher levels of visibility and respect from the mainstream than lesbians do. Bi women are treated by the community with a higher level of hostility and alienation than bi men are treated with. Trans women are (sometimes, this is pretty context-dependant and there's nuance to how it interacts with internal sense of identity next to expression and early signs of dysphoria, but pretty often) socialized as boys when they are younger, and therefore have less imprinted shame on them from the age where everything you believe about the world shapes what you will believe about the world forever than trans men are stuck with. Trans men, on the other hand (and there's nuance to that too, that mostly depends on passing and gender presentation, but again, pretty often) gain societal privilege over trans women in similar positions to theirs if and when they start passing, and also get to not experience the gender that they actually feel identification with as one that is societally linked to inferiority and submission in a way that is nearly impossible to separate from your sense of self the way that honestly, kind of all women experience. My point is- even though this stuff truly is complicated, patriarchy and male privilege absolutely does exist in queer spaces. And again, this doesn't make anybody evil, or responsible for the mistreatment of others, or mean that you "have to work to negate the harm caused by the system you benefit from". You should get to just... Live your life. But also, don't go around denying that some of us have it better than other ones of us.