Character Mannerisms

I honestly see nothing wrong with self insert art.

Sometimes we just need to make art for ourselves. There’s nothing wrong with drawing yourself with your favourite characters, don’t be afraid of doing it!

*opens a can of Sprite*

Here’s to all the self shippers who have F/O’s-platonical, familial or romantic-who got done dirty and fucked over by their creators. 

May we all treat our F/O’s a billion times better then their own pathetic excuse of creators

The Real Problem of Evil is Thinking Evil's a Real Problem

The idea that people can be completely evil and have no redeeming qualities, extenuating circumstances, or core humanity at all … That is the only place where true evil lies. The belief that some people are “evil” makes it easier for us to write them off, dehumanize them, destroy them, cease helping them. The idea of evil makes misbegotten moral righteousness possible, and justifies all manner of aggressive and hateful acts.

Sociopathy and antisocial personality disorder are just a repackaging of the age-old concept of pure unredeemable evil. It’s morality-driven dehumanization dressed in a clinical psychologist’s coat.

It is comforting to believe that people commit heinous acts because they are henious monsterous people. Such thinking protects us from wondering if we are capable of committing evil acts, if we are hateful and destructive. It also implies that ending suffering in the world is not a matter of slowly and constant reforming all our hearts and minds; it’s simply a matter of finding all the bad eggs and scrambling them.

The concept of sociopathic evil absolves us from doing the hard work of reforming criminals, remedying the precursors to crime, and examining the morality of our own actions. It is much easier to cast off the malicious as evil, disordered, defective, inhuman, exceptional, than it is to turn such a critical gaze upon ourselves.

By accepting the idea that “some people are just evil”, we resign ourselves to an overly simplified worldview where wrongs cannot be prevented, only punished, and where there is no broader societal responsibility for the sins of society’s children.

If you were a character in your f/o’s media, you’d be the fandom’s OTP. There’d be gifs and edits and playlists and fanart and everyone would love you as a pairing!

Illustration by Bruce McNally for the month of October, from the 1984 FRAGGLE ROCK calendar. I’ll do one every month until the new year.

hey! it’s been a while since i’ve written any resource posts, and this is a little more of a positivity post than a resource, but hopefully it will be helpful.

i’ve seen a lot of selfshippers/fictos talking about why and when these practices are acceptable and when they “cross the line.” in my opinion, i think some of these statements can create an uncomfortable or even implicitly hostile environment for certain mentally ill selfshippers and fictos, as well as reinforce ideas the community is trying to fight. these statements, even given various nuances, boil down to a few core ideas a number of people in the community seem to hold. the idea seems to be that “selfship is OK because it is just for fun/a coping mechanism, and selfshippers can still date in real life. because selfship is just for fun/a coping mechanism, taking it too seriously inherently means a loss of touch with reality, which is a personal fault.”

my greatest concern with this has been that it is potentially rather dismissive of the feelings of mentally ill selfshippers who experience psychosis. such people DO have a loss of touch with reality, through no fault of their own - and for many, this is something they cannot “fix,” even with medication or therapy. if one’s psychosis influences them to believe in or experience something that isn’t objectively real, but this belief or experience does not cause them distress or even improves their quality of life, it is not the responsibility of individuals without the condition to denigrate their experiences or urge them to “fix” their psychosis. in a community which is vocally supportive of mentally ill people, it is the responsibility of the members of that community to support the experiences of all mentally ill people. selfshippers and fictos with psychotic conditions are just as valid in their feelings as any of the rest of us, even if their conditions cause them to experience their f/os in a way we do not.

in addition, it isn’t fair to assert that selfship is okay because it’s “just” a coping mechanism, “just” for fun, or because all fictos/selfshippers prefer (and will abandon the practice for) a “real partner.” if it improves one’s quality of life and harms no one, there is no need for further justification, regardless of whether or not it fits with what outsiders consider “normal.” selfship (and fictosexuality) is not only okay when it’s easy to justify to outsiders. appealing to standards of “normalcy” only creates acceptable targets - “we are okay because we are normal, but those people who disagree with us are not normal, and therefore not okay.” that, ironically enough, is the exact logic on which “cringe culture” operates. you do not have to be “normal” to be worthy of respect and understanding, ever.

please be open to respecting experiences you may not understand, particularly for those whose experiences are already highly stigmatized. to all the “weird” selfshippers and fictos - those of you with psychosis, those of you who take it “too seriously,” those of you who never want a real life partner - you are just fine the way you are, and you don’t need to change for anyone. as long as you’re happy and your selfships/ficto relationships make you happy, you have nothing to worry about and no one here to answer to. live your life according to your own needs and standards.

All criticism of any character in any given work that boils down to “X is a Mary Sue/Gary Stu” is bad criticism because it obfuscates the actual problem with those characters (bad writing and the breaking of the willing suspension of disbelief). Not to mention it’s disproportionately levied at female characters, it starts, it makes people focus more on arbitrary traits and filling out litmus test quotas instead of being balanced and often creating Anti-Sues due to the fixation on simple traits instead of actual organic character building.

I mean shit, Batman goes waay over the designated “50+/Bad Mary Sue” on the Mary Sue Litmus Test but people like Batman because Batman is an often interesting and well developed character, regardless of how many “Mary Sue Traits” boxes he ticks off.

The fear of creating a “Mary Sue” stifles creativity and often creates the Anti-Sue, a phenomena where a writer gets so caught up in not creating a “Mary Sue” because of superficial traits devoid of context that they create a character that is wholly unlikeable and yet is still the protagonist of the story.

Just call a bad character a bad character

Hey! Do you have any tips on how to cope with the loneliness that comes from not being actually able to hold your partner? ;-;

hey there! this is always a tough one and a LOT of people struggle with it in terms of these sorts of relationships. it was really tough for me in the earlier stages of my relationship, too.

it’s different for everyone, of course, but there’s multiple things you can do to bridge the physical gap. “proxy items” are really helpful, i find, and can be almost anything you feel fits. some people have the stereotypical body pillow or plush of their f/o, but others simply associate a plain pillow or soft object with the f/o and hug that. it’s always a good idea to have something soft you can hug, and if you consistently think of this object as some aspect of the f/o or just them while cuddling, it can really help in creating an association and making it feel as though they’re with you.

it’s possible to create that association with other things, too. i wrap myself in a specific blanket that reminds me of my partner if i need a hug, and holding something small to fiddle with like the charm of a bracelet if i’m out and about works for holding hands. ultimately the idea is simply to think of the physical contact you want in conjunction with a specific situation or object until those things get associated in your head and bring the same comfort.

imagination helps, too! just relaxing for a bit and visualizing these things can feel pretty good, especially if you have a vivid imagination. there are techniques for improving your visualizations you can find all around the internet, and they’re great for creating an experience that’s strong, even if it’s not physical.

this should absolutely be taken with a grain of salt, as well, but some people report that lucid dreaming helps with this. in a lucid dream, you’re aware you are dreaming; with practice in cultivating this awareness you can consciously shape the plotline of your dreams and participate in them actively. it’s not for everyone, and it can be quite a process to master it enough to control your dreams. there are multiple techniques of varying ease concerning it, some of which involve attempting to force sleep paralysis (for the record, i wanted to mention this method specifically to say it’s potentially extremely distressing and to avoid it). there are a lot of resources on that, too, if you want to look into it - lucid dreaming is just fun in general, anyway, if it’s a good fit for you!

there are more things than this, of course, but those are what come to mind immediately for me!

-mod moon

Tom Tom Club is an American new wave band founded in 1981 by husband-and-wife team Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, both also known for being members of Talking Heads.