#snuffy.docx

on one hand, i think her propensity for tantrum throwing is interesting. she lives her life in a constant state of repressed frustration, and only lets it out on things that don't seem to matter. at least, not to the outside observer. it's always the little things. that's just how it is. when you face a million tiny injustices every day, any one of them could be the straw that broke the camel's back. even if that straw is born of kindness - like someone lovingly making food for you that you just cannot stomach right now.

again, she's a very strongly written child. she lacks agency in ways children often do, and reacts to it exactly the way a child would. especially one that's as deeply repressed and closeted as june. i feel this is an aspect of her writing that's often overlooked, because a sizable chunk of readers are teenagers who have not unpacked that. and, unfortunately, even more lack experience of or even basic knowledge about transmisogyny, how it operates, and the effects it has on trans youth

it's a long process, yes. it can be arduous, and sometimes reading about these things hurts the soul because it details what's happened as a result of others not sharing these beliefs. take care of yourself. do not blind yourself, though. you need to bear through discomfort to grow.

involve your friends in your journey - it always makes things easier. start a book club, or have a dedicated space for talking about learning these things together. maybe both. share with each other quotes, discoveries, things you need help digesting. be open and honest. challenge yourself, challenge your friends. learn together. its like if school was kind and self-paced

i cannot recommend this enough, not just because genuine political awareness is extremely important to keeping yourself and others safe, and keeping/making yourself a safe person, but because, like. actually taking the time to listen to the words of leftists for real will do a lot for your mental health.

a huge issue a lot of people have is they do not ground themselves often enough and work off reflex, or just bounce off whatever happens around them. it's not a crime, happens to the best of us, but it does lead a lot of people to have very disorganized thoughts and feelings and moral codes, you know? happened to me something fierce! but ever since i started actually reading books on this stuff, and learning more about how the world really works, its helped a lot. i know a lot more clearly what i think is right and wrong, who i can trust and why, and i am able to be much more confident in my assessment of these things. and i am a lot less worried about getting in trouble, because i know and can trust in my heart that if i do, either it's something i can work out with my peers, or they will stand by me in the stance that i should not be in trouble and people are being meanies

much to consider, re: the concept of carapacians having caste-based diets. if i'm recalling correctly, there's a lot in homestuck about your caste having immutable physical identifiers. this is more or less accurate to real life - though obviously it doesn't go as far as the mouth structure + dietary specialization, blood color, etc., we still are often ranked on sight based on physical appearance. skin color, clothing quality and origin, facial features, our hair, so on.

i wonder about the political implications behind the carnivorousness of carapacian superiors, and the herbivorousness of carapacian laypeople. i'd certainly like to assume that their dietary differences come about through mere ease of access - with meat only accessible to the rich, and vegetables considered the diet of commoners. considering WV is a farmer, that can explain the access to vegetation - you can just easily grow it right on the field. what about the meat, though? where do the higher-ups get their meat? moon cows? fallen carapacians??

i've been in the sauce since i was a kid. happens! i just repressed it for a long while, which made me very sad and unwell and bad with my relationships + feelings. shit's bad for you!

calling it a trauma response would be accurate, but it would also make it seem like it's bad for me. many many many bad things happened to me when i was a kid; on one hand, that kind of repeated trauma does tend to make involuntary age regression happen as a symptom, which was the case for me when i was a child. on the other hand, when you've got that kind of baggage, it can be very healing to essentially reclaim your childhood, and make a better one for yourself.

you also don't need any baggage, you can just do it cuz you want to. for funzies. many people do it for funzies. many varieties of funzies.

my advice: don't seek the company of a self-proclaimed "community" when trying to get into anything that's vulnerable. it's just bad for you. self-described communities have Rules And Restrictions, and Social Consequences For Infringements. you really don't need those when you're figuring yourself out. policing will fuck with your head. feel things out by yourself or with people you trust. look into resources like people's guides, edit as needed. try things that seem embarrassing. be honest with yourself! and don't watch disney. most guides will tell you to, because they're mostly written by white usamericans. do not do this.

i'm having a great time with it!! i've got a LOT to say at all times, but since i'm so early in i can't be too concrete in my judgments. i'm approaching this the way i'd approach any other serious, adult-oriented piece of fiction - and putting any long-held opinions i may have off to the side

it's very refreshing; i feel a lot of people tend to approach homestuck through the lens of pure fandom, and just about all reexaminations of it are done with explicit fandom bias, so a lot of nuances of the story tend to get abandoned in most discussions. after all, the lens of fandom kind of just inherently filters everything through an ungodly intense level of white supremacist cisheteropatriarchal thinking, so. what the hell else would happen, LMAO

i'm liking june a lot more!! she's a way more engaging character this way. hussie writes traumatized, repressed, deeply unwell children EXTREMELY well. like, it's always stuck out to me how intimately written dave's abuse is, including details such as having to hide food and drinks in order to simply remain fed and hydrated - it's not really an aspect of child abuse people know about unless they've experienced it themselves or are really, really close to someone who's been through it. but now that i've got a better understanding of how misogyny and such operate, june's living environment is... hooooly fuck. layers upon layers. hussie, i'm so sorry about your childhood. that shit isn't my business, but i can tell it was bad

i'm no political theorist or scientist or anything, but i will do my best to explain. for any curious onlookers, C-PTSD means "Complex-PTSD", and refers to the PTSD you get when bad things have been happening to you for a prolonged period. i am using it because saying "people who have endured prolonged trauma" is kind of a mouthful.

the thing i want everyone to internalize is that psych labels exist for specific purposes. not for streamlining the symptom-management and recovery process, but to indicate how the subject is to be treated by those who understand what those labels mean. have you ever wondered why certain genders and races are more or less likely to get hit with certain diagnoses? there's the classic case of how white kids are more likely to get diagnosed with ADHD/Autism, and Black kids are more likely to get diagnosed with something like ODD - "Oppositional Defiance Disorder", a diagnosis that essentially tells every adult who looks at their record that they're hostile, unreasonable, and their feelings and consent should be ignored. this is extremely common practice, it happens with so many psych labels that it's a wonder people don't notice.

BPD is, bluntly, C-PTSD for women. BPD is a trauma disorder. just about every symptom of BPD are... just things a lot of people with extensive trauma struggle with. so, if, like, every BPD symptom is just something you can very easily expect out of any traumatized person...

... why the hell is there such a huge disparity between the diagnosis of men vs. women?

because the diagnostic rates of BPD, like a lot of the more marginalizing psych labels, skew heavily towards minority groups. particularly, the gender ratio is 3:1 women vs. men diagnosed with BPD specifically. that's 75% of all BPD diagnoses targeting women specifically. why is that? there are zero differences in the makeup of "male vs. female brains". there is absolutely zero reason for there to be a gender disparity in diagnoses, same for race. if the diagnosis was neutral, it'd have an at least roughly even ratio between all kinds of diagnosed groups, wouldn't it?

so why doesn't it? why could that be? perhaps the field dedicated to the categorization and suppression of undesirables isn't a very kind one!

many people out there identify with the label of BPD, regardless of their knowledge on what it means. i know and am friends with several people who are extremely aware of why they were diagnosed with BPD specifically, and identify with it anyway, as a kind of act of reclamation. that's cool, that's just how it is on this bitch of an earth. i'd never judge anyone for owning a label thrust upon them! but i do wish more people had the option to make that choice, rather than just living with the thought that they have a fundamentally broken brain that can only be fixed at the normalmaker's office or The Ward. i wish psychology wasn't so evil...