A Bored Lion @boredliondisorder - Tumblr Blog

There is a really frustrating thing where some kinds of speculative story are hard to write because they will be assumed to be bad (clumsy, harmful, regressive) metaphors for real-world events or people, rather than exploring completely speculative ideas. Like:

"What if a small group of religious extremists, persecuted in their own country, moved to an inhospitable uninhabited island and had to rebuild society there?" - But the Americas and Australia weren't inhospitable and were full of Native nations, why are you perpetuating the idea of Terra Nullius and manifest destiny? - Yes, that's because this isn't a metaphor for the British invading other countries, it's a metaphor for finding out how much of a person's religious practise is rooted in worldly concerns, vs how much they will really stymie themselves for the sake of God.

"What if 1/100 children born was a werewolf?" - But queer people are no danger to straight people, and disabled people don't have predictable patterns to their illnesses, and most people who have uncontrollable rages really CAN control them and are just lying, and no minority group has superpowers... - Yes, but that's all immaterial, because I wanted to talk about a load of other metaphors about the passage of time and responsibility and the relationship between humans and wildlife.

It almost feels like death of the author, like "Death of the most obvious metaphor" - If you couldn't reach for the (tormented) parallel between being an alien species and being stateless, what stories could someone tell? If your changeling-baby was neither disabled nor adopted, what would the story be about? Etc.

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys

I was literally just thinking about this yesterday! It's a trend I've seen a LOT in recent years in lit crit, particularly when discussing fantasy.

I think it particularly comes up the moment an author includes any sort of marginalisation/oppression for their fictional/fantasy world. I've lost count of the times now where I've seen people read a book on, say, the terrible oppression of the Gwyllion, and immediately gone "Oh, so the Gwyllion are a metaphor for the real world X people, either deliberately or accidentally through the author's inherent racism. This is therefore super problematic because the Gwyllion are also described as Y, which means the author is also saying that about X people."

There will always be real world parallels when discussing oppression. Always. But that's because oppression is oppression - precise details may vary, but it follows the same pathways the world over, and that will naturally be copied into fiction as well. This does not mean the author is intentionally telling the exact allegory that you've projected onto it. If that's how you read everything, then yeah, everything becomes super problematic, but also, why are you reading any fiction that isn't solely about real world historical events? It's clearly not for you

And, you know, obviously there are works that are racist/misogynistic/etc, including deliberately so. But I really don't like the way people have started going "I have spotted a PROBLEMATIC ALLEGORY here, I'm ever so smart" and acting like they're the cleverest little critic that ever lived. You have to meet a work on its own terms. Lovecraft was a big ole racist, sure. Someone who has written a book about the oppression of magic users in their fantasy world, however, is rarely writing a story about how queerness lurks in family lines and must be controlled; they are way more commonly writing a story about a world with magic that they then wanted to take seriously, and while there might well be elements of queerness there, those magic users are not a 1:1 replacement.

Sometimes these lines are blurry! But we're going way too far to one end of that spectrum

The post that got me thinking about this yesterday was someone talking about how they'd love to write a vampire story exploring vampirism as a disability (dependence on a substance to manage the condition, blindness/weakness in daytime, can't enter buildings without accommodation, etc). But, they said, they can't, because they don't want to be making the point that disabled people are parasites, and vampires are generally considered parasitic.

And like. What an incredible shame. That we'll lose that, because they're already afraid of the "I have spotted a PROBLEMATIC ALLEGORY" crowd. That would be a great story for exploring disability themes, OR just a great new take on vampires, and either of those things would be so good to read. But there would be so many people who would jump in with "So you think disabled people are draining the life force of the ableds around them?", never stopping to actually think "Vampires are not a 1:1 stand in for real world disability because they are fictional and do not exist."

Anyway sorry I've rambled here, not sure how coherent I'm being. But yes, I was thinking about this just yesterday! Wild.

faireladypenumbra

Sometimes as well, people assume that their interpretation of a text is correct/morally valuable because it must be the only way to read that text.

A reminder here that analysis isn't math: there is rarely a definitive authorial answer, or way to 'catch' the author in their interpretative truth. There is usually just varying degrees of creative analysis, and that is super okay.

boredliondisorder

There are a lot of problems with interpretation of fiction, but over-interpreting to the point where you lose the actual story is a big one. And I want to say this really started with (or at least I noticed it with) the terrible, ham-fisted allegory in Harry Potter.

Because it was deliberate, and it was deliberately harmful, and it was terrible. And so people have kind of been conditioned to assume that any way they CAN look into a story is, on the part of the author, deliberate and harmful.

And it's important for an author to understand whatever privilege they have when they write, and make sure they don't overstep. But sometimes the interpretation is the problem.

The most harmful things about these bad-faith interpretations is when they become viral and one bad interpretation becomes a veritable appeal to the masses as it did with Steven Universe. Because so many people watched it, it became a "well, it MUST be an accurate interpretation!" situation, when it was WAY off the mark.

This turned into "why write allegory when you can just write The Thing" (IE why write a stand-in for disability when you can just write a disabled person) and the reason is actually four-fold. Some authors write allegory better than reality. Some authors write reality better than allegory. But moreover, some READERS prefer allegory to reality, and some READERS prefer reality to allegory.

It is important that both exist. A real depiction of disability can make disabled people feel seen. Personally, I prefer allegory, because I am able to find myself in allegory better than reality. I'm also better able to understand what the author was saying.

I love to see people taking the time to interpret fiction, but media literacy also means you understand your interpretation isn't the ONLY interpretation, and just because you don't like it, it doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.

sandmandaddy69

get-thee-to-a-shrubbery

cleanedupcorporationprogress

boothyghost

all-save-challenge

I love this post especially the rat part

going on me feed

trolleybusaberrations

what do you mean there are exactly zero rats i. this post

bingle-official

primordialsoupvendor

shower-thoughts-last-responder

cthoseris

solfedge-mi-official

@hellsite-hall-of-fame @hellsitegenetics @bettinalevyisdetermined @cobblecatyt @l0stn3v3rf0und

su mer lovin’ “scream at own ass”

@vocabulary-altering-posts

bogcreacher

okay now a silly one

luxiomahariel

dhddmods

-Mockery of appearances associated with deformities or disfigurements

-Mockery of speech patterns or behavioral patterns

-Mockery of "useless" products (aka products that help disabled people)

-Mockery of people with "childish" interests

-Making fun of brain damage

-Making fun of small brains

-Making fun of or demonizing plurality

-Stigmatizing cluster B, schizospec, or paraphilic disorders. Misusing the terminology. Throwing around words like narcissist, psychotic, psychopath, sociopath, pedophile, zoophile, necrophile, etc

-Misuse of the words empathy/sympathy

-Constantly joking about psychwards

-Constantly joking about lobotomies

I could go on and on...

datadegroove-deactivated2026042

is it cool if i expire in front of you

lakemojave

Strawberries the day after you take them home from the store

samitch

raspberries 😔

boredliondisorder

You can save your berries in the range of days by washing them in white vinegar as soon as you get them home.

Vinegar kills mold spores, preventing them from growing. My strawberries and raspberries last a week in the fridge.

Life Update!

A while ago, someone sent me an ask here saying they missed me, so here's a run-down of how I've been doing!

First, I don't use this account as much because I've been doing pretty well.

There's no "cure" for BPD because it has to do a lot with your brain chemistry and how you personally condition yourself to handle things. So part of my recovery has been regular blood tests to make sure my thyroid is in the correct range to metabolize my medication, making sure I take my medication daily, and employing dialectical behavioral therapy. (DBT)

DBT might not be for everyone, but it's working really well for me. A lot of it is accepting things as they are and understanding those things cannot be changed because they're in the past. I can only work on looking forward and altering my behavior so those things don't happen again.

DBT also focuses on accepting pain and being mindful of my thoughts and emotions. I am allowed to be upset and in pain, but I'm not allowed to take those things out on other people. This took a really long time to do. Over time, though, the pain doesn't hit quite as hard, because I allow myself to be with it for a while, then put it behind me.

I understand that the painful times do get better. I understand that when things are good, it doesn't necessarily mean things will get terrible again. I don't have to be wary of the good times out of fear that they won't last. Life is a series of ups and downs, and it's important to be present and accept those things as they are when they happen. The result of these mindfulness sessions is that the bad times never seem quite so bad anymore.

One of the most important things is that I no longer have a "favorite person" (FP).

This was kind of an unconscious draw to someone where I'd kinda go from 0 to 60 in a friendship as quick as possible. Being in the moment has helped me realize that friendships that progress that quickly aren't healthy. Neither of us would have time to really learn about the other person, which meant the friendship was based on extremely shaky ground. Consequently, when something went wrong, there was no foundation on which to stand. Everything fell apart.

The good news is I have allowed myself to make a couple friends. I am still a little wary about getting too close, and I sometimes find myself being too cautious. But I also do my best to be in the moment for these friendships, as well. This will be a long road. I accept that, and I look forward to seeing how I do in the future.

One important milestone I reached is that I no longer feel an almost painful sense of jealousy like I did before. I find that I'm able to be happy for other people when good things happen to them, and this always feels really good to me. Feeling resentment was always embarrassing and made me feel guilty, and conditioning myself to NOT feel that way was very much a "fake it 'til you make it" process.

You can actually trick your brain into doing a lot of things. It's kinda crazy.

I don't feel as angry anymore about what happened a few years back. I held onto those feelings for a long time without really exploring them, because that anger was a security blanket that kinda absolved me of the guilt I felt for being part of it. It was one thing to admit I shared blame. It was another to ask myself why, and accept that what happened is in the past and there's no undoing it, no matter how much I accept that fault.

I will still use this account once in a while. There's still going to be times when I need to just get things off my chest, and this is a good place to do it. But the good times outnumber the bad ones now, so that's why you don't see me here as much. <3

I hope you're doing well. I miss you.

Hey! I am doing well. I post a lot less on this account, and more on my main @chaoskirin if you want to follow me there. <3 Things have been good, and I hope you're doing well too, anon!

chaoskirin

How to Fuck Over OpenAI and Midjourney

As you all know, Tumblr is selling user data to Open AI and Midjourney for reasons we can only guess (money. it's money.)

This presents Tumblr users, which are particularly savvy, with the opportunity to do severe damage to the datasets.

If you post art or images, download Nightshade. I'm not putting the link here on purpose to increase reach, but if you search "Glaze Nightshade," you will find it. If your GPU can't handle it, you can email me at aeryn.christie.biz at gmail and I will gladly Nightshade your art for you.

Nightshade makes the image unrecognizable to machines. If you post a skull, training models might see the image as a rabbit. It will then start to associate rabbits with skulls and anyone who tries to generate a skull will get a rabbit instead.

The more people who shade their art, the worse the models get.

For this reason, I will be leaving the capability for companies to scrape my data ON, in hopes that the models scrape my poisoned images and it ruins their shit.

You want the AI plague to stop, this is how to do it.

#fuck AI #artificial intelligence #openai #midjourney #nightshade #how to poison the machine

I've been down for a while, and I don't really see myself improving. I'm waiting for the fog to lift, but it's really stubborn this time. I spend most of my time sleeping lately.

I think the worst hit was when I sent an inquiry to a voice actor with an offer that was way above the normal rate to record Shadecursed as an audiobook and he didn't respond. I dunno. It doesn't really seem like a long shot when the offer is far more than most audiobook narrators get paid, and it would have been nice to at least get a reply instead of crickets.

He was really the only person I wanted to do it, too. So I don't know if Shadecursed will ever be an audiobook at this point. I just can't hear someone else doing it, and hiring someone through some of the services out there is a complete crapshoot. Sometimes you get an amazing voice actor, but most of the time you get shit. And I just don't want to hire shit.

It's another case of people in my field just not taking me seriously. I don't know what I have to do to become valid. It seems like I've been trying my whole life, but I'm always fighting against a current. I'm tired. And I can't seem to pick myself up this time and keep trying.

I haven't really posted about this much, because I hate the attention I get just when I post that I'm down. I don't want that. I want something to change. I want to figure out what I've been doing wrong. I want people to want to work with me. To reach out and be like "hey, let's collab."

I'm happy for other people this works out for. But I want to know what they're doing that I'm not. What about me makes it so hard to connect with people?

I used to spend a couple days not feeling so great, then I'd pick myself up and try again. But I haven't done anything creative in a couple weeks, and I don't see myself improving. My book launch wasn't great, and I can't see the point in working on book 2 if that book's just going to fail, too. Why put the time in? Why bother for the 20 people who'll read it? And why bother if the narrator I want to do it won't even reply?

Why don't I get to be successful?

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how much longer I'll last. I've had a lot of thoughts lately about painless ways to end my life. I actually have a medication that'll work really well. And there's the old standby of going out to stand in the cold until hypothermia sets in. This is just ideation. I haven't really gotten to the stage where I'm going to do anything, but I've really been considering it. In fact, I already have the auto-response email written because I don't plan on posting before I do anything this time.

There's too many people who only reach out when I'm feeling like shit, and they always talk me out of it. And then once they have me out of crisis, they vanish and I never hear from them again. So this time I'm just going to put the message in my email, maybe schedule a few posts, and then just fucking do it.

I need something to give. I need people to reach out. I need to know I mean something, or why is life even worth living? It's not. I can't see any value in it. And at this point, I really don't even want to try anymore.

ohara-n-brown

As a late diagnosed autist I will say one of the most damaging but transformative experiences I've ever had was being misdiagnosed with BPD.

Everyday my heart goes out to people with BPD.

The amount of stigma and silencing they face is astonishing and sickening.

I took DBT for years. Therapists use to turn me away because of my diagnosis.

I would be having full blown autistic meltdowns, crying for help literally - but because I was labeled as BPD ANY time I cried I was treated as manipulative and unstable.

As if the only reason I could be crying was if I was out to trick someone.

95% of the books out there with Borderline in the title are named shit like 'How to get away from a person with Borderline', 'How to stop walking on eggshells (with a person who has BPD)'

I was never allowed to feel true pain or panic or need.

That was 'attention seeking behavior', not me asking for help when a disability was literally inhibiting my ability to process emotions.

There were dozens of times where I had a full meltdown and was either threatened with institutionalization or told I was doing it for attention.

My failing relationships weren't due to a communication issue, or the inability to read social cues. No, because I was labeled borderline, my unstable relationships were my fault. Me beggong nuerotypicals to just be honest and blunt with what they meant was me pestering them for validation.

Borderline patients can't win.

And the funny thing is - I asked my therapist about autism. I told her I thought I was on the spectrum.

BPD is WILDLY misdiagnosed with those with autism and I had many clear signs.

Instead - she told me 'If you were autistic we wouldn't be able to have this conversation'. She made me go through a list of autistic traits made clearly for children, citing how I didn't fit each one.

And then she told me that me identifying with the autism community was the BPD making me search for identity to be accepted - and that I wasn't autistic, just desperate to fit in somewhere.

I didn't get diagnosed for another ten years. For ten years I avoided the autism community - feeling as if I were just a broken person who wanted to steal from people who 'really needed it'.

Because of my providers - I began to doubt my identity MORE, not less.

Ten years of thinking I was borderline and being emotionally neglected and demonized by a system meant to help me.

To this day, I still don't trust neurotypicals. Not fully.

I know I'm not borderline now - but my heart aches for them. Not for the usual stuff. But for the stigma. And the asshole doctors. And the dismissiveness and threatening and the idea of institutionalization hanging over their head.

I love Borderline people. I always will. I'm not Borderline but if you are I love you and I'm sorry.

You're not a bad person. You're not a therapists worst nightmare, you are a human with valid feelings and fears.

Borderline people I'm sorry.

mindnumbing-brain-candy

My psychiatrist (is that the one that prescribes meds?) Was telling me recently there's a huge push to relabel BPD as cptsd precisely because of how many people are so mean about it and so terrible and all. And because a lot of bpd is about maladaptive coping mechanisms due to so many various traumas.

boredliondisorder

I've wondered about this for a while.

But to me, I guess it doesn't matter. As soon as I opened up to friends that I had BPD and I needed a little leeway and help (and, oh, here's what to do if I'm having a meltdown) anything I did became manipulative to them.

I still know of at least one person who maintains she has trauma from the whole situation. And while I've apologized to her, I've also read back through our conversations with my therapist to find that I was literally showing all the signs of major distress and that I was crying out for help. It was a relief to hear that while I went about things the wrong way, what I displayed was more akin to someone about to kill themselves than someone who wanted to manipulate others. (IE indecision, back and forth thinking, confusion, delusion, a lack of love bombing, fear, etc.)

It's so easy for people to convince themselves that everything someone with BPD does is attention-seeking or manipulative. It's easy for them to dismiss you, or worse... Make sure other people see you as manipulative and attention-seeking without giving you a chance. I've come to accept that the person who hurt me will never apologize for what she caused because she thinks hurting me was just and right and that I deserve to keep hurting.

That realization will help with my therapy in 2024. I still haven't gotten past what happened, but I have accepted that nothing I can do (or not do) will cause her to change her mind. That's a good first step, and it only took five years. :\

I've had a feeling it may be autism for a while now, but I don't see what good a diagnosis would do. I've reached a point in my life where I really can't trust people for my own mental well-being, and I don't see what help I could possibly get that would alleviate that. I still tell people I have BPD. I still expect them to fuck off eventually. The difference now is that I really don't have the capability to put any energy into a long-lasting friendship. I no longer have the ability to have a FP (which is another thing that makes me think it might be autism) and I look for excuses to not talk to people.

It constantly hurts and I'm extremely lonely, but there's nothing I can do about it except try to accept myself for who I am and do my best not to hurt others. I don't have a "romantic" issue like so many people support. I have meltdowns. I worry. I cry. I hurt people. And if I can't accept that, I won't last very long.

same anon as earlier. I'm up to chapter 7 and this is such an engaging story. the worldbuilding is so in-depth and it keeps giving me that sense of wonder you get as a little kid picking up a fantasy novel and getting excited over all the cool stuff in it. your writing style has such a great balance of humour and seriousness and too and it's genuinely so fun to read

Thank you! This is what I love to hear from readers. <3 I'm going to bed now, but I hope it continues to please!

hey so I'm about to start reading Shadecursed and I just want to say thank you so much for including content warnings at the start, but also I absolutely love that there's a glossary and pronunciation guide too. it's been so long since I've seen a story with a glossary at the end I think that's such a wonderful addition

No problem! Some people won't use the content warnings, but for those who need them, I thought it was very important to find a way to include them. I figured I could probably appease the "NO ONE WANTS CONTENT WARNINGS" crowd by putting a spoiler page first.

(and to those people: a lot of readers like content warnings!)

And yeah, a couple of my beta readers suggested a glossary because of the pretty in-depth worldbuilding. I set it as an early Kickstarter reward, but honestly I would have done it anyway. I think it'll make it easier, and people can refer to it if they get confused.

I hope you enjoy it!

That sinking feeling when you realize help isn't coming. That you're on your own.

The longest quote in the QotD series! This describes the luxurious travel vehicle that gets our heroes from place to place.

I wasn't able to post a QotD yesterday, so there'll be two today! This first one features art of a spark, which is one of the god, Wheriae's herald's. They're only called sparks because they're yellow. And annoying. And slimy.

It's really devastating when you realize that the person you reached out to for help with a certain aspect of your writing just did not take you seriously at all and thought you were fucking around.

The ONLY thing I can do about it is to be successful. It's the only way to prove him wrong.

But success as an author? Long shot. I'll do my best.

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