Ni-doms And Disembodiment

when she says she doesn’t send nudes

I sometimes wish I wasn’t me. That I wasn’t ‘gifted’. I want to be able to be normal, to be able to talk about my academic life without censoring how my grades are better than most.

I want to be able to talk to people about my experiences and not be looked at like I shouldn’t be complaining because I’m doing so much better than everyone else.

Reblog if your mom is the most beautiful and strongest woman you know.

Found this gem in an article

“Sleep on it” is advice I don’t like because it feels too passive (you mean, do nothing???) but is often very important to do.

I find that playboy line funny bc like... aren't tony and pepper the only mcu couple that has been in a long term committed relationship? and beyond the thing with maya (which happened in a flashback), tony hasn't had any other love interests? that line would have been relevant, what, in the first 20 minutes of iron man 1? (not trying to bring up discourse or hate or anything, I just find it interesting lol)

That playboy line follows him like a shadow when it’s not even an accurate reflection of who he is, it’s one of those things when it gets stuck in the default setting of people’s mind that Tony Stark is a ‘playboy’, and it takes them effort to remember that he is not. The fact is that he’s been everything BUT a playboy in the last ten years, and seriously you can’t name one more committed, loyal and romantic man in mcu than Tony Stark, but some people would simply let that vague idea of who he is stay, based on a quippy one liner from a movie that was seven years ago (also ignoring the context of that one liner), than to let themselves see and realise that a character has changed and developed …. It’s sadly poetic he had said it himself in a deleted scene of Iron Man, when he was confessing to the two girls he was with in Dubai that he was actually not entirely comfortable with it, and proceed to say “You know how easy to get a reputation and how hard to lose it, and I’m not playing victim, I’m not complaining, it’s just something that occurred over time..”

He was the one who played up that ‘Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist’ persona after all, so of course he knew the price, that it was inevitable some people wouldn’t see through it and took everything he presented at face value. And part of him found ease in slipping behind that mask, because then people wouldn’t know he’s scared, vulnerable and insecure, and they couldn’t be disappointed with him when he offered nothing more for them to expect. In IM 2 he embraced the persona fully and acted his most obnoxious self to annoy everyone around him and push them away, because he didn’t want to admit to his friends that he was scared, that he didn’t want to die; because (an irrational) part of him was scared that even if he opened up to them they wouldn’t care, so he opted to toughen up and push them away first and avoid getting hurt later. The similar train of thoughts was happening In Avengers when he used the mask as his defensive mechanism, and it was what gave birth to that infamous one liner. He needed to act cool and nonchalant in front of all these new super people, because how could he possibly measure up to Captain America himself with his ‘laundry list of character defects.’ He was afraid of how they wouldn’t accept him as part of the team as previously Nat’s assessment of him had suggested, and judged him by his past as Steve had put it later ‘I’ve seen the footage, the only thing you really fight for is yourself.’ So at least acting like he was so self-absorbed and savvy that he didn’t care one bit of what others thought of him could protect him from letting the others know about his vulnerability and insecurity. 

The lovely thing is though, as movies progress, you see how this mask is slowly slipping away, when he said in IM3 ‘Now I’m a changed man’, he wasn’t just saying it, he really had changed. Being in a committed relationship with Pepper had helped him to realise that he could voice his fear and be vulnerable, as he found acceptance in her; being forced out of his comfort zone of three (3) friends and an AI, he developed an unlikely friendship with a kid, it opened up his guarded heart, he learned his capability to trust other people, reply on them, and that reaching out, asking for help, whether or not it was a sign of weakness, he had allowed himself it. Thus you start to see a more genuine and vulnerable Tony Stark in the presence of others way more often after IM3. In AoU he admit to the team of what he was scared of, he opened up to Fury about the vision he saw, the nightmare he dreaded. In Civil War, he opened up to Steve of his weaknesses, his flaws, and was practically begging him to stay, ‘I don’t wanna see you gone, we need you Cap’; to give him time (which tragically was what Steve didn’t have), so they can deal with the Accords together. He had allowed himself to be rejected, and still trying to reach out, ‘because it’s us.’ He cared a lot about the Avengers and he no longer tried to hide it behind the ‘Genius playboy devil may care’ facade, he may not be verbally spelling it out, but he let his fear, worries, guilt, sadness, be written all over his face. It’s peak Tony Stark being vulnerable and emotional and not bothered to hide, this side of him with all the emotional complexity is available for anyone who’s looking to see, and it’s amazing.

The relationship he developed with Peter took him to an unexplored area of emotions, it was the first time he felt strongly and personally responsible for someone else’s wellbeing. He may have learned to take better care of himself over the years, but having a kid who was already hundred times better than him and still looked up to him? It created a lot of internal conflicts in his mind. On one hand he wanted to provide the best he can for Peter (while not overstepping), the extremely thoughtful suit he built for him with an insane amount of web shooters combinations and a friendly sassy AI is one perfect example; on the other hand he was afraid that his involvement would ruin Peter’s life. His self doubt and guilt were stalling him from being open and emotional available for Peter, which, compare to the super suit, it was what Peter needed from him more. His relationship with his own father had not given him the confidence he needed when it came to something close to parenting, so he did what he always tended to do when he was feeling insecure, he put on the cool Tony StarkTM mask and tried to keep Peter at arm’s length by putting up a barrier (Happy) between them. He wasn’t mentally ready to take on the mentor/father figure role, but sentimentally, looking at all those things he did for Peter in silence, he was already caring and worrying about Peter like a parent would to their child. He just needed to learn to show it to Peter, drop the mask, be present, be vocal, because if Peter couldn’t feel it, love failed in communication and it wouldn’t be complete. And over the course of the Homecoming and IW, you really see how he had come to it, seeing how they squabbled and Peter was no longer looking up to him like he was an idol, but simply looking up to him for reassurance and comfort, it is so (tragically) beautiful and had everyone crying. 

Don’t ask me why I turn a simple line ‘Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist’ into a character analysis, it just happened, but he’s come so far and I’m so proud of him and it just goes without saying how beautiful how complex his character is and people who still misunderstand him by default, they’re missing out. 

To sad adults who were “gifted” kids:

Work on developing a contentment-based lifestyle, rather than an achievement-based one.  Stress isn’t a sign that you’re doing well, it’s the opposite.  (When you figure out how to do this, please share your notes with the class.) 

Holy fuck isn’t this basically what Brave New World was about?? Making different social classes based on intelligence??

Appalachian History Lesson - The Eugenics Movement

“Idiots shouldn’t be allowed to breed.”

How many times have you heard that? Or maybe even said it? It’s a common statement upon encountering someone that embodies an ideology that we don’t agree with, or someone whose life choices are less than admirable. But did you know that in our own American history, we liked that idea so much that we actually tried to make it happen? It’s true. It happened under the Eugenics Movement, the brainchild of Francis Galton (cousin to Charles Darwin who took his cousin’s discoveries and spiraled a bit out of control). If you’ve never heard of this movement (and the great likelihood is that you haven’t, since we tend to like to keep it hush hush), it would do you a great deal of good to research it.

In Appalachia, this movement was detrimental. The basic idea was that, since genes are inherited from parent to child, traits could also be inherited. In that case, humans could be bred for certain traits. We could encourage those with positive traits (intelligence, primarily) to breed with like, thus creating a super race of humans. This was called positive Eugenics. The other side of this was that we could prevent people with negative traits from breeding at all, and thus exterminate “undesirables.” This was negative Eugenics.

The masses were breeding at high rates, and with poverty gripping a great percentage of the population, more and more children were likely to fall to the same fates as their parents. Poverty was a “trait” that could be “inherited,” which only made sense considering poor parents begat poor children. Poverty came with overpopulation. Some of the family studies completed by eugenicists reported an average of 4.2 children per mother in certain Appalachian areas. After the immigrant boom of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the eugenicists were ready to take necessary measures. The first target was the population with mental deficiencies – those unfortunate enough to be deemed “feebleminded” - the paupers, criminals, mentally insane, homosexuals, promiscuous women, and the mentally retarded. The method? Sterilization. This became well known and popular after the Virginia (and Supreme Court) case Buck v Bell (1927), in which it was determined that because Carrie Buck was “feeble-minded” due to her lack of education and her mother’s feeble-mindedness, she should be sterilized. Carrie had been raped and had a child of this rape that, though only an infant, was determined feeble-minded by appearance. Thus Carrie was sterilized against her will, unable to ever have children again.

This law legitimized use of sterilization when a person was deemed a “genetic threat.” As you may believe, due to the lack of education and material wealth in Appalachia, we were a target. Appalachians were viewed as “poor white trash” and the “tainted white” and were discriminated against heavily throughout the rest of America (these ideas remain with those who group all Appalachians into the categories of hillbilly, redneck, or even white trash). Women were often sterilized against their will in hopes that the Appalachian population would die off without being able to reproduce, and could then be replaced by a more civilized and intelligent group of Americans.

The movement finally started to die when none other than Adolf Hitler grasped the idea and started using it to exterminate the Jews. I believe that was America’s wake up call, and by the 60s most of the sterilization laws were completely revoked. Hitler’s use of Eugenic policies has made America ashamed of its trying to eliminate its poor and uneducated, and trying to eliminate Appalachia. Yet here we remain — as strong and stoic as the mountains that protect us.

outlook on being gifted when you’re 6: cool so i’m smart i guess! that explains why i get the highest grades in the class and finish all my homework early!

outlook on being gifted when you’re 16: i decided taking 5 AP classes would be a good idea for some reason and i’ve had a high grade fever for the past 2 days but if i miss school i’ll be drowning in make-up work and i was supposed to have finished reading that book for class last week and i have 3 assignments due tomorrow but i’m just laying in bed staring at the wall