#//anyway something something the inherent weirdness of their codependency something something

[freeddead]

//the csi episode i just watched was about incest and the mother kills her son's new lover and makes him help her cover it up and it's giving.... mary & gerry vibes... and i'm not implying anything but i'm also not not implying anything

[tenderlady]

Just wanted to say I came across your tag on a post about Phantom Thread John and Yoko and ohh my god I can't believe I never made that connection as that's one of my favourite films. It genuinely fits how I see their dynamic so much, even if Reynolds and Alma have quite different personalities. There's even that weird story about how after they got back together with Yoko's promised "smoking" cure, John was throwing up for like a day and then coming out disorientated and different.

Like if PTA came out and said he was inspired to make the film partly based on insider knowledge on late 70s JohnandYoko I wouldn't even be surprised.

Omg, hi! I totally forgot about that post (and I can't even really remember what I would tag about that aside from The Knowledge Deep In My Soul), but this ask reminded me of how passionately right I am about that!

I don't think John and Yoko are perfect corollaries for the characters in Phantom Thread, but the dynamic they had going of Yoko essentially being a toxic mommy to John while giving him things that were intended for his health while actually making him sick, thus reinforcing his dependence on her, is SOOOOOOOO Phantom Thread.

They were both obviously obsessed with each other, and I think part of that obsession came from a Reynolds-esque desire on John's part to no longer have to be the hypercompetent, "leader" [akom you didn't see this] figure and Yoko's desire to have a sense of control over something. As PTA understands, there is an eroticism inherent to that kind of inversion of power, and the weakening of the both of them (physically, psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.) looped around and further reinforced their codependence on each other.

I would be chuffed beyond belief if PTA were familiar with John and Yoko's dynamic and that influenced the myriad fucked up relationships in his films (reading SOMETHING into The Master rn, not sure what though). He is one of the working directors that I would graciously give my blessing to make a Beatlemovie, and a lot of that is because of his clear interested in fucked up psychosexual dynamics and mutual obsession.

Anyway, I'm glad you see my vision, and tell me you couldn't see Yoko pulling this shit

[pseudoneiiric]

@confettisuite​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ sent:  Ship Bias for Lilian! @deathwis​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ sent:  ship bias » for lilian !!  /  accepting!

send ‘ship bias’ and i will share up to 5 ships i have a bias for for my muse!

using this as an excuse to put ten ships down, sorry not sorry. i actually have a note on my phone of lilian ship fics i want to write. it’s kind of not okay! anyway let me list a bunch of them that i love, in no particular order:

starting off with a canon one... anrilian does make me emotional. i do think a lot about how lili probably didn’t like her back because of her discomfort around the idea of not being seen as a girl, and i love the idea that anri comphetted for lili and then felt relieved until lilian transitioned and then she was like. fuck.

lililight! it’s one of my big ships for lilian and it’s the only ship fic i’ve actually started. i think they are so sweet and i think they’re weird enough for each other. it’s also kind of a little bit terrible no good bad bad but... in a good way!

lilimisa! there’s something so inherently intimate about them sharing the role of second kira. i also do think that lilian’s, like... good for misa. she’s so similar to light but nowhere near as manipulative, and i do think misa would be able to hold her ground much better if she went in already having a girlfriend. that’s just my opinion

lilimatty. it has to be said. lilian’s etn au will singlehandedly kill me and i am such a huge supporter of these codependent little individuals! they hurt me, truly. it all started from them both having a huge fondness for stuffed animals. that was the first step to lilimatty supremacy

lilimaeda. this came up because i was saying that lilian has unfortunate taste in men and always ends up liking the tumblr sexymen. but also for lilian’s dr au this one actually works really well considering she’s also a lucky student! they kind of a dynamic like “my luck’s going to fuck up your life” / “not if my luck fucks my life up first”. plus they’re both fucked in the head (affectionate). i have it saved in here as “hope vs despair debates. folie à deux”

lilipete... the two of them have the most off-putting, nihilistic demeanours and i just think it’s absolutely stellar. the energies of them will send me to an early grave, actually. they just will.

saflili! i just really love the energies of this one in particular because it’s very much like. smart girl solidarity! i love the idea that they’d slowly grow to care about each other quite a bit through just... being able to trust each other on an intellectual level. and of course, that respect morphing over time to concern, romantic interest... it just kills me, i love saflili actually

natsulili! i think lilian is just the ideal partner for natsuki actually. natsuki’s always reminded me of anri and i just think she’d end up falling hard for lilian since lili is just such a joking teasing kind of person. it’s got... natsuyuri vibes for sure

mukuro/lili! i just think they’d end up getting along so well and being able to bond over. basically. like the trauma they suffered from their sisters and i just think they’d end up being really sweet!

ok i can’t really decide between these so i’m just gonna dump them here: peko/lili, hinata/lili, naegi/lili, asahina/lili

[uchihanarutos]

what is kky's dynamic because ive seen people say its sketchy in general? like somewhat inappropriate. whats ur opinion on this since u ship it

Personally, I don’t view it as “sketchy” whatsoever, especially not in an overall sense. Maybe in ultra specific cases - like gross people portraying it in a specific and purposefully bad way (will address this at different points) - but that’s due to the individual being gross, not the ship on its own.

I get people wanting to be cautious, and I commend that! But my take on KKY is: it’s absolutely fine, and not anything we don’t already see in other ships like SNS or KKG or KKOB. Here’s why.

For one, they first meet when they’re both kids; a very short time after the nine-tails attack. It’d be a different story if they met when Yamato was still a kid and Kakashi was already an adult, but that very much isn’t the case here. This - in addition to the fact that they are both already adults in their 20′s with a small 3 year age gap - makes this a fairly safe ship as far as their ages alone go.

(Note: I say “in addition to” because both of these factors must be present for the ship to be sound. They need to have met while in the same age group and currently be adults. KK*ta are both adults in canon, but they met when Itachi was a child and Kakashi was already an adult, which has very bad implications about the foundation of that ship. One of the factors is missing, which is why it’s gross ship with bad implications. This does not happen with KKY.)

The only way to make this aspect weird would be if an individual intentionally chose to specifically go and portray them in a shippy way during the very brief time period where Kakashi had turned into an adult and Yamato was still a kid. It’d be the same case for, say, GaaLee, and intentionally portraying the time period where Lee would be 18 and Gaara would still be 16/17 in a shippy way. Which, again, would be the fault of the individual, and not something inherently bad about the ship. Aside from these portrayals done by individuals, the ships themselves are sound.

One other thing I can definitely get people being cautious about is that Kakashi was Yamato’s direct superior for a time. However, Kakashi is also Gai’s superior when he is Hokage (this also applies to SNS), and he was Obito’s superior for a time as well. So, while I get being cautious about power dynamics (as one should be), unless you also denounce SNS, KKG, and KKOB for the same reason (which, if you do, that’s an okay line to draw for yourself imo), the excuse falls flat and comes off as hypocritical. Plus, there’s plenty of time periods where Kakashi is simply a respected colleague and no longer a direct superior to Yamato in any way.

I would also like to note that this sort of dynamic is much more of a case-by-case scenario than people tend to realize or want to acknowledge. It’s something where you need to think critically and ask yourself if there are lines being crossed. Is this power imbalance used outside of professional settings, and/or to harmful ends? Is someone portraying these dynamics as very unbalanced and harmful? Is the imbalance contributing to a lack of mutual respect? If the answer is “No.” it’s fine. That’s why people still ship SNS and KKG, even though one of them being the Hokage creates a power imbalance. Because people have thought critically and can see the dynamic isn’t being used to harm the other character in the context of these ships. The same thing applies to KKY.

The last thing people would need to be cautious about is - all else removed - how they treat each other. This one gets a SOLID pass; their interactions are probably some of the funniest and most natural and healthy in the entire series, honestly. There’s virtually nothing to criticize here. They’re colleagues that have known each other for about half their lives and have extreme trust in/respect for each other, and aren’t afraid to speak their minds to each other. You can’t really find much of a fault here, especially if you also ship much more complicated (and at times straight up unhealthy) ships like SNS (yes kings, messily unpack your traumas, have codependency issues).

Anyways! TL;DR: I’m not going to blame anyone for being super extra cautious about any ship. It’s always ALWAYS important to think critically about media you consume and create, which of course includes any ships you have. I encourage you to do your own thinking about everything I’ve said and anything others have to say, and reach your own conclusion.

MY conclusion after critically thinking about it is: KKY cute. I think they should kiss.

[microsuedemouse]

hhhhhhhhhhhhhwoof I hate fandom/ship drama

anyway I’ve been thinking about how. there is nothing, inherently wrong,, with being interested in exploring ships (or even non-romantic/non-sexual character dynamics!) that are unhealthy in-universe.

here’s something: there is value in recognising that a ship is unhealthy or toxic or abusive or whichever other descriptor you feel fits best. (I am going to be using ‘unhealthy’ as my umbrella word in this post; obviously it’s an understatement to call an abusive relationship ‘unhealthy’ but it’s still accurate and it encompasses the variety of things I’m talking about.) there is value in taking that as fact and acknowledging such in whatever exploratory work you may choose to create or engage in.

I wanna take a second here to clarify part of what I mean: it is not inherently wrong to enjoy an unhealthy ship, and you are not required to defend a ship as healthy/‘not abusive’ in order to justify your interest in it. this is a very weird result, imo, of purity culture and virtue signalling. when you have a healthy understanding of the difference between fiction and reality, and a recognition of what’s acceptable in reality and what’s compelling in fiction, it’s actually very worth exploring what interests and engages you about Fictional Bad Things.

you know that phenomenon where people love villains? a lot of discourse around purity culture naturally leads to the conclusion: “it is wrong to like villains.” most of us are capable of recognising that this... doesn’t make sense. because obviously, we aren’t - or at least, the great majority of us aren’t - claiming that we would like and support this person in reality, or that we would be entirely comfortable with the deeds they commit if those deeds took place in reality. we’re saying that the character appeals to and compels us for some reason, within fiction. that’s a different thing - and it’s usually a sign of good writing! it’s very worth exploring that experience: what about this villain makes you like them so much? what about them makes them relatable to you, or sympathetic to you, or perhaps even cathartic to you? these kinds of questions can offer both entertainment value and, possibly, some new insights into yourself as a person. those insights might turn out to be interesting and meaningless, or they might provide you with new ways to express yourself, or they might even offer you a new avenue for growth.

(moral purity often also extends to the conclusion ‘you shouldn’t enjoy stories in which the main character suffers, because it’s wrong to enjoy someone’s pain.’ we all know this makes no sense, because that includes most stories. a major reason human beings tell stories is to share in the emotional journey of a protagonist ultimately overcoming great obstacles. but anyway, this is a whole other issue, really.)

what I’m getting at is - the same can apply to ships. there are a few approaches to unhealthy ships, and I wouldn’t go so far as to say they stand on equal moral ground, but there are a variety of ways you might be able to explore them without it making you an inherently evil person, or whatever. it’s also worth noting that while, obviously, I’m expressing here what aligns with my moral position and encouraging you to think similarly - but, I also encourage you to think critically about your own moral positions. decide what is comfortable for you, and what feels right to engage with. it’s fine and it’s normal to draw your own lines in the sand and say, this is where the range of acceptable ends for me. I won’t support or engage with what’s on the other side.

to give a quick overview of some approaches I’m not as comfortable with: sometimes you’ll find a writer/artist/other fan who likes to depict a ship as totally healthy in a way that can only be described as out-of-character. sometimes this seems to be a denial of the actuality of the ship; I don’t like that so much because it’s often a refusal to acknowledge that their canonical behaviour/dynamic is bad. other times this is depicted as a sort of AU; this doesn’t bother me quite as much personally (often depending on what the writer’s overall attitudes seem to be) but it’s also often less interesting to me. in my experience, this is usually very self-indulgent work and has a lot more to do with the writer’s own experiences than with canon itself. which is fair, honestly. sometimes that’s cathartic for the writer and that’s enough - I don’t have to be into it personally to respect it.

another thing that crops up that’s kind of worrisome, imo, is when a writer/artist/etc. depicts the ship as in-character but denies that it’s unhealthy. now, in fairness, if you’re simply reading a fic or looking at a piece of fanart or something, you cannot always tell exactly how the creator thinks the ship actually operates. not everyone is always going to include a disclaimer that says ‘hey I don’t think this is actually Good.’ so try not to immediately ascribe intent to the writer/etc. unless you’ve seen them state outright somewhere: this isn’t abuse, it’s just cute! (or whatever it is they’re seeing.) at that point it is worth being concerned about what this person thinks constitutes a healthy relationship, and if you don’t feel good about supporting their work that’s entirely fair.

HOWEVER. there are also other approaches. two in particular stand out to me that I think are worth discussing. one is simply exploring the possibilities of an unhealthy relationship, with total acknowledgement of its flaws. one unhealthy dynamic that I admittedly find really engaging a lot of the time? ‘these two characters are Very obsessed with each other, and it sure ain’t healthy psychologically, but it’s definitely mutual.’ I love that shit. gimme a couple of unhinged, incredibly codependent pieces of shit, and you have my full attention. particularly if they’re on equal footing - if they’re damaging one another, it’s reciprocal, or at very least they’re both getting exactly what they want out of the relationship. obviously this would not be a dynamic I could support in real life! that’s terrible and I don’t want anyone to go through it! but in fictional characters it can be fascinating to explore. and if the content is going to upset or trigger certain fans: that’s why we use tags and warnings. AO3, where many of us go for a huge amount of our fan content, literally has a whole system in place for precisely this purpose: so we can let each other know what’s inside, and make informed choices about what we want to consume.

the other common approach is the redemption arc. it’s always gonna be up to you which characters you consider redeemable and which ones you don’t - that’s okay. again, it’s your choice what content to engage and what to pass over. but as people we’re traditionally very fond of the redemption arc story, and as fans we love to create the redemption arcs our favourite characters don’t get to live out in canon. because we love something about the character and want to explore them further. like I said earlier, that in itself is worth giving some thought to. sometimes we’ll even end up writing partial redemptions: this character goes from totally reprehensible to kind of appealingly awful. the ship goes from abusive to a much more regular level of fucked up. that can definitely be an interesting story in itself, and it’s okay if you want to explore it.

the main thing is that you always exercise your ability to think critically about what you’re consuming and why you like it - which, honestly, you should be trying to do all of the time, anyway. be clear about what you do and don’t endorse, about what your actual values are, about where you draw the line. (as both an example and a disclaimer, since I know I still have followers from A Certain Fandom where this cropped up a lot before I mostly dipped: one line that I personally draw, and always will, is at ships involving an adult and a literal child. I am not comfortable with exploring this even in the hypothetical space of fan content. it is too objectionable to be compelling.)

go forth. explore your unhealthy ships and shitty favourite characters. experiment and learn why they compel you. write properly-labelled fanfic about them hurting each other and loving it. just remember that everyone has different boundaries, and that fiction and reality are very separate spaces. acknowledge that what you’re enjoying is not inherently right or acceptable in real life just because you enjoy it in a story, and it doesn’t have to be. if you’re a content creator, consider portraying these things in such a way that your audience is well aware of your position on the matter, in order to help them also understand what is and isn’t healthy. be a ruthless writer and a kind person, and you’ll do just fine.

[eveninglottie]

one thing I’ve noticed over the past few years of writing mostly m/m is that it’s a lot more comfortable for me to write the kinds of tropes I like and am interested in (soulmates, enemies to lovers, codependent relationships, unhealthy relationships, et cetera) when it involves two men than when it’s between a woman and a man. this is super cis but I have this hyper awareness when I’m writing f/m content that I just don’t have when I’m writing m/m content. I feel a lot more pressure to write a relationship that is always shown through a critical lens when there’s a man and a woman involved, because sooo much of my brain power is constantly asking myself whether it’s okay for me to be writing something or if it’s inherently misogynistic to even want to write it. what if I make the woman too agreeable, is it abusive, am I overcorrecting -- how much of an unhealthy dynamic can I write while still being “acceptable” in both my own mind and the minds of people who read my stuff? so much of the stuff I’m drawn to is “problematic” because I was raised on ya paranormal romance and disney princesses and like...I know better, now, but sometimes you just need to write things that you want to write, and for some reason it’s a hell of a lot easier for me to write about a prickly, detached nobleman getting swept off his feet by a lovable scoundrel who arguably comes on a bit too much than it is if I were to write the same thing about a princess. same goes for naive boy gets seduced to the darkside or whatever like... I know these are Things That Are Not Great regardless of the genders involved, but I’m interested in writing about them and thinking about them for a variety of complicated reasons, and there’s this distracting hyperawareness I get whenever I think about writing the “traditionally female” role with a woman (which again, is SO FUCKING CIS). I guess I just hate that there’s so much baggage I have with Problematic Romance, so much of a call out culture surrounding these kinds of depictions in media, that it just feels easier to remove women from the picture entirely. which is SO FUCKED UP and I have an even bigger problem when I try to do it with two women because of my own internalized weirdness surrounding women who love other women. and it’s just! frustrating! because I know how toxic it is to start putting limits on how you write in advance of perceived hate or scrutiny you might get. anyway I think this is why it’s been hard for me to think about my f/m pairings lately. and it feels really weird and I don’t know how else to talk about it.

[softgrungeprophet]

it’s that time again. time for me to be annoyed/frustrated at the comics that came in the 20-teens that simultaneously responded directly to the 2000s, followed in the 2000s’ continuation, but completely glossed over and ignored the very serious topics that were brought up. and then we get the fucking 2018 run which does NEITHER and just seeks to make it worse for shock value without being even remotely thoughtful about anything it does! wow.

we could have had some really interesting growth for eddie and the symbiote’s relationship by honestly addressing things like eddie’s illness, hypocrisy as anti-venom, his status as a victim of abuse, and so on...

of course i know if i say “eddie is a victim” people will get hissy but like.... i’m not saying he’s an innocent blameless baby who was manipulated into being the weirdo he is... i’m just saying... he’s a victim of abuse. he’s been taken advantage of a lot. almost any help he’s received has required some kind of reciprocation.

he’s a shithead and he went off the deep-end after new ways to die because remender’s version of eddie fucking sucks, he’s smug and weird and violent, and also he’s been neglected and tortured and abused and experimented on and he needs therapy and blah blah blah

he’s also not some fuckin accidental drunk driver who was hit into thinking he’s innocent. that’s so fucking--jeez. everything about these retcons donny has been doing miss the point even more than the comics he says he loves so much. it’s wild. like i don’t like new ways to die OR new ways to live, remender’s run was okay but i hated the way he wrote eddie, marvel knights spider-man just sucks in general, the hunger 03 also sucks, but like they do feed into each other in a way that.... sort of makes sense....

i just wish there was a way any of the comics would have said, “hey look there are some ways in which eddie is a victim but there are also some ways in which he needs to take responsibility for his actions”

but that kind of nuanced take is impossible for the way these comics are put out and canceled and retconned and so on forever.. it’s so ... ugh.....

the hunger 03 sucks... it also influenced over a decades’ worth of Venom comics including costa’s in its own weird way.... and i just wish we could simultaneously be like, Yes the symbiote is not inherently evil or corrupting but Also it did abuse Eddie, and Yes Eddie has been treated poorly for a great deal of his life and Also is a motherfucker who needs to be held responsible for his actions.

Is this hypocritical to be like, “can we address the 2000s” while also saying “2018 run is not valid”

in my defense even the shitty 2000s were like a continuity and didn’t try to fully retcon every single aspect of venom lore that ever existed (tho it sure did plenty of retconning....) whereas the current run... is doing exactly that....

of course this goddamn run will probably also influence the following comics unless the next writers retcon the retcons or like, ignore it and it gets put into its own earth or something. idk. like no one really counts dark origin right? and that works cause it also had a negligible influence on the rest of the comics. but like, the bad hunger had a very lasting impact on the comics. so i guess we just hope that donny cates, despite currently selling super well, does not actually influence any of the comics that come after?

i don’t fuckin know. i just think it kind of sucks that like “eddie was abused” is something that gets used as either a “lol no that never happened and if you talk about it you hate the symbiote” or else an excuse to demonize the symbiote even after its own character growth arcs in the apparently supremely unpopular gotg and space knight stuff... lol

maybe if every fucking series from 2013 to 2016 (minus costa which is honestly more 2017) didn’t get canned we could have gotten more. like honestly, 2016′s Carnage--for all its flaws--seemed like it had something to say about Eddie as a character, about his flaws and so on, and I gotta wonder where that was going. It flat out says “Venom didn’t make Eddie Brock a bastard” so like? But then at the same time all of the symbiotes in that series were completely silent so? I don’t even know.

Cullen Bunn was clearly going somewhere too but I have no idea where other than “symbiote is alive but has trouble communicating” and “eddie is coming down from his murder spree as he realizes flash thompson is in fact helping people as agent venom”

the two fit together in a very strangely complementary way. sometimes i gotta wonder about a universe in which those two comics in particular ran concurrently to address venom, flash, toxin, and eddie’s many issues. but toxin’s probably gone... though in my heart they are with jubulile and her mom in south africa, learning what it’s like to be part of a loving family...

man. the resigned “Okay.” at the end of twav...... twav good imo.

anyway

i don’t even know what the point of this is. i’m all over the place in this post. it’s frustrating that donny has made it kinda impossible to bring up eddie’s victimhood without like... qualifying it to the ends of the earth to clarify that you don’t think he’s some kind of pure cinnamon roll who’s been dreadfully manipulated for 12 years....

I feel like I’m not making any sense!!! Words are hard.

I feel like I’ve kinda been avoiding writing about the symbiote though in part because it’s hard for me to balance that many characters and in part because of Donny’s stupid bullshit, which is dumb as fuck but I guess that’s what he wanted huh!!!! Need to read Lethal Protector to cleanse my palate but it’s taking forever to get it from the library because they only have one copy.

ugh

The symbiote is not an evil creature like he wants everyone to think... goddammit.... but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t carefully address both its and Eddie’s mistakes without fabricating new different mistakes to obscure the previous ones. Or whatever. Fuckin I don’t know lol the entirety of the continuity is just a bunch of bullshit. 80s-90s continuity largely separate from 2000-20...15ish continuity largely separate AGAIN from the 2016 continuity yet also directly tied to it, against completely separated from the 2018 continuity which is off saying “fuck you” to literally every venom writer to ever exist since Eddie’s conception, ironically including the guy who wrote the cursed hunger

What am I trying to say! I don’t know! i feel like a broken record. There’s a lot of empty space between Agent Venom and 2016 that was never filled! also between 2016 and 2018 lmfao.

Donny “everything went wrong and I’m not going to explain how other than ‘God’ and ‘Eddie lost his job cause screaming symbiote’“ Cates really pullin some shit. what do you mean eddie tends to work toward solving his own problems EVEN WHILE DYING. waid’s mini-story in NWTD showed that eddie, despite being sad and sick and exhausted was still like.... eddie, stubbornly searching out his own solutions and getting angry. ofc i’m not sure how well it succeeded at parts. the comics in those days were still pretty steeped in the weird symbiote hallucinations that it was never clear if they were meant to be caused by the symbiote or just eddie’s sick brain. like the Last Temptation. I have a love-hate relationship with those two issues... I think they’re pretty well-done but also something about them just rubs me the wrong way. 

Anyway back to Cates: it’s not like there wasn’t space for a spiral after FH or anything. You could have really dug into Eddie and the symbiote’s insecurities wrt family and parenting. but nah. let’s just make it so there’s a SECRET CHILD, and oh the pre-established sibling? we could have dug into her and made her a real character. but no, she doesn’t exist, women are either fake or dead or violated.

asshole.

but again like..... the 03 hunger, cursed and bad... like... it’s still workable. you can work with the corrupting forces, the addiction metaphor (on the SYMBIOTE’S part, with adrenaline) and the intense codependency, and still have them move on and into a healthier-by-comparison relationship.

but cates’ run is like... much harder to recover from if it has as lasting of an effect, because it leaves no part untouched, and goes beyond “normal” abuse into really weird unforgiveable territory... like the canon of that comic is the canon in which everything has been completely changed into something unrecognizable.

i joke about my AUs being unrecognizable because, visually at least, they WOULD be unrecognizable for most Venom fans, but the comics inform them as characters a lot in the stories i write in those AUs, from the 96 good hunger, to the 03 bad hunger, to space knight to venom inc, and so on. But donny cates really is out here essentially reverse-engineering retcons to justify his characterizations.

barely related: the way eddie was raised and the way he coped by overachieving and so on and so forth makes me think he would have--despite presumably gaining a great deal of confidence in college once out of his father’s home--been really vulnerable to being taken advantage of by like, other students or teachers, but idk how exactly to articulate what i mean like... uh... not even that he WAS taken advantage of but that his need for validation would have left him open to it... i guess??

that’s got pretty much nothing to do with this post though but kinda ties into what i’ve said before about how i think eddie was a withdrawn and isolated adolescent who only opened up in college. why i disagree with donny’s retcon for that reason in addition to other reasons--the way he’d been shown to be bullied as a kid in previous comics, as well as the lack of history of alcoholism, the clarification in lethal protector that carl wasn’t physical, so on and so forth.

again that’s not related to this post really... and it’s like, a good 50% headcanon, but it makes sense in my head as something that fits his history?? i guess?

[mooncactus]

What do you think of Kes quote “you’re addicted to magic and you’re addicted to him”. Do you think it will mean something in the long run? Especially val realising they’re codependent and walking away from magic?

MIDNIGHT SPOILERS!!!

ohhhh I have a lot of thoughts. I’m actually incredibly confused by kes in general because she acts *a lot* like Stephanie. Did Stephanie’s personality to some extent stay behind with her body…?? is that just how kes changed in 5 years? that line is ALL Stephanie. Darquesse was always team magic and more importantly team skulduggery! she loves him; she broke her own heart “killing” him. it’s weird and I wanna know what her exact feelings are in regards to him now.

Valkyries narrative is a lot about choices, and we’re framing it as she’s making the active choice to throwaway a wonderful mortal life, which. lol. Valkyrie loves 3 mortals. 1/3 could also be magic, and the other two she was going to watch grow old and die anyway, so I AM FAILING TO SEE THE COLOSSAL DILEMMA HERE, DEREK.

Militsa guilt trips her with “our old friends and neighbors” but valkyrie didn’t HAVE those. She was always inherently other. She was always friendless and isolated and aimless. that entire scene, i legitimately can’t tell if it’s Militsa being shady or just… really bad writing.

ANYWAY. CHOICE. Valkyrie hasn’t really had the choice to leave in a long time. She had to see the darquesse thing to the bitter end once it started, and while she left for meek ridge, she had to come back because that wasn’t really a choice either, it was cowardice and punishment. She tried to choose not to act in spx, except whoops skulduggery is evil and there is one (1) person he loves enough to listen to so that’s up to her. Vision? Gotta see that to the bitter end, too.

I feel like in Phase 2, valkyrie is going to be given an out. A legitimate out, no pressure no guilt, to walk away from magic and from Skulduggery. And she will. She’ll “break” the addiction, the “destructive loop” skulduggery mentioned in spx.

But then she’ll pick him again on her own free will, as a grown ass woman, someone capable of making her own choices.

At least, I hope so, cuz otherwise phase 2 is a big fat fucking waste of time, lmao.

(Some people say he’s going to die and Valkyrie will run off with the Bentley with her new red headed girlfriend and go on new adventures. to them, I say: “American Monsters (2016)”.)

[danyreads]

TITLE: The Wicker King AUTHOR: K. Ancrum RELEASE DATE: October 31st, 2017 READ DATE: April 2nd, 2018 PUBLISHING HOUSE: Imprint RATING: ★★★★★

this was so beautiful in such a messed up way i will say that this book heavily romanticized mental illness but in a very respectful and deliberate way. what i mean by this is that our main characters, jack and august, are explicitly described as codependent and are both canonically diagnosed, jack more importantly. this is not a case of “wah wah, the writer didn’t do enough research and she’s portraying mental illness in a very unhealthy way”, but rather a case of “this writer did her job so well in portraying mental illness and her reasoning behind it is so astounding and so inherently rational that we see this as something unhealthy, as it should be seen.” anyway, i loved this book but i honestly can’t explain why. it was a whirlwind of weird emotions and hallucinations and really, heavily angsty characters who just absolutely blow you away. the chapters are really (really) short which makes the book seem like it flies by, but it also makes the reading experience that much richer because the book is told in short outbursts of story, brief scenes and loaded pieces of dialogue. this book was so unique and interesting that it hardly seems fair to compare it to anything else i’ve read in a long time. The Wicker King was poetic and dark and intense and powerful and, i think, extremely important. i wish it had been longer. i really, really wish it had been longer. i’m not ready yet to let this one go.

GOODREADS LINK

[unshrinkingviolets]

Oh look it’s more gross junk

Talked about dating and intimacy in therapy on Tuesday, which entailed pulling some big ol’ scabs off and feeling really gross and uncomfortable. It was terrible and necessary.

When I was in elementary school it was kind of the practice to always physically/psychologically separate the girls from the boys, a well-documented phenomenon. Any heterosexual interaction was generally declared to be romantic or gross or something. And of course since I was a girl being forcibly raised as a boy this was super confusing and weird, because it meant I couldn’t be around the girls but the boys didn’t want me around either, so I didn’t really fit in anywhere.

I mean probably I could have flouted gender norms and been a pioneer or some shit but I’m going to forgive myself for not doing that because it’s silly to expect a six year old in Ash Grove to be able to figure that out.

But anyway the worst thing that could happen was for boys and girls to touch other because that was Bad and Wrong and there were cooties or whatever involved. And of course boys aren’t supposed to touch each other in any way because then they’re gay and Bad and Wrong. So I just ended up being isolated from physical contact with basically anybody. Masculinity is a prison! Ha ha!

By touch I’m not like talking about anything involving genitals (even though it’s kind of cultural thing that Non-Violent Physical Contact is Inherently Sexual and That’s Why It’s Bad). I just mean like hugs and sitting close to people and stuff. Like just regular human affection that’s totally fine and necessary.

This plus my general fear of friggin’ everybody means that I try to keep a piece of furniture between me and other people at all times and it’s a rare thing for me to actually sit next to somebody on a couch.

Public transit and medical exams are their own thing. Physical closeness in those scenarios is just a thing that happens and it’s fine. My feelings on having other people’s fingers in my mouth notwithstanding, I willingly accept the intrusion on the part of my dental hygienist. Etc.

But affectionate physical contact is just not something I experience. I have never held anybody’s hand or snuggled on a couch watching a movie or even been able to ask somebody for a hug. And it’s because I feel like my desire for physical contact is Inherently Wrong and Stupid and it’s an appalling social failure to ask for it. See also my belief that I shouldn’t ever need anything from anybody and also my belief that I don’t have inherent worth as a human being, and also my own mild disgust with my own body since I’m a trans wlw and yet am . . . built like I’m built.

It’s a problem.  

So anyway dating. I, um, like, want to do that I guess? Or do I? I don’t know? Like I really want to find a partner and have access to that kind of love and intimacy. That would be cool. But I have a ton of internal gunk to work through and I wonder how much of that I have to fix before it’s okay to ask somebody else to love me. Or even like me, really.

I know I need to love myself. I know how important that is and I swear I’m trying, I’m really really trying to do that. But it’s hard. It’s gonna take a while. I have to process all this gunky bullshit one horrible mouthful at a time. And I feel like I need help but I still feel like it’s wrong to ask. It’s wrong to want somebody to hold me while I cry. It’s wrong to need somebody who can reassure me that I’m okay and worthy of love and stuff. It’s wrong to need somebody who is personally and sexually confident to counterbalance my insecurities. Like, isn’t that just looking for personal change to come from somebody else? And that’s wrong or at least futile. Wouldn’t that just lead to codependency and open me up to being abused? Do I secretly want somebody who’ll treat me like shit because that’s all I feel I deserve?

I don’t think that’s it. Maybe it’s okay to need somebody who’s stronger than me, or at least strong in different ways. Like I get that I shouldn’t look for somebody to complete me but they could at least add to me a little bit. And maybe I can reciprocate and maybe it can be okay. Maybe my emotional needs aren’t a nightmarish burden that it would be a crime to ask somebody else to help me bear. Maybe I do actually have some kind of worth despite all of that.

Actually I asked my friends what I brought to the relationships I have with them and they all gave surprising and different answers and I really appreciate them for doing that and maybe I can use that. And even though I refuse to admit what I want from a relationship (see above), I do know the answer to that question. I just have to stop telling myself that it’s disgustingly one-sided and demanding and that I do have something to offer and it will be worthwhile for somebody I don’t yet know because it’s worthwhile for other people already.

Things can be different and I don’t have to be alone forever just because I’m not 100% A-OK right fucking now. And I’ll figure out some way to put that into practice.