#I really might kill myself because I can't even get back to my abusive family

[gardenianoire]

yesterday I spent my last $6 getting dinner from dollar tree (had a really disgusting frozen burrito and junk food) I really need money for my rent because I have been out of work for over a month and I've been desperately looking and having no luck at all and it's really fucking painful to keep asking but I don't have a job my unemployment claim has been "pending" for 4 weeks I don't have any family in a position to help me and it's beginning to look my only options are killing myself or sex work and letting some psychopath kill me 🙃 if nothing else I'd fucking kill for dinner tonight

dinner

0/30

my rent

0/700

venmo: xandrachantal

cashapp: $jocedun94

paypal: xandra.l.duncan@gmail.com

[jewishvitya]

Hi, I stumbled upon your political posts (and then Yuri, you might get me to watch it now) and I find your perspective fascinating. Maybe it's because I grew up with rather a lot of exposure to Palestinians and various peace movements, but your experience is alien to me, and I am really thankful to be able to read it.

I would like to ask, what do you define as Zionism? As the last month taught me that no two people define this term the same. For me it is the ability for the Jewish people to control our own life in a land that we are bound to, and that has no contradiction with the Palestinian doing the same on this land, that they are bound to it as well. No pressure to answer, just pure curiosity.

And if I may offer some hope for our future? On the fourth day of the war, someone who helps in one of the donation centres for the displaced Israelis ask in the group chat if there is a way to pass the extra clothing and equipment to the people of Gaza. In the past two month I got invites for over a dozes or meeting between Israelis and Palestinians, meetings were both sides shared their sorrows and hopes. When an acquaintance was raising money to help a Bedouin family whose house was hit by a rocket, he has to tell people to stop donating. People in my surrounding have been talking about the day after, building plans so they could help build a better place for both people. A long-fought battle in the courts was won, and a group of settlers were ordered to evacuate Palestinian land. Activists have been going to assist in the olive harvests in the West Bank, despite it all.

There is hope for us here.

Hi! Thank you! If you do watch YOI I hope you enjoy it lol.

I know my experience is not very common. Even other Israelis get shocked by the depth of the hatred and the indoctrination sometimes. I try to emphasize that it comes from the most extremist community we have, because I have no idea what the schooling looks like in other areas.

And sure, I'll try to explain, and maybe also why I choose to label myself as anti-zionist.

I don't know that I can give you a dictionary definition, because I define zionism mainly by what it did in practice - the colonizing of Palestine. And when I say colonizing, I'm not making claims about indigeniety or lack of it. I'm defining it through our tactics and our actions. Especially because early in the movement they openly used colonialist frameworks.

Some of the softer definitions of zionism, things like our right to self determination, our right to seek safety - these aren't things I'm against. And I understand that within zionism there were other proposed ideas that weren't necessarily meant to end up with an ethnostate, resulting in ethnic cleansing. So I know zionism is more complicated than what we see in Israel. But what we see now is the reality people are living as the outcome.

If we came here and said "we've been longing to go back here for such a long time, we suffered so much abuse, we want to live alongside you in our shared homeland, can we find a way to ensure our safety and yours" - this would have been a different conversation. Still complicated, because mass immigration is complicated, but different.

In reality, we destroyed communities to manufacture an ethnic majority. Tore a whole society apart and shattered it, spread it all over the world. We killed and expelled and traumatized. I called it the cycle of abuse on the scale of nations - taking horrors we suffered and inflicting them on others. So given the practical results of the zionist movement, I can't treat those softer definitions as the "true" definitions that people should go by.

I keep thinking about Jewish refugees being given the homes of Palestinians with meals still on the table. Because of course we have a right to food and shelter, but not at their expense. And I know you agree with me on this.

When I say I oppose zionism, that's generally because I'm talking about the reality, the impact the movement had on human lives, not an idealized version we might imagine or a philosophy someone wrote about that never came to be.

For me, if I want to talk about our safety in our ancestral homeland and detach it from the horrors committed by Israel, zionism isn't the right framework. And after all the destruction we caused the land to conquer and colonize it, if I want to talk about our connection to it, I think zionism shouldn't be the word I'm using.

There's also an aspect of, by insisting on defining zionism through a nicer idea rather than harm done to real people, I see it as taking away a language that oppressed people are using to talk about their oppression.

I hope that makes sense.

I really want us to find a different way to work towards safety, without it being at the expense of another group of people.

And thank you for that last paragraph. I definitely have hope. It's hard, seeing videos of our soldiers being so gleeful about the destruction. I lost a friend of over ten years because of the callous and cruel things he said over the past couple of months, and I can't bring myself to repeat them. But I know that better things are possible, and I'm glad we're building towards them. I'm terrified that our government won't let us move in that direction, but we're going to push there anyway.

[karotka]

I've been rewatching IWTV and what's clicked for me were Armand's motivations for betraying Louis. On first watch I thought it was such a confusing and irrational thing to do. Now, obviously it was capital B Bad etc., but we all know that, boring question. But was it a logical (≠justified) decision to pick the coven? I'm starting to think it kind of was 🤔

The café scene is so heartbreaking, makes me kick and scream at the screen, Armand on his way to end it all and Madeleine asks why Louis doesn't want him to know how much he loves him, and Louis confidently replies, “he knows.” Reader, did he know? I feel like part of the tragedy is that it didn't really matter at that point.

Press pause on the betrayal of it all and look at the facts from Armand's perspective:

Louis is suicidal. He has an expiry date, the coven vampires don't. Louis is suicidal, the coven is forever 😂😂 To quote Lestat, “There is one thing about being a vampire that I most fear above all else... And that is loneliness. You can't imagine the emptiness, a void stretching out for decades at a time.” Armand asks Madeleine, “What will you do, in a few decades, when she throws herself into the fire?” and then finds Louis in a pool of blood, his wrist slashed. He voices this to Louis much later – when he has no right to demand anything from him, but the sentiment stays true – “You left me for death. Will I be on suicide watch for the next 1,000 years?”

Louis straight up murdered his previous lover. Now, we know it wasn't all that, but Armand didn't. Major red flag, anyone? “I killed him and he fucking had it coming.” And he DID, but that's beside the point, isn't it? Especially since we know Armand is just as capable of domestic abuse :') He knew that Louis wasn't the kind of person who would just take his shit forever. If you want somebody to trust you, don't let them know you took part in the murder of your ex, heartfelt advice from both of them.

Speaking of exes, Louis is SO not over Lestat. I mean, neither is Armand, they're such a train wreck of a relationship :D But yeah, Louis is not fully committed to Armand, denying publicly that they're companions, hallucinating his ex in the bedroom or while Armand is sharing his traumatic past and, most damning of all, refusing to join the coven.

From Armand's perspective, he's risking it all for Louis and Louis a) doesn't appreciate it at all, and b) refuses to do the bare minimum of getting along with his family. (If someone treated my daughter-sister the way Armand treated Claudia, I'd kill them with my bare hands, but Louis acts like he doesn't mind. Can you imagine me without the burden of her? :/) (and yeah, he could just leave his shitty cult, the same way they could have left each other during those 70 years. Shitty stability > loneliness, I guess.)

A minor point maybe, but the moment you know that Lestat is out there and wants revenge, that only adds to the expiry date part. Especially once Lestat is cooperating with the coven, because I imagine that while Armand is OP enough to fight the coven, all of them + Lestat might be a bit too much. Maybe Armand even hoped once Louis is out of the picture they could get back together? We don't really know what exactly was going on behind the scenes but Lestat's sheer existence is bad for loumand... It is what it is.

And Louis just... repeatedly ignores Armand's warnings. I mean, they both knew Armand was going to execute him that one time. They tried to make it work but Louis was living on borrowed time from that point. Add Armand's apparent MO of “everything I love must eventually burn down so I will take control of the situation by orchestrating the downfall myself” et voilà. He was given a choice and he chose.

And THEN he betrayed the coven for Louis at his most unwell. Iconic!

[topazadine]

Writerly Questionnaire

Thanks to @the-golden-comet for the tag! I enjoyed reading your answers, especially the part about your characters!

Alright, here goes.

About Me

When did you first start writing?

I wrote my first story at age 7, started my first book at age 12 (no you can't read it, it's terrible) and published my first poem at age 15.

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

Despite writing fantasy, I actually don't read much of it myself. My undergrad career focused most on British literature (specializing in Victorian lit) so that's what I'm most familiar with and what I like the most.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

I don't really seek to emulate anyone because I have my own unique voice, and I don't really get compared to anyone else either. If you have suggestions of what I might sound like, fire away lmao, because I don't really know who I emulate. However, I take a lot of inspiration from Willa Cather for atmosphere and Emile Zola for realism.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

I exclusively write at my desk. My setup looks like this:

I need my little guys and my Emotional Support Stuffed Cow (her name is Bluebell the Moobell because she has a little bell in her). Note the knitting I'm procrastinating on at the bottom right lmao.

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Funnily enough, I often get inspiration from my day job as an SEO writer, even though it has absolutely nothing to do with the types of stuff I write. Sometimes I'll just be hammering away at a Construction Accident Personal Injury Lawyer page and it strikes me that I need to kill one of my characters.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Sort of. I have this thing I do where I like to mentally walk through buildings I used to visit as a relaxation activity, like my childhood elementary school, so that's given me a good memory of how places are laid out. As for actual settings? No, most of those are just made up of pictures I've seen of different places that I've never visited.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Some of my recurring themes include: Degradation/transformation of memory Struggling against fate/the unknowability of fate Found family Abusive relationships Moral relativism Satisficing (choosing between multiple suboptimal outcomes to pick the least harmful option) None of them surprise me; I recognize where they come from. For example, my obsession with the degradation and transformation of memory comes from my own struggles with dissociative amnesia, and my interest in satisficing comes from my International Relations degree. My concerns about the unknowability of fate come from the fact that I had a premonition that I'd die of a heart attack at 42. And I'm 32 right now. You can imagine that this influences my process lmao.

My Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

As a lesbian, I am not ashamed to say that I am deeply and passionately horny for Uileac (who you can meet in "Cachaille" or read about in 9 Years Yearning). Like how can you not go crazy for a man who thinks this is the perfect declaration of love?

He's so scary and so devoted, yet also very chill and laid-back? And funny? And athletic? And protective of his lil sis? He's just ... (screams into pillow)

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

Ono. He's a Sinan royal guard who is just so sweet but also kinda dumb.

There's a scene where he has to ask Cerie what kind of menstrual products she needs for their trip, which is both mortifying and really adorable. He's just a really gentle and nice guy who I think would get along with damn near everyone.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

I think Mordrek would scare the absolute shit out of me ngl. Like ... bro just ... does this kind of shit on the regular

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

Uileac, Orrinir, and Ono were heavily inspired by Uguisumaru, Ookanehira, and Omokage from Touken Ranbu and I don't apologize for that. Obviously they are a bit different, but their personalities are quite similar. Cerie was developed from a roleplay where I was playing as Uguisumaru's made-up sister, so that's why she's Uileac's sister in Poesyverse. Haniya, Cerie's love interest, was made up by using personality testing and astrology to come up with Cerie's Perfect Match. No one knows where Mordrek came from. He just kinda showed up.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

They all have daddy issues. Every single fucking one of them.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc.)

All the art I have for my characters was made with AI before I realized AI was absolute garbage shit, so I'm not showing it, but I did commission a painting of Cerie from the amazing artist Caleb over on Twitter:

My Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

For me, that's kind of like asking why a bird sings. It's just what I do and what I have always done.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

Definitely when someone says that my writing helped them or resonated with them. My writing gives me catharsis and it feels really good when other people say they got that same sense of catharsis.

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

As someone who takes risks that pay off.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Depicting trauma without being melodramatic.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

People have told me they like how meticulous and carefully set up my stories are without infodumping or being boring. They appreciate the work that goes into planning things, how it all pays off in the end and comes together nicely without plot holes.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

I think I've come a long way and continue to improve, which is what is most important.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

The last Kauaʻi ʻōʻō still sang until the end. So yes.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence?

I write whatever the hell I feel like when I feel like it. People tend to like it, but if they don't, I enjoyed making it anyway.

Open tag!

[an-aura-about-you]

so y'all are not ready for the family drama that got back to me today.

content warning: discussion of abuse with a focus on threatening suicide as a manipulation tactic

so I haven't really mentioned this very much since it's not my news to tell, but my sibling and dad have been looking for an apartment to live in so they can move out of the house and not have to live with my mother. which says a lot, especially since I've put an emphasis on them doing whatever they wanna do without necessarily doing what I did. (though at the same time I'm Not Surprised By This Turn Of Events, especially the bit with Dad not thinking this move will be permanent. I'm not saying it will be permanent, but damn I'm tired of him getting abused for so long.)

my mother has been. upset about this, to say the least. we're talking huge crying fit once Dad finally broke the news to her. and then after that she was Weirdly Nice? but come to find out yesterday that she was only being nice because she thought if she could be nice they would change their minds as if this hasn't been a pattern over the last 40-50 years but that's not how this works and they're moving out for real. (she also threatened to move out herself, a thing she's done before, and the reaction was very much that Futurama bit with teenage Bender threatening to run away.) and the more I learn about different kinds of abuse like emotional neglect and financial abuse, the worse it all gets. in any case, Dad and my sibbie are not deterred. (though my sibbie came to hang out with me at my place yesterday after this happened.)

but today she decided to hit the family with the Classic™️ tactic If You Do This I Will Kill Myself. this is not the first time she's said something like this, as she once told my sibling that if he should choose to cut her off the way I did, then she would kill herself.

now, my sibling and I saw this for the manipulation tactic that it was and knew she wasn't going to do this for real.

Dad, on the other hand.

well, while he only recently learned how bonkers some of the stuff my mother's been saying really is, like how she apparently wants to sue him for "not paying attention to her," he took this very seriously and drove her to the ER.

and now apparently she has to stay overnight and she might have to go to a psych hospital like an hour and change away from here. I think she maybe didn't think he was going to call her bluff because at the hospital she was like, "can't you just give me some meds to calm me down and send me home?" the medical staff apparently didn't even humor this idea.

now, I'm not in favor of institutionalization for a suicidal patient against their will, but seeing my mother Find Out after she's been Fucking Around for so long is personally pretty satisfying.

[atastypeach]

listen, Rolan's whole story just hits me really hard. Yes, this game is about breaking cycles, but I feel like addressing Rolan's cycle of abuse is something I gotta talk about because it's eating me up inside.

So through this game, we're told all about Cazador. Astarion isn't shy about making damn sure everyone knows just how much of a god awful wretch he is. And regardless of which ending you choose for Astarion - he gets to break free from his abuser. Sure, the cycle has a strong chance of continuing if you let him ascend, but this post isn't about it. It's about the catharsis of him killing Cazador. I think anyone who has been the survivor of abuse - in any form - may have found something truly freeing about Astarion getting to remove his shackles. But for me, something was missing. And what was missing was the secrecy of the abuse. I'm 33. I didn't face the worst of my abuse until I was 28. But that abuse went unnoticed by most people in my life. Came at the hand of my stepfather after my mom died of a terminal illness. Your tl;dr: I escaped his abuse in January of this year after years of torment. But it took people who loved me for me to realize what was happening. And I see this in Rolan too.

See, I failed at saving Rolan my first game. My game sequence broke. He didn't spawn until after I had completed Moonrise Towers and broke into the prisons. Saved him then but well. He turned on me in the end because I didn't save Cal and Lia. I'm sorry honey, blame the coding of the game being screwy, not me. But in Rolan I see a lot of myself. Not to be a kinnie on main (A/N: I am not a kinnie) but this young man shares an uncomfortable amount of traits with me, from being an overworking nerd, to being so desperately loyal to my loved ones, to drinking intensely when i can't cope with my emotions (I'm in therapy for this) and much more. And his story line has resonated with me as someone who has experienced hidden abuse. When we first meet him, he speaks highly of Lorroakan and his apprenticeship. The only real indication we get that Lorroakan might be bad news is from Gale who calls him a blowhard or something like that. We just know he's kind of a tool. But when we first meet Rolan - he's a tool. A match made in heaven, so what does it matter. But what we don't see is once we get to act three, how Rolan handles this apprenticeship with Lorroakan. And as someone who has seen both outcomes now...it hurts to see. If you fail to save Cal and Lia, Rolan follows Lorroakan blindly. He does as he wishes. He regards you with contempt and disdain. He sides with a man who we only know from a vague journal post in his bedroom that he may be experiencing abuse. He becomes Lorroakan's pawn doing precisely what he wishes. He dies for Lorroakan. A man we know has been exploiting, abusing and harming him. A man who likely knew he had Rolan wrapped around his finger because he is all Rolan had left. No family. No friends. No home to return to. Rolan is a nobody with only this wizard as his grounding point. There is no one for him, so Lorroakan has the perfect plaything. The perfect pawn. He can do whatever he wants to Rolan and there is no one to save him. And the worst part? Rolan was probably content to do just that. Sure, Lorroakan might be beating him, verbally harassing him and even worse -- but Lorroakan didn't let his family die. He wasn't the cause of Rolan losing the people he loved. And we never learn that he's being hurt until after he's already dead. But if you save him? You save his family? He recognizes his worth. He has family who see him for who he is. Who see his strengths. He has people worth living for and he has the opportunity for so much growth. He recognizes, likely thanks to the love and support he has from not only his siblings - but from you as a player, that he's being hurt. He's being exploited and used and harmed. He knows he is being abused and he wants to fight back, for his sake and for the sake of others - for his family, for Dame Aylin, for you.

IDK man, I just wanted to ramble about this. Because Rolan's own survivor story covers the hidden abuse that doesn't always get talked about. The abuse of someone who desperately is trying to remain strong in the face of it. I could probably keep rambling. Talk about how he was willing to die for Lorroakan because Lorroakan was all he had left, in his bad ending. But I think I've said my peace. I got him killed in my first playthrough, but in my second (which I'm still finishing) I feel like I'm doing myself a kindness in turn by offering him the love and support he needs. I love him. A lot.

[therealvinelle]

Apparently Lionsgate is making a new Twilight TV series. Remain to be seen what's it about, whether it'll be a remake of the movies or something new. Say they went with something new, and they somehow choose an idea that you've already done in a fic. Which fic idea do you: a) just really want to see adapted on screen? And b) thinks that they will do justice the most?

(Muffin can also answer this if they want and if their answer's different than yours)

Well, the trouble is I don't really have any particular fics I want to see on screen. More importantly, I don't imagine they would appeal much to any studios. You want something you can sell to producers, but "The romantic male lead commits cold blooded murder because his quasi-brother was too weak. His quasi-brother killed his wife back in the day, the romantic lead is fine with that and the quasi-brother recruits the murdered man's parents into his harem. Then half the cast goes to Egypt without really accomplishing anything. Please give me millions of dollars so I can make this." would not fly.

(The above, for the record, is The Less Than Immaculate Conception by myself and @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin.

Painting Red Madonnas by Muffin wouldn't fare much better, "No the male and female lead don't get together. The loveable goof is really homophobic, and the closest thing we have to a love interest murders a toddler and his own son in front of his horrified wife. Help me get in touch with investors.")

The Bleach in the Brain (by me) miniseries and its sequel miniseries, Leech in the Rain (by @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin and me) would require somebody saying, not only "I want to focus on child abuse and grooming where the white girl protagonist is attacked by a Native American man and disabled at the end", but "I want to depict a bisexual male character whose male former lover, a gay man, is falsely accused of rape, and then he gets sexually assaulted by his son" as well. Also the really hot chick protagonist who looks twenty-five is actually six years old so she can't be marketed as a sexy female character. And then getting funding for all of this.

(They might decide to make a show inspired by Jessica Stanley in those fics, but... god they'd change everything.)

And Then There Were None, same problem. "Please give us money to produce Bella Swan murdering her family for no reason."

Dark Fantasies/Writhing Coils, maybe if I got Guillermo del Toro extremely drunk and called him a coward. Except it would still need funding, so no.

The Invitation, only if the ending is completely changed. Too much of a downer otherwise.

Nebuchadnezzar's Dream would have the producers nodding along until I get to the part where the big battle happens entirely off screen, instead the audience gets to see a gay sex scene. "Full penetration," I say, tapping my powerpoint slide with a stick for emphasis.

"Let's limit her involvement," they whisper to one another, and then I don't sell them the rights so Nebuchadnezzar's Dream is condemned to development hell.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to London is too out there, and How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bacchanals even more so.

The Man Who Would Be King bonus, since Muffin and I got talking about it: might fly, if briefly. It's more viable than the Twilight ideas (we've got an attractive, young, and sympathetic protagonist, an enemies-to-lovers slow burn, and our male romantic lead hasn't actually murdered anybody on screen so viewers can pull a Damon Salvatore and insist he's alright), trouble is it's not going to stay that way. For now, it's shockingly viable and gets my nomination.

My vote for Twilight fic to be televised, however, assuming I win a billion dollar and nobody can stop me...

For the Love of a Woman.

Everybody loses.

[furiousgoldfish]

Do you have any advice for how to manage stress and like constant fear? Or maybe advice about what I should do? (Tw suicide, not mine) My younger sister is severely suicidal and depressed and I've been talking to her every night and sleeping on her floor to stop her from killing herself and I keep talking to my parents about how she needs to go to therapy but they aren't doing anything and they haven't for over a year. My mom told me that it's not my place to decide what's best for my sister. And my dad said that because I'm only 17 I don't know anything about this but I've begged them like five or six times and they still don't believe me. My mom insists I'm being over dramatic and it's my fault that her and my dad talking to my younger sister like 1 time didn't make it better. But they won't talk to my sister at all if I don't or help her and my younger sister has tried to attempt before so I think we need to talk to her more than once? I guess It seems pretty clear to me that my younger sister should go to therapy but maybe I'm thinking about this wrong? Idk. Um. So I guess I just feel really overwhelmed because I've tried asking my siblings for help about my sister and one of my sister's said they wish my younger sister had never been born so we wouldn't have to deal with this (which made it pretty clear she doesn't want to help. Also she's done exactly 0 things to help she just gets inconvenienced by the very idea she might have to and things won't revolve around her problems for like 2 seconds) and my oldest sister who's married and moved out I talked with but now she wont do anything anymore because my parents told her to back off after my mom went on a huge spiel about how I'm over dramatic and blowing things out of porportion and my oldest sister has no right to do anything because she doesn't have legal custody. I don't know. My entire family talks to me about their stress and worries and concerns and I shouldn't be so upset about my younger sister cause I'm used to it but I'm scared all the time that the moment I fall asleep she's actually going to hurt herself so I try to stay up all night to listen for her and I just don't know how to manage the stress and get her help. My parents homeschool us and I don't get to leave the house by myself cause my mom is convinced I'll get murdered. So idk who to talk to or how or even if I should. I don't think this is really abuse, cause my parents haven't hit us and I don't really fit the criteria for emotional abuse either according to your masterlist, (I mean my sister has hit me a few times (not the one moved out) but siblings are different) but idk. It's still trauma? Maybe. Unless it's not? I don't know. Maybe my mom is right. Sorry if this is rambly and weird im just really tired.

Hey, from what I'm reading here, you're the entire's family emotional support, you take all of the stress and complaints from everyone, you alone are responsible for your sister's continuation of life, and you are not even allowed to leave the house, because your mom is worried you'll get killed? And you got hit, but you don't think that was serious?

There is so much stress on you, I'm worried that you might get pushed under the edge. I can sense your utter desperation in saving your sister's life, and that comes from a place of deep compassion, concern, and kinship with your family member. I can tell you'd do anything to save her, and you fear that if she dies, it will be your fault.

But it can't be. Because you alone cannot be responsible for what others do. You've already done everything. You've asked every other person for help, you've raised the alarm, you've been trying to help her, you can't even sleep at night. It cannot be expected of you to go to these lengths, be in this amount of stress, for prolonged amounts of time, even when someone's life is in question. You are not a suicide line, you're not an institution that provides support and watch over people who might do something to themselves, you're not in control.

I believe you're under too much stress and that nobody has any compassion for what you're going through. If even one person cared, they would have helped your sister and watched over her for you. They would have shared the responsibility of saving her and wouldn't make you the sole person responsible. If your sister does, in the worst case scenario, die, you will be the only one who isn't responsible, who's already done everything to prevent it. The fault will be on everyone else.

You seem to be in a prolonged crisis, and I'm not actually equipped to help someone in a crisis like this, so I can't tell you what to do - or rather, I think you've done enough. You've been through enough stress, enough apathy, enough pain. You've been left alone to suffer through this stress, even though you've expressed how scared and anxious you are, and asked for help.

You being kept inside the house at all times, is a form of physical abuse, I should have added it to the checklists - it's a form of violence to restrict your movements. It doesn't make any sense that you will be killed if you step out, when everyone else can walk freely. You are being parentified, and used as an emotional resource, instead of cared for and raised as a loved and nurtured child.

This list has a category of 'parentification', I hope you can find some resources there. I believe you are being abused, and you were taught that it doesn't matter if it happens to you.

I hope you manage to get some sleep. I'm so sorry you were put into this situation, you are not responsible for this. Your parents should be taking this stress, not you. You cannot be responsible for anyone's continuation of life, and being put in a situation where it's expected of you, will break you. This is not on you.

[dent-de-leon]

@garnetgh0st Oh yes, definitely! They're facing the same trauma from polar opposite ends, but I think it's just tragic that they ultimately still feel the same--in the end, they both just want to bring their families back.

For Caleb, family is...everything. He tries so hard to protect the Nein and keep them all together because the family he had before is already gone. Because he can't bear to lose anyone else. And it pains him when someone is fortunate enough to still have a loving family, yet pushes them away."Young man, you do not take your mother's love for granted." He'd give anything to get that back.

And yet, even though Caleb believes so firmly in family and prioritizes his at every chance--he knows not everyone was raises by parents like his. He was there when Beau faced her father, when she was finally given a bit of the justice she deserved after years. More than that, Caleb knows what it's like to be a child that was taken advantage of; someone abused and tormented by his own mentor, betrayed and used, turned into weapon. He's still haunted by all the people he was coerced into torturing and killing under Trent's influence.

And Lucien was much the same. The only difference is, his parents weren't victims--they were complicit in all of it. His father giving him lists of names, targets to lure to a witch in the woods. Forcing his child to pay the price for his devil's bargain, staining his hands with the blood of countless victims.

And all the while, Lucien loathed and regretted every moment of it, always looking for an escape, a way out of this hell. Before he became another empty husk, the witch's next puppet:

"'We did owe her. Mum and Da did, I mean, but I was the one who paid that blood price.' I'm not surprised you remember the way. His stomach lurched. 'I'd…lure folk out to her cottage. Da would hand me a little paper slip, and whoever it said, I'd convince them to come along, get them near her cottage, and she would charm them. You saw what happens after that.'"

"'We were punished for seeing what they couldn't. After a while I couldn't let it go on, couldn't look at myself or live with myself, so I burned down the caravan with all three of them inside, took my sister, and that was that...No more little songs. No more farces.'"

And when Lucien is finally free of the witch who tormented him for so long? He just...doesn't know what to do. He's still shaken by the trauma of all the deaths he'd seen, all the faces that still haunt him. He doesn't believe she could just be dead, that he could ever really be free of this nightmare so easily. For a moment, was he gutted by the realization that she was gone so easily, and yet Lucien had already lost all his family? That she'd taken so much from him he'd never get back, and any taste of revenge left him terribly empty?

I think it's likely Caleb might have felt a bit similar, when he finally escaped Trent for good, and yet was still coping with his trauma in the aftermath. Grappling with everything he'd lost to get here, and trying so hard to believe that perhaps he and his loved ones would finally be free of this monster.

As for Lucien's parents--"After a while I couldn't let it go on, couldn't look at myself or live with myself"--when Lucien finally decides to end it all, his breaking point sounds a lot like Caleb's own breakdown when he realizes his parents are gone. "But it didn't exactly go according to plan, because as soon as I heard my mother and father screaming inside...I was so sure. I was so sure. Until I wasn't, and...I broke a bit..."

I don't think Caleb would be a stranger to Lucien's immense self-loathing and guilt, even though they both lost their families for very different reasons. I feel like Caleb would probably pity him; Lucien never even got the chance to have a happy family, to experience the childhood and memories that Caleb so treasured and lost. All Lucien has is empty promises from higher powers he can scarcely understand, otherworldly beings who are still just using him; the hollow comfort of a dream, a fantasy. And I think it's his desperation to bring them back, even if it means tearing reality apart at the seams, that Caleb would find so painfully familiar:

Lucien going all the way to Cognouza because he thinks it could give him the fantasy of a loving, happy family. Caleb following Lucien to Aeor and stumbling upon the one thing that could bring his parents back--they both find what they've always wanted, are both tempted by it more than anything. And when Lucien has that chance, he seizes it immediately--even as he destroys himself, spiraling beyond all recognition.

He's exactly what Caleb would've become if he never had the Mighty Nein, never had the chance to escape and heal. "Anybody can make lights. Anybody can send a message through a wire. I want to bend reality to my will." They're both so desperate for the same thing, the same impossible dream--willing to do anything to make it a reality. I think they'd understand each other on a level perhaps no one else in the Nein could; they both started the fire, but then they spent years still consumed by those flames.

I think Lucien and Caleb mirror each other in a lot of ways. And it makes me happy that, through Molly, they were able to help each other heal in some way. And I really love how Molly/King gets to have the family now that Lucien always wanted--Caleb telling Kingsley to stick with them, admitting that he Nein have a fondness for "strays." I like to think he and King are still close, and maybe one day, Caleb will be there to help Kingsley reach out to the last of his family in Rexxentrum--

[servin-up-surveys]

survey #212

Have you ever seen a cougar in the wild? No, thank god. They don't even live here.

When was the last time you took a selfie? Like, months ago.

Do you have any nieces or nephews? Quite a few.

Who’s your favourite person? Girt.

Are you more of a cat or dog person? Cat.

What’s the weirdest compliment you’ve ever received? It's not appropriate so we're not talking about it lmao

Who is someone you really admire? Mark Fischbach.

Do you prefer piano or guitar music? Electric guitar.

Are you good at using Photoshop? I'm decent.

What were you last embarrassed about? My social awkwardness when I was trying to order a burger at this place in Charlotte. I was just getting over being overwhelmed and stuff, and the menu kinda confused me, so I made a fool of myself. Idk how in the world Girt managed to not just walk the fuck away from me lmao

Are there any clothing items you really want but can’t find? I've wanted a black, studded leather jacket since I was a teenager.

What’s a habit you find gross? Biting toenails. I was floored when I learned people even did it.

Are you a hat person? No.

Has anyone ever approached you in the street and asked to take your picture? No.

What color hair did your first crush have? Brown.

Have you ever had a professional make-over? No.

Have you ever had a professional photo shoot? Not for just myself. Family stuff, though.

What is your favorite Avril Lavigne song? "Nobody's Home"

Do you have any embarrassing health issues? I have IBS, yes. Hyperhidrosis is also very embarrassing because you look like you dove into a pool after being outside in mild heat for five minutes.

Have you ever ridden in an ambulance? Yes, the second time I had to go for my asthma. I don't think I'd properly reached asthma attack territory, but it was mighty fuckin' close.

Have you ever gotten sick in the car? No.

How many teeth do you have? Idk, however many you're supposed to have without wisdom teeth.

Have you ever cussed someone out? I remember doing this to my sister's abusive boyfriend she had in high school. I feel like this has probably happened with another or two.

Does it take a lot to make you feel guilty? No.

Have you ever broken a really important promise? Well, I did promise to keep Sara's disgusting political compass a secret. So yes, I eventually broke that.

Have you ever told someone’s deep, dark secret? ^ yes. There was no way to ban her from the RP forum without explaining it to our mutual friends/RP partners, I'm sure.

Have you ever purposely hurt yourself? Yes, I had problems with this as a teenager, and it happened a few times in my early 20s.

Have you ever eaten any type of insect? No.

What’s a hobby you would like to try out? Herping.

Have you ever won a raffle? If so, what’ve you won? Yes, this is how I won two rare and limited pieces of Silent Hill: Revelation merch.

What’s the biggest insect you’ve ever seen? Probably some sort of beetle.

How about the biggest spider? A bird-eating tarantula when I was at the NARBC with Sara. The insane thing is I think the guy whose booth it was might have been the YouTuber who GOT me into tarantulas (The Tarantula Collective) lmfao, I just can't remember for sure. They definitely at least looked similar.

Is your room covered in posters, or pretty bare? As of only a few days ago, they're almost completely bare now. I'm redecorating in there. I'm leaving most posters behind.

Would you ever consider being a cannibal? Strong no.

Do you collect anything valuable? No.

What was the last thing you killed? Most likely an ant.

Who is your favorite female celebrity? Hm... I guess either Gab Smolders or tarantula kat. It's strange, all celebs I've been wildly invested in were/are men lmao

What’s your favorite Lady Gaga song? "Bloody Mary"

Would you date the same sex? Why or why not? Yes, and I have before, I'm pansexual.

If someone cheated on you, would you take them back if you really loved them? Nope, you've got one shot.

Obsessions? Meerkats have been my longest-lasting and most well-known, but online I'm also very open about my extreme Rammstein hyperfixation (I say "online" because irl I am very embarrassed by being someone who hyperfixates and I don't like sharing), the Silent Hill franchise, watching YouTube, tarantulas...

Addictions? Technology, specifically the Internet. I barely know how to exist without it, and it's sad. I'm aware I'm also addicted to soda, albeit this is an addiction I'm more capable of actually fighting, but I still have a few bottles (not two-liters, don't be mistaken) a week.

What are your #1 priorities in life? My happiness, health (mental and physical), maintaining healthy and fulfilling relationships, and trying to figure out my purpose and what I want to live for (this includes working towards a career of some sort).

Have you ever dated a redhead? No.

List three of your favorite types of YouTube videos to watch. Let's plays, reptile and tarantula collectors' care-type videos, herping.

What is the name of your YouTube channel, if you have one? 0zzkat (it’s a zero because with an "o" was somehow already taken boooooooo).

How old were you the first time you encountered God? God was forced on me from birth (I was baptized, so quite literally).

Any upcoming travel plans? I'm probably going BACK to Charlotte next weekend because Girt's picking up a really nice exercise bike Javier has for sale, so he has to pick that up because shipping would be like, $500. The bike is rather small so would fit into Girt's bedroom, and he plans on facing it towards his TV so he can just be on the bike while watching YouTube.

What are you reading currently? Nothing right now; I recently finished the Omen of the Stars arc in the Warriors series, so now I need to order the next arc.

What’s the first concert you attended? Alice Cooper.

Where do you most hope to visit? The KMP grounds in South Africa.

For what would you be famous? I feel that I'm most CAPABLE of being famous for my writing, but I WANT to be well-known for my photography, at least in the photography community; truly "famous" photographers are extremely few and far between.

When did you last cry? And why, if you feel like sharing. Last night. I had an anxiety attack.

What fictional character/s remind you of yourself? Clearsight from Wings of Fire is a strong one.

What would you like to tell your father? I wish you were better when I was growing up.

What would you like to tell your mother? Thank you for literally everything you do.

What is something you have no patience for? Jokes about rape or other extremely serious, harmful things.

How many cats do you have? One. I'd like one more, but.

How many dogs do you have? One.

How many other pets do you have? One: a champagne morph ball python.

How many of your grandparents are still alive? None.

Have you ever been flipped off by a random stranger? Yes, when I was driving one day. My mom was absolutely seething, she reached her arm out of the window and did it right back.

Does everyone in your family know your sexual orientation? I don't think everyone does.

Would you ever want to go back to school? So... as of extremely recently I am considering going back for some sort of writing degree. I don't want to be an author, I just feel like a degree in my strongest skill might come in handy for getting SOME sort of job in writing.

If you were the opposite sex, how would you style your hair? shrug

What is the wallpaper on your cell phone? Lock screen is this gorgeous artwork featuring a skull with flowers, butterflies, and bees, and my home screen is another piece of artwork that's a simplistic monarch butterfly texture.

What do you have handy at your bedside? Two lamps (only one is usually on, my little moon one, but the bigger one is for if I need more light), sometimes my phone, the remote for my moon lamp (it can change colors), and whatever book I'm reading.

When did you last sing to yourself? When I was otw home from Charlotte with Girt.

What is the greatest accomplishment of your life? Healing from my trauma with Jason, I think. I could say still being alive, because boy have I wanted to kill myself plenty of times, but in a way I feel like healing from Jason was even harder. A big reason I'm still alive is because I was just too afraid of the experience of killing myself, so like... surviving was the only option.

What is your opinion on brown eyes? Do not get me wrong, brown eyes can be beautiful, especially in the light. However, it is my least favorite human eye color.

Would you describe yourself as more punk or pastel? The child of both.

How do you feel about tattoos and piercings? Explain. I fucking love them and I'm so glad humans conceived the idea for both. Both can be a method of self-expression, and especially for me, making you enjoy your body more.

Talk about a song/band/lyric that has affected your life in some way. Ozzy Osbourne. He was my bait into metal music, and his music has comforted me since I was a pre-teen, and continues to do so to this day. His music makes me feel warm, and it feels like home to me.

The world is listening. Pick one sentence you would tell them. For right this very minute? Free Palestine. If it wasn't currently under genocidal siege, I'd have to think harder on this, because there's a lot of contenders.

Do you have a desk/workspace and how is it organized/not organized? I have a desk for my laptop. It's got my laptop on it of course, plus the Mira plush Girt got me, the weighted meerkat plush Mom got me, my planner and Girt's work schedule, my therapy workbook, and a few art supplies.

What’s one thing you don’t want your parents to know? I would never share my sexual life with either of them. Specifically kinks, no fucking thanks.

[your-queer-dad]

(Vent sorry, not about queerness I just have nowhere else to say this where I'll get any sort of response)

Ive been having to deal with so much stuff lately. Like I was fine when I was in the midst of severe depression cause I didn't think I'd live very long anyways but now I need to come to terms with everything I've been ignoring for at least a year and at most my whole life. Like I'm AuDHD in a decently ableist family (middle/working class white cishet moderate leftists who think they're very progressive, you know the type) and I've had absolutely shit experiences with the people who should be helping me with that stuff (my old therapist was actively uneducated and ableist, my psychiatrist was a white cishet man in his 60s or 70s and I had to teach him what masking is and how adhd and autism present in AFAB people) which makes that really difficult in general because all my friends know I have AuDHD but I can't officially come out and say that I do because my family will deny it and tell me I'm being attention seeking and looking for excuses for being lazy and a flawed person. I also don't physically look the way I've been convincing myself I look naturally for a long time (yay anorexia recovery) and it's just messing me up a lot because when I look at my reflection I just feel visceral disgust. I'm still on the lower end of a healthy weight, but I can only see a few of my ribs now and my stomach isn't flat anymore. Everyone else says they can't notice but I feel like I've lost everything that made me good, and I'm scared that gaining weight is going to stop me from passing. I hate being with my parents and I just feel like I'm a horrible person for that, I only got hit once and other than that they're just toxic and sort of manipulative/emotionally abusive. They try their best they just can't raise me right and I feel like shit for that. I wish I could be spending more time outside, but I had a medical emergency thing on Tuesday (my mom doesn't let me call it a seizure because we don't know for sure) and I'm scared that that's going to happen again, and my constant joint pain has just gotten worse. My friends are telling me that I need to talk to a doctor about this, but the wait time for rheumatology is insane and my parents thing I'm making it up/exaggerating/looking for attention and even if they believe me they don't think it's important and worth getting help for. I'm scared that I'm going to die, last time it happened my entire body went numb and stiff and I couldn't move and I was just twitching for like 15 minutes. I also completely lost my vision before this happened, and it was greyscale/coming back slowly for the entire thing, plus I could barely hear anything. If that happens again I genuinely think that I might die. I also have scars all over my legs and chest and I have to either hide them or find some sort of explanation for them that won't make the people I work with during the summer think I'm not suited for working with kids (summer camp counseling). I spent all of last year thinking I was never going to turn 15 and now I kind of wish I hadn't.

I want to live but it's all so overwhelming and if I falter or let my parents see that I'm scared, they'll force me into the role of a small child and start treating me like a toddler or an animal like they always do. I just don't know what to do and I know it's horrible and selfish and disgusting but I just wish my mom would die. I can't live like this, it's only 3 more years but I'm just so scared. She keeps threatening me and saying I won't get into college or I'm failing high school because of how long I was out of school due to psych ward stuff even though she knows that not getting into college is my main fear- if that happens, I can't keep going. I know that I'm going to kill myself if I can't get into college. After that I'm still going to need to pay off student loans and I might not have my best friend with me (if I have him ill be okay and he says that he promises he'll try to live with me in college) and I just can't deal with that. I need to catch up on school and I need to learn to drive and then I need to get ready for my job in the summer and I need to make sure my grades are good enough for colleges to want me and I need to get people to like me and I just can't do it. I don't want to die but I feel like it's the only answer, I'm just not capable of doing this. I'm not supposed to be alive. I don't know what I'm supposed to do

Sorry about the rant you don't need to answer at all I know this is a lot

-🔆

Hey kiddo. Please please don't apologise for reaching out, I'm here for you and I'm always here for you, night and day my inbox and DMs are always open to anyone who needs to talk.

God, it sounds like you've had a rough deal. I understand where you're coming from. With parents, it's so hard when they don't do what they're supposed to do as parents and they don't understand you or believe you when you ask for help. It's awful and I am so sorry.

From the sounds of things, it sounds like you're putting a lot of pressure on yourself, as well as all that pressure around you. As scary as the future is, it isn't going to creep up on you one day. It's tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that and the day after that and every single day after that. You have time to breathe and rest and do whatever you need to do. You can't do everything at once, you're only human- and expecting yourself to do everything at once only caused burn out and stress.

Also, as a person who's gone through eating disorder recovery- weight doesn't stop you from passing. I promise you it doesn't. It's a good thing! It's a sign that all the work you've done recovering has paid off. I'm proud of you.

Keep your head up kiddo, I'm so so proud of you. Remember to take care of yourself, let yourself breathe and don't expect yourself to do everything all at once. I'm here anytime you need to talk.

Love you,

- dad x

[chaoticfandomthot]

Started watching Mouse and at first I wasn't going to talk about it on tumblr to avoid getting spoiled but i have sooo many thoughts so i'll ramble under the cut ignore me

DO NOT SPOIL ME

Okay so i just finished episode 7 which ends with the mouse and the vague flashes of memory, right?

And i've always found it weird that Yohan would have been abandonned to a family and then picked back up by his mom, like that didn't make sense to me

I was led astray by the mom choking him reveal but like why would she even be there? Was she the wife and she remarried? No we would've heard of the other guy and having 2 other kids? She wouldn't risk it i think

So! Here are my theories as of now and a short explaination for each:

1- yohan's mom did a switcharoo somehow

->supporting evidence : the genetic papers yohan hid (i think it was proof he's not the killer's kid), the mom's weird looks at Bareum (could be just like 'damn my kid almost killed that guy but i doubt), the weird flashes of the mouse thing

I think the mom heard about the mouse thing and freaked, tried to kill him but couldnt and decided fuck it im exchanging my child or putting him up for adoption and picking up a new one. Sadly she has terrible luck

2- Bareum has not been switched, is the kid of the other mom (actually shown in the picture) and just repressed his memories of the mouse incident, nothing else weird happened to him and the genetic thing is a different thing altogether

->the most logical but i think they're putting too many pieces down for it to be so easy? Idk might be overthinking this show (def am)

3- a little out there tbh but my first one was a switcharoo so i think its too late to try to appear logical; bareum is actually responsible for his parent's death and in the process of whatever happened he lost his memories and his murderous tendencies got repressed with them

-> idk i just thought about that and why the hell not at this point

Random thoughts; the kid pf the mouse incident seemed to really enjoy it while the kid of the fish, dog and siblings seemed to do it more out of revenge/duty/lack of giving any fucks. To me that makes it clear it's not the same person, but it could also just be the development of being abused following the first incident.. i still think if the mouse kid was the siblings kid he would've looked to be enjoying the deaths more? Idk this post is a hellish mess and i cant wait to laugh at myself once im further along

Development theories that are just about future things i think will happen;

- while investigating i think bareum will get more and more into the mind of the killer until he can't repress his own urges or gets too curious and tries it himself

If above happens; might eventually get a hannibal type situation of helping investigate his own crimes and enjoying either figuring it out so easily or leading other people in circles

This is all because i need traces of my theory for how much i figured out / was wrong about once im further along

[aestophobia]

i think my brother might be abusive but i don't know i'm probably just being dramatic but i need advice

to preface this he's three years younger (he's almost 12 and i'm 15) than me and also has adhd and a few other things that might just be the reason he acts like this (that's what my parents always use as an excuse) but i don't know

my brother has always been "a troubled kid" he gets in trouble at school he gets suspended he just in general is not a good kid, to counter this i've always been good, i barely ever get in trouble, i've never been to the principles office, i get good grades whatever

i've never gotten along with my brother he's just always been really mean to me and a lot of the time when he does something to me i get the blame for it because i'm older so that's always been cause for bitterness towards him

(also i just want to add i do not blame my parents for any of his behavior i love them and they love me very much)

my brother has a way of ruining everything for me whether that's me having a nice moment without my mom or someone else he can't just let me be happy

he says a lot of things that he doesn't think are as bad as they are, he's frequently sexist to me (telling me to go back to the kitchen, make him a sandwich, whatever) he thinks it's a funny joke. he constance bashes my interests and things that make me happy and insults me and my friends

i'm also not the only one who doesn't like him, he's generally hated on my school bus and it's gotten to the point where people target me because of him sometimes he tries to embarrass me in public and is really rude to everyone because he thinks it's funny.

my parents both excuse his behavior all the time but for different reasons my father thinks it's just kids being kids boys being boys shit but my mom uses his adhd as an excuse saying that he can't help it and stuff. he also threatens to kill himself because he knows he can get away with anything that way even though i know he would never do it even though i can't say that because then i just seem like an awful person. i can't stand up for myself without seeming like the bad one

he does things to me that would absolutely not be acceptable for a parent to do to their child, he hits me knowing that i'm not strong enough to fight back he tries to punch me just so he can see me flinch and i don't always feel safe near him and he's threatened me with actual knives before.

i do not see him as my brother, i don't know how i can and i fully plan on going no contact with him once i'm older. my online friends that i've never even met before are more of family to me than he is and you know how friends will argue about whose sibling is the worst? all of my friends (all but one also has younger brothers) fully agree that mine is worse.

i just want a real sibling like i hear stories about and all my parents want is for me to get along with him and i'm so sorry i can't do that for him

i think i'm probably being dramatic but i literally cannot handle his cruelty and manipulation

[gunsli-01]

Okay, you know what I'm gonna say it- I am personally mad about the Haruka verdict this trial like on a very personal level and I'm gonna explain why. I feel like I need to preface this with I don't really like getting personal that often online, but I feel like people won't understand my point on this without me explaining myself.

As no one may know, because I don't get personal often on my blog outside of rare occasions, I had a somewhat similar circumstance to Haruka coming up. During my upbringing I was basically treated as defective from the start. However, even though I recognized this within his first trial song I wasn't like oh vote him innocent. In fact, when I saw Weakness, I believed he should've been voted Guilty, but he was already Innocent at that time. Just because of what Weakness centered around. So, this isn't just a case of oh I relate so I won't be critical. Because the more I relate to something the more critical I am likely to be. Eh-hem Mikoto sorry weird cough there.

So, tragic anime-esque backstory time I suppose which is not tragic or anime-esque since things like this happen all the time and continue to. So, I believe people should really stop this weird belief that abuse such as this can only happen in fiction then balking when they find out oh people just really be out here like this. I'm the youngest and last daughter of an incredibly self-centered woman. Since she had a daughter one year before me, she did not want a second one. She would tell me multiple times in my life that she really wanted a son not another girl. Stating the reason behind that desire was because sons tend to be more loyal to their moms (momma boys) and girls their dads (daddy girls).

Even went out of her way to give me my legal name just to later give me the nickname Lee. This was a failure of a plan because in the US you don't plan a nickname, it either chooses you when you come to age like a rite of passage, people just randomly start calling you something in your family and it sticks, or you actively pick one for yourself. What this did do is actively fuck me over in small social ways repeatedly since my legal name is still not even considered a real name due to its spelling and has zero meaning since if you go back to point one it is not a recognized name. If I looked it up right now google might tell me to fuck myself. I looked it up and Google told me I spelled it wrong. Been alive 27 years and still can't spell my own fucking name right I suppose.

This has caused some of my documents to be wrong cause she just didn't bother to tell me or anyone else for that matter how it was legally spelt until I was out of high school. Don't worry there's a great excuse for this in her own words, she was just taking a "hiatus" from parenting that included dropping off the face of the earth and popping back up randomly to force me to get braces because my teeth were just too crooked, missing every birthday I had but at least calling my sister on most of hers even showing up unannounced a few times for my sister's. Her birthday is a month before mine by the way. So, that was super fun, no way one could take that personally at all. Just to then reemerge when I was sixteen to be a parent again and explain it like she was taking a break from writing a manga. It's incredibly funny cause she just assumed I wouldn't know the meaning of that word, but I'd seen it a lot by that point so lol.

All that to say when I saw Haruka's second trial video it recontextualized a lot. Again, I already thought he should be voted Guilty on Weakness alone. Him being weak didn't really explain to me why he was killing any of the things he clearly did in that video. I just thought he was doing it just because fuck it's Tuesday why not. Like his first mv made it pretty clear he was killing animals and people. Also, that the person could have been a sibling. Like I'd been talking to friends about how he did that for a year now.

So, seeing it shown more blatantly was not like a oh whoa that's horrible because I'd gathered that already. There was nothing new to me in Haruka and Yuno's videos to be honest. I was actually very annoyed with Yuno's mv in a "Okay, tell me something I don't know way!" Like all of this is old news come on. So, really didn't rattle me in my core. I don't really think Mu's will shock me at all either but I'm dying when I love you comes out. I can feel it in my bones Mahiru is gonna be on some shit.

So, with Haruka I was like ah okay yeah, no innocent that's a failure in parenting. He killed a lot of things though hm unfortunate where was his caretaker when he was doing that? Also why is there an isolation room in his home? Like bro I can recognize someone's individual behavior is wrong and then consider the circumstances/environmental factors that may have led to that course of action. That is kind of something everyone is very much capable of doing. I can even just detach myself from my emotional sentiments on the issue as a whole and go, "Well wrong is wrong so not a big deal if he's voted Guilty he did kill someone after all."

However, even doing that I was just like this is still a stupid way to vote. Not just because having Haruka undergo something like this could very well be retraumatizing but as I've said before if his mom using negative reinforcement did not work why would it work here? He seems to actively respond better to positive reinforcement given his protectiveness of Mu and how he's been picking up words more through being patiently taught within Milgram.

However, Milgram isn't about rehabilitation, that's not the purpose but if I have a choice between rehabilitating and demonizing, I think the former should be chosen. Of course, for any progress to be made there are times when people must be told their actions were wrong. I think given Futa's second trial a Guilty verdict the first one was a good choice. I just don't think that sort of firm punishment is necessary in Haruka's case. Since we've gotten a great illustration of how he responds to negative reinforcement in general.

I feel like people greatly underestimate what being in an accepting, positive environment can do for someone mentally and the damage that being in a place the exact opposite of that can cause a person. How it affects their confidence, impacts the lengths they'll go to get attention, and how they view positive and negative attention overall. I hope this verdict doesn't negatively impact Haruka too much but as someone with those sorts of experiences I can see how this might just cause him to regress.

Well, didn't think I'd say this when the second trials started but at least he has Mu still hopefully...

[ollifree]

THANK GOD YOU REPOSTED I HAVE HAD TERRON MY SPIFFY FELLER ON MY MIND LIKE YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE (and also Great Uncle because for some reason they always appear together in my head). SO if I may I would like to ask 5 and 8 and maybe 7 for Caedan Amell (also my spiffy feller) if I can really be greedy 8) 8) 8)

hope you're having a lush as hell day my olli friend!!

ladkfjakfjkdjfk my friend my beloved you absolute peach you always know just which ocs to ask about uwu you can be as greedy as you want mwuah mwuah mwuah

5. letters between two of your OC’s companions about them

Excerpts from correspondence between Queen Lani Theirin-Cousland and Zevran Arainai. Both passages have been translated from the original Antivan. (featuring surprise guest @atypicalacademic's Chancellor of Ferelden, Sahi Tabris)

"...although we are able to twist their arms by reminding them who killed the archdemon. Half the time the alienage needs any kind of resource I have to say 'give me a non-racist reason' out loud to get them to shut up long enough we can push it through. I'd give Sahi access to the treasury every time it happens but we'd be cleaned out within a week."

"We could always pay you a visit in court. I am sure seeing their hero so angry on behalf of our fellow elves would chide most of them into silence. If not, you are aware my services are always available to you. I'll even throw in a discount!"

8. your OC’s doctor/healer talking about their injuries

An unsigned note with handwriting that matches Kinloch Hold's Senior Enchanter Wynne's. The note has been found shoved hastily in a desk drawer and seems to have been written without intention of sharing.

"I cannot say I've ever expected to pen these words, but thank the Maker Caedan's been proven right. Two long days and Terron's finally awake. Why the other wardens seemed so certain he would perish of his wounds is beyond me. Regardless, it is good to see them all smile again. As to the wounds themselves: Several broken ribs, as I feared. Terron is adamant we not use magic to heal them just yet. There are enough near death that need our attention more. Such a considerate young man. What would we do without him? Another skull fracture, which has already been mended. Hopefully with the blight well and truly at rest his propensity for slamming his head on every surface will cease as well. Cuts and bruising, as can be expected. No infections. He claims not to have dislocated anything. He's popped that shoulder back into place on his own so often I've no choice to consider it a lie until proven otherwise."

7. someone describing a time your OC hurt them

A journal entry from Alice Amell during her time at Skyhold.

"It was him. The little brother they stole from us then took from me. As unbearable - as abusive as the Gallows were, I'm sure we could have survived them together. You heard stories in the city, and Mama looked like she might break when I froze my wine at dinner, but I would see our little brother again. But when the templars came for me, they had already sent him across the sea. I hoped he might be at Skyhold. That the revolution would reunite us at last. I heard about what he did. His name was whispered between pages at lessons and over plates at meals. A veteran of a blight, and here I thought myself impressive for surviving Meredith. The boy following Lady Morrigan around - Kieran - he has our look. His skin and eyes are Chasind, but his cheeks and jaw and the way he stands are Amell. I asked Senior Enchanter Surana after I saw her speaking with him. I should have known from how she hedged her answers how this would go. He came back to me. Our lost brother. Everyone through history will point to the scar in the sky as a miracle, as though Caedan walking into Skyhold couldn't have brought our entire family to their knees. But when I finally approached him, when I told him who I was - I can't forget what his face did. I can't describe it. Walling himself off, from me. He'd grown so much, even taller than Father I think. Did I misremember his eyes? I always thought of them as grey. He was so cold. And his words. I can't - He didn't say as much, but it felt like staring up at a viper. Like if I did anything but turn and leave he'd kill me."

[weabooweedwitch]

I'm a fan of your work and generally like you but I have to be honest and say that it's super fucked up and really selfish of you to choose hanging out with your buddies who you literally just saw last week over helping your abused and victimized sister who is in the hospital. Not to mention acting like the trip is so important and unmissable to try to justify it when it's just a casual hangout with friends and again you literally just saw them a week ago and can see them again later. Sorry to be blunt but that's how I feel. You're being really selfish. She might not get mad at you because abuse victims usually don't realise when they deserve better but it seems to me that you maybe don't care about her much? I'm shocked and disappointed because I thought you were a kind person, maybe this kind of thing is why she doesn't talk to you much. You were also talking shit about her on this blog when you found out she was abused too which ngl was pretty fucked up. Sorry I usually like you and appreciate your content and don't want to say something that will make you feel bad but I can't look past this without saying something, I feel really sorry for your sister and the *abject horrors* she's been through and you're prioritising a casual trip and acting like it's a hard choice and you're the one who is in a bad position. It's so fucked up. I really hope you have a change of heart and cancel your trip to tend to your poor sister during this horrible traumatising time for her. You can't understand the *real* traumas she has been subjected to being truly abused and truly beaten down by so many people. She needs support, not to feel like even her own family doesn't care, this is very serious and important. Sorry I feel a little bad chastising you but i feel even worse for your poor sister. She has it so hard.

You know there are a lot of things I could reply to this huge text wall. I could bring up that it's extremely uncalled for that you randomly blame me for my sister not communicating which has been an issue for almost as long as the both of us have been able to speak. I could bring up your line about judging her being attacked which I assume is you referring to my criticism of HOW she was attacked which was doing coke with strangers which uh im sorry that's not an invalid thing to criticize in the slightest, or how her experience with domestic violence was from a guy that was showing red flags all along and by her own admission they were horrible for each other but she stayed with him anyways and it horribly escalated. I could bring up that I'm also mentally ill with my own traumas and was planning to kill myself with the pills I quite literally carry with me on a daily basis until these friends came back into my life and one thing they've taught me is that I deserve to be happy and that I don't always need to seek validation from others

But I guess if you really want me to cut to the quick and not be polite with you I think I would say it's vaguely chronically online and parasocial that you're so emotionally invested and disappointed by and putting all your hopes on someone that you probably never even spoken with one on one or have even any sort of vague relationship besides uh, I write the stalker porn content you consume

Sorry, but I guess this is also on me for treating my blog as a feelings journal and seeing the validation of strangers. I'm not a Salvation Army endlessly dispensing sympathy until it kills me. My relationship with my sister and the dynamic from my entire family is not really something for an internet rando to insert themselves into, to be quite frank about it