#I think B is just mentally ill... in a specific way.

[deerydear]

I think my emotional narrative is not fully-fledged, because I went into the LABBMC knowing who Ryuzaki truly was...

I had no sense of surprise.

If I went in blind, I might be happier.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

wanna ask how you feel about the eridan bpd headcanon/theory(?? not sure what to call it!) you're so good at your character analysis and i'd love to see your outlook on it

Since I don't have a degree or any formal training in psychology, I feel deeply uncomfortable diagnosing characters. I've made an autism joke before but only because I'm on the spectrum. He's definitely traumatized and anxious, but I mean those as descriptors of his behavior rather than capital-D Diagnoses. I try to focus on those when I can - the cause and effect of cognition, self-image, and behavior - and those factors may very well match up with DSM criteria, but I try not to touch an actual diagnosis with a ten foot pole unless the author has explicitly stated that X character has Y condition.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[avelera]

I feel like I don't have the spoons for this, nor the understanding of real-life PTSD enough to explore it, but I feel like it's worth examining Jayce's arc for signs of PTSD. Much has been made of the canonical mental illnesses and PTSD of characters like Jinx, and I've mentioned that I think Jayce might have generalized clinical anxiety, but I think it's worth looking at how much of his behavior might be PTSD related even before he goes to the Anomaly future.

Some possible places I'd look:

Jayce has been getting fed paranoia by Marcus and by the tension that is being deliberately ratcheted up by Silco and Jinx. Yes, he says awful, bigoted things to Viktor on the bridge, but it is worth pointing out that he's not saying this in a vacuum, there are people in proximity to him deliberately stoking his paranoia and that of the city for their own ends, literally Marcus is gaslighting him actively by telling him the Firelights are responsible and the best way to keep people safe is shut down the bridge.

The fight in the Shimmer Factory gets more wild to me every time I watch. Jayce should not be there for so many reasons but one of them is Jayce is not a fighter. I think his video game counterpart sort of obscures this, but unlike Vi who has spent her whole life fighting AND in prison for years, Jayce has never, ever wielded that hammer before. He didn't even have it until the day before! And suddenly he's up against the Shimmer-infused berserkers who are some of the toughest fighters in the whole show. He almost gets his head cut off, if not for features he built into the hammer like weightlessness and the shield, he'd be dead, and then he makes what I call the, "Jayce is Making Bad Decisions" Face (I need to make a gifset of this face btw, he makes it a couple times, also while resurrecting Viktor).

Ok I might make fun of the Jayce is Making Bad Decisions face, BUT on a serious note, it's clear the Fortiche animators are doing a superb job showing someone who has gone into "Adrenaline Mode". REAL fighters do not want adrenaline. Adrenaline fucks up your reaction times and makes you shaky and turns off your higher brain functions. I've been in a fight when fear adrenaline kicks in and you just start wildly swinging to get people away from you and that is exactly what happened when Jayce's face got scrunched up and he started shooting wildly, he just wanted to stop the threat because he's never fought before, unlike Vi. And then he kills a kid and the triumph of his first fight against an uncomplicated enemy just dies and btw, never returns except in that moment fighting more Shimmer berserkers and Renni but those are clear self defense and there's no triumph in it.

BRO gets HIT BY A ROCKET, has a pure panic response leaving living people who need his help in the chamber to save Viktor, and he doesn't go back as far as we know.

Ok so the things that me, as not an expert would be curious to note as possible PTSD responses would be:

Jayce not leaving the lab after the attack except 1) to go to the funeral (where he's attacked AGAIN) 2) to comfort Caitlyn after Mel basically tells him to, 3) to make weapons for Caitlyn's team specifically to keep a small group of people safe, not arm an entire army. Besides that, it looks like he spends all his time holed up in the lab, even after Viktor is gone, because that's his safe space and I think I read once that PTSD has a way of shrinking your world down to just the people and places you trust.

Dragging that hammer around with him in the Anomaly future. Look, Jayce is a city boy, he has no survival instincts, but it wasn't just a bad idea because it broke his leg, it was actively detrimental to his chances of survival because lugging an anvil around drained him of water and calories. Bro had a lot less chance of survival with it, but he thought he was surrounded by zombies (he wasn't, they're all dead and they're all controlled by Viktor, we learn he was never in danger, though I don't blame him for that). But that could also be a PTSD response, his actual emotional support hammer.

Clamming up and not talking to Mel about what happened because she's not in his circle of trust anymore, it's more or less shrunk down to just Viktor (once he can save him) and Cait, maybe.

Ok as usual this got longer than I intended by just... some things that are in my mind right now.

[linkspooky]

Okay, so I received an ask in response to an MHA critical post I received last night that I originally responded to, but then decided to delete the ask and the original post because I didn't want to get into an argument.

However, I feel like I should address one of their complaints about a post I made last night. That I was being too dismissive on the cultural reasons for some of the writing choices Horikoshi made because I am obviously not a part of the culture that Horikoshi grew up in and is commenting on in his piece of work.

I tried not to dismiss the cultural reasons entirely in the post though, I just said I don't think you can entirely blame Hori's writing choices on them. My cited example was there are other shonen jump mangas that don't go out of their way to gruesomely kill their villains (which is what I'm taking fault with.) I understand that the death penalty is a common response to murder in japan, but within the realm of fiction of shonen manga doesn't have a trend of killing all their villains.

But yeah, that might have been a shallow argument.

So there are different lenses of fiction you can criticize Horikoshi's writing on, because every piece of fiction is in fact influenced by the culture it's in, as well as obviously the author's personal life and unconscious biases but that's not all. There's also genre to consider, and influences / inspiration the author might have taken from other works.

For example, there is also genre in particular MHA is written as a response / commentary to both western comics and classic shonen jump manga. Horikoshi said in an interview:

“Probably have to be Goku and Spiderman. To me, when mentioning heroes, these two are the ones that I think of. In Goku’s case, it’s the reassurance that everything is going to be fine he brings when arriving.” 

There are multiple critical analysis lenses that you can analyze a story from. If you're talking about MHA from a feminist lens then you're likely to stick to topics relevant to that, like say japanese feminist movements. If you're talking from the sociopolitical angle then it's relevant to discuss collectivism, and especially how it inspired the Todoroki Family. However, my intent wasn't to dismiss sociopolitical reasons as why Horikoshi chose to write the story this way, but to say it's not the only reason that informs Hori's storytelling choices. MHA isn't just one thing it's multiple thing, me deliberately choosing to talk about MHA as a response to both eastern shonen manga and western comics is a valid critical lens to apply to the manga. You can talk about both obviously, but that was a pretty short post. Perhaps I didn't word my post the best but please try to be understanding that I can't make a post covering all of my bases on leaks night.

For a manga where Horikoshi cited his concept of heroism comes from Goku and Spiderman, they both don't kill their villains, Goku specifically let Vegeta live so if those are his inspirations the choice to kill every villain is weird to say the least.

I can make the argument that MHA fails as any kind of meaningful commentary on comics in general because it doesn't seem to understand the comics it is taking inspiration from. The X-Men are the underdogs in their story, not members of the privileged class they are the outcasts. Batman doesn't kill people because he believes that most of his mentally ill victims turned villains deserve a second chance and he can't dictate who deserves recovery and who doesn't.

If anyone reading this post is curious, here are posts by @siflshonen that discuss both the manga influences and comic infleunces easter and western infleunces on MHA, and also the cultural ones. They are also really long posts because those topics require a great length to discuss critically. This one is about MHA's manga DNA in regards to Bakugo's character, and specifically references Yu-Gi-Oh and Kaiba's character as well as Jonouchi as response for Bakugo's development arc from bully to best friend. This one discusses more about the nuances of collectivism. This one is in reference to the Todoroki family, it discusses both collectivism / japanese family roles / honnae and tatamae concepts that the Todofam is critiqueig, and also how Enji is inspired by eastern ideas of heroes while All Might is inspired by western ones. (Therefore it's not a wrong critical lens to compare MHA to other shonen manga and western comics because that is literally what the manga is taking inspiration from and commenting on).

Here's a powerpoint presentation by @sans-san that discussed Hegemonic Masculinity in Tokyo Ghoul in terms of work culture and how the CCG is inspired by that, which I think also applies to Enji's character as well.

This post by @bnhaobservation spoke about how the Todorokis decision for not disavowing or abandoning Toya after he was sentenced to life in prison would still be a progressive ending to the TODOFAM arc, and while I still wouldn't have been satisfied by that ending I'd at least be able to accept it. That is however, not what we got, we got Toya dying a slow agonizing death while hooked up to life support. So we could have still gotten a slightly softer ending where Toya's at least allowed to live that would have still been in line with the values of the culture that produced MHA.

This post by @bnhaobservation also talks about how the Todofam plotline can still be seen as progressive in some ways in regards to his criticism of Enji's parenting, because of certain outdated attitudes of parenting that still exist about Enji pushing Shoto to his absolute limits.

However, I don't want to debate the person who sent the ask, I just wanted to clarify I'm not trying to make a reductive statement that sociopolitical circumstances have nothing to do with Hori's writing choices, but that you can also analyze it from a lens of genre, commentary on comics and shonen manga, and also the predecessors he's taking inspiration from. All of these things have an inspiration on Hori's storytelling choices.

Since I'd rather not debate, now that I've gotten clarifying things out of the way I'm actually going to use this post as a book reccommendation.

Here's Shigaraki with Underground, one of my favorite books. It is a non-fiction work from famed fiction author Haruki Murakami about the Saren Gas attacks.

On a clear spring day in 1995 five members of a religious cult unleashed poison gas in the Tokyo Subway system. In an attempt to discover why, Haruki Murakami talks to the people who lived through the catasrophe and lays bare the Japanese Psyche.

For those who are unaware the Saren Gas attacks were a terrorist attack where members of the Aum Shirikyo cult released saren gas in the public subway system. It is the biggest japanese terrorist attack in modern japanese history and at the time and even the modern day it was a great shock to them as a whole.

The book consists of several interviews with the victims of the attack, and they are incredibly harrowing to read I remember crying while reading this book multiple times. However, at the end of the book after giving considerable time to let the victims share their stories Haruki Murakami also devotes space in the book to interviewing former members of the Aum Shirikyo cult.

Haruki clarifies his intent in his decision to include testimonial from the cult in the afterword of the novel. "As I worked on this book I attended several of the trials of the defendants of the Tokyo Gas attack. I wanted to see and hear those people with my own eyes ad ears, in order to come to some understanding of who they were. I also wanted to know what they were thinking now. What I found there was a dismal, gloomy, hopeless scene. The court was like a room with no exit. There must have been a way out in the beginning, but now it had become a nightmarish chamber from which there was no escape. [...] To all of them I posed the same question, that is, whether they regretted having joined Aum. Almost everyone answered: "No, I have no regrets. I don't think those years are wasted" Why is that? THe answer is simple - because in Aum they found a purity of purpose theycould not find in ordinary society. Even if in the end it became something monstrous, the radiant, warm memory of the peace they originally found remains inside them and nothing else can replace it. [...] However, as I went through the process of interviewing these Aum members and former members, one thing I felt quite strongly was that it was't spite of being part of the elite that they went in that direction, but because they were a part of the elite. [...] However, we need tor ealize that most of the people who join cults are not abnormal; they're not disadvantaged; they're not eccentrics. They are people who live average lives (and nmaybe from the outside, more than average lives), who live in my neighborhood and yours.

Haruki interviews members of Aum Shirikiyo because he wants to make the point that the people in these cult aren't from a dangerous fringe element of japanese society, but rather they are normal people, some of them even highly educated. The capacity to commit those crimes exists in normal people, and also the capacity to fall victim to a cult.

The Ikuhara anime Mawaru Penguindrum is heavily inspired by both the Saren Gas attacks and the questions that Haruki Murakami asked in the Underground. Fully covered here in this article: Exploring Mawaru Penguindrum 2011 from a historical, cultural and literary perspective here.

Underground was Murakami’s attempt to interview survivors of the Sarin Subway Attack. Apart from learning the perspectives of ordinary citizens involved in that shocking incident, he also managed to interview several members of Aum Shinrikyo and tried to get their point of view on the matter. (In the Japanese edition of the book, the interview with the cult members were published in a separate book, titled The Place that was Promised.) It was an important piece of journalistic work that criticized the public’s attitude of questioning what happened, instead of asking the proper question of why it had happened. In the anime, viewers knew that an event took place in 1995 that affected all the characters, but what exactly was the event about? Why did the people do that? What social factors attributed to the occurrence of such event? These are the questions that Mawaru Penguindrum asked, and one that we were left to ponder on.

Ikuhara and Murakami both exist in the same culture as Horikoshi, Haruki is an incredibly prolific japanese author and he was born in 1945 but both of them are able to ask more meaningful questions about the society they live in then Horikoshi accomplishes with the league of villains and the todoroki family. Haruki Murakami emphasizes the humanity of the aum shirikyo members and that they are not lunatic fringe members, and Mawaru Penguindrum is about the extreme social pressures that people especially children can be a victim of.

Literature is influenced by the culture it takes place in, but it's also a response to that influence and the piece of art that Horikoshi wrote just isn't as thoughtful of a response than what was written by both Ikuhara and Murakami.

More book recommendations if you're interested. The Setting Sun, by Osamu Dazai. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee. How do you Live? by Genzaburo Yoshino. In the Miso Soup by Ryo Murakami. People who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Perry. Night on the Galactic Railroad by Kenji Miyazawa (I'd argue this is an example of good collectivism). The Memory Police by Yuko Ogawa. Out by Natsuo Kirino. There was a couple more I wanted to include but they had cannibalism in them so I thought it better not to reccommend them.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

aita for calling my roommate crazy?

I (28f) live with 2 other people, a former college roommate who I’m pretty close with (29f) and 2nd roommate (28nb) who we both met when we moved in together 2 years ago.

Let me start this out by saying, this isn’t a fandom aita, it’s going to sound a bit weird at first, but bear with me.

I have a medical condition (relevant later) which stopped most of my bones from maturing past puberty (growth plates closing, cartilage not hardening into bones, ect.), so my skeleton is basically stuck somewhere between 13-19, (I look about 17-19, but the last time I tried to buy hard cider, the cashier thought I was 14, so that’s how young I can look). I also have very pale skin (unrelated to my disorder, just a ginger), and (related to my disorder) lack some liver enzymes so I need eat meat or I get sick (the same reason why cats need to eat meat), I ended up in the ER when I lived with my vegan sister for a week and ate the same veggie diet as her.

Trouble is, Roommate 2 is really into conspiracy theories and other fringe stuff. Nothing alt-right or anything, just like, (for example) they fully bought into that Mermaids: the body found show, and wouldn’t be dissuaded, even when Roommate 1 googled it and showed them solid proof that it was fictional. Wholeheartedly believes the US government preformed 9/11, does alternative medicine (homeopathy, ect), wishes there were ‘all natural’ vaccines (still isn’t an anti-vaccer though, just needs to be persuaded that Bill Gates didn’t put microchips in them).

Anyway, Roommate 1 and I have a recurring joke that I’m a vampire because of the meat thing and the pale thing and the not aging thing. Roommate 2 overheard us and laughed, but weirdly. She kinda joked along with us, but she seemed...odd. About a week later, they start asking me stuff about being a vampire. But they seemed friendly and not nervous then and I was hoping they were just joking and I also sincerely thought they were just asking me about how vampires work on one of my shows (I’m a big fan of Carmilla and the Originals), so I tried to explain, but I cited each show when I’m explaining a thing. This continued for several weeks, but getting worse and more weird every time, eventually culminating about 2 and a half months later into them asking me more stuff about life as a vampire and I really realised that they were serious. Bear in mind, Roommate 1 and I were trying to be very clear that we don’t believe in vampires this whole time because we both know how Roommate 2 is about this. As a result, this was the first time I really registered that they seriously seemed to genuinely believe I was a vampire. I firmly told them that I am not a vampire and that vampires aren’t real, they’re fun to joke about, but they aren’t real. They implored me ‘to be straight with them about being a vampire,’ and that ‘I could trust them,’ and I’m ashamed to say, I kinda freaked out at this point, cuz I was afraid that they would be scared of me and maybe try to hurt me, since they seemed kinda unstable because of this.

This is where I think I was an asshole, I am usually very sensitive to mental health issues. I have some c-PTSD myself and there are a lot of mental health issues in my family (unfortunately, I think some history with my own mentally ill father may have made me react this way, since he has very similar issues to Roommate 2 (vaccines, alternate medicines, specifically involving me in his delusions) and I had a very bad experience in my early teens where he thought I was a demon and ‘sent to destroy him’). Anyway, I got very upset and I yelled at them, I told them they were completely crazy and needed to get mental help and said I thought Roommate 1 and I needed to move out because they might try to stake my heart or something. I feel really bad for calling them crazy, especially because Roommate 2 has some very mental health issues and words like crazy make light of and stigmatise that and I’m very big into not blaming people for their mental health problems, but this was very triggering and in this moment I was very distresssed.

So, aita, all things considered here? I’m still gonna feel like the asshole no matter what, since mental health problems aren’t to be taken lightly or blamed on the person, but I’m curious what the internet thinks.

What are these acronyms?

[anemoiashifts]

october pick a pile shifting reading from someone in my desired reality !

happy october & happy almost halloween ! ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

i usually do there jellycats / piles to pull from but this month has only two. for the life me me i couldn’t do a third reading. i did these two back to back & tried to do a third one but it just…wasn’t happening. i tried to come back to it at a later date & still nothing. i chose to take that as a sign & only have two for this month.

as the title says, these are readings from people in my desired reality. i didn’t ask for advice from anyone specifically but i do have my own hunches on who these are from.

in regards to next months readings im kinda out of ideas at the moment. if anyone want a reading from a specific list of characters from the same piece of media maybe ? or a question or a reading from someone in your desired reality as a general reading ? maybe they’ll be next months reading, who knows. ill put a poll out with the most popular ideas suggested so be on the lookout for that so please don’t shy away from letting my know your ideas. <3

one more thing i promise but please don’t force messages to resonate. there will be more readings coming so it’s okay if you don’t resonate as that just means this message wasn’t for you.

✧˖°. black bashful pumpkin bunny.

signs / songs : pink tank top, round “harry potter style” glasses , werewolf by fiona apple , just by radiohead.

you are currently in a state of conflict or are about to be in one. as a result, something is being suppressed. it is unclear where you stand on your viewpoint when it not only comes to shifting but a laundry list of opinions & thoughts. you often try to put yourself in others shoes which can only leave you more conflicted on what is “right” for you. at this time your mindset is being challenged. you can break mental cycles & patterns at anytime. you just have to be willing to do so.

though, you seemingly have an outright refusal to let go. from my understanding, this “letting go” isn’t physical & is a mental battle between your past & present. this upcoming & current “conflict” can relate to some sort of belief that was instilled into you by someone else or unnecessary pressure you brought upon yourself subconsciously. this thinking & patterns you have tend to bleed into shifting that leaves you at a cross roads. you have a this tendency to overthink & get in your head so much that you scare yourself out of your desires.

you can either a.) overcome it, accept the hand you’ve been dealt & move onto greatness or b.) stay remaining where you are & allow it to keep holding you back.

this person wants you to know harping on the past will not change it. overthinking will not benefit you. thinking on your past suffering will not make it hurt any less & will only result in you becoming addicted to the feeling of your suffering. there will always be suffering. there will always be hardships. learn to live alongside your struggles without them letting them destroy you.

you already have all the tools to overcome whatever may be preventing you from moving forward. you are in control of your own future & what your next move is. don’t overstay your welcome in a place that is causing you so much pain.

✧˖°. bartholomew pumpkin bear

signs / songs : 2:22 , 4:44 , millipedes , blue feathers, hanna barbera cartoon characters, let’s kill tonight by panic ! at the disco.

you may be stubborn in beliefs & frustrated that things haven’t worked out that way you wanted them to. you may also have some sort of superiority complex when it comes to your beliefs & struggle to admit when you’re wrong at times. in addition, a tendency to become bitter and jealous easily over others, even if you have the means to obtain them yourself.

perhaps it’s how long you’ve been trying to shift that is fueling these influx of negative thinking. despite wanting to shift, there is a lack of emotion from a specific desired reality (or reality shifting entirely). at times, find yourself still pushing through shifting methods & routines despite thr the mental exhaustion of it all. you want to shift of course. you tell yourself you want to but believing in yourself & having your mind be clouded by negativity, methods feel more & more like a chore. there is a lack of clarity of where you want to shift. without direction, you don’t know where to go. to this person, planning for stability comes first & rewards come second. you need a more of a solid foundation to thrive.

take this as a reminder to watch what you say to yourself & your projection onto others due to your feelings of lack. take risks but ensure they’re calculated ones. gaining a sense of independence may help you.

this reading specially was a little all over the place & that may be a reflection on where you’re at right now. there was an emphasis on you wanting to be in control & underlying themes of wanting material goods — so that could be relevant to some of you.

thank you for reading ! hope this resonated & proves some clarity for you ˘͈ᵕ˘͈⸝*

[boy-gender]

How do you deal with guilt around being a man, and like generally feeling like you're "betraying women" or choosing to be something bad by transitioning? It's something I've really been struggling with..

I sort of have two answers for you.

The first is a bit glib, but I think you've got some bioessentialism to unlearn, anon. I know that it's probably not a belief you arrived at yourself- rather, a bunch of hateful radfem douschebags have so often repeatedly said shit like that, that you're a traitor, you're failing feminism, youre just trying to escape the patriarchy, you're mocking what women are, men are evil and youll become evil especially with testosterone. That kind of crap.

Genuinely I do not give it any thought. It's ridiculous on the surface, so I write it off as misguided and inane. There is no logical way to justify grouping an entire half of the population together, deciding that the one thing they have in common (being men) is somehow the defining trait about them (because nothing else is being taken into account, like their sexuality, ethnicity, trans or intersex status, poverty level, where they live, whatever) and then also deciding that one common trait is the root of all evil. I've personally had a lot of experience with people doing this with certain mental illnesses- particularly cluster B personality disorders- and deciding like "yes this one thing about you makes you evil. You have Evil Person Disorder," and seeing how stupid that was, I just applied it elsewhere. Humans are far too diverse, nuanced, and contradictory for any flat rule like "all X people are bad" to ever be accurate. If it's not accurate, it's not useful, so I don't judge myself by it. I literally just block the people spewing that shit and let it slide off like water on a duck. I have enough warped internalized beliefs from my upbringing- I'm not adding more when I can immediately and obviously see their flaws.

So my advice is to block anyone you see saying that shit. You might be beginning to internalize it because of just how often you see it- so you need to cut that off at the source. Radfems are not and never will be allies; they do not have "some good points." Their movement was specifically designed by conservatives to uphold white supremacist capitalism, and nothing that comes from that is ethically correct. I'd suggest picking up Mothers of Conservatism by Michelle Nickerson. A lot about the origins of the radfem/female separatism movements are detailed there, created by fundamentally conservative women. With this new 4B movement shit on the rise, it's helpful to understand how fucked up and wrong they've always been from the beginning. My second answer to you is to look at what manhood means to you. If you don't think you can be objective about this, ask a friend to help. List the traits you associate with what *you* personally want to be as a man, what you hope you transition towards. Do you want to be a financial provider? Do you want to defend your community? Do you want to be generous? Brave? Do you want to be an expert in a special interest? Do you want to make lots of friends?

Make a list of those traits. Then look at them, divorced from the idea of gender. Is being a financial provider "bad?" Is being generous bad? Or brave? Or having lots of friends? Are any of these things bad in isolation, or does your guilt about them come from their association with manhood? Is that /your/ association, or did other people cause you to think there is an association?

For me, I had two formative male relationships as a child. My father, and my maternal grandfather. My father was an abusive piece of shit who liked to pick me up by the throat and slam me into walls, threaten our pet cats, scream at me until I dissociated, called me slurs, hated my opinions on anything, belittled me, believed only in capitalism, is a social darwinist capitalist schill, hates my mom, treated me like a servant and punching bag, and is a miserable fuck with no friends.

My grandpa was an old man who loved scotland and tartan and scottish terriers even though he never had one, loved each of his cats which he had all the time. He collected coins and read about history, he made model planes. He watched judge judy with me and talked about the cases and if we agreed with her rulings; he watched the news from multiple different outlets a day and taught me to weigh them against one another. He loved sitting on the porch and watching neighborhood kids play, and he drank a lot of lemonade. He was a brilliant chemist, provider, raised 4 kids in near poverty, then raised 8 grandkids after that. He would sneak me chocolate malt balls as a "vitamin" and he would tease my grandma by pretending to pick up and lick his plate after dinner. He taught my uncle to garden who then taught my cousin, so all my life gardening has been "mens work" to me. He was soft spoken, curious, patient, and mischevious. He loved my grandma for 60 years until he died.

These men have nothing in common except that they were men. Being a man didnt make my grandpa evil because he chose not to be. Being a man didnt make my dad evil either; he's an evil fuck because he made that choice. They are both sentient beings, who can use logic and emotions alike. One chose poorly. It never made sense to me as a child to assume all men would be like my dad or like my grandpa, because they were both men and they weren't at all like each other. Some categories are just so broadly diverse that they aren't really helpful- if I ask you to picture a mammal, do I mean a monkey or a mouse? Does "sea creature" mean a giant ass blue whale or a tiny piece of plankton? "Man" as a category is too broad to make assumptions about. I know it sounds circular and reductive, but the only thing that makes someone a man is...being a man. Nothing else.

I find it helps to look at a diverse array of men, to see all that men can be, especially men not like myself or the men I know. What does it mean to be a man in rural Yunnan farm country? What did it mean to be a man in medieval europe? What is it like being a gay black man from california, or a hunter living off the grid in appalachia? What does it mean to be a man in a culture where long hair is masculine, or where harvesting plants is masculine, where being a doctor is masculine? What about cultures where adornment is masculine? Hell, what about animals? What's it like to be a male lion vs a male house cat? What do I think about male cardinals, who are the bright lovely red ones, whose color is meant to draw a predators eye to them and away from the female cardinals and their nests?

To me, gender is an all you can eat buffet. It's customizeable. You can pick up or ignore or throw away any traits you want or don't want. Grab things that are feminine in your culture and incorporate them into your manhood in a subversive, gender nonconforming way. Take things that are masculine that make you happy, that you're reclaiming in a way because you may not have been allowed to do/be them before. Fill your gender with the ideals and aesthetics you like. You are fundamentally changing manhood by being a man, by being a different kind of man than any other man. If there are 4 billion men on the planet, there are 4 billion different 'microgenders' of man.

Seems silly to write off an entire 4 billion people as inherently evil and incapable of either goodness or change. It's just illogical. For me, that's enough to discard the idea wholecloth. If it doesn't make sense, I'm not wasting my time with it. That's not an ability everyone else has easily though, so you take the time you need. Try to look at yourself as objectively as possible, as an outsider. As you transition, have your actions become more evil? Are you committing sexist acts? Have you literally betrayed all the women you know somehow? Do you feel yourself becoming less kind, less patient, less interested in equality or the preservation of life? I'm betting, since you're nervous about it enough to ask, that none of those things are happening to you. Do not let yourself be gaslit into believing you are becoming something you're not. Look at your actions, your words. Look at your values and how you live up to them. If you don't see any sudden discrepancy, then you know anyone who tells you you're becoming evil by becoming a man is straight up lying to you. They're projecting an idea onto you that doesnt fit reality; trying to put a round peg in the square hole. Be curious, be objective. Do not be misled, and for those who try to mislead you, hit them with a chunky block button.

[snakedice]

I actually hate bad spiderverse fans so mych

I hate white rich alternative people LEAPPINGN at spiderverse to say stupid stuff,, and like kuinda exposing like a little bit of racism and classism idk?? "hobie brown dirty" "hobie brown would love me (white)" "Pavitir is uwu softnboy twink... and he loves MEN SPECIFICLY" "i love cop miguel o hara" "Miles jus like me fr... (so hella white and rich and not coming from immigrant parents or whatever its embaressing.. (im refferung to the people who use miles experience to somehow.. swearve them of like devoloping as a person?? I cand descirbe it)) guys just STOP P{LLEASEEE.. I BEG I SHAKE AT THE BARS _PLELAS ESTIPP

tears flow down my face when I think aboiut that

also the way that the very specific white rich side of the spiderverse fans... only care about.. very little.. Its usally revolves around peter b parker.. spider noir miguel o hara. hobie brown. gwen stacy (notice how miles moralas isnt on this list) (also usally white people onlycare about hobie is because of weird feitshy vibe that I majorly dislike)

I rip at the seams! its so terrible! Its not like im not like also a like cringe mentally ill child, who greatly immersesis themselves in media.. its just that im notwhite and doing it! Im non-black too so.. IM PROBABLY MISSING THINGS, THAT RIGHTFULLY MAKE EVEN MORE PEOPLE MAD.. like come ON...

alsosome of the things you do to pavitir is TERRIBLE as the.. only? south asian character that is seen and named in spiderverse... im talking about yalls terrible ship name.. chai, tea, naan, like is he just.. food to yall???

still mad they trashed the cambodian character in the script... she would of been like the best actually.. im kinda glad they didnt add her though because by GOD would she been done DIRTY (her name is delilah I thing??? she appers in spider man 2 which is cool)

anyways please dont be racist thx!

this obv only applies to the minority of the fans... if your not terrible this post should sit fine

[sol-consort]

Regarding the human kink thing when it comes to turians, some people actually do be nesting, omega-verse style. Imagine being a human assigned to a turian ship, and you just over here in your bunk, innocently arranging the pillows and stuffies, while these guys are just standing there, slack-jawed and harmonizing their subvocals lol

[updated post]

A/B/O is not for me, but I dig the concept of aliens being intrigued by plushies. They are weird when you think about it.

The weird part isn't the plushies–it makes sense for warm-blooded mammals who value skinship to enjoy cuddling soft things, hugs are fundamental for your health—No, The weird part is how the most popular plushies aren't human shaped.

You could argue dolls, but dolls aren't used as plushies. They're more hard and sturdy, something that can withstand being played with. they have joints and brushable hair. Dolls are puppets to tell a story with, a psychological form of play through creativity.

I want you for a moment to imagine an advanced civilisation of bears with me.

With metropolises and bustling economy, they haven't mastered space travel yet but they've been eyeing the planet closest to them, bringing back rocks from the moon, etc.

In one apartment complex, there lives a bear family. The furniture is more accommodating to their larger build, clothes are more of an accessory to them considering their luxurious fur coats keeping them warm.

It's nighttime, tomorrow's a Sunday and mom bear has to leave to work early, she's currently washing the dishes leftover from the wonderful dinner the family just had. Her wife, however, is putting their son to bed. it's his second week in elementary bear school! he's unhappy with his seating arrangement in class however, the teacher placed him too far from his best friend.

His mother promises to have a chat with the teacher about it when she drops him off tomorrow, the son bear is very delighted and roars happily. A big yawn escapes him as his eyelids get heavy.

In his arms, there lies a cotton friend. His most beloved treasure, the most precious inanimate object to his heart. His plushie!

He adores it. It makes him so happy. It helped make him feel safe when he first started sleeping alone after his moms got him his own bed.

Now, I need you to tell me what does the plushie look like?

For me, these are the options that instinctively came to my mind when attempting to imagine what sentient bear cubs living in a 21st century would gravitate towards in a plushie.

A) a teddybear, more fluffy, abstract, and cartoonish looking

B) a plushie in the shape of a honeyjar

C) a plushie in the shape of a fish–more specifically, salmon or trout

D) fuck idk man leave me alone

When compressed down to their core, in the most simplfied form, the choices are:

A) Identity

B) Food

C) Food

D) How did you get into my house?

-

With that long analogy out of the way, when you compare that limited selection to the actual things humans have already turned into plushies, it just doesn't make sense.

Food, yes we have plushies of food but also of animals we do not eat. rabbits, cats, dogs, dolphins, bugs. We have plushies of predetors even, things that once hunted us down, beings that still could very well kill us if we meet face to face, tigers, sharks, bears themselves even.

Animal cartoons are much more popular amongst kids. Fables about talking animals have been a stable genre ever since humans invented writing. Animal plushies are popular amongst adults too.

Plushies of inanimate objects, of plants, of fictional characters and fantasy creatures.

I'm willing to bet that humans already made plushies of verans since the first year they came into space, that they sold out on earth immediately. Hell, I'm sure there are plushies of reapers, of protheons and even of turians and other species.

Not even abstract ideas were spared from being into marketable plushies! isn't there a series designed to raise awareness for mental illness?

The whole meme of "turns your fav into a marketable plushie" spread so much because it is true. If there is one thing humans love, is making plushies of anything not human.

And that's the weird part to aliens, the big boy of human anomalies. "Why do they want to cuddle literally everything in this universe? and how come plushies of other humans is the last thing on that list"

You try to explain it to a salarian once but they just look at you in confusion. What do you mean you sleeping with plushes resembling your species is "weird"?? Don't you humans like hugging each other so much? Yet cuddling the soft imitation of a reaper each night isn't weird to you????

That's not even mentioning how the bear society analogy is flawed because we are biased by nature. We projected the bear society onto our human agriculture and based it upon our own popculture.

When in reality they would hold very different values, a different emotional range. They'd be as diverse as the other alien species in mass effect, sharing more resemblance to them than to humans.

We see someone sad, and we have this need to touch them, pat their shoulder, rub their back, hold their hands, and give a hug. Bears let their children walk on their own while we carry our young more, much like aquatic birds in more ways than we'd think.

A/B/O nesting isn't my cup of tea, but with turians, it's easier to digest. Yeah, they are birds. It would be literal nesting. That's kinda cute.

We like caves, it's also cute. Would turians prefer the top bunkbed? Anyway.

Birds usually throw clutter away from their nests, anything that's not a straw or building material is disposed off to make space for their eggs.

While we like the opposite, clutter fucking rocks! at least for humans.

We have a mattress, then a mattress cover, then a sheet.

Then we have pillows, stuffing, then pillow covers, decorative pillows.

After it, multiple blankets! a soft one, a heavy one, an airy one. Sometimes, blankets come with blanket covers.

Finally, the plushies arrive. Multiple of course, some for decorations, others well worn with cuddles. Sometimes a gaint big one to fully wrap all of our limbs around.

Sometimes our beds have crumbs from food we eat in it, othertimes it has a stray sock we took off while in bed and forgot.

Most of the time it has our phone in it, a pet joins us there, book we're reading, laundry we were supposed to fold but forgot, a bag, or several outfits as we get ready to go out.

That's a cave, much like bears leave the skeletal remains of their prey, we have crumbs from the cookie we suddenly craved at 3am.

Nests are neat and clutter-free, at least the bird ones, always getting cleaned from waste. Eggshells are thrown out as they hatch, baby birds waste are immediately disposed of.

Lizard nests aren't that different.

Because the equivalent to a nest foundation isn't the blankets, plushies, or pillows. it's the house foundation itself!

The concrete walls and the sturdy floorboards. The whole bedroom is already a well-built nest. The bed is just an extra cushion. The fluffy material and loose feathers birds leave at the very top, so the twigs don't scratch the fragile eggs.

So, in conclusion. Turians and Salarians would get VERY overwhelmed in a human bedroom, let alone a human bed with plushies, stuffies, and blankets.

They're like, "Are you expecting a baby???" When they notice what their brain consider is extra protective fluffing for eggs.

Turians even more because of their lack of skin nerves, hard plating, and all. Their outershell makes it hard to appreciate soft things, let alone hugging them, when they can barely feel it.

Salarains? They're softer, more squishy, and they might enjoy the way it feels against their skin. Most reptiles do, and they're the closest thing for reference.

They're warm-blooded, but they do originate from a fully tropical planet + they're amphibians and might have used to be semi-aquatic? Meaning that while they still produce their own bodyheat, it wouldn't be that much to begin with. Space is definitely much colder to them than to a human.

That's why hugging a human is so nice to them! They can leech off of your body heat as their very own sun–or at least a substitute for a heatlamp.

But plushies and blankets are a different story. With blankets, they might make them cold or freeze since they blocked whatever light or heatlamp the salarians must need for sleep when they're not wearing their temperature adjustment suits.

And if you sleep next to them under the blanket, your trapped body heat will cause the temperature to rise above what's comfortable for them and risk overheating them. Same with the fluffy sheets, pillows or plushies.

there's the risk of overheating them with your body as the blanket traps in the heat. it will happen slowly, but that just makes it more dangerous. A slow simmer of rising body temperature as they realise what a death trap a human bed actually is.

Plus, salarians only need one hour of sleep per cycle, it seems very excessive to them that you'd build a whole room and make the biggest piece of furniture in it solely for the purpose of sleep. All of those plushies just to hug to sleep?

Drell, who breathe through their skin, would view blankets as a total nightmare. Their clothes already need a lot of adjustment to accommodate their conditions, only certain material is airy enough to allow them to get a lungfull, and you want to suffocate them with cotton or polyester?

They know you only breathe through your nose, but it still...makes them feel uneasy. Seeing you covered completely in stuffies and thick blankets, only your head poking out. Much like what it would feel for us to see someone go to sleep underwater with a flimsy mask connected to an oxygen tank. Now, this is truly a death trap–the salarians were right.

As long as you forgo the blanket and...allow them to fully strip down, they will give this whole human bed thing a try. Silk or satin sheets and pillow covers feel the best against their skin, smooth surfaces that seamlessly glide, air particles passing through it with little trouble.

Anything fluffy, feathery, or with fur will irritate their skin. It's like something brushing against your nose. They sacrifice a lot of comfort when it comes to indulging the human need to cuddle, but most drell rarely complain as they accommodate to your need, even if it meant you'd be slightly cutting off their air circulation.

Maybe their society is exceptionally polite? Maybe devotion and sacrifice for the ones you love are just ingrained in their biology? It would explain their endless royalty to the hanar despite how staying on that planet is literally killing them.

Oh yeah, owning a humidifier in your room will cause them a lot of pain and discomfort. Turn it off, or if you really want to woo a drell, get a dehumidifier.

Krogans would fucking love our beds tho. Might make fun of it at first, but they secretly also want a soft mattress and plushies to cuddle with.

Get close enough with a Krogan, and they'll start crashing in your room and taking naps on your own bed whenever the chance presents itself.

Don't the asari sleep in pods? I'm thinking of that sex scene in ME, she fucks you in a pod. That's something. At least...Liara gets used to human beds?

-

Anway! having established all of that definitely vital and necessary world building, I can finally talk smut about the turians! the original context of this request!

One look at a human's bed and their minds are definitely going south. First of all, human, you're in desperate need of a mate because your nest is a mess! Why do you have so many different fabrics? Aren't you worried you'll suffocate yourself with a plushie or too while sleeping?

Second of all...they didn't know humans were this soft. You mean, most humans sleep like this? In very comfortable beds? Even like...the army tough ones? Oh, that's why they get so excited for shore leave? so they can return to their actual comfortable nests–sorry yes "beds" and have some decent sleep?

huh.

And none of you are expecting children, correct? This is just how the average adult human goes to sleep?

Turians don't have the heart to tell you that they associate soft beds–ones like yours—to the human equivalent of a heart-shaped bed with rose petals scattered around, candles illuminating the room and a very deliberate lack of condoms.

They try not to...think about it whenever they come into the room. A bluish hue adorning their cheeks, trying to avoid eye-contact as they explain that uh...fuck, they accidentally glanced towards your bed and forgot what they came here to say.

I talked before how jarring it's to them that humans easily allow others on their bed, be it human or not. You just casually invite your friends to sit on it? The same sheets you sleep on each night? the one so heavy with your delicious scent they can practically smell it the second they stepped foot into this room?

And now you're telling them to take a seat, even handing them one of your plushies to keep in their lap. What's a friendly gesture and a show of trust is being very very badly misinterpreted by their brain chemistry, their biology going haywire at what they consider the declaration of "Get me pregnant" Whether you're actually capable of it or not.

-

Sidenote, the angara might be the only ones to share our bed preferences, not only that but show enthusiasm at the mention of plushies.

The only difference is that their society values plushies that resemble people more, angara like them. The dolls and plushie lineup are very intertwined.

Cuddling very intimately with someone isn't sexualised either, nor presented under a romantic light necessarily. Their society prides itself on love and affection; they're direct with expressing their emotions.

A single angara family can have many mothers and fathers, tens of sisters and brothers. Cuddling and sharing a bed is very normalised even far into adulthood.

They might be the ones giving humans the wrong idea by immediately inviting them back to cuddle on their bed after only the second meeting. Just because they decided they like you :) It's the equivalent of going out for coffee.

Protheoans, meanwhile, fall on the opposite spectrum. Javik doesn't have a bed, does he? He never asks for one either. They're a society of warriors, they value strength and abhor tenderness. Brutal honesty is their forte.

But...they also read each other's emotions through touch.

While beds are a foreign concept, plushies are not. Javik can sense the history of a room just by directly touching its floorboards. Plushies and other sentimental objects must be valued very greatly in their society, doesn't he hold onto the disk of memories from his time back before being frozen?

He understands why his own species came to value plushies, but why the hell does yours do it? You lack his abilities, all humans do.

You try to explain it to him, but it just sounds like you're describing vague and badly done emotion reading with extra steps.

He concludes that humans must hold traces of these abilities. It just translates into safety and the need to cuddle others. Also, it is clearly inferior to the protheon's advanced ability, so yeah.

Javik dislikes your bed but likes your plushies and actually welcomes cuddling. He remains stoic throughout it but you can feel him poking through your memories.

Same with your plushies, he asks that he may keep one as a relic. A piece of your soul, your history is encased in it like an artifact in amber.

Touching it almost feels exactly like travelling in time to meet your old self, getting to part the curtians of space itself and get a front row view on the person you used to be.

Plushies immortalise you to protheans, who would've thought.

-

I had so much fun with this an analysis it <333 I know it isn't exactly what you had in mind anon, I'm sorry, A/B/O is listed as a "no" in my requesting list. But the concept was so good I had to approach it in a different direction.

I hope you still enjoyed it!

[clangenrising]

I know u said I don’t have to apologize but I would like to preface this with I’m sorry for upsetting you, I wasn’t trying to say that those with cluster b personalities are more likely to like- Hurt people, just that their “level of evil” is at a point that I can’t imagine someone just… choosing if that makes sense? I wasn’t trying to like make them little sad soft boys just that, based on my own experiences of having a mental illness that does disposition me to do bad stuff, their thought processes seemed similar to mine rather than how I’d imagine a non-mentally ill person’s thought process would work, apologies

I understand that. But I specifically told you not to apologize to me. I know it hurts to get critiques like that, especially in such a public space, but I need you guys as my audience to be brave about that stuff, okay?

It takes a lot out of me to feel like I need to console my audience any time i push back on something they say. It's kind of exhausting to do so much emotional labor.

As well, you're still not understanding my point, or if you are you're ignoring it to justify saying what you said when you really don't have to. Razor and Sardine did "just choose" to do the things they did and they did them for racist, sexist, and egotistical reasons. That's the whole point of their characters. People can choose to be harmful and just because that choice feels justified to them doesn't make it okay and it also doesn't mean that they must have a sympathetic reason for making it or they must be mentally ill.

I'm not trying to say anything about your experience with mental illness. It sucks to have a mental illness that causes you to make poor choices or hurt those around you, I know from experience. But I think you're projecting onto these characters and that was the point of my original response; to say "You are reading my characters extremely incorrectly in a way that is actually very harmful to people who actually have those disorders".

Please stop for a second. Think about what I said and actually work on your beliefs/behavior. Do not return to my inbox to perform contrition.

The behavior itself is the real problem, not whether or not I personally got upset. You don't know me. I'm a stranger on the internet. You shouldn't be trying so hard to make me like you. This goes to all of my followers - you shouldn't be so focused on getting my approval that you ignore the actual message I'm trying to send. I want people to learn and grow, I don't care if they come and apologize for having a bad take.

[actual-changeling]

one thing i really really like about txf is that they aren't afraid to kill off characters.

in most shows, melissa would make a miraculous recovery, mulder probably wouldn't lose both his parents, and there are all the episode-specific characters that are killed simply because

a) it fits right into the plot

b) they can and

c) it adds a layer of realism to it.

if you never kill any of the characters—even minor side characters/npcs—then at some point, the dangers will feel less dangerous, less real, because you know everyone will be fine anyway. but not here.

the stakes ARE real and we are shown and told so over and over again.

scully loses her dad, melissa gets killed in her apartment, mulder's dad is killed, mulder's mom kills herself, there is no miraculous, perfect return of samantha, scully gets cancer, OTHER (returning) characters get sick and die, and the list goes on.

nowadays, way too many people are incapable of consuming anything that isn't 99% "everything will be fine" because processing complex emotions requires complex thinking, and boy are people refusing to develop that skill.

ironic to say, but txf is refreshing in regards to that AND has better representation that most shows and movies being created in recent years. do you know how fucking rare it is to have disabled characters that simply exist? whose disability is right there, it's real, they're not somehow hiding it or trying to make it less obvious.

they are like any other characters, and unless it is in some way relevant to the plot, it's usually not even brought up or mentioned. no misery or inspiration porn, no weird "you're not disabled, you're [insert term that's fucking horrible]", nothing.

even with episodes like gender bender, there is no transphobia, no caricatures, it's treated like any other case with any other people.

you'd expect a lot of ableism in a show about the paranormal since "crazy mentally ill person is a danger to everyone" is a popular trope (disappointing but not surprising), yet as someone who has highly stigmatized disorders—not just in general, specifically in the medical field too—I don't think I have ever felt uncomfortable with any of the cases.

people look back on older shows and start criticizing the language but not only were the terms and concepts named differently and have evolved, i'd rather have a show use "bad" or incorrect language but have genuine, caring representation than someone using all the buzzwords and thinking that makes whatever they do not offensive.

(side note: language moves fast, especially in psychiatry but also in other scientific circles, and the same applies to what i'll loosely call 'community language'. as long as there's good intent and an open ear, i couldn't give less of a fuck if they say transgender, transsexual, or transvestite)

i'm rewatching 'the field where i died' and this episode has one of the best, most accurate portrayals of DID i've seen in probably. ever. is it played up a bit? yeah sure, but it doesn't feel mocking or otherwise disrespectful and it refuses to play into any existing stereotypes.

this post got away from me, but bottom line is that this show is genuinely good in a way few shows are.

[maybeimamuppet]

Do you believe Regina is redeemable?

ohhhhh buddy the whole can of worms this opened

to make a long story short: yes.

to make a long story longer with a tw for mentioned child abuse/neglect and suicidal ideation

i think every iteration of her deserves a shot at redemption.

canonically regina is at most seventeen years old. yes, she’s almost an adult. yes, she does and has done despicable things at this age and even younger. but she is still young. she is still a child. to completely, black and white say, that she is at her core an unredeemable monster who doesn’t even deserve to try does a complete and utter disservice both to her and the people she’s hurt in her past. to say she will be the way she is forever negates all the suffering she goes through and puts others through in canon, misguided though it is.

regina is also basically the textbook for a personality disorder and specifically bpd. borderline is (in a lot of cases i’ll say rightfully) very harshly judged. there’s a lot of stigma around it and cluster b disorders as a whole. but bpd is also caused for the most part by neglect and abuse in childhood. we only ever see regina’s dad in 2004 canon, for a single scene, crying over regina wearing the rabbit halloween costume. he’s completely absent in both the stage show and 2024. and looking at her mom, it is very obvious something has happened to the both of them and that this child (or neither of these children if you include kylie from 2004) is/are not getting the emotional guidance, support, and attention they need. who knows what happened before canon as well. who knows what her dad was like.

speaking as someone who also probably has bpd (which i discovered through doing research to write her better) i can say it is a terrifying experience. i’m lucky in that i’m able to resist my compulsions most of the time, but having them at all is beyond terrifying sometimes. i am filled with rage on a hair trigger these days. sometimes i’m able to process this anger in a healthy way. i can rationalize. i can think through it. i can calm myself down.

other times i can’t. i can only glance through the mean girls tag on ao3 now because if i look at numbers or think for too long about it, i compare the new fics that have come with the 2024 movie to things i’ve written. to see these fics that, while fantastic, are much shorter or don’t have as much effort put into them as what i do get literally ten times the love does hurt, as much as i adore and appreciate what i do get.

by nature with my other illnesses i have to pour my entire heart and soul, blood sweat and tears into every word i put on a page. every fic i’ve done is a piece of me that sometimes feels like i’ve torn it out of myself and given you to read. sometimes seeing that get 150 hits compared to a cadina fic that’s half as long (but again, still amazing! they all deserve every hit and kudos and comment and whatever) getting up to 1, 10, 50k hits just latches to a particularly sadistic part of my brain and it’s all i can think about for weeks. and it makes me want to quit. either writing or living.

and that sounds dramatic because IT IS. and i’m fully aware having those thoughts and urges is irrational. i don’t want them. i miss feeling like i have a community on ao3 (i absolutely have one here and i love all of you in my little circle with my entire being.) i hate having to avoid reading about my favorite characters because it does that much damage to my mental health. i am afraid that it takes something that small for me to have these massive thoughts.

all of that to say is that bpd makes switches easier to flip. it makes bad choices easier to make.

the reason i’m still here. the reason i still write and i haven’t deleted everything i’ve ever done. the reason i haven’t done a number of other things that i won’t say because they aren’t really relevant. is because i have chosen not to. it is incredibly hard sometimes. but it is still a choice you have to consciously make. you have to consciously decide to hurt someone. you have to consciously decide to say things. you have to consciously decide to humiliate your best friend in front of countless other people.

regina did make those choices.

and for that she does deserve consequences. she deserves repercussions and she deserves flack. she does not deserve to get hit by a bus (except for it being the catalyst to help her realize she needs to change) or being force fed to reach her biggest insecurity and fear without her knowledge.

she made the earliest choice when she was either eleven or twelve years old, that we know of.

that is a child.

regina is a child who is clearly suffering in some way we don’t see. she absolutely should be held accountable for what she does and what she has done. but she also deserves to be allowed to apologize and try to make amends. she deserves to be allowed the opportunity for growth and to heal and to become a functional adult who is capable of meaningful relationships and success. she deserves to be allowed to try.

does she deserve immediate or any forgiveness? no. the people around her also deserve the ability to make the choices with her that they will. she has caused harm, people are allowed to process the harm she has put upon them however they will.

but she deserves the opportunity to make it a choice for them.

she deserves a chance at redemption.

[connectionterminated13]

Arcade machines/ Costumes

Talbert files fan fiction yes I have sunk into that low oh friends... Specifically this is for the #7nightsoffrightsprompts Thing hosted by @driftingvoid-155 . And before we get into it warnings. I missed any tell me in the comments below

tw, Body horror, mentions of murder, mentions of blood, mental illness, Cigars, Talbert being Talbert.

It was the noise Michael hated most. No it wasn't the noise of the others or the noise of the man blabbering about whatever smart thing he had thought he had come up with and that stupid little room no it was the arcade machines. Every time he found himself crawling through one of those vents it made his head pound and scream.

The noise of those stupid children seemed to shake the building. All the sounds made Michael want to do nothing more than curl up with Fredbear and cry. But then if he did so, Fredbear would yell at him and call him all kinds of names like a stupid bleeding coward until he had to crawl through these dastardly vents once again. God in heaven why couldn't he just roll over and die already. For he was nearly sure that when he did die and walk through the gates of hell the devil would weep at challenge he presented, for there was no greater torture than the screaming, metal, cramped tube he was now wandering through.

He was lost in these thoughts when he bumped into the Great. He let out a sort of strangled yell and shrunk back slightly looking closer at the thing that had hurt his head. It was a vent grate opening up onto the arcade floor. He could see the kids there so many of them yelling and screaming and playing their loud machines and wearing their costume. 

Gosh it was Halloween and somehow he had forgotten! Halloween had been his favorite time of the year as a child, as a human and now Halloween was one of the few times in his miserable excuse for a life that he could be among the people. Every other year Halloween had been something Michael had counted down to in his head. Every other year he had spent what little money he could steal from the bodies of his victims on a costume. Every year he had just done things like sat on benches and walked into stores and been unnoticed...

It was the one time of year where someone like him could be a man and not some kind of horrible disgusting Beast that was better to be ignored or shot. Oh That's what they thought of him the children running and screaming, yelling at each other about nothing in particular or at least that's what fredbear said. Michael continued to crawl through the vents looking for another way. Way to what he wasn't sure. possibly out this time…

Wouldn't it be grand to get out of these interlocking holes of nothingness out, of the cacophony of screaming children and the sounds so distant yet so close of that stupid God damn man that had lured him here.

Michael had found out almost 2 days after arriving that the man's name was Talbert. He was of average height and slightly overweight with brown red curly hair and obnoxious sideburns. He had an even more obnoxious Irish accent to match and seemed to think that he was the best thing to have ever existed. But no he wasn't anything! at least that's what fredbear said. 

Michael stopped ahead of him, was the other one. The tangle of wires and dried blood and screaming children that had so long ago ruined his life in every conceivable way. If he was a good man, like the heroes and those children's games he would have fought the thing. He would have killed it but he was not so..

He waved at it. 

Wave back before slithering down a different vent to their right. 

Fredbear said this was a good thing to do. Michael agreed. 

Fredbear had started talking shortly after the horrible wire thing had buried its way in and out of Michael's chest. Specifically Fredbear had started talking after Michael had ran home After nearly 3 days of running about the woods. He had collapsed on the ground and cried his horrid hideous black tears and begged in his breaking voice for someone to come and help him. 

Fredbear had come like an angel from heaven. And told him to start “making friends”. 

Michael had it first objected, he had swore and screamed and begged for fredbear to stop yelling at him to make friends until eventually he had given up. 

After all as Fredbear said he was no longer a person no man living or dead would ever look upon a wretch like him and take pity on it. What was even the point of trying to hold himself above men like his father if he was no longer a “son” in the first place. Was it not better to slip his mind Into Darkness and lose himself in the taste of blood and the joy of death. 

And yes sometimes it was sometimes fun, But most of the time it was utterly miserable. He'd give anything to be a kid again or not even a kid, Just a human again. What Michael would trade for just one single token even if the noise made his head split for a moment to just be Michael again really truly Michael.

But Fredbear told him to claw on and continue his crawl. 

So he did… And yes he did try to look for some way out but it was impossible. This place was like some kind of horrible awful maze meant to trap him in particular. Every time Michael thought he was coming close to a real way out he would bump into that room again with the screaming children and he knew if he got in there. Well, he would not be treated with kindness even on or at least close to one of the few times of the year where he could exist out in the sight of man.

If he fell out of the vent their fathers would gang up and beat him to death probably or at least that's what fredbear said and Fredbear was always right about this sort of thing.

So he continued his crawl and continued his thought. 

Halloween used to mean a lot to him.  Halloween used to mean times with his father and brothers And their family friend's daughter Cassidy. How he had missed all that when they had all slowly started to die off and then how he had grown up into a man, And Halloween's meant time with friends. He had so many friends.

But if he Remembered the names of his friends he would cry and Fredbear would yell at him again because of what those friends would think of him now. Oh he was not the hero of the story he was the villain the thing to be slain in those arcade games. But Halloween was the one time of year where he could put on a costume and not be that. He was just a regular old zombie or a zombie pirate or a zombie astronaut. He was someone in a costume!

No this year Talbert had called. Dirty evil Talbert who in his Everlasting cruelty had dragged Michael to run around this stupid maze like some kind of rat! Probably for his own sick enjoyment! Because that's what everyone thought of Michael! For either they're sick enjoyment or they're Terror wasn't it!?

At least that's what fredbear said and fredbear had to be right. Oh the things he do to Talbert when he got him he would rip the man limb from limb and Stitch the ugliest plushie he could from the man's innards then, he would throw the plushie off of bridge! He made a horrid strangled giggling noise at the thought of it. 

-

Christopher Talbert lit up another cigar. And chuckled to himself this was the most fun he had had in years. Halloween after all had been quite boring since the death of his daughter. 

After her unfortunate passing Halloween had turned into monotony with the interruption of the posts and His science experiments. Halloween was always the best time to post the misinformation he was fed. After all, people loved stories of missing children and men looking into ghosts around Halloween.. Also he could dress up which was fun. This year he was like last year Frankenstein!

Not the monster mind you, he was the doctor. After all he was human and the only monsters here were the ones crawling in the vents. He could hear them clumping about letting out the occasional inhuman scream or plead in a child's voice but he wouldn't listen.

They were animals, nothing more and nothing less it was his job to watch them and the job paid handsomely.

He let out cigar smoke into one of the vents. He was probably saving people after all by watching these things climb around since this was the one time of year they could almost blend in.

Oh this would be a year to remember. Emmett, foolish old Emmett had tried to trick him you see, thinking that Talbert wasn't aware of this little act he was putting on.

And that was the double entender to the costume you see! For well Emmett thought himself the Creator the Frankenstein of this event if you will, Talbert was the man really in control! or at least that's what he told himself because of course he had never actually read Frankenstein and had just made up the extra details about his costume to sound smart.

Honestly Talbert was very proud of himself for coming up with the costume idea in the first place. Even though it was probably the second most obvious thing a person would pick for Talbert as a Halloween costume.

He continued to sit and smile to himself not doing any work until he heard one of them crawl too close..

It was Michael or that was its former name. Local Legends called the thing the Stitch Wraith. Talbert had found quickly that calling it this made it quite mad. 

So Talbert swiveled to face the thing and smile, his most cruel smile. No, it was hard to keep on his face since the thing was so Goddamn ugly. Its skin hanging off its remaining bones loosely and it wore a large dirty overcoat and hoodie in a vain attempt to hide that ugliness. Also carried around a little fredbear plushie that honestly Talbert felt quite bad for.

“Hello there Stitch Wraith. I think it's a bit too early to be trick or treating don't you?” Before the thing could even let out an angry growl Talbert hit his hand down on the controlled shock button and the vent lit up with a static crackle making the thing squeal and slink back quickly.

Talbert smirked for the 100th time, Right before the thing disappeared from view.. 

“Have you no shame man? I suggest you at least try to put on some kind of costume. I mean no self-respecting man would give you anything dressed like that!” Talbert Yelled after the thing before breaking into laughter at his own joke.

[ignylinn]

Harrowhark Mental Health Awareness Post

I feel a need to explain myself when I say that Harrow is not schizophreniac, but schizo spectrum coded.

I also think that assigning a diagnosis to a character can be problematic for many readers whose experience is somewhat similar, for people who have schizophrenia, and for their social circle.

I will not attempt to diagnose Harrowhark here, I want to provide observations.

Why do I know this? First, this knowledge is crucial in my line of work.

Second, as a person with MH issues, I am eager to understand myself better - to make my life better.

Do not use this text as a self-diagnostic tool. It includes names of a teeny tiny number of mental disorders, and does not include any somatic problems which camouflage as mental disorders.

So, some observations on Harrow's mental health.

What is schizo spectrum?

Schizo spectrum includes a ton of things apart from schizophrenia, like: schizoaffecive disorder, schizotypal personality disorder, schizoid personality disorder, etc. Some of these include psychotic symptoms, some do not. Some of these need medication, for some psycotherapy is the best way to go.

Schizophrenia itself is characerized by two clusters of symptoms: positive and negative.

Positive ones are the ones where you experience something you are not supposed to. Or to put it in a different way, when you have MORE of something than is healthy. These includes delusions and hallucinations.

Negative ones are the ones where you have LESS of something than is healthy. This includes low range of emotion, low or non-existent expression of emotion, executive disfunction, severe lack of motivation, etc.

Schizophrenia is most famous for its positive symptoms aka psychosis, but to be diagnosed with schizophrenia specifically, you must have symptoms from both categories.

They also must be frequent and be present for prolonged periods of time.

Some disorders from schizo spectrum are characterized by negative symptoms only.

Again, do not self-diagnose based on these descriptions. MH disorders and illnesses alter self-perception, you might miss something crucial. Or alternatively, you might severely overdiagnose yourself.

Also, never ever self-prescribe any psychoactive medication ever, especially anti-psychotics! They are very harmful when you do not need them, especially long-term.

Now, to Harrowhark

Her hallucinations are not hallucinations. She is haunted. I do not understand why she herself never thought of this explanation in the world where ghosts and revenants and posession exist, and she is kind of a specialist. Maybe it was because she was the only necro, and non-necros told her it must be hallucinations.

Or maybe being haunted by the girl from the Tomb is just so much more horrifying - maybe her parents were right. Maybe now she carries a weapon of Apocalypse within herself.

Being haunted in this case does look like a metaphor for hallucination.

Delusion is more difficult to explain, but this is basically when your mind is completely preoccupied with some illogical and disconnected ideas, often very simple in its basis. Like, you have two axiomatic thoughts which suddenly start to describe the whole universe - cats are reptiles, the sun is blue. This is basis, and it can lead to an illogical conclusion that, for example, cats are aliens, and the government alters the colour of the sun so that we do not learn that cats are aliens, and it develops and develops and develops.

Your critical thinking is dead; your psyche is overwhelmed, it goes into a recursion of building up the universe on these ideas, failing, building up again, failing, etc. I do not see anything like it in Harrow. But again, this would be very hard to read. If you read transcriptions of consultations/interviews with actively delusional people - it is hard, it is invasive, if you do it too much it starts to do things to your own psyche.

I think, out-universe convention of "let's believe Harrow is delusional" might be better for everyone, and I am willing to accept it based on TMuirs interviews.

Her obsession with the sword in HtN may very well be a loose delusion metaphor.

This is also a thing you cannot self-diagnose! If you think "maybe this is a real delusion", you are not delusional. However, if something close bothers you and meddles with your life, please pay a visit to a specialist.

As for negative symptoms - she is quite emotional, she is able to express these emotions as frequently pointed by Gideon. She is also able to apply face-paint every day - something to admire, really! Also, she wears complex ceremonial clothing frequently. She reads a lot and is able to apply what she reads - application is often difficult for schizo spectrum. The link between thinking and doing is often very weak.

What does she have? She is a very picky eater and does not react well to complex tastes - which is characterisical. She expresses like 1% of what is going on in her head. She has a very vivid, symbolic imagination and lacks either means or motivation to express it. She is averse to touch.

Also, she is paranoid. But I can't tell whether her paranoia is healthy and rational, or not. Because she lives in a dangerous environment. Might as well be a metaphor. Might be both. Most likely both.

But what about the times when she thinks she is someone else?

There is a reference about this in the book.

Well, this is most likely dissociation. This is a completely different thing from psychosis/delusion.

It is mainly a symptom of PTSD, CPTSD, and a whole bunch of dissociative disorders. It also occurs in borderline personality disorder, and maybe in some others.

Dissociation is when your brain cannot hold some overwhelming and traumatic experience, like, at all. So different parts of the experience go to different neural structures, which are then isolated from each other. Thus they can either be accessed separately and safely, or are just completely closed in some dark corner of the brain, mostly inaccessible.

Prolonged traumatic events sometimes lead to creation of isolated personality states. That's why dissociative identity disorder was previously called multiple personality disorder. According to modern classficiations, it is also a spectrum. Cases of complete memory loss when switching between personality states are rare.

So, in psychosis psyche as a whole goes SUPER WROOOM and cannot stop without outside help. In dissociation, psyche is divided into boxes with various experiences inside, and only one can be fully open at a time. It also takes a lot of energy to keep other boxes closed. You do not need meds for this specifically, but often meds are needed to alleviate some of the effects.

I would be very, very surprised if Harrowhark does not have CPTSD.

But! you can have both schizo spectrum and something dissociation-related, esp CPTSD.

Also, from dissociation perspective, the whole book is a metaphor for the process.

Harrow constantly has someone else in her brain, some neural structures she is aware of, or unaware of. She perceives them as foreign and invasive - and they are, in-universe! They are often perceived as foreign and invasive for people with these disorders.

However, if we take this as a metaphor, every character who somehow inhabited Harrow's body is a dissociated part of Harrow: Wake, Nona, Alecto and Gideon are all various aspects of Harrowhark. The book describes both the processes of dissociation and integration of these personality states/aspects.

So, Ortus know Harrow sometimes cannot read? Well, most probably she has a dissociated child part who has not yet learned to read, and this part manifests on rare occasions.

Other symptoms

Dysphoria (extreme dissatisfaction with yourself and your life, or some crucial aspects of it) AND dysmorphophobia (severe issues with body image). I will put these together, because not much can be said.

This can be indicative of basically anything from malnutrition to schizophrenia, or may be a disorder of its own.

Or it may be a symptom that your life really objectively sucks right now.

All of these might apply to Harrowhark.

How else is the book schizo-coded?

The whole imagery of the book, basically.

The imagery of caves going deep down, labyrinths, cursed doors, objects buried within a person, people being buried within objects, people being buried alive.

Drowning. Rivers, lakes and whole oceans inhabited by the hungry dead, bodies and spirits separate.

Being poisoned, being devoured. Being hunted by eldritch horrors.

These are all very typical fantasies, and also dream imagery, of people on the schizo spectrum.

This is so extremely brilliant and so spot-on that I am actually afraid to re-read HtN, because it can bring me to that altered state of mind to the point where it might severely interfere with my life. If you want to understand how it feels, how it it is lived, and to learn it from fiction, HtN is really The Book.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for telling my sister that she doesn't have OCD?

I (17n) share a room with my sister (15f). She's been a "neat freak" her whole life and is absolutely anal about certain things. She used to have a lot more of those fixations and got anxious enough about them that she would burst into tears if they weren't fulfilled, but I'm fairly sure she doesn't anymore. For example, she used to have anxiety around not being on time to get places, but now she always severely underestimates the time it will take her to get ready for something and makes us all late, and doesn't seem to care all that much. What's more, she yells at me frequently for leaving my stuff out around our room because it isn't "tidy", but she leaves her dirty clothes and makeup out all the time and doesn't put them away for days.

Now, here's the thing. For as long as I can remember, she's been blaming these behaviors on "OCD". She has never been diagnosed with it, though she did once try to claim that the counselor she saw when she was younger diagnosed her (this is obviously false as school counselors don't have the authority to diagnose you with anything, at least not in my country). Now, I support informed self-diagnosis, but A) she's been claiming OCD since long before she had access to the Internet or any other resources to research it, so her only exposure to it at that point would have been pop culture, which is notoriously inaccurate, and B) when I asked her why she thought she had OCD, she said it was because she felt an urge to make things neat all the time, which, while I'm sure it could be a manifestation of OCD, is more in line with the stereotype than with common presentations of the disorder, nor does she seem to have any of the characteristic anxiety of the disorder anymore. Even her urges to make things clean seem entirely focused on me and my stuff, and she's completely okay with leaving her own things out wherever and whenever she wants. So while normally I would never fakeclaim anyone, I really don't think she actually has OCD.

I don't know if she is genuinely self-diagnosed with OCD or if she just uses the label as an excuse to be controlling, but either way, I'm sick of it. She did it again yesterday: I had put a folded-up blanket on my beanbag chair in our shared room, and she told me I had to move it because it "didn't look nice" and was triggering her alleged OCD. WIBTA if I told her she doesn't have OCD and can't use it as an excuse to be pushy about where I put my things?

I might be TA because: fakeclaiming is wrong, and it's possible she does happen to have anxiety about the specific things she gets anal about, since mental illness isn't always rational.

I might not be TA because: she has none of the symptoms of actual OCD and doesn't seem to understand what they are, she uses it as an excuse to harass and scream at me

What are these acronyms?