#abusive comportment

[valheyrie-v404]

"PN" : entre réalité psychologique et comportements délibérément nocifs

Le terme “PN”, ou “pervers narcissique”, est aujourd’hui largement utilisé pour décrire des individus aux comportements toxiques. Cependant, ayant moi-même vécu ce genre de situation, je me demande si ce terme est toujours approprié. Est-il vraiment nécessaire d’utiliser une terminologie psychiatrique pour qualifier ces comportements, ou peut-on simplement reconnaître qu’il s’agit de choix…

[moments-on-film]

Moments on Film: The Bear Season 3

Now that I have had a few days to process and fully…..digest S3, I am back with my most visceral thoughts.

I must say, distance did not do anything to ameliorate how I felt about this season. There were some beautiful moments, I really enjoyed episode 1, for example, and I truly appreciated the opportunity to learn more about how Sydney comports herself as a leader, Marcus‘s beautifully inspired and fresh creativity as a chef, Tina’s journey, Natalie’s inner struggles, and more backstory on chef Luca.

What I am having so much trouble with this season, is Carmy. I knew this would happen. I knew S3 would be the belly of the beast, as I predicted 🔗 here , but it was still so hard to take in.

Those of you that have read my work know how much empathy I have felt for Carmy. I have rooted for him. I see how much help he desperately needs and I am always hoping he will find a way to course correct when he gets off track. Carmy ditching Sydney in S2 and lashing out at Richie in the finale felt like a punch to my gut. I was so hoping those two relationships would be nurtured this season but in fact they got worse.

I want to be clear, I have had so much compassion and empathy for Carmy and his emotional problems, due to the cycles of abuse he has had to endure. What I absolutely cannot excuse or reconcile this season is how his behavior and actions are hurting, stifling, and traumatizing those around him.

Another thing I really want to uplift is that yes, this is a show that emphasizes found family. But at the end of the day, this is a business, he is in a leadership position, and everyone who works there is an at-will-employee. In my opinion, Carmy has completely failed as a leader, on all fronts. He has never exhibited leadership skills, with consistency. And as supportive member of the “family”, real or otherwise, he is nowhere to be found. Carmy has actually created a hostile work environment that is legally actionable and litigious with his mood swings, verbal and physical abuse and erratic behavior.

It is a stone cold fact.

I was rooting so hard for Sydney and staff to walk out the door this season. That’s how bad his behavior is. Sydney deserves better, plain and simple. Everyone working at The Bear does. Another point I want to uplift is that while Christopher Storer created the show, it is his sister, Courtney, “Coco” Storer who is the chef on whom he based much of the plot. Courtney has also moved from Culinary Producer in seasons past of The Bear to Co-Executive Producer and even “Story By” credit on this season of the show.

There is something Courtney said a few years ago on a podcast that has stayed in the back of my mind because I always wondered if it would be used as a plot point for Sydney. She shared a story of a restaurant she worked at in Los Angeles. She was promoted to CDC, loved her team and really enjoyed working there. However, it was not all perfect. She was constantly burnt out and at a physical and emotional deficit due to the stress. She suffered panic attacks. She also shared that she was not officially a partner with a stake in the restaurant, and she felt like she needed to have her own back because at the end of the day, no one else did. Although it was a difficult life decision—-she quit.

Forget Michelin stars. If Carmy cannot create and maintain an environment people want to work in, with him, he will end up completely alone. It also may already be too late.

I understand this season is apparently in two parts, I understand that everything happens for a reason. What I can’t understand is how I am meant to root for a character that has contributed to Sydney having panic attacks, has hit Richie, has yelled at Marcus during what must be the worst time in his life and who was about to lose it on Tina if Sydney hadn’t stepped in, saved her, and saved him from himself. Completely unacceptable behavior.

Carmy needs professional help. I have said this many, many times before and I am going to say it again. Carmy. Needs. Professional. Help. He cannot continue to let his triggers and emotions be his master. He is in a leadership position and peoples jobs are depending on him. He cannot offer any more hollow apologies, he has to back them up with consistent action, or I will continue rooting for the staff to leave or for him to step down.

If he doesn’t make the time, energy, and effort to stop the madness, slow down, take a beat, remember all of the gentle and beautiful mentorship he actually did receive through his rise as a chef, lead with his heart, build trust and repair his relationships, especially with Sydney, with Richie, with his sister and her new baby, he will lose it all, because he will have lost the one thing that truly matters, the people he is supposed to care about and the people who care about him.

Does he have it in him to turn this all around? At this point I am not sure. And if he doesn’t, I believe what “grows together”, and they really did, all grow—-will in fact, go together.

©️moments-on-film 2024

[whatbigotspost]

Ya know what I don’t like about the chatter about “nepo babies” in Hollywood?

The fact that everyone doesn’t already assume that most famous people are them.

Because y’all. We should be assuming it’s the default in Hollywood. Because it is.

After 20 years in the extremely indie micro budget filmmaking community in both Indiana and Texas, I can tell ya, all over the country there are extremely talented folks creating, writing, acting, etc. who should be recognized but they’re not. Whose work should get more eyes but it doesn’t. And it’s pretty much exclusively because they don’t know the right people to open the right doors and they don’t have the ability (for a variety of very different reasons) to leave their entire lives and communities behind to move to LA and spending years taking abuse at low wage PA gigs, working 3-4 jobs to make rent, pounding the pavement with endless auditions, withstanding constant rejection, etc. waiting to see if they “make it big.”

Power perpetuates power. Hollywood insiders will always give advantages to their kids in ways big and small. Even if someone’s famous parents don’t ask for favors or overtly hire them, those kids’ social lives and networks are linked with the right people to open the right doors. Plus getting the education a mega celebrity can afford for their kids? The private lessons? The exposure to the industry from day one? Knowing the right way to socially comport yourself in Hollywood spaces from day one?

Advantage on advantage on advantage.

I’m not saying that there aren’t very massively talented nepo babies in their own right. But I am saying that for a nepo baby we can never REALLY know if they would have made it on their own. We simply can’t know if they grew up in a trailer park in Kansas if we’d ever know their names.

I think we should talk about that all the time and never stop letting them know we’re aware of it honestly 😂 I think that given all the advantages and given how gatekept Hollywood is, the literal least nepo babies can do is just own the truth that we can never ever ever know if without daddy they would have ever broken out.

[sadnymi]

"My Dreams Are Just Dreams... Until They're Not" modern Mattheo riddle × reader [chapter 5]

[previous chapter][Next chapter]

Note : this chapter can be read as a standalone

Warnings: SMUT18+, strong language,childhood trauma ,abusing, cheating, angst, death, sexual harassment ( not the main characters)

Please understand that this chapter will delve into darker themes. I urge you to pay close attention to the trigger warnings provided.

words: 3,971

Reading Time : 14mins 26sec

Summery: A week at my best friend's beach house, surrounded by our friends as we meet her soon-to-be fiancé's companions, marks a turning point where the very fabric of my beliefs begins to unravel. It's during this week that I encounter the boy who incessantly appears in my dreams, blurring the distinction between the world of my subconscious and the tangible reality before me. Matthe Riddle emerges as the poison I willingly imbibe, a curse that feels akin to a dream, weaving its tendrils into the very essence of my being.

In the labyrinth of our minds, there exists a chamber where memories are stored,

guarded by a sentinel of the soul. This guardian, born of instinct and necessity, shields us from the piercing arrows of past pain.

It enshrouds our recollections in a veil of forgetfulness, concealing them from our conscious sight.

Yet beyond this protective veil lies a deeper truth—a truth of scars left untended, wounds left unhealed.

Shielding us from the torment of certain memories, like the haunting recollection of my own death .

My name is y/n Celestia daughter of Seraphina Celestia and Leopold Celestia

"My Dark Lord," my stepfather bowed reverently, and I followed suit, mimicking the formal gesture. "Allow me to introduce you to my wife, Seraphina Celestia, and my stepdaughter, Y/N Celestia." I lowered my head in acknowledgment, following the protocol instilled by my mother.

I was only eight when I first saw him, the young boy standing next to the dark lord with so much pride , observing us with an inscrutable gaze.

"Daughter of Leopold Celestia," our lord addressed me, rising from his seat and approaching us. "The heir of the Celestia family."

"I promise to protect her until she comprehends her role, my lord," my stepfather pledged, his voice resolute as he affirmed his duty to safeguard me until I reached maturity.

And that's when I realized my cue to depart had arrived. Mother's words echoed in my mind, admonishing me never to bring shame upon our family. I was to comport myself as befitting a princess, fulfilling the expectations laid upon me. I had made a solemn vow to Mother—to be obedient and dutiful in all things.

As I lingered in the adjacent chamber, awaiting their return, he appeared and settled beside me. "He's not your father?" he inquired gently.

"No, my father died before I was born " I responded matter-of-factly, devoid of the sting of grief or the weight of sorrow. "Mother deemed him a coward, claiming his demise stemmed from weakness and his inability to protect us."

He regarded me with a mixture of confusion and curiosity, giving me more attention than anyone ever did "And she believes your stepfather to be an improvement? That he is stronger and will safeguard You ?"

"I am bound to obey her," I murmured softly, casting a cautious glance over my shoulder to ensure our conversation remained private.

"So, do you like her ?" he probed, his lips curling into a knowing smile.

"Mother insists that in this world, emotions must be set aside," I replied, my tone tinged with resignation.

"She’s so annoying ," he remarked, prompting a rare burst of laughter from my lips. "What's so amusing?"

"I find her annoying , too," I confessed, still scanning our surroundings for any prying ears.

"And what of you? Do you hold affection for your mother?" I ventured, seeking to reciprocate his candor.

"I hardly know anything about her," he admitted

"I'm sorry," I offered sympathetically.

"Don't be," he replied with a shrug. "I doubt I'm missing much."

His response elicited another smile from me, a glimmer of camaraderie shared amidst the confines of our respective familial burdens.

"What about your father?" I inquired.

"We're good,"

"Do you obey him?"

"It's more of an understanding between us," he explained.

"Has he... has he ever hurt you?" I whispered softly, afraid of my own voice reaching the wrong ears and causing trouble.

"Of course not. Does yours?" he asked with genuine concern.

"When I do something wrong," I admitted, looking away. His hands found mine, and as our eyes met, I noticed the red bruise from yesterday. Panic set in, but his reassuring grip eased my anxiety. "He's the one who did this,? " I nodded hesitantly , then he squeezed my hand comfortingly.

"Don't be afraid, Y/N."

Come on, Y/N, we need to hurry if want to see where the hat will place the newcomers," Sarah's voice echoed from outside my dorm. I pulled away from the kiss with Mattheo, trying to compose myself.

"Yeah, just give me a minute," I replied,giving him a warming glance to not make any sound and trying to sound normal as much as I can

"You need to go, Mattheo, right now," I whispered urgently, breaking away from him once more.

He leaned in to give me one final kiss before responding, "Tell her to fuck off." His playful tone didn't match the seriousness in his eyes.

"Don't be so rude," I chided, cupping my face he smiled softly “ I will need to have a word with Lorenzo about how a cock blocker his girlfriend is “ I blushed and smiled shyly at him I was still a virgin we were seventeen but the topic still made me nervous Sarah said she did it with Lorenzo penny did too they said it’s wasn’t even that painful and after the first time it’s only about the pleasure , Mattheo never pushed me, giving me the time I needed.

"Y/N, I swear to God," Sarah's voice grew impatient, and I called back that I was coming. Grappling my scarf, I hurriedly put it on, realizing I had no time for makeup to conceal the red marks left by the boy smirking at my struggle.

But then it happened—I forgot to hide my sleeves. Panic gripped me as I noticed that where his eyes were on, Mattheo touched my hands softly, his expression turning from anger to hurt.

"You said he had stopped," he said, with me trying to hide my hands again Tears welled up at the sight of the pain in his voice.

"Mattheo, please," I whispered, shaking my head. "He didn't mean to, I—"

"I'm going to fucking kill him "

"I want one," I whispered, my head still resting on his chest."Why can't I have one right now?"

"Someday, baby," he replied, his voice soft and reassuring.

"Why not now? Because I'm useless to the Dark Lord? Sarah joined the Death Eaters, Penny is going to..." My voice trailed off, frustration tainting my words.

"You are not useless," he said firmly, sitting up straight and meeting my gaze with seriousness. "Someday, I will let you rule this whole thing."

A smile spread across my face at his words. "You're so sweet."

"Oh, Lord, don't call me sweet in front of anyone, or I will have to kill them," he teased, eliciting a laugh from me.

"You know, I'm starting to get offended by you always wearing red," he remarked after a moments of silence .

"It's just a color, baby," I replied, trying to brush it off . But deep down, I knew it was more than just a color. Some wounds take longer to heal than others, and some keep on bleeding long after. Wearing red was my way of concealing the scars, a reminder of the battles I've fought and the pain I've endured.

cuddling within his embrace, I savored the peaceful moment, surrendering myself to the security of his arms enveloping me.

I tilted my head, resting my chin upon his chest, allowing myself the luxury of studying his striking countenance. Every contour, every scar, every nuance of his face captivated my attention, as I immersed myself fully in the sight of his handsome features

“ matt ? “

“ yes love ? “

“I'd love you until my last breath”

At my mother's funeral, I stand as a solitary figure, ensnared by a profound numbness that eclipses the mournful symphony of raindrops around me. The gray clouds and cascading rain envelop me in an abyss of numbing sorrow, the sting of her disdain piercing through me despite her cruelty.

*I feel utterly alone, adrift in an ocean of pain and loss, burdened by the weight of a secret I dare not share with anyone.*

The truth about my father's death, recalling the last conversation I had with my mother. I shake my head, taking hesitant steps back, hoping no one notices my absence at her funeral.

Then, I run. Far away from the somber voices and vacant stares, seeking solace beneath the shelter of a tree, I close my eyes, trying to catch my breath.

"Y/N," a voice interrupts my solitude, and I startle at the sight of him standing before me.

"What are you doing here? You shouldn't be here," I exclaim, my voice trembling with fear as I scan the area, ensuring no one else is nearby.

"Calm down, it's okay," he reassures me, brushing away my tears with a gentle touch. "I would kill anyone who dares to interrupt and puts that terrified look on your face."

I know he means it, and that's precisely what terrifies me.

"Please, Matt," “ you know how dangerous it is , if anyone saw you with you “

we do know, as the heir of Slytherin he cannot have a weakness no one should know about our relationship people in our world will use it against him taking advantage of the situation , my voice barely above a whisper. With one hand, he pulls me closer, wrapping his arms around me, and I rest my head on his chest, listening to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

"It's okay," he murmurs into my hair, placing soft kisses there.

“ y/n ? “

“ yes matt “

"I know you're hiding something."

"I will talk to my father,I will ask him for permission to kill him."

"He's a loyal soldier to your father; he won't just allow it," I shook my head, standing up and making my way toward him.

"I hate the thought of you with him in the same house."

"He stopped hitting me, I promise," I tried to avoid his gaze. He knew me so well, even without speaking. He could feel my pain as much as I could feel his. Our souls had a language of their own, and he would catch my lies.

"Then I would just do it."

"No, no, stop it, mate, please."

Walking back and forth, his hands tangled in his hair, I approached him, attempting to calm him down. I reached out for his hands, hoping them with mine

"Then marry me," I took a step back, trying to understand his words.

"What?"

"Marry me. We are old enough now. Marry me, and I will tell my father I will do it your way. I will let him plan a wedding. I will—"

"I can't let you do it. They will ruin you. Those people will do anything to take your place. Even if that’s mean using me to get to you, No, God, I don't even trust your father enough. "

"Stop thinking about anyone else for a goddamn minute," he walked away, yelling angrily. "Stop caring about anyone else. I'm tired of holding back; I feel like you're tying my hands."

"So what? Let you go and hit my stepfather to death like last time? And then stand there trying to explain why you did it, blaming it on a misunderstanding. You know what happened last time."

“"No, I don't," he replied, his gaze piercing with anger. I despised the fact that we are fighting

"Please, I don't want to fight," I sighed, closing my eyes. I hoped that whatever was wrong between us would dissipate when I opened them again.

"And I'm tired of you always running instead of facing the situation. This weakness you've convinced yourself of is just an illusion, cause deep down you can’t move on from being

the little girl who was afraid to disobey him," he retorted with frustration.

"That's it, the tears I was holding, I couldn't contain them anymore. I pushed him away from me, crying heavily.

"Baby, I didn't—" he realized his own words, attempting to hold me. I pulled away, screaming, "Don't you dare fucking touch me," trying to reach the door.

Just as I was about to pass his tall frame, Mattheo moved his arm quickly to block my way. He didn't touch me, only reaching for the wall to stop me from leaving . I flinched, and squeezed my eyes shut while raising my arms in front of my face. My body expected a hit as my mind told me that I just made a fool out of myself.

Silence fell around us. Realizing what i just did , I was ashamed, and the hurt in his eyes made me sob heavily.

"Baby," he came closer, and I was shaking.

"I would never... never hurt you. Did you think I was going to?" Pain, a lot of pain, echoed in his voice and eyes, and it was all my fault.

"I'm so, so sorry. I know you would never. Please don't be hurt. I'm so sorry," saying while sobbing

"Stop apologizing, baby, please," he uttered softly, bridging the gap between us. His hand extended tentatively, wary of any residual fear.

"I would never hurt you, love " he reassured me. Our fingers intertwined, a subtle tug pulling me closer, and I wrapped my arms around him, letting the tears wet his t-shirt.

"I know. I'm so sorry," I repeated, taking a step to look into his eyes just for him to cup my face softly.

"I would burn any hand that ever thought about touching a strand of your hair. The thought of you being hurt makes me want to burn them all down. I would never hurt you, baby."

"I didn't know why I reacted like that. I'm so sorry. It's like my body has a reaction of its own," I confessed, and he kissed my forehead while wiping my tears away.

"No, it's all my fault. I shouldn't have yelled like that. I shouldn't have scared you. Fucking hell, I'm so sorry, baby," he apologized, and I nodded, letting him kiss me softly, his lips moving cautiously with mine.

"We both were. I let what happened get to me, and I'm sorry. I think we need a break—" he tried to talk, but I shook my head.

Please, Matt, I hurt you. You hurt me I think we need some time to calm down ," I pleaded.

"You didn't hurt me," he insisted.

"I will see you at the beach house. He agreed to go this year as well. I will come to Sarah's once you arrive. We'll go earlier; he has an early business," I explained.

"Baby—" he began.

"It's okay, Matt ," I stepped back, going to the door, turned around one last time,

"I love you." He said it softly like a prayer with his eyes on mine , and my tears ran once more.

Once Sarah saw me, she got away from Lorenzo. "Are you okay?" I nodded, wiping my tears away. "Can you take me home?"

Being at the beach house this year without my mother was a new experience, the absence of her presence leaving the house darker, more sinister, as if it had taken on her essence. I tried to maintain a deliberate distance between myself and the monster I had to tolerate, struggling to divert my attention to the rhythmic sounds of the ocean and the invigorating breeze. I resisted the urge to reach out to Mattheo, to ask Sarah about him.

"What are you doing?" His voice cut through the air like a knife, and I hated the tremor that ran through my body.

"Just reading," I replied without turning around, feeling his hand on my shoulder in the most unsettling way. He had never touched me like that before, and I felt disgusted.

"Did you spread your legs for him, princess?" His words were like venom, and I recoiled, taking a step back.

"What?" I managed to utter, my heart racing with fear and confusion.

"Don't act so innocent. I know what's going on between you two. I wasn't sure until he almost killed me that night I hit that pretty face of yours. I did that on purpose, you know?" His smirk made my skin crawl, and I instinctively moved towards the door, trying not to alert him.

"You're sick," I shot back, my voice trembling as I attempted to make my way to the door without drawing attention.

"You know that time I brought those women to the house in front of your whore of a mother? I was thinking of you the whole time while fucking them," he taunted, his words like daggers piercing my soul. "Sometimes I think about him fucking you as well, my princess, my innocent girl."

I ran to the door, screaming, when he grabbed my hair so hard that tears sprang to my eyes immediately.

"Look at this skin, so soft, and that fucking body," he murmured, his grip tightening as I struggled against him trying to fight him as much as I could

"He will kill you. He will fucking kill you, and I will let him. I will stand here watching him burn you alive, and I will watch every single second of it." I shouted at him believing every single word of it

"Shut up, you stupid slut," he spat venomously, his words like acid burning through my soul.

"It's about time he arrived with Sarah. I will tell him. I will let him burn you alive, you fucking monster," he continued, pulling me even harder until I felt like he would tear me apart. He threw me onto the sofa, hitting me in the face before gripping it so tightly it felt like my bones would shatter.

"so bad we'll be already dead before that," he taunted, relishing in my fear and confusion. "Oh, how I love that look. It's almost the same as your father's before I put that dagger in his heart, and the same as your mother's before I choked her to death. Your stupid, stupid mother thought I needed power and you needed a father. It didn't take her long to agree, to hand you to me on a golden plate," he sneered, his words dripping with malice.

"He's going to kill you either way," I retorted defiantly, refusing to cry as I met his gaze with anger and frustration.

"Will he, princess ? Then you won't get rid of me because I'll search for you in death too," I threatened, my hand holding my hair clip With lightning speed, I lunged at him, aiming for his neck, and he screamed as it pierced his skin.

Seizing the opportunity, I scrambled to my feet and made a run for it, he caught me by my leg

and I kicked him as hard as I could, trying to break free. He locked the doors with a fucking spell , trapping me inside, and panic surged through me as I realized he must have planned it all along.

I pulled my phone and run straight to my room decided to get out through the window or the roof

Grabbing my phone and running straight to my room locking the door behind me “Alohomora” I said but nothing happened “Alohomora” I screamed it again but the window is still closed he must have put a spell to make sure I can’t use it trying to calm myself down I grabbing my phone, I dialed Mattheo's number, my voice trembling as I spoke.

"Mattheo, you were right," I confessed, my heart pounding with fear. "He should have died."

"I'm on my way," he assured me, his voice filled with urgency.

"I think it's too late—I just wanted to say it back," I whispered, tears stinging my eyes as I struggled to open the window. "I love you. I love you so, so much. From the first time I saw you, you were the most precious thing I ever had. I love you, and I will love you in every life I live. I love you. I don't want to die without saying it one last time."

"You're not going to fucking die baby I’m coming hold on for me okay? " he replied firmly, and i river of tears started to fall

I ended the call, tossing the phone aside, and focused on finding a way out, my heart filled with determination and love

Unlocking the room, I took a deep breath, steeling myself for what lay ahead. With no sign of him, I moved carefully downstairs

“ princess come here , I promise I will forgive you for that small accident “

“ you can’t hide forever princess “

Close your eyes and breathe he can’t hurt you- if you can’t see him that’s mean he won’t be able to see you

“ comon , daddy hates waiting princess, he’s going to punish you when he finds you “ shut up - shut up - shut up

Then I hear it—the sound of his steps, each one drawing him nearer and nearer

“ he’s not coming you mean nothing to him you know? Why would the heir of the most powerful house care about someone insignificant, someone so worthless like you “

“ liar “ I screamed and then it was red all over again all I saw was red

I I brandished my wand and shouted, "Incendio!" The flames engulfed the house swiftly, consuming every inch of it in a fiery embrace.

"Stupid bitch," I muttered under my breath, knowing he couldn't use a spell on me directly. If he wanted my death to appear normal, he couldn't risk casting any spells on me. That's why he had put a spell on the house, making it impossible for me to utter the spell that could have been able to kill him

"Alohomora" he yelled, and all the doors unlocked. I sprinted towards the kitchen door, fleeing the inferno, blood from my nose and lips staining my trembling hands.

Glancing back, I saw no sign of him before finally escaping. However, just as I thought I was in the clear, a heavy pain and the choking sensation of my own blood overcame me. Falling to my knees, I noticed a knife protruding from my back, its blade emerging on the other side.

In agony, I screamed as I pulled the knife even deeper. "Thank you, princess," he uttered, kissing my forehead. "I'll tell them you died bravely, and I promise to take care of your inheritance."

He got up, and the cruel realization hit me that the last thing I might see before death was his sinister face. Collapsing to the ground, I screamed for the last time, my voice giving up. I felt the onset of death, a gradual release of my grip on my soul.

In those final moments, I thought of my friends, the things left unsaid, but most of all, I thought of Mattheo – my sweet Mattheo, the only love I had ever known. I wished to see his face one last time, contemplating all the things we never got the chance to do.

Suddenly, I felt hands on me, perhaps imagined, as he softly wiped away tears and blood from my face.

"I once said I'd love you until my last breath, didn't I?" I mustered a weak smile, extending my shaking hand to hold his on my face.

"You're not going to die," he insisted, and I prayed to see him clearly one more time.

"You're not going to die, love. I won't allow it. Keep those beautiful eyes on me, okay?"

I struggled to keep my eyes open, but darkness descended rapidly, making each breath a challenging task.

“ I’m so sorry “ kissing my forehead , my hands, and I never wanted to be alive as much as I do right now

"I'm going to fix it, love. I'm going to fix everything, I promise."

Clutching onto the sound of his voice, I felt everything fade into darkness.

Tag list :

@hereticdance

[forasecondtherewedwon]

The Ladies Whistledown

Fandom: Bridgerton Pairing: Eloise Bridgerton x Penelope Featherington Rating: T Chapter: 1 / ? Word Count: 1660

Summary: Their fight the night of the Featherington Ball breaks Eloise and Penelope's hearts. Not ready to lose her best friend, Penelope risks what little she has left, placing her new pages—and the future of Lady Whistledown—in Eloise's hands.

Eloise began to cry because she had cut her thumbs tearing the paper. She then continued to cry because all she could think, seeing the flurry of abused Whistledown pages strewn across the floor, was that Penelope—forever resourceful, forever observing beauty where Eloise saw ugliness—would have collected the crumpled paper and turned it into something wonderful. A doll for Augie, a ball for Gregory and Hyacinth to bat back and forth above Anthony’s head, something for Eloise which she could not even have fathomed. Something she could love.

Oh, Pen.

No.

Staring out the window at the brilliant flashes of light bursting above the Featherington residence, Eloise made a valiant effort to harden her heart into a thing which would similarly pop and crackle when touched by any fond emotion. Broken noises which might remind her to take better care. And she would have to now, would she not? Without Penelope to give a subtle nod to signal that Eloise was to curtail an irritable rant about one of her brothers because the brother in question had just entered the room behind her. Without Penelope to twitch the skirt of Eloise’s dress away from a mud puddle while they promenaded and Eloise ranted (admittedly, a favourite pastime) about Lady Whistledown’s strengths and flaws (again). Without Penelope to shop with her, or linger on the edges of ballrooms with her, or love her, really, just love her. A love which was neither an obligation (familial) nor a performance (male, obligatory, heavy with the unsolicited intent to court).

Eloise felt that she had lost much, but that she had destroyed much, and could therefore hardly be deserving of pity for her wounds. Just as she planned to do to the pages of Whistledown when she could stand to turn away from the window and look at them again, she had burned her friendship with Penelope down. It blazed still. Eloise had a feeling that, when she woke, she would find only cold ash in the hearth they had built as children. Now she was a lady, out in society, who had cut the creature who had been her very best friend in the world. (She squeezed the aching pads of her thumbs.) She might trail the silken fingertips of her fine new gloves through the cinders of her own broken heart.

When she saw Benedict come home, back across the street, Eloise thought about leaving her room to speak with him. But what would she say? How would she comport herself—she, this murky combination of victor, victim, and villain? She watched Benedict stop before coming inside, watched him turn back for a moment to enjoy the display. Green erupted and scattered in the sky; blades of grass tossed upward from a giant’s fist. The colour glowed on Benedict’s face, and Eloise noted that he was smiling. Another firework threw out an orange that imitated the setting sun and Benedict turned away mid-burst. His smile had gone. Perhaps he had spoken to Anthony, Eloise reasoned, and might therefore be in no humour to speak with her.

She also realized she had been watching the street in the hopes that someone else might race across it. This person would wear another colour that suggested the sun, but high in the sky, not setting. Yellow. Warm and giving, helpful and constant. The sob fought its way up Eloise’s throat as though she had swallowed a frog, a wet rip that seemed to grasp the air and claw its way through. She thought again of going out onto the landing and calling for her brother, but instead, she called for her lady’s maid.

When she entered the bedchamber, the maid remarked, “Gosh, Miss Eloise!” as her gaze fell upon the bulk of disembowelled gossip sheets. Eloise saw the woman swallow and compose herself. “Shall I have someone clear this away?”

“No,” Eloise sighed. “No, do not bother. I shall burn them myself by and by.”

“Very good, Miss.”

The maid did not appear convinced, but she very professionally dropped the matter and proceeded to assist Eloise with the letting down of her hair, the disrobing of her glittering gown. She brought a basin of hot water, and Eloise held a wet linen to her face, to her neck, her chest, the top of her back as her maid lifted her hair out of the way. She breathed in the warm damp as she cleansed herself of the ball. She had sweat—first, an anxious sweat as she had skirted the Featherington’s ballroom, hoping not to be asked to dance, and second, a panicked, irascible sweat as she and Penelope fought in her bedchamber, exchanging awful, perhaps unforgivable words.

When she was dressed for bed, Eloise dismissed her lady’s maid with a tired nod and a weak smile, lips pressed together and tucked in. The maid had asked whether Miss would like a fire that night—the air outside had taken on an unseasonable chill—but Eloise had decided against it, for some reason or other. Quietly, once alone, she picked the papers off the floor and scattered them into the cold grate. They resembled a drift of cream-coloured snow. Eloise left them and climbed into bed. There was nothing else to do.

She wanted a dream, something pleasant, to take her away from this night, but sleep would not come out to play, and so Eloise tossed between the sheets in overtired irritation. The revelation that Penelope was Lady Whistledown had ruined her evening, and now she would ruin her night? Monstrous!

“I will! Not! Allow it!” Eloise muttered in between pummeling her pillows before dropping down once more in a huff. She laid on her back and crossed her arms.

It was Penelope’s face she could not stop seeing whenever she closed her eyes. Eloise did sometimes think of her friend as she fell asleep, but always with a smile on her face that matched the one on Eloise’s own. As long as they had known one another, that had been Penelope’s natural state: a sweet, smiling girl. Now, Pen’s face came unbidden, and the expression that adorned it did not speak of pleasure or contentment. Instead, it was the very picture of frustrated heartbreak, as Eloise had last seen her. Brow furrowed, eyes tearful and accusatory, mouth open as she shrieked about how sorry she was, and yet, how unapologetic. They had never raised their voices at one another before.

Once more, Eloise could not escape cognizance of her role in the rupture of their cherished friendship. Putting Lady Whistledown’s missteps and cruelties to one side revealed Eloise’s serious betrayal of her own beliefs—for had not she always hated to be underestimated? To be thought useless, insipid, small? Not only in others’ eyes, but in their actions, which too often divulged an appraisal of her in which she was found somehow wanting. Most of the time, this did not truly matter—Eloise paid would-be critics so little mind—but to be thus judged by a friend? A dear friend, one who ought to have been a lifelong companion. The thought was unbearable. This was what she had done to Penelope. It was therefore impossible to think herself blameless.

While Eloise had dreaded every hurtle society set out before her—now curtsy, now smile, now dance a quadrille with sweaty Lord So-and-so who is bound to tread upon your feet—hating to perform with the aim of achieving some ephemeral idea of feminine perfection, Penelope had found someone else to become. Not only palatable, this seemed to have been Penelope’s very source of refuge. Eloise, who had only ever yearned to be herself, exactly as she was, could not comprehend it.

And did this mean that it was wrong?

Certainly, Penelope had done harm. For Eloise to say or even think otherwise would be an injustice to many, including herself. Yet the seed from which the toxic plant had grown and the poisonous flower eventually bloomed… it had not been sown with ill intent. If Eloise commanded herself to step back and consider the matter impartially, she could believe that. She could revive the sympathy she had felt for her friend before, whenever Lady Featherington had Penelope dressed in yet another gown that did not suit her, or concentrated her husband-hunting efforts on prospects for Penelope’s sisters, or told Penelope to stop reading because it would not be useful if she ever did become engaged. Eloise could see the turns at which Penelope’s interests had been neglected where Eloise’s had been nurtured, her ambitions thwarted where Eloise’s had been indulged, her personality treated as a thing which had to conform to the Featherington’s flat façade where Eloise’s always had a place within the larger, occasionally chaotic, Bridgerton living portrait.

Eloise was intimately familiar with the loneliness of her own heart. Penelope’s would not have been less severe.

But the secrets! Even knowing Penelope and Whistledown were one and the same, Eloise felt as though the friendship she had known as well as she knew that the earth went ’round the sun suddenly had three people in it where there had formerly been just two. She could not raise an arm without hitting her elbow against the pernicious gossip peddler. That was how it felt: as though this other woman had snuck in, rudely squeezed herself between Eloise and Penelope, and told Pen what to do, all the time shielding her from Eloise’s view. In this imagining, Whistledown was bossy and opinionated and uncompromising, and it was so very difficult for Eloise to hate the figure she had constructed because she wanted to admire her instead. And Pen. Pen wanted that, as Eloise had seen; she wanted Eloise to admire her endeavors and share in the accomplishment.

But I do not want to share you, Eloise thought bitterly, finally sinking into a sleep weighed down by the many tears she had shed.

[eretzyisrael]

by Chaim Lax

Concurrent with the attempt to delegitimize the case that there was a rash of sexual abuse and rape is an attempt to absolve Hamas of any wrongdoing.

For these observers, even if sexual abuse did take place during the massacre, it was certainly not perpetrated by Hamas, the noble Palestinian resistance movement dedicated to fighting the evil Jewish state.

Both freelance British journalist and anti-Israel activist Jonathan Cook and The Intercept seem to largely absolve Hamas of any guilt in this regard and re-focus it on the deluge of Palestinian civilians that followed the initial wave of Hamas terrorists into southern Israel.

The Grayzone and Mondoweiss even go one step further, using the opportunity to not only call into question the use of sexual abuse by Hamas terrorists, but also to seemingly glorify those who took part in the October 7 invasion.

In its questioning of The New York Times, The Grayzone ponders whether it’s “plausible that a group of hardened Hamas commandos suddenly paused their surprise attack, which was focused on taking as many captives as quickly as possible, stood in a circle and gang raped a woman, one after another, while Israeli forces mobilized to attack them?”

For The Grayzone, it appears to be inconceivable that these “hardened Hamas commandos,” who also engaged in the butchering of 1,200 people and the war crime of kidnapping roughly 250 others, would engage in the demeaning tactic of sexual abuse. While sex crimes are not uncommon in wartime, The Grayzone judges it to be absurd that Hamas terrorists would stoop to such a level.

For its part, Mondoweiss claims that not only did Hamas members not engage in sexual abuse, but the Islamist terrorist organization is known to treat women properly, based on the calm comportment of those hostages who were freed in November 2023 as they were released to the care of the Red Cross.

While there have been published videos of captured Hamas terrorists admitting to sexual abuse and rape, and there has been testimony that the released hostages were sedated prior to their release (along with the fact that many still have relatives in Hamas captivity), Mondoweiss disregards these pieces of evidence as “absurd” and discounts their validity.

For a publication that seems intent on attaining the facts regarding October 7, it seems that it only cares for the facts that are convenient to its narrative and disregards the rest.

It should be noted that these Western media outlets are echoing the same sentiments expressed by Hamas itself, alleging that Hamas members can’t have engaged in these acts as they are against “Islamic values and culture.” At the same time, Hamas also regarded the October 7 massacre as “glorious.”

For those who seek to invalidate the claim that sexual abuse occurred on October 7 and “debunk” The New York Times’ in-depth profile, the allegations of abuse and rape are part of a campaign by the Israeli government to validate its military actions in Gaza.

[hughgrants]

Borderline Personality Traits in Lee Quinzel

As a follow up to my post discussing narcissistic traits in Arthur, I wanted to expand on my theory that Lee represents an archetype of Borderline Personality Disorder. I will be relying less on the DSM here and more on my personal experience of the illness.

Lee definitely has many of the narcissistic traits I outlined in the post about Arthur, such as grandiosity, willingness/tendency to be interpersonally exploitive, belief in being special or wanting to associate with special or ‘high-status’ people, arrogance, etc. She also shows the antisocial personality traits of law breaking, deceitfulness, impulsivity, disregard for safety of others, irresponsibility and lack of remorse. The ASPD traits apply to her pretty much entirely across the board. But what most interested me about her were her borderline personality traits, outlined below.

Going just by the DMS traits for borderline personality disorder, we see the following:

Unstable relationships: She very quickly falls into a romantic and sexual relationship with Arthur, based on her idealization of his Joker entity. However, she quickly discards that relationship by the end of the movie, showing little genuine lasting connection. She also is either implied or stated to have engaged sexually with a guard in order to get in to see Arthur in solitary confinement, and while that was a means to an end for her, it does indicate the kind of promiscuity frequently associated with BPD functioning. The intensity of the attachment to Arthur is fairly typical of a BPD attachment to a ‘favorite person’ around whom all your thoughts and behaviors revolve.

Unstable self-image: She literally starts dressing like Joker, creating the Harley persona to mirror him. This indicates a vast degree of identity and self-image fluidity. The BPD patient will idealize another person and then begin to copy their traits, but with little actual intentionality. They simply fall into patterns of speaking, dressing, and behaving like that love object, i.e. you may expect the BPD patient to suddenly like the same music or adopt mannerisms similar to the love object. Object is the right word because the person they idealize doesn’t have real interiority to the BPD patient – they are a character in MY play, or a mirror to my true self. She even invents an entire backstory that mirrors Arthurs to prove to him that they are the same in some undeniable way. “Did you lie to me”? he confronts her. “Sure, everybody lies a little. I just wanted you to like me.” Her identity was so fluid as to accommodate a totally fictitious upbringing defined by poverty and abuse, with the manipulative aim of making him see her as his idealized love through these cosmic similarities.

Impulsive or self-damaging behaviors: She sets fire to the ward during the movie screening she attends with Arthur, which jeopardizes her life and freedom if she’s convicted of arson. In real life, engaging sexually with a guard would likely cause some erosion of her self-esteem even if it were in service of seeing her love object.

Varied or random mood swings: The “I’ve got the world on a string” scene where she sings in front of the mirror reads as a mixed mood episode to me. She is singing very cheerful lyrics in a minor musical key (usually associated with melancholy or darker emotions/musical themes) and manipulating her face in a grotesque fashion. This could be the grandiosity of mania mixed with depressive elements and dissociation – and the music accompaniment helpfully includes sliding musical scales to underscore that it is a mood swing.

Problems with anger: We didn’t see as much of this because they showed her having more of the coolness/lack of emotional affect associated with ASPD, but she was very angry with Arthur’s lawyer for not mounting a defense that comported with her grandiose view of him, and she was angry with the press for seemingly misunderstanding who he is based on her idealized view of him.

Loss of contact with reality: If she really thought Arthur’s defense would have been more effective if it focused on his Joker identity rather than his real mental illness, that is certainly a loss of contact with reality. Dancing and singing to herself on the court plaza, if we assume this did actually happen in reality and not in her head, was definitely a loss of contact with reality. And she acknowledges in the final scene with Arthur on the stairs that “all [they] had was the dream” and that they “were never going to go away.” She acknowledges the relationship was steeped in delusion and not in reality.

Lee’s larger arc is a classic idealization and devaluation BPD cycle. The BPD patient idealizes their love object, then when that person fails to live up to the fantasy they built up in their head, they quickly swing to disgust or even hatred for that person.

Key idealization moments include:

“You can do anything. You’re Joker.”

When she sang “Close to You”:

On the day that you were born the angels got together And decided to create a dream come true So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold And starlight in your eyes of blue.

And when she and Arthur ‘escape’ the ward to run around the Arkham grounds:

I'd like those stumble bums To see for a fact The kind of top drawer First rate chums I attract

“I’m nobody. I haven’t done anything with my life like you have.” – she devalues herself to idealize Arthur – common during the initial phase of enmeshment with a favorite person.

“You should see it out there, they’re all going crazy for you.” – Lee thinks the anarchist crowd is ‘going crazy’ in their love of Arthur [like she is], when it’s clear by the end of the movie that neither the crowd nor Lee's 'love' was really about Arthur personally.

“Everything’s gonna work out. You’re Joker.” – her idealization of him carries over into her expectations for his trial outcome.

All of these lines to ‘gas Arthur up’ are really about her initial idealization of him as Joker (Arthur and Joker being one and the same to her).

Final thoughts:

The show “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” on CW was a musical series revolving around a woman with diagnosed BPD. Like Lee, she was impulsive, romantically obsessed with an idealized object, interpersonally exploitive, and law breaking. The lyrics of that show’s second season intro juxtapose nicely with the lyrics of “Folie à Deux”:

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend:

I'm just a girl in love I can't be held responsible for my actions   They say love makes you crazy Therefore you can't call her crazy

'Cause when you call her crazy You're just calling her in love!

Folie à Deux:

In our minds, we'd be just fine If it were only us two They might say that we're crazy But I'm just in love with you

[…]

Insane in love with you

[greensaplinggrace]

it is just calling out misogyny. calling baghra abusive and not darkling because you want to fuck him.

i imagine this is about this post, in which case i want to be very clear here about a great many things. first of all, you are factually incorrect, and misconstruing the situation. it is not just calling out misogyny, because there would have to be misogyny occurring in the first place. which there was not.

second of all, i want to go over what exactly you did that fundamentally undermined your argument. what you were doing in that post is called a red herring. it is the act - in a debate or intellectual discussion - of diverting focus away from the original topic with an irrelevant one. what you are bringing to the table is a bias; it is the misconception that one must always be discussing what you believe is the more serious topic when addressing other issues - and it is the equivalent of, say, bringing up men's rights on posts about feminism.

to argue that there is a double standard occurring, one would have to have sufficient evidence that the template used to judge one side is being completely discarded or changed when judging the other. in that case, the biggest argument to be made in this fandom about double standards is the double standard of watering down the female loyalists while holding the male revolutionary accountable to an entirely radical degree.

but that's beside the point. because the post referenced didn't come close to showing any type of double standard in any direction.

now, i want to be very clear here: a woman being brought up or critiqued in any space does not equate an automatic attempt at misogyny. that one cannot discuss a woman's complete actions without also - by social consensus - bringing up a man to divert attention away from her, is more damaging in that regard than the initial discussion about the woman to begin with.

as such, what you are also bringing to the table is another bias - an assumption. that anyone critiquing a woman when there is a man right beside her is automatically ignoring his crimes. and not only that, but they are ignoring his crimes due to sexual intent.

this assumption often arises if one believes their own worldview is superior to anyone else's. and if one ignores how the delineation of focus and critique in fandom spaces operates. furthermore, this is rooted in the belief that moral pandering must be done at all times to remain acceptable in social (fandom, in this case) spaces. which i have already mentioned before as being incredibly harmful and engaging in a black and white worldview that simply does not comport with reality. people do not operate in boxes, and they do not need to give all of their focus all of the time to the things you have issues with. if they are so pressing to you, you should discuss them yourself.

in fact, this brings me to a recent post i made about cross-tagging, which seems strangely relevant to the way you and many others operate within fandom - and believe others should operate as well. and that is this: there is an obscene amount of inflammatory hate posts cross-tagged with irrelevant topics. they're always tagged with the groups or fandom spaces assumed to be similarly minded just because the media or character they engage with are more acceptable and "pure".

i've seen anti darkling posts tagged with genyalina. completely unrelated in any capacity to the subject of the main post. i've seen even more hate posts tagged with six of crows, when their only subject matter was shadow and bone. do you know why this is? it's because these people (when they are not simply trying to attract attention) believe wholeheartedly that their views on morality are homogenous with the whole, and that if one hates this amoral character in the ways they do, they must also like the morally acceptable things as well, and condemn others similarly. it is an automatic slide into 'us vs them' based on a shared impression of ethical ideology.

this is how people with little real capacity to decipher nuance end up getting their wires crossed about the complexity of literary discussion and personal interest in fandom. and how this somehow correlates to one's inherent goodness.

which is the long way of saying that a person does not have to raise every other issue when discussing one subject. they do not have to always mention the darkling when they talk about baghra - and they do not have to (as i am well acquainted with this fandom's obsession with female purity and gender essentialism) automatically support every female character spat out of those books just to make the people incapable of media comprehension and basic critical analysis feel better. they are not beholden to you, or your egocentric worldview of a homogenous social sphere. you are not the authority on operating in fandom spaces, and you are not - believe it or not - the authority on acceptable behavior in fandom spaces.

[ophelian-darling]

OMG YOU WRITE FOR MONSTER NOW!? The first post i read from you was about what type of darling giorno likes and oh my lord was it amazing. The way you wrote it and the sophistication of that post matched giorno so well and the dialogue "Please stay my innocent amore forever" was just 💕❤️ (i will absolutely steal that lmao)

anyways can i ask for general headcannons for yandere johan liebert? Anything you want to write about him is perfectly fine!

Link of Giorno's post

TW: Obsession, emotional abuse, Murder threat.

enjoy ♡

The paradox of an existence is what paints Johan in a perfect light : the calm, comely curve of his lips masks all of the convulsing twistification under his pale skin. Similarly to an ocean, His comportment appears lovely to the eye, even a bit of depth under his eyes unfolds a picturesque image of a midnight chasm and a visible wisdom. However, the beauty and curiosity of exploring more discolors into a monstrosity and terror with each dive; showing an endless abyss of Nietzschean horrors. The lovely smile of his becomes a twist of depravity and never been a man so sane yet so insane all at once.

Shadows danced within his head, casting a distorted light with every move they made. It would sound unbelievable; but he really filled his imagination with paintings of you: sometimes shapeless, at other times blurry, But there was one detail that remained. 

Your lips; the wonder of them. Johan never had the capacity to think of someone in a particular manner -Other than connecting directly to his demise- yet he thought of your features more than he should. Every little detail was mesmerizing in his eyes; the blood drops in your lips, the contour of them and how they form to your emotions so lively. Unlike him, you were able to taste glimmering joys and dim sorrows, savor life as it is, not drowning in some of an anarchic pit of despair and conflict; and that made him crave some of the warmth you had.

Johan is completely calm around you, His posture plays perfectly and complies to his acting, acting that role of a good man around others and a good friend of yours (although these words of friendship or romance meant nothing to him, 'friend' wasn't correct, more like a sculptor and his muse) and coffining the monster away from others- you specifically. He doesn't want his Obsession and maladive affinity to surface and scare you away- at least not yet, not in a time when you could run away from him easily. 

Dreaming of being embraced and melted into you, or even having each other belong together and as one -like a Shadow and an Anima-  dwelled in him so many nights. Maybe he can regain his sentiment again? experience normality or maybe… take your own name? It didn't matter how, what was important that you were his salvation from the cruelty of everything. 

He has a way with words: not like a formal sparker or a reckless lover, but of a poet. Johan flows his speech as sweetly as honey and as softly as a rose petal, tugging at anyone's heartstrings with a warm feeling. When in flirtation, his words come out Cloudy; a thin string between Coquetry and Courtesy. However, When you receive that small billet-doux on your door, your heart is immediately pierced. 

You've never seen someone in a romantic light (minus some short-lived fixations) and you were almost sure that no one was willing to make a move on you -at least that's what you concluded from all of your acquaintances friendly behavior- and here you were, re-reading the small note over and over again, absorbing the beautifully written words and inhaling its fragrant Aroma of flowers. you held the paper like a bundle of nerves, very gingerly and benignly. There was a tickling skip of your heartbeat; a sudden flow of feelings rushing out as the echo of the words calmed, never been so fluttered before.

"Beloved, Of Thy Smile I adore,

  As Pure as a Seraph, As Beautiful as a long Dream

   Of what darling Bud you've flourished?  Of what Angel you've been carved? 

A Memory filled with hues of a divine Beauty, a heart with a wound so sore

 Draws Thee in the pale moon, Kisses Thee under the warm Gleam

Thorns Hurt yet don't pain,

Take them As the sweetest antidote 

All Oblations for Thou never in Vain

For All joy and love on you I dote."

-Your Wounded Cupid, Johan.

You Are blessed. Never in a blue moon you've thought about your Capacity to lure someone else, let alone Johan Liebert himself. You'd burn the last candles of thought and wonder, only to end up with no answer: Why me of all the loveliest, savviest or highest people that he chose me? The questions would die down soon to be replaced with another blissful feeling, feeling that was alive and meant to die…

'Emotions' are just a set of false faces. He can wear and crawl under any role of a normal human effortlessly. Johan loves your smile as much as he counts your tears; creating a path to your heart by offering you the mimicry of warm affection and a color of what Love appears as. You smile back- and that's a hope for a monster like him.

What is the meaning of a family? or a loved one? He asks you silently. He can't overlook that look of joy on your face whenever you spoke to a close person of yours, and it tugs something at his soul. Was Heaven the other people? He wants to ask as well; and wanting to hold your hand and go into the unknown, solaced that you'll be with him. The more he fixes his sight on your life, the more he comes to the realization that he can be your salvation as much as you're his. there is no need for others when you have him.

The peaceful world inside your mind crumbles apart, or better to say: reforms. Johan wouldn't say that everyone around you was evil out loud, he has just to expose the wickedness of others around you, how much they used you to their benefit, or twist their words and create the worst scenarios in your head… He didn't corrupt you for his enjoyment, he was just keeping the Lily of a human in Heaven. 

The Sweet fall of an Angel. He's now delighted, even more delighted. The sheer happiness you used to show faded into the clouds of despair; a crack through the rose-colored glasses broke its way through and through. Gorgeously Weak and beauteously Shattered, you're now left easy to be munched, chomped, gobbled and gulped; as to become one with him.

What affection meant to him: the absolute control and submission between two; dominion of the flesh and spirit in order to achieve the perfect union, and so he did. He's always been obsecure as Chaos, If never in a cruel way.

He was everything alluring and gruesome; a chiaroscuro painting of an Angel and a Devil, cruel to be kind, and kind to be cruel. Everytime you thought you catched a thread to pull in his persona, more tangles would unwrap. In other words, he wasn't one to be understood. 

Johan Contradicts his honeyed words in cruel actions: He can simply Call you the prettiest thing as he aims a bullet at you, taking delight at the sight of your cascading tears or the sound  of your incisioning sobs, at other times, He plants warm kisses on your hands and face, lacing his lips with venomous letters and twisting sayings, wanting to see the broken look on your face yet again, or maybe a pearl of a tear from your eye. He doesn't -would never- hate you, it's just that you were pretty when you cried. 

You've lost all of your weapons and winning Cards from the beginning. There wasn't luck or skill enough to defeat him, and you ought to be the most knowledgeable of the reality through his eyes: there was no one in the world except of you two, no heaven or hell except when you're together, and no force that shall banish you from him.

"Suffer with me"

"I know not of a meaning except of your love" 

"We belong together" 

"Ich bin du, und du bist ich"

[autizta]

Pros fugitivos BR do Twitter vindo ver meu blog, alguns avisos:

Eu moro com, namoro, e convivo com pessoas que não são brancas e reblogo coisas delas, gente branca se comporte com essas pessoas ou morra

Eu moro com, namoro e convivo com pessoas que entendem de programação e inteligência artificial, não tente fingir que você sabe mais sobre o assunto se você nem tem experiência com isso, IA é uma ferramenta totalmente neutra e pode ser usada pra fazer coisas legais (tornar arte acessível, traduzir texto, ajudar com pesquisas, automatizar processos repetitivos e chatos) e coisas ruins (fazer música racista e orientalista eu juro por Deus que se vocês trouxerem essa merda pro tumblr eu vou caçar vocês, facilitar pra gente rica não ter que ligar pra direitos humanos)

Eu tenho TID e não é uma coisa espiritual e eu conheço pessoas que não ficam confortáveis de compararem suas experiências espirituais com TID, não insista nisso aqui, é desconfortável pra gente (eu, o sistema e as pessoas que eu amo)

Meu URL não é uma piada, eu sou autista, eu não sou gentil com noções capacitistas do que eu sou

Eu sou uma pessoa adulta, eu evito colocar porno aqui mas eu falo sobre sexualidade, sobre drogas, e outras coisas da vida adulta tipo comprar um filtro de água novo ou o preço das frutas

Se eu te bloqueei é improvável que eu vá te desbloquear, eu gosto de só deixar os melhores no meu feed, se eu não te bloqueei é porque ou eu confio minimamente em você, o máximo que eu posso confiar em um estranho online, não abuse disso. Também existe chance de eu te detestar ao ponto de eu querer ficar te zoando online então eu não bloqueio você pra ter fácil acesso ao seu blog e poder tirar umas boas risadas as suas custas sem você saber, boa sorte descobrindo qual dos dois é

[hideuse]

L’addiction, c’est quand tu vois ton comportement changer juste à entendre son nom, tes boyaux se tordent, ton cœur s’accélère. Tu sais qu’elle n’arrive pas tout de suite, et l’attente te parait des heures, la gorge sèche, les mains qui tremblent. Tu abuses de sa présence, tu ne sais plus lui dire non…

Cocaïne.

[ephemerasnape]

Shots fired. 👀

Shipping discourse has come to Hogwarts Legacy fandom.

Definitions:

Proship: One who supports a ship or shipping deemed problematic (e.g., due to incest, age differences, abusive dynamics, etc.), and/or believes in the freedom to create and consume fanworks with such elements.

Antiship: One who objects to ships or shipping deemed offensive, e.g. due to incest, age differences, abusive elements, or power gaps.

So, let's have it out, fandom. I understand I probably won't "win" this one because I come from an older generation of fandom freaks who just avoided things that "squicked" them out rather than trying to eviscerate people who enjoyed them.

But let the pieces fall where they may.

[eenkleinleven]

Sth ive always wondered about a little life is how Jude was so extremely traumatised but still had good enough social skills to make so many lasting friendships. Like I know not all traumatized people are the same and it is possible for someone to be as severely traumatized as Jude was and still have some social skills, but I think it must be unusual, right? Like I'm just wondering where he learned social cues and how to interact with people his own age and how to behave in relationships and all that. And how he managed to be so different from the people around him - not revealing anything about his past, wearing long-sleeved shirts to the beach - and still got people to accept him easily and not question all these things a lot. It's something I've always wondered. What are your thoughts on this?

It's not something I ever thought about specifically, no. Or, rather, it wasn't something that struck me as particularly unusual or noteworthy. I'll do my best to articulate why.

Hanya discussed, in one interview, why she chose the narrative structure that she did for the book. She initially considered having the book in three parts, with the first two describing two alternative life paths for Jude—one where he was able to overcome his past, for the lack of a better word, and one where he wasn’t—and the third part describing what had happened to him. But she explained why she ultimately disposed of that format, saying:

“I think it establishes this binary that someone who cant function in society is somehow a failure and someone who can is a success, and that's simply not true. I think that's too reductive of a way of thinking about a person.”

I feel like that quote is important to keep in mind when talking about Jude as a character.

Regarding social skills:

I feel that it's worth noting that Jude wasn't unsocialized. I don't think his socialization through age 16 was normal by any means. There is no easy way to say this: people can be sexually abused as children and still be socially and professionally normal as adults. I personally know people who fall into that category, which is partly why it didn’t strike me as strange.

Going into greater detail, however, as to how he was able to learn social skills, there’s a few things that come to mind.

Ana seems to have given him a huge amount of support without which he may not have been able to really interact with others.

Plenty of passages in the book describe him having to learn how to interact with his peers, too.

My impression was that Jude made a concerted effort to learn about how to comport himself, an effort made easier by the fact that he kept quiet when it came to his personal life.

Regarding how he was able to maintain friendships while divulging so little about himself:

People did ask Jude about himself. Fairly often, actually, particularly in the earlier portions of the book. I mean, substantial portions of The Postman—including but not limited to this section touch on the matter outright.

But, really, I think it’s that his friends accepted him for who he was. So, for all of his differences, that was who they knew him to be, and they liked him.

I think, too, that after a certain point, his friends understood that Jude had some good reason for not sharing more about himself. It didn’t impact his ability to be a good friend otherwise, so it seems reasonable to me that they chose not to pry. If they had an issue with him being private, or different in any particular way, they could have simply remained acquaintances.

I hope this makes sense--I had some difficulty in organizing my thoughts here, so if you'd like me to clarify about anything, please feel free to ask.

[noreligionisgood]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/opinion/hulk-hogan-vance-harris.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The Democratic Party must join the battle for the hearts and minds of young men. It matters not just for this election, though the vast and growing gender gap means that disaffected men could hand Donald Trump the presidency. It matters for how we mentor young men, and it matters for how we view masculinity itself.

And yes, the Democrats can do it. Within the Kamala Harris coalition, there are men who can show a better way.

If you ever wondered whether the Republican Party sees itself as the party of men, I’d invite you to rewatch the last night of the Republican National Convention. Prime time featured a rousing speech by the wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, a song by Kid Rock and a speech by Dana White, the chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship — all as warm-up acts before Trump delivered his acceptance speech. Republican manliness was the capstone of the convention.

But what kind of men were featured? They’re all rich and powerful, and as a longtime fan of professional wrestling, I loved watching Hogan as a kid, but none of them are the kind of man I’d want my son to be. White was caught on video slapping his wife. Kid Rock has his own checkered past, including a sex tape and an assault charge related to a fight in a Nashville strip club. Hogan faced his own sex scandal after he had a bizarre sexual relationship with a woman who was married to one of his close friends, a radio host who goes by “Bubba the Love Sponge.”

We know all about Trump, but it’s worth remembering some of his worst moments — including a jury finding that he was liable for sexual abuse, his defamation of his sex-abuse victim, the “Access Hollywood” tape and the countless examples of his cruelly insulting the women he so plainly hates.

JD Vance is different. No one should denigrate his personal story. He has overcome great adversity, served his country honorably as a Marine and, by all accounts, is a good husband and father. But he now wears Trumpist masculinity like an ill-fitting suit. Last week, he was justifiably attacked for a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson in which he declared that the country is run, “via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies.” He identified Harris (who has two stepchildren) as just the kind of person he was talking about.

For a brief period last week, I thought Harris might answer the Trumpists with a man who puts to shame every person who took the stage that Thursday night. She was reportedly considering Adm. William McRaven — a Navy SEAL, a former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command and one of the key architects of Operation Neptune Spear, the mission to kill Osama bin Laden — as a potential running mate.

He quickly pulled himself out of consideration, saying that “there are far better candidates” for the position. Politically, he’s probably right. Realpolitik requires picking a politician who can help carry key swing states, but McRaven still matters. His ideas matter. His comportment and bearing matter. What he says matters. And Democrats should embrace McRaven’s conception of how to live as a direct contradiction of Trumpist masculinity.

It’s not just McRaven, of course. There are other good and brave men who’ve rejected MAGA. Whether I’m speaking of Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, a former fighter pilot and astronaut, or Mark Hertling, my former division commander in Iraq, who is a Biden appointee to the American Battle Monuments Commission and a leading proponent of Ukraine’s cause, or James Mattis, a former secretary of defense who did his best to serve Trump honorably but could not abide Trump’s disloyalty to our allies.

But I highlight McRaven for a reason; he has perfectly articulated how to attack MAGA masculinity. Ten years ago, he gave one of the most powerful commencement speeches in recent American history. He addressed the graduates of the University of Texas, Austin, and three YouTube versions have racked up more than 70 million views combined.

It’s known — oddly enough — as the “Make Your Bed” speech. While it wasn’t aimed only at men, every person who forwarded it to me was a man. It appealed to universal values, but it connected with men I know at a deep and profound level.

McRaven draws on his SEAL training to teach students how to change the world. It begins with the small things, like accomplishing that tiny first task of making your bed, because “if you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right.”

Each new principle is rooted in his experience, including “If you want to change the world, measure a person by the size of their heart, not by the size of their flippers.” Here’s one that’s particularly salient in the face of Trumpist bullying: “If you want to change the world, don’t back down from the sharks.”

The address builds to a conclusion that is alien to Trumpist masculinity: “Start each day with a task completed. Find someone to help you through life. Respect everyone. Know that life is not fair and that you will fail often. But if you take some risks, step up when the times are the toughest, face down the bullies, lift up the downtrodden and never ever give up — if you do these things, the next generation and the generations that follow will live in a world far better than the one we have today.”

You can see the contrast. Trumpist masculinity is rooted in grievance and anger. McRaven’s message centers on honor and courage.

There’s a seductive quality to Trump’s masculinity. Grievance is a form of counterfeit purpose, and anger is a form of counterfeit courage. For a time, your grievance can give you a mission — fighting the hated foe. And when you’re in the midst of an online temper tantrum, taking on all comers in your social media feed, you can feel a little bit brave, even if all you’re doing is tapping out vitriolic posts from the safety and comfort of your couch.

When you center masculinity on grievance and anger rather than honor and courage, you attract men like Hogan and Kid Rock and White. Worse, that is how you mold the men in your movement, including men like Vance.

Many conservatives rightly decry the way in which parts of the far left tend to use the words “straight white male” as a virtual epithet, as if there were something inherently suspect in the identities of tens of millions of men and boys. And if men feel that Democrats are hostile to them, they’ll go where they feel wanted, the gender gap will become a gender canyon, and more men will embrace Trumpism because that’s just what men do.

But that’s the masculine equivalent of a sugar high. For solid food, look not to Hulk Hogan. Look to William McRaven. It’s often said, and I generally agree, that politics is downstream of culture, but we also cannot ignore the cultural power of our politicians. We aren’t simply electing women and men; we’re electing role models, and Trump has unquestionably been a role model for countless men. He has molded not just the policies but also the ethos of the Republican Party. But America’s men need different role models and a different ethos.

I’m not the only person who sees this need. At The Atlantic, my friend Tom Nichols (who’s also written about the dangers of Trumpist masculinity) argues that men like Kelly, Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina also offer better models for men than Trump, and Nichols is right.

But let’s return for the moment to the Navy SEAL who served his country for decades, who helped kill one of America’s deadliest foes and who declared to American college graduates, “You must have compassion. You must ache for the poor and disenfranchised. You must fear for the vulnerable. You must weep for the ill and infirm. You must pray for those who are without hope. You must be kind to the less fortunate.”

When I heard those words, I thought: That’s the message American men need to hear. That’s a message the American people need to hear.

This might sound strange, but I wonder if Democrats should answer the Republican men’s night with a men’s night of their own — a night that features heroes instead of bullies and showmen, a night that answers the Republican appeal to men’s basest instincts with an appeal to their highest ideals.

When Vance says, “Our people hate the right people,” that’s the language of grievance and anger. But there’s a better way for men — for all of us. It’s rooted in honor, courage and love. Or as McRaven put it, “For what hero gives so much of themselves without caring for those they are trying to save?”

[petratzimi]

therapy #2

who: @photoaria where: Petra's Home Office

While Petra keeps her hours largely in the evening, she does allow for daytime sessions for people who seem to have little alternative. It is for this reason that, as long as she's been in the work of serving others, regardless of capacity, she is sure to hold office in her own home - in some ways it presents a danger; Vampires have old enemies not above abusing trust. But for other reasons it aids in comporting oneself in the image of a living, breathing mortal while also allowing for privacy and personal style. Tonight requires no such masquerade, and it is a comfort to have the curtains drawn open and the shutters thrown wide, allowing for the evening to pour into the lowlit office and offer a small view of her slightly posh neighborhood. This and Aria's nature has a nascent smile on the curve of her lip; she will not broach the subject of this young woman's true nature unless there is appropriate opportunity and occasion. Still; she is happy to offer; would that she had somebody like herself all those long centuries past. She opens the door for the girl, motions to one of three seats, a matching set of ancient oak and fine green leather, two chairs, side by side, and a long couch their opposite. "Please, Aria, make yourself comfortable - can I get you anything to eat or drink?" A cursory question to which she often can guess the answer based on just a few moments of small talk spanning from her home's foyer to this office.

[staring-at-my-keyboard]

Haven pt 1

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The beginning of the main arc of @torturingpeople and I's Salad Spinner AU, when their tender pathologist officially starts living with my Atlas and Thomas! Although... a lot happens that leads up to his leaving the hotel.

This ties into the rivalry Dr. Hanna has with the Manager, so while I do recommend reading "Rivalry" all you really need to know is that he despises him and the Royal Beth for very petty reasons.

OC intros

POV: Tender Pathologist

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Hurt

Angst

TWs

⇾ physical abuse

⇾ psychological abuse

⇾ temporary character death

⇾ violence

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I still recall when I was swept away from the Hotel for good like it was yesterday. It is possible that I experienced almost the entire spectrum of human emotion, terror and regret and grief and relief and a daring happiness swirling together in this neon cocktail of glaring memory. And it all began when I was especially unwise in my comportment, with a slip of the tongue when feeling dangerously at ease.

“You know,” I chucked to Dr. Hanna after finishing the latest assignment he had given to me. “You work me so hard I might have to go to the Royal Bethlehem if I want to actually relax in a hotel.”

It was only a joke, you must understand. It was meant to be nothing more than a joke, as I had no intention of entering a hotel entirely populated by the mad.

Dr. Hanna, however, did not see it that way.

Before I could blink, or so much as take in a breath to announce my lack of seriousness, there was a hand at the side of my head driving it into the wall.

Pain exploded in my skull, but not enough force was used to knock me unconscious– a purposeful thing, as Dr. Hanna then leaned close enough for the breath of his low, threatening speech brushed against my cheek.

“If you do anything of the sort, doctor, as much as I am fond of you, I will send people to find you. and they will find you. They will find out exactly where you are, they will beat you nearly dead, and then they will drag you by your ankles back to me so I can have the personal pleasure of vivisecting you for disobeying me so severely. Is that cle-”

The fingers digging into my hair were quite suddenly removed, and a familiar voice began shouting.

“Just what the bloody hell are you doing to him?!”

I managed to catch myself on the wall just before slumping to the ground from the lack of support, and turned to find Thomas stood between Dr. Hanna and I, gripping his wrist harshly and all but yelling in his face.

My eyes widened; I had never seen Thomas in such spirits, and as I recount this I realize that I had believed it to be impossible for him to lose his composure so completely. 

The look of bewildered offense on Dr. Hanna’s face almost made me forget how severely Thomas had doomed himself by stepping in and treating the doctor this way. Almost.

I could only watch, frozen in horror, as Dr. Hanna’s face slackened with what anyone else would have interpreted as an absent neutrality, but what I knew was abject fury. That signature smile dropped, the doctor not even deigning to keep it as a means to bare his teeth. Thomas, ever oblivious to the danger he was in, simply continued ranting.

“To attack someone in such a manner, especially someone who relies on you for employment and shelter! Who could not lift a finger in his own defense! Utterly disgraceful! You should be-”

Dr. Hanna’s free hand came to slap against Thomas’ head fiercely, palm hitting directly against his ear. The man cried out in pained surprise and released him, only for Dr. Hanna’s fingers to close around his hair. The doctor twisted, slamming Thomas’ head on the ground repeatedly.

I could have, should have, come to his defense- this was the one man that saw me, that cared, and he was the lover of what could very well have possibly been my only best friend. But you must understand, place yourself in my shoes; could you bring yourself to attack, to physically harm, the man that had provided you with favor and shelter over months? Who looked down upon you with such a regal countenance and divine benevolence that you could not help but feel immune to the horrors that would be inflicted upon others?

I remained still, come what would, and mentally wished for a forgiveness I knew would never arrive.

Eventually Dr. Hanna straightened and violently stomped on Thomas’ face, twisting it to the side and causing a sickening cracking noise to ring out as the grounded man fell limp.

I choked back a sob.

“I hope this provides a lesson in associating with anyone else.” The doctor said to me with a sneer, before sweeping off, leaving me and the corpse of one who made the fatal mistake of caring.

[1/3]

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