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dafukdidiwatch · 3 years

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Chapter 9 and 10 End

Got to go, running late on things. Will do recap later

TL;DR: I’m screaming, parent issues are are abundant as abusive and manipulation, and I have a new ship going on.

Edit: Ok I am back and I have new theories on everything going on because Fuck I’m down the rabbit hole here. Where or where do I fucking begin.

Really this session just hammers down the different type of abuse that poor Lucy is going through. It’s even color coded and everything. Blue being cold, isolation, physical and emotional neglect from Thierry. Vs the Red of warm, attentiive, possessive and emotional manipulation that is Fidelia.

I don’t doubt that Fidelia cares for Lucy. But it obviously is really twisted if like only one day in Fidelia is already trying to run Lucy’s life how she thinks it should be. Honestly Seiji nailed it when he pointed out the outfit change was more for Fidelia’s taste instead of Lucys’s.

And this chapter is nothing more than family secrets revealed to Sylas isn’t it? Like, how far do you have to break the boy he’s already hurt enough. His dad literally hating his eldest and lawful child, hates his mother, 100% willing to have an affair and have more children and being told flat to his face he is nothing but a tool. It hurt to learn he was there just as a ploy for Fidelia to keep Lucy to herself, but I loved how he still cared for his half siblings. He wasn’t angry at Emilia’s existence, but how Fidelia had seemed to cast her to the wolves that is their father. He wanted to learn more about Lucy as a person, as his sibling, and was happy that it sounded like they wanted to connect too. But of course he couldn’t because Fidelia made sure to try and nuke that chance before it could bloom. Leaving them both just as lonely as ever.

Ugh it sucks so much because Lucy left from one form of isolation abuse to another!

And a minor note, Peony is probably another bastard child of Fidelia and Dubois. Her and Emilia are probably twins than Dubois didn’t want to take care of both of them so he found a way to ditch one into the streets. I mean, it’s the fucking nose people! The timeline merges and fit to one complicated mess that wouldn’t have happened if two people didn’t decide to bone down.

God I want to know what January will think of this, hearing that the anomaly they were supposed to hunt down is now Fidelia’s pet favorite. Actually, now that Lucy is here, will Fidelia even care for January as much? Or will she still try since this is her way of manipulating the council.

Rin is apparently living her best life as a wolf monster of not giving a fuck and about to do some dirty backdoor dealings with Fidelia. That is Not going to bode well.

And finally, Seiji. Wow did that Bastard Man manage to change my perception of him. You bastard, how dare you make me like you. Fucking Twerp. But god, he is trying to get it through to Sylas that he should go after someone who Likes Him. Which, puts Sylas first as part of his feelings, but also can be flipped on to himself because if Sylas is straight, then Seiji should go after someone who likes him. And that hurts.

And then when he talked to Lucy, like first time ever talked to Lucy, it was cute. It was dramatic. It felt like a normal conversation where they aren’t putting on airs with each other and just trying to figure shit out. And it was, really cute. He has this fucking “devil-may-care” rogue persona that he defaults to when he feels cornered, hence the kiss to piss people off. But, having that be your first form of romantic interest after being in isolation for 5 years, I can see why Lucy may be smitten.

Of Course....it sucks that Seiji only managed to put 2 and 2 together on Lucy and Cylas AFTER he dipped. But he got there eventually. The disaster bastard man.

I think I have a thing where I can only approve of ships if I see some in-canon connection/plausibility first. And it wasn’t a pair I would see dating. But I honestly hope there could be some feelings that sprout between the two. Some emotional development that doesn’t center around emotional abuse since Seiji knows what’s up with Fidelia and calls her out on that.

And since this post couldn’t possibly get any longer: underneath are my theories and just what is up with Morgan and Thierry.

This is what happens when I get caught up on comics, I have IDEAS.

Let’s start off somewhere simple here: Timeline.

Fidelia and Dubois have affair. Multiple times. And it resulted in Morgan. Something Something happened and they pushed Morgan into hiding so it has no connection to them. I’m also thinking that because of how Morgan has no connection to them, since Fidelia lost touch with her kid, she made sure/blackmail the Dubois to raise their next kid as his own to make sure they are taken care of. Hence Emilia’s life.

Anyway Morgan was sick, went to the care of Joe Rothart and Dr. Malliet, where a sudden Husk attack killed Morgan and Dr. Malliet 5 years ago. Where Thierry took them to be raised as “Lucien” under his care.

Thierry “gave up everything” for the kid, meaning he thought it was in his best interest to take Morgan.

The reason Joe has a soft spot for Husks is probably because Dr. Malliet was his significant other/partner. Tobi asked if they “broke up” so it implies they were dating. See here I was thinking that Morgan was like, Joe’s brother or something, way older at the very least. But Morgan was the sickly kid, the patient, and Malliet was the other Husk Expert trying to help.

Basically what I’m saying is that Thierry and Joe were lovers. Thierry Rothart is really Dr. Thierry Malliet. While trying to help Morgan, he used his own magic to maybe siphoned the illness away or something and ended up turning into a Husk himself. So when he squirreled away with Morgan (Lucy) he took the last name of Rothart as a momento of their past relationship/ what could have been and as a way of hiding himself.

Also, Ivy isn’t his cat.

We fucking saw what happened with Captain Yiff of the Wolf Brigard. She turned into wolf mode like Jade did. However!!! Thierry became the bird man of Alcatraz and sprouted feathers. AND! Husks are people who literally reabsorb their magic familiars back into themselves. Meaning that Thierry can’t have absorbed his Peacock Bird familiar AND have Ivy the CAT be his active familiar.

The only way I can think this was any way possible to have a “have your cake and eat it too” moment is because of Su. Su never had magic to begin with, and how she’s a Goat Husk, implying if she did have access to magic her familiar would be a goat. The same could have happened to Lucy.

It was stated that for a Husk the magic comes from the eyes, and eyes are the windows of the soul. Trying to heal Morgan resulted in draining the magic from their eye and that magic latched itself into Thierry, turning him into a peacock man.

....why he wants to have his house be a shrine of peacocks of what he did instead of his own fucking cat, I will never know.

Regardless, I’m thinking that after Thierry did manage to cure Morgan, since he took their eye (again, part of the soul) it probably resulted in memory loss too. I’m thinking that the eyepatch is just covering a hole or dark powers because if Lucy has like one-eye in husk mode that would be really stupid.

It also better explains Ivy helping out Thierry’s Husk mode. Familiars are conduits of magic that allows the Mages/Magicians to safely use their magic without overloading. That’s why when the magic is reabsorbed into the person the magic is out of control and fluctuates on emotion. The animals are safeguards. So Ivy, as Thierry’s familiar, is able to drain away the magic in his emotional states. But that also backfires because draining away magic that wasn’t necessarily his means it was also draining away his memory, hence his behavior issues with Lucy.

Which can also explain Lucy’s own “magic draining powers” is because they is out of balance. They aren’t like non-magic people where they aren’t able to access their magic. They aren’t like regular magicians where an animal familiar is there to help manage magic. And they aren’t like Husks where all the magic is fully absorbed into their body. Because they don’t have access to their original magic source (Thanks Thierry) their body is trying to balance itself out by siphoning the magic of others. Fill in the gap as it were. Which only works if they are in close physical contact with a magic source. But because it isn’t their original magic, it doesn’t last long. That’s why even though Ana was drained completely of magic, Lucy is unable to use it anymore, or at the very least can’t access it as easily.

The only other thing I could think of is how the hell does Fidelia connect with Thierry. Because Ivy was scared shitless of her or the thought of her. She probably threatened them both as Dr. Malliet to do “whatever it takes” to cure Morgan, and we all know how possessive she is with her children.

Long story short, Dr. Thierry Malliet did some experimental treatment which resulted in his husk form and Morgan’s cure/memory loss/magic issues. To protect themselves from being hunted, he fake their deaths and hid away as a recluse and raising Morgan as Lucy so the city’s magic leaders won’t hunt them down.

#dafukblog #NevSat #NevSatchp10 #NevSat008 #NevSat008 end

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musicalhistory · 4 years

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Hi! I really liked your post about the Newsies’ views on gay rights, and I was wondering if you have any information about the views of the characters of Bandstand on it. Like, I know there was a cut scene where Jimmy comes out and Donny seems at least somewhat accepting; how do you think the other characters of Bandstand would react to Jimmy coming out, and gay rights in general? I love your blog by the way!

Thank you so much! I’m always happy to hear that people like my blog and that the posts I make are helpful and informative.

So, much like with the Newsies post I made on this topic (which can be found here for anyone who hasn’t read it yet and would like to) this is a complicated question that there is no one easy answer to. However, I will do my best to examine as many angles as possible when answering this to provide you with as clear a picture as possible of how history relates to the show canon in regards to LGBTQ+ people and their rights.

The LGBTQ+ community in the 1940s was still a long way away from being accepted by most of society. Being gay was illegal, and would remain so until the 1960s when individual states began to legalize it (although being gay was not legalized in all 50 states until 2003). However, some strides forward were being made in the name of gay rights at the time.

In 1924, The Society for Human Rights was founded by Henry Gerber in Chicago. It was the first documented gay rights organization in the United States and marked a big step forward for the LGBTQ+ community as a whole. By the 1940s, many cities had gay bars and thriving (if hidden) gay communities were beginning to take shape. Cleveland’s first gay bar, The Cadillac Lounge, was opened in the 1940s. These bars were subjected to frequent raids, and so were by no means perfectly safe, but the fact that they existed in relatively large numbers across the country is a testament to the slowly changing opinions of people at the time.

World War II marked even more changes within the LGBTQ+ community. Due to a variety of factors, a community of gay people began to take shape under the surface of the US military. At one point during the war the Women’s Army Corps contained such a large number of lesbians that when the army tried to kick them out, they found that doing so would result in the majority of their staff being fired and so were forced to back down (you can read more about that remarkable instance here). This is probably one of the main reasons why Donny seems so accepting of Jimmy in the cut scene you referenced- as a member of the US Amry during WWII it’s highly likely that he came into contact with a least a couple of gay people before meeting Jimmy (he could also be some form of LGBTQ+ himself, although that, of course, depends on your own personal headcanons).

With that very brief history out of the way, let’s now get into what the other members of the Donny Nova Band might have thought about gay rights and gay people in the 1940s. Please note, however, that this is all pure conjecture on my part and that you can really headcanon anything you want in regards to this (one of the perks of Bandstand being a fictional show).

As I said before, Donny, Johnny, Nick, Wayne, and Davy would have probably met at least one or two gay people before during their service (and possibly in their civilian lives as well), and so Jimmy being gay wouldn’t be as big a shock for them as it might be for someone else. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they would be completely accepting of Jimmy, of course, but it does make it a bit more likely that they would be. In my personal opinion, homophobia usually comes from a place of ignorance, and the guys in the band wouldn’t be as ignorant about the LGBTQ+ community as some other people at the time might have been.

This brings us to Julia. She would probably be to most sheltered and ignorant of LGBTQ+ people, given that she never served and grew up Catholic (and as I’m sure many people know, the Catholic church doesn’t exactly have a favorable opinion of LGBTQ+ people, even today). Taking this into consideration, it would probably be the hardest for her to come to terms with Jimmy being gay at first. That being said, she clearly does eventually come to terms with it in some way since she writes and sings as openly as she can about him and the trauma he experienced related to his boyfriend being killed in the song Welcome Home, and I doubt she would have done that had she been harboring any kind of ill-will towards Jimmy with regards to his sexuality.

To summarize my very long-winded response (I’m oftentimes incapable of giving short answers, my apologies): Based on both historical facts and the musical canon, it is very likely that Jimmy would face homophobia from the outside world, but not from the members of the band themselves. This isn’t to say that the members would be perfectly understanding of him at all times, but rather that they clearly value him as a person regardless of his sexuality and are willing to look past whatever homophobic values they might have been raised with in order to accept him.

I hope that this answered your question! Again, this is a hard topic to talk about in any kind of definitive way, and so I welcome anyone else to chime in with their own opinions on this.

Sources:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_in_the_United_States#

https://www.cnn.com/2015/06/19/us/lgbt-rights-milestones-fast-facts/index.html

https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/gay-and-lesbian-service-members

#ask #anonymous #bandstand #bandstand fanfiction #donny nova band #jimmy campbell #lgbtq+ history #lgbtq+ rights #history #military history #wwii history #1940s #donny novitski #julia trojan

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atomicsuperhero · 4 years

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Books That Influenced My Perspective

I didn’t write a gift guide because I feel like it's such a personal thing, and also that most of us don’t really need more stuff. But books are something that has been a mainstay in my life, and especially around the holidays. They’re an escape for me from the tension and stress that I associate with the Christmas season.

So I thought I’d write about a few of the books I’ll probably be dipping into over the next few days between Christmas and the new year. I have read all of these in ebook format, so they’re not more physical clutter. Though, I’m all for gifting books, or buying them for yourself, in whatever form is preferred.

I also listened to the Scotland Outdoors podcast this past weekend that talked about the Icelandic tradition of gifting books that everyone then runs off to read on Christmas Eve. It’s called Jólabókaflóð, or Yule Book Flood. It’s past Christmas Eve now, but it's still a great time to read.

Books change our minds and our perspectives, and these are four books that have had a significant impact on my life and how I view the world, nature, gardening, and mental health.

Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild World by Emma Marris

This book was a real eye-opener for me. It delves into the paradox of wilderness and how there isn’t really such a thing anymore because we manage it so heavily. We strive for this pristine wilderness, which in reality, is based on a static historical idea we have of what wilderness should be.

That “pristine” we aim for is always an idea of what nature looked like at a specific point in time, usually shortly after settlers and colonialists arrived. Generally, this view makes no account for the indigenous people who were part of this so-called wilderness long before we were. So the idea we often hold as “pristine wilderness” is also racist and erases the perspectives and existence of the indigenous peoples who already understood and managed the land.*

That idea of pristine is entirely impossible to return to, for various reasons, not least of which is the fact that nature is in constant flux. Regardless of what we do, nature keeps changing. Even if all humans disappeared from the earth, it would keep changing; we can’t stop it.

We need to work with nature instead of attempting to return it to the landscape that Ansel Adams explored and photographed. Change is constant, and we must work with the change and do our best to counteract the adverse effects we’ve had on the world as humans. We must learn to coexist with nature. We could take many lessons from the people who were here before us settlers.

This book is not a depressing, doomsday climate change discussion. It is full of interesting theories and ideas of how we could better take care of nature, as a global collective of humans, not just as individuals.

*I don’t recall the book discussing indigenous perspectives. It might, or it might not. It's been over four years since I read it. If it doesn’t include indigenous perspectives, then I would probably detract a few points from it and advise you to read it with that in mind.

The Old Ways: A Journey On Foot by Robert Macfarlane

This book connected with my heart and my head in ways that no other book ever has. I have read and reread and reread and copied entire chapters of this book by hand because it has affected me so much.

This book showed me that writing about nature could be compelling and imaginative, and all-consuming as fiction. Previous to this book, I had separated non-fiction and fiction as “learn factual things” and “escape the world to a fantasy universe.” This book crossed that line and let me escape into a fantasy that was the real world, on another side of the globe.

Don’t ask me why this is the first time I made this realization. I’ve read a ton of travel memoirs, which in hindsight, do precisely that: let me escape my life for a moment. But this one was the first one that made me really understand that it was possible to do this with nonfiction.

I have since read several of Macfarlane’s other books, and they have all been beautiful and take me out of my current life and away into an obsession with nature. Most importantly, this book made me realize that the possibility of writing about nature was a real career that people did. And maybe that meant it was something I could do too. I can only hope to someday write as compellingly as Macfarlane.

Waterlog: A Swimmer’s Journey Through Britain by Roger Deakin

I learned about Roger Deakin through Robert Macfarlane’s books. All of Deakin’s books have made an impact on my passion for nature and the environment. But Waterlog has had a particularly profound effect on me. This book is probably the precursor to my adoption of nearly-daily cold showers as an anxiety treatment. This is another book that I’ve read and reread and copied passages out of by hand because I love it so much.

This book, and The Old Ways, are my default escape books when I’m having a shitty day. Similar to Macfarlane, Deakin’s words make me feel like I’m there, in the exact moment he writes about. Like I’m stepping into the water, warm or cold, clear or murky, for a swim right with him. It makes me feel close to nature. It makes me feel comfortable and that it’s ok to want to retreat and be in solitude with the world by myself. It reminds me that I’m a piece of nature too.

At the end of the day, nature doesn’t give two shits about my deadlines or financial worries; it just keeps keeping on. And so maybe the problems that are overwhelming my brain are rather insignificant in the grand scheme of life. Not in a: “I don’t matter, so what’s the point” way, but in a: “there’s more to life than this crap that I’m currently stressing about” way. It helps me remember that I am a human first and foremost and that capitalism is bullshit.

The Jewel Garden: A Story of Despair and Redemption by Monty Don

I found this book after watching many seasons of Gardeners World with Monty Don. I’m obsessed with this show, and when the season ends in October, I watch old episodes to get me through the winter until it starts again in March.

The natural progression of my obsession with wanting to be the Canadian version of Monty meant reading everything he’s written that I can get my hands on. This has been one of my consistent favourites. It was hard to read, in that it was an emotional experience for me. And it has been every time I’ve reread it since.

But it has also given me hope. It has reminded me that gardening and plant care is consolation for my mind during the hard days of mental illness. It has given me hope that writing will get me through and that I can survive through the hardest days. That however dim it may be, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That no matter how dark it gets, the days always get brighter after December 21.

And no matter what human drama happens in the world, plants are always growing. The best thing I can do for my own mental health is to be a good steward of the earth, tell my stories, take care of plants, and learn the lessons they teach me.

How Books Have Improved my Mental Health Management

There’s a theme here. These books have affected the way I look at the natural world, where I fit into it, and how I write and interact with it, and as a result, have had an effect on my mental health. All of these books have given me new ways to think about my mental health and manage it.

I would highly recommend reading any of these titles during the holiday season.

I have not included links to purchase these books because I know that independent bookstores are really struggling right now, and I know that lots of people are also struggling right now. So if you do choose to purchase physical copies of these, try to find an independent book store. They’ll probably order it in for you if they don’t have it in stock.

If you can’t purchase them, check with your library. Chance are good they’re in the library system somewhere, and your library will most likely be able to bring them in for you; just ask.

#Mental Health #Nature #environment #books

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rainingincale · 4 years

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I just saw your tags on the "harry was oppressed" post. Might elaborate on that when you are not tired? How Zayn was oppressed? His relationship to ot4. Other celebrities? I love your thoughts!

*cracks knuckles* buckle your seat belts folks we’re in for a wild ride here lmao.

also for context *here* is the post this anon is referring to

I think to start off i should just make a little disclaimer, everything i am going to discuss will be based in my biases probably seeing as I am also a brown British Pakistani person who is Muslim. Zayn has been someone that especially when i was younger I looked up to and was very essential in my journey of learning to love and accept myself and my culture tbh. It’s cheesy as hell but it’s true and i think this is important to know before I go into this more because like I said i am definitely biased towards him. Another thing is that I’m just going to be discussing my personal opinions and also my memory is not very good so i will probably miss out a lot of other things that happened/could be discussed. please dont take this as anything more than just. my opinion.

A thing that really opened my eyes to racism and especially the racism in the 1d fandom was the day that zayn left. I dont think thats what the post above was about btw and ill go into that but i kind of just want to talk about this. The day he left was. a severe mess. Not only because it was obviously upsetting but because of all the bs that people were spouting about a situation that absolutely no one had any context on. the statement that was released on facebook gave us nothing. literally just stated that zayn was leaving the band and the accusations and hatred people were directing towards zayn when we didnt know what actually fucking happened (and still dont might i add) was disgusting. people accusing him of being selfish and how they hated him and why he had to ruin everything. Accusing him of using mental illness as an excuse and lying about it and so much more. i had unfollow more than half of the people i followed that day. it really opened my eyes to the fact that these were all thoughts and opinions people had underneath it all and zayn was fine as long as he was part of 1d and giving people what they wanted. which was essentially being the token in the group and once he wasnt providing that anymore? people turned and people turned fast.

i think its also important to point out the flip side of it and that was zayn stans saying that 1d were nothing without 1d etc. i want to talk about why this was different from ot4 stans hating zayn. of course it wasnt nice to see or hear EVERYONE arguing with each other. i hated it so much. but i think what people failed to realise was that when it comes to situations like this you need to look deeper and think about all the nuances of the situation. zayn stans being happy about zayn leaving the band and saying 1d was going to die i did not agree with. anyone who knew me then and knows me now knows that i am a 1d stan regardless (preferably ot5 but i supported 1d until the end even as a 4some) BUT these opinions were rooted in his mistreatment in the band and the racism he was having to face as a result of being in the band etc etc i apologise for not being a person who can better describe and explain this situation but hopefully you are getting the picture. when fans were hating on zayn. with no context with nothing. that was based on racism. point blank. the amount of tweets FROM 1D FANS talking about how he was leaving to join isis and how upset fans were gonna be vulnerable and join etc etc all this deplorable bs. and he had to deal with comments like that throughout his whole time with one direction and i imagine even now.

Another thing id like to talk about is who zayn stans at least from my point of view usually were. For me i remember when i first got into the fandom i actively made the decision that i didnt want zayn to be my favourite because i didnt want to be a stereotype and this was a point in my life when i still tried to shun and push my culture down because i was ashamed of it. it was only as i slowly saw that zayn was considered as cool and hot and everyone else liked him that i kind of understood that maybe. being brown was alright and it was something cool and that maybe i was cool. it sounds fucked up and honestly i dont even know if i want to be admitting this so adamantly but argh if it helps someone understand then maybe its worth it. (mortifying ordeal of being known eh?) anyways i noticed as i engaged more in fandom and looked for more diversity, more fans like me, majority of non white fans were also... zayn stans. and honestly it makes sense because we all tended to flock towards the closest diversity we could find it seems. im not saying that there werent white zayn stans and that the other boys didnt have non white stans but i just wanted to point out this trend. so when you also take this into account and the fact that on the day zayn left it was majorly... white stans who were criticizing zayn it puts it in perspective for you. majority of fans who still like and support zayn are also not white.

there is a lot more to do with fans but hopefully thats enough of an insight and you can understand the kind of vibes that were present during 1ds prime and what not only zayn had to go through but also as a result the racism we ended up having to deal with as well tbh.

now!!!... something i dont really like talking about lol so this will probably be short but the other boys. so as far as i can remember liams always been kind to zayn since hes left (no surprise there <3 also please correct me if im wrong), niall was kind of indifferent/didnt say anything really, and then there was louis and harry *awkward smile*. hahaha. from my memory i remember when asked about what the most difficult thing was about zayn leaving harry said ‘the paperwork’ which was *awkward smile* and he also kicked that monkey mask/pinata? i cant remember with naughty boys face on it and honestly im sure theres more but his overall reaction to zayn leaving was kind of not caring and maybe being slightly nasty which :) with louis there was the massive twitter fight which literally tears my soul in half so lets not go into that haha and honestly other things where it maybe seemed like he was upset with zayn leaving as well. honestly i am a bit in two minds about these reactions because at the end of the day we dont know what occurred behind the scenes and we probably never will as much as we can speculate or whatever. not to mention that this 10th anniversary it seems maybe everyones on good terms which, who knows really im going to try be optimistic. i think whats important to note about heir reactions is that we dont know anything about their situations but the problem was really how fans reacted tbh (btw i forgot to mention earlier this is about basically everything except for harry and the nb thing. that is inexcusable). the boys reactions were understandable but the problem is that fans of course vicariously are influenced by the boy they stan so when one of them acted a certain way of course that ended up reflecting in fandom and resulted in more racism etc.

another thing with zayn was that there were many files leaked with like promo or whatever basically describing what kind of role the boys would take on/ their image etc. and of course all the other boys got things like bubbly/funny/charming etc and zayns descriptors? moody, mysterious, dark horse etc etc like from the inception of 1d zayn has been victim to racist stereotypes being pushed on him. and i think this is where harry comes in because of course the image pushed onto him was also extremely harmful and i definitely dont think we should not talk about that but often you'll see that... thats all that is talked about because people are uncomfortable admitting racism and talking about it.

When i mentioned other celebrities my point was basically just that while ive only talked about zayn in one direction this... is so present among any and every fandom. 5sos, Little Mix, Fifth Harmony... any fandom you can think of, i promise you it is there. racism in fandom is a real thing and a big problem and honestly this is why i always say representation is so important. and when i say that i mean everywhere!!! because if I didnt seek out non white fans to follow then maybe i would’ve had a completely different perspective on all of this.

The thing is also that a lot of this is just stuff that we’ve been able to get our hands on and also fan analysis and theories etc. there is probably so much more to talk bout or go into or stuff we’ll never even know about. I’ve kind of had to make peace with the fact that with celebrities you just really don’t actually know anything about them.

I think i’ll end this here if there’s any more questions you have about anything feel free to ask! and again this is all just my opinion but hopefully i’ve been able to help answer you <3 have a nice day and i hope youre hydrated!!!

#ask #anon #1d #zayn #long post #i also have links to posts for proof of how zayn was treated on the last day if youd like but i thought id simplify #and just talk about what i though #there really is so much more that can be said

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hollenka99 · 5 years

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A Day Long Overdue

Summary: Jack is allowed to spend his birthday with the egos. (Essentially a sequel to A Talk With The Creator).

Hey, guess which AU isn’t dead! It’s been like 3 months since I last posted something for the Creator AU (or anything for that matter) but I’m back. Have some bittersweet fluff with a hint of angst.

Jack wakes up, older than he remembers being. He's in a bed, a medical one at that. It would appear he was in Schneep's medical bay. There is no recollection of being sent here. The grogginess is interfering with that. He should probably find an assistance button to alert the doctor. That's when he notices the cards. Upon further inspection, he can only assume these are for a birthday. His birthday. He is able to read some of them before a commotion is heard in a different part of the building. Henrik stands in the doorway, seemingly incapable of not staring at him. Unsure of how to break the ice, Jack comes out with "I guess I'm not 27 anymore, am I?" "Not really." His doctor remains stationary, smiling until his attention diverts to the collection of footsteps approaching. "Wait! He's not ready yet." "Schneep, what the hell are you doing? We want to see Jack too." That sounded like Chase. "Just one minute." Henrik points to someone Jack can't see. "You see him first." "So it is your birthday today. We got you cards and presents. But there is something I think you will like better than all that." "What is it then?" Jack smiles humourously. Schneep turns his head back to the corridor. "Come now." Dressed in jogging bottoms and a hoodie which swallowed him, a teenager stepped into his view. Eyes brim the longer he takes in the image of Jack sitting up in bed. His face has matured a little since they'd last been in the same room. All those months he'd been petrified at the thought of him being hurt while held captive, where he'd pointlessly jotted down memorable events in the hope the youngest ego was still alive to possibly read them one day. All that fruitless hoping and searching must have finally produced a result. It had caused him to be standing feet away. The kid even had a bit of a quiff going on. Jackie. Fuck, this was Jackie. "Hey." Jack breathes out an incredulous "No way." Jackie takes a seat on the bed. The hero's embrace is stronger than the one he can return. Jack gets so lost in mutterings of 'Oh my god' and 'You're okay' that it accidentally becomes melded together at one point. When they both register the blunder, they dissolve into snickers. "I think I forgot how to English properly." "I think so too." "How long have you been back?" "September 2017." "We missed each other by a month?" Jack stares at the baby of their little family. "Yeah." "That sucks." "You have no idea." Tears are wiped but it proves futile as they are immediately replaced. "We've all missed you so much." "You can say that again." Jack glances past Jackie's shoulder to see a small crowd crammed by the entrance to the room. Before he is allowed to greet anyone else, Henrik insists on detaching him from as many wires as was necessary. Once given the all clear, Jack is left beaming as he is encompassed by three of his friends. Chase has a revelation about someone who shouldn't be missing out on the action. He sprints down the corridor to fetch them. He is perched on the bed, assuring Henrik he felt absolutely fine, when the two return. One near-inaudible 'Crikey!' is all it takes for him to freeze. Surely not. Yet there was one of his oldest friends. Angus didn't appear so run down. Was this for real? First Jackie was home and now Angus was healthier. He hadn't been awake for very long and it is already shaping to be a fantastic day. "You look much better than the last time I saw you." "Speak for yourself, mate." He can't help but sob as he approaches Angus. At least the survival hunter wasn't leaving him to be the only one. He is so grateful for the others allowing the two of them to stay in each other's hold for as long as they needed. It's been so long since his Australian friend has been this present. God, it's been so so very long. Despite Henrik not being sure it was for the best, the five of them lead Jack to the living room. Apparently, they had bought a cake to commemorate the day. He had always been partial to red velvet. Although, thinking about it, that was likely the point of them picking that flavour. Cake was still cake either way. He wasn't going to pass up the opportunity for a slice. He notices a German Shepherd hovering by Jackie. He assures his dog that she doesn't need to work at that moment. Work? Gwen, Jackie clarifies, is a service dog to help with his mental health. She sleeps in his room and keeps him company for most occasions excluding his heroing duties. Oh, okay. Well, that just makes her even more of a good girl, doesn't it? Marvin mentions the expansion of his cat collection. Hardeen and Houdini tended to do their own thing while Trico was up for cuddles most of the time. There was also his rabbit whom he had dubbed Tim the Enchanter. Hang on, hang on, so Marvin was saying that not only did he have the Egyptian goddess of cats but also one of the best known magicians in history and his brother, the best fictional creature in gaming as well as a minor character in Monty Python as pets? The magician's completely straight expression as he challenges Jack to fight him causes him to burst into laughter. Trico turning out to be from a small breed makes it all the better. Chatter explodes between the group over cake slices. Okay, let him get this straight. He has been a coma for the past year and a half. Schneep still isn't sure what exactly the illness that caused this was. Regardless, it's good to have him conscious once more. It is not his 28th birthday as he had initially presumed but his 29th. In that time, a fan game was released which aided in Angus regaining some strength. There were four new egos: a community-conceived zombie called Robbie, Shawn Flynn who was born from a Bendy voice acting gig. Jameson Jackson the pumpkin carving actor that communicated via BSL and an android nicknamed S34Nnor. On top of all that, there was a significant lack of green in anyone's hair. Jack wasn't going to say it out loud but perhaps Chase's beard could use a trim. Not only was Sean doing voice acting gigs, he had travelled across America and Europe with his own comedy show. He was interviewing celebrities too. Sorry, what do they mean, Sean met Ryan Reynolds?! Wow, that was huge. They mention Sean also hanging out with some guy called Bryan Dechart but that name doesn't ring bells. "Okay, Chase, do the line." Jackie encourages. "Alright but that was Sean's series so... keep that in mind." Chase take a breath in preparation then, "Hi, I'm Connor, the android sent by Cyberlife." They all cheer and laugh at that. S34Nnor speaks up. "As a combination of both the character of Connor and Sean, I believe I can improve upon your already good attempt." The line is repeated and everyone becomes excitable once more. "Yes!" The outburst is Chase's as he points to the android with a grin. When the noise has died down again, his expression appears to make his new words honest. "I'm planning on stealing that jacket one day." "You're going to have to fight me for it." Jackie gives a disingenuous glare. "Besides, I'm part machine now sooo go off, I guess." Jack loves the atmosphere. It's been years since it has been this lively here. If this was February 2019 then it must be over two years since their household has been whole. After Halloween 2016, they lost Jackie's playfulness. His absence had been deeply felt throughout the house. It didn't matter now. Who cares if he's so out of the loop that this Cyberlife stuff and any other running jokes don't make sense to him? This house has been missing this sort of energy. He refuses to risk killing it. However, one comment piques his interest. Something tells him to broach this subject carefully. It seemed like it may be sensitive. "Part machine?" "Oh right. Well, I don't technically have any knees anymore." Jackie gestures to his legs. "Prosthetics, both of them." That made sense, given the comment. It doesn't faze him in the slightest that Jackie has had life altering surgery at such a young age. Nope, not at all. "....Prosthetics." "Yeah, it's not that big of a deal. I just hurt my legs when I was getting out." "He has been doing very well with the physical therapy." Henrik smiles. Coming back with a drink in hand and a grin, Jacques pats the superhero's shoulder. "Got a little crush too. What is her name? Aisha?" "Nyesha. And I don't have a crush on her. We're just friends. Not even close ones at that. Tori is aesthetically admirable too." "What a sophisticated way of pronouncing attractive." Marvin teases. "Stop!" The hood was up now with the surrounding strings yanked. "Okay, okay, I think I've got the idea." Jack leans closer. "Promise me you'll let me know if you ask her or anyone else out, alright?" Out of resignation, Jackie mumbles out a "Sure.", only to sit up and divert the attention to the magician. "Marv has a partner though." "Oh, does he?" At this, the new subject of the conversation chuckles, happily telling Jack whatever he wants to know. Jack tries to protest when Jackie is given alcohol. With a soft smile, the youngest member of this family reminded Jack he was 18 now. Of course he is. It was 2019. Jackie has been 18 for some seven months now. July next year, he'll be entering his 20s. Actually, now that Jack thought about it, he and Sean would be 30 next February. Well then. That wasn't crazy to think about. Speaking of Sean, the two of them should really sit down and have a discussion. Although hazy, memories were slowly converging to form recollections of the disastrous dispute. There was a lot to talk about. He's lost eighteen months of his life. There were amendments to be made. If Sean's been on a worldwide tour, he wants to hear about it from the horse's mouth. That must have been an amazing experience. And Signe, he wonders how she's doing. He always regretted the way she kept getting indirectly caught up in his and Sean's dysfunctional friendship. He should wish Sean a happy birthday. That's probably a decent first step to brokering peace. Plus, if his long time friend woke up from a coma on his birthday, that would probably make his day. Jack can only hope Sean would agree. He makes an off-hand comment about this. The idea of reconciling with Sean gets shot down within seconds. Jesus, he doubts he's seen this level of hatred in Marvin towards anyone other than Anti. What the hell did Sean do to warrant this sort of universal repulsion towards him? "Trust me, you do not want to know." Henrik grumbles. Right. In that case, he'd better leave it until tomorrow. Jack is careful when enquiring about Chase and Henrik's families. He's pleasantly surprised when it is generally positive. Chase sees his kids on weekends now which is fantastic. But surely Noah couldn't be little over a week away from turning 5. He was just 3. Willow and Alina were much more confident readers. Jack remembers two little girls who struggled to piece together syllables in simple sentences. They would both be beginning primary school in September. Likewise, Elias was already in his first year of secondary school. Could people stop getting older? He can't keep up. He laughs with them when Chase says "You think they're growing up too fast for you." They order pizza in the evening. Schneep is still against him eating solid food but relents once more. Jack has eaten cake today and there have been no repercussions. As Jacques and Jackie debate with Angus about whether stuffed crust enhanced the experience, Jack took the opportunity to get to know Jameson. With Chase translating, he discovers this is a unique ego. An entire life before coming to exist here. It's such a novel concept to Jack. Even he, as the first ego Sean ever made, can't imagine having proper memories prior to creation. He's used to the others being born with limited memories. Man, he could listen to this guy's anecdotes of the early 20th century all night if he and Chase were willing to carry on that long. They are still hanging around in the living room as midnight is crossed. Some egos have already excused themselves to retire to bed. Once Jack realises it is nearing 1am, he urges everyone else to head to their beds. They shouldn't stay up for him. Besides, he was the one who didn't sleep, remember. He would never wish for them to become sleep deprived for his sake. They refuse and remain. Before long, the man who never slept was experiencing long blinks. Was he tired? Wait, no, this isn't right. The only time he's felt this close to collapse is when... when it's a medical emergency. Like when his throat was bleeding. Or when all he knew was that he didn't feel well. Henrik crouches before him, steadying him in his hold. It's not okay. Stop saying it's going to be okay. Something's wrong, incredibly wrong. Henrik takes his hands, encouraging him to stand. The doctor explains it's likely the sudden regaining of consciousness is catching up with him. Assurances that it was perfectly fine for him to be feeling like this are repeated as they head towards the infirmary. All Henrik wanted to do was monitor him safely. Jack's arm couldn't help slipping from where it was wrapped across his friend's shoulder. Schneep adjusted it without hesitation every time. He defies his eyes any attempt they make to gain an advantage over him. Even when laying on the bed, he refuses the urge to relax. Henrik promises nothing will happen. He is as much of a Good Doctor as he is his friend, right? Please trust he will try to provide the best care he's able. He knows he has failed him before but- "Never!" Jack protests. "You are little bit tired. Is okay for you to sleep. Don't need to fight the sleep, my friend." "Not..." He drifts, only to remember himself a minute later. "Not a failure." "Thank you. Now please rest. We can have a lot of the chit chatting in the morning, yes?" "A'right." A roll of the eyes. A drowsy half smile. A prolonged exhale. And that's all it takes for them to lose him once more. No matter how much Henrik sits, gripping his friend's hand as the monitors revert to the figures they were displaying previously, it won't prove helpful in the slightest to permanently wake Jack up. When Marvin regretfully comes to urge him to get some sleep himself, Henrik waves him off. Just a few more minutes, okay? Then he'll go to bed. As much as they had to fault Sean on, they couldn't say he hadn't done something good today. Henrik can only hope Jack had enjoyed his birthday. Maybe they'd be able to celebrate with him next year too. Maybe. Either way, he couldn't stay here the whole night. With a final check of the equipment, he bids him goodnight. "One of these days, we will get longer. I promise."

#jacksepticeye #jacksepticeye egos #creator au #my writing #writersofjack #It will be 2am in roughly 20 minutes but I got it done #it hurt me to end it like that but there was no other way

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ais-n · 4 years

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2| and where is the trauma? both hsin and boyd were severely sexually abused. and emilio's illness is always treated as a joke. look Ais, your series has done me so much good between the bad it did. i found i'm gay lmao and i'm grateful for that. i'm grateful that you wrote this ok. but there are things that were offensive, and maybe it was unconscious, since i doubt you wanted to be racist or write a mlm relationship but more like hetero. i wish i could just enjoy the books but my heart breaks

3| idk what the one who questioned that could possibly mean between all the things but thats what i mean. i appreciate you a lot. i hope this didn’t make you feel worse or whatever. but some people really did end up hurt badly after reading icos and im one of them. with all respect, and hope that i didnt disturb you much, farewell.

++++++++++++

Aha I just realized I can put both 2nd and 3rd asks in one! Which is good because, again, the gay comment makes me laugh out loud XD As I said in the other post, thank you again for reaching out, for explaining your concerns, and for the courage you no doubt had to bring forth in order to do so.

I’m getting right into the answers in this one although I will probably ask more questions for clarification on some of the points, as I did on the first one, to make sure I’m not misunderstanding or misinterpreting anything.

More below the cut! :)

EMILIO’S ILLNESS

I’m really sorry but I wasn’t sure what you meant by that. Which illness? How is it treated as a joke? Could you clarify?

TRAUMA

So this I thought was super interesting that you felt there was no representation of trauma in ICoS, or I assume you also mean its aftereffects. That’s actually one of the few points I feel pretty confident saying the series does portray a lot of, both in some cases the experience of it and in other cases the repercussions.

One of the reasons both of them are so severely dysfunctional individually and together is because of trauma.

I don’t want to muddy up this post with a huge tangent but someone had asked a few years ago about the result of the Aleixo mission on Boyd, if he was diagnosed with anything, and so on. If you’re interested, I wrote a long ass reply about the psychological effect of sex trafficking on survivors/victims and talked about some of the things you see Boyd do that are a bit reflective of that. More info at https://aisness.wordpress.com/2015/01/28/boyd-aleixo-psychology/

I think there probably would be more information on all this by now, or at least I certainly hope there would be, but at the time of writing Fade that was the sort of research that was available.

Although, full disclosure, I don’t tend to write characters looking up the DSM symptoms for this or that; I write what feels right for them psychologically, mentally, emotionally, and oftentimes later look it up and realize they would have likely been diagnosed with this or that thing or they could be displaying traits of this or that.

At any rate, with Boyd, his trauma started early on, and pretty much everything about him is a reflection of that in some form. I don’t see trauma as specific to sexual assault; it’s most certainly a result of that but also of many other things. Boyd dealt with a lot of neglect and/or emotional abuse as a child, he was bullied by his peers, and generally speaking it was difficult for him to feel like he belonged anywhere. He was very often judged by others, often negatively, for things completely outside of his control, like his parents, their jobs, his home, the amount of money his family had, his looks, etc.

If you look at the Mayo Clinic’s list of child abuse, Boyd falls pretty well under emotional abuse and a bit under neglect, and you can especially see the toll that had on his personality by reading the signs and symptoms of emotional abuse in particular:

Loss of self-confidence or self-esteem

Social withdrawal or a loss of interest or enthusiasm

Depression

Avoidance of certain situations, such as refusing to go to school or ride the bus

Desperately seeks affection

And general symptoms:

Withdrawal from friends or usual activities

Depression, anxiety or unusual fears, or a sudden loss of self-confidence

An apparent lack of supervision

Self-harm or attempts at suicide

If you look at Complex PTSD, and in particular Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD) you can see a lot of Hsin:

Attachment – “problems with relationship boundaries, lack of trust, social isolation, difficulty perceiving and responding to others’ emotional states”

Behavioural control – “problems with impulse control, aggression, pathological self-soothing, and sleep problems”

Dissociation – “amnesia, depersonalization, discrete states of consciousness with discrete memories, affect, and functioning, and impaired memory for state-based events”

I wouldn’t say Hsin dissociates quite that extensively but I feel like he does display some dissociative tendencies at times.

Boyd has some too, like

Self-concept – “fragmented and disconnected autobiographical narrative, disturbed body image, low self-esteem, excessive shame, and negative internal working models of self”.

I think in some ways you could argue they both display aspects of:

Affect or emotional regulation – “poor affect regulation, difficulty identifying and expressing emotions and internal states, and difficulties communicating needs, wants, and wishes”

When Boyd was little, he often wondered why other people were treated better than him - why, when he was getting perfect grades, he was going above and beyond whenever possible, when he was trying to be “a good boy” all the time, when he went out of his way to stay quiet and not bother anyone – why, despite all his attempts, other people were celebrate yet he was reviled, even if the people being celebrated were awful people doing awful things. He used to study other people relentlessly, trying to understand what it was about them that made them acceptable and what it was about him that made him not.

That’s why, despite being such an introvert, he’s good at blending in and going undercover; it’s why he can adjust to new situations and, in a way, act - because he always had to monitor and adjust himself his whole life just to feel seen and loved. His dad loved him on his own so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been, but with the trauma that came from the loss of his dad, and what happened with Lou, plus everything afterward, it really messed everything up.

Boyd was not a victim of childhood sexual abuse, but more of emotional abuse. Well, I guess, I should say for the most part he wasn’t.

Hsin was definitely a victim of childhood sexual abuse and probably physical abuse (that bit I can’t recall for sure). He was raped even as a small child, and that led into different aspects of his life. One reason, for example, he would go berserk and was seen by the Agency as unreliable in cases of him seeing sexual assault was because he saw, in some way, himself in those victims. It was probably his way of protecting people when he hadn’t been protected, himself.

I can’t speak too much on Hsin’s specific mental health status or repercussions because I didn’t write him so I’m not fully in his mind, but I do know that sort of berserker aspect is part of what came from his sexual abuse and physical abuse and just generally how he grew up. If I recall correctly, a lot of that led into why he was so unstable and dangerous when Emilio first found him; why it took so long to get Hsin to find a way to deal with the violence and aggression and anger in him, in addition to everything else that would have happened regardless of that childhood trauma. Why, too, it was such a huge deal when Boyd was able to earn Hsin’s trust, because he had learned in his life to trust almost no one.

You can see some of the way they both display aspects of C-PTSD as adults as well in the list at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_post-traumatic_stress_disorder#Adults

I should be clear: I am NOT a psychiatrist or psychologist so I’m not suggesting that they would be specifically diagnosed with any of these disorders were they to get official diagnoses. However, the reason I bring it up is to show that a lot of the series reflects the way their coping mechanisms lead them to interact within themselves and with the outside world, all of which is often directly or indirectly tied to trauma.

Why is Boyd so terrified of anyone seeing him without his shirt in the beginning? Trauma. Why is he depressed? Trauma. Why is he suicidal? Trauma. Why does he go out of his way to avoid a certain block? Trauma. I would have to look at specific symptoms of different things but I would guess that you could also tie back some of his instability and his sometimes inconsistent reactions to trauma as well. Sometimes he does things or says things that may seem a bit reckless, or cold, or some other unexpected thing at that time - and a lot of times it’s probably in part related to how he learned to cope with things and what his levels of defensiveness are or his fears are at that moment. But he also has a complete inability to see the good in himself for a long time which also ties back, I would think, to some of the things he experienced growing up/previously.

Boyd is an incredibly unreliable narrator. He spends most of his narration thinking about how awful he is, how he should just die, how he isn’t doing a good enough job, and so forth. Yet, that fails to show the impact of some of his choices and decisions. Boyd was pretty much the first person to treat Hsin like a normal human being, to not see him as a surrogate of anything or anyone, to not have any ulterior motives or expectations of him (no matter how well-intentioned), and to truly gain his trust as a result. Yet, Boyd didn’t really see it that way. He didn’t see how important it was for Hsin that he ended up in his life; he didn’t get why Hsin was exasperated the times Boyd said he (Boyd) should just die, that there was no value to his life. He didn’t believe he could be loved so he couldn’t see it was even a possibility at first. Therefore, he spends a lot of his narration over the series belittling himself and downplaying any of his own achievements while simultaneously rewarding or acknowledging what others around him are doing. Not every moment of his narration, of course, but his default state of self is to think he sucks and others are probably better.

Conversely, Hsin is a confident narrator. He often doesn’t doubt himself, doesn’t care what other people think, and is very sure of himself in a lot of aspects like his physical prowess which, itself, is already above and beyond nearly everyone else. Yet he also learned not to trust or rely on anyone else in his life, so he’s incredibly suspicious of others because that’s how he had to learn to be. So, especially in the beginning of the series, in his narration he tends to be very factual about his own achievements and not shy away from acknowledging the things that are powerful about him (even if he doesn’t always see it as anything that special), while simultaneously seeking out anything untrustworthy, unreliable, incompetent, or unworthy about those around him. His narration tends to point out the flaws of those around him because he learned that if he doesn’t protect himself, he’s vulnerable, and when he’s vulnerable he gets hurt.

The result of that is, if you read their narrations straight as if it’s all perfectly reliable, Boyd seems even more unreliable and Hsin seems even more perfect than they actually are, because their default states of being overlap in a manner which magnifies the flaws in Boyd and the merits in Hsin.

Both of them learned to be how they were because of how they were raised, what they went through, and more. Same as how they react to various things throughout the series.

I can’t more specifically comment on anything without knowing what in particular you were thinking of when commenting in the ask about trauma and sexual abuse. But I think generally speaking, they already start the series having learned coping mechanisms that work for them based on trauma they already individually experienced. Those coping mechanisms end up oftentimes being challenged and at times destroyed or reworked throughout the course of the series. That is what leads to a lot of their ups and downs as individuals and as a couple; why their story isn’t a straight arc going up but instead derails a lot. And why they both spend the entirety of the series coming to terms with who they are both internally and externally, and what that means for their relationship, and how they can find a way to grow as a person and a significant other. They both ultimately have to work on trust; Boyd has to learn to trust himself, Hsin has to learn to trust others, and they have to learn to trust each other.

The way people deal with trauma is not the same for everyone. Sexual abuse doesn’t result in the same reaction for all people. I’m not sure if maybe one of the things you were thinking is maybe about sexual abuse during the series itself? I already linked something that goes more in depth on Fade so I won’t touch on that book, and I really can’t speak for Hsin because he isn’t my character so I don’t want to misrepresent his thought process as hidden behind narration or actions at different points.

The only other thing I can think of that maybe you’re thinking about is Boyd’s valentine status, and how he doesn’t seem to have overtly strong reactions to anything until Fade. If that’s one aspect of what you were thinking about, part of that is just how Boyd deals with things. He tends to avoid things that are difficult for him or he has difficulty focusing on, and oftentimes shuts down emotionally.

I think honestly he probably dissociated to some extent during a lot of things; kind of separated his body from his mind and felt like whatever happened, happened. For a lot of the time that he was a valentine early on, he had such little love for himself that regardless of how upsetting anything was, how little he wanted to do certain things, he felt on some level like he deserved it. Some things were probably a subconscious form of self-punishment for being born, for being who he is, for surviving when Lou didn’t, for surviving when his dad didn’t, for never being enough for his mother, for just plain existing. Then as time went on he grew to rely on Hsin and find strength in him. It’s also not like every mission he had was a valentine one, or even that every valentine has to end in anything physical.

That’s why he was able to find ways of dealing with things in some form, even if he didn’t like it or was uncomfortable at times, until the Aleixo mission. He thought he knew how to handle things; he thought he had found apt coping mechanisms. But that mission tore that all apart and nearly destroyed him. His coping mechanisms didn’t work the way they had and now he had to find a new way to survive, and from there came a lot of his instability and more that you see in Fade and as I mention in that blog post.

But in short, I feel like the majority of the series ends up touching, indirectly or directly, on some form of trauma as experienced currently or in the past by one or more of the main characters, and their resulting actions then drive the plot. That is one thing we were very specific about doing: having the plot adjust to the characters rather than force the characters to adjust to the plot. That’s why Afterimage exists, actually; the original plan was sort of like 3/4 of Evenfall and then kind of jumping into aspects of Fade. But we realized at the end of Evenfall that certain things would occur which would then lead to Afterimage and Afterimage then led into aspects of Interludes, which then led into aspects of right before Fade, which then affected a huge part of Fade itself, which then informed 1/27. We didn’t set out to write a series specifically about trauma, it’s just sort of one of those things that happens if you take two characters who have been treated so cruelly or poorly for so much of their lives, and put them together as any sort of team - but especially a team that becomes a couple, and a couple that becomes all but married.

+ +

Regarding the other stuff, I haven’t had a chance yet to check if you answered my question about the hetero relationship comment, so I can’t comment on that until I know more of what you mean. But I would say that generally speaking, I don’t know that I believe it’s necessarily fair to label anything as strictly “hetero” vs “m/m” vs anything else for a relationship. That brings with it a lot of assumptions of what it means to be not only gay or LGBTQIA+, but also straight. It seems to suggest there is only a single way or a very strict set of ways for a cis male and a cis female to be together both in a relationship and to have sex, and I guess I don’t feel like that’s necessarily reflective of reality. People are very complex and so are their relationships, as well as their sex lives.

I’m not sure how specifically the series ended up hurting you but I’m very sorry you felt hurt by anything. That’s a terrible feeling to have to experience. I hope that in whatever way, however it may work best for you, you have the time and space to reflect and recover and rejuvenate. You, like everyone, deserve it.

And honestly, if that means you have to leave the series completely in your past, never to think about it again, if that’s what’s healthiest for you, I truly wish you are able to do so. Stories are there to connect with other people, to share our thoughts and sometimes help us work our way through our own while reading. No story is worth your mental health being put in question. If it is truly upsetting to you to think about the series, it is absolutely not worth your energy. You are more important than a story will ever be. Everyone is. And I say that despite how much I love and rely on stories to get me through life.

If part of your duress is you like aspects of the writing style but the series itself and its contents upset you, you could try reading some other stuff. I have some things I wrote solo that you can find on my AO3 if you want. But also you can find other writers entirely. Depending on what you’re looking for in a story, and the sort of topics you’ve learned work well for you or don’t work well for you, you should be able to find a ton of great series out there and great authors out there who will leave you with the happier aspects of your reaction to ICoS without anything more detrimental like it sounds happened for you with ICoS.

Regardless, I truly wish you the very best. As I said in the other one, please stay healthy and safe! And, if you’re in a place to manage it, stay happy as well :)

Brightest of blessings to you and yours, my friend!

#ask ais #icos #in the company of shadows #Anonymous

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swampgallows · 5 years

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Kinda random and if you're not comfortable answering it's totally fine, but since you've mentioned your own "journey" with discovering you're asexual lately in some posts, could I ask for few more details on that? If it's not too personal? Like, were you generally off-put by intimacy or more a case of "it's okay I guess, it has to be done, but I'd be happy without"? Again, if not too personal

hey first thanks for understanding the very sensitive nature of this question. but it is an important one, and i want to do whatever i can to increase awareness about the diversity of the asexual experience. A lot of stories regarding the asexual “awakening” are usually people saying “Well, I was never interested, and then I learned it had a name.” For me, that wasn’t the case.

There’s some TMI below, including mentions of CSA, rape, abuse, sexual activity, and masturbation.

***

Accepting asexuality was difficult at first because I was always under the impression that I couldn’t be asexual if I fell in love with people. When it came to actual sex, though, I had always viewed it as this faraway “maybe” that Future Me had to deal with, rather than something I actively pursued or desired. My romantic partners did, however, so I was forced to confront the subject.

In high school, my peers were more comfortable with me being a closet pervert than having no sexual attraction whatsoever. This resulted in me faking or exaggerating attraction, usually to fictional characters, to seem more ‘normal’. By feigning that I had very picky or even impossible standards, I could imitate sexual attraction without having to be sexually active. Once I started dating and sex became an actual possibility, I found myself dreading it more and more. I “gave” as often as I could—anything to stave off “receiving”/penetration as long as possible. Throughout my teens and twenties I ran the gamut of kink and fetish and whatever, trying to figure out if maybe I just hadn’t found my “thing” yet, until I realized I was only doing it to conform and to please my partners.

I don’t know exactly when I started learning more about asexuality, but it was definitely through tumblr, which led me to AVEN. I actually have my sort-of “liveblogged” reading of the FAQ here, back in 2012 (age 22). Unfortunately a lot of my first exposure on tumblr came from skeptical LGBTQ bloggers and/or radfems, so I got a lot of misinformation and hatred at first. But I started following ace-specific blogs, learning about awareness and aphobia, and through further self-analysis began identifying as asexual.

I’m unfortunately also a CSA and abuse survivor, so that’s skewed a lot of my perception of what a healthy sexual identity or relationship looks like. Even up until my mid-twenties, fully embracing my asexual identity, I was still self-harming with sex. So if anyone says “Oh, you’re just asexual because you’re traumatized”, nah. I’m not asexual because sex was bad and traumatizing; sex was bad and traumatizing because I am asexual. All sex was sex I didn’t want to have, but I had it because I thought I had to do so in order to be loved. Now I’m further along in my healing that I don’t feel pressured to prove that I’m asexual “but not broken, and I can still have sex!” anymore.

An asexual identity gave me greater agency because I realized I was never obligated to have or enjoy sex. EVER. And so, if there is ever a time in which I feel like I might want to try it out again (for instance, should I ever be in a romantic relationship again) I can engage in the act without feeling incomplete or broken waiting for some epiphany that will never come. And since I was no longer pressured to feel sexual attraction toward anyone, I was later able to accept and identify as bi-ace, or biromantic asexual. There’s probably a “gray” thrown in there somewhere too, but I’ll figure that one out eventually.

***

Learning about asexuality also helped me more confidently maintain my sexual health. I became more open to things like masturbation because I didn’t feel like it had to be “preparation” for “the real thing”, as one of my doctors had put it. It can begin and end with masturbation, and I’m never obligated to do it, and I don’t have to do it for anybody but myself. Sex always felt like a performance for me, one that resulted in affection being taken away if i wasn’t “providing” for my partner.

I didn’t really feel an active desire to masturbate up until a few years ago too, so if you’re under 25, asexual, and feel like something’s wrong with you because you’re not masturbating or don’t like it, don’t worry about it. I used to be really uncomfortable with masturbation, even scared of it, and for a long time it felt wrong. A huge reason why I didn’t want to do it was because everybody told me I was fucked up for not already wanting it, or that I was in denial of my womanhood or some shit like that. On top of that, my partners pressured me to masturbate “for them” so often that it never felt like something for my own enjoyment; it was about proving to them that I wasn’t broken, or proving that I actually could orgasm, or that I was woman enough, or that I knew my body, or what the fuck ever. It was never about me having a good time, not really. It was about seguing to “well, if you can masturbate, then you can have sex.”

Masturbation is supposed to feel good. You have nothing to prove to anybody. If you don’t wanna do it, you don’t ever have to do it. If you feel like you “should” be doing it “by now”, don’t worry about it. Nobody’s keeping score. If you wanna try it out, go ahead! For a long time I was also scared about doing it alone, partially because I felt embarrassed and stupid but mostly because I felt like I was “wasting a performance” (due to trauma, internalized misogyny, etc.). These pressures have been so strong that up until recently, I struggled to “finish” because I felt forced, even within my own brain where nobody can see, to think of socially-approved sexual thoughts. When I thought instead about intimate things that made me happy, regardless of whether or not they might be “sexy” to some imaginary partner, I felt much more comfortable and fulfilled.

I’m kinda getting off-track with the masturbation talk but I’m just mentioning it because it’s a perspective that I wish somebody had offered me instead of just pitying me (or offering to help… YUCK!). When you don’t experience sexual attraction on top of having trauma, satiating bodily urges can be a challenge.

Ultimately… I love intimacy, and I crave physical closeness. I’m quite a cuddlebug with the people I love and trust, but that intimacy has been earned and cultivated over years and years of proven safety and understanding. I am hypervigilant about any of my actions being interpreted as sexual (or even romantic, which is another can of worms), which makes me a bit bitchy and cold at times. But until the world understands and accepts asexuality better, I have to be my own bulwark. I also have a lot of trauma and mental illness to learn to deal with, and I’m trudging along trying to get therapy in the meantime.

That’s the journey so far, I guess.

#asexuality #anon #ask #rape tw /#csa tw /#abuse cw /#tmi

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specialagentrin · 5 years

Text

Day 11 – On the eleventh day of Christmas, Wincestmas gave to me: the second part of a many-years-old WIP about A/B/O dynamics

Warnings: Alpha!Sam, Omega!Dean, A/B/O dynamics, Bobby being the best ever, post season 1, a lot of angst tbh, but hopefully a happy ending, although tbh I haven’t exactly finished this fic and don’t think I’ll be able to finish it by the end of the event, but I’ll continue writing it for you if you like it, medical related things

The rest of the trip until the hospital was spent in silence since Bobby still looked grumpy and Dean didn’t want to hear any more of his silly remarks. Before they went out of the car, Bobby gave him one more warning look and then they entered the clinic specialized in omegas. There were a few people in there and now that he was out of his suppressants, he could smell everyone and he didn’t know how to feel about that. He could clearly distinguish alphas from omegas and from betas, and he was a bit thrown aback from the overwhelming feeling.

Bobby motioned for him to sit on a chair as he went to talk to the receptionist, but Dean ignored it. If they had come here for his problem, he wouldn’t sit around idly and let someone else take care of him. He might be an omega, but he would never let anyone tell him what to do, not even Bobby with his good intentions. Bobby still was the one to talk to the receptionist and she gave Dean a form to fill in before he could go see the doctor.

They sat and Bobby kept an eye on what Dean filled in, but apart from a fake name and fake health insurance, Dean was completely honest. It was a bit embarrassing to answer some of these questions – have you ever been knotted? Have you had sex during your heat, regardless of gender? – but he tried to be as honest as possible, seeing that Bobby would probably kill him if he lied or omitted anything.

After he was done and the form was given to the receptionist, she smiled and asked them to wait a little bit more. Meanwhile, Dean got a random magazine and started leafing through it, but he soon gave up when he realized most of these magazines were omega magazines, with hints on how to lure alphas, and how to present yourself in today’s society; everything Dean loathed about his gender.

Instead, Dean started drumming his fingers against his thighs, singing something under his breath to keep himself entertained. Bobby was actually reading something at a magazine and Dean couldn’t help but think it was hilarious. Although, maybe this was research – he was a hunter after all – to know more about omegas and maybe help Dean with his predicament. Dean huffed, avoiding looking at Bobby and whatever it was he was reading, and instead he looked around.

There was a couple, an alpha and an omega, and the omega seemed about to burst. They were both whispering, hands on the omega’s huge belly and Dean rolled his eyes at them. There was a lone omega writing something on a notebook, completely enthralled by whatever it was she was writing. And then there was a beta and an omega, and while they were both female, they seemed to be a couple, and Dean was curious about that. Because even though he was an omega who had only ever had sex with betas and other omegas, the suppressants helped him resist any attraction he might have towards an alpha.

The first couple was asked in, just as another left the room, and the alpha helped his mate up and then guided him to the room. Dean watched as they smiled and kept touching each other whenever they could and without realizing, he was envying them. When he did notice what was going on, Dean cleared his throat and looked around, grabbing a magazine again and pretending to read something.

He was the last to be called, and although he would never admit it, he was a pile of nerves. Bobby joined him to talk to the doctor even after he complained that he could do this alone. But Bobby did have a point; if Dean entered alone, he would sugarcoat whatever the doctor said and not follow any of her instructions.

“Dean, right? I’m doctor Haller.” Dean noticed the woman was an omega as well, which was good because he didn’t think he would listen to anything she said had she been a beta, or worse, an alpha. She held her hand to him and shook it, and then she did the same with Bobby, but soon her attention was completely on him again. “So, let’s see here.” She got the form Dean had answered and looked at it. “First heat at sixteen, good age.” She mumbled to herself, but then she stopped, a frown forming on her forehead. “Wait. You were on suppressants for over ten years? There wasn’t even once that you stopped them?” She looked at Dean with concern in her eyes and Dean reminded himself not to freak out.

“No. I… forgot to take them for a few days some days back and had my second heat last week. It lasted—“ He counted on his fingers the days he remembered, but then turned to Bobby. “Six days?” Bobby only nodded and Dean turned back to the doctor, who was still looking worriedly at him.

“Dean. Being on suppressants for this long may cause so many health problems. And not only illnesses related to your reproductive system, but other things like brain damage, kidney malfunction, and even heart attacks and depression.” Dean had no idea of any of that and he could feel Bobby’s gaze piercing him, but he didn’t turn to look at him. “Look, I’m not going to ask the reason you chose to do this, but we’ll need to do many exams to make sure everything’s alright with you. Until we have all the results, I recommend you to not take any medication or have anything alcoholic.”

Dean groaned and he rubbed his hands against his face before looking the woman squarely in the eyes. “Look, lady. I’m fine. I never had anything, I barely even get colds, so I’m pretty sure I’m fine. I just want to go back to my suppressants, or any suppressants you tell me I can take, and be done with it.” Doctor Haller looked mortified, mouth slightly open and she shook her head before speaking.

“Dean, you shouldn’t take any suppressants ever again. You’ve been on it too long. Even if you are perfectly fine, which I honestly hope so, you might still get suddenly sick if you keep taking it.” She was firm in what she said, but Dean would have none of it. However, before he could speak anything, Bobby spoke.

“Doctor Haller, please schedule all of the exams he needs to do. I promise his brother and I will make sure he follows your instructions.” Dean didn’t need to look at him to understand the implications of it, and Dean clenched his jaw because he couldn’t believe Bobby would repeatedly use Sam’s Alpha status to make him do things. “Please forgive the boy. He just lost his father and he’s not coping well.” At that, Dean did turn to look at Bobby, mentally yelling at him How dare you? But the doctor seemed to mellow out after that and she nodded.

“Okay. We can do some of the exams here, such as the urine sample and the blood sample, and then you can schedule with my secretary to either do them here or at a hospital.” Dean nodded and he was ready to stand up when the woman spoke again. “Now, I just need to ask some things to add to your file. Answer them as thoroughly and as truthfully as you can.” Dean sighed, rolled his eyes, but then nodded. “How is your sense of smell?” Dean frowned, because honestly, he was ready for some much more intrusive questions. He shrugged.

“Normal, I guess.” When the woman kept looking at him, he rolled his eyes again and tried to think more about it. “I can tell people apart now. Their specific smell, and if they are alphas, betas or omegas.” She wrote something down and nodded.

“Okay. You were here when the couple with the pregnant omega was here, right?” Dean nodded slowly. “Could you smell that they were bonded or the smell of the child?” Dean was almost saying yes when he stopped to think about it further. Realization sank in and he was a bit shocked to notice that while he had smelled their smells all over each other, he didn’t get the specific smell one had when they were bonded. And he most certainly only smelt two people, not three. He shook his head and Doctor Haller wrote something down as well. “This could mean that your sense of smell is gone forever, which might mean you’ll never notice which alphas are the most compatible with you. Or that the effects of the suppressants haven’t completely faded and in a few more weeks you might be able to smell again. We’ll get back to that later.”

She smiled fondly at him and Dean wondered if being unable to smell was actually something bad. He had spent almost all his life without smelling anything, why would it be any different now? He didn’t plan on finding an alpha and settling down at all, so he had no intention in finding them. On the job, it was sometimes good – such as supernatural creatures luring people with smell – and sometimes bad – not being able to tell a supernatural creature like a vampire or ghoul from humans. Overall, he shouldn’t be as upset as he was – and he blamed his Omega hormones for making him think like that.

“How was your sex drive when you were on the suppressants and what used to attract you to your lovers?” She asked the question so matter-of-factly Dean just blinked at her for a couple of seconds, trying to figure out the best way to answer that.

“I think my sex drive is high. And, hm…” He looked at Bobby who was pointedly looking at the woman’s bookshelf, ignoring him, so Dean was glad to see he was also embarrassed. “I don’t know. A pretty face, I guess? I’m not really picky, I enjoy sex and anyone who’s willing to do it with me is a potential lover. Except when they are alphas.” She wrote something down and then looked up at him.

“That was because it was a conscious decision to not have sex with them, or because you weren’t attracted to them?” Dean blushed and he slouched himself on the chair in embarrassment, as if that would help him disappear.

“Of course I was attracted to them. I just didn’t want any knot heads near my ass.” He was crass, and yet the woman seemed unfazed by his words. She wrote yet some other things down before continuing. He was glad she didn’t ask how he knew who was an alpha and who wasn’t, because Dean didn’t want to explain he was good at observing things. He could pass as a beta, but he knew he was an exception, and that was mostly because he was a great liar. Besides, if he was in doubt, he wouldn’t pursue the person.

“This one might be a bit embarrassing.” She said and looked at the both of them sheepishly. As if her last question hadn’t already been embarrassing to admit with Bobby at his side. So he just braced himself and waited for the worst. “But I need to know about your last heat. How intense was it? How much water did you drink? How much did you manage to eat? How much slick were you producing? Did you bleed?” Dean had to cover his face with his hands for a moment as he felt himself blushing violently. It was even worse than he had thought, damn.

“It was… very intense. I don’t have much to compare to. My first heat lasted four days and it had been pretty intense during days two and three, but the first and last day were… manageable.” Dean rubbed his temple before looking the woman in the eye and continuing. “Last heat caught me by surprise and in less than two hours I was already… a mindless breeding machine. It got a bit better after the fourth day, and I could eat since then, but I managed to drink some water during the other days. And my slick was… Okay? I really don’t know how to answer that. There was a lot of it, but definitely no blood.” She nodded and wrote yet something else down.

“Okay. For now that’s all I need to know. Could you come with me so we can take the blood sample?” She smiled at him as she got up, Dean did the same. Bobby mumbled something about waiting outside and Dean wondered if he’d be able to look the man in the eye ever again without remembering of this day.

Dean followed the doctor and did everything she told him to. She even got his height, weight and blood sugar checked, always writing things down on his file. When he finally was free to go, it was to come back two days from now to do some exams.

To be continued…

----

Oh my Irene, wincestmas anon, I LOVE IT! I MEAN, NOT EVERY STORY LITERALLY GOES INTO THE MEDICIAL CONDITIONS/SIDE EFFECTS OF THE HEATS THAT OMEGA’S HAVE WHEN THEY TAKE SUPPRESANTS FOR TOO LONG, AND I ABSOULELTY LOVE IT SO SO SO MUCH!

#wincest #wincestmas!anon❄#wincestmas #AHHHH I LOVE YOU SO MUCH RIGHT NOW #YOU MAKE ME SO HAPPYYYYY #sirin #submission

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what-the-fuck-is-anime · 5 years

Photo

This kid is so fucking strong. He know this is going to get him hit, but he tries to hold his father responsible in a world where nobody else has.

This post contains talk of medical abuse, mental illness, and forced hospitalization.

Sending her to the hospital...it was deliberate. His dad must have been so happy to have an excuse to send her to a hospital. Her one outburst of terrible violence will forever overpower any of her claims regarding her husband’s ongoing violent abuse and manipulation. The media will never believe her about the abuse. They will frame her as incoherent, violent, and hysterical. This was all written to be as deliberate and as evil as possible to emphasize the extent to which this child is trapped. His mother returns from the hospital, inevitably not having been believed. And now she never will be, and she knew it, and that was probably why she was trying to call her mom. To try to avoid having the stigma of mental illness. In Japan, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. Mental illness stigma is much worse there, and the views surrounding mental illness are different than many other places in the world. And now whenever either of them act up, the second most physically powerful man on the planet gets to threaten them with forced hospitalization because the whole world knows his mom went to a psych hospital. He may even claim she caused whatever abuse she tries to get help for. The threat of forced hospitalization is an extremely common abuse tactic. He uses hospitals as a weapon. He uses getting help as a weapon. Now he can beat up his son as much as he wants, and he may never want to go to the hospital because that was the place that took mom, and he may not be able to make the distinction between general hospitals and psychiatric hospitals. “Hospital” was the bad place that mom was forced to go to. And when he came home from the ER, his mother was taken from him. He may suffer he may hide illness he may never speak up about pain because he seems to only be around 5 or 6

WARNING

The purpose of the following is to begin to attempt to begin understanding the plight of Todoroki’s mother in terms of Japanese culture and viewpoints. I researched and highlighted some specific aspects of mental illness and psychiatric care in Japan that may not have been considered or otherwise known by a foreign audience. Most of my sources are in English, and a huge number of them are scientific or otherwise academic in nature, so while they are in no way a one stop shop about Japanese culture so to speak, they are quick notes about what I found interesting and potentially relevant to the situation. The content below this point may be difficult to read, and although I included the warning at the top, this is the part where it may get more difficult beyond this point. If you are sensitive to reading medical abuse or stigma surrounding mental illness, I do not recommend reading further.

While many things are lost in translation in terms of cultural differences, it is my opinion that even slightly understanding some aspects of psychiatric care in Japan as well as the attitude towards mental illness are essential to understanding the struggle of Todoroki and his mother in context, and the power that his father holds over the two of them after sending her there. While there are many other important cultural differences that may change the impact of Todoroki’s backstory depending on who is interpreting it, the stark differences between Japanese psychiatric care compared to what I am familiar with as an American stuck out to me as something that is probably less likely to be known by the average anime viewer. I realized I had no perspective on what psychiatric care meant in Japan, so I decided to investigate.

Many sources include clarification for other claims that may appear unsourced, as well as often referencing certain aspects of Japanese culture that appear unsourced. The following is not a scientific paper, nor is it anywhere near a complete representation of psychiatric care in Japan, and should not be treated as anything more than an extremely casual anime essay that I spent a disproportionate amount of time on trying to research statistics in order to put the suffering of Todoroki’s mother into perspective, and the weight carried by a threat of forcible hospitalization in Japan, and give insight into what this may mean in terms of the source culture.

How long she was likely gone, what she may have experienced, and the transition from being physically controlled by her husband to being physically controlled within a hospital. I am not from Japan, most of my readers are not from Japan, so the ways in which we may be inclined to interpret the situation and its impact are entirely through the lenses of our own local cultures. My focus was mostly on facts and results from studies, which while easily citable, are again in no way a full picture of anything; I am not a good source for Japanese culture, this is not a good place to read about it fully, and if you try to use this as an educational resource well, uh, stop that. Beyond condemning a few specific practices, this is also not intended in any way to be a criticism of Japanese culture, but rather, a focus on a bunch of statistics and facts that I thought pertinent to this scene in My Hero Academia. Another important point here is the fact that there is an extremely limited number of English resources regarding Japanese psychiatric practices compared to ones entirely in Japanese, and not even the laws are officially translated, specifically the laws and reforms regarding mental health. One important thing I want to note is that given how nightmarish Todoroki’s situation seems altogether and how much effort is put into making it as bad as possible, I am inclined to believe that his mother’s experience in the hospital was also intended to be on the more negative, potentially leaning towards worst or at the very least worse-than-average spectrum of experiences. My speculation reflects that.

END WARNING

Todoroki’s mom was so scared, she knew she needed to seek help to the point she asked help from people who forced her into the situation, but now that he forcibly hospitalized her, now that she acted out, now that he framed her as this inherently and consistently horrible violent person, the hospital could justify doing whatever they want to her. Japan is one of the last places in the world that uses physical restraints in psychiatric hospitals, and they use them very frequently alongside heavy sedation and otherwise high doses of drugs. Violent patients and patients with histories of violence are treated much, much worse on average, and she entered the hospital directly after having attacked her son. There is, to some extent, fear of mental illness and the mentally ill in Japan, especially in terms of those with histories of violence.

Even though Todoroki’s mother knows just how much she has been hurt and how much danger she and her son are in from her husband, they evidently never believed her, or at least never got her out of there. They may have called any claims of abuse acting out, they may have called it more evidence of her violence or her trying to blame her own assumed tendency towards violence on her innocent virtuous husband, they may have called her hysterical and drugged her even more, maybe even until she stopped claiming her husband was violent and abusive. After all, he is a top hero and has immeasurable influence, he very well also could have bribed or charmed the doctors just like he did everyone else to disregard his abuse and silence her. The doctors may be led to believe that her claims of abuse were delusions, and that she was suffering from a delusion when she attacked her son, so the goal for their treatment may have actually been to explicitly end those “delusions” of abuse to avoid future violence.

Another example of how much power Todoroki’s dad has is how he managed to get her admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the time it took Todoroki to come home from the ER thanks to his political influence. Involuntary admission in Japan requires politician approval. Additionally, who would believe her that she was not the consistently violent one? She brutally attacked her child with boiling water, after all. Surely it must have been the result of her mental illness to accuse him of any abuse, as the trustworthy top hero may have even warned the doctors, so surely all she needed was more drugs until her alleged delusions subsided. She attacked her son due to a claim that she was traumatized by her husband’s abuse, which he surely denied. The fact that he sent her to a psychiatric hospital instead of jail could have been seen as an act of mercy, when it truly was just to ensure he could manipulate her as long as possible, and the fact that having his wife arrested would have been a worse hit on his reputation than having her sent to a hospital. Plus, being charged with a crime might give her the opportunity to have him investigated. Regardless of how her claims of abuse were handled, nothing was done. Now she is scarier to the public than the man who deserved to be locked up a long time ago.

In 2017, a New Zealand man died from a heart attack after being restrained for 10 days in a Japanese psychiatric hospital and developing deep vein thrombosis (DVT) due to the restraints. 10 days not being allowed to leave the bed, to the point a blood clot developed, went entirely unaddressed, and resulted in a heart attack. The average time spent in medical restraints in Japanese psychiatric hospitals is 96 days. Yes, 3 months. Almost everywhere else in the world, that figure is a few hours if any. The source of the average length of time spent in restraints seems to be entirely written in Japanese, and while I was unable to directly read that particular report, I verified that it has been cited by numerous advocacy groups and news sources, and I spent hours comparing it to general information regarding physical restraints in Japan. Deep vein thrombosis is common for restrained patients in Japan, and use of restraints is on the rise. In 2013, about 29% of all psychiatric patients in Japan were placed in restraints (10,299 patients out of a total of around 297,000). Violent patients are more likely to be restrained. According to a 2014 study of a Tokyo hospital, over 11% of patients in restraints develop deep vein thrombosis. And that study was performed with patients wearing compression stockings and receiving regular injections of unfractionated heparin (UFH), both of which reduce the overall chance of a blood clot. Those precautions are not enforced across Japan and may be exclusive to this study. So without those precautions, the general rate of developing DVT from these restraints is likely much higher.

Japan has the highest ratio of psychiatric beds to population in the world. In Japan, hospitals are viewed as long-term care facilities, so while a psychiatric stay in America might be a few weeks, in Japan it can be years. In 2008, the average length of stay in a psychiatric hospital was 290 days. Involuntary admission is associated with an even longer length of stay, and involuntary admissions between April 2014 and March 2016 were about 35% of total admissions. There is no legal upward limit of involuntary hospitalization in Japan. Involuntary hospitalization is initiated by the prefectural governor, with no guaranteed timeline for psychiatric assessment. Japan has on average four times the average involuntary hospitalization rate as other OECD countries.

As a result of research into restraints in Japan, I found https://www.norestraint.org/ , a Japanese advocacy website aimed to improve psychiatric care and campaign for the end of restraints in Japanese psychiatric hospitals. With the help of Google Translate, the page describes how some people in charge of psychiatric associations in Japan believe doctors should be given guns, which are extremely illegal in Japan. It also gives a visual on some types of restraint used. Japan has high rates of high dose medication and forced sedation, electroconvulsive therapy, and isolation in these psychiatric facilities. “Megadosing” is abundant, in that patients are given heavy doses of medicine until they are no longer resistant or are otherwise considered quiet, partially to compensate for understaffing. There are commonly not enough workers in these facilities, and high doses of drugs are often used to make patients more compliant instead of hiring more workers. The psychiatric hospitals in Japan are also mostly privately owned. In researching these statistics, I encountered countless stories demonstrating the worst possible scenarios. These experiences are again not necessarily indicative of the average hospital stay in Japan, and these statistics only represent very specific aspects of medical procedure within Japanese psychiatric hospitals, and are in no way “complete” representations of an average stay or the attitudes of all psychiatric healthcare professionals. However, one thing that came up repeatedly is the idea that some aspects of an individual’s stay can be influenced at the request of the family, including requesting longer time spent in restraints and longer stays.

In Japan, the views regarding mental illness differ greatly from the western model, which likely contributes to the contrast between their physical and psychiatric healthcare. A survey published in 2006 comparing the outlook towards mental illness between Australia and Japan presented four stories describing individuals with major depression, major depression with suicidal thoughts, early schizophrenia, and chronic schizophrenia, and then asked the respondents several questions regarding them. These stories were translated multiple times between English and Japanese to ensure that the translations were accurate. When asked to describe what the individuals in the story were experiencing, the results illustrated a Japanese preference towards phrases like “emotional problems” compared to the Australian survey. This same survey also demonstrated just how heavily family and community are expected to participate in the caretaking of those with mental illness in Japan, with nearly 2-3x the Japanese respondents saying that the individuals in the examples given would be best helped by their families, with more emphasis on the individual recognizing their own problems compared to the Australian responses. In terms of professional help, while the Australian participants largely recommended seeing a general doctor, the Japanese participants pointed towards counselors and psychiatrists.

In terms of what would not be viewed as helpful for the individuals in the stories, there was a significant disparity between the countries. In terms of depression, 87.3% of Australian respondents believed that a general doctor would be helpful, compared to only 30.4% in Japan. 35.4% of Australians surveyed said that a pharmacist would be helpful for the individual with depression, while in Japan only 6.8% believed a pharmacist would be helpful, with 22-23.6% actually saying that pharmacists would be harmful compared to about 8.1-8.7% in Australia. These responses were similar across all four examples. Roughly thrice the Japanese respondents believed that tranquilizers were beneficial across all conditions compared to Australia. Australia showed a heavy preference towards vitamins, with over 50% believing vitamins being beneficial to the individual with depression. In terms of medications being harmful, Australia leaned heavily towards calling tranquilizers, sleeping pills, and antipsychotics as harmful while significantly less Japanese respondents (roughly half as much or less) thought their application could be harmful to the individuals in the stories.

There was significant doubt towards the abilities of the individuals in the stories to recover in the Japanese survey, for example, just 7.4% believed that the individual with depression could make a full recovery even with professional help, compared to 37.3% in Australia. The Japanese survey leaned heavily towards individuals with professional help making progress, but with relapse. While the results are over 10 years old and there has been much change in society since then, I personally just thought the numbers were really cool.

More recently, a 2013 paper attempted to summarize the results of 19 papers regarding mental illness stigma in Japan published since 2001. Chronic schizophrenia was singled out as being viewed as especially dangerous in Japan, largely due to fear of violence, despite not many people being able to accurately identify it in practice. Medication for mental illness was generally poorly understood, with relatively few believing in the effectiveness of antidepressants as a whole. Friends and family were most commonly considered helpful, followed by counselors. Fear of schizophrenia in Japan was prevalent across multiple studies and statistics. Overall, Japan had more stigma than Australia and Taiwan, but less than China. The analysis mentioned that in Japan, personality is more commonly seen as a cause of mental illness than circumstance and biological factors. The findings suggested that the chronic institutionalization of those with mental illness may play a role in the stigma of mental illness, in that more frequent contact with and education about mental illness is associated with better outcomes in regards to acceptance.

Mental illness is commonly thought of in Japan as something that cannot be recovered from. Meaning, someone who has been labeled with a mental illness may never be viewed the same by society. This stigma played a role in why Todoroki’s mother took so long to seek out help, and why she waited until it got so bad to reach out. Mental illness is often seen as a loss of self-control, families are expected to care for mentally ill individuals, and there is a resistance to seeking out professional help beyond counselors. This plays a factor in why sending her to a hospital was an act of abuse on the part of Todoroki’s father within the context of Japanese culture. Although attacking Todoroki with boiling water was an extreme act of violence, general expectations are to discuss within the family how to address mental illness before seeking out a professional, or to at least look into a counselor, both which should have happened long ago. The process is not necessarily the same after an assault, but again, the family discussion should have happened a long time ago.

Todoroki’s mother reached out to her own family for help with what she was experiencing even though they were the ones that gave her to him for the sole purpose of bearing powerful children and were aware of the ongoing abuse for a while. They put her there. They did not get her out of there despite his constant physical abuse, either. She spoke about the situation on the phone as if they already knew. And evidently they also never backed up her claims of her husband actively hurting her and her son, since Todoroki never mentioned him getting investigated or them splitting up afterwards. She tried to seek mental counsel from a group of people who sold her for her Quirk as a readily available womb, because regardless of how they treated her, family is still expected to help. In that same sense, Todoroki’s father was supposed to attempt to help as well. Which would essentially involve telling him to stop being abusive, because it was evidently the trauma from his abuse that eventually led to the outburst. Obviously he did not want to do that. He wanted to punish her for acting out. Out of the frying pan and into the fire. Had he truly done this as an act of kindness, he would have changed. He did not, because he is an abusive shithead. As mentioned above, involuntary hospitalization requires authorization from local politicians, so the fact that he is a top hero plays an enormous role in exactly how easily and quickly he managed to get his wife committed. He could easily have her held longer, or re-committed should she ever act out again or even try to seek out help.

In terms of what contributed to the outburst, there are a ton of potential factors. For one thing, we saw Todoroki’s father shove his mother to the ground, leading the audience to believe there is a significant history of violence against her, as well as hints given by Todoroki’s description of his father being given access to his mother. Women in violent domestic abuse situations are extremely prone to having traumatic brain injuries. Experiencing domestic violence also makes someone more likely to develop mental illness in general. In terms of potential PTSD, the absolute inability to get away from her abuser due to how physically powerful and influential he is probably played a role in the severity of the attack. Her family was well aware of the abuse she experienced. She could have already been drugged, she could have already been on medication and experiencing side effects, there are not a lot of details thus far. But there are two things we know about Todoroki’s father for certain: he is one of the most powerful people in the world and has access to whatever resources he wants, and he is a raging abusive asshole. Regardless of the specifics here of what she experienced, the abuse evidently continued after her attack. Otherwise, this would have been considered an event in Todoroki’s life and not his backstory.

The impact of being forced into a psychiatric hospital is not the same in America and Japan, and the culture surrounding mental illness is much different as well.

I do not want to begin to elaborate how traumatic medical abuse is, and I will not pretend like America or any other part of the world is in any way free from it either, but the impact of the hospitalization may be lost in translation depending on the locale of the viewer.

Hospitals are supposed to help people. Police are supposed to help people. Heroes are supposed to help people. They have all failed this kid and he is absolutely trapped. He went to the hospital and returned to find his mother taken from him, leaving him with an angry father and presumably nobody to protect him. Todoroki was forced to grow up viewing “heroes” as people who hurt, as one of the most successful heroes in the world was personally dedicated to make his life hell. To that end, he may have even found himself occasionally cheering for villains, just to find refuge in a fantasy where someone can protect him from his father. His father had political influence, and because politicians are the ones responsible for permitting involuntary hospitalization in Japan, he had the power to send away his family at will if they ever tried to speak up. Even in a society of superpowers, even in a society with magic, the world still fails to protect children. It enables abusers. It did not even bother to consider that people who love violence might be attracted to the job of being a hero, to express their love for violence and to be able to legally hurt or kill people. UA has absolutely no resources to identify abusive heroes, they do nothing about outwardly violent students. They do nothing to guide them, they do nothing to support them. I bet anything nobody is going to take note of all this talk of rejecting his father and do anything either despite it being a huge red flag. All Might straight up asked his old buddy how his student’s home life was, and the response was basically that he was being abused and that the kid wanted out. And nothing happened.

He knows.

And All Might was allegedly the only person in the world stronger than Todoroki’s father, and allegedly the best hero in the world. At some point, Todoroki may have even cheered for All Might, hoping that the man his father viewed as a threat and so desperately wanted to overpower could one day help himself and his mother defeat the villain in their own lives. But that help never came.

This world is an absolute nightmare. Abusive childhood with added superpowers for the abusers and no consequences. People without superpowers are treated horribly. People with mental illness are still treated horribly. They never believed that poor woman, and even if they did, they never followed through to protect a CHILD.

Todoroki spent his childhood being abused by someone beloved by the world and ignored by every institution that was supposed to help him. The man that so many around the world were so excited to meet was the same man that he desperately wanted to escape from. He watched the world praise a man who went home and abused his family. He was forced to watch his mother suffer similarly, and was even attacked by her as a result from her trauma. Instead of this being a wakeup call for his father, he tightened the reins and punished her for not more readily accepting his abuse. Todoroki knew he had to become stronger, but he wanted to do everything he could to never become like his horrifying father. He struggled to make bonds with others, and where his peers chose teamwork, he opted for independence.

And Todoroki finally managed to reach out to his seemingly empathetic and understanding classmate to break the news to him that one of the top heroes that he probably was a fan of prior is a terrible, terrible person. He vents, revealing just to what extent he is trapped and suffering. While he does not detail the specifics such as in the flashbacks, he paints a pretty blatant picture of a very abusive home life without much hope to escape. He admits to the ways in which he tries to cope with his trauma and avoid becoming like his father, while still trying to become strong enough to physically protect himself and his mother, and what does Midoriya say, on international television for all to hear?

REJECTING YOUR FATHER MAKES YOU A JACKASS AND YOUR TRAUMA IS AN INSULT TO EVERYONE AROUND YOU

FUCK OFF

#mha #bnha #liveblog #wtfia #ep23 #reflection

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kind-garowen · 5 years

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Trying not to suck at this

Today I had a moment of clarity that I have needed for a long time. This Tumblr is for me, really. If you read it and get something, cool. I’m happy to please others. But if it seems oddly self-serving, that’s because it is.

If you want to stick in for an explanation, here it is: I’ve been struggling with a pervasive depression for several months. Depression and anxiety have been long-time companions, but lately have been especially odious and difficult to shake. I’m currently 6 months pregnant with my second baby, facing a somewhat uncertain future. Uncertain in that my only option is to keep working and put both my kids in daycare, which is fine, but I’m nervous about doing that with a little baby in our stupid anti-vaxxing world. That’s one source of my anxiety, and the inescapability of it is a source of my depression.

The gnarly thing about the 1-2 combo of depression/anxiety, which I will shorten to Depressangst (that’s almost harder to type...) is that it erodes at your sense of self. Once I could see past the fog of first trimester illness, I realized that I had knuckled under the pressure of self-preservation and survival; I couldn’t quit life to manage my sickness, I had to keep plugging along somehow and had to sacrifice tenets of who I am in order to do that. The result was that I began forgetting who I am.

I am kind of making myself out to be a hero, and I wish I was. I’m not, this is about as common as there are people on this planet. Again, this is for me, random screaming person I’m fabricating in my head. Since I realized how depressed I was, regardless of the reason, I wanted to do something to hang on to who I am. In my head I have these pillars of my personality that haven’t been washed away by the necessity of survival. Pillars like that I am a writer, that I love the ocean, that I love the outdoors, adventures, eating, and travel. When you’re pregnant, several of those things go bye-bye, like a love of eating and exercise and travel. At least they did for me. I have a crap appetite even now, 6 months in, and am tired ALWAYS, so exercise is super hard, and travel is just a fat hassle (I have a 3 year old too, so...).

Neways, leaning against those pillars, my brain in some ill-advised attempt to help me survive or whatever is doing all it can to sabotage me whenever i try to focus on anything other than survival. Add to that that I live and work in a very Christian conservative environment but am not myself conservative and maybe barely Christian (I’m religious but I like to be private about my religiosity, which flies in the face of what’s normally expected around here) and the social pressure that women should be home with their kids, and, especially angering and damaging, that women basically trade in their personhood and humanity to become Mothers.

Oy. I could spend a long time on that one, and I probably will in future posts. This is getting really long, though. Anyway, my point is, that I am going to post on this Tumblr with pictures, with thoughts, with whatever pops into my head that helps me stay focused on my numerous, copious, plentiful personal goals in the face of a world that doesn’t care about me and a future that is promising to be demanding and draining, but can also be as bright as I want it to be.

Another basic tenet of my personality that i hate and love is that I don’t want to have to choose colors. When I was a kid and given a picture to color, I would look around at all the other kids making choices and putting colors together that definitely bespoke their personalities, whatever that meant. Maybe the colors looked good, maybe they didn’t, maybe the kid always chose their favorite colors. I would look at my options and think, “i want all the colors!” and I would usually use all the colors I could and then wonder why my final piece was such a mess. Well, in life as in childhood coloring time, I want all the damn colors and I don’t care how messy things look later. I don’t want to choose one and not the other, so as much as I can, I want everything. So this is me trying to keep myself on track to have everything I want, all the colors.

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eponymous-rose · 5 years

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This isn’t a post I really wanted to make, and I feel kind of shitty making it because parts of it aren’t my story to tell, but not talking about it isn’t working, so hey. Weirdly comforting internet void, please don’t reblog this.

There’s discussion of mental illness below, but not (directly) firsthand. This is mainly discussion of the impact mental illness is having on my family. Please avoid this post if this is a topic that is likely to cause you pain or discomfort. I think I just need to have it out there.

About a year ago, my brother was diagnosed with Bipolar I. His seeking out a diagnosis was the direct result of the way his mental health was horrifically mismanaged when he lived in the US in his late teens: he was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and, a few months later, a pharmacy error cut him off anti-psychotics cold turkey. It was absolutely horrible, and he wound up leaving school and moving back in with my parents for a time just to recover. That diagnosis was still on file for him almost a decade later, but recently his job finally had decent enough benefits that he could afford to go in for a barrage of psychiatric testing to rule things out. Bipolar I wound up being the diagnosis that fit.

And I think, for him, there was a sense of relief that came from that initial diagnosis, because a lot of things started to fit. Our immediate family is very close and very loving, but also almost comically controlled and disciplined and logical and isolated. As a kid, he would frequently spiral over something small (I clearly remember being baffled by the fact that my teenage brother would still have full-on tantrums), and my parents and I would just be staring wide-eyed in silence because strong emotion??? what do????? He was comforted and loved, and outright tells us all the time that he loves us and feels really lucky to have had such a supportive family, but I can’t help feeling like we were just... overwhelmed by inertia and kept thinking “this is probably healthier and more normal than the way we repress our emotions”.

I suspected depression was always there, and I’d reached out to him a little about that based on my own experiences, but mania hadn’t even occurred to me, even when he was sending us e-mails at 5 AM about the new opera he stayed up all night writing. It’s incredible what starts to feel like normal when you’re in denial like that.

Regardless, that’s where we were last year: he called us up when I was visiting my parents and we chatted for about an hour about what we all knew about this illness and how he’d be going forward. We all assured him that we loved him a lot and were here for him in whatever way he needed us.

And then, in typical us fashion, we repressed it. My dad yelled at a server out of nowhere for bringing the wrong drink that afternoon; this is the most empathetic man I know, who’s raised his voice maybe three times in my life that I can remember (he called the server over afterwards to apologize and tipped hugely for having to put up with him). My mom’s anxiety spiked. I stopped sleeping well. It took us a few months to realize we were all struggling because we were so worried.

My brother tried a few different meds, none of which had a really strong impact. We all got together for the holidays, and when he arrived, he was furious in a way that felt familiar, like back in high school when he’d be so angry it was like he wasn’t fully in control of his body, wasn’t hearing the things he was saying. It was weirdly a bit of a relief, because I realized then how much he must have been putting on an act before: after high school, he’d always been extremely quiet and positive every single time I talked to him (always for short visits with big chunks in between). He was finally comfortable not being perfect around us.

The precipitating factor for this particular blow-up was one of his coworkers e-mailing him and asking for one more article even though he was on holidays: dick move, sure, but in no way deserving of flinging his luggage around and teary-voiced ranting at the restaurant we took him to for dinner. We made sure he knew he was being heard and understood, and we sympathized with him, and we set up an hour that evening so he could just sit quietly in his room and work out how he was going to reply to the e-mail. And then things were fine again. He told us stories about how great that same coworker was the next day.

My parents stayed at an airbnb, mainly because my place is a little small for four, and he and I stayed here and just had a wonderful time. I realized how much I’d built things up in my head in a worrying way: this was still my brother, who I love very much, who’s sensitive and feels things deeply and sometimes gets upset, but I knew how to talk to him and I hope I could help him feel better; he certainly helped me feel better. We watched old cartoons and played NBA on the Switch and got milkshakes and ordered in pad thai and had a fantastic time just chilling and talking about whatever crossed our minds. I never once felt nervous or weird around him in the three weeks we were here, and I very clearly remember thinking, “Hey, future self, remember how natural this felt next time you’re catastrophizing: this is one of the few people in the world you’d happily have as a roommate.” We get along so, so well, and some of the new initial tension between him and my parents (that awkward combination of “well-meaning” and “absolutely out of their depths” made for a couple of baffled moments before they hit their stride) just never bled through to our friendship.

It came out during that trip that he’d accrued some pretty hefty credit card debt (overspending being an extremely common thing when you’re in a manic phase... and also in your twenties living alone in a big city when a big chunk of your job involves socializing every night); my parents very calmly and supportively told him they’d help him pay it off on the condition that he cut up those cards and take a serious look at the gaps in his budget. He was more embarrassed than anything, but my mom’s no-nonsense, logical attitude broke through and soon they were happily sitting down and setting up a budget.

He went back home, and things started getting worse. His landlord was an asshole who wouldn’t let him and his roommate control the heating and insisted on controlling it from off-site, so he’d come home to a sweltering apartment every night and couldn’t sleep. He took a sleeping pill to help him get some rest, and that triggered a major depressive episode. Through a series of accidental events (mainly getting stuck on hold with a crisis line for 45 minutes and calling 911 out of desperation), he wound up getting picked up by the cops one night and brought to a mental hospital, which he said wasn’t his intention, but he was glad it happened in the long run (the hospital, not the cops, obvs).

He was only there for one night, after which point they set him up with a social worker and amazing outpatient care, including psychiatrist visits every week and a new set of mood stabilizing meds, and I cannot stress enough that this would have been a much shorter story if he’d lived in the US. With my parents’ help, he wrote a letter to his landlord threatening to go to the city if he didn’t fix the heating situation, and his landlord caved (thank goodness, because there’s no way he’d be able to pay rent anywhere else in that city). Things stabilized, a little.

Now, though, it looks like he may lose his job. He disclosed his illness right after the diagnosis, and after some initial missteps, they started putting in effort to work with him on it---in my brother’s e-mails to us, the HR person went from an obnoxious jerk to a determined ally, if only to avoid liability issues. But on his new meds, while he feels great in the mornings, he’s exhausted by the afternoon, and he often has minor depressive episodes in the evenings, so clearly the dose isn’t right yet. He’s up to missing a couple days of work a week, and they’re clearly trying to lean on him to switch to contract work so they can let him go without running afoul of legal protections. It doesn’t help that what started as a wide-open, exciting startup (he still says the first eight months were his dream job) has turned into an ad revenue-grabbing mechanism where all his colleagues are white homophobic tech bros who ignore him at best and resent his “special treatment” at worst.

A lot of his friends happened to move away around the time of his diagnosis as well, and now a lot of his remaining friends are distancing themselves. A common factor in his last few jobs toward the end was people telling him, “You just looked miserable all the time,” and it sounds like it’s starting to impact his personal relationships. His time online is spent in the deepest of “cancel culture” discussion, where being mostly good but fucking up once is almost more reprehensible than being wholly awful (he quit Facebook for a while, but wound up reopening his account to let people know about his hospitalization... and now he’s just back there again). He and his boyfriend broke up. His friend who initially suggested he apply for this job now ignores him at work.

It’s that awful combo of “people are being assholes about my illness” and “my illness makes it hard to believe that someone who initially reacts poorly will ever come around, so I’d better shove them away first”.

My parents are understandably so worried for him. They’re going out to visit him for three weeks starting tomorrow, staying at an airbnb nearby and occupying themselves with their own retirement pursuits so he can come visit if he likes, or ignore them if he needs space. They’ve told him that, if he’d like, he’s welcome to come stay with them for a few months (they live on the other side of the country); they’ll cover his half of the rent while he’s gone, and he’ll have a bit of an opportunity to just heal, considering he went straight back to work the day after his hospitalization. They’ll also help him strategize about whether he wants to switch to part-time on his current job and see about picking something else up. I suggested they bring up the possibility of going back for a master’s---I know it’s an absolute minefield for mental health, but in his particular case, a flexible schedule plus project-based creative work with specific deadlines has always been a pretty good fit, and he excels academically.

They’re also preparing for the possibility of moving him out to stay with them on a more permanent basis, but they obviously don’t want to disrupt his care (his current appointments are at the best mental health facilities in the country). They can’t afford to live in his city on their pension, but they’re also talking about giving up their retirement condo and buying out his roommate’s half of the rent, and just being there to help him out when he needs it. I don’t think he’d go for that unless things really deteriorated quickly, but a few months away from the city definitely sounds like what he needs.

And I’m just... so angry. I’m pissed off that so much of the stress weighing on him (and so many others!) right now comes from him being nearly 30, in debt, without a hint of a way to start saving for retirement, with these little one- or two-year gig jobs with two-hour commutes full of toxic people stretching out into eternity. I’m pissed off that this awful disease has made it so my parents probably aren’t in a place where they’re going to be able to do their big retirement trip, and they may be giving up their idyllic retired life for good. I’m angry with myself for that little burrowing resentment that, because my parents are older, I could wind up a financial, medical, and emotional caretaker for them and/or my brother at a moment’s notice, and I don’t feel ready to take all of that on. I’ll never feel ready.

(As a bonus, bipolar I has a genetic component, and now I’m thinking back to that one time I stayed up all night determined to save the world by learning all of biology in eight hours, or the time when as a grown-ass adult I started crying like a ten-year-old because I felt left out from an activity friends were doing, and I’m thinking, is this it? And then it’s not those extremes, it’s every normal human emotion that was previously muted by my own situational depression years ago. Is this it?)

I feel so, so entitled to the life we should have had as a family, and so frustrated at all these external factors that’ve brought it crashing down. More than anything, I’m scared for my little brother. I know bipolar isn’t something that magically disappears, and that things are likely to get worse, but I want those external stressors to go away and just leave him alone for half a minute so he can heal and find the right combination of meds and maybe, maybe get to think about thriving rather than just surviving. I’m so grateful to my parents for finding the right things to do and say to help him recover. And I know that, if something goes horribly wrong, I can try to fill those shoes.

I’m still losing sleep, but only every now and then. People at work occasionally comment that I don’t look so good, but that’s much rarer than a couple months ago, and the people I’ve confided in are very kind and check in on me even when things seem to be going well.

After the move this fall, I’m going to find someone to talk to professionally about this. In the meantime, just typing this all out makes me feel a bit better. I am finding better ways to cope; I had to mute him on social media because my overwhelming tendency to overthink his posts was very dangerous (turns out that famous self-deprecating millennial sense of humor is terrifying when you’re trying to work out if someone’s in danger). I have a generally positive attitude about this, and I can now usually catch myself when I’m starting to spiral. I send my brother goofy links, and he sends me funny stuff in return. I’m going for runs and eating better and playing video games and hanging out with friends...

... and I’m genuinely very happy a majority of the time (not just content, but happy), which wasn’t true even a couple months ago.

I’m scared and angry and coming to grips with it being okay to be both of those things, as long as I’m also supportive and loving. This is my little brother. This is my family. They’re the best.

And all we can do is take it one day at a time.

#(no reblogs yes thank you)#eponymous family tag #mental health ///

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curlyjoe7 · 5 years

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Forming Your Own Opinions.

First off - major trigger warning for rape, manipulation and abuse. Second off - this is an adult conversation, between adults and only adults. I don’t want any arguments just informed debate. If you don’t know the situation then don’t speak. If you don’t like my opinion, agree to disagree, unfollow or block and move on. Everyone has the right to express their thoughts, all arguing will result in being blocked. Third off - I know this is old and no one wants to hear about it anymore but I just formed an opinion on it which I want to talk about. Sorry if hearing about it bothers you.

For the longest time and still even so now I have had the mentality: go with the popular opinion or just be quiet and you will be liked. Which is very toxic. I am obsessed with being liked, being plastic and letting others control my thoughts. I’m trying to get away from that though and this is my first step. Stating a controversial opinion. A big one. Very big. It’s hard for me, the whole thing has thrown me into a few severe anxiety attacks but I have to do this to get better or I never will. I’m super nervous and I’m ready to be hated or as ready as I possibly can be whilst simultaneously freaking out. So what’s my opinion? That Melanie Martinez is innocent. Just hear me out. Here’s why I think she’s innocent:

I was a big Melanie fan at the time of the rape accusations. At first when I heard it I thought “wow this is terrible, she��s a rapist” and cancelled her. It was really hard but I knew it was the best thing to do. After all it’s better to side with a potential victim than a potential rapist, right? I also knew nothing about the backstory so I had nothing to work off of but the word of someone I didn’t know existed and the statement “she never said no to what we chose to do together.” I as many thought that was a dumb excuse, just because someone doesn’t say no doesn’t mean it means yes. But like I said, I had no backstory so I moved on and unfanned Melanie, as hard as it was for me. Randomly I thought of it again, in the past week, and wondered if there was anything else about it. Looked it up and well... there’s a ton. I want to make a disclaimer that when looking at all the evidence, I took into consideration both sides. I was completely unbiased in this despite my past love of Melanie. Rape is a serious issue and should be treated like that not just excused because you like the person who is accused of it. Though with what I was learning, Timothy’s story seemed fishy with some holes. So I did more digging. First let’s get the story clear of what supposedly happened:

And that’s it basically. That’s the story, coming straight from her Twitter. Pretty horrifying, manipulating and wrong. Makes you feel bad for Timothy. But it doesn’t end there. After she released that statement Melanie released her own:

Many people thought it was her admitting to it and claiming it wasn’t rape because she let it happen. Which had us thinking she was guilty as sin. Until Timothy started releasing more information. Apparently that same day they went to a thrift shop and picked up a game that included a blindfold, handcuffs, and a dice that said things like “lick leg.” Which she never mentioned at all before. Originally Timothy said that Melanie bought it but then later said she herself did. Which is odd since she stated she has been abused before and sexual stuff made her uncomfortable. But whatever she said she thought it would be funny. Now here’s where it gets weird, she never mentioned the game before, right?Maybe she forgot? Sure that’s reasonable. They played the game on June 25th 2015 according to Timothy in an interview:

At Melanie’s house. Melanie’s house is in LA. This is important because with further information, she was in New York performing on stage that day. She even made an Instagram post about it:

And fans have pictures of her on stage. You notice how her hair is blonde and black in this pic? Well to support her cause Timothy posted a picture of Melanie the night it happened:

Her hair is a different color. And on her phone it shows up as May 6th, 2015. She claims it’s because her iCloud is messed up and that pictures of her recently showed up at being in 2011:

I went to Melanie’s Instagram to see her hair color May 6th, 2015 and just look:

On May 2nd her hair was that color in the picture. It’s actually really easy to change dates on your iCloud too. That’s... odd. But there’s even more, I believe she said they stopped being freinds after that but I know she said they stopped being friends in 2016, yet in 2017 she said this:

Okay. Change it once, maybe you forgot but if she changed it twice and still got it wrong? Suspicious. She actually has changed a lot of the story, multiple times. She said originally she didn’t want to go to the cops because she was afraid they wouldn’t believe her then said on her Instagram Live that yeah it’s bad but not murder so she doesn’t deserve to go to jail. So which is true? I mean it doesn’t matter her reason, it’s her decision but why is the reason changing? In Timothy’s original statement she mentioned some of Melanie’s fans became her fans but their loyalty never strayed from Melanie. That’s... irrelevant. But is it actually? Melanie was supposed to release a new album one month later. Which didn’t end up happening and when you went to Timothy’s Twitter at the time she had a pinned tweet for her song. Kinda weird but okay, it was probably there before. But why mention the loyalty of her fans never straying from her? Like I said, it’s irrelevant to the topic but not to her potential motives. They started their careers at the same time and Melanie was more popular too. And apparently started focusing on her music more than her friends so both of these might be the reason why. Seems reasonable. Now of course I wanted to check the stuff on Melanie’s side too but all I found was the original statement and this one:

Which in my opinion does clear up the “she never said no” thing. I think what she was trying to say is, Timothy didn’t say no multiple times like she said she did and that Melanie would never have sex with someone without their complete confirmation. Maybe even she meant she didn’t say no to the game they played. Though it could mean: “She never said no, I didn’t act on when she did say no but pressured her to give in.” And what Melanie says in this statement: “I trusted so many people in my life who took advantage of that trust for their own personal gain” supports the fact Timothy did it for fame. She also mentioned that in her song she released on Spotify called Piggyback that goes:

Trusted too many people while I was still young

Gave them the benefit of the doubt, I was so wrong

I cut them off and they came for blood cause they know

They ain’t getting no more

I’m so done playing piggyback

Swear to god I wished y’all all the best

You’re lying your way to try to gain a piece of me

When you could never come close cause I know my destiny

I worked hard for my shit

Put my love in this shit

Now you’re trying to kill my name for some fame

What is this?

Tried to help you do your shit

Encouraged you to work on it

Was a good friend and you used that to your advantage

Timothy did mention when Melanie blew up that she didn’t have time anymore for her and that she wanted to focus on her fans and music. So it does make sense that she did this for attention, to hurt Melanie. Even so the way Melanie worded her statement originally, doesn’t help her cause. Just made her look worse. The second statement however does clear it up in my opinion. With all the evidence and what Melanie said, it’s 1 point she’s guilty to multiple that she’s innocent. Even if you don’t like her you can’t deny that. There may be more points towards her being guilty as well, I’m not sure but this is all I could find, though there is just too many points towards her being innocent. In reality though none of this is fact, it’s just evidence and even evidence can be fake or twisted sometimes. Here’s a few more things about Timothy though and this story:

She says she doesn’t want to talk about it anymore but yet is willing to keep bringing it up. She dressed up as Melanie in 2016, a year after the rape, why would you put yourself through so much pain and do that? Idk just seems like it would hurt you more but she did love her so maybe that’s why: she was trying to deny the truth because of how much she loved her. She also suffers from BPD (Boarderline Personality Disorder) which I hate to bring up, just because she has a mental illness doesn’t mean she would do something fucked up. Just because anyone has a mental illness doesn’t mean it’s the reason for everything. Mental illness doesn’t equal bad morals but it can lead you to do bad things. Trust me I know, I have depression, anxiety and OCD. My OCD causes me to try to avoid particular things which I don’t always do in a nice way. I hurt people because I don’t want to deal with something related to it. This could be the same situation. The symptoms of BPD do explain why she would do this to hurt Melanie. For example some of the symptoms for BPD are pervasive instability in moods, distaste of one’s self image, insecurity and problems with interpersonal relationships. It seems logical with that info why she would do it if she is lying. Not to mention Timothy has claimed abuse on past bandmates of her old band Dresses where she only stayed cause they needed her voice. She has the history to make claims, I have no idea if it’s true though. She also allegedly molested a 16 year old girl. Also unsure if that’s true but if she did that she might have based the story on what she did since the story is quite similar. Regardless, here’s my complete opinion on the matter:

Timothy made it up for attention because she was jealous Melanie was focusing on her music not her and that she wasn’t as popular, probably a lot being because of her BPD. She knew a story like this would get attention and people would believe with the rising amount of sexual assault victims coming forward. So she posted it and then remembered she knew she had that picture of the game so she started basing it around that, picking a random date and saying it happened at Melanie’s house cause they are in her house in the pic, not knowing what Melanie actually did that day. However though she forgot the picture was dated and tried to blow it off as her iCloud being messed up which she supported by changing the date on recent pictures to awhile ago. And also she can’t remember parts of her story so she makes up new stuff and changes stuff a lot. Then she goes on to social media shading her and posting things about how hard it is to get empathy. Stuff like the picture on her IG story which is her crying (it just looks like she put in eyedrops to me) I would post but I hit the picture limit. She even contacted her friends to get in on it to make it look legit. She hasn’t gone to the cops because she knows they will find it bs and she’ll be revealed as lying. Most juries which are meant to be unbiased would side with Melanie because of the evidence so if it is false that explains why she hasn’t gone to the cops. And if it is real, honey if you don’t remember a part just say you don’t remember, it’s not helping your cause.

But that’s just my opinion, everyone has their own. There is probably even more to this that I don’t know but I shared everything I do. Though regardless let’s remember no side has concrete proof. To me everyone is innocent until proven guilty. You can’t really call her a good or a bad person and say it’s fact because you don’t know the truth. You can however support her by forming an opinion based on your own view of the situation. That doesn’t make you a bad person or someone who is defending rape. And to everyone who believes it: don’t get on the people who think it’s bullshit. You can’t deny there is a lot of holes in the story. And it doesn’t make you look better or woke nor is it siding with a potential rapist, it’s siding with evidence and your opinion. Evidence is better to side with than a potential victim just because they are a potential victim. Some people make stuff up. Even horrible things like that. Also don’t side with Melanie just because you like her, actually do some research and use your brain not your heart. It makes you a horrible person to just support her because “she’s my idol and a true fan would support her even if she’s a rapist!!!” That’s so fucked up. It truly makes me sick to hear delusional stans saying that. People like you are making the situation worse and contributing to rape culture. Delusional stans are also saying if you didn’t believe Melanie from the beginning on this situation you’re not a real fan. Which is not true at all. We are real fans, we just wanted to not instantly believe she didn’t do it because we like her. We wanted to figure out how we see the situation by looking at the evidence before jumping to conclusions. That makes us logical. On a similar note us questioning the situation and trying to find more information on it to form an opinion is also being logical. Not invalidating a potential rape victim. But rather doing the right thing and giving both parties the right to a fair trial. And if any of you are going to say: “why hasn’t Melanie done more about it then?” Would you want to talk about something like this? Something that damaged your career immensely? No, you wouldn’t. If it’s real, I’m sorry Timothy that this happened to you and Melanie deserves consequences. But if it is false, I’m sorry you have to deal with this Melanie and Timothy deserves consequences. Form your own opinion and please be respectful. I’m going to go back to supporting Melanie because I genuinely believe that she didn’t do it. That’s my decision, make your own. And don’t get on Melanie or Timothy, no cyber bullying them. Like I said you don’t know the truth nor do I, only they do. Even if you did being mean gets you nowhere. Now let’s just let this go and move forward from it.

#melanie martinez #timothy heller #i want to say as well i told both my mom and bf about this #i told the whole story and they both think something is up with timothy’s story #they don’t care nor really know about either of them #so their opinion is as unbiased as it can get #and they both think she’s lying #take that as you will #also i want to say i feel so free posting this #like i cut those chains holding me down to perfection #holding me back #not letting me be me #i’m so proud of myself for doing this #it’s a big step towards getting better

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lactosecarrotsoup · 5 years

Text

My thoughts on Sean & Finn’s kiss

This will be long and of course contain spoilers, as if you can’t tell by the title... thingy. So, be warned. This will also contain my opinion(s); which is a very sensitive subject in this fandom.

We’re all entitled to our own thoughts, opinions, beliefs, etc.

With that said, let’s get started!

For those who are new to this game... I will give you a short summery. Life is Strange is a video game series ran by DontNod. A great company who loves to make players cry. This season has new characters from the other season and DLC. This season takes place in Washington where you play as a 16 year old boy, Sean Diaz, who’s a regular teenager. He loves drawing, skating, and of course stereotypical teen stuff such as drugs and parties. Taking away the partying and drug usage, he’s your typical shy-ish guy. He also has a little brother named Daniel, he’s 9 years old.

Both of them are Hispanic, including their father (Esteban), making this season’s cast more diverse than the first season, where the main characters were mainly white.

Speaking of their father, he dies. Yep. After Sean forces Daniel out of his room, Daniel runs to their hot-headed neighbor and accidentally spills homemade zombie blood on him. Sean over see’s the neighbor about to hurt Daniel and rushes out the house, protecting him. After a few racial slurs/crude remarks to Daniel, Sean decides to fight him. Sean shoves the neighbor onto a small rock (which I still dont understand how that injured him), and he lays on the ground in shock/going unconscious.

A cop shows up and hell breaks loose. The cop only see’s the “blood” on the neighbors shirt and Daniels, thinking nothing but the worst of the situation rather than questioning them. The dad comes out, trying to reason with the officer and he gets trigger happy, shooting Sean & Daniel’s dad, killing him. Daniel screams in shock/anger/horror and Sean blacks out. Whenever he wakes up, the entire street is destroyed and more people are dead/unconscious. He grabs Daniel and they runaway, not wanting to get involved with the crime. It’s later found out that Daniel has powers (similar theme to LIS season 1) and can move objects with his mind.

More shit happens, yada yada yada.

NOW.

Episode 3 just released. In episode two, the brothers meet quite a few people. But most notably for this post, Cassidy and Finn. These two are regular friends (or maybe even “fuck buddies” as Finn and another girl described their relationship), who are a lot like Sean and Daniel. Cassidy left her old home life to live on the road. Finn, I can’t remember if he said anything or not. But I would think it would be for the same reason or something crime related.

Anyways, point is, they all group together and live in the woods. But, they all also work for this dude who runs a farm with nothing but pot.

Yep.

A nine year old and sixteen year old kid are working at a pot farm.

This leads to Finn, Cassidy, and Sean to get high, drunk, etc.

Finn get’s a hair up his ass and decides; “Hey, why don’t we steal all the cash from our boss? Who cares if he may know about Sean & Daniel’s backstory, has security footage evidence of them, and shotguns?!”

Cassidy is against this. But you, the player, have the option to accept or refuse his plan to rob the big dude with the cash.

And in the words of Chloe Price from season one; he’s got some “hella cash”

SORRY I HAD TOO.

But still, you can either rob from the guy or go against it. But HO HO HO! This choice doesn’t matter that much. Finn does it anyways (with a fUCKING NINE YEAR OLD HELPING HIM AND RISKING THAT KID’S LIFE) and Cassidy gets upset and worried. So, if you disagree with Cassidy, you end up meeting with them anyways so you can stop them. You get in trouble either way, btw.

But, let’s back it up.

If you agree to join Finn’s plan, he’s happy and you have the chance to romance him. Which, at first thought (including mine), was great! In the first season, Max was bisexual. You can flirt/romance with Chloe and/or Warren. With Sean romancing Cassidy and Finn, the developers made him bisexual.

But... it’s not all roses. Let me give you my first reaction. I do actually have it recorded.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJ8lg5clHM

2:29:55 - 2:34:24

If you don’t watch it, basically I was excited and shocked. I didn’t like Finn at first but in that moment, I shipped them. I wanted Sean to be happy and happy enough to open up about his sexuality, if he hadn’t already.

But, I realized something.

Finn is most likely 20+. Sean is still 16. This means Finn is an older guy kissing a minor, which is of course, illegal. Not to mention that earlier in that episode, he was teaching Daniel to throw knifes and such. He smokes and drinks and admits his sexual relationships in front of a kid, too.

Speaking of his sexual relationships, it would be highly toxic if Sean and him dated/had casual sexual intercourse. Just based on Sean’s personality and how he had a crush on that Jen girl in the first episode, and how close him and Cassidy warmed up to each-other, he wears his heart on his sleeve. One thing this season has done WONDERFULLY is not distribute toxic masculinity. Sean and Daniel have both cried several times. Most men don’t like to talk/show their feelings because they feel weak and such, which is horrible. No guy should feel that way and should openly express them-self.

Sean does this, which is amazing. Yet, still can harm him.

Right after you agree to Finn’s plan, you can kiss him. Throughout the episode, he also flirts with Sean. Of course you have the CHOICE to kiss him... but it’s only after you accept his agreement. You can kiss Cassidy (and sleep with her) but she will storm off, angry, without kissing you, if you agree to Finn’s plan. Which is reasonable. Or, you can lie to her, saying you thought his plan was dumb, and she’ll kiss you. Both reasonable (in my opinion) responses to each situations.

But, how come you can’t kiss Finn regardless? Sean can say no and they could still talk about their feelings, leading to a kiss. Instead, they do nothing.

Finn is manipulative. He used Sean’s emotions to get to him. He probably noticed how close him and Cassidy were and how much love he has for Daniel, openly saying it every now and then, and wanting to protect him. Finn noticed how open Sean is and took advantage.

Imagine if this wasn’t a choice base game and the story automatically follows Sean agreeing with Finn.

He flirts with him throughout the episode and is very charismatic. Since Daniel notices how close Sean and Cassidy are getting, he rants to Finn. Finn takes in this information and uses it against them. He becomes “cool” in Daniel’s eyes by being super chill, rebellious, and showing him how to violently protect himself/hurt others. In a sense, he becomes Daniel’s temporary older and “cooler” brother, making Daniel look up to him. With Finn’s flirting, he admits (once again, if your choices didn’t matter) that he has feelings for some guys.

Finn takes note of this.

The idea pops into his head to steal from the man who runs the pot farm... thing. I’m an innocent bean who hasn’t done anything harder than prescribed drugs for anxiety and stuff. So forgive me if I’m getting these terms wrong, LOL! But, the point still remains, he tells Daniel who is automatically on board. I doubt a 9 year old boy truly cares if they have enough money or not. I bet his main thought was “If I do this, then Finn will think I’m cool! He’ll treat me like an adult and so will others.”

In fact, I bet you that was his exact thoughts, just based on what he said to Sean and how he acted towards others.

If you really look at it, guys... it looks similar to a Mark Jefferson/Nathan Prescott relationship in season 1. I’m not going to go into many details for the people who haven’t played/watched season 1 yet, but I’ll give you guys a basic rundown by what I mean.

Nathan was mentally ill. He suffered from possibly multiple disorders and had an abusive father. His father wanted him to be the best of the best, not for his sake, but for the families sake. This got to Nathan and he hated his father. Mark Jefferson was a teacher who noticed this, befriending Nathan, and becoming a fatherly figure. The two teamed up to do sickening plans and crimes together which ended up getting them caught in the end.

Now, who does that sound like?

Daniel just lost his father and he’s angry. He probably has PTSD and anger management issues, based on how he’s acting and the situations he’s been through. Finn is an older figure and tricks Daniel to follow his plans and crime, as they’re stealing. They end up getting caught by the boss no matter what they, Sean, Cassidy, or the player does.

Sean is in the same boat, minus the anger issues. He probably suffers more from depression and PTSD (since he talks about the past a lot to others and how they know their story). Since he does talk about his feelings, Finn uses to his advantage.

When Sean agrees to the heist, Finn and him (can) kiss as an award. An award for falling into his trap and doing whatever he wanted.

Nathan got fatherly love and praise from Jefferson, resulting in him to continue their disgusting plans in order to feel loved.

Sean (and Daniel) and becoming the Nathan of this season.

We have to watch out who will be our jefferson.

I also have to address another elephant in the room.

We’re the reason this happened.

If you go through old DontNod/Life is Strange official posts (I suggest instagram or facebook, where i saw mine), I saw nothing but comments saying how much they want Chloe and Max back. I assume this is because of how you can romance Chloe. They want their love story/friendship to continue. Even though we did get a comic series based on them, it wasn’t good enough.

DontNod probably got sick of it and forced this to happen. While they were probably writing Cassidy as a love interest in the beginning, and Finn as probably just a random stranger or a brother of hers, the noticed all the hate and said “fuck it!”

As a result, we got the chance to kiss Finn... before you could write him off by injuring or killing him. Which, many people were pissed about.

But if you REALLY think about it, we were the cause of that. They probably didn’t want that, wanting to focus on Cassidy and the actual story. But many people wanted LGBTQ+ moments (which is understandable) but didn’t want Sean and Daniel’s story. Or they did get involved in their story but wanted a LGBTQ+ character.

The story of Life is Strange (both seasons + DLC) is nothing more but teens/young adults finding themselves through very difficult times. This with the responsibility of super powers, which are hurting those around them. It’s not meant to be a romance. It’s meant to be a drama, sci-fi, and angst story. (And thriller bc of Max’s nightmare bc that shit scared me)

While yes, I was happy and excited at first about Sean & Finn kissing. I was happy that there was potential for things to be “normal” and Sean to be happy, there was a lot of red flags. The age differences, the manipulation, the parallel's, and how forced it was.

Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk! Before you leave a hateful response, please know my opinion is valid like yours and others. Not only that, but I’m not the first to point some of this out. :)

#lis #life is strange #lis 2 #lis 2 spoilers #life is strange 2 spoilers #sean diaz #daniel diaz #life is strange 2

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bladekindeyewear · 5 years

Text

Boots Reads Homestuck Epilogue(s) Part 10 - Candy Part 1 again

I was told that finishing the epilogue MAY make me feel better by some with opinions, with some vague hints that the ridiculous start of Candy may have underlying reasons, so now that I’m awake again (though my stomach is roiling a bit again) I’m gonna take another crack at it.

Alright, so I was also hinted that this Candy part ends with a different cliffhanger, so maybe those two will cancel out? That’s my hope anyway.

Reading page 1 again since I didn’t finish the very tail end of it... alright, so WHY IS ROXY CRYING again???? Was she just PRETENDING that she didn’t know it might turn out bad for John if he went at the end of the last one? Was there some weird mind-rewriting going on? Is the crying a symptom of this whole thing potentially being an our!Callie fanfic and she knows what’s being dodged?? Don’t know.

Alright, let’s have him save Gamzee and... is Vriska going to get saved in this version? Or is that descent into the black hole without seeing what happens her well-deserved comeuppance while only the ghost version of Vriska truly figured out how to be happy?

==>

Dirk acknowledges him when he zaps back, but it’s YOUNG Dirk so hopefully there isn’t any stupid Meat stuff going on.

...Yeah, Gamzee immediately being repentant is weird as shit. Maybe he Chucklevoodoo’d Callie into escaping him into this whole candied mess so he could start shit, I dunno. That or this isn’t really Gamzee or someone’s manipulating him or etc etc etc. The hint I got earlier was that if I thought Calliope wanting to bring Gamzee back and everyone just rolling with it was a little out of character, there are “reasons”, so I’m just going through all of this under the assumption that some emotion-manipulating weirdness is going on regardless.

Oh shit, Gamzee’s going to start recounting his character reasons for doing bad stuff in a surface-hope of justification and understanding. All the characters immediately recognize how painfully groanworthy this is going to be.

GAMZEE: AnD sUcH iS wHy I’m GrAbBiNg HoLd Of My RePeNtAnCe As FiRm AnD sErIoUs As I wOuLd A wHoRe’S tItTy!

Yeah, that really encapsulates how “serious” all of this is. And of course, John’s not having any of it.

Yeah, Terezi wouldn’t have any of it either, remotely.

Something feels different, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Hm. The aforementioned manipulation-weirdness?

==>

Okay, so it’s kind of Dirk who notices something different and is cancelling his stupid villain plans, got it.

Volatility of causality, huh?

(I’m going to be going through these parts a little faster than the Meat section, unsurprisingly.)

==>

Okay, Rose and Kanaya, are we gonna cure her substance abuse or--

With all the distance between them lately,

God damnit, have Dirk’s manipulations extended that far OFFSCREEN or is this legitimate character distancing???? Because either is BAD. >:(

Right, now that the plot and “relevance” has been sidelined over to a different timeline, Rose can now breathe easy free of her condition. And whichever parts of her condition were, perhaps, IMPOSED on her. Fuck.

I’m going to try my fucking best to cling to this, hope I can carry on a memory after this is over that DOESN’T imagine Rose trapped in a fucking existential dying villain coma with a hard fucking cutoff that promises nothing is ever coming to resolve it ever. (Or Jade in a somewhat-similar sidelined situation, or Jane doomed to fuck herself over and everyone else too, or...)

What’s slipping away instead is the feeling that any of it mattered at all. Was she insane to be so consumed by such lofty concerns, and is she only beginning to experience clarity today, for the first time in ages?

Yeah, you’re no longer in a timeline of Light and relevance. And that’s not so bad, which is something you never expected to be true given your derision of the concept. Void is pretty goddamn alright.

--Oh right, the illness and substance abuse probably caused plenty of distance between them.

KANAYA: There Was A Feeling I Couldnt Shake That Something Terrible Was Going To Happen To Us KANAYA: Something That Neither Of Us Could Stop KANAYA: A Powerful Outside Force That Would Take You Away From Me KANAYA: And I Couldnt Stop Myself From Thinking That Maybe KANAYA: Maybe That It Would Be For The Best ROSE: Kanaya... KANAYA: I Can Now See That This Is Completely Ridiculous

For some reason, this doesn’t settle my stomach much? It’s clear Andrew wove this in here so that if you read Meat first, you’d be able to acknowledge readily how this diverged in a way the characters kind of recognize, and... I’m not sure what I’m even saying. It’s like there’s hope that this is TRYING to take the bad taste out of my mouth, but I don’t believe it overly much.

ROSE: What a relief, considering that we are both going to be young and magically fit literally forever.

Wait, so they DID find a way to extend their non-ascended friends’ lifespans to practical immortality? Jane’s Life powers? Something else?

==>

yay jade. more extended dave metaphors. calm down stomach.

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

Heheheh.

DAVE: yeah well i never thought youd be like the premiere woo girl on the planet

Had to look up what a “woo girl” was.

Yes Jade go flirt them to death

What she’s planning isn’t a seduction. It’s a public service.

Pff

(And yeah, she’s being pushy but at least she doesn’t go DIRK FAR about it.)

DAVE: its incredible hes driven at least ten people off the site by creating thinly veiled parody accounts of their usernames

Oh my gosh, Karkat’s good enough to ANDREW HUSSIE them?!??? :D

That’s incredible.

Karkat knows damned well what a husband is. He’s been force-fed enough bad movies from Dave to pick up any human euphemism you could name. He still plays dumb sometimes, for comedic effect, to irritate his friends, or simply to avoid a topic of conversation altogether.

Yeah, it was always pretty clear that about HALF of the trolls pretended not to understand something human that they knew about just for comedic effect and they knew it. :)

It would be pretty easy to mistake his reaction for arousal, so it’s understandable that Jade is extremely surprised when Karkat snaps his jaw shut and chomps down on her hand.

PFFFFHahahahah :D

And yep, Jane cancelled her run at Dirk’s direction.

DAVE: lets all just thank whichever christ was responsible for making whatever decision resulted in her deciding not to do that

*nod nod*

JADE: well i hope she gets a better hobby JADE: there are a lot of less ominous things she could do with her time KARKAT: WHAT, LIKE FUCKING HER WAY THROUGH HALF THE POPULATION OF EARTH C?

Jade pinches his ear and twists hard, smiling pleasantly.

JADE: get fucked karkat

Yeah, this is about the level of violence/threat I’d expect from Jade when anyone slut-shames her for perfectly acceptable behavior.

==>

There is almost no crime on Earth C, and so almost no one locks their door.

Huh. I guess post-scarcity might do that.

Alright, we get to see Jane being less of a fuckass.

Dirk was the one person on Earth C who took the state of the locksmith industry with the seriousness it deserved.

Pffff

JAKE: Thats my theory at least. Maybe its tommyrot but i have faith that dirk will be back. After all where is he going to go?

Good question that wasn’t answered in Meat, so of course Jake says it here obliviously.

JAKE: I must admit i am rather half rats at the moment. JANE: You’re what? JAKE: Haha sorry that was a pretty obtuse way of putting it wasnt it. JAKE: What i mean to say is that ive been powdering my hair quite a bit today.

Andrew is SO good at making Jake sound completely incomprehensible.

...Ouch, Jane, don’t drink so hard! D:

The “morbs”??

JAKE: Dirk has that manner about him does he not? JAKE: A way about him that makes you feel like whatever you do as long as it does not involve him it doesnt count for dick.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

Hm... is the absence of relevance affecting them, or some other manipulation? It’s not just the LACK of Dirk’s manipulation.

JAKE: Except of course for that time when you were under mind control and had me trussed up in your lair as you pontificated villainously about using me as a breeding stud to create a blood lineage for your incumbent corporate space empire.

A fate Dirk seems to agree with, judging by Meat. Let’s sidestep that fucking entirely, thank you.

...yeah, I didn’t expect Jake’s response to be any less oblivious than exactly that.

==>

So why DID Callie bring Gamzee back, anyway? Is there some secret use for him in mind? Was she manipulated into it? Maybe BY Gamzee? Hm.

...alright, priestly with followings. That ain’t good. Is he aiming for Clown President MK2?

Everything Callie and Roxy have done and said in this Candy section so far seems creepily contrived, possibly by design.

...okay did they have some kind of weird agreement? Like, “okay John is gonna make his choice, and if he chooses to stay i try dating him instead of you, Callie”??? That’s... no that can’t be it. Roxy’s NEVER acted THIS oblivious before. What’s she playing at?

GAMZEE: mY fUcKiN *gUy*. :o) JOHN: ... GAMZEE: My DuDe AnD mY nInJa AlIkE. GAMZEE: mY *hOrN* dOoOoG. JOHN: ... GAMZEE: mY hOrN tO tHa MoThErFuCkIn DoG. ;o) JOHN: waiter! help!

I’m imagining Gamzee now as a sweaty and homeless, unkempt Guy Fieri.

Yeah, this doesn’t look like it’ll be fun.

==>

...Swifer Eggmop. ¬_¬”

There’s a third member of their social group who definitely hasn’t arrived at the conclusion that his power and influence should be meted out responsibly either. Neither of them speak his name, however. For some reason, it feels like a shadow passing over the sun. A brief spike of pain flickers through Rose’s head, a bolt that strikes between her eyes and splinters out. There is color and light behind it. A vision that tears through the material reality in front of her and gives her a brief glimpse into a parallel reality where things are very different.

Yeah, fuck Dirk.

...Pff. Yeah, Rose WOULD mimic the record-scratch gesture.

Don’t invoke “never seeing Vriska again” like that, you’re really tempting fate.

Heh, Rose is finding some Light in the darkness, wanting to do something that’s meaningful on an expressive level with this Vriskgrub business.

Hm... why is my stomach a little less uneasy?

I sure hope it stays that way.

==>

KARKAT: OH MY GOD, ARE THE MECHANICAL GLUTES ON THAT BILLBOARD ACTUALLY PADDED WITH PLUSH TO MAKE THEM MORE LIFELIKE?

Heck Yes

...Yes, touch the butt, Karkat.

Jade, pouting a bit, glides in between them and uses her Space powers to teleport Dave’s phone out from the center of his traumatized palm and into the pocket of her sweater.

Hm! So she still has teleportation abilities over a limited range even without her Green Sun boost, that’s nice. :D

After all, where would these two pitiful beta boys be without her?

Oh my fucking god stop being Dirk, Jade. And never use that narrative language again, even in your head. Heck, even if Dirk’s the one WRITING this still, don’t even think CLOSE enough to think those words.

...yeah this sounds like an Active player class taking things slightly too far.

Thank you, Karkat, for drawing the consent-line in the sand. Looks like Jade’s backing off a little.

--hold on, wait, Dave kissed him? He did, so why is-- let me read back up--

Dave doesn’t answer. She answers for him by leaning down and planting a dry, affectionate kiss on Karkat’s cheek.

Okay I misread this line earlier. Jade kissed Karkat when neither of them were looking and is BLAMING Dave. Hmm.

Alright, Dave ollies outie. Karkat tumbles down some hillstairs.

Jade could probably catch him. Actually, she could easily do it, but it doesn’t seem like the kind of favor you should do in a fledgling kismesissitude.

Thaaaat’s a little presumptuous??

JADE: well i guess im eating grub spaghetti alone JADE: *again*!!!

I’d be sadder if you didn’t bring it down hard upon yourself but

==>

Yeah, John, better clear up this Callie business because it’s muddy as heck why Roxy would just drop everything to try things out with you.

Ah, we’re bringing up the gender identity thing on this side too, hm?

More serious talk, this is good, reading reading...

The glasses clink together clumsily, and water gets all over the complimentary breadsticks.

Oh no. This had better not be Olive Garden.

ROXY: no one else has ever made me feel like this

--not Calliope???

What the heck is even going on.

Dave’s coming for some bro help it looks like.

==>

It’s hilarious how much Dave is freaking out about this, and how completely in-character it is.

JOHN: holy fucking shit. JOHN: there’s a gay snooze button? DAVE: yeah man theres a gay snooze button JOHN: wow.

I love these two’s conversations

......wait, Dave’s been holding off on kissing Karkat because of what he thinks JADE might think???? D:

JOHN: i almost managed to forget that she was trying to fuck you and karkat.

Pfffffffff :D

Yep. I love it being put so bluntly.

Reading on... yeah, for some reason I also always figured that the end result of a nice three-way relationship between those three people would be Jade and Dave essentially both just glomming onto Karkat more than each other? Hm.

JOHN: i mean... it doesn’t sound... JOHN: *canon*?

...I hope you’re just talking about his coin flip explanation and not DaveKatJade. >:(

John wonders when talking to Dirk has fixed anything for anyone.

Nod nod.

She grins up at John with shimmering, adoring eyes. They’re reflecting every star in the sky, all for him.

Seriously, what the hell. Is Roxy hypnotized? Putting on an act? A voidy act??

I’m not doubting that Roxy COULD feel that way about John, I’m doubting the suddenness and the way Calliope is being deliberately ignored in the situation, which is so goddamn obvious that JOHN is uncomfortable about it. There’s something seriously strange going on.

It itches at the back of his head, the idea that he might have just fucked up Dave’s entire life.

Alright next post after a bit of breakfast.

#Homestuck #Homestuck Epilogue #Upd8 #Homestuck Liveblog #bladekindeyewear #BlastYoBoots

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hellskittcn-blog · 5 years

Text

have you ever noticed that ( patricia walker ) from the ( marvel universe ) looks a lot like ( rachael taylor )? but ( she ) also goes by ( hellcat ). having the abilities of ( enhanced agility and titanian enhancements ) sure makes them a force to be reckoned with. they’re known to be ( ambitious, ) but also ( frenetic, ) and they’re ( thirty-three ) years old.

{ trigger warnings : mental illness, implication of assisted suicide, child abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse, addiction, drugs, anorexia, bulimia —> but most those are in the section called patricia’s backstory, the rest is clean to read if you skip that part }

hey everyone, i’m ty!! i’m trash and neglected my sweet angel baby by forgetting to post her intro, so here it is now!

INTRODUCTORY INFORMATION ABOUT PATRICIA //

ok i don’t even want to talk about how much s2 of jessica jones did my girl dirty. so for the most part (excluding backstory, which i’ll get to in a second) patricias life story is more heavily based on the comics canon, just more of a modernized character like in jessica jones.

basically this means: shes much less likely to parade around spouting phrases like good golly. and more likely to answer to trish than patsy.

it also means ill be keeping the comic version of how she got her powers & what those powers are ( more on that below )

PATRICIAS CHILDHOOD BACKSTORY // ( pls skip over this if it’s likely to trigger you <3 )

her mom was super obsessed with her growing up and wrote a comic about her call it’s patsy

when she was about 5-6 her mom forced her into the limelight, creating a tv show based off of the comic series

patsy was a childhood star and her mom was her agent. she was always forced to eat what her mom wanted her to eat and look how she wanted to look. her mom forced her to become anorexic and bulimic, something she would eventually recover from, but not until her mid-to-late twenties.

patricia though grew tired with her mom’s obsession and fixation on her, so she tried to rebel against the patsy brand. this resulted in their relationship becoming even more strained, dorothy verbally and physically abusing her daughter. the physical abuse would stop around the time when they fostered jessica jones, but the verbal abuse continues still to this day.

she became a teenage pop sensation, starring in multiple music videos, as well as hollywood films, as patsy. her whole life reflected around being someone else, wearing different coloured wigs, dressing in her mother’s image. she never developed an identity of her own — perhaps that’s part of the reason why she also became so fixated on super heroes, due to most of their alter egos.

regardless, trish had an equally rough time in her adolescent and early-to-mid 20’s. her mother forced her, at the ripe age of 15, to start giving head to (and often engaging in intercourse with) male directors so she would get better parts in films. she fell into the hollywood party scene, and became very addicted to drugs. she could often be found in bathroom stalls completely inebriated, throwing herself at any man she could, just so she could feel something. being in such a vulnerable state made her very susceptible to being taken advantage of, particularly sexually, and this influenced her need to later make sure “no one touches her again unless she wants them to”.

BECOMING HELLCAT // ( tw implication of assisted suicide )

trish was eventually married to a man named robert baxter, a childhood friend of hers who was training in the airforce. trish lived on and off the base for a couple of years, when her husband was moved to a secret facility where Beast was working, she learnt more about superheroes and started working with the avengers. it’s at this time that she found the suit greer nelson aka tigra had used under the alias The Cat and sported it as hellcat.

her marriage then had a falling out, so when the titanian priestess known as moondragon offered to take her back to Titan for a period of training, trish was quick to accept. there she had her potential enhanced by titanian technology and was trained in several forms of martial arts (though, keeping in line with the Jessica Jones canon, krav maga is her favourite).

she came back to earth and started working with the defenders (probably so she could work with jessica, just saying). she met daimon at this time, fell in love with them, they got married and moved to san fransisco and worked as occult investigators, working especially with the avengers west coast branch

when daimons dark soul started getting corrupted again, trish had a mental breakdown. she was depressed to the point of near-vegetation, until a mercy killing entity called the Deathurge came to her. trish begged the entity to kill her, and therefore removed her soul from her body, killing her.

HELLCAT’S RETURN//

she ended up in mephisto’s realm fighting in the arena of tainted soul from which she would eventually be freed when daimon tricked the avengers into resurrecting trish

she came back, wrote an autobiography, and started a book tour.

after teaming up with mephistop, hela, and pluto, trish stopped dormammu from taking over all the dimensions of hell. she then went back to her life as hellcat.

the rest of her life up until this point has been a constant string of working as a PI (particularly for occult related things), being kidnapped to some dimension of hell by daimon or some other high ranking demon ruler, working with the defenders, avengers, working as an undercover agent, going rogue, working as a partner of jennifer walters, or taking a break to write more books and go on more tours.

all in all, trish has done it all, and will continue to do it all. she’s determined and motivated, resilient, and loves to keep busy. really the only thing she’s missing in her life to truly make her fulfilled (aside from a partner who won’t kidnap and drag her for hell for all eternity,,,, whoops) is a family of her own.

seriously, bring me trish children. that is all <3

A BRIEF SYNOPSIS OF HER POWERS//

enhanced strength, speed, endurance, agility, and reflexes

sensitivity to psychic phenomenon: including seeing things on an infrared spectrum, detecting mystical energy even from a distance, and seeing through magical glamours and illusions ( particularly ones caused by demons )

in near death situations the true extent of her psionic powers will activate and she can move objects with her mind and release telekinetic, concussive blasts. however, excessive use of her psionic powers lead her to chronic migraines so she opts not to use them unless necessary.

she can magically summon her hellcat costume on command & swap it for whatever item of clothing shes wearing. basically an anime girl

being tortured in mephistos realm gave her magical resistance to the point of near-immunity. she can break free from magic spells and even deflect magical attacks off her aura

MISCELLANEOUS//

trish is a raging bisexual. that is all

also she has a bruise k!nk

her hair was bleached blonde by her mother at a young age and she was forced to wear ginger and strawberry blonde wigs throughout her life. the redhead patsy from the comics in my opinion is a wig she wears that’s part of her hellcat suit. otherwise she keeps her hair blonde, because it’s part of the only identity she has.

she loves fashion and makeup and overall girly things but will also throw down with the nastiest of them do not get on her bad side

one time she summoned an army of demon rabbits to magically build a bridge for her to cross

can u say badass

#assembleintro #﹠⋅ 。♡ ꜰɪʟᴇ. ⋮「 ── curiosity did not kill this cat! 」#﹠⋅ 。♡ ʜᴇʟʟᴄᴀᴛ. ⋮「 ── patricia walker. 」#「 autobiography. 」

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