#and i still fucking grieve for it.

[bisexualcroissant]

thinking about jeremy hitting rock bottom his freshman year, losing so much in one disastrous night, the repercussions of which would continue to haunt him for years. thinking about jeremy spiralling so bad cody said they “really thought we were going to lose him for a while there.” cat saying the right therapist can be “life changing”, using jeremy as an example. thinking about how bad jeremy’s crash out must have been, understandably; thinking about his family continuing to blame him for noah’s death—from the coldness of annalise, to the outright antagonism of bryson, to joshua ignoring him for years. the wilshires doing everything in their power to cover up what happened at the banquet rather than lending an ounce of support to a boy who had lost his brother in terrible circumstances, because jeremy was there, because it was so much easier to blame him for all of it. coldblooded, if you ask me. jeremy needed help, not damage control.

thinking about jeremy having probably the worst year of his life, having the opposite of emotional support from his family, and still somehow coming out of it a better person. thinking of all the work he put in to be better and succeeding—i’d rather die than ever be that person again. believe me. despite the hostility of his family system, despite being blamed for the fallout, despite the guilt and heartbreak that “nearly destroyed him”. still jeremy managed to build a new life for himself out of the wreckage, going so far as to be captain of the trojans, with a team who respect and admire him. still he managed to come out of it with such a capacity for kindness and goodness and lifting the people around him up.

thinking about jeremy continuing to be the human embodiment of sunshine despite living in such a cold home that was never forgiving or warm to him. jeremy knox, you will always be loved by me.

[guardianbee]

rewatching s1 meljay scenes just to feel something and while I want to do an analysis of their relationship to argue against every bonehead that touts "mel manipulated jayce" I got to the end where jayce tells the council to go fuck themselves BUT THEN POINTEDLY TURNS TO MEL AND SOFTLY SAYS "Except you. You were right. You were always right." And I CRY OKAY. Her eyes widen and it sinks in that there's someone who supports the same vision of peace she has, who VALIDATES her views. And one of the LAST scenes is them smiling at one another when the council agrees to Zaun's independence. They made peace without going to war. Without using hextech and corrupting jayce and viktor's dream. Without compromising mel's values.

And then s2 fucked that all up.

[physical-manifestation-of-spite]

I keep thinking about Arthur's regression at the end of Season 2 and then into Season 3. I keep thinking about how victims of trauma tend to get worse once they escape their traumatic situation. How their body and mind start to crack and shake under the weight of the horrors, now safe enough to escape the survivorship mindset but now forced to endure the fallout.

I keep thinking of how hard Faroe's death hit Arthur. How his guilt and grief were so intense that he wanted to kill himself, so low that he drank himself into a stupor for who knows how many years to just dull the pain. I keep imagining how hard it was to pull himself out of that, to work with Parker and find a new meaning in life, to walk away from his guilt of killing his daughter, and instead to help people.

(I keep thinking of how Arthur finds a vial of alcohol in the Dreamlands. How he sniffs it and recoils in disgust.)

I keep thinking of how long it took for Arthur to build himself back up from his lowest point, to tuck the guilt of Faroe in the deepest corner of his mind just so that he has enough room to breathe, to live, to be a better person. (And yet, Faroe is every facet of his life. It's his first memory in Season One, when he plays Faroe's Song, when he doesn't even remember his own name. It's the last name on his lips when he dies on that boat. It's his only memory when John is torn away from him.) I keep thinking about how Arthur is consciously repressing her every second of every day just so that he can keep going.

And then John pushes, and asks, and asks again. And finally, after almost dying twice with this entity, after surviving time and time again, he thinks he can trust him. He thinks he can share his deepest secret, to pull open the wound he keeps stitching over to protect himself. How he risks feeling the grief he's suppressed for years to trust someone. I keep thinking how John seizes it and, because he is ancient and young and inexperienced, childlike in his tantrums and his fears of responsibility and consequence, he uses it as a weapon the moment he's backed into a corner. I keep thinking of how not only the trust is torn away from Arthur, but how his wound is stretched and torn, and not only does his guilt and grief come back, but it's like a tidal wave that he cannot suppress this time. He's opened that wound and John has pried it wider, and now Arthur can't shut it. He survives in those pits, but she is all he thinks of. He escapes those pits, and ("Goodbye, Faroe.") she is all he thinks of. He slits his throat and she's all he thinks of.

He enters at icy cabin (a small gurgle, a bundle of blankets in his arm, a warm hum rumbling in his chest as he lulls his whole World to sleep) and he thinks of her to keep going.

And then Yellow enters, a blank slate, a John before he was John, and the pain is too fresh. This is the thing that tortured him. This is the thing that starved him. This is the thing who asked who his daughter was, and when he told him, the thing called him a killer. John and Yellow and the King are all the same in that moment, and Arthur's too fucked up and traumatized to separate them tangibly, as much as he insists that he can. His hatred grows and grows, all from himself, until it bleeds into Yellow, and he remakes this entity in his image, in his self-pitying hatred.

So when Yellow finally calls him a monster (and Arthur knows, he's called himself that the moment he saw the water spill from the bathtub onto the tile below), Arthur holds it close to his chest, and becomes it.

[daeneryscel]

hot take maybe but the only reason most show runners/producers/writers/etc. age up the (female) characters from book to show adaptation is to overtly sexualize them and not face mass amounts of scrutiny for it.

put 13 year old daenerys next to 30 year old drogo and the audience understands that daenerys is a victim to him and not an equal. put 22 year old emilia clarke as daenerys next to 32 year old jason mamoa as drogo and they’re seen as a budding romance with a tragic ending (by the general audience) due to their on screen chemistry.

flash forward to today, and now we’re dealing with 21 year old milly alcock playing rhaenyra from 14-19 and how her relationship with (28 year old fabien) a mid twenties criston is seen as -morally acceptable- and not a result of a degenerate pedophile taking advantage of and grooming his charge. “ser criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from ser criston?” rhaenyra was 14 when rumors started speculating that she slept with an almost 30 year old criston. a criston who had know her since she was 8 and had been her sworn shield since she was 9. obviously seeing a teenager in the early stages of puberty next to a fully grown man would emphasize rhaenyra being THE victim, as opposed to the show having an 18-19 year old explore her sexuality and seek out ‘consensual’ sex with her peer bodyguard. the discourse has even reached the point where certain stans try to paint the much younger woman as the perpetrator and aggressor of this event, who forced the unassuming man into having sex with her.

i’ll even take this a step farther, and bring up how if they had shown a 19 year old alicent abusing a 10 year old rhaenyra it would be identified and mutually agreed upon as a reprehensible act on alicent’s part. instead they’re of similar age, so people can attempt to paint the picture as two women of equal standing hating each other, and not a much older woman bullying a motherless child. once again however, some stans even go so far as to try and paint alicent as a victim of rhaenyra, and not the other way around. further cementing this is how both versions of alicent are younger than both versions of rhaenyra, AND how criston is still played by an actor who is younger than older!rhaenyra despite his character being the same age as daemon in canon.

they know exactly what they’re doing too, considering they aged alicent down to give her that innate compassion one typically feels when seeing children being abused on tv (something that can no longer be applied to rhaenyra). despite that never being her story; *she* was the abuser, and rhaenyra was her victim. criston’s victim. it’s a nasty cop out, and i wish more people would call out how sickening it is to flip the switch and attempt to make abusive individuals more sympathetic than the *actual* victims of said abusers.

[quinn-of-aebradore]

Once again thinking about the fact that, per the Caleb Origins comic, Wulf is the reason Caleb spent 11 years in Vergesson. Just. What do you think haunts him more; killing his parents or the fact that in the span of a few seconds he damned one of his partners, someone who was engineered to be one of his closest bonds, to spend gods-know-how-long in one of the bleakest places in the Empire?

[mohntilyet]

more than anything in the world it kills me that illario did not do the easier thing, which would be to kill caterina. and i think that’s of course largely to do with lucanis. a world where he kills lucanis is fine because he doesn't think caterina was ever going to love him anyway. a world where he kills caterina, he loses lucanis too.

[merwgue]

Me core

[euronymess]

The only thing more annoying than Mayhem fans are Mayhem haters.

[fealtyslut]

let's all think about roman literally on his knees at gerri’s feet, begging to be saved. but you can’t be saved from Logan, that’s the whole point, he is a planet of a person he’s a black hole he is every decision already made. gerri tries to get him to see this — there’s no way out, no move they could possibly make against him, because Logan. always. wins. maybe if roman could give her one reason to fight for him, but there aren’t any. it’s pointless. it has nothing to do with roman, really, and everything to do with the harsh reality that Logan is the center of their universe. but all that nuance is completely lost on roman, because in that room he is seven years old again and always. and when she asks how it serves her interests, what she is saying is show me a way out, but what he hears is that she doesn't care about him. and maybe she never did.

[holyshit]

.

[frobby]

I think one of the funniest framings of the first ep of blue exorcist is hypothetically Yukio and bon met cuz they originally shared a dorm only for Yukio to immediately leave and not return until a week later and now he's his teacher

[monsterlimbs]

Okay third "sympathetic big bad" from bg3 post for Ketheric because he is the one guy that I think most can sympathize with, and he's truly the easiest to sympathize with.

Some horrible day, your beautiful Melodia, your darling wife, dies, protecting your daughter. You grieve horribly, but you keep going for your children. Everything for them.

Your daughter brings home a fucking IMMORTAL Aasimar, child of a god and declares her as her lover. A child or your god, yes, who you've known so far to be good, sure, BUT STILL A CHILD OF A GOD. It almost makes it worse that the Aasimar is a child of your god, considering you raised your daughter, per your wife's wishes, to trust Selûne, and you're worried that this Aasimar may use this to her advantage. And they're so in love yes, but that's such a scary power dynamic for you- what if Aylin asks your daughter to do something she's not ready for? How OLD is that Aasimar? And how could you live with yourself if your daughter was put into an unsafe situation, simply because you didn't put your foot down? So, you do, and your daughter's angry. Of course she's angry, you're telling her that her and her girlfriend can't be together, but she has to come around eventually, she has to understand what a horrible power dynamic that is.

And worse, worse than when your wife died, you're told your daughter, precious, sweet, innocent Isobel, is dead (who I believe was killed by Halsin in self defense with the Sorrow glaive, even though that content has since been cut from the game but y'know! so essentially, his daughter, in his mind, was killed by a damn druid, the guys who were supposed to be PEACEFUL). You spiral, of course you do, your precious baby is dead, how could you not? And when your god, Selûne, damned mother of that damned Aasimar, ignores your prayers to have your baby back, you turn to her sister, Shar. And Shar, for a moment, helps relieve your loss. In return for killing Selûnites, the same wretched folk that turned against you in your grieving, she rewards you, turns you immortal by letting you imprison that Aasimar that took a liking to your daughter. You're more than pleased to do so, to lock what you believe is a predatory Selûnite up. Shar helps soften your loss.

And then she lets you die to Harpers of all people, and uses you as a way to release the Shadow Curse.

You're revived (I like to believe by Balthazar), and shown the way of Myrkul's path, and HE, is the one to bring your baby back, a century after her fall. You're happily indebted to him, to have your child alive again, anything and more for your baby.

....But she's mad at you. She won't talk to you. She looks at you like you're a monster. She's STILL upset over you forbeying her and Aylin's love, and even more now that she knows you've been using her as a means for immortality. She doesn't get how much you did for her, even while she was gone. You've practically forgotten about all else besides her, and it hurts so bad knowing your baby is not only angry at you, but thinks of you as a MONSTER. You know she'll come around, though. ...And she's now running from you and hiding in the Last Light Inn.

Eventually, you send a Fist to get her and bring her back, and either, your daughter has been killed AGAIN by some random wretched folk- oh gods it's not random is it? That's Durge. OR, she survives and is brought back to you, OR she survives and is even angrier at you now. She doesn't see how much shit you've waded through, just for her. She only sees a man who's "gone too far". She doesn't even know how far you'd go, to keep her safe. Everything and more, just to keep her safe.

Whether she's with you or not, one day you wake to a suddenly... off feeling. ....Fuck, why do you feel so odd? FUCK, your immortality's gone, you can feel it. Your wounds don't close, you're vulnerable. And it's all the problem of, either, the folk that kept your daughter from being returned to you, or the folk who killed her and sent her back.

And once, Ketheric truly was redeemable. But now, he gets SO, SO, SO close and then Aylin's like "nah he'd NEVER surrender, isn't that right, you worm?" and he gets up and is like "oh fuck you" and every chance is gone. Then you see him again, and he's already decided, he WON'T grovel again. He's gone too far, he sees it now. Sweet, precious Isobel was right. There's no coming back from this. And if you try to convince him he's worthy of redemption, he selflessly gives up and his god ixnays his retreat. And otherwise, he may go down yes.... But if he's going down, so are you.

And then he dies. He dies knowing he's given up everything for his daughter, cursed an entire land, caused Hell for everyone, and that his daughter, sweet Isobel, doesn't even think he's her father anymore. In her eyes, he's so far gone that he's not even the same man.

[friszil]

i'm not much of a doorkeay shipper but every time i think about "anybody else" by dom fera as michael distortion and gerry my brain stops workingi'm like ndksodmrnwpalsnfne oh ogdo oh my ogooooood oh god oh ood please no

[fanfoolishness]

resolve

The blight crawled and writhed and wove a threading mass throughout her mind, her veins, her bones. Its song wailed in the hollow spaces between her thoughts. Neve breathed in the ashen air of Minrathous and tasted death.

She blinked. She was still here. Still fighting, dammit, because that’s who she was, wasn’t it? Trying to be an inspiration. Trying to stand for Dock Town. Trying to hear her own words, not the blight’s song. But the song was so. Damn. Loud.

How could she fight something woven into her very flesh?

Then there was Lucanis, a world of sorrow in his eyes, holding out his hand to her.

“I’m a monster, you know,” she said. Tried to remember how to form a smile with lips and tongue and teeth. “I’ll break your heart.”

“I was a monster first,” he murmured. “And you’ve already broken it. I don’t care, Neve.”

“Don’t touch me, Lucanis. Please,” she whispered. The song, haunted and hallowed, ringing round her mind. She couldn’t bear it. “This isn’t — Spite can’t save you from this.”

“I’ve been a dead man walking all my life. It doesn’t matter. But you do.” And he reached out, taking her into his arms and holding her close.

Despite the blight.

Despite the risk.

She listened to his heartbeat, still untwisted, beating true. She could hear it past the song, and she remembered what her own once sounded like. She brushed the hair back from his face, her hand trembling.

She gazed into his eyes, and she remembered how to smile.

She knew then what she would do. Knew that she could stand, that she could fight: for a little longer, with a little help.

She was Neve Gallus, not a monster, and she had this.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

I know that people are rarely their best selves at a funeral, but do you ever just watch your family move through the process of mourning the Patriarch and have a sudden and violent and vivid understanding of Why Everyone Is The Way They Are

[americankimchi]

realizing my recent jason posts makes it sound like i hate his character when that could not be farther from the truth. i love my unhinged toxic self sabotaging king. he has so many problems and over half of them are directly his doing. watching people grind down his sharp edges until he's a misunderstood softboy is what gets me up in arms like leave him alone he's doing absolutely horrible things to himself and everyone around him and you're going 2 accept that buddy!!