#bc my identity is fused w trauma

[eatanorange]

Can I share a fear rq? can I share a fear with y'all? Can I tell you what I witness and what it manifests in to? Will it manifest the entity looming in the darkest parts of my head? Will you blame me for going insane or will you find some sort of sick, disorienting beauty in my destruction, in my fusing with said entity? Will I still be alone then? Will I be known, then? Will it sicken you to see how full of love I am and how colored by distrust it is? Will you look away when the hand you reach for turns to a blade and cuts yours off, or will you pull back too? Did you already have that prosthetic, there? Is that what you call self preservation?

[sophieinwonderland]

To a certain extent in syscourse, arguing semantics about what is and is not possible internally (something that can not be known in the scientific meaning of known, as there's no way to actually objectively measure these things) is incredibly pointless.

However more pressing imo is the confirmation bias running rampant. It doesn't matter what information someone is presented with, if they have decided what they think the truth is, they're going to see everything you give them through that lens. You can't magically make someone think a different way, think about it from your perspective. (Not YOU you, general you.)

So for every anti-endo who is presented with endogenic study will be seeing it through the lens that they beleive endos are fake. To them the study means nothing bc it's either ppl w did who don't know it or fakers, no in between. And on the flip side, proving a negitive (endos don't exist, for example) is completely pointless, again, because there's no actual objective measure of such.

Humans are very very predisposed to "weird" behaviour, even if they pretend not to be. The most normal person you can think of has thoughts and behaviors that may seem bizarre to you or me. There is no measure of "normal" that can be objectively quantified. There is only what harms an individual and their life, the people around them, etc, which is what needs treatment. Having alters itself is not a disorder, but it can cause disorder in life due to amnesia barriers, alters acting destructive or unlawfully, identity confusion causing various issues, etc etc. Which are all things that are addressed separately from them being alters. Wether treatment involved getting them therapy or fusing, convincing yourself they aren't real, or learning to live with them and address trauma and behavious caused by surviving trauma together.

This is of course predicated on therapists and psychiatrists being able to set aside their predisposed notions of "normal" to help people on the individual level. Which is a whole other can of worms, and why many survivors of psychiatric abuse outright reject the medical systems that hurt them. This is a seprate issue from "fakers" and endos being somehow misrepresentitive of a disorder they do not claim to have. That's a societal and institutional problem that can't be won easily one on one.

Anti-endos and sysmedicalists may feel helpless to the whims of these institutions, and they very often are and there very often is not good enough care, and potentially even abuse. People who are subjected to feeling less than human by others often lash out in an attempt to feel like they have any control in their lives. Imo antis lashing out against endos, tulpas and other forms of non-disordered plurality are doing just that, seeking some way to control the narrative of their life that has continually made them feel like they aren't in control.

In the end, all this arguing does NOTHING to help anyone. You can not find peace in trying to tear others down.

Sorry for sending this in your inbox, Sophie, but I am far too unequipped to deal with potential lashback from people who miss my point, personally. We should be working together to find new understanding, instead of tearing eachother down.

.

[sashannarcy]

hi op what are your thoughts on uhhhh *spins wheel* sasha's season 2b arc (hope that's not too broad a subject)

edit: putting this under a cut bc it got LONG but. enjoy (???)

okay I gotta start by saying I didn't expect the depth of it at ALL; I knew Sash was featured prominently in the ending episodes of s2 based off of what my friend informed me, but like. I was not expecting 4.5 episodes to be almost ENTIRELY centered on their character arc and design (the .5 being the first half of True Colors).

that being said, I think Sash's 2b arc is PHENOMENAL bc of the way the nuance in it is written so incredibly well. this character is about to perform the most antagonistic move that they've pulled in the whole series so far, which is the act of betraying both Anne and Marcy in order to support Grime and get them home safe, if they so choose to go home (as an aside, I think at this point Sash has probably decided that she likes it more in Amphibia than back home, and there's one line that I'll get to that seems to be VERYYYY indicative of that. and if this is the case, it makes sense to me why Sasha would want to help Grime at all and why they don't really seem quite eager to follow Anne and Marcy back home. but! important to note that they still give those two the choice to go back if they wish, because at the end of the day Sash loves them and wouldn't try to force them to stay). and yet we see!! this back and forth!! this FIGHT that's happening in their mind, the way there's a flash of guilt they express at the very end of The Third Temple directly after confirming to Grime that things are still going according to plan, their convo w Anne at the end of The Dinner, the entire plot arc of BotB, and ofc the Sashanne duel in True Colors. I want to make an analysis post for each of these episodes because they're so fucking PACKED w shit to analyze, but I'll try my best to touch on all points here.

obviously we first learn of Sasha's plans to betray Anne and Marcy in The Third Temple. but what's important is that throughout the entire episode, there's several points where Sash switches back and forth between manipulation and honesty. I can talk abt this w confidence just based off of the whole. *gestures vaguely at myself.* but Sasha's initial apology in this episode was sheer manipulation, I think we all know that. however, when Sasha has to do their final test in the temple, those few lines they exchange w Anne in the moments before they raise themself up off the floor and launch themself into battle... those were genuine. they know they've been a shitty friend, and they're willing to accept that. so you have this game, almost, where Sash keeps flipping between putting on a mask to ensure they can keep up their facade until Grime secures the city and genuinely acknowledging their behavior and knowing that what they are doing is not going to sit well w Anne and Marcy.

so with that, The Third Temple sets the premise for the rest of the episodes of the season as far as Sasha's character arc. The Dinner is such a good fucking episode to follow with, because it hammers in the fact that Sasha has not changed. what it ALSO hammers in is she is still acting in her own self-interest - to put it in her words, she wants to get the friendship back under control. they still lash out, they still have a short fuse, they're still heavily opinionated and rough around the edges and prickly because this is an environment where they feel threatened. they're finally reuniting with the two people that mean the absolute most to them, only to realize they've been left out of the narrative. also not for nothing, but their trauma in Reunion got joked about in this episode which led to them blowing up over it, and like. I'm giving that one a pass bc man. anyway. at the end of the episode they say they like who they are, but it's said with a frown, which I think is fucking GENIUS. because there's an actual meaning to this line - they don't ACTUALLY like who they are. we have plenty of evidence that they don't like themself. what they MEAN is that they don't want to change, because that would mean giving up a security that they need in order to keep themself together. AND THIS IS DEMONSTRATED CRYSTAL CLEAR IN BOTB. they literally PURPOSEFULLY detach themself from Anne and Marcy bc they know they want control but they ALSO know that their behavior is just going to hurt the other two, so instead of compromising, they just go hey I'm gonna do my thing and you guys can do yours. and we'll both get what we want. and if that's not evidence that this character is fucking GRAPPLING with how to grow and change as a person, idk what is

and then. sigh. we get to True Colors. ofc Sash goes through on their betrayal - they're loyal to a fucking T once you dig beneath the surface, and they wouldn't just not follow through for Grime. what is absolutely KEY here is the fact that they are still leaving room for their friends' best interests, as in they're not trapping them in Amphibia but rather explaining how they're gonna help Grime take over, implying they'll go back home once they're done, but if Anne and Marcy wanna go back now, that's cool. if she didn't give a fuck abt their wellbeing, she'd just keep them there w her. but she doesn't. and then Anne starts retaliating, and. well. we ALL know Sasha does NOT do well with criticism of any kind. so they just go okay I'll send you back now then (and this is STILL an action motivated by what they think is best for Anne). BUT THE LINE. OHHHH THE SUPER IMPORTANT LINE THAT MADE MY HEAD SNAP UP AND MADE ME PHYSICALLY GO "YIKES" OUT LOUD. is Sasha saying "say hi to your parents for me." it's like a goddamn full-on sucker punch packed into one sentence - seven words, and all of a sudden we know for sure this kid does not have a good home life. I could go into elaboration on Sasha and the way she views familial ties throughout the show, but I won't bc that's gonna take this already super long answer and make it even worse. regardless, Sasha has once again flipped the switch and is indulging in their worst behaviors, which is full on controlling and holding power to act on what THEY think is best in the moment. and the moment Anne snaps, the moment Anne yells about Sasha being a horrible person, literally EVERYTHING shifts and the reaction from Sasha is VISCERAL. and what I mean by that is. it's not just the look in their eyes at those words. it's not just the sudden and complete loss of meaning, of self, of motivation after they've lost Anne's support. it's not just the way they stare at their own reflection in a sword that represents the color of the person they're trying their hardest to protect. it's the way that for the rest of the goddamn episode, they spend it trying to do the one thing they fear the most: giving up control. I'm gonna elaborate on this whole aspect in a different ask bc I was asked abt it, but the way Sasha acts towards Anne after the fallout, especially at the beginning of the duel and during the confrontation w Andrias, is fucking monumental. they struggle so much with how to change their own behavior, yet the very moment they lose the support of the people they've been trying so hard to love and care for in their roundabout way, they can change the way they act. because who the fuck is Sasha Waybright without Anne Boonchuy and Marcy Wu? in her mind, no one. she doesn't have any idea of who she is outside of this, so ofc she can act differently when she's thrown out in the cold. after all, it doesn't take much to warp an identity that doesn't exist.

tldr; god. how do I sum this up. Sash's 2b arc is smth that's incredibly intricate and complex from the way they constantly flip between desperately needing control and feeling guilty that this is the way they need to live. and True Colors is able to finally demonstrate to us the final piece in how they operate - without their friends, they lose sense of who they are, and their personality comes undone. in 4.5 episodes the writers managed to give us 1000 aspects to their character that we hadn't gotten to explore, and we can see that Sasha was never meant to be the villain. so. final review is that's some good shit👍

[heeres-suffering]

Be More Alluring: a Personality Swap AU

[pic description and source will be at the bottom of this post, under the read more]

Start of summary:

“You need to be more alluring.”

"... don’t you mean attractive?”

“I do not. Your attractiveness is adequate, Brooke; if you want to mask your apparently latent queerness, you have to make them want you straight. Isn’t that why your step-father defended you?” 

Brooke Lohst is a loser.

But you know what? That was okay.

She always knew she was a weird one. The intensity of her affection for puppies, picture books, and near-constant daydreaming has lasted well-past a normalcy she can’t seem to grasp; when coupled with her inability to befriend anyone (besides the similarly self-identified loser Michael Mell), it’s not a surprise the rest of her peers have left her behind.

However, there were... ah, worse things in her life to worry about then some mild bullying. She liked her passion well enough, and all of her true insecurities went largely unnoticed, so any insults or weird looks rarely lingered in her mind. It’s not like she was a constant target either, which helped a lot. All in all, she just planned to hunker down, wait out the awkwardness of High School like everyone else, and move on to the rest of her life... 

Except.

When Brooke develops a crush on a girl she’s never talked to, after years of avoiding fairy tale romance and trying not to think about the inevitability of marriage (or how finicky her attraction to boys is in the first place), it feels like her whole world is about to cave in. She’d do anything to make sure her parents, especially daddy, never find out... including buying an edible super computer from the loudest, tiniest guy in school.

End of summary.

Alright!

Hi, hello, it’s Mod Seb, and here’s an AU I’ve been rolling around for a few days! You are free to do with this concept whatever you want, but I wanted to introduce it with a good chunk of the info I’ve already worked out in my head.

So. As the CWs are... too numerous, I’m going to go with a blanket “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” label and encourage you not to read the rest of this if you have any big darkfic triggers that could be upset by mere mention; this isn’t a fic tho, so descriptions of anything awful won’t last long. 

Although, I will mention upfront that Brooke isn’t a binary lesbian. I know the description might read like I’m setting her up to be 100% homosexual; she’s bi with a strong preference for girls, and anyone who presents soft enough in gender or appearance. If it wasn’t for the end-game pairings, her unfamiliarity with smaller details/history of the LGBTQ+ community, and general “gay newb” status, she’d likely ID as a bi lesbian!

(ships and everything else under the Read More)

Okay. That out of the way, there’s quite a number of pairings; I’m pretty sure it’s a super polyamorous and sexual AU, though you’re free to change this list as much as you’d like:

[bolded are end-game ships. italics physically hook up at least once. strike-through means they were in a relationship but break-up in some way before the ending. (H) stands for healthy, while (T) is toxic and/or noncon. underlined characters are pining for the other and may never confess their true feelings]

Brooke/Christine (H), Brooke/Rich (H), Brooke/Jenna (H), Brooke/Michael (H), Brooke/Chloe (T), Brooke/her Daddy (T), Brooke/Squip (H), Brooke/Jeremy (soft T at first bc of mirrored canon-compliant manipulation, H later on), Brooke/Squip/Jeremy (H), Brooke/Squip/Jeremy/Rich (H), Rich/Moses (H), [insert every form of Rich/Mo/Squip/Jeremy here] (H), Jeremy/Chloe (T), Jeremy/Michael (H), Michael/Christine (H), Michael/Christine/Mr. Heere (H; no, seriously), Madeline/Brooke (H)

This is, of course, a role swap AU where Brooke and Jeremy trade places based on my personal lore for their home lives. I always have some pretty fucked ideas as I don’t imagine MB is a great place with great adults, and I pick and choose which parts of canons I use and which I don’t. 

There is no definite ending planned in mind as this isn’t an outline; it’s meta (or an imagine or w/e) for an AU that you’re free to do whatever with. 

So,

The big difference is that Brooke was picked by Michael, while Jeremy was picked by Chloe. Jeremy is trans and hadn’t come out yet; if Chloe had known he was a boy, she wouldn’t have grabbed him. In contrast, Michael’s never gave a shit about potential friends genders.

Jer and B’s personalities... are altered some. Not ALL the way, but kiiinda fusing into their roles, kinda tweaked (I'll get back to that).

The main point of this for me was Brooke/Squip/Jeremy, with B/Jer having a MUCH stronger focus than in canon, and a really bad Chloe acting as one of the major villains.

Michael gets roped into Chloe’s shit, even tho he's still generally a good guy here, bc he's worried about B and thinks she can't properly take care of herself.

While B DOES have a strong crush on Christine, she’s the opposite of the Squip’s “goal”; that’s (obvs) masking, or making passably digestible, her queerness.

Her Mom and step-’Daddy’ have reacted to her friendship w/ ‘openly gay moms, also very flamboyant and GNC’ Michael... poorly.

Michael thinks the solution has to be “act as aggressively yourself as you can, and if they reject you, you know me and the mom’s have a space for you”. This works for him bc he’s permanently hyper-visible, what with all of his own marginalized identities. But, not only has she flied under the radar in comparison to him for years, he doesn’t know everything about her life.

In fact, he doesn’t know most of it. She’s very good at hiding things.

Meanwhile, Jeremy, one of the more popular ‘boy... ish’ (we’ll get to this, too) people in school, is mid-psychosis and self-destruction. He actually has schizo-affective disorder--as is the case with all of my versions of Jeremy--which he needs medication for. Combined that with so many bad influences and trauma, he can no longer fully control himself or his life.

The way he handles this (badly) is to ‘whore around’--which, besides being Chloe’s pet, is kinda why he’s so popular. Nobody respects him, but he’s viewed some form of favorably.

Jeremy is in a relationship with Rich, but he won't let him get as close/protective as Rich wants; Mo and Rich were doing their own man-whoring (but healthy, just droppin’ panties and making dudes and chicks swoon--yeah, Rich is out as bisexual, this is a very ‘the Squips are a good thing’ AU) to gain their standard reputation, but in the course of that, they got together with Jeremy and it became... complicated. Both of them are very "nnn" about how bad his life is for Jer.

The way that their personalities are altered is... okay. To explain this, I have to talk about my characterization of canon-Brooke and Jeremy in relation to this, starting with Brooke:

I imagine B as just a liiittle below the line of "all the way there" for sorta-similar reasons to Jeremy here: trauma, and Chloe (which is why that’s what Jeremy gets in this, it’s just WAY worse when compounded by everything else). She’s also--like me, and like almost every character I write as a result--autistic, in a near-permanent state of “not enough accommodations” and over-stimulation. This leads to a lot of dissociation and a very wandering mind, as well as being perceived as a bimbo or dumb blonde or w/e misogynistic bullshit is projected onto her by the boys she dates (she’s also much more down the middle bi outside this AU).

So, going back to how she is for this AU: she's actually not super nerdy, despite the close connection she and Michael have. Honestly, it’s their general neurodivergent weirdness that bring them together, and so she’s mostly adopted her nerdy interests through him, whether directly a thing he likes, or finding a whimsical variant that fits her tastes.

Obviously, unlike Jeremy, she doesn’t mind being called a loser. She does any insinuation she might be queer. This including anyone who calls her gay or a dyke.

She has too much Cis Male Trauma (unlike canon, where it comes from both cis angles) to really entertain the idea of a Traditionally Male Partner. This means she skews HEAVILY towards hard GNC guys at the very least, and generally finds herself most interested in the idea of enbies and women. she's also not super into butches tho, bc her trauma mixing with her sexuality has latched on to Strong Masc People Are A Threat. 

An expansion on her interests, in canon and otherwise: animals, ASMR/sensual service work (including massages and stuff), spending hours just sorta sitting by herself and letting her imagination wander, fairy tales, and YA-and-under fantasy books.

(Here, she tries to avoid het or f/f romance... except that, this past year or two, she’s started really like m/m stuff--esp after getting REALLY into drag shows, which she could enjoy safely since girls like Chloe have gotten into them too; in canon, she’s a romance fanatic)

Now... this is one of the really darkfic element; she's fucking her step-dad. 

She does this so that he doesn't walk out on her, her mom, and her little sister*. Her mom has a good-enough job as a standard office woman, but he makes enough to pay the rent on their nice townhouse and all the bills she can’t. So, after he expressed interest in Brooke and then casually mentioned he could always just leave if she wasn’t comfortable, she reluctantly entered a relationship with him

(* = her sister is currently know as her brother; he’s like 12 or 13, and started showing signs of trans/queerness which have been Heavily Discouraged. Brooke worries about him a lot)

((I didn’t use she/her pronouns bc I’m not entirely sure he would change them? This is an OC Oli created at the beginning of our interest in BMC, and we haven’t worked on him at all since, so how his characterization will be is up in the air))

Canonically, Brooke's "in love" with her daddy, which is a self-imposed delusion; if she actually addressed it, she’d says she’s well aware that’s not true, but it's so much easier to pretend when you’re cornered like that. Brooke’s life blows.

She’s a lot more honest to herself about hating him here; still, she tries to be as polite and generally-friendly as she can, doing what he says whenever he wants.

OKAY, THAT’S BROOKE. If any of that is badly described or potentially-offensive, it’s just bc I glossed over SO MUCH DETAIL, even in that amount of it!

So. Jeremy.

I don’t have to go over him much and we’re all mostly aware of how I feel about him and also I don’t have the energy to do this again--

(just... read my fics The Devil at your Door or hello yesterday or something... eyyy actually do that, my ao3 username is Sedusa, blah blah blah ANYWAY)

--but basically: He's still very nerdy, like, he’s super into film as well as video games (which is another constant for me), but after being largely ignored in elementary, he's been trailing behind Chloe at her orders since they were in 6th grade. As a result he isn't very open about... any of his interests.

In 7th grade, he came out as trans to everyone. Chloe was furious, but at the same time, intrigued; this was around the time Chloe gets her own... ah shit I gotta go into that too--

--yet another hc of mine is that Chloe gets a Squip on accident around this time at a party (there was one in a “”candy bowl””), and from there, she claws her way up the ladder. I... will not go into that much, but her Squip was crippled by the drugs and alcohol in her system, and therefore largely at her mercy. She’s used his power to manipulate certain things about herself and to sharpen her focus on popularity to the point she’s full-blown Alpha Bitch.

Man, I’ve had to go on so many tangents, I apologize.

Anyway, she drags Jeremy around as a punching bag. She constantly mocks Jeremy's transness, even though she usually calls him by his correct name and pronouns.

This has made the rest of the school follow her lead, hence why I said “boy-ish”; he’s popular, he’s technically ‘well liked’, but nobody really takes him seriously. This is compounded by Chloe’s refusal to let him dress in 'dorky' casual clothes, and, as he’s both too poor to afford designer clothes and also generally hates popular guy fashion, he has to wear the hyper femme clothing Chloe specifically tells him too/

As such, people call him a boy but largely see him as either an idiot, a slut, an attention seeker, or all of the above.

So of course, in Brooke's place, his neurodivergence is more prominent than ever; every day he slips further into this psychosis and self-infantilization haze, as his his mom leaving, his dad severely depressed, Chloe's sexual violence, and other repressed trauma (see: my fic hello yesterday on ao3) all weighing on him. This makes him INCREDIBLY regressed, like, all the time by Junior year.

And then Brooke's Squip (IE: canon Squip) falls in love with Jeremy extremely fucking hard. He pushes her to date him as a way to compromise on her queer desires, since Jeremy is technically a boy, and certainly a few other straight-ish girls have hooked up with him in the past.

WHEW. That is a fucking lot. To wrap this up, lemme go over the interpersonal relationships not already mentioned, and what directions I think it takes.

First off, Madeline has a more prominent role, as I quite like her tbh; she’s a sex worker, she has her own Squip, she’s one of Chloe’s most hated enemies, and she gravitates towards both Brooke and Jeremy. She’s also Actually French, Chloe’s just weird.

(Anyway she prolly sees through Brooke’s straight act and asks her why she’s pretending to be a good little cishet. It rattles Brooke.)

Chloe is scum. This bears repeating. She DEFINITELY rapes Brooke at the Halloween party, and becomes obsessed with her, along with already being obsessed with Jeremy and Jake. 

Jake, by the way, has a lot of regressive behavior and impulsiveness bc he’s been in an abusive relationship off and on with Chloe for years now.

Speaking of Jake, moving on to his best bro: Rich doesn’t set himself on fire. He’s having a good time with his Squip.

But.

He IS set on fire at the Halloween party.

Instead of the Smartphone Hour being about Rich's instability, it's actually about the mystery of Someone Did It To Him But No One Saw Who It Was, They Were Disguised.

The answer relates to the fact that Rich and Brooke are ALSO hooking up, after she’s already with Jeremy, bc he Properly introduces her to him and the three of them hit it off really well.

(She initially wasn’t interested, but while Rich is loud and still kinda abrasive, his Squip doesn’t drive him to act like a bully--and in private, his nerdiness is really obvious and he’s extremely gentle with her and Jeremy. Add to that that he’s bi and trans*, when Brooke connects best w/ queer men over cishet one, and it off-sets his masc-ness enough to make him an Exception.

* = I always imagine him as trans. See: all of Vanceypants fics.)

Sooo... the culprit is actually Brooke's daddy, who sees her with this obvious heartthrob and Cannot let that be.

Chloe convinces Michael that the Squips are Very Very Bad and has him team up with her to force Brooke into drinking Red, with the intention to convince him to kill himself after to get him out of the way, bc she’s really going nuts at this point.

Eventually, he snaps out of it when he and Christine get together (he’s thought he was Full Homo all of his life, but Christine’s prolly genderqueer-ness makes him realize “oh shit, I’m bisexual”) and she starts to question why he’s acting the way he is towards Christine.

He also definitely has a crush on Jeremy and during his time with Chloe he kinda tried to flirt a little but couldn’t really... he’s not up for dating someone as sexually active and a push-over as Jeremy is in this.

However, when he snaps out of Chloe’s manipulation, he and Christine approach Mr. Heere to convince him to straighten up and help Jeremy and also bc they really need an adult to successfully fight Chloe.

This requires a month+ of Christine getting him to see her psychiatrist (the one who prescribes her ADHD meds). Jeremy spends the majority of his time staying with Chloe, and very rarely comes home to gather things or to make sure his dad is eating/still alive, as much as he can remember to in his own haze of mental illness. Anyway, point is, he doesn’t know Christine and Michael are there often... not that, in the course of growing close to Mr. H, they both fall for him hard and it becomes one of my stranger OT3s.

(God, Jeremy goes through a lot of shit in this, tho.)

Pre-Squip, Jenna was kinda-sorta Brooke’s friend--or, well, friendly. However, she’s actually full blown “oh my God she’s wonderful” in love with Brooke.

Brooke isn't aware of that, esp since Jenna tries her not to be around her a lot. She's also trying to hide her own queerness, bc she’s a trans woman and she knows Chloe finding that out would be extremely dangerous.

Eventually, Chloe succeeds in making Brooke take the Red months after canon usually ends, w/o Michael’s help. If you’re curious, Red doesn’t affect her normal Squip bc she’s had him too long and a lot of his receptors and stuff are damaged, so it’s the second one she gets in canon that turns off.

This plan backfires, however, as Brooke’s Squip comes back with a physical body w/ help from Rich and also-bodied-now Moses.

With a body, and shenanigans, Mo and Squip take out Brooke’s daddy too. His life insurance more than makes up for the loss of his income, as it’s a sizable amount. Now that Brooke feels more empowered and strong, she overrides her mother’s neglectfulness and takes control of the household w/ her boyfriends*, comes out as queer, helps her sister transition, and begin to heal from all of this trauma.

(* = Rich and Mo move in, as does Jeremy eventually, after graduation; Jeremy gets a psychiatrist and a therapist and prolly has to go through some intense outpatient care and possibly a stay in the hospital, before finally making major breakthroughs and looking like himself again. The five of them are now happy and in love.)

Chloe, after her arm gets twisted by the Squip’s protective presence so thoroughly, gives up on Jeremy and Brooke to focus on Jake. This too gets abandoned when Rich and Mo help him cut her off, and so she stays in her own popularity bubble, bitter, until graduating and going to a community college in a different state.

All in all, things work out well in the end, but getting there is a long, difficult process. This AU fascinates me immensely and feels like a great way to examine some of my really dark headcanons about MB, as I think it’s a town similar to Derry in Stephen King’s IT--as in, just chronically The Worst Place Ever, with this, like, miasma of low-key despair around it. People adjust and don’t question it, which is why so much of BMC is this flippant dark humor in the face of some highly questionable shit.

I’m so sorry this post is so long (I’ll be uploading it to AU under my usual Sedusa account, as metas like this are more than allowed), but I really adore these characters and the way they can be twisted around, so I had a lot to say!

Thank you for reading <3

-mod Seb

image description: virtual-like stairs pointed forward and bathed in neon yellow and blue to represent Brook and Jeremy, which I’ve modified from the original blue-only design.

source: x (link description: a free Wallpaper Flare image that I found off Google Image’s “filtered by ‘labeled and reuse with modification” feature)