#because that's... that's genuinely extremely awful and we don't spend a lot of time on it but i think it really does provide an insight

[mercuriallycooperative]

okay but like the story? about the last time Wednesday cried? when she was six? that was genuinely horrifyingly traumatizing as hell, like what the fuck.

(i think this has haunted her all through her life, and not in the fun way; and i think we see it more often than we know throughout the events of the show.)

like I think in some ways its gravitas can get hidden, a little, because Nero was a scorpion, and when you start off a story with “Wednesday was out taking her scorpion for a walk”, that’s an image that’s a little ridiculous and a little surreal, something not-quite-real; and because Nero was a scorpion, Nero was a bug (okay an arachnid but still) and I think at least in the US we don’t necessarily instinctively group those in with animals-that-can-really-be-pets-the-way-dogs-and-cats-are, unless we know someone that has one and we learn that yeah actually they can be; and in that same vein Nero-the-scorpion, Nero-the-bug, can sort of get lost in the shuffle of the idea of a generic sort of scorpion-bug, because we’re not exactly conditioned to tell one apart from the other, right? No more than we are for, say, beetles or cockroaches. “Wednesday’s pet scorpion” is the idea that is primed to stick in mind, not the fullness of the fact that “Nero, the scorpion” was a discrete being.

and like- okay, I do not speak for the world and the general success a media has with instilling an empathy is variable and emotions are hard but like- even watching that awful moment play out on screen, even knowing it’s awful because between the basic facts of the moment and the framing and the right proper acting how can it not be, even then I suspect that with how casual our socialization is with the death of carapaced creatures, Nero’s death doesn’t receive the full impact it deserves.

that is, emotionally, the audience doesn’t quite have time to really sit with the fact that at six years old, Wednesday was held back by some bullies and forced to watch her pet be crushed in front of her, for the crime of being hers. she had to watch the life leave his body along with his organs. she said it was snowing when she buried what was left of him; and the audience doesn’t get a chance to sit with the fact that this means Wednesday probably had to scrape up her pet’s mangled corpse by hand from the pavement and carry him home.

like. jesus fucking christ.

and you know what? you can bet she never did get any justice for Nero. no justice other than what she may or may not have taken out with her own two hands at some point later, anyway. because Nero was a scorpion and he was a bug and an arachnid and maybe venomous and people are scared of creatures like that and those boys were just playing around and it was probably just an accident, you really shouldn’t have had that thing out in public-

she was a child walking her pet, peacefully, harming no one.

(can you imagine if that had been a dog or cat? and those boys had held down a kid and crushed their dog or cat to death in a public street like that?)

i said, earlier, that I think this event has haunted her all her life. I don’t just mean with respect to how she decided that crying doesn’t solve problems, and that she wouldn’t be doing it again.

one might wonder, for someone like Wednesday who is so cavalier about causing grievous injury (to the people who bullied her brother) (to the person who killed Rowan and all those people), why she seemed to care that the school, her prison, might burn. one might wonder why she seemed to care that Rowan died, when he had literally just tried to kill her- not just cared for the mystery, cared for the death. one might wonder why she says her greatest fear has always been that she would be responsible for something bad-terrible.

Nero died for the crime of being hers.

i would be willing to bet that Wednesday doesn’t want anyone else dying for the crime of being in her vicinity. (unless she’s the one doing the murdering, anyway.)

i would be willing to bet she doesn’t want to be the reason, the cause of anything she doesn’t mean to do.

(i would also be willing to bet she doesn’t want to lose people, especially not because of her own... just existing in the way she does; i think that might contribute to any natural tendency she has toward being standoffish, and possibly also why she took the falling out with Enid quite as badly as she did. but my personal thoughts about how Wednesday tries to bond with people can wait.)

there are events that shape your childhood. for better, for worse, they write themselves into your bones and make a home in your lungs and stain you in their blood.

i would reckon that Nero’s death was such an event, for Wednesday.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

big question. i'm cis (afab) and my gf is trans (amab) and i'm sorta having a hard time reconciling something. i've been a hard line feminist since i was about 8, by 12 i was a practical library on everything and anything womens lib. i'm spending a lot more time around trans people especially my gf now and i'm sorta struggling to reconcile the trans experience with my feminism. like- i'll see trans women being like "i hate my body :(" "my voice is awful" "i need [x thing to try to pass] ugh" and like my first thought is always "NO! THATS HOW THEY FUCKING GET YOU!!! THE PATRIARCHY WANTS YOU TO HATE YOURSELF SO YOU ENSLAVE YOURSELF TO CAPITALISM AND LIVE IN A CONSTANT STATE OF NEED FOR NEW PRODUCTS TO WARD OFF THE EVER PRESENT SELF HATRED BROUGHT ON YOU BY SOCIETY" and they go "well then how do i pass/transition?" and i honestly don't know and i also don't know how far it goes before its no longer dysphoria but instead the intentional subjugation of women by patriarchy for profit. i wanna help my fellow ladies but i honestly don't know how to like- apply the feminism i was taught as a child to trans women and i want to learn as soon as possible so that i can start doing it like yesterday

hi there,

I'll be honest: if it feels hard to apply the feminism you learned as a kid to your trans friends, that's probably because the feminism you were taught didn't have trans woman in mind.

luckily, the answer to this is something that I consider to be feminism 101: what a woman does with her body is, ultimately, her fucking business.

listen: I agree with you that the beauty industry(TM) is evil. it's misogynistic, it's exploitative, it thrives by making women feel bad enough about themselves to make them spend money on shit they don't need, etc. we all know this.

now, having said that: women who like makeup or wear heels or get laser hair removal or whatever other asinine thing are not my oppressor, nor are they my enemy. dare I say, we have bigger problems.

we also need to consider that many trans women are coming to these choices from a VERY different place than many cis women are. while I think my fellow cis women really benefit from reminders that they're allowed to stop shaving or wearing eyeliner or dieting or whatever, that's because most of us have had those actions forced on us from very young ages and may genuinely need a hand to feel secure breaking out of those behaviors.

the majority of trans women are not coming from a background where they were encouraged to partake in the same personal grooming habits and modes of presentation as cis women; many of them have, in fact, been ostracized, bullied, threatened, and otherwise hurt because of forays into forms of presentation that are considered feminine. no matter how good your intentions may be, approaching your advice indelicately can, unfortunately, make you come across as no different than any transphobe on the street trying to enforce cisnormative societal expectations. it also must be said that, for many trans women, the ability to "pass" is a matter of security - for having their status as women recognized at all, and to avoid harassment and abuse in public spaces. if you live in America, like I do, politicians in power currently have an extremely explicit anti-trans agenda that can make it harrowing to be visible as a trans person, and trans women in particular are frequently targeted for violence.

there are absolutely critiques to be made the way the many trans women are expected to perform hyperfemininity. the notion that someone is duty bound to drastically change their appearance in order to transition at all is itself extremely rooted in cisnormativity, and "passing" is often contingent on being young, thin, able-bodied, reasonably wealthy, and hewing as closely to Eurocentric standards of beauty as possible. that's not awesome! but that's also not the fault of any individual; no trans person asked to be born into a world where gender norms are so narrow and failing to pass can come with a very real risk of physical danger.

also, if I can circle back to this: again, women who participate in aspects of the beauty industry are not our enemies. there are always going to be some number of women who enjoy doing their makeup or like spending time fussing over their little outfits or want breast implants or whatever. some of those women are going to be trans. my official feminist stance on this is that I don't give a shit, because I believe in bodily autonomy even when it involves things I would not do personally and the choices that individual women make about how they want to style their little meat body don't even crack the top 100 things that I'm worried about right now. it's actually kind of vitally important, politically, that trans people be able to safely pursue their preferred gender expression; while it's not particularly revolutionary for a cis woman to go outside all dolled up, whether a trans woman can do that safely is a pretty basic litmus test for how safe a given space is for queer people. it's a ridiculously low bar, and many places will still fail to clear it.

so, yeah, I don't know, dude. be there to talk to your trans girlies if they want to start unpacking some of the pressure they feel to conform to a very rigid idea of womanhood, but whether or not they can walk down the street in your neighborhood safely is a WAY bigger issue than whether they decide to do voice training or not.

if you really want to cut to the root of the insecurity and vulnerability that the beauty industry thrives on exploiting, your time is much better spent working to ensure the trans women in your life feel safe and supported and have a community where they can find support regardless of how they look.

necessary disclaimer I'm a cis girl, any transfemme folks please share your voice here and feel free to clap my ass if I've said something out of line.

[showsandstuff]

Ways to make a Dale Dimmadome redemption work:

Hi! So, as a self proclaimed Dale Dimmadome redemption truther, I wanted to make this post explaining why a redemption is, in my opinion, very much possible. (I am not nearly as confident about this as I am pretending to be)

Buckle up, this'll be a long one folks!

First, why do I think a Dale redemption could happen? Let's go through it:

It's still a kids show. I find the conclusion to the story that Dale will never love his son a bit grim for a show for children. You could of course make it work by using the found family trope with Peri instead, plus there are plenty of kids shows that have used the evil father of secondary character/antagonist trope, without the father getting a redemption but I do think a Dale redemption is the most satisfying conclusion for this show.

Even Remy Buxaplentys parents started caring for Remy at some point, so I got hope. Though to be fair, they were incredibly one note.

His past with Vicky makes him a bit more sympathetic. Knowing what he went through in his childhood, it makes sense he probably wouldn't know what a child needs. I'm just saying it means there's room for improvement

He emotionally neglects Dev, but his physical needs are met. Which is something, right? Like Yay... And all...

We don't know if Dale doesn't love Dev. I think there's a possibility that he does care but just doesn't know it because he's taken his child for granted. That's not an excuse of course, but it would make a redemption more plausibel. If Dale genuinely does not love Dev whatsoever, I'll give up on my redemption hope.

How could they pull it off, if at all?

Assuming that Dale does love Dev, deep deeeep down, and just doesn't realize it because he's so focused on his company, the best way to show this is through a choice.

Dev doing things that benefit the company has never helped their relationship, Dale just gets happy because Money and it doesn't make him appreciate his son more, Dev just becomes someone useful to him.

But if Dev causes Dale to lose money, that's a good start to see what Dale truly prioritizes deep down.

Dale choosing Dev over his company is what I need if they decide to redeem him. I need Dale in one way or another show us that he truly cares. Maybe have Dale spend so much money to find and save Dev, that his company goes bankrott? Or have his company explodes and Dale's main concern could be Devs wellbeing. Or Dev goes behind his father's back and intentionally hurts the company, but instead of lashing out at Dev, Dale reflects on himself.

Now... That's all incredibly out of character for Dale and I would hate for an unearned redemption. I'd need there to be a lot of build up to that moment, some foreshadowing that hints at Dale not feeling entirely indifferent about Dev. Small moments, nothing too grand. Maybe he'd be worried if he finds out that he had left Dev with Vicky at one Point, and that could be the catalyst to show us that he isn't as awful as we were shown previously.

And after we had enough of those moments and already have a feel that Dale isn't all uncaring, we get to the grand moment where Dale shows us through his actions that in truth, he cares far more about his kid than his cash. It would feel earned and not be out of nowhere then.

Now before yall call me delusional, I know that this is extremely unrealistic and I'm just setting myself up if these are my expectations. Good thing they aren't. I do expect Dev to have something equivalent of his father's love at the end of the show, but that's it.

Here are some examples of what I actually believe would happen:

Hazel and Dev become friends (again) but this time their friendship is explored more. Maybe Dev also befriends Hazel's friends and finds fulfillment through that. (although I think that'll happen regardless and would be unsatisfying if that was all we got)

Involving Peri in this mess and giving him a character arc of his own would work as well. He realizes that Dev doesn't need a Fairy to be happy because, as Cosmo said in the finale, what Dev truly wants isn't something he can get through wishes. Dev, being super rich, is already used to getting "stuff", but love isn't stuff. So Peri basically becoming a parental figure for Dev, which is what he is supposed to be as a godparent anyway, could work. Besides, Peri already solidified himself in this role in the finale when he told Dev that he cared about him. It was a heartwarming moment. We all loved it so ofc we would want more of that.

Anything involving Irep, another Fairy or even Timmy. Dev needs someone that cares for him. My top three go to characters are obviously Peri, Hazel and Dale, but they're not the only ones that could fulfill that role. We just need to wait and see what the writers do.

So yea, a Dale redemption is my first pick for a season 2 finale (or technically my first pick is a hint at a Dale redemption in the s2 finale and the actual redemption happens way later because slow burn) but I do understand that it's pretty unlikely and would be very much satisfied with Peri becoming his godparent with Emphasis on parent, or even the power of friendship with Hazel, though that'd be harder to execute without it feeling cheap (I got faith in the writers)

So this was very long. And I am going to sleep now. Thanks for reading.

[bababerries]

Jack is a lot of things but tbh I don’t really get why people call him a stalker and I do take issue with insinuating he was abusive to Lacie in their relationship (when she was alive that is. His behavior towards her daughters, her best friend/doll and all the things she loved post her demise was extremely awful)

Jack’s behaviour towards Lacie is never normal or healthy and is definitely creepy. But I don’t see how he’s abusive or a stalker. If anything id say one of the issues in their relationship was Jack was too much of a pushover who had such little respect for himself that he never had the will to truly fight for a bond that they both cherished because he just couldn’t see anything beyond. I can’t help but feel like labeling him as abusive in this stage of their relationship a bit cruel towards him and unsympathetic. And I love Lacie to the moon and back but I’ll be honest I do think she was abusive to Jack in this relationship. (I am in no way trying to demonize her for this that’s my babygirl and she’s been through a lot. But I think Jack’s feelings also matter here)

I don't think we talk a lot about how Lacie sexually assaulted Jack (COCSA) in their first interaction with one another. And then later goes onto encourage him to do sex work. And Jack listens.She purposely choose to talk to him as he was someone in a vulnerable position. (Homeless and abused) so that she could play with him. She gives him her earing and tells him to come and find her Do I think Lacie was serious when she was saying this? No. I don't think Lacie genuinely made plans to see Jack again. She was just simply fouling around. This encounter meant very different things for both of them. And for Jack it flipped his whole world on his head. He was shown love for the first time in his life and was encouraged to chase after it by that person so he did. While the efforts he goes to get her is concerning I feel like calling this stalker behavior gives a much different impression and also feels a bit unempathetic to me? And is also just incorrect. Jack spends 7 years trying to find Lacie under the impression that she to wanted this shown physically with the earring. Not 7 years watching her from afar. I think it's also worth noting Jack processed Lacie's love as maternal to an extent. She did things for him a mother should do for a child (give him food, cut his hair, give him life advice and orders, protect him from bad guys, hugs) I don't wanna go super in depth bc i'd love to make a whole analysis on Jack's feelings for Lacie but Lacie even makes this comparison herself

(And once again I wanna preface with I don't think Lacie owes Jack motherhood. In fact i'm very uncomfortable with viewing motherhood in a positive lens in regards to Lacie's arc as it felt like it was always something forced upon her to further abuse and mystify her. )

And the second time. Lacie once again is the one to ask Jack to see her again. (This time however out of genuine desire.) She makes the first move and suggest this of him

I think it's fair to say Jack would probably want to try to see her again after this as an alternative response to "What are you going to do now Jack?" But I feel like it's a bit up in the air/up to interpretation. Of course I 100% think he wants to see Lacie. But he to is scared of overstepping boundaries to an extent that damages their relationship. He doesn't answer his question to her saying "I want to see you again" "I'm going to see you again" "Can I see you again" It's "I don't know." Which I think you can also take as now that Jack has completed the only life goal he's made for himself he doesn't know what to do with himself. He could be hiding his want and desires to surprise her and see her but he has no reason to do that here. Levi also giving him the paper in this scene suggests Jack lacks the knowledge to come back on his own. Point is Lacie made the first move here and asked him to come back once again she's the one pushing things.

Lacie has power over Jack. She's the on with power over him because he was vulnerable towards her. I don't mean to demonize Lacie with this post and perhaps I focused too much of her flaws in the relationship but the main point I wanna make is I do feel like people are too hard on Jack in regards to how he acted in their relationship when she was alive. Unfairly antagonizing him when he's the bigger victim in this relationship.

[glass--beach]

I know you're not being open about your maybe-plurality on tumblr for other people's sakes, but I want to say thanks for being open about it, and speaking honestly about your feelings. I've been through a very similar journey recently and I felt extremely alone with how I was thinking about/approaching it.

I firmly believe that it doesn't matter whether you have a diagnosable dissociative disorder, I'm too critical of psych to put much stake in that. My journey has always revolved around one question: What is the most useful way to think about myself?

And I spent years trying to be a "singlet". I spent my whole life trying to be one person. But then I didn't know how to introduce myself. I don't know what my hobbies are. I don't know what my goals are. It wasn't just indecisiveness for me, it was a whole different way of seeing the world, of thinking, different core beliefs and opinions that changed the way I behaved and socialized and studied and worked.

For all these years I thought of myself as a "nothing person" as a result. Someone with no particular talents or skills of personalities. I watched my friends grow up and get PhDs and high paying jobs and write books and I still felt like a toddler too overwhelmed by choices and drawn to too many things and not present enough to commit fully to being anyone in particular.

I don't think singlet people understand how damaging it is to not know yourself, or to try to be someone you're not. Well actually, maybe trans singlets do know that. It did feel an awful lot like gender dysphoria but it wasn't just about gender, it was about my whole me.

I'm doing better now. And the reason I'm doing better is because I stopped trying to be a singular person. I recognized that there are multiple identities in here. We have an artist. We have a scientist. We have a sleepy caterpillar. We have a young child. None of those people feel that dreadful "nothingness" anymore. They know who they are, what they like, what their aspirations are, how they like to talk to people. They don't feel like a confused upset failure when they suddenly aren't *themselves* anymore.

A different part/alter/headmate being asocial doesn't undo all of the social skills I have. Me being bad at math doesn't take away from one of my alters who is awesome at it. They're still allowed to identify with their own traits and features without feeling like a fraud because of the fact that they can't consistently be that person all of the time.

Accepting my plurality has saved my life. I love myself now, all of my parts, as they are. It's OK that they're extremely different from me. They're still real. And now I don't spend every day agonizing over why I don't have their skills and interests. I'm ok with being like this.

Sorry if this comes across as over sharing because that is not my intention. I just hoped to illustrate why reconceptualizing yourself as plural can be helpful, and change your whole perspective, and allow you to be more forgiving and kind to yourself. I can't possibly hate the amazing friends I share a brain with, and they don't hate me, how could I hate myself in these conditions after all? I hope this does the same for you. If you do find that you have different parts or personalities there is no shame in letting them fully indulge in what they like and in what they are good at. Don't hold yourself back from being you to the fullest extent just because it doesn't align with your other parts. You will be way happier if you can recognize who you are and then listen to what that part of you wants.

love this and vibe with it heavily. i’ve embraced being a contradictory person but i think actually pinning down the patterns to those contradictions is going to help me out immensely. sounds like that’s what’s worked for you pretty much. glad you’ve gotten something out of my posting, genuinely

[twilight-good-yall-dumb]

I have genuinely seen some of the most horrific takes on Liam Payne's death, and even though I don't often get controversial on this website, I'm about to.

First of all, labeling Liam Payne as nothing but some shitty abuser is such an obtuse observation. Obviously, I understand that the power of the internet has had a large part in this. People listen to whatever other people say without second thought or further research. So sure, if you hear from more than one person that Liam was this awful abuser, most people just take that on faith.

The problem is that it's so much more complicated than that. Firstly, a lot of the current information we have about Liam and his ex-fiancé is alleged. Not to say that it isn't true or that I don't believe her. That isn't the message I'm trying to get across at all, but still, it is alleged information, and it's coming only from her. Secondly, a ton of people have been massively misled because Maya released a FICTIONAL book that is supposedly "inspired" in part by her relationship with Liam, and people are taking instances from the FICTIONAL book and assuming they are true to life. Which is...unintelligent to say the least. Secondly, I've seen one account of a fan claiming she was "manipulated" into sending nude photos to Liam, but this fan was literally 25 years old. And according to her, there was no blackmail, threats, or serious pressure involved. We're not talking about naive 18 year old girls like I've seen people claim. And again, I've only been able to find this one account. This was not some kind of trend with him.

Again, my intention is not to blame any of these women or claim that they're lying. It is only to reiterate that other people have been exaggerating the evidence we actually have.

Secondly, the only thing Maya has outright claimed about Liam was his obsessive contact during and after the end of their relationship. She ordered a cease and desist to keep him from further contacting her and to try and put an end to the emotional abuse she had faced. This included him threatening suicide, obsessively apologizing, etc. Which to be entirely truthful, is manipulative and unacceptable behavior. That being said, it is also the behavior of, and a clear symptom of, his poor mental health and substance abuse issues.

Seeing people straight up say that they don't care that he died because the world is "better off without an abuser" or that women shouldn't mourn him because it's somehow anti-feminist to care about a man who has harmed a woman in any way is...such a crazy fucking take. Like I genuinely hope these people never come across somebody in their lives who is dealing with trauma, addiction, or mental health struggles, because holy shit that lack of compassion is crazy. Like, yes, he was not a great guy to Maya. He has literally admitted that in interviews before, admitted that because of his addiction and mental health issues that he has hurt people he loved. This is not behavior in any man that should be excused, but it is behavior that, in my opinion, can be forgiven if that man has the time to make amends.

Liam Payne was not Diddy. He was not a fucking monster. He was not the sort of man who seriously harmed and traumatized countless women. He was a man who was unwell and who made mistakes in his relationships. But as we've seen from so many of his loved ones in the last few days, to his core, Liam Payne was a kind person. He cared about his family, his friends, his son. He wanted people to be happy, to smile. He wanted to entertain people, to be there for people, and to be loved. He was a human. And he was a victim of the music industry. He was overworked, objectified, and commodified as a literal child, and then he was left on his own after spending his most formative years in an extremely high stress environment. I mean, honestly, the fact that any of the boys wound up somewhat stable is beyond my comprehension. There was bound to be at least one of them who struggled to adjust.

And so, to say that you don't care that he died, to say that the world is better off without him, is a wild fucking stance. To have so little empathy for somebody who was a victim himself, to care so little for somebody who brought love and joy to the lives of so many people, who left behind a seven year old son, is fucking cold hearted. Nobody is asking you to cry over a man who you have no personal connection to, and we're also not asking that any of his potential victims receive hate or blame. But that doesn't mean those of us who are grieving should have to hear discourse about your "morally superior" Liam Payne take.

Some of us just want to mourn somebody who was a massive pillar in our lives, who brought us joy in dark times. Who, because we cared, we worried about for years. Not all 1D fans are the same in this regard, but I never hated Liam. I never blamed him for any of the foolish things he said in interviews. I understood his actions as those of somebody struggling, of somebody who was calling out for help, who needed that help, who needed support. Liam Payne, had he lived longer, could have become the man that he wanted to be, that everyone close to him knew he was capable of being. He'd been to rehab, he'd had periods of sobriety. He was working on himself. He was slowly getting better. So yes, I am mourning for the man that he was, not just the boy in the band, but the man he was working towards becoming. I am mourning for the man who made silly videos during Covid that helped me get through the monotony. I am mourning for the man who took silly selfies that made me laugh. I am mourning for the man who was talented beyond belief or recognition. I am mourning for the man who wanted to be loved and accepted so badly, and who the rest of the internet treated like SHIT for years before his death. Which, by the way, almost always had nothing to do with serious allegations but rather actions that the internet deemed "cringe."

I am so tired, and so upset.

None of the women who are mourning Liam's death are "betraying their own sex" or whatever else some of you seem to believe. They are simply exercising a thing called empathy. Try it out sometime!

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

i might be overstepping but from your tags you seem completely miserable in your relationship. i know you said things are fine but from my outside perspective as someone who doesn't know you, you do not seem happy at all. and if you're desiring other women that's a huge red flag. it means you're already checked out on some level, even if you're not physically being disloyal to her. i think you know this isn't going anywhere and you know it's going to end so i would prepare for that mentally now

You're not overstepping. I appreciate the honesty, and I've been thinking about this a lot and talking about it ad nauseum with a multitude of friends.

I have to disagree with you saying that I'm completely miserable. That's a bit harsh. I'm going to see her next Thursday and I'm excited about it. I don't think that's indicative of misery at all. I do think I'm fairly unhappy tho. And I unfortunately agree that I'm at least partially checked out of the relationship. Outside of desiring other women, I've noticed I don't really tell her things. I'm not saying I keep secrets, but if something is on my mind, she's not the first person I want to tell. I always go to someone else.

It's just difficult because we do have a stable relationship. We don't fight. We've never had a huge fight in almost 5 years. Like. That's a very long time to consistently be on good terms with someone. It doesn't feel like we ever really left the "honeymoon phase." We have always been extremely sweet to each other and in tune. I always thought that people break up after a lot of anger and nastiness. I never really considered that things could just kinda... Fizzle out?

The worst thing about all of this is that if she cane out tomorrow, I genuinely believe all of our problems would be gone. Her family is very tightly knit. If they accepted me, I could actually spend time with them and get to know them and stuff. I can deal with long distance just fine, but I can't deal with feeling isolated lmao.

And I worry so deeply about her telling her family. Her being gay is one thing, but how on earth is she gonna say she's been in a relationship for 5 whole years? I don't think any parent would take such a strong lie well. Like. Her mother is gonna think back on all the times she's been with me and realize just how much her kid has been lying to her over the years.

It's just insane.

My issue is I worry about if we have a future. We're both gonna graduate soon. How is she gonna move in with me if she's not out? How is that going to go down? She should have come out ages ago because now I feel like we're stuck lmao. Her mother and father are gonna have a LOT to deal with extremely quickly and the longer she waits, the worse it's gonna get. I'd feel better if she had a concrete date of coming out, but she doesn't lmao. I feel like I'm being strung along to a dead end.

And it's awful because I really do feel like we have an extremely good relationship. You can't imagine how elated I was before we went long distance. I had to have been the happiest dyke in the world, fr. But the trouble is we're not kids anymore and I want to talk about actually living together and getting married. I don't just want to muse to her about it anymore. I want to be with someone who is out and I can buy an apartment with and all of that. Being a closet case if fine when you're a kid, but eventually you have to just grow up fr lmao.

[bunnidid-reviews]

is it frowned upon to wish that one could dissociate or have an alter take over in moments that are awful and stressful? genuine question

Hmmm, this blog is really more intended on reviewing and sharing media about complex dissociative disorders, or could easily be related to CDDs. Certainly not an advice blog for this or anything else > < I think any more general questions about DID can be forwarded to @sundropglass (main blog) if at all, just to stay on topic here.

But since you asked, I may as well share my perspective a little bit. I urge you to read it all.

Of course it's something anyone would want. Shut off and let the stress be taken care of for someone else? go off to fairyland a bit? It's actually an extremely sophisticated way of functioning in the midst of trauma; tuck it away, get through the thing that you might otherwise feel like you're dying from.

But where does that stress go?

Say that you had a very stressful day. Maybe one thing after another kept going wrong. And all day, there was absolutely nothing you could do because you had to carry on with a smile on your face and act like everything's fine, while more dismays pile on top of you. Maybe on top of that, you end up having an argument with a loved one and now you have social anxiety and no sense of safety or relief.

This is not out of the norm. People live very stressful lives all the time. It builds up though, all that stress is piled into your immune system if you don't have any release.(Expressing emotions in a healthy manner) It comes out in the ways that maybe you get ill, or spend all day in the bathroom, or get a migraine. This is what we call the body keeping the score (a book I should read tbh). What the mind doesnt handle(dissociates from), the body will.

This is what people with CDDs regularly go through. Trauma = stress that's beyond your range of coping. Chronic trauma means chronic stress, just stored away in pockets upon pockets where its never dealt with until much later in life. This is why I don't think I know a single system who doesn't have some sort of chronic health issues. The initial trauma may not have killed them, but maybe the health issues that come from all this chronic stress might just finish the job.

This isn't even addressing what the disorder implies mentally.

Look up the symptoms of PTSD, look into personality disorders, attachment disorders, anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation. Any trauma-based symptoms could come with a CDD, because there's nearly nothing special at all about DID or OSDD. They're not sectioned off 'incredible' disorders as much as media or people on the internet will imply. We are normal people who have been hurt. A lot.

We have this disorder because no one came to save us, so we had to turn to ourselves, sometimes at an extremely young age. There's no measuring the amount of hurt it takes for a young child to feel this alone.

Going off this ask alone, but because you wish you could dissociate to such the intensity as you're suggesting, tells me that you haven't actually. Daydreaming or spacing out is a very minor case of dissociation, but the level at which you're having alters would imply that you're hoping to dissociate much further than you actually think you want. Do you not want to recognize your own spouse, or be completely unable to be present in the best moments of your life? This doesn't shut off when you're happy again.

Say fine fine fine, yes yes yes to all of this, you could deal, because at least you'd be another person who would bear the responsibility for you.

I hate to tell you this, but that's not how alters work. They are, at the end of the day, still part of you. They don't magically whisk away all this stress they face, they'd still hold onto it, be strongly effected by it, and you're a lot more likely to have the same stress come back over and over again and go unprocessed because of the fragmentation involved.

If it's to ease off some of the responsibility of being yourself, then.. Well that's not what happens with DID either. Those of us with a CDD tend to feel overly responsible for everything around us, actually. It's not the escape you're hoping for.

In a short answer: Yes it is very believable to want this disorder, to want alters. That's understandable even!

But I'm also going to say this is frowned upon. There is a LOT more to these disorders than some spacing out and some cool characters. I hope you can understand a little more why this mentality is frowned upon; no one who has it actually wants it when it comes down to it

BUT i HAVE GOOD NEWS FOR YOU ANON!! Please listen

It's okay to want to be someone else to get through the stress. It's even okay to turn off your brain and space out. These are natural human things. Just.. They don't have to be a disorder. There are some recommendations for coping that aren't hoping to have a CDD, but might suit you if you struggle with this:

Try to analyze your life and see what it is that's causing you so much stress that it makes you want to not exist in such a way. If you're in a bad environment that you can't change, there are still little things you can do to make it better for yourself

Are there things you CAN change? Maybe you can look into getting professional help or finding a new job, or even so much as regularly tidying up the space you're in

Look up coping mechinisms and grounding techniques

Take breaks and let yourself really unwind. Read a book or go outside and look at clouds or something until you feel calm. I promise this feels way better than dissociation

Fun Coping Tools That Feel Like What You Want Out Of Dee Eye Dee:

create a story in your head. If you come up with a world all your own to explore, it feels like having an inner world

Create original characters you can "be". By this I mean be imaginative like when we were all kids. >>Here's a really cool version of what adults can do if 'playing pretend' seems too childish for you<<

Have some staring out a window time. Just let your mind go for a bit

None of this has to be disordered to be helpful, and have nearly the same effect that you're hoping for.

If you are at a point where you want to not exist for suicidal reasons, I really urge you to get some help. There's always someone who wants you to be around, even if thats some time in the future.

[threadbearsweater]

I think the hardest thing for me to realize is that not everyone is going to agree with/get along with/tolerate/like me. Or anyone for that matter. And it's gotta be okay. It applies to every space I find myself in- work, online, church, social settings, family gatherings.... it's all a juggling act. It's important to stick with the people who make you feel valued and loved, and not just in a superficial sense. It's important to understand the difference between someone being a genuine friend and then using you (or you using them) to inflate a fragile ego.

I've had meaningful relationships. I have (had/have) a fragile ego. I can't say that I never bought into the hype of having "popular" mutuals and being part of a community that felt very superficial in some instances, especially considering that some changed their minds SO fast regarding a poorly-worded post that was interpreted in bad faith.

If someone decides they don't like you anymore, they often bring friends right along with them.

Again, something I've experienced on both sides. I'm not justifying it or excusing it, nor am I saying it's the right thing to do. It's a simple fact of life, especially when we crave that sense of belonging, that sense of community and friendship and closeness with people we spend a lot of time with.

I felt as if I'd been under a microscope for some time. The further up the social ladder I felt myself climbing, the more I felt as if I had to watch every step, every word, every interaction. Maybe it's depression. Maybe it's me being chronically online. Maybe it's not that deep.

Maybe I just need to relax. Whatever it is, I resorted to extremes because it felt like the right thing to do at the time. I still think it was. I wasn't tumblr famous, I didn't have tens of thousands of followers, but I had enough that it felt as if I were a specimen in the zoo to be studied. Sometimes, it felt amazing to get attention. Sometimes, I wished for nothing more than to hide.

I hate that I've always resorted to extremes. It's when I know that depression has hit like a freight train, and I have to step back. I sever ties in irrational, hurtful ways. I make awful decisions. I want to erase my existence in a very literal sense of the word. To be dramatic, I suppose it's a form of virtual suicide. And here I am, back from the dead. I just miss what I had before. So I want to try again.

[ashleigghh]

okay well, I'm not feeling too good rn so hopefully this will still make sense. I just logged on to my ao3 account, intending to upload the first chapter of my new fic but honestly I don't know if i ever will be now. Waiting for me in my inbox was was a lovely hate comment on an older fic of mine that i have now taken down.

The commenter was apparently very angry at how awful my writing was and what an awful story I had created. I don't claim to be a good writer, hell half the time I think I'm a shitty writer, but I am also spending my time creating these stories for fun, and to try and be creative and develop some skills. I am taking the time to think up these stories, write them, edit them and upload them, knowing that I am not going to get many people reading but doing it anyway because I enjoy it.

You don't have to like my work, you also don't have to read it. I don't expect anyone to read my fics, or to comment and leave kudos and I am extremely grateful when people do take the time to do so. I am not a huge fic writer, some of my works don't even get a hundred hits, I am not someone who has a lot of friends in this fandom but I am still worthy of some fucking respect. You can not like my work, but you can simply click off of it and stop reading, you don't need to leave hateful comments insulting me and belittling me on my works. If there was something genuinely wrong with my work, then yeah leave a comment, but just because you didn't like it doesn't mean you get to be awful to me.

Everything I write, I write for me. I use it as an outlet, quite literally pouring parts of myself into it, and I post because I enjoy sharing my work, even if only one person sees it. Honestly thought we were all taught this at 4 years old but apparently it needs reiterating again - if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.

[cbk1000]

So, I'm going to do a long post on my health issues because I haven't really gone into much detail, and there’s a Lot, and maybe this will help someone else. Under a cut, not for anything graphic, but just because this is long as fuck.

I'll note first that for at least a year, maybe longer, I've been having really bad fatigue and brain fog, like struggling to concentrate and not fall asleep at my desk in the middle of the afternoon kind of fatigue. I have to drink a cup of coffee or two before I write just so I can have enough caffeine to get me through a couple of hours of wording. I blamed it on my poor sleep, which for about the same amount of time has been really bad: trouble falling asleep no matter how exhausted I am, waking up multiple times a night, and always waking up feeling extremely tired. Turns out these are all common signs of iron deficiency, which I didn't realise at the time.

Back in February one night after working out I suddenly had a weird sensation in my throat. It felt mildly swollen, and my tongue felt kind of tingly/numb. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before and I assumed it was a mild allergic reaction, though I was confused because I hadn't eaten anything new and I couldn't think of any new environmental exposures that would have done it. I take a Benadryl; no change.

It's after normal office hours, so I decide to have Mr Jenn take me to an urgent care clinic to give me something for the inflammation in case it gets worse.

Doc asks me the usual questions about what I ate, feels my throat for swelling, looks in my mouth, etc. Throat is maybe a tiny bit red, but looks pretty normal. He says just to cover all the bases and because it's going around, he's going to test me for strep.

Strep culture comes back positive. I am genuinely shocked because I have had strep before, it was the worst sore throat of my life, and I felt super sick. I feel fine, aside from the weird feeling in my throat, and it doesn't actually hurt, it's just an uncomfortable sensation. Doc says I probably just caught it early.

I start antibiotics, some prednisone for the inflammation, and also my period. (Which I didn't think was relevant at the time, but looking back I believe it was.)

I feel fine; just a teeny bit run down, but I'm on my period and I have strep.

A few days after starting my period, I start feeling a little worse. Not terrible, just generally Not Well. I ask Mr Jenn if he'll do the grocery shopping (we usually go together) because I just don't feel up to it.

It's a long holiday weekend thankfully, so I have more time to get back on my feet before returning to work. I spend the weekend chilling on the couch with Mr Jenn watching movies. I don't feel absolutely wrecked, but I don't feel well enough to do much more than lie on the couch watching movies.

Tuesday I go back to work. I feel pretty crappy: shaky, weak, just generally shitty. I try to push through but only manage a couple of hours of work and then clock out and take a sick day. I'm concerned because I'm 7 days into a 10 day antibiotic course at this point, and I should be almost back to normal, not feeling way worse than when I started. I decide to lie down and see if I feel any better.

I start feeling AWFUL. So poorly I call Mr Jenn at work and ask if he'll come take me back to urgent care (I don't have a primary care doctor at this point) because this is completely abnormal and I should probably make sure this isn't some complication of strep.

Go back to urgent care, doc feels my throat and looks in my mouth; throat looks fine and he's not seeing any indication the strep is worse. He tells me to stop the Prednisone; some people can have a gnarly reaction to it even during a short course. He also advises me to get my thyroid checked out when I'm able to get established with primary care, because that could potentially be causing some issues.

I go home and spend the day on the couch feeling violently nauseated and ill.

I work a couple of hours a day the next few days, but can't manage much more than that. I'm not feeling nauseated anymore, but I'm very weak and shaky and can't even sit up for long because I feel so crappy.

Friday I'm feeling a little better; but then Saturday I notice I'm having some heart palpitations. It's not super bad, but it's never happened before and I'm very fit with no history of heart issues so I was a bit concerned, but just kept an eye on it.

Sunday I'm having bad tachycardia. My heart is racing when I'm just standing at the sink trying to wash my face. I'm feeling incredibly weak and overall terrible. One of the urgent cares in town has an EKG machine and will do cardiac assessments, so I decide to go there because I'm trying to avoid the hospital if possible.

Urgent care turns me away because the doctor on duty that day isn't comfortable handling cardiac issues, so I have to go to the hospital to get checked out.

I'm so weak I have to hold myself up on the front desk when checking in. I am too weak to stand without holding onto it for support and genuinely feel like I'm dying. I honestly cannot remember the last time I felt that horrible.

Hospital runs a bunch of labs, and does several imaging tests to check for a heart attack and pulmonary embolism. After a couple of bags of IV fluids my heart rate drops to normal and I don't feel back to normal, but I do feel far stronger. Doc says he can't find anything, but that doesn't mean there isn't something to find, so come back if I develop different symptoms or it gets worse.

I lay around on the couch Sunday and Monday.

Tuesday morning I wake up at like 2:00 shaking and feeling horribly weak. I decide to drink some Gatorade and eat some Saltines and see if that helps.

It doesn't. I've gone out to the couch to eat and drink so I don't disturb Mr Jenn, who is still asleep in the bedroom. Seamus is keeping me company, though, so there's that. I go back and forth about what to do. I feel genuinely awful.

I get dressed and wake poor Mr Jenn up at 4:00 and ask him to drive me back to the hospital. My heart is pounding again and I feel like I'm about to keel over.

Hospital doesn't want to redo the imaging tests because it's unlikely anything has changed there after a couple of days (and I had a normal EKG), but they run some more labs including a mono test and give me some more fluids. Doc is stumped. Says maybe it's some kind of virus doing this. (I have been tested for Covid, mono, and a couple of flu strains and all tests have come back negative.) I am discharged.

I update my boss because I took another sick day Monday and let her know I won't be able to work Tuesday either. I am absolutely exhausted when I get home and pass out for three hours, wake up, and feel like I could sleep a million more.

My boss is a former ER nurse and is super concerned about my heart rate and that I feel poorly enough to keep calling out sick, because that’s not like me.

Over the next couple of days she has me check in with her every couple of hours. She has me noting down my symptoms in detail and also making sure I'm eating every hour even though my appetite is poor and drinking plenty of water as well as electrolytes. That way if I have to go back to the hospital I can show that none of these issues are caused by dehydration or blood sugar issues from not eating.

Electrolytes help my heart rate a bit; some days it's almost back to normal. I don't feel as bad as when I first went to the hospital, but I'm still very weak and poorly and it's a struggle to keep my heart rate down.

I start getting terrible chills every day. Like, cold-to-the-bone, can't warm up even under a pile of blankets or in a hot bath. I never run a fever, but the chills are every day and last several hours usually. I always sleep with the fan on even in winter but can't run it now because I'm so cold all the time.

My heart rate goes back to 140+ bpm standing at my sink washing my face. I'm also having shortness of breath and chest pain at this point. I update my boss, and she says she thinks it's time to go back in. She offers to meet me at the hospital to help me advocate for some tests that might find something (she wants them to do an echocardiogram, which is an ultrasound of the heart, and blood cultures).

Hospital runs some more labs, and does an echo. Doctor says structurally my heart looks good, but he's seeing what might be an indication of pericarditis (inflammation of the sac around the heart). It causes a brightness in that area, and while that can sometimes be caused by flashback on the monitor, he says that coupled with some of my symptoms makes him comfortable giving a presumptive diagnosis of pericarditis. Standard treatment is a week of high dose ibuprofen for the inflammation, and I'll also be put on acid blockers to protect my stomach.

[x-birdsong-x]

can you do that criticism/things youd change about scream queens for s2 alone?

This one's probably going to be messy because I have a LOT to say about S2. Some of it overlaps with others, and I also have some positive things I will never miss a chance to talk about.

As always, when I do things like this, I'm saying it right here: There is not a single SQS character I genuinely dislike. The retcon is not canon.

And a quick note, I've talked about a lot of this stuff with my buddy @sarahpaulsonsclown, so credit to them for something I say about Cassidy later.

The first- and the cause of a lot of other things- problem with S2 is the tone change from S1.

Tell me I'm exaggerating, but S1 blended the comedy and horror in a way that worked and came across naturally as if they weren't doing it on purpose, and it just happened to be 50/50.

Season two writes the comedy in completely on purpose, but it doesn't focus enough on or bring in enough of the horror to balance it out, so it comes across more "artificial," I guess than S1's whole tone did. It just doesn't blend the way S1 did because there's not enough of the horror kept around this time.

And that's a shame! Because when S2 does switch to more of the horror side of things, it WORKS. There are scenes here that carry the horror really well, and had the whole season had more of a tone like this, the comedy could've been balanced out better.

One of my biggest examples of this is when Zayday first confronts (and gets kidnapped by) Jane. The music, the weather part of setting the scene, and the lighting. (Although I really wish they'd not have used Sophia's gold for Jane and Cass so often, given they're the least linked to Gigi in S2. I'll come back to this.)

Even the scenes where the girls first start visiting Hester before she's moved to the hospital can be a good example. Those scenes have their little comedy moments, but they're serious scenes, and the characters are treated seriously in them.

This tone issue starts disrupting things in later episodes though, and I'll come back to this later talking about other things, but Addison's (Chanel Number Nine's) death was so off-tone and so mean-spirited given how we spent half this episode being introduced to her extreme fear of needles, and this was such an awful death for her to be given. She didn't even do anything! S2 carries an issue with not having enough horror to balance out the comedy, and then they just threw in a death like this??? What did she do?? Still not quite comparable to how Maggie was treated in AHS, though.

When it comes to character issues caused by both tone problems and other things, I'm going to start with Brock because he's going to be the simplest to talk about.

A problem with S2 is the pacing in the last few episodes especially and the more I rewatch (S2 gets put on loop a lot when I'm writing for reasons I will talk about later) the more this can be blamed on Brock's silly hand issue.

For one thing, Brock's hand is stupid in itself, and it doesn't fit with SQS's original tone at all. This does not work, and it's not helped by the way they do the stupidest things possible, focusing on it as if Brock wasn't originally introduced as just an off and less-lovable version of Chad.

They spend SO MUCH TIME on Brock's ridiculously inconsistent issues that don't fit with SQS's original tone, including letting him narrate a whole fucking episode and naming multiple episodes after his hand problems and giving the hand a goddamn voice actor that when they finally dropped it the pacing was already SO thrown off that they didn't have any time left to stretch other things out the way they could've/should've.

Munsch's illness plotline (which is also mildly inconsistent but not nearly as much as the hand stuff) was so rushed near the end of the season, and (Thank you to @nocakesformissedith for noticing this too, if I remember correctly) Lovin' The D's ending with that "I'll be dead in a month" line is so oddly sudden because they had to shove a bunch of stuff into the other half of the episode that should've been stretched through the whole season, and then Drain The Swamp spends more time scrambling to wrap up Munsch's plotline so she can leave alive and well by the season-ending narration instead of building up to a climax between the villains (who, this time, are ALL STILL ALIVE) and the girls.

Brock's issues with his hand are inconsistent, even in how it affects him. One minute he's just losing control of it every so often, then it acts up when he's stressed, and then we get to how he treats Chanel.

The first time his hand acts up around her, it's pretty in line with how we are introduced to it without confirmation when Zayday first meets him and Cass, but as the season goes on, not only does he consistently threaten her, but he yells at her each time he does and then in the later episodes- when he already has a new hand, courtesy of Cass's favor- is when he starts using both hands when snapping at her and Hester takes her interest in him. And him yelling when he smashes the table when Munsch questions him about his blood type doesn't work with this either because that is not how his hand is introduced!

By Drain The Swamp also, he's having no troubles with his hand at all, and while yes, this is his new hand, it is this hand that continued with his "kill Chanel" stuff.

More of an opinion this one, but if he continued to snap at Chanel, Hester shouldn't have trusted it, and while I'm reaching with this detail, the way she reacts when he grabs her to try calming her down when asking him to kill Munsch during surgery is some good fuel for how they could've gone with Hester's opinion of him. I'll come back to this later because it links into a theory of mine I've had for a very long time.

And no, him reaching for her neck vaguely in Scream Again doesn't entirely count as foreshadowing any of this later behavior because even there, he notices and pulls his hand away with the other. Also, Chanel was clearly a little uncomfortable with the way he was reaching for her there too, but that's a little note/nitpick of mine, given how their relationship goes through the season.

And before I move on to other characters: S2's crack in the timeline.

In Scream Again, when she's narrating to catch us up, Munsch says she hasn't thought about the Chanels for two whole years. S1 canonically stuck firmly in 2015. Later, Brock says Chanel is twenty-four. Chanel was either nineteen or somewhat recently twenty in S1. In Drain The Swamp, when Chanel is narrating the flash-forwards, she says it is canonically 2016. If I'm wrong about this not making sense, then blame it on my dyscalculia, but this is just a nitpick I've had for a while anyway.

Back to problems I have regarding the character writing of some in S2, starting with the ones I have the most to complain about: Jane and Cassidy.

My problem with Cassidy especially comes from how he isn't treated seriously by the writing, and when he is, it doesn't work. I know what they were trying to do because they wanted Cass to be three things:

Boone, through his conflict with Jane, which goes especially and mostly for how he interacts with his mom when we first find out he's her son. The "I'll take care of everything," - "After all you've been through," lines especially.

Pete, given this moment is a direct reference to Black Friday (Yes, I got that moving shot on purpose):

--

And his own character, which rarely works the way it could have because he isn't taken seriously by the writing!

Cassidy and Sadie are vaguely a play on the Romeo and Juliet trope, but they're not built up enough to warrant her being the one to "change" him. Pete's attachment to Grace worked perfectly because from his very first scene, we are aware of his attachment issues, and we SEE that problem already forming from the minute after he meets her. Again, this part of Cass isn't a play on S1, but it's a comparison fair to make given how Cass's relationship with Sadie is such a big part of both of them in the season.

In Cassidy's first scene- with Zayday- he states that he isn't interested in dating anyone, and I personally think that would've been a more interesting road for him: to have had him get close to Sadie intending to get some better judgment on how to take each of the girls out, only to fall for her through the season. It's still cliche, but it's better than the way S2 expected us to care deeply about this relationship when it started so suddenly and isn't taken seriously anyway.

Even the little details with Cass and Sadie being changed could've helped make this a little better. Throughout the season, Cass ONLY ever calls her Chanel Number Three, and it's too long, it makes the lines that are meant to be big moments for them too clunky.

The best example is when Jane trips him into choosing her over Sadie (which is quickly gone back on by him, which should've been emphasized more), and when he implies that she should leave, he still fully calls her by Chanel Number Three. Having him eventually start calling her Sadie at some point through the season- or hell, even just calling her Number Three like everyone else- would've made those lines come across smoother.

And then, we get to their deaths.

Jane and Cassidy's deaths should have been serious scenes, and they were not. This is partly because S2 had pretty much completely worn out the chance of having these two be seen as serious characters by the time we reach Drain The Swamp and also because, once again, neither of them was written seriously in the first place.

I'll talk a bit about Jane soon, but even Cassidy's dialogue weighs his character down. His lines at the start of the season especially, the "I envy ice" moment especially, are similar to Brock's issues in how completely out of tone they are for SQS itself.

One thing I have to say about Cass being given lines like this is that I get a feeling from them that whoever gave him these lines ran from some of Grace's earlier dialogue and her little speech in Black Friday about killing Munsch, but it doesn't work here because in S1 those lines were not tonally comedic, and they weren't the tone of SQS itself. That was just Grace, it was part of her characterization.

Even Cassidy's "I'm dead" thing was... why? It has the same vibe as Brock's hand problems and makes me wonder if they put it in just so they could have Sadie test for it to give them an extra scene together when they could've done that anyway if they'd written them properly!! It was so random and unnecessary, and much like Brock and Munsch's hand/medical plotlines, it goes nowhere and only comes in at random times.

Going back to how they wanted him to be three things, and this goes for Jane too, S1 introduced the Devils all in mostly or partly comedy-toned scenes, Boone especially, but not once when we find out any of them are villains (mostly excluding Hester given she's not officially revealed until TFGS) do we have to remind ourselves later that they are the villains. Every scene where it comes to them being Devils, not once is it impossible to take them seriously, no matter how the scene started, is going, or ends. Boone and Gigi taking the first height of Ghost Stories doesn't come across suddenly nor does it fall apart because of how they've been written previously and/or when they were introduced!! Gigi's relationship with her kids is clear and absolutely heartbreaking, and even when we don't even know she's a part of it this goes for Hester's relationship with Boone and Gigi too!! Pete goes from how he's written in Hell Week and Pilot to having the darkest, most intense death scene in the show and being the Devil with the MOST close-call attack in the show with how close he gets to killing Chanel in Black Friday!!

This doesn't work the same for Jane and Cassidy because they AREN'T written seriously from the very first scene we meet each of them.

And when it comes to introducing Jane in Scream Again, I do think something about how we start off mimicking S1's party falls somewhat flat.

It's very clear here that Jane loved her husband, and that sticks through the season- and it's also fairly obvious that Jane and her son will be villains considering how S1 went, but I think it may not feel as harsh as S1's opening because it feels almost rushed.

We only get a few seconds of Bill and Jane interacting and talking, and aside from those moments, we don't get any implications about their relationship.

We have no insight into any layers Nurse Thomas or Dr. Mike have, aside from a few (selfishly-reasoned) lines from Nurse Thomas. Seemingly, Dr. Mike is the most heartless one of the two. They are both completely happy once Bill's body is in the swamp, and aside from the one obvious cut to Jane, that's the end of the opening, and we know it all. This does not come back later. This does not get added to. We find out about the first massacre, and Jane tells us about that later, but that is it. It doesn't add any details to these four characters other than one extra detail about the first massacre Chamberlain and Zayday very quickly found out about.

Compare this to S1.

We don't start following Bethany. We follow Amy. We follow Amy because she's the one intending completely to help Sophia and is quickly implied to probably be the closest to Sophia out of the group.

And we're made to sympathize with Amy right away. We're made to sympathize with Sophia right away. We're made to pay attention to the others right away.

Coco doesn't follow immediately, as we get told when she runs in late and comments on the music downstairs. Bethany has silent, expression-given moments of shock and panic before she switches completely to being snappy. She also sets up the attitude of Chanel and the others. Sophia's line here gives us a good look through the delivery itself. It's made fairly clear she was likely the quietest/shyest one in the house. Mandy turns back briefly when she, Beth, and Coco leave before following, so we get a look into her relationship with everyone just in that. She did care for Sophia and Amy, but she'd suck up to Bethany as much as she could. Amy does not budge through this whole scene. She's addressing the others and only interacting with Sophia by holding her hand and glancing at the baby, but it's already been made clear that Amy cares about her, and it is obvious in these looks and little details that Sophia trusts her completely.

When the others come back after Waterfalls, they are shocked. They are panicked that Sophia's dead. They each get reaction shots, Bethany included. Amy has already taken it upon herself to hold the baby, who she still continues looking at when the others are there, which already creates a slight connection between Amy and the baby.

And this is where the scene ends. We don't know what they do with her body. It is left ambiguous until Chanel gives us a little more when she and Grace talk in the basement, and then we get the rest when Mandy tells us episodes later. It's not until Ghost Stories that Munsch confirms to herself that there were two babies confirmed that night, even when we've known about Boone since Hell Week.

I think S2's tone issues make it worse, given it struggles to add real weight to Jane's loss later, even when we do know most details from the start.

S1's opening, to those willing to analyze, anyway, already works to give weight and emotion and depth to every single one of them while still managing to leave a lot of things ambiguous until we are told later. It's immediately made obvious that nobody here is going to be a black-and-white character, and that only continues to go harder and harder through the season. The whole opening and all of the things previously mentioned even add to Gigi once we get the details about her. It adds to Gigi and Boone's relationship, with Boone's conflict over knowing and thinking about what would happen if Sophia were alive. It adds to Hester pre-retcon and how close we know she was to Gigi and the fact she sees Chanel and the others as replicas of Bethany, Mandy, and Coco. It adds to Grace turning out to be Bethany's daughter.

I've not got an ending point to come to with this one, but it's a big opinion of mine, given how attached I am to S1's characters.

I don't have much to say about Hoffel aside from the fact what more depth she could've had isn't gone through with, and that's unfortunate for her. There's lots of implication that she and Cassidy did genuinely have some sort of bond, but given S2 rushing through everything and/or ignoring it to focus on other things and the ways Cassidy and Jane are written in general, nothing is done with it, and it takes away what weight it seems like there was meant to be in the scenes where they argue over Cass drifting out of the plans. Even the way she reacts genuinely caught off guard when she kills him could've had more weight if it had been a serious scene.

Hoffel and Hester don't get to interact enough, and when they do, there's very little to it, and that's a shame. Hoffel is seeking vengeance for Agatha, who was there when Sophia's death was covered up and likely when Munsch told Amy and Gigi to leave with the babies, and- while I can absolutely partly blame the retcon for this- Hester doesn't get to feel anything about that.

Considering it's fair to assume Hoffel was pretty close with her sister, there's a chance that- given Agatha lived in Kappa- Hoffel might've visited even once or twice when Gigi and Amy and the others were still around, given it's fairly clear she hadn't ever met Chanel directly before.

Then there's the little detail in Hoffel's narration: "I've had my eye on the Chanels since they were released from the asylum."

Chanel was called out for (accidentally, but they didn't know that) killing Agatha far earlier than that. That's why she was first arrested by Chisolm in S1. Since Hoffel and Agatha were direct family, Hoffel would've been informed here. She would've been told her sister was dead once they found her body in Shady Lane and then- if Chisolm wasn't too lazy to do it- updated to know who killed her when Chanel was believed to have done it all.

As odd as it would be for all of them, I don't think it's impossible that maybe Hester alone either sought Hoffel out at some point in between seasons to "tell her what really happened to her sister" because Chisolm's laziness had him never do so, OR since Denise handled the case so heavily when Hester was caught, Hoffel was invited to see Hester face-to-face in a setting akin to an interview as a chance to get some closure over what really happened to her sister, and Hester twisted it then into Chanel purposefully killing her.

And this can also go for what they could've done with her and Cass, going off the last option mentioned, Hoffel- while definitely with rougher edges than Jess and Amy had and seemingly less directly than Hester- seems extremely family-orientated.

The fact she's doing this for Agatha, the fact she's genuinely upset to kill Cass (accidentally), the way she reacts to Wes saying he wants to kill Hester by snapping that's his daughter.

If Hoffel knew Gigi (and Amy, and Sophia, and- given Bethany likely wouldn't have been too friendly, met the others), then Hester would've told her the whole story. About Agatha playing a part in covering up Sophia's murder, about Munsch, about Amy and Gigi, and everything that happened to them. Maybe she'd have even mentioned Boone.

And Hoffel would- in a twisted way- honestly halfway understand that. She'd zone in on the next thing she could- someone who, in her eyes, has nothing to lose, Chanel.

Even the way she reacts when she finds out Wes is Hester's dad in the first place is so outward and odd to me, but had Hoffel met Gigi, it gives something to Hoffel briefly defending Hester when Wes puts forward killing her trying to save his own skin. Just a little way she could've repaid Gigi for what harm Agatha was indirectly involved in. She's after vengeance for her sister, yes, but she can keep Hester safe while she's doing it.

These theories don't have to be connected, but going back to that theory I mentioned earlier:

Hester's urgency over Brock killing Munsch as soon as possible has always made me believe that it was never meant to be her and Brock going to Blood Island. It was meant to be her and Hoffel.

Again, this is a theory, but Hester leaves as soon as Hoffel is ready to kill everybody. She doesn't seem to think once about Brock being caught up in that, and as far as it's implied, he had to find a way to meet her there already on Blood Island. Hoffel is getting ready to leave before the Scooby-Doo chase starts. Hoffel was aware when Brock was going to propose to Munsch, she is the one who goes to fetch Chanel. Hester told her this plan.

It was Hester's idea for him to propose to Munsch anyway. She stood with Hoffel (and Cassidy) during the said proposal and was there to hand Munsch that pen at the wedding. She knew what she was doing. She had something planned that all this was a necessity for.

It's entirely possible to me that her plan was to have Brock kill Munsch and take the money, and once everything was done, it would've been her and Hoffel escaping to Blood Island to just do whatever they want as just partners in crime.

They also put Hoffel in Amy's blue a lot, be it with that one dress or with her nails.

And then we get to... the most pathetic, wet dog of a man in the show.

Wes is stupid. Wes is hilariously stupid. What happened to Grace is more his fault than Chanel's, and he attacks everyone he says he isn't interested in, Munsch included, given that Green Meanie she nearly unmasks at the start of the season is Wes considering Hoffel didn't have the costume by then and Cass was there in the scene with Sadie. He attacks Zayday multiple times, even if during one, he leaves her alone because she was Grace's best friend.

He yells at Hester never to call him dad, and then immediately tries tripping her into taking his side by yelling that he is her dad, and then later that same episode, says he wants to kill her to save his own skin, and this is the writing's fault, but he doesn't even say Grace's name before he dies, he says playlist, which was a running gag in S1, but was not mentioned in S2 up until then.

Wes showing up so randomly this season alone is fuel for my theory that a S3 would've brought the dead villains back (S1 villains at the forefront) because he is here just to tell us what happened to Grace and then fucking die. They could've easily done this through Zayday, but Grace literally does not exist until Wes comes along, she's mentioned like twice- never by the girls- and then she's never mentioned again.

Wes and Zayday never even see each other face to face, and she is NOT MISSING by the time he gets there. This is not acknowledged as her actively avoiding him, and even when she mentions Earl Gray to Jane, her connection to Grace is not acknowledged. I get it, boyfriend is closer to husband, but why would you not have her talk about Grace here? Have her say she lost Grace to the Devil murders!! If Grace as a devil is meant to have the power to possibly have ALREADY killed Chanel then mention her in S2!!!

Although this is also the fault of Wes being hilariously awful since S1, he is also impossible to take seriously as a villain both for that reason and because of how he's re-introduced and is here for like half an hour in total.

Wes this season also has a negative effect on Munsch, given her health issues are put on pause while he's around. This isn't the first time they seem to disappear, but it's the time it lasts the longest. Zayday told Munsch she had less than a year to live, and we get through the implication of her knowing she only has a month that she did her own research and put the timeline together herself, and as emotional as she got telling Zayday (and Chamberlain) about her worries in the first place, this is ignored by her until the last two episodes start rushing to wrap it up.

Even the brief deal he makes with Cass not only goes nowhere, but it's also impossible to take seriously because neither Cass nor Wes are written seriously in general, and by then it's too late to take them as such, especially with, again, how Wes was re-introduced.

Wes also gets his ass kicked whenever he tries physically fighting anyone, which is absolutely hilarious.

I'll mention this here due to the fact I can't say much about her because she's inactive for so long this season, but Denise being the hero of the season is pretty funny, although I do wish they'd have done more with her instead of putting her away before Hester moved back in with the others and Zayday went missing especially.

To move on to more positive things I have to say about S2, and why I rewatch it so often when I'm writing Chanel and Hester especially, season two does have a lot of really great character interactions with the girls.

It's the characterization and dynamic between the girls this season that slips through the intentionally more comedic-toned writing, and I love it.

Brock's inconsistency leads to unnecessary drama between Munsch and Chanel, but pushing that aside, there is something so special about how clear the bond between everyone is in Season Two.

Chanel and Zayday's bond is amazingly done. Chanel starts off purposefully trying to knock Zayday's confidence this season, but it isn't a rehashing of their S1 dynamic; it's a continuation. Where Chanel starts this season makes her possessive of whatever chance there is to be seen as the leader around the hospital, but it doesn't last. She'll be spiteful and snappy occasionally, of course, but within a few weeks, she's already calmed down, and she and Zayday are working alongside each other- and living together- fine.

We see more of Chanel and Sadie this season, too, as much as a lot of Sadie's scenes are pushed to be surrounding her relationship with Cass. They're closer than people would think they are, and the fact Sadie continued testing whether Chanel really wouldn't give in when she tries saying no to letting Hester stay is a huge nod to the kind of dynamic those two have in the dynamic of The Chanels in general.

Libby gets a whole relationship with Zayday this season, and it's adorable. It's so well-written, and I don't know why. We see them care about each other. Zayday brings Libby down to earth. Libby notices when Zayday goes missing. I don't know whose idea this was, but I don't think anyone can look me in the eye and tell me that a S3 wouldn't have continued with these two's relationship. They're running the hospital together by post-finale. They're practically married by the end of S2.

And pausing going from character to character for a second, S2's moments of building/emphasizing bonds between everyone makes me wonder if it was their way of setting up for a S3 being more character-focused and bringing in both the S1 villains and Grace as the Devil, and Zayday and Libby are my biggest example.

Zayday this season takes Grace's role, and with Chamberlain gone, she'd need someone else to investigate alongside her in a S3- where Grace is undoubtedly the Devil. Having Zayday and Libby investigate/visit Jane together seems like their way of testing whether that would work using Libby as Zayday's partner in investigating, and with these two being given such a nice dynamic, it did.

Even Munsch's wonky way of caring for the girls works oddly well this season. There's the unnecessary romance triangle that covers it more than other things I'm talking about here, but it's there through the whole season, even through the more in-character-conflict moments of threatening Chanel over Hester's whereabouts. Smaller things like her friendship with Denise coming back! And the way she is when they first visit Hester in the asylum this season is so interesting. She's so spiteful, and it just makes me wonder if it comes from the fact that part of her does know that it's partly her fault any of S1 (Wording it this way because the retcon's not canon) happened at all. She is partly at fault for the Devil Murders happening in the first place, and she's still too prideful to admit it to herself- especially when they first go to Hester, pushing aside the problems with the plotline, Munsch is under the impression she is dying.

Chad's big moment before he dies is so fucking sweet. I know it seems like I give him too much credit just off his word for this scene, but it's owing to Glen's phenomenal delivery of the little moments Chad gets even in S1 (his line in Ghost Stories when he asks if Chanel is the killer). He's so genuine in this whole scene, and it's just nice to have him admit that he does care for Chanel. Saying he just wants Chanel to enjoy her wedding? I am ugly crying.

I have some opinions on Chad's death. It's really stupid that Wes was the one to kill him, and killing him off so soon was a very bold move, but that scene was a sweet sendoff for him.

This one's going to be very long, have quite a bit of an old S1 analysis of mine, and have shots slotted in, so bear with me.

Chanel and Hester's dynamic this season is perfect. It's honestly quite surprising because when doing S1 to S2 right after the other, aside from Thanksgiving, all of their moments in S1 are coming from Chanel's clear bias, and then little things like Chanel's reactions to Hester being hurt in Dorkus/TFGS and then her reactions to when Hester is framing her, which may very well have not even been scripted.

In S2, their moments seem mostly intentional. There are a lot of little details again, but even the obviously scripted things like everything Chanel does when it comes to moving Hester in and refusing to tell Munsch anything about her whereabouts genuinely do make me think that a S3 would've continued developing these two's dynamic.

Looking back on Chanel's reactions in Dorkus/TFGS, first when they find Hester with the heel through her eye:

This is before Hester wakes up. When Zayday struggles to feel a pulse, and it's quickly being concluded she must be dead. From some of the others, this wouldn't look like much, but this is Chanel. In front of the others. In front of Grace.

It's implied at least one of them stepped away to call an ambulance because TFGS picking the timeline back up starts when Hester's already being wheeled out. And Chanel is there, running alongside her and telling her over and over that it'll be okay, she'll be alright, destabilized with the "Can we save the shoe?" line similar to how Pete messing around in Kappa was used as a destabilizer in his last scene. That's an in-character destabilizer, but it doesn't take away from how she's acting otherwise. This is Chanel running alongside and trying to comfort the girl she pushed down the stairs a few days ago. This is Chanel running alongside and trying to comfort the girl Zayday and Grace JUST CALLED THE LAST DEVIL. And Chanel believed them. She knew they were right. Everyone knew those two wouldn't have gotten it wrong, especially not then, especially given what Grace went through literally the night before.

But the next time we see her, she's following what Hester said when she was awake and yelling at Libby to confess that she's the last Devil. And added detail, to the others, it probably should've been thought that Hester wasn't entirely in the right mind when yelling about Libby, the girl was half-blind, had just regained consciousness, bleeding, and in a lot of pain. They don't know she did that herself.

And then when Hester moves to her during TFGS- with their completely parallel colors too- she snaps about it at first, but when Hester starts backing her toward Sadie and Libby:

Hester is the only person to pull this type of genuine reaction from Chanel. To pull reactions like this from Chanel that aren't faked or dramatized purposefully by her in the moment, and this continues into S2 in ways that, again, seem to be completely on purpose.

This isn't to do with Chanel, but I just want to point out that Amy, Sophia, and Gigi all get their own bits of reference in Chanel Pour Homme-Icide when Chanel and Hester first meet back up. Amy and Sophia get their colors in the lighting that follows Chanel through the scene- blue and gold respectively- and Hester faking ghostly sounds is directly taken from Gigi even if the retcon would never allow that to be acknowledged.

I had to bring those S1 moments up because I'm pairing them a bit with how Chanel continues to react toward Hester through the rest of the scene in CPH-I. She snaps at her- barely, for her standards- twice. And then it's implied that she listens to what Hester says mostly in silence because the scene cuts away to the apartment, and Chanel announces that Hester's moving in with them.

Even the things Libby and Sadie seem to start noticing and actively start pushing back against.

Libby's reaction wouldn't have done much to Chanel anyway, sure, but the way Sadie doesn't start a direct argument over it when she also refuses makes me wonder if she didn't give in as soon as Chanel said they'd have better luck with Hester there just to see if Chanel really wouldn't go back on her word, and she doesn't.

All it takes is this look, and Sadie lets it go.

This is all after Halloween Blues.

Chanel assumed when she was attacked there that it was Libby and was later directly proven wrong. She also says herself when Zayday's helping with her leg, she doesn't know why she wasn't followed. It's never brought back up, but there is very little chance that she didn't piece together that it must've been Hester.

Even things like barely snapping when she wakes up to Hester standing over her bed (The fact Hester ended up rooming with Chanel is a whole thing on its own) she's scared for a few moments, but she fully listens to what Hester asks for. She's bored, she feels caged up here, and she's just got out of one, she wants something to do, or she'll kill someone for the hell of it.

Before this, and before Chanel confesses and gets Hester free-roam, Munsch threatens her over Hester's whereabouts, where she stays completely silent and refuses to say so much as a word.

Hester's characterization in S2 is something I actually really like for her. The retcon's still present (and patchy), but there's actually quite a bit of her depth that slips between the cracks this season.

Although nearly all of what I'm going to say here is not confirmed directly, her calling the Green Meanie summit when she did is a nice little detail. She sees them arguing, and it's fair to assume through her, "We're here to divvy out the remaining murders so that no one's feelings get hurt," line that she worked to settle things as soon as she noticed the infighting because of what happened between Gigi and Boone.

I've talked about her and Chanel already, but on Hester's end specifically, we have some of it pretty intertwined with her characterization here in general.

She takes the chance to tease Chanel by stealing her blood in Blood Drive, but it comes with her actively trying to keep her promise not to kill anybody so she doesn't have to be locked up again, which is something about her character that I've always really liked given her past in Palmer. It's fitting for her to hate being locked up as much as she does, and S2 goes really hard with it.

Going back to Chanel, there's also a lot to S2's cliffhanger. There is a 50/50 chance here that Chanel is either badly hurt or canonically dead, with how few ways there were for her to have gotten out of it. Sadie would've most likely been the one to find her, and Hester (and Munsch) wouldn't be there to know about it. The cliffhanger this season also brings me back to what I said about a S3 possibly being more character-driven, both with Grace as the Devil and the fact that if she'd been hurt here, Chanel would've had Zayday and Libby especially keeping an eye on her given they're canonically leading the hospital by the end of the season. This could've pushed a lot between Chanel and Hester too, looking back at the fact Hester and Boone constantly spared Grace in S1 and did see her as their little sister.

I won't say anymore because I'll probably just end up repeating myself, and this is already far too long, but there you go, anon. Told you I had a lot to say.

Bonus for S2 being very adamant either on purpose or not on purpose that Chanel is asexual.

[haeroniel-doliet]

Bonus content for dinluke big bang pieces pt 3!: enjoy this timelapse of the process for the chapter 7 piece. This is mostly for the curious/myself for future reference, more thoughts and details on my process below the cut!

So glad in hindsight that I turned on the recordings because I genuinely think looking through these videos and commenting on them in between finishing pieces has actually really helped me refine things and improve!

This one I think is the least messy overall since the goal has been pretty clear since the beginning and it had much less intense of a background

We started brainstorming this before even the chapter was written! How exciting to have been part of a project where I actually got to work with an author and collaborate on the vision for a scene in their story

Hence the multiple little key frames to figure out what kind of story is being shared (also for future ref, definitely should do those kind of thumbnails more often to flesh out the composition early on

Had an awful time trying to draw Dins face honestly it is rough (I know his face is so nice and unique hence so hard to get right) Feel free to skip to about 0:35 to skip the worst of the somewhat cringey struggles.

I had a big issue constantly feeling like Luke was so stiff and sometimes doll like sometimes just so unemotive. Hence in between trying to go for an extra soft and emotive face that eventually I thought was just too extreme (like also figuring out that Din isn't concerned/scared here, but happy with a smidge of bittersweet reserve

It's honestly wild looking at the end result beside this, I had many a point I had no idea how this would turn out in the end!

Note I finally got to trying to colour them in and colourpicked from the previous piece for luke (far too pale for the setting here!) My boys been in the sun now, in the beginning being pale made sense he was also losing blood yknow

Really painted din too tanned to start with thanks to having the reference pics for these both be wildly over exposed for luke and in a lot of shadows and yellow lighting for din (and he wouldn't be so tanned having hid under a helmet for so long right?) So I spent a good bit of time adjusting them to fit slightly dimmed and shadowed outside light and not be so wildly overly contrasting to each other

And overall trying to add more colour variety! We're not in the cave anymore where everything was dulled

The tarp was giving me a bit of a nightmare until I remembered I can just reference basically the tarps i've slept under in scouts so often! No need to make it anymore complicated and it's so cozy (just had to fanangle it so it showed enough of their faces while still cozy and sheltering)

Almost had another nightmare with the forest but then figured it really doesn't need to be more than a suggestion and went with the whole lens blur effect (the boxes kind of suck but they do their job and yes I painted them mid committee meeting that I was definitely caring a lot about)

Finally rain and other little details, some little things I was left thinking I could do better even more refined even more clean and better but just. honestly? I was done and any further tiny editing would only ever be noticed by me and this was good enough and it was time to let it be done, don't you agree?

Fun fact I think this had made me realize you know, it looks like mine, this looks like I made it, maybe it means its in the style I have now maybe? It's not photo realistic and its not meant to be, it looks like the best I myself can do this moment in time

Alright future me: A reminder that this isn't perfect but it's a genuine big achievement. Finishing all these three with the level of ambitious detail and background you set out to? and only being almsot 1 week overdue on the final one? Thats impressive that's more than i've ever done, digitally especially. This is an achievement and I should be proud! Hopefully I remember to learn from these successess and stop spending forever agonising over little details so much so that it's not fun anymore (a little agonising is okay otherwise I'd have been okay with those multiple failed faces etc) but that taking the pieces from sketch/lineart to this? not even perfect paintings like the super talented people but even still much more engaging and interesting and complete looking. I can do it! And hopefully I can do more like this in the future for myself because being this proud of myself is worth it.

[pentition]

I'd love to babble about portia, sandrock and especially Pen to you! My brains is a little covid addled though so depth might be a bit lacking. (I've been feeling better slowly but steadily, but this shit is not a normal flu, fuck this everything tastes extremely bitter or like nothing. Sadness.)

As for Pen and the new sandrock update, I felt like that mission with Pen training you genuinely really revealed a lot about his character. I can't really put it into words right now. But I genuinely like him, despite what he did. I don't think he is entirely black and white. And while it's not the same 100%, as a perfectionist and someone who is always thinking about how others perceive me I can relate somewhat.

Oh gosh, that's awful. Don't push yourself if you're unwell! (●´□`)♡ I've somehow dodged Covid all this time (as I punch a hole through the nearest wooden object, lmao) so I'm not even going to pretend I understand how crummy you must feel. I hope it passes asap with no aftermath issues to deal with!!

Also to anyone reading: SPOILERS! I hope putting it like that always draws the eye, haha.

I agree, I can't see him as a black and white character either. What he decides is worth spending his time on says a lot to me, honestly. Like in Simply the Best, I feel like what he says leading up to the mission to be really interesting. It shows Pen is potentially self-aware of himself and what he is as a super soldier.

He has "unconventional tastes" with dates and only "feels alive on the battlefield". It's also the only time we see him freely complimenting the Builder separate from himself, iirc. Also using the term 'love' in a few ways.

To me, it came across like Pen was trying to take it more seriously and that was likely new to him. He broached the subject of what interested him and made it clear enough to the Builder, acknowledged attraction physically and wanting to see if it went beyond that. Almost like he was voicing in his own way a manner of uncertainty and poking around to see if this whole 'true love' thing was real. Real and mutual. All sandwiched between his usual egotistical comments about himself we know and expect (and love).

But that's also interesting to me because in his role, if he's really a Knight, or by just being an experimented upon super soldier - I imagine he could be someone important to Duvos. Not to say Duvos cares about their soldiers, we have no real proof of that. But if he was a successful experiment, as it seems, that may be what warranted this ego in the first place. So maybe the idea of sharing yourself with someone else, or finding them even good enough, probably is something he thinks is reasonable to be picky with.

Also even if there was the chance the Builder was accepting of him if they learned the truth then it's even more imperative they are worth something to Duvos. Pen vouching because he loves them as their super soldier I don't think is enough for them to accept a non-Duvos citizen. At least, that's my impression given how everyone seems to regard both the country and its people so far.

I feel like Pen is always saying more than what it seems. Combat tutorial was funny and great but you could say he was also just trying to assess someone new on the board. You can argue the whole heart knot acceptance and romance mission is a manipulation scheme but that still makes me ask why. Why is that worth his time when there are surely easier people to turn into his fans or have fawn over him? Was he just bored and is actually nasty and cruel? I don't think from his perspective that the Builder is a threat, not until Knives Out hits and they have potentially met Logan after taking a fall. Then there's a slightly awkward 'welcome back' from him that seems torn between acknowledging it as your pal/partner Pen and Duvos's spy Pen.

Gosh I'm rambling but yeah, I don't think he's black and white. I think he is all the things he presents all at once. It's just a matter of how self-aware he is in that moment, or how much he cares. The context of the situation and who is present. But either way, the perception of others means a lot to him given both his true role and the protector role. And I think that carries over to how the Builder perceives him, just in a more personal manner the more they get on.

It makes me want more romance missions with him and all that content just to see more of him in contexts outside of what we consider his norm.

[cglenwilliams]

Just a quick story. I was in a university production of The Crucible a long time ago (longer than I care to think). One of the actors in the show with me was a very cool person who was extremely friendly and extremely well-liked, but also a little bit set-aside from the rest. Almost like there was an aura of cool around her. The others in the cast always seemed slightly in awe when they were in her presence.

At least, that's how I read things as a guy who was acting with this particular group for the first time, coming in as an absolute outsider who had always wanted to play Reverend Hale and had heard announcements about their auditions on my local NPR station.

One day, I was backstage while a run-through was on hold. Nothing was going on, and nobody knew when we'd be getting going again, but we were all supposed to just hang tight and be ready to go as soon as the stage manager called places. I noticed her sitting on the edge of the bed that was part of the set for the first scene. I walked over, sat down next to her, and said, "Hey, how are you doing?"

And rather than giving me a polite, social response -- a "Fine, how are you?" or an "I can't complain" -- she proceeded to tell me exactly how her day went. This was a woman I had barely exchanged a few sentences with before outside of the handful of lines we exchanged as part of the script, and she told me about her day in full, just like we were the oldest of friends.

And I was fascinated with it. And at the end when she turned to me and said, "How about you?" I responded by telling her all about my day and she listened attentively to every word of it. It wasn't the first time in years that someone had listened to me that closely, but it was the first time in a long time that I hadn't felt like somebody was waiting to pass judgement on what I was saying or waiting to jump in and add their own two cents. She was listening to me because she was genuinely fascinated to hear about my day.

Shortly after that production I started an M.A. at that university -- something that happened as a direct result of my being a part of that play -- and we wound up taking directing classes together, swapping new scenes we had written, I acted in a show she directed, she acted in a show that I had written, and we got to be friends. And while we were never the "spend the entire day together" type of friends, we were always the "we don't have to edit ourselves around each other" type of friends. When she moved across the ocean to the UK after her graduation, we spoke a lot less -- but she would still pop up in my chat notifications from time to time and we would share what was going on in our lives.

In 2019, she passed away suddenly in a traffic accident. The first thing I thought of when I heard that news was that conversation together, backstage, sitting on the side of the bed with someone who heard the words "How are you doing?" and responded to them like they were a question that deserved a serious answer, and not just a social nicety. And I remember how nice it felt to then turn around and actually tell another person how I was doing, too, without feeling like I had to contain the response in a single sentence or risk annoying the person who had asked.

And still, from time to time, I remember that conversation -- and then I remember that the person I had that conversation with is no longer in this world.

And it feels like the world is a poorer place for it.

So, in honor of Tabatha -- Hey, how are you doing?

such a great feeling when someone just genuinely wants to talk to you and wants to know how your life is going

[peanutbutterandbananasandwichs]

choose violence ask game: 7, 16 & 20

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

The obvious answer is Dean but I don't hate him - even when I wanna kill him with hammers - and there's PLENTY of canon reasons for me to want to do that lol. But I do find him significantly more tolerable when I've not seen a fanon DeanGirl take in a few hours <3 Let me enjoy him in all his awfulness in PEACE please and thank.

Occasionally I feel it about Cas but again I do have genuine affection in my heart for him (although sometimes it more the theory of him than the reality you know lol). 16. you can’t understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

lol I could answer this one til the cows come home. A select few:

1) Dean being involved in any way with Sam's journey to Stanford or them having any contact whatsoever whilst Sam was there. I reject it utterly. (Him coming CLOSE to making contact with Dean I'm fine with but not it actually happening.)

2) Talking of Stanford, any depiction of Stanford Sam that doesn't understand the fundamental fact that this was Sam's one chance to get out, that he was a kid on a scholarship with no other financial or practical help or resources to fall back upon. He was absolutely taking this extremely seriously, probably to the point of crushing anxiety at times. (But yes he was also happy, its a balance.)

3) Perfect parent Dean in general, but in particular not acknowledging that not only could Dean not protect Sam from his feelings of otherness throughout his childhood, but that Dean was an active participant in the othering and perpetuating those feelings in Sam, because that's what his role in the family unit demanded of him.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

Angel politics. Genuinely insane how tedious most of it is post S6 (I actually like the background war in S6 it makes it feel much more tense and interesting that we largely DON'T see it happening). I've recently rewatched S9-11 and realising how LITTLE the angel story actually progresses in that time despite us having to spend soo much time with it dear lord. I also personally find much of the MoC storyline incredibly tedious (so sorry to Dean) - there are flashes where it's interesting and the underlying potential is good. But ultimately it has no lasting impact on Dean - it doesn't force him to confront anything about himself, even though its literally set up to be able to do so (it doesn't control you, it makes you more of what you already are). The framing in S10 with the show trying to explicitly parallel Sam trying to free Dean from the Mark to Dean forcing possession on Sam in S9 makes me what to tear my eyes out, and quite frankly every second that we spend watching Dean have nightmares about the Mark or lingering sadly on his face just hammers home the lack of that for Sam in S9 and it makes me scream. Ok so maybe it's not so much boring as infuriating lol. But a lot of it is just kinda tedious too!