#but to be fair i don't have the mental capacity and time to go into deep dive mode

[magneticflower]

Also, I'd like to say the dots are connecting for me

But they are not

All I got are lots of Ham references

[beauzos]

decided to wait till my dad went to sleep to make dinner bcs i cannot stand being around him rn and it's been 3 hours and now he's just sleeping downstairs. cool

[ixioideae-letters]

I feel like I reached a moment in my relationship where... I can't deal with another failure.

[gay-dorito-dust]

I fee like Jason would gently but firmly break off his relationship with his s/o because he'd want to try to distance you from his vigilante life, he'd obviously never tell you about his other life. he'd try to convince you to move out of Gotham, maybe after dumping you he'd convince one of your friends to contact a relative of yours who lives far outside Gotham to try to entice you out of the city because he can't fully concentrate knowing Gotham could get you at any moment.

If you don't leave you'd find that you escape a lot of situations you shouldn't and that known bad guys even pretty big criminals tend to just leave you alone and pretend you don't exist even if you happen to find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time, a random goon will just escort you out or a mugger would realise his mistake and beg forgiveness and leave all your belongings safely beside you. Redhood follows you a lot not that you know, he wouldn't want to frighten you, on some nights he'll sleep on your balcony or your fire escape just to be near you.

I’m basically reiterating what you’ve already said because it’s so fucking good anon. You took my singular braincell. How dare. 🦦

.Jason cannot focus on both keeping you safe and on clearing Gotham. It’s just not realistic. So if one thing had to give then Jason would selflessly chose to save you from a life of constantly look in over your shoulder. You deserve a better life and unfortunately Jason knows that you’ll never get that dream life staying in Gotham.

.Redhood had a plethora of enemies and Jason didn’t want you to become a victim of his acts of vigilantism. It wasn’t fair on you but Gotham never was or is a fair city for anyone involved. You could be alive and content one moment but dead in a dingy alleyway with corrupt people trying to gloss over your murder the next.

.So like you said anon. He goes to every contact he had that could help him in getting you moved out of Gotham, whether that be friends, family, whoever could aid Jason speed up the process in getting you settled in elsewhere was more then welcomed by him.

.Breaking up with you would be the worst thing Jason ever had to do, which is saying something, but again as much as Jason wanted to be a selfish man, he couldn’t bring himself to keep you in a city that will ultimately be the death of you both in a literal and metaphorical sense. He thought he had finally got the chance to be happy and get to live out his life with you, but when the villain of the week vaguely mentioned you in some capacity, Jason’s blood ran cold as everything in his body went mental; screaming at him to end this fucker right here and now for daring to mention you and demand how they knew.

.However he knew that’s what they wanted confirmation but still a part of his brain made him believe that they already knew of your relationship with redhood and that scared Jason unlike anything else. You were his Achilles heel and he hadn’t even realised that until the moment you were being threatened. And at that point Jason was at a loss of what to do to prioritise your safety because he would do absolutely anything to protect you and keep you safe but sometimes the best thing for him to do was to let you go and hope that you live a better life elsewhere. Far, far, far away from Gotham.

. Maybe sometime in the future when things have calmed down, he’ll visit but that’s never a guarantee. He thinks himself a death omen and he’d rather you live in safety and security. So he stays in Gotham as though he was chained to the damned city. Forbidden from ever leaving. Yet he’ll never forget you and everything you’ve done for him, I’d like to think he’d keep one thing that reminds him of you as a reminder of all the good times you’ve shared. Jason knew his heart would always belong to you and the item he kept was only a reminder of that.

.If you don’t move out of Gotham however, you start to realise that you are the most Luckiest/safest person if there ever was one. Goons, villains, thugs, all of them avoid you as though you were the plague, like you possessed something so potent that had them retreating back into the shadows, hissing as though you’ve burned them without touching them.

Which you did and he happened to be the infamous Redhood. Nobody fucks with you when Redhood is your silent but slightly terrifying guardian looming over you from the rooftops, daring anyone to try anything within his presence and to see where it gets them.

. A thug could’ve been gunning to steal your bag after managing to corner you in some dingy alleyway, holding you a knifepoint, and all of a sudden all the colour in their face vanish as their eyes flickered upwards and boom. Redhood. The thug is shitting it, their eyes are bulging out of their head as they throw the bag back at your feet and mutter ‘I ain’t planning on dying over some stupid bag, fuck that.’ Before running away with their tail between their legs like a little bitch.

. You, confused, would look up in the same place that the thug did. Only to find absolutely nothing before shrugging your shoulders. ‘Must be the drugs he was taking.’ You’d conclude before continuing on your way home to your beautiful boy, Jason.

. I’d like the idea that you caught Redhood sleeping out on your balcony/fire escape one night and now not only are you taking care of your beloved boyfriend but also a 6’2 vigilante who’s built like a brick house with guns strapped to any part of him that you could see. It’s cute and adorable because you’d probably also come to the conclusion that he was the reason why you were being left alone, and to show your gratitude to him you start leaving food, drink and something comfortable to sleep in out for him whenever you could alongside a note that said; ‘thank you for looking out for me but please for the love of god take care of yourself.’

. Jason loves it and finds it’s unbearably cute as he perched himself on your balcony/fire escape, eating your food and making himself comfortable for the night while you slept. He wished he could at least kiss your forehead and wish you a goodnight sleep but he knew he couldn’t and he hated it but as long as you were safe, that’s all Jason could ever ask for. He’ll shower you in affection soon but tonight he was on watch duty.

[joelsdagger]

i’ve made and deleted this post quite a few times over the last couple of days. and at first, i wasn’t going to say anything because this doesn’t even cover what i wanted to say by even a little, but ultimately, seeing a few others make similar posts encouraged me, and i really just need to get this off my chest, and if it resonates with one person, then i’m happy. this is not coherent at all, but like many, my brain is mush, so forgive me, and here we go...

as a (closeted) queer palestinian american woman, a daughter to immigrant parents, living in a fairly conservative state, i’m fucking terrified. i don’t have faith my rights are protected here. i don’t have faith that my parents and my sisters will be safe every time they step out of the house (in true typical arab fashion; i am white passing, they are not). my family has been targeted and met with violence numerous times since october of last year, and it's only going to get worse. which brings me to my next point.

i also don’t have faith that the genocide in gaza (that has now expanded to south lebanon and syria) is coming to an end, an end where palestinians can live and thrive in their native land anytime soon. and seeing people turn on us — so fast, spewing hate in saying “fuck palestine”, “fuck boycotting” and “you don’t care about my rights, so i don’t care about yours,” is incredibly saddening, disappointing, and infuriating. my grief, anger, and anxiety are at their peak and have been at their peak for well over a year now. and i don't have the brain capacity to say what i really want to say about the hatred and misplaced anger being directed towards arabs, but for now i will say this: 

now is not the time to turn on one another. now is not the time for infighting within marginalized groups. now is not the time to be selfish. to care about yourselves and not others, makes you no better than them. that is why this country is so divisive in the first place. that is how we got here. having that mentality — that ideology is dangerous and destructive. you are doing the work for white supremacists. you are perpetuating white supremacy. and it isn’t going to serve any of us because essentially our struggles as oppressed groups are deeply interconnected. we need to look out for one another. take care of one another. it will get worse before it gets better. and we’re only at the tip of the iceberg.

the fight isn’t over; we’re just getting started. and i know you’re tired; i, for one, am at my breaking point. but we cannot let them win. so let yourself feel whatever it is you need to feel right now: grief, anger, sadness, hurt, whatever it is; it's all valid, and believe me, you are not alone. take the time to feel it. and then let it fuel you and your ambitions.

i also want to reiterate that this is a safe space for all. except anyone who believes trump is a good man and voted for that racist, fascist, rapist piece of shit. y’all can fuck right off. the rest of you: disabled people, chronically ill people, queer people, aro-ace people (i’m specifically pointing you out because i know how we're treated in queer spaces, and it is not fair nor is it right), trans people, women, people of color, sexual assault survivors — if you're reading this and you're unsure of your place, please stay. i need you. i care about you. this place and this world are better with you in it. you are welcome here. you are safe here.

i’ll be here for anyone who needs it, whether it’s to chat about silly little fandom things — it’s imperative we protect this space and continue to encourage the creation of art around here. it’s imperative we stop normalizing the censorship and policing of fandom spaces (because that's another reason how we got here). fandom spaces are communities, and very often they are the only spaces where people feel safe. for most (myself included), it’s all we have left — or whether you want to vent about how much you hate the state of the world — you'll always have a listening ear and a shoulder to lean on in this tiny little nook here. seriously. my inbox and dm's are always open. 

hold each other close. protect one another. the only way we’re going to get through this is if we stand together and continue putting in the work, because it’s times like this when the real work begins.

i’m sending you all so so much love. forever and always.

noelle xx

[sophie-frm-mars]

What does it really mean to let go of the feelings of alienation and isolation that capitalism socializes us with? What does letting go of yourself and allowing yourself to become integrated into a community really mean?

I ask because I thought that overcoming that sense of feeling abandoned and isolated from everyone else just meant building connections with other people. And I have tried that at times. I try to make it a point to spend time with friends and have those social connections.

But at the same time, whenever I bring up my psychological or behavioral problems to my friends, they often react badly, telling me to just "go see a therapist" or to stop relying on other people so much, to "stand on my own two feet." I would like to become integrated into community care and social support, but the actual people around me only care about solidarity up until something is asked of them, at which point they basically become Reaganites ("be more self-reliant", "stand on your own two feet", "I don't owe you anything", etc.). I can't really receive support from people who resent the concept of supporting others, who view relying on other people at all as "toxic codependency" or "being treated like someone's unpaid therapist."

As for therapy itself... even suggesting that is a cruel joke. Therapists exist to get you back to work and force you to conform to existing systems. They don't actually care about healing you in the fullest sense, hence why modern therapy purposely lacks any social or communal aspect, preferring to "help you" in a purely individualistic sense, i.e. giving you enough medication that you stop questioning how things are and go back to work.

The last time I reached out to a therapist for help, they threatened to have me TDO'd. I don't particularly trust them to help with my emotional problems.

So how do I find people who are willing to support me? Because after having been abandoned by other people so many times, I worry whether it's even possible for me to build healthy social connections with other people anyone. I'll always be worried that they'll just abandon me again the moment I do something that rubs them the wrong way.

Okay so there are a few things here.

Being meaningfully in community with others is hard work, and it involves a constant back and forth between your capacity and everyone else's. I see a lot in your question about wanting others to support you, but not much about wanting to support them. It's not that it's a trade per se, but if everyone in a community were looking for people to support them and not trying to be supportive to others, there wouldn't be a community, just a bunch of people struggling in proximity.

The reality is that we all have to do some work on ourselves in order to be in a position to support AND to receive support from others. I make this joke about "the three elfs" to my friends and comrades quite a lot, I just realized it's an out loud thing lol you have to imagine it's in a cockney accent "you've got three elfs: physical elf, dental elf, and mental elf. Everything else is just taking care of other people's elfs."

In dialectical behavioural therapy, the first proposition we are asked to accept is that "everyone is doing their best AND everyone needs to do better". While it is entirely fair to be suspicious of therapy, especially in contexts where therapists are very eager to throw pharmaceuticals at the problem, we all have work we need to do on ourselves. It is a cruel irony that although being in community improves your mental health, lots of people will drop others or cut them out when they start exhibiting mental health symptoms - the only way past it is to do everything you can to work on yourself, communicate openly with the people in your life about what you're working on and respect their boundaries wrt what they can offer. Some people will have more capacity to help you than others.

On the ZAD in one of our interviews the zadiste we were talking to described a sort of "virtuous cycle" of community and struggle. The struggle to be free enables us to find space to build community, the community enables us to struggle, and so on and so on. I think about this cycle a lot. It's true on the individual level too. Putting in time to making sure you're okay and as well as you can be ("living a life worth living" in DBT terms) enables you to build the capacity to form strong connections with others, and those connections will make your life richer and increase your capacity so you can deepen those connections, make new ones, and support each other.

My next really big essay project, The Mad And The Mentally Ill, is about how we free ourselves and each other from the paralysing effects of capitalism on our mental health, because I think this "internal frontier of liberation" might be the most fundamental underpinning element we need to tackle in order to make revolution possible. Everything follows on from us knowing how to take care of ourselves and each other, or to put it a little differently the question of how to organize in communities where everyone is struggling will be one of the most vital revolutionary questions of our lifetimes.

[stromuprisahat]

Hey,

Could you do a meta on the similarities between Labyrinth (1986) and the Shadow and Bone Trilogy? I read through that one scene (Alina and Darkling Interactions on your blog) between Alina and the Darkling after her and Mal get captured and Alina has to bargain for his life and they speak about fairness and the way the public views them both (Chapter 21 of the first book, I believe). I vaguely remembered this type of conversation from another piece of media, and saw in your tags that you attributed it to Labyrinth. Honestly wondering how much the movie influenced the trilogy, as I feel like Alina was supposed to be a Sarah Williams type of character but got her character development strangled by the narrative. Honestly wondering if this makes Mal Toby (romance aside), because Alina fought hard for this man and chose him over the ‘glamorous’ life she could have lived with the guy with powers (Darkling/Jareth). Genya might be Hoggle (works for the bad guy before becoming loyal to the protagonist). Maybe this is all a stretch?

Sorry if this is weirdly formatted. Thank you so much!

No anon! Why?!

I've watched Labyrinth once, and didn't enjoy it, so I was considering passing this on someone else, but since you've delved into details, I just HAD TO rewatch it, because I can't stand not knowing what's going on! So, I'll type as a watch and this will get veeeeeery long.

First of all- I hate those ugly-ass puppets and scenes. I find them creepy, and not in the good way. I totally don't get the ?US? obsession with them, and yes- I've hated Sesame Street, when it got imported here, and I've always hated Czech attempts at copying such production (Táhni, Františku z Fanfárie a Jůheláci taky, když už jsme u toho.).

I feel like Labyrinth is one of those movies, where fanon became widely-accepted canon, because I just can't see plenty of stuff allegedly present.

Alina and Sarah certainly have two things in common- they live in their own version of the world, and they're unbearably immature spoiled brats, even though you'd expect more from them their age considered. Yet somehow, Sarah's so unreasonably whiny, she almost makes me love Alina. Perhaps if we'd age her up a little and gave her potentially world-saving powers, she could've taken the S02show!psycho's place. They seem more alike than the book girl.

I mean... I don't like children, and I wouldn't be such a bitch to a ?one? year old...

The baby was a spoiled child and wanted everything for himself…

The baby can barely stand and certainly doesn't seem able to talk. It doesn't have mental capacity to imagine "everything", sure as hell not want it.

…and the young girl was practically a slave.

Sorry, but a scene earlier I saw her room. I watch her father respect her privacy. Her evil step mother being nothing but polite and non-threatening. I come from a loving family, and I've been keeping eye on my eight-years-younger brother since he was born. To an extent- yes, but they just want her to make sure he doesn't burn down the house on accident or something. He's even fed for fuck's sake! That's hardly slavery. And no, she doesn't get a pass as a moody teenager. This is a spoiled brat behaviour.

Sarah's straight up lying to make herself the victim. That's very Alina. Or more precisely- it's very Alina's new mommy Ol' Bags, but then again it's been said before Alina would grow into Baghra in time.

Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be… …take this child of mine far away from me!

We have a better Czech ballad about children-stealing demon punishing short-tempered mother:

"Pojď si proň, ty Polednice, pojď, vem si ho, zlostníka!“ – A hle, tu kdos u světnice dvéře zlehka odmyká.

Kytice- Polednice (Karel Jaromír Erben)

“Come and get him, noon witch, come take him! I can bear no more!” And look, someone’s outside – a thumb is stealthily working the lock at the door.

A Bouquet: of Czech Folktales (transl. by Marcela Malek Sulak)

I went through it quickly, and the translation doesn't look bad, so it's available on libgen if you're interested.

Alina had her immortality and complementary powers, but what does Jareth see in Sarah is beyond me.

Sarah says she wants her brother back, but honestly- it sounds more like she doesn't want to get in trouble because of him. I don't know if it's only the acting, or if it's intentionally portrayed so, but she doesn't look like someone, who just realized they care about someone else.

It might be the whiny undertone in her voice. Irritating, if anything.

Yeah, a pissing puppet is exactly what I needed to see...

Genya is certainly prettier than Hoggle.

And doesn't piss in public.

The walls of the Labyrinth look like Terezín before reconstruction.

Sarah gets an advice and doesn't bother to delve into it. Another tiny similarity with Alina. Except Alina had her half-a-thought of doubt, and her advisor is a malevolent cunt with her own interests. The freaky worm seemed genuine in its desire to help.

Obligatory song and dancing. *shoot me, please*

The only way out of here is to try one of these doors. One of them leads to the castle at the centre of the labyrinth. And the other one leads to… …certain death.

Please, pick the death one...

"Helping hands"... every creep's wet dream...

Yeah, the evil hot accent isn't enough to make me like this villain. Fucking 80s...

Those depressive warning faces are probably the only thing I might even ~like~.

Okay, NOW he was hot.

Jareth and Sarah have the fairness conversation, when he shortens her time to punish her for her defiance. Aleksander and Alina's take place, when he wants her to face consequences of her own actions and accept responsibility. He's the wronged one there, because she didn't consider anyone or anything, when she chose to trust Baghra and ran off.

Sarah gets Hoggle to follow her by stealing his stuff. She gets the doorknockers to let her in by tricking the mumbling one into taking the unpleasant ring back into his mouth and doesn't even try to pull it out again, or knock without it attached. She's rather cruel in her thoughtlessness, isn't she?

Aleksander never shames Genya for wanting to be Alina's friend. He never blackmails her to help him. She's the one, who provokes his rightful wrath for no good reason.

I think Jareth might be what LB (sometimes) wants us to see in Aleksander. Except it's hardly what she shows by his actions, only what her characters describe.

Another difference- Aleksander doesn't only want Alina, he needs her for his plan to save his people. Jareth merely has the worst possible taste in women.

Okay, the dog making hoof-clopping noises also isn't the worst idea.

I'm kinda sorry Aleksander never tried to poison/drug Alina. That might be fun. Even the collaring couldn't really make her compliant, so he's technically nicer even in this aspect. I can see antis claiming he tried to woo her by showing her the splendor of Little Palace and giving her the centre role in Winter Fete, but the former wasn't different from Grisha in officer training, the later was the Crown's doing. He's even said to despise such events.

Sarah is a modern teenager. Alina's considered adult in her world. I got to the ball scene, where it's painfully obvious Sarah is a child in adult's clothes and make-up. I'm a bit surprised she was played by an actual teenager.

Alina starts off willing to do anything for Malyen, and ends up becoming just what he wants. Sarah starts off selfishly bullying a baby, only to turn 180° as soon as he's stolen, so excuse I'm not persuaded she means it. She doesn't manage it in next hour and half.

~ I have to face him alone. - But why? ~ Because that's the way it's done.

The logic is very Alina, but she never insists on facing the Darkling alone, except that one time she attempts murder/suicide.

Oh no, Aleksander would never wear something this teAsticleless

And no, I truly don't mean the colour.

I ask for so little. Just let me rule you… …and you can have everything that you want. Just fear me, love me, do as I say… …and I will be your slave.

Again, that's no Aleksander at all. He didn't want to rule Alina, he wanted to rule alongside her. He only tried to force her once she endangered his plans for his country and people.

He never promised her everything she's want, because the only thing she seems to want is to be left alone to live in obscurity with no expectations placed on her.

He doesn't want her to fear him and she never does. He doesn't even crave people's fear. He uses it as a tool, when there's no better option.

He doesn't mind Alina defying him, finds it attractive actually, as long as it doesn't ruin- once again- his plans for Ravka and Grisha protection.

The slave line actually reminds me of much better representation of book!Aleksander- I Wanna Be Your Slave by Måneskin.

I was pretty sure I've seen Cinema Therapy episode on Labyrinth I deeply agreed with, but can't find it, so... :(

[mecachrome]

extremely 👀👀 about this kind/nice spectrum u brought up and how alex oscar lando and anyone else on the grid are placed on the grid..... would love to know more.........

hi there!!! :D omg yes i would love to talk more about this, though of course disclaimer that these are my Personal Interpretations and i love to spout nonsense on the internet LOL. i'll just expand on oscar + lando + alex some more since frankly i don't know all the other driver lore Like That and i don't want to overstep in my analysis! also i'm deathly afraid of chirlies. ok let's move on

to start off... i think the way we talk about celebrity personas obviously requires some generalization + projection since we can only extrapolate what is already being consciously disseminated, and so although i frequently talk about the kind/nice dichotomy or someone's capacity for sympathy vs. empathy (which is kind of a parallel assessment imo) we are of course all complex people who contain multitudes, and i think it's mostly just interesting to examine strictly in the context of racing & racing mentality... if that makes sense!

also wrt landoscar's personalities → one thing i feel very, VERY strongly about despite their differing surface-level interests and social profiles (read: different flavors of off-track sports, both of them being gamers but to diverging levels of visibility, lando's higher degrees of hyperfixation, etc.) is that at their baseline they are extremely similar people, and honestly even very similar drivers and racing "characters," which ultimately kind of colors most of my analysis. if we peel back the layers then oscar and lando are both functional introverts who've been very well-nurtured by similarly robust, persisting, and loyal support systems—oscar spending 99% of his time off-track with his longtime gf, lando's best mates all being from his karting days, their dads being equally objective about yet also supportive of their careers, jon having trained lando since he was like 5 feet tall, etc.—so to me the overarching difference is that they have diametric approaches to how they externalize their convictions, and then obviously since that's what we see/hear day in & day out it generates the existing rift between their media images. per lando on btg: 

"Oscar is extremely down to earth. A bit like me, just a very normal guy who's in Formula 1, just a guy that loves to drive cars and compete against people, and that's it."

(incoming egregious amounts of lando psychoanalysis...) despite oscar being the only driver i truly rep, i've always found lando's psyche soooo fascinating because he invites such extreme emotion in people (be it positive or negative), and i think part of it does go back to the idea of being nice vs. kind and ultimately the lens through which his intentions are interpreted by other people. in real-people fandom this is always interesting since it ends up becoming an unconscious exercise in how we perceive "sincerity" in others, even though the underlying paradoxical truth is obviously that any such assessment must always be dispersed and consolidated via a parasocial system (and thus everything is held relative to our own individual value systems... This is totally not the point of the ask. SORRY FOR THE MILLION TANGENTS) anyway as an extremely disillusioned sports fan i actually have a lot of time for lando despite how much visceral judgment he generates in quite a few people, which is totally fair since everyone is fully privy to feeling however they want to feel about any celebrity and i am not here to convince them otherwise lol. but that's just me!

i think to me the thing about lando is that there is almost zero pretense to his character, which some dislike because they find his bluntness off-putting, but imo just means his intentions are generally straightforward and easily digestible. sure, he lacks the spoken filter to not come off as occasionally callous, but at the end of the day i genuinely believe that he's an inherently thoughtful (and "kind") person, especially within the insular system of professional motorsport and the many mental pitfalls that accompany it. a symptom of this is how willing he is to resist more gracious media responses and how very inwardly critical he can be in specifically self-motivating ways, the latter of which sometimes gets misinterpreted due to the rigid yet overwhelmingly popular framework of what constitutes a competitive racing mentality. but like... to Me, lando is just entirely what you see is what you get, bad parts included, and he has zero intention of making excuses for that or pretending to be anything otherwise. which i enjoy!

and which again also goes back to the idea of niceness. (honestly the tl;dr for most of lando's pr scandals is just Oh okay so it's illegal to be neurodivergent now? but i'm trying to be normal so let me not just say that.) a good example is the entire debacle of saying he felt no sympathy for daniel at mclaren in 2022, because i think it elucidates a sort of kindness in objectivity that he very plainly participates in—to lando, being a top-performing athlete means never searching for excuses to soften the brunt of one's failures, himself included, and equally that there is no point playing sorry in front of journalists or trying to reshape their narrative scrutiny since at the highest level of competition any bold-faced externalization of "sympathy" is really just pity. and what point is there in telling someone else that you Feel Bad for their skill issue/struggles when the moment you extend that sentiment you essentially debase their position as a direct competitor and therefore disrespect them even more?

"I want to be the best in the world, I want to prove myself to people. But I've never had the mentality or the confidence to say that or feel like I need to do anything more than normal to show it to people. Do I have to do anything to go over the top and show that to prove it? I don't think so. People say you've got to be brutal and you've got to have this certain mentality. But I just don't think it's true at all. I think you’ve just got to get in the car and do the best you can."

i think the Separation of Church (treating everyone exactly as they are on-track, just another car to size up or keep at bay) and State (being friendly, supportive, and altogether well-regarded by other drivers off-track) is a primary tenet of lando's personality, and it's something he achieves by valuing kindness over niceness. you know the lando/maxf quadrant interview where lando is like: i'm not friends with you because of your achievements in life... i just care about your personality! and he's mainly saying it to take the piss out of him but he also 100% does mean that shit. that's the crasyinsane part about lando to me... god i'm so sorry i need to not go on for a million years but PERSONALLY, i think lando is very much the type of person who can go through an experience, or otherwise see someone close to him go through an experience, and approach it very empathetically to the point he continues carrying on this internal conviction about it even when he's survived or grown past it. like even as someone who mostly believes in Death to Relatable Marketing, i find it really interesting when lando talks about mental health in sports because we get to see both a) the fact that he's grown so much in his own mental resilience from his rookie self in 2019 to who he is now, but also b) that he continues to believe strongly in rejecting the presumed archetype of a successful formula 1 driver, and is steadfast in surfacing that even though... honestly? lando nowadays is a very consistent, well-rounded, and efficient talent who frankly doesn't experience nearly as much of the unproductive mentally-spiraling self-criticism that used to impact his performances to a far more pronounced degree when he was younger and rough around the edges. yet he still feels compelled to affirm that there is No One way to be an athlete (which is significant because "mentality" is such a harped-on concept in all sports, and everyone is always trying unfailingly to extrapolate performance-related projections via vague and completely subjective intangibles to a notably unempirical degree!!) because he does care, deeply, about how people enter and succeed in motorsport. honestly i always feel kind of iffy bringing up commentary re: Women In Motorsport because it often sounds unnecessarily adulatory, but at least in recent times i think he's also shown a decent amount of grace when talking about female fans, girls in karting, that one time he was like Bruh who are you? @ that misogynistic reporter, which...... i'm not going to say majorly influences my opinion of him, but imo being willing to quickly shut someone down like that is an anti-niceness to a productive end that i appreciate, since i think many personalities would kind of just smile bemusedly and try to quickly move on in the conversation.

tl;dr lando thinks feeling bad for people is useless and will never give you that one tidy sympathetic soundbite, but he does care for people vividly, especially off-track, which to him is the only place kindness really matters anyway. when you look at maxf (and i know this is mainly a portrait of codependency unique to their friendship but i do think it reflects his love languages in general) whose career cratered because he mentally couldn't handle the pressure, lando's response was literally to unfailingly engage in failcore househusband chores for him like leaving handwritten notes in his 3rd grade girl handwriting and ironing his clothes on stream........ which... i could go on forever but again. separation of church and state!!!

anyway with oscar on the other hand, i honestly think most things in his life kind of just exist as a function of motorsport LOL. and that he likes surrounding himself with people of similar interests/intellectual level/skillsets, down to his partner studying engineering and wanting to work in the same industry as him....... again, i think 814's baseline characters are Very similar and that they're both great team players with complementary professional approaches, so this is not a knock on either of their personalities, but imo lando is just generally more outwardly sentimental and has also had to do a lot of conscious growing up in the past ~4 years to become more well-rounded wrt off-track interests, whereas oscar basically came onto the grid as this already fully-realized product with far fewer dependencies who is just nonchalantly like, I see my family 3 weeks a year and my sisters just think i'm their lame older brother and don't care about my career at all, but i'm fine with that and i'd make all the same sacrifices i've made over and over again to get where i am!!! also re: oscar's abject lack of interest in engaging with fans one-on-one, an easy example is how lando genuinely values/treasures the friendship bracelets he gets and wears them consistently whereas oscar is just like. Erm. i respect it but that is not for me ✋😭 he's nice about fan things because he understands how much fan support and consumerist interest enable the circus that is formula 1 but he doesn't really value any of it much past the surface-level pleasantries......

why is this answer so long............... idk if you want to hear anything more about alex but i think he's very similar to oscar in terms of this measured external niceness/quiet ruthlessness, especially wrt how they weather team politics, interact with media (noted red bull marketing hater alex albon), and tend to simply Do The Thing To Do The Thing. alex is especially interesting because if you watch his high performance pod it reveals sooooo much of his growth over the years and his current mental framework ("i was having to be selfless, and it didn't really agree with me that much") and frankly even just the way he speaks about himself is fascinating to me but i digress!!! i do think much of lando's tactless impulse yet also apparent kindness comes from his considerably privileged background and the fact that he was shown a lot of Realistic But Also Unconditional Support and thus never had his career actively threatened growing up. so even though he's had to learn to not mentally catastrophize at the f1 level, he didn't undergo the reckoning alex did with his mother/losing rb's team backing/etc., which alex mentions in this podcast as specifically triggering his insatiable desperation to prove himself.......... and so on. alex and oscar to me are both quite similar in how they let more combative thoughts simmer and are very well-trained in responding palatably to the media, but they're also going to resist relating themselves too much to other people's struggles because That Is Not Their Problem, and at the end of the day oscar is uh.... sure he has a lot of appreciation for mclaren and has called prema a family before, but he really only wants to win for himself and is less inclined than lando is to romanticize the spirit of the Team. and so when he says things like "for me, there’s just not any point, especially in self-deprecation, destroying yourself in front of the media," it's a Niceness because his assessments are always entirely self-absorbed in the most productive of senses, as in he truly only cares about what he himself is doing and is never going to waste time worrying about or comparing himself to his competitors' mental approaches!

does any of this make sense. please excuse the monstrous rambling 😭 but also please feel free to follow up with your own takes/lore about any driver if you'd like to, or to tell me that i'm absolutely wrong if you'd like, because i always love to hear about these things!!! :3c

[miragee19]

THE NIBELHEIM INCIDENT

I would like to present a short essay on why I think Nibelheim was fully Jenova's making, and what was her intention with it.

I fully accept that fans strongly support the idea that it was hundred percently Sephiroth's own action and I'm honestly not trying to convert anyone to believe it was otherwise, I'm only offering a different perspective.

We don't know what species Jenova is or what kind of emotional capacities she has, but it's fair to assume that she knows - or at least with the time she'd spent among cetrans and humans she's already found out - that cetrans and humans build emotional bonds with each other and use it as their support system for their survival and general well-being.

Jenova - being an overmind - can influence other organisms' thoughts and actions that have her cells in them. In order to take full control over them, however, said individual must lose control of their mind and more importantly, must lose their will to fight to take it back.

As we see from Zack's example, a healthy human mind could resist submitting to Jenova's control, and even Cloud, who was severely mentally disturbed, could fight back against her each time pretty successfully.

I would like to make a point here by saying that the chances to fight back Jenova's domination on someone's mind are higher when said person has strong supportive emotional bonds with other people, or at least has peace with themselves. We could see it several times that soft touches, kind words from Tifa could snap Cloud back from submitting to mind control.

Sephiroth's psyche was very fragile by the time he arrived to Nibelheim. He lost his best friends not long ago, the only people he really loved and bonded with, and he was understandably severely depressed. He had no direction or much faith in anything and the only things that kept him going were routine and a sense of duty.

I'm not ruling out the possiblility that Jenova even messed with Angeal's and Genesis' mind in order to separate them from Sephiroth both physically and emotionally. Whether Genesis' reactor speech was respresented by Jenova's influence or simply by the result of his own degradation, he successfully made Sephiroth hit the rock bottom mentally.

By the time Sephiroth started reading the books in the basement, he was not only grieving Angeal but was deeply hurt by Genesis' words as well. The next days were spent reading, overthinking, feeling betrayed, feeling despatate, slowly dying inside.

However, Sephiroth was still Sephiroth, looked up by many, trusted and respected by many. He still had an imporant role and a well-earned place in human society. Although at that time not very close to him emotionally, there were still people who cared about him in one way or another, whom he could lean on, or bond with in the future.

Jenova - executing the Nibelheim incident - made sure that absolutely no one would look up to Sephiroth anymore. No one would trust or even care about him. She made him lose his last remaining hopes to build himself back from scratch, to be a strong and valuable human being in the future. And she secured it for him that there would be no turning back.

Cinematically speaking, when you look at the scenario where the village is burning, even his motions are kind of robotic.

Let's say if Cloud succesfully killed Tifa or Aerith - no matter under what kind of influence - would the party still trust him? The bare minimum is that they would abandon him, if not outright try to kill him.

I believe Jenova making Sephiroth burn down Nibelheim and making him kill many innocent people was her particular way to make sure he has no other option left than submitting to her will.

[ishomieokay]

I've seen a lot of discourse going around about AI writing and I decided to put my two cents, for what it's worth.

I've been writing stories since I was nine years old. Nothing too elaborate or particularly good, mind you. Literally Inuyasha fanfiction. Today I'm 25 so that's about 16 years writing as a whole.

Now, I'm not a published writer. I haven't won awards for my stories and I certainly haven't taken writing as a career. It's always been just a hobby. My point is simply that I've been at it for a long time.

When I realized that AI could be used to write fiction I was super PISSED. What do you mean now you can create stories with a just a few prompt words and a click? An art that has taken me literally more than a DECADE to perfect. It didn't feel fair at all.

However I was curious, so I decided to try it. As expected, the result was utter shit. AI writing by itself is full of cliches, unoriginal, simplistic and beyond corny. An AI model will never give you a well writen story if you don't know how to ask for it.

The only time I managed to create an interesting scene, not a complete story, a SCENE using AI, I had to write a 3 pages long prompt where I especified:

The objective of the scene.

The tone of the story.

The internal dialogue of the protagonist.

The plot twist.

The themes.

And the foreshadowing.

I even had to write before hand each character's train of thought, motivations and all the dialogues. The result ended up being a halfway decent 1.200 words long draft (almost as long as the prompt) that I still ended up editing a lot.

My point is. You can't really take advantage of AI writing tools, if you yourself don't know how to write. And I don't mean grammar or punctuation. I mean that you need to have a very deep understanding of creative writing theory. Otherwise, you're going to end up with a boring, directionless story full of two dimensional characters that speak like weird homeschooled children.

So, am I as a writer worried about AI writing? No, and neither should you.

If you want to use it as a tool, I honestly think that's fine. As long as it's a tool. If you just write a 15 word long prompt on the chat and call it a day, you're not a writer. Period. If you actually think the end result will be any good, I doubt of your mental capacities.

[ettawritesnstudies]

in the tags on a recent post you said your day job is "mind numbingly simple" do you know if that's common of chemical engineering jobs?

(i am currently pursuing a chemical engineering degree and honestly don't know that much about chemical engineering jobs. but i would not mind a simple job that gives me mental capacity left to write at the end of the day)

So it strongly depends on the kind of engineering work you end up going into and any job will vary in complexity on a day to day basis but with a chemical engineering job you have a lot of different options!

Specifically I'm a R&D Applications Engineer/Technical Customer Service in a polymer science role for a big international corporation so I'm working with existing products in a company and figuring out how to make them work for customers who are having issues.

What this looks like on a project to project basis is that we get an email from the customer or the plant outlining the problem and what kind of material they're sending us to test, I design the experiments we need to do to validate all the variables and properties, and then I spend a few weeks in the lab churning out data, then plug it into an Excel spreadsheet, crunch the numbers, throw that in a PowerPoint, and send it off to the relevant personnel.

The mind numbingly simple part is the standing in lab running through tests because it's hands-on labor that requires very little thinking once you've established your parameters. I usually just put on an audiobook or a podcast to kill time. The design of experiment can get somewhat complex and you have to be very good at time management if you have multiple projects with time sensitive lab components going on at once, but the number crunching has never required anything more complicated than 10th grade algebra. I'm not doing much chemical formulation either, just following established recipes and procedures within my company, but I'm learning more specific stuff as I go.

Now I'm only a year out of college and I've never had an internship or anything that WASN'T in a non-lab setting, so I can't speak to how something like a Process Engineer spends their time. I knew I didn't like being out on the plant floor because it's often Loud and Dirty and Sensory Overload so I tried to avoid applying for those roles. You learn a lot more about the production that way though, just not my cup of tea. You also have chemical engineers who design entire chemical plants and control systems (which is very very cool and important but I was bad at those classes lmao). Some also go the biochemical angle and get into pharmaceuticals but medicine scares me.

That's just my personal take but I encourage you to talk to your professors and upperclassman and see what they have to say! Career fairs >>>>>>> linked in for getting anywhere in this hell of a job market if your school has them and I hope you have a better time of it than I did during the COVID times. 🫡

[skyler10fic]

It's amazing sometimes the very offline world my family lives in. In their (conservative, but moderate, not the culture war people) bubble, they have no idea why anyone would not want to go to Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-A. They were only vaguely aware of the evangelicals boycotting Harry Potter or Disney in the 90s and 00s and even more unaware of anyone's reasons for boycotting them now. They have no idea Rowling is on Twitter or what the word transphobia means, are somewhat unsurprised that something is happening in the Middle East but aren't very interested in what it is this time since there's always something horrible there, and have no context for who JD Vance is outside of being their party's VP nomination. They hate Trump but would never say so or do anything about it besides be disgrunted and roll their eyes at their more conservative friends.

They don't want gay people or abortion to be criminalized, but wish we could all just stop talking about them, and the need for gay rights and abortions would just magically go away so no one would have to fight over them anymore. And by go away, they mean "I don't know have to know they still very much exist." Out of sight, out of mind. Same for poverty and homelessness and racism and religious division and political parties. Let's just all stop acknowledging uncomfortable things and we don't have to ever deal with them.

Which is why they can't click on articles describing Harris's political agenda or qualifications, acknowledge COVID didn't go away after getting the original vaccinations, read posts about queer history or allyship, talk about mental health, or watch videos about the police or military being anything other than "imperfect heroes." In their minds, all parents have their kids' best interests in mind, the GOP in power is the only way to keep their hard-earned money as small business owners, Israel is our troubled rookie ally trying to do the right thing but needs our help and mentorship to get out of their version of Trump years, most men (historical and modern) are just trying their best and we're too hard on them, and corporations are generally good and earned their profits fair and square through old-fashioned hard work.

Their brains are literally incapable of handling information that counters this.

Why don't I correct them? I do, as carefully, slowly, and amicably as I can for them to be able to handle it. But they can't hear it. They simply do not have the ability to say "I was wrong. I'm sorry. I need to learn more and will do so. My friends and community are all getting this wrong. I can't stand by in silence." They don't have that wiring. At no point will they have the emotional capacity and maturity to be able to go there. These are the voters who show up to every election, who consider it an important civic duty, even when they have no idea what these candidates actually stand for or how their policies will impact them. We have to keep trying to reach them and educate them, but sometimes the best thing we can do is simply not let them be the highest represented group at the polls. Being informed and showing up, not giving into nihilism and despair and perfectionism, using pragmatism to get us closer to where we want to be, and understanding these very offline, intentionally ignorant people are going to show up regardless out of tradition. Even if they don't understand what they are voting on and don't want to know. PLEASE please outvote them. Please show up.

[lover-of-skellies]

What about Fresh Sans?? lmao

Fresh gets a smooch-ability rating of 4. There's a fair amount of risks involved because he's so unpredictable, but if you want a more in depth explanation on the rating itself, you can find it below the cut

1) How dangerous is Fresh's mouth? His teeth aren't sharp or jagged at all by any means and they're flat, so one would assume his mouth is safe. Parasite aside, I'm giving his mouth itself a 2 for safety. I will talk about the parasite too, but it'll be in another section

2) Would Fresh bite? If he felt like being a heathen, then yes, I'm convinced he would. It completely depends on the circumstances and if he wants to get a reaction out of you. Is he aggressive? Well, we've seen how he interacts with others in Underverse. While it seems playful and lighthearted, everything he does happens for a reason. He's got ulterior motives and things you don't know about going through his head, and if he thought he needed to be aggressive for whatever reason, he's more than willing and capable of doing so. All things considered, he gets no points for this

3) Are there any health hazards to the smoocher? If you remember the fact that he's a weird little parasite that hijacks people's bodies, then yes, that in and of itself poses a threat to the smoochers wellbeing. Due to how having your mouth too close to his for too long could lead to your body being hijacked and him being an untrustworthy little turd, he gets 0 points for this one

4) Does he have a sympathetic backstory? From what I understand, he's literally just this weird parasite who popped into existence at one point, and decided to make it everyone else's problem. So no, his backstory isn't very sympathetic. He doesn't even have the capacity to feel guilt or sadness over what he does to people; he can only mimic those feelings based on what he's seen and read, which makes his entire story even less sympathetic. I love him, but I'm forced to give 0 points again

5) Does he deserve a smooch? Body hijacking, blatant lying, occasional manipulation and tampering with other people's things, then harassing others for the lolz already make him undeserving (to me), but the cherry on top is his gremlin behavior. While it's funny to watch it happen to other people, you probably wouldn't enjoy it very much if it happened to you, repeatedly, without rhyme or reason, and at random times without warning. 0 points, once again

6) Is Fresh cute or cool? His colorful outfits are pretty eye bleeding and his particular dialect and way of speaking is obnoxious at best, and completely incomprehensible and infuriating at worst. He's not necessarily a cutesy character, and his design gives me a headache to look at with all the clashing colors and neons, but I do love it, oddly enough. I have no idea why, either. His design is a very distinct one and its entirely unique to him, and he's very entertaining and spontaneous. While I wouldn't wanna deal with him myself, I do enjoy reading things or looking at art or other media that he's in. So for this, I'll give 2 coolness points

Fresh's smooch-ability rating is 4. If it's your first time meeting him, you'll be getting a smooch either way. If you've already met him, then a smooch would either make him mentally blue screen for a moment, before he cracks some kind of weird joke about it or not-so-subtley tells you not to do it again. If it goes horribly wrong at any point, you could be really badly hurt or lose your body to a purple starfish looking parasite. That risk doesn't really seem worth it to me, but hey, it's on you if you wanna take the gamble and plant a smooch on him

[vickyvicarious]

The Captain's final entry has finally arrived, and it has a fair bit in common with Jonathan's final entry/more generally several of his earlier entries. I've just been having fun kind of mentally collecting them, so here's what I have specifically noticed...

First off, I already wrote a post about a couple earlier similarities in how they both write to keep a clear record when strange things are happening, and how they both indulge the superstition of others (only to later realize the truth of it). So there's that. But then there's a bunch more recent stuff as well.

I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. Jonathan, 12 May Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. Captain, 4 August

One of the first things Dracula does with Jonathan is keep him up all night to get him on a nocturnal schedule. While Jonathan eventually spends more time awake during the day when he knows Dracula is weakest, it seems like Dracula kept up their late-night talks until almost the end, meaning that every time he did so it came at the cost of losing some sleep. Even when he does get to sleep, there are some hints that he often has nightmares. (I'm not adding any sleeping quotes here because the points go together, and there would be so many to collect.)

With the Captain, one of Dracula's earliest/most persistent methods of torment is to deprive the crew of their sleep. The storms, if you believe he summoned them, start pretty early. Even if you don't buy that though, their fear leading to double watch even as more and more of them disappear leads to less rest. And then when the Captain is able to rest well he's awakened to find even more death. Eventually, Dracula deprives him of sunlight too, by surrounding the ship in a fog so thick that it's hard to even tell when it is day or night.

I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Jonathan, 30 June

While the Captain doesn't have any such clear quote, it is very much a major detail that he is entirely alone with Dracula at the end. In a sense, this is a contrast, because Dracula being gone is what makes Jonathan talk about being alone with such fear, but the essentials of the situation are the same: they're trapped in a place they cannot leave, with only vampire(s) for company who want to kill them - there's even an extra parallel if you add in the person they both feared/relied on has recently left (not that the first mate and Dracula fill the same role, but in this specific way it's kind of an echo).

I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed—I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams; and there it shall remain. Jonathan, 12 May I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He—It!—dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. Captain, 4 August

They both rely on a crucifix to protect them from Dracula... at least in a limited capacity. Jonathan has seen its efficacy proven, while the Captain more just has faith in it driving off demonic beings like Dracula must be. There's kind of a neat contrast in their opinion of the crucifix itself in that way, with Jonathan initially dismissing it as idolatrous but somewhat reevaluating his own faith once seeing that it affects Dracula, while the Captain at one point fears that he's been abandoned by God but later finds refuge in holding on to his own faith, with the crucifix itself serving as a physical manifestation of that.

And then away for home! away to the quickest and nearest train! away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet! Jonathan, 30 June

Jonathan finally decides to risk it all to flee for home, finishing his original round trip. The Captain lashes himself to the helm so that nothing can stop him from completing his journey to the best of his ability. Both their final acts of defiance are in an effort to try and reach other people, to defy being trapped alone with these monsters.

If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Jonathan, 4 May At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man. Good-bye, all! Mina! Jonathan, 30 June If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; Captain, 4 August

Both Jonathan and the Captain realize that there is every chance they will not survive their journey/live beyond their final entry. Jonathan verbalizes the possibility of his death much earlier and more often, but in the end both of them write their final lines with the hope of an outside audience who can learn from their experience and understand why they did what they did. They also both choose to face a likely death. (Jonathan's choice to flee at all costs is maybe closer to the mate's choice to escape into the sea than the captain's decision to stay, but in both cases they hope to preserve their words even after their own death.)

This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. Jonathan, 30 June But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. [...] ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty.... Captain, 4 August

Both Jonathan and the Captain act at least partially out of a sense of duty. Jonathan early on is determined to do his duty by Mr. Hawkins; on his final day in the castle, he feels a responsibility to try and stop Dracula from going to London. Sure, it's mixed in with his own hatred and (wild) desire for revenge, but at least part of the reason he attacks Dracula with a shovel is because he doesn't want to be a part of getting him what he wants. He doesn't want to help transfer him to London.

The Captain, ironically, chooses to hold fast to try and transfer his cargo to England. Or at least, he feels loyal to his responsibilities and duties as a captain. He's failed in protecting his crew, and he will probably fail in completing his journey/protecting his ship as well, but he is determined to try his best until the very end. And I think part of this determination is the same kind of refusal to capitulate to Dracula that Jonathan shows on Shovel Day. As readers, we know it would be better if the Captain intentionally scuttled his ship... but from the Captain's perspective, everything that has happened so far has been detrimental to him completing his trip. The storms, the crew being picked off, the fog getting him lost when he nears shore... as far as he knows, it may well seem like the monster on board doesn't want him to reach land. And so his effort to do just that is just as much in stubborn defiance of Dracula's will (as he perceives it) as Jonathan's attempted attack was.

[mermaus]

Sorry but, I think I'm just gonna stay off today and let the shitstorm settle down. I'm not political, I don't have the mental capacity to understand it.

But what I do know is I absolutely sympathize with everyone who feels angry, upset, and even devastated, and I plead for you all to remain strong in these trying times.

But, what I will not stand by is wishing death on people when there are already dozens of people suffering and dying every day.

I try to be a very fair person, but I'm sorry. If I see you wishing death on people, I'm going to block you. I do not welcome that kind of behavior, no matter what the reason is.

We should be holding our loved ones and praying for things to be okay. That is all.

[gentleeclipsey]

Was it worth it?

I swear to god if this is who I think it is I'm going to lose my fucking mind. I'm going to be brutally fucking honest about my feelings and I don't care, if you decide to read this that's on you. I have blocked you five times, there is a hint and then there's a blatant get the fuck away from me.

But, if you're not who I think you are, in some capacity I'd say yes. Fair warning, a lot of bad stuff mentioned, also a bit of a rant because I've never told anyone outside a few friends who aren't on tumblr. Also I'm sorry, this is gonna be long and disjointed, the whole thing makes me angry to an unnatural degree, I've never been this angry at someone in my life. TL;DR just below the cut:

TL;DR: my ex destroyed my mental state and Trollhunters made me realize that, now I'm single and happier for it. Now onto the rage.

I made a lot of friends despite my partner's actions, and I have characters who I absolutely love, I'm free, I feel good, I'm not scared to be alive. I'd say it wasn't worth all the bullshit I put up with. I'm angry at myself because I was so spineless, even now I still can't fucking make heads or tails of half the shit that happened.

I don't care anymore. They'll always see me as a horrible person, I did my best and I was never enough, I'd never be enough no matter how much I tried. No matter how many times I cried, no matter how many times I had to hide things from myself so I wouldn't leave new marks, no matter how many times I apologized, it'd always be my own fault and at this point I've just accepted I was fucking pathetic and horrible and I don't care. I had to spend every waking fucking moment catering to them, talking to them, and they'd get angry because I wouldn't realize what was wrong and I wouldn't fucking pry it out of them and bend over backwards for days to make them feel better. I had to ask for a break somewhere in the middle because between classes, work, and them, I was so fucking overwhelmed and I tried to explain it to them but they didn't believe me or didn't care but every time they had the chance they'd rub my face in the fact they were so hurt over the fact I needed a break to regather myself.

Mind you, their pain was more important than mine. When I first had Jackie, she was my favorite OC. I loved using her, I still do, but they hid their feelings about her for so long that when they told me they didn't like her and called my emotions toxic for being upset. When they tried to rub that break in my fucking face again I told them about the absolute painful hurt I felt over what they told me and most essentially they basically told me that pain didn't mean anything because it wasn't like their pain. I was fucking trying to craft her to be appealing to them, to make her what they wanted so we could just be happy again but they fucking threw all that out the window.

Wanna hear the best part? I couldn't fucking talk to anyone outside of them publicly, even to use Jackie with others despite the fact they hated her. I have Sage to thank, because they were the first person I interacted with publicly that made me start seeing my partner for who they were. They got so fucking mad over a short text RP, later told me they wanted me to make friends, then fucking went back on it and fucking got upset because I apparently treated people I talked to casually better than them.

They rubbed my face in the fact they had breakdowns in public because of shit they started. When I'd pass out they'd get quiet with me and have a short temper but if they passed out I had to be understanding. If they vanished for days at a time I wasn't allowed to be upset but if I vanished they'd have a fucking breakdown. I made myself be so understanding to them becsuse they were sick and they never fucking thought twice. Never. Because I wasn't sick like them that meant I always had to be perfectly fine. Always. Perfectly. Fucking. Fine. They admitted to me they tried to train me. Train me. Like I'm a dog. Like I'm a fucking dog. I cannot begin to tell you the absolute whirlwind of rage I felt in the moment I read that but I kept my head by some fucking miracle.

Trollhunters is what broke the back of all the shit that'd been happening. It started with Undertale, it ended with Trollhunters, and they took my fucking OC from me and told me for years that that OC wasn't mine exclusively, and now I don't have a fucking choice. I can't even begin to describe the absolutely disgusting anger I feel over the fact I literally can do nothing to get my OC back because they've told me for years she wasn't mine and I can't fucking remember anything clearly and I doubt myself constantly now. I cannot begin to describe the absolute disgust it makes me feel I can't do anything to fucking get my OC back and that I hate more of my OCs because of their bullshit.

To contact a fucking artist, an amazing, wonderful person fucking 5 years later and say that I stole their OC and to take down the art? What the fuck. Funnily enough, I have Jackie most specifically to thank for making me realize! Wanna know what the fuck they said to me? "I was upset because I felt you loved her more than me." I WISH I WAS FUCKING LYING. I have so few screenshots but Jesus fucking christ I cannot explain to you the absolute seriousness in which that was stated.

I cannot even begin to describe the anger I feel over everything that happened. Not in the fucking slightest. They always accused me of not loving them anymore, of hating them, when they first started saying that it wasn't true, but now I can't fucking stand the idea of them anymore. I hope they see all the shit I do now, how much I draw Jackie being happy despite their shit.

So yeah. I have Trollhunters and Jackie to thank for helping me realize how bad things had gotten, because if it weren't for my absolute hyperfocus on it I don't think I would've seen what'd happened as soon as I did. There are so many emotions in here I can't describe at all, and I know if they saw this they'd immediately try attacking me publicly. Hell they might see this because I've had to block four fucking accounts already. Five if you count discord.

I feel like I should've taken way more screenshots than I did, but I'm not going to post them, I want to move on from this but I have so much simmering rage over what's happened its taking me a while. They're not in the Trollhunters fandom, at least, they're barely on social media as is aside from lingering accounts. Trollhunters is my safe space now, as is Jackie and my closest friends.