#genuinely rock bottom

[ocdhuacheng]

Shut the FUCK up why does denji look like gun fiend aki I’m gonna kms

[sergle]

I'm thinking abt that pretty fall leaves embroidery pattern post and about how like... it is categorically a repost, it's a reupload. right? a thing that is generally disliked. but because it's credited, it's genuinely boosting the artist in question. and it could ALWAYS be like this. reposting content could ALWAYS be a symbiotic relationship, but because sourcing back to the original creator of something is so uncommon, it's just easier to ask people not to repost it at all. and people still don't understand the difference. or they'll go to the effort of cropping out usernames/signatures to repost something, which is More Effort than literally crediting the creator of something you liked enough to want to repost. Like. I literally don't actually care if my own shit gets reposted, you have to understand. I just don't want it STOLEN. But "do not repost" is easier to write on my art than "you can repost this, but don't alter the image/remove my signature, don't you dare write 'credit goes to the artist' because that is not credit, please link back to my original post or someplace that you can actually find me. please use an actual link/url instead of writing a non-clickable link of my username, because making it text instead of a clickable link cuts the number of people who will go to the effort of visiting my own page in Half." All those aggregate themed accounts, those fuckin annoying as hell instagrams and facebook groups that are like "body positive art we love wamen 💕 hashtag feminism" and then MASS-STEAL plus sized art created by women, if pages like these that always go and steal my older self-portraits and other works... If they just put a link to my prints of those pieces in the text of those posts, or, fuck, my commission info page? I would literally be living on the moon right now. I would have a house on the moon

[pigswithwings]

you will hear my strong opinions about the care and keeping of fish today by the lord

[lika-chu]

[listentothistrackbitches]

I’ll live my life until the end for him. A life with no regrets. I’ve gotta be the luckiest man in the world if that’s the feeling he inspires in me. (Masked Deuce, Ace’s Story Vol 1)

Deuce is saying something to Ace here that could put all his romantic thoughts in the light novel to shame.

[apoptoses]

🚨 what do you think is the best and worst thing Armand ever did?

Oh anon strap in, this is gonna get heavy.

Disclaimer: this is my personal read, my own meta, everyone else is entitled to their own takes etc etc

We're gonna start with the worst: everything he did with Louis in iwtv.

Let me explain.

Something that is very common for survivors of trauma that was more psychological in nature and required betraying oneself in order to stay safe is to enter the fawn response. Aka people pleasing. Someone who has learned that they have to pretend to be someone else in order to keep others around them happy and keep themselves safe doesn't just shake that when the threat has ended. They then go on to feel as if they must do that in all future relationships in order to be loved and cared for, and if this goes unchecked then it can manifest into some really damaging behavior.

Things like lying about personal beliefs in order to tell the desired companion what the traumatized person thinks they want to hear, trying to control outcomes of certain situations in order for things to happen that they think will keep the desired companion with them. Someone who is people pleasing ends up saying "Yes I love the thing that you love" to one person, while saying deep down (or to another person) "I actually hate this thing so much".

And while it's understandable why someone who is people pleasing believes they have to act that way, it leads to their companion feeling manipulated when they find out that all the things that were said and done to 'please' them were untrue or done simply to control the situation and keep them around.

(And if it gets really out of control, subconscious behavior can become conscious acts of manipulation)

So with Louis we meet an Armand who says that he cares nothing for god, that if he met a mortal who inspired a lust for life in him once again he would turn that mortal immediately, that he would have turned Madeline himself. As readers we find out this isn't true later, that Armand struggles with his faith, that Armand would rather suffer anything than turn someone else into a vampire. But if we look at his words from a perspective of someone in a fawn response, he's saying those things because he believes that's what Louis needs to hear in order to accept his love and love him back.

And in more overt ways he forces Louis' hand with Madeline by using his influence, because Armand has decided it would be 'good' for Louis to turn her, that this will help him accept the loss of Claudia and come be with him. It's an act of controlling the situation to try to control for Armand's desired outcome (Louis loves me and will leave Claudia behind for me) but he's doing it under the people pleasing lie of 'this is what Louis needs, this is what will make him happy' when really it's about what will make Armand happy and safe. In that act subconscious fawning has become conscious manipulation.

While Armand's emotional detachment and lack of reaction to the burning of the theater and death of Denis is in many ways related to his self-admitted inability to feel anything at that time, there's also an aspect of fawning there: in order to people please one cannot offer their real feelings for fear of upsetting the companion. So really it just leads this situation where Louis doesn't know how Armand really feels about anything. He never shows Louis a moment of hurt or anger or outage, which we readers know he is capable of, because in order to feel safe and continue to 'please' he cannot let himself feel anything at all except that which his companion feels.

And that's why their relationship crumbles, because Louis is right: they cannot offer each other real love because Louis is mired in grief and Armand is incapable of being fully honest. He can't cultivate a true sense of self and show Louis that self because he's too swept in fawning for him and 'pleasing' him. Even when he and Louis break up he doesn't show his hurt, doesn't articulate having felt neglected. He just walks away, holds it all in, and fawns away his own feelings.

So that's why I think the best thing he did was that moment of sincerity with Daniel right before he turned him: admitting that he felt like a coward, and that he loved Daniel far too much to let him die.

In his explorations with Daniel Armand stops pleasing and swings to far other end of the spectrum for a time: he is so utterly absorbed in exploring the world and figuring out who he is and how he fits in that at times he doesn't consider Daniel's feelings much at all. But by the end of things when the running begins, he doesn't chase Daniel until Daniel calls for him. He becomes honest about his feelings and desires, despite the layers of shame he's heaped upon them. He stops detaching and fawning and gets real.

Which in the end is the key to him re-uniting with Louis and building a healthier relationship, creating his own home, opening the door to future reconciliation with Marius and having Daniel move back in with him. Armand had to learn to be himself fearlessly so that he would have genuine love to give.

[behold-the-daybreak]

noël sure is an episode of television. josh is there having some of the worst nights in his life, and also yo-yo ma is there.

[buildoblivion]

also really REALLY could have done without the possession sex stuff actually - like did we learn nothing from season two?????

[lavellane]

just thinking abt how this time last year was genuinely the worst period of my entire life, at rock bottom, couldnt imagine life getting better or being worth it etc etc and so forth. and now its october 2024 and its like ok anyways im the happiest ive been in a decade and have had ALL of my immediate problems solved and am doing genuinely good in life.... AND a solavellan resolution in TWELVE days lol

[saints-who-never-existed]

A chilly and overcast wee pilgrimage to see my good friend John Irving.

(There's a Goodsir relative buried here somewhere too but alas I was too hungover to find him...!)

[starlooove]

Call me jaded bitter and black but I’ll never care about the nuances of the police fill in on tv. Like we already have to deal with the ‘my dad is a cop :(‘ or ‘my broke brother joined the military’ irl why the fuck am I wasting my brain power on Caitlyn or vi. Like we know materialistically the authority of being a cop can get u what u want faster and that emotionally u either need strict routine with an outlet for ur violence or ur so used to it that u have to be a cop. I still fucking hate u tho like idc about how sad u are about being privileged and I said cop fill in but it’s really every kind of that character on tv like Zuko esque sorry I genuinely have less empathy for you than I do for other people idc

[bobmckenzie]

the girl I was working with today... who is 6 years younger than me at 19... thought I was SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD 💀💀💀😭😭😭

[some-pers0n]

One issue I personally have with WOF that I don't see brought up often is the tonal inconsistencies. It's especially noticeable in TFoH for me. Freedom felt like a tonal mess because one second she'd be explaining how she had been trapped with her tormentor for five thousand years and the next she'd be making some qUiRkY quip or joke. Idk, just something I noticed

Yeah it's really quite annoying. In the ladder half of arc 3 I feel it's most apparent. One chapter it'll be a baby babbling to themselves or CAPS LOCK SCREAMING and the next it'll be "I have been in unimaginable amounts of pain and suffering and there is no way for me to escape" before then going instantly back to something else.

Freedom is such a messy character in of itself. You can't introduce a character like her halfway through the last book, spend most of her screentime having her yell at Luna and Dusky, then suddenly make her character do a 180 after seeing Gay People and want to be good now. Yeah yeah "oh it's so sad that she gave herself up for the greater good" and all but like...she's not a great character.

I think it's mostly because it seems like Tui is really burnt out on WoF. Like she gets bored constantly and tries to add in jokes or hold down a single key for a bit longer than she should. It really is quite jarring when it's all silly and wacky before then instantly being hit against with a character calling somebody a "bozo".

[gaybearwedding]

what are everyone’s top 5 pibe episodes? i think mine are:

1. mallapalooza

2. cornhole in one

3. heebie jeebies

4. whimsy on wheels

5. trade school musical 2

[broh3m3]

WAKE UP NEW BURKE CONTENT-

[rosepoints]

if one more bad thing happens to me, i'm going feral in the woods