#guess who just had another goddamn breakdown

[valtsv]

it's such a bummer that losing control of your emotions only makes the entire situation worse in really embarrassing personal ways. losing control of my emotions should give me pyrokinesis.

[californiaquail]

as if today wasn't bad enough on its own with the hour + of crying and migraine and pissy ass immature asshole boss i had to listen to my coworkers (all of whom have kids) talk about how fine it is to hit your kid in the face "as long as it was with an open palm and doesn't leave a mark that lasts for more than 48 hours" so umm. actually i don't even know what to say about that what a deranged way to approach having a child

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin: Episode 8 "Great or Little Thing" Series Finale Breakdown

So first and foremost I need to give a shout-out to everyone who's been following this with me and helped me week after week process and articulate this show, this brilliant Penguin Braintrust without which I would be incredibly lost on how to even begin breaking this thing down this way: @davidmann95, @wil4x, @book--wyrm and my friend Lucas who is not on Tumblr.

And so we're here at last, in the end of the show. This took forever. I need a goddamn break. This isn't enough and will never be enough but it'll have to do. So let's get to the episode that has had the world joining hands in the unanimous urge to see the absolute shit kicked out of Oswald, and has made the character at last earn this:

(Episode 1) (Episode 2) (Episode 3) (Episode 4) (Episode 5) (Episode 6) (Episode 7)

So who would have guessed that cartoon dirtbag Rex Calabrese was still gonna turn out to be less of a cartoon dirtbag than Oz the moment we stop seeing him through Oz's eyes. Still a terrible person by every metric, but terrible in the same way a lot of Sopranos characters are terrible: this is, at the end of the day, a job, and you can talk to them, you can sit at a table to get down to business with them, and you probably know people in your life like them, and maybe you can even count of them to get real and even help you when the chips are down, even if it doesn't mitigate everything else that they are or do. At the very end, he was neither the benevolent god-king that Oz saw him as, nor was he the absurd dirtbag gangster we had him pegged as - there was never anything exceptional about Rex Calabrese, he's just a real criminal. Maybe the realest in the show.

I said in the last post that Francis burned with hate at everyone in the world except the person who most ruined her life and haha WOW was I wrong, because it turns she's known the entire goddamn time, and quite possibly no one has ever hated him more than Francis.

Most people in the show who hate Oz do so because he's a destructive bastard who craps on their lives directly, or because he's a lying sneaky fuck who does nothing while their lives are ruined, and Francis has had to deal with both longer than anyone else. I can't possibly count every single way this wildly recontextualizes every single interaction, every moment, everything that Francis has shown us and done since the first episode, because I'd have to recap EVERY scene and line of dialogue she has and we still have so much else to get through.

Why was Francis was so effectively able to withhold affection and hold his feet to the fire and give him that bottomless pit of yearning in his stomach that's driven him to move mountains in pursuit of it? Because Francis wouldn't have loved him even if he gave her the entire world at age 12. She never had any affection or love left for him. Oz was always chasing nothing.

And all along it was Rex who shaped the entire course of Oswald's life, as well as prefiguring his dynamic with Victor, with a single conversation. Oswald spend his childhood wanting for Rex Calabrese to notice and like him and be his friend, and he has no idea how much Rex actually affected his life.

That fateful night at Monroe's was never the feel-good story about his Ma summoning the willpower to live by dancing away the grief, and it was never even just the night of the eternal promise that Oz thinks back to, it was a fucking trap to kill Oz. Nothing he has in his life is real, nothing he says is true, he has never not lived in complete total delusion.

The sheer disgust in Deirdre O'Connell's face at the "I do too". How much of her personality we completely understand was born from this absolute resentment she's nursed for decades towards Oz.

And this rotten little turd comes at her with a perfect speech that hits her every insecurity and bitterness and spite and situation and convinces her to give him another chance. The nature versus nurture thing again - Oswald was shaped by hardship, by decades of hard work and neglect, by the total absence of his mother's love while in turn being forced to live in stunted childhood dedicating himself to always taking care of her, and maybe what we're seeing here is heavily distorted by Francis's POV - or maybe he was always a little monster, because this guy talking to her is The Penguin, the same guy doing the same things in the same way, either way it doesn't matter. Again, born fucking ready.

So now we see our three major supporting characters - Sofia, Victor and Francis - all of them have shown that they had a chance to walk away from Oz, to not let him ruin their lives further. All of them could have left Oswald behind, and all of them should have left Oswald behind, but they had to come back and justify the choice to do so, they had to get satisfaction, it couldn't have been for nothing. Victor had his car and a girlfriend in a bus waiting for him, Sofia had a jet to take her to Italy, and Francis had Rex Calabrese ready and waiting to put him down without a word. All of them had a chance to get out of the show and never look back, but like Oz, they had to rectify and overcorrect for an insult.

Sofia can't walk away from Gotham without punishing Oz for turning her in, for killing Alberto and further lying to her, she can't accept that this man, this embodiment of Carmine's legacy and hold over her, is still out there unpunished getting away with what he's done. Victor can't walk away from Gotham knowing that his parents did everything right and still died for nothing, that every hurtful thing Oz said was right, he can't let "They don't give out awards for dying in the projects" be the last word in his and their lives. And Francis can't walk away from Oz, who killed her two sons and keeps lying about it, who ruined her life and now keeps promising he will take care of her and acting like everything will be fine, she can't let this pass even if she can't kill him either, and so she'll make him give her the world and die trying.

The tragedy of what happened is what hurt/broke them - the added insult of what Oz said or did is what they just can't live with. It can't be for nothing.

Goddamnit it, it was really just too telegraphed for it to not happen the way it did.

I fucking knew it the moment the episode started and we got the grungy boss orchestral take on the funny Penguin chords that we were in for some calamitous shit.

We see at first that, in spite of seemingly failing, Vic has graduated to the point he can give his own speeches, gain his own allies, run his own cons - he's not just Oz's proxy, but will manage to convince the others to become such as well, and he's coming at this from a place of complete sincere belief in everything that Oz says, all of the man of the people rhetoric he will so thoroughly pervert and then sell to the people actually responsible for everything he told Victor he was fighting against.

Zeke walks up to him nearly crying about how Sofia blew it all up and Vic instantly asks back where's Oz - not because he doesn't care about Crown Point, but he's already processed it and has already learned with Oz how to just barrel forward regardless, now it's time to get to work. Victor who so readily throws himself into rescuing Oz again and again. Victor who's lost everything - he doesn't have his family, he doesn't have Graciela, he doesn't have the other mobs backing him up, and right now he doesn't even have Crown Point anymore, all he has is Oz.

The man in red who reads the Law Gave him three weeks of life, Three little weeks in which to heal His soul of his soul's strife, And cleanse from every blot of blood The hand that held the knife - The Ballad of Reading Gaol

Sofia dressed in two thematically appropriate outfits - the red scarf echoing both the first outfit we see her in, back to covering her neck but in control of her own collar, and the outfit we see her the farthest back in time with at the start of Episode 4, and with her final crimson fur coat outfit accompanying her final greatest triumph and ultimate defeat in the show. Not only that, but in this episode she also gets to perform characteristically appropriate stylized torture - holding a family intervention and therapy session with mafioso torture tactics to try and wrench the truth out of her victimizer, enacting calculated sadistic yet righteous justice via psychological breakdown, and ultimately allowing the woman he victimized and wronged to take her killshot at him.

See, it's not just that Sofia Gigante is a Batman Villain, or that she's well passed the threshold of supervillain. Cristin Milioti doesn't play Sofia like she's a new character, which she basically is, and she isn't just playing a tortured gangster lady protagonist dipping into camp villain territory, which she also is - she plays Sofia Gigante like she's been a Batman Rogues headliner for decades now stepping into the spotlight once again, like she's the dark modern revamp of someone Adam West would have thought and she's just always been around showing up in stuff along with The Penguin, like she's only not fighting or teaming up with Two-Face in this because he's not here yet. It is crucially important that Sofia passes every standard of Batman Villain imaginable with flying colors, in part because it helps to reinforce that The Penguin is a monster all his own.

Even here, with as much power as she's ever possibly held over him, reduced him to a whimpering begging mess to be killed off in a second, she is so shocked at the sheer brazen selfishness and delusion and level of bullshit on display, that even now he won't break character and think about his actions and admit to what he's done not even to save his own mother from mutilation, that she just loses the script entirely. Her entire show of power collapses and she physically recoils from sheer disgust at just how low Oswald is, at just how much he lacks the ability to even suffer for what he's done. Realizing that there is simply not enough of a soul in this filthy beast to even torture, and that however much she hates Oswald for ruining her life, someone had a prior claim all along.

Eve - Sofia - Francis in the end united in, however much they may dislike each other, however different their circumstances may be, there is nothing they could possibly do to each other that would be worse than what Oswald has done to all of them, joined in silent agreement that their rage ultimately belongs in a bullet fired at Oz's head and that they deserve their kill shot at this man.

"I had enough to give, Oswald".

This really is gonna be the high point of Francis's life from this point on.

Aw man, I liked Sofia's scruffy dirtbag detective, I wanted him to stick around as one of the reocurring characters like the movie cops

Oh Victor, sweet kind Victor, you couldn't possibly ask for anything worse in the entire world.

Oz feebly already beginning to lie and spin his new version of the events, that Sofia stabbed him and fucked up with Ma, and here comes Victor with the reversal of their dynamic, seeing this guy who's been brought low by the oppressive force looming over his life that he must defeat (because all that Victor knows about Sofia at this point is that she used to be Oz's boss and is now out to kill them, that she is scary as hell, and regardless of whether or not she was the Hangman, she just bombed his fucking neighborhood) and reaching out to him with a speech about solidarity and dignity and self-worth and picking yourself up by your fucking bootstraps to save the day. And Oz responds by coaching him on how to be a better bullshitter. Because to Oz, he knows the playbook by heart, but Victor meant it all.

Victor rebuilds Oz from basically nothing by providing him with the validation that he so desperately always craved and never got, saying all the things he always wanted to hear, poised so they can finish this together, poised to give him not only the army he asked for, but a full-blown revolution, and he never once asks for anything in return. Just, goddamnit this isn't hurting any less.

"She, sh-she'll never look at me again, all right?....unless I get this done. Got a promise to keep." Maybe the one and only time his mask ever fully cracks. For a second. He rebuilds it right back up and gets to work, but it cracked. He knows what he's doing, up until the moment he doesn't. It's that simple.

A lot of what drives Oz is acceptance, and a lot of what drives him is his desire to be accepted in worlds that have been declared, by how they run themselves and by the people that inhabit these worlds, as worlds that he was never going to be included in. And one of those worlds is the hierarchy and the hoi polloi of the political realm and the power within the political realm because he understands that all politics are corrupt essentially, and the damage that he could do then in being part of a political infrastructure of Gotham interests him. I thought it would be nice if, in that time jump, he had been invited to maybe a gala or two, you know what I mean? It'd be awkward. He'd be slurping out of the fucking teacup, there'd be stains on the table, he wouldn't really fit in, but he’d fucking love being there. - Colin Farrell

Mirroring the scene in Episode 01 where he adjusts himself next to the car, scuffing himself up to look like the sleazy funnyman the Falcones keep around for kicks, now he's dressing up as much as he can and asking Victor for input, because he truly values what the kid thinks and, goddamnit.

"C'mahn, I don't bite", pfft yeah, not in this movie universe anyway. And to the same guy you did the nose-gushing-blood bit to, even.

Minutes inside of City Hall and he already parks his ass right on Bella Real's seat - not as any kind of intentional slight against her, it's just naturally where he goes to, even before the scene ends and we see his new plans start to come to fruition.

Guy who takes offense at Viti calling Sofia a psycho and then goes up to Councilman Hady talking about the unhinged loony bin broad who went "full psycho" that he's handing to him on a platter, pointedly calling her Falcone.

At first I thought it was funny that Sal Maroni was getting blamed here for Bliss and the underground lab, but then I remembered that he was actually the one who introduced Drops to Gotham and the whole epidemic that became, so if anything it is an extremely easy part of the story to sell, even without his body being down there and all.

"You're gonna have some trouble, Oz" - pointedly smiling and calling him Oz instead of Oswald as he had up to this point, because by that point he's already a crony and already willing to work with this guy handing him all these miracles.

"You wanna be welcome? You gotta look, clean" Yes Father Pal, I Shall Become A Capitalist Caricature

You can see in the walk around, in his look at Bella Real and the mayor's office high up above and the steps, how little Ozzie's gears turn once again and rebuild his life after losing the streets and everything that happened with Ma - This is the next nest, this is the next throne, this is next schmuck I gotta cozy up to, this is the next boss looking down on me that I gotta destroy, there's the reward waiting for me if I do. This is the one that matters, I did everything in the shit and now I'm gonna get me sum goddamn respeck, Feh Ma of course.

And before all of this we see Sofia's next move, showing the ways in which she is good at this, the ways in which she truly is something outside of the worldview of what these gangsters are used to, and why she is going to lose. "Because I can". She is good at commanding a room and promising rewards beyond the wildest dreams of these street crimelords because she can offer everything they want and lose nothing she cares about for it, she will hand them everything and dip because she can, and she is going to lose because she can lose. Because she still thinks there is an end in sight for her, she thinks she will get to walk away from this universe and go meet a happy ending at a cafe in Florence.

It's not just that Sofia was born into privilege and never really lived in Gotham and could just hop onto a plane out of here anytime, it's also that she has room in her life for introspection, self-awareness, consideration towards others, and all those things that come easier when you're "born full", and not when you're the starving hustler for whom leaving the city was never an option even if he had all the money in the world, the hungry animal who wants this, wants everything, harder than anyone has ever wanted anything. The guy who has no room for anything else in his brain other than a perpetual bullshit generator set to a 24/7 chorus of "I GOTTA WIIIIIIN"

Another element to her that I really love is, she's good at this. She knows she's good at this, she was supposed to take over the family. She may not know the ins and outs of the game as it currently stands, but she is good at this. Some of it is, I think that's the only world she knows, and some of it is there's something in there, that's always been there, and she believes it is rightfully hers. There's an element of, "I need to have made it worth it for something", and if that means power, then okay. - Cristin Milioti

There’s a level for both of them that they enjoy each other’s suffering, and that sort of leads to Sofia’s downfall. If she didn’t need to see Oz suffer she might have been free. And she really gets in her own way in that regard and largely because Oz is this crutch that she just cannot let go of. - Lauren LeFranc

And here we get to the end of season 1 of HBO's The Sofia Show, the bittersweet in hindsight but extremely cathartic torching of the set as a last hard-earned spiritual victory by our hard-done-by lady protagonist. All of her family is dead, the city is out for her blood, she gathered all the remaining criminals for One Last Job with everything on the line, and she is having a very fun time with her montage destroying her home and family name beyond recovery. She is going to finish her character arc, get to finally kill her former comedy sidekick turned mortal nemesis, and hop on a plane to The White Lotus resort straight away into greener (if only marginally less fucked up) genre territory away from this ugly nightmare city. Alas, this is not The Sofia Show, and it's time for her theme suite to catch up to her once again and tell us of how very badly this is all going to go for her.

And she can't even be that shocked, when the high of burning it all down goes away, when she sees that old Ozzie Cobb wriggled his way out of this jam regardless and is now coming at her with a speech, she can't even react to it. Deep down she knows how the rest of the night is going to go. She may not have expected Arkham outright, but she was braced for a loathsome fate.

It rules so much they give him a big fat fight the power speech with a bloody revolution montage, and we can only sit there aghast with Sofia at the sheer audacity of him to act like this, like a man of the people, thinking he truly has the right to be talking like this and to her of all people.

And now we see how Oz won the gang war, and the next domino to fall on the downfall of Gotham City, and the first effect of his own rise to power: like The Riddler, he has toppled the order of things and he has turned people into extensions of himself, Victor being the first and the one who gave him this revolution, of all the little mini Penguins out there devouring the social structure of Gotham crime forever. You kill the boss, you become the boss now. Everyone can bleed and everyone can be killed and everyone must be killed in the quest to the top, no handrails or codes, they wouldn't invite him and so he crashed. After he unified the criminal underdogs, Victor rallied the underdogs beneath the underdogs, and now the streets are a jungle where there will never be an end to the wars over who gets to be atop the food chain, because they are all fighting to see who gets to be the next Penguin.

For decades people have written Oswald Cobblepot as a creep and a sleaze and an incel who hurts/kills women for rejecting him, or who is chronically insecure about them and I can very confidently say nobody ever did anything half as horrible and half as truthful and half as meaningful as LeFranc did here. We see the other reason why it was so imperative to her that Oswald not be a misogynist, and it has nothing to do with just making him more likeable or sympathetic or honorable. We get in this episode the pay off to the thoughtline: okay, he's actually a gangster who respects women, he does not act like every other prestige drama gangster who ever lived, we are going to center women in this show and he will treat them with respect - now let's watch how he HORRIBLY screws them over in the name of this respectful gentleman persona he lives by, let's watch how he betrays them in the ways that matter most, how he even makes them wish they were dead without personally ever lifting a finger to harm them, let's do some grown-up feminist commentary in Batman for a change and highlight the ways in which men profit from belittling and oppressing and destroying women even when they're pointedly not misogynistic and even self-professed genuine allies to them.

And so it is that the only Falcone mobster who isn't misogynistic towards Sofia is the one who screws her the most horribly. He will murder every man he comes across, he will murder every man he could have been and every man who is even marginally better than him in any way, he will push all of his brothers out of the nest and not tolerate any other big shot in town bigger than him and not even the only man, the only person, in town who loves him will be spared. But he is a gentleman, so he leaves the women alive (well, except for Nadia Maroni, but she was a rival big shot and worse, his boss for a day or two, so she obviously had to go eventually).

I thought about his greatest fear, and it made a lot of sense to me that his greatest fear would be that love is transactional. That if he does not achieve a level of power and give Francis certain types of things that he’s promised her she might not love him. And that informs every relationship he has on the show It was always important to me, and this was always part of my initial pitch, that if Oz was to achieve a level of power—and that is something that was not up for discussion, that was my job that I was tasked with for the season—that he has to lose something emotionally. It can’t come without a cost. - Lauren LeFranc

"the crooked politics that have allowed wealthy elites like Sofia Falcone to wreak havoc". Oz has weaponized the status quo against her so throughly that she is going away under the exact same image that she did it the first time, as a privileged serial killer and Falcone. She doesn't even get to have her new name anymore, and the rest of Gotham does not see her as the new and strange and horrific new threat that she embodied in Oz's life - she is going away as just another upper-class monster like her dad.

The triumph that Oswald has fought his entire life for, the Big One that he's scraped and fought and hoped his entire life would happen and he'd get to show his Ma at the end, the thing that he's going to throw a party for at this moment, is just a politician on tv saying things that Oswald claims he told him to say.

All of our 3 major supporting characters will thus reach the high point of their lives, on the moment before it is ripped away and they are destroyed forever. Francis gets to finally spit all of her hatred back to Oz and take her revenge on him, and her babies appear before her alive and unharmed. Sofia gets to burn down her father and his legacy once and for all, and is on her way to kill her nemesis and finally be free of it all. Victor succeeds in helping Oz win, they have revolutionized the gangs and defeated the big bad Falcone and he's done right by his new family what he couldn't do with his old one.

And of course, Oswald finally wins - he is the last man standing, he's defeated his greatest enemy, he is the big shot of Gotham and his victory is, so he claims, right there on the tv for his Ma to see, he can finally get what he's always wanted now - and then he doesn't, and then his soul crumbles, before he finishes the job by murdering his heart.

Oz didn’t need to do that, like it wasn’t actually necessary. In that moment, Victor did not betray him. He did nothing wrong. In fact, the thing that he did “wrong” in Oz’s eyes is that he loves him and that he cares about him and Oz actually cares about Victor. I think by the end Oz sees that as a really big problem because he loves his mother so deeply and Sofia took advantage of that love, and then it became sort of a weakness in his eyes. Victor saw him at his most vulnerable and for Oz to achieve the power that he thinks he needs, he can’t have that level of humanity. He can’t have that heart with him anymore. So he stifles his own heart. He kills it. - Lauren LeFranc

When he said to Vic in the sewer, “They'll tell stories about us one day, kid,” he meant it. At that stage, he actually saw that he could rise and Vic could come with him. It's only when the vulnerability and the shock of his mother being taken from him, and the place of vulnerability and danger that puts him in, that he realizes there's no more love, there's no more affection, there's no one else I'm going to have in my life that can lead me to such vulnerability as my mother has led me to or as this kid could potentially lead me to. - Colin Farrell

He's not relishing being horrible. When he realizes, "Oh God, Victor makes me vulnerable. I can't have that shit anymore." The way that Lauren wrote it, and the way Colin played, there's such sadness under the horror. You're like, oh my God, how fucked up do you have to be that the one person who you feel you have any connection with now, you have to snuff out because it makes you weak. What happened to you? - Matt Reeves

"You think she forgives me?" Once again, the mask cracks. Only around Victor. Only because of Victor. And he can't have that again.

And thus we get to the final parallel between our 3 side characters - that in the end, all they did was serve Oz's own rise to power, and hand him the world in exchange for their lives. All they were to him were additional steps in the ladder that began with his brothers. Francis gave him his life, his drive, his motivation and eternal justification, the insatiable pit in his gut driving him to do this forever. Sofia got him his promotion to Falcone lackey, and then she got him another promotion by handing him the tools with which he could become an underground boss and rally them, and then she got him another promotion by handing him the keys to his political career on a silver platter. And Victor saved his life, more than once. He helped him, provided the justification he has craved for a lifetime, rebuilt him, gave him his revolution, gave him the streets, and showed him the last thing he needed to kill to make it to the top.

Wow man let me tell my good friend, The Family Butcherer, who butchers every family he gets his hands on whether a crime family or a literal one, how much I think of him as family.

"They don't give out awards for dying in the projects"

Just like with Squid, Vic's emotional intelligence dooms him. He sees this man whom is like family to him brought to his lowest point, crushed beyond measure, in what he assumes was just a phenomenally terrible stroke of fate and not something he had any blame whatsoever for, and reaches out to pat him in the back, emotionally reassure him that it wasn't all for nothing, that his family would surely be proud of him, and that there's things to look forward to.

Vic threw away his chance to walk away into the sunset with Graciela and he just had to come back to save Oz (AND Sofia, the one who'd bomb his neighborhood) from the Maronis, the least of all possible evils in his life and his city and who never even noticed him. Victor only narrowly missed out in 2 situations that Oz would have absolutely left him to die in, so there just had to be a third where he'd die in the absolute worst way possible. Not with Sofia's gunshot to the head, not bombed to rubble along with his neighborhood, no, Mr. Carmine 2 had to make it as painful and intimate as possible.

Vic the only Number Two in town who couldn't kill his boss and in fact never even considered doing so, and so he dies - there is just no room for him anymore, not in Oz's life, nor in the new Gotham that the two built together.

LEFRANC: "You see Oz become this next level monster, I remember the take too. Jennifer and I look at each other, Colin transforms his face in this really remarkable way, that I don't think any of us fully anticipated could be achieved in that way." - The Penguin Podcast Episode 8

I knew that the general sentiment was that, by the end, they kind of wanted to, in a way, kill the Oz that we met in the film. I felt that there was a sense of creative responsibility that leaned towards, “We cannot have this man as a likable character,” which is hard I think they wanted that in the earth by the end of the eight hours. They wanted that RIP. That's gone. I hated that scene. I really did. I was fucking so pissed off. It felt in performing it as — guess what? — you would like it to feel in viewing it. It felt gross, it felt cruel, it felt absolutely insane, and it felt like Oz was reaching a point of no return. - Colin Farrell

So the day after I watched this episode, my friend Lucas messaged me in the afternoon sending me audio messages, "Son of a bitch! Son of a bitch! He stole his identity, he didn't even die with his fucking name! They'll never find him! Fuck, goddamnit!" "ELE MORREU COMO INDIGENTE, PORRA" and, yeah. Yeah. That gets to the heart of it.

If Vic was just a guy taking his money, if Vic was purely transactional, if he was just another Link, he'd have made it. Oz wouldn't have given a shit about him, Oz would have died on the sidewalk when the Maronis hit at minimum. All this piece of shit wants is love, and when he gets it, when it's finally non-transactional, from the ONLY person in the entire show who loved him, he has to kill it, he doesn't know how to deal with it, he has to smother his heart.

He has to become Carmine Falcone 2, strangling the poor and vulnerable of Gotham while pinning all of his crimes on Sofia.

Vic just wanted his family back, man. He just wanted a family again, to at least show his family that they didn't die for nothing. The thing that Oz spits in his face as he dies. It wasn't for nothin.

This show has so many dozen little variations of Penguin getting his heart broken and retaliating cruelly, but this one hurts the most partially because it has no basis whatsoever on any pre-existing insult or cruelty, there was nothing that warranted this, and you still get why Oz felt that he had to do it. The lowest, weakest moment of his life, and he can never permit anything like it ever again.

Victor was his heart, and The Penguin remembered that his heart only exists to be broken.

Victor punctures the illusion, and he cannot have that. Everything about The Penguin hinges on that singular fact of his life: he cannot and will not break character. He cannot break character, otherwise he dies, otherwise Gotham City will eat him alive, otherwise he has done it all for nothing. That is the ultimate threat Sofia posed to him, and why his ultimate victory comes only from creating a perfect delusion and spinning everything that happened in service of it. Because all those things said at Monroe's? They weren't true - his Ma, y'know, it was just her disease acting up, that psycho did something to her, she wasn't thinkin straight, and it was really Sofia that stabbed him and did all that fucked up shit, and his Ma is really happy that she got the penthouse in the end and that he didn't put her down, look, she's crying tears of joy even, I gotta keep doing everything for her.

Everything and everyone in his life, he can spin in service of the delusion, they can all play dress-up with him forever, except Victor. Victor may not have the slightest clue as to what Oz actually did, but he's seen too much, he knows he has vulnerabilities, he knows the thing that Oz needs to bury far, far more than all the horrible things he's done. Killing Victor is maybe the one thing that he absolutely cannot in the slightest spin a decent delusion out of, that he did it for him or did it for noble reasons or anything other than out of disgusting self-serving weakness.

But who's Victor? Some kid who died in the projects and didn't even have a name? Someone with nobody left to mourn him, not even a street to get back to, nothing but a guy who's already forgot him?

That Victor Aguilar? Never heard of him

“I will never think my mother doesn't love me. She was having a bad day when she stuck that bottle in me. She was under a lot of pressure. She nearly lost her finger. She stuck a bottle in my belly. It was a bad day. She didn't get a good night's sleep the night before.” It's that kind of thing. He'll make up fucking whatever. He's already lying when he goes, and he's stitching up his belly, and Vic says, “What happened?” And he says, “Sofia, she stuck me with a bottle.” He's already beginning to bury the truth. - Colin Farrell

He needed your love, and then you didn't give it to him, and you didn't obey, and you didn't do those things that he needed, and then you mentally aren't there for him in the way that he needs, but he's got to physically keep you around because he's too weak to not do that. He can't give you the gift that he promised you in Episode Six, he's too weak of a man to do that. And so he needs to hold onto you, but under his terms. - Lauren LeFranc

There's a thing that happened on that last day that made my blood run cold, which was I felt Oz not love me anymore. I felt his coldness, and I think that Francis felt it too, and she always had so much of his attention and so much of his love. I don't even think she realized how much she had until he withdrew it. And when he withdrew it, it was utter and… slightly terrified. I was just lying in that bed, I just felt the love leave the room. It's a real thing, and it's gone, yeah, and I think Francis feels it, too. - Deirdre O'Connell

He's this man who is clawing his way to the top, and I knew he wanted power, but what what does that mean for him? That's where I started to conceive of like, he wants his mother's love, and he wants people's affection. He wants to be revered. That was like the main thrust for me of what defines power for Oz, and then by the end you realize that, when he doesn't get those things, he doesn't get his mother's acceptance, he still gets it. He makes sure he gets it. - Lauren LeFranc

So bowled over and miserable I was that I didn't even notice until later that he was wearing a version of the classic Bronze Age/Triumphant get-up.

If the pattern of his life is unjustifiably cruel retribution for slights and insults, perceived or not, by the end Francis had done it to him as well. That she never loved him and in fact always hated him more than anything and anyone else is the biggest insult of all, and so he punishes her the most cruelly, knowingly or not.

"You are who you are, and you couldn't change if you tried."

He will never stop telling Rex Calabrese stories, he will never stop bringing up his brothers and mom as a sympathy ploy, and even if he will never truly love her again, he will never stop ruining the world in her name, he will never stop, he will never stop, he will never stop.

You had to sit through 8 hours chipping away at all of his fun and charm and wacko comedy antics and motivations and all the scruples and principles that he turns out to have less and less of, until he butchers them all in the very end along with the heart of the show. Penguin burning through all of his lovable quirks and charm, everything that we loved about him in the movie, until he comes through as a black-hearted bastard of unlimited malice who will never stop growing and getting worse and putting more lives in danger. Not only as much of a lowlife backstabber as we initially assumed him to be in the movie, but far worse than what we could have imagined.

I said as much that the first episode marks the transition from The Batman to The Penguin with the titlecard, and this brings it back around. The show dies with Victor, we get Sofia's post-credits Nick Fury Tease with Selina's letter and with Selina's theme playing and a final grace note of hope for Sofia, and thus the only character in the show to end with anything resembling positive, and then we get the first scene of The Batman Part 2. showing us the horrible thing in this world that Batman will have to defeat for us.

RIP Bella Real, we all know this asshole is gonna become mayor, and he's not waiting for the next election.

Credit to @book--wyrm for pointing out one more horrible fucking thing, that at the final dance, his hands are covered in scratches, much like the hands of Carmine Falcone when he comforted Sofia.

“One of the very early things that Lauren pitched was that ending with Eve where she looks like Francis,” said Reeves. “He can’t get what he needed from his mother because she’s no longer in that state because of the dark events and what he’s done, so he recreates it in this other way with Eve, and it’s very disturbing,” said Reeves. “That was something we thought was a great idea and was so emblematic of this guy’s internal state. It’s like, even as he now seems to have gotten that first major step toward being the kingpin, you know that some part of him will never be filled. - Matt Reeves

When I read that, I was like, “Oh my god, we're going full Bates Motel here.” But again, it speaks to what has become a pathological inability to accept the world that he has played such a heavy hand in creating. As far as he's concerned, he's just doing what he needs to do to live the life of a good son. And look, his mother can't talk anymore, so he needs a surrogate. I mean, it would be kept out of the sexual realm — it wasn't about that. It was about the intimacy and the tenderness and the pride that Oz always so deeply needed to feel his mother had for him, and pride in him, that he never really got from her. The one time when he finally can say to her, can go to her bedside and say, “It's done. Everything you said that I was capable of, everything you said that I should aspire to, it's done. I am now the boss. I took it from everyone else.” And he gets nothing back. His mother's already gone. That's just too horrific for him, so he needs a surrogate. He would say to Eve, “Look, I'm grieving. I'm finding it hard to deal with the fact that my mother's alive, but she's not here. She's gone, but she's fully present at the same time, physically, but she's nowhere there. She doesn't recognize me. I don't recognize the woman she's become. Do me a favor. We used to dance together and talk at the end of the night. Would you put on her dress and just let me pretend?” But it was twisted. It was twisted, but I dug it. He needs it from his mom so much. And again, his imagination is so potent that he just cast her as that figure, that most prominent and most powerful figurehead in his life, which has always been his mother. She's got to stay alive. He's got to hear that he did well from her. He's got to hear that she's proud. Look, by the end, he's bananas, as they say in the film. Good cop, batshit cop. At the end, he's batshit. - Colin Farrell

Remember when this show had fun Dolly Parton end credits, remember when this almost looked like it was gonna be fun and light-hearted compared to the movie and The Riddler: Year One

So turns out all along they actually had something real twisted planned with the name Karlo, and the Clayface concept that evokes. Asking his prostitute girlfriend to shapeshift into his crying comatose mom in the room upstairs so he can finally get the dance with her atop the world that he craved his entire life and have her tell him how proud she is that he ruined everything forever.

It is not a good ending, but it is his happy ending. He achieved everything he wanted in the smallest possible amount and at the highest cost imaginable, and thus he burns more than ever to take more and more in the name of a satisfaction he will never, ever have. He ended his arch-nemesis, and he didn't have to kill her, that's not what a gentleman does. He got the streets, and he's poised to take political power, and there is nobody left to care about, nobody except the only person who's ever mattered. He can still keep taking care of Ma as a justification for all the shit he will do now and forever, but he doesn't actually have to take care of her anymore, he doesn't even have to love her or grovel her for validation anymore: He has a Ma who will tell him everything he wants to hear, forever.

Of course, he may not have his three dance partners anymore - his Ma is in a vegetative state, Sofia has been locked away once again, and that kid, what was his name again, ain't around. But then, he will simply move on to new ones: He didn't actually lose his first dance partner, his Ma is fine, look at her telling him how proud she is of him and everything he's done and how unstoppable he is now. And he has a new partner in City Hall who is all too eager to play along to everything he says and does, who will receive and spit back his rhetoric just as Vic did to the streets of Gotham. And if he's defeated his nemesis and dance partner, well, not for long. There's a new one waiting for him. He never wins without losing. He will never again live without his next dance partner there to hound and foil him at every turn. There will always be something in the way.

It was exciting to me, the idea that we’re going to meet Oz as a mobster, and to play him as just a man. There’s nothing fantastical about him. There’s so many people like Oz in our world who hold a lot of power, who also connect with people because they speak, on some level, the truth. They can be charming and engaging, but also really terrifying and calculated, and not necessarily doing what they say that they will do or caring for people in the way that they say that they will. It felt so timely and so important to really engage with a guy like Oz and not turn away from him, but actually turn towards him so we can start to unpack, in our own society, what makes a man like Oz so appealing, and what makes him equally appalling. - Lauren LeFranc

I think Oz has always been someone who believes that everything he’s saying in the moment is true, and he creates worlds and illusions for himself to merit his actions. He does it sometimes very briefly in impulsive moments, and then sometimes more methodically, and in the end the fact that he didn’t get from his mother what he’s always desired isn’t good enough for him. So he has to create this strange fantasy live in this delusion of his own making, and pay Eve to dress as his mother and force her to tell him he she’s proud of him. So mentally, emotionally, Oz is embracing his own delusion. I think, for the audience, I hope they more deeply understand him psychologically and realize that there is a deeply broken man inside. He is violent and problematic and and very emotional. And that’s really the man that will carry into the next film. - Lauren LeFranc

And it has to end in a total reversal of the movie ending - The Batman ends with showing there is a light in the darkness, that this tortured broken man can fix his mistakes and lead us into something better. The Penguin ends by grabbing your face and desperately yelling at you SOMEBODY FUCKING SAVE US, HE WILL ONLY GET WORSE. The Batman ends with telling us Batman can save us all, and The Penguin ends with telling us Penguin will kill every last one of us in real life if he hasn't already, if nobody stops him.

And so I'll leave these last partings words to the Penguin Braintrust as we close off this series - see you all in therapy and in theaters when The Batman: Part 2 drives us all completely insane once more.

@wil4x

I don't think this Penguin is someone Batman can tolerate, I don't think Bruce can ever save Gotham's soul with a force of corruption as big as Penguin taking root in the seats of power. No amount of informant work can justify letting a monster like Penguin stay "King of Gotham". I think there's an argument to be made that Oz is a bigger threat to Batman's overall long-term mission than guys like Joker or Riddler. Those are huge immediate threats, but Penguin does a lot more long-term damage to the very soul of Gotham and its people. As long as The Penguin is on top, there's no hope, Gotham will never not be the most corrupt and nightmarish place on earth with him in charge

@book--wyrm

He will truly climb anything no loss so great it can't be flipped into an asseet A nuke Francis armed out of pain and grief and desperation and despair And poor vic Only wanting to do good And instead he saves gotham’s own typhoid mary of misery

@davidmann95

so the thing is Oz kills hope for Gotham forever in this

he's replacing the mayor who stands for hope at the end of The Batman with a corrupt comics rando built on a lie so he can install himself as the power behind the power forever Batman can't be alluded to in the slightest until the very end because it can't be until there's no lingering 'aw, I don't want my boy to get Batman'ed' it can't be until we understand truly and completely why this man proves the necessity of someone out there to stop him

The other stabs at this with Oswald, from what I’ve seen, are trying to make him low-down and dirty and vile enough to be a ‘proper’ Batman villain. But this already made him low-down and dirty and vile. And made us love him for it. This isn’t about ‘fixing him’, this is about taking him all the way to the top He’d accept no less

This is about making him operatically nightmarish enough to be a guy Batman is going to fight forever

Lucas

VENGEANCE, GET OUT RIGHT FUCKING NOW.

[stillthe1]

5 (& maybe 16) for the fluffy prompts w lestappen 💕

1600k of lestappie following these prompts for u, c!!! 🩷🩷🩷 i tried to make it fun enough n maybe horny enough, so... yeah. kind of nsfw? don't really know what came to me. non-betaed so all mistakes r my own 🩷

Charles’ had the worst fucking weekend, Miami was not kind to him, as he found himself battling with a Haas and losing. And sure, he respects Kevin very much, but come on. Really, Ferrari?

(Maybe he should’ve let the Mercedes rumors continue–)

So it’s not a surprise, really, when Pierre forces him to go out. Let go of the feelings of the weekend, and maybe he’s right. As the music starts to get to him, Pierre comes back with a Cosmo for Charles and a Zombie for him. Fruity and bright, as Miami, non?

As soon as he tastes his cocktail, he makes a face. Holy hell. “Pierre, this is strong. Did you ask for more vodka?” His nose is scrunched up, and his eyes may or may not be watering. Sue him, he knows he’s a lightweight, but this was another level.

He already felt a bit drunk, and it was the start of the night. Welp. Let’s hope he doesn’t do anything too wild, or he would have to sit through another Ferrari meeting about the brand and how he’s supposed to act. 

Fuck Ferrari.

He lets go of the constant voices in his head that sound like Fred, and his management team. Let’s go of all the things and just dances around, listening to Bad Bunny singing about whatever – he just hopes it’s not Max’s song. He needs Max out of his brain for a night. For an hour, at least.

“So,” Pierre's smile is blinding, too bright for today, but he’s still Pierre, so Charles will ignore it for now. “Did you see who was in the paddock this weekend? It was insane!”

And trust Pierre to get all the gossip from whoever he gets it, always the first to know everything. And Charles, too. Being best friends has benefits, sometimes. 

“Huh? Who?” He thinks about guessing, it’s a fun game around the USA, the most random celebrities always show up and act like it’s their catwalk. Whatever. “David Beckham? Or maybe Shakira? Carlos told me way too many times about her leave to Miami…”

“No, Charles! Well, I don’t know, but!” Pierre’s hands do a strange movement, and Charles thinks he’s had too many drinks already. “It was Martijn Garrix and Daniel!”

“Daniel?” His voice sounds weird even to his ears, all flat and no energy behind it. “Ricciardo? What were they doing here?”

He knows that Daniel is Red Bull’s third driver, but he was around in Australia too. Did he really need to be around that much? Around Max—

Do not think about Max. Charles, do not think about Max. Abort, abort, abort.

“They were here to support Max, or so Danny told me. Oh! And they told me they’ll be here too, so we’ll see them!”

Fuck. Fuckity fucking fuck. Merde. No, no, and no. He wanted a night free of Max Verstappen, free of the thoughts he had around him, the way his heart started beating faster and faster around him. He had a bad weekend, a bad season, and a bad year, already. He needed this. Fuck.

He feels his breath come in short, and the familiar feeling of panic settles inside his chest. He excuses himself from Pierre quickly, noticing his friend’s concerned stare, and walks quickly to the patio of the club. 

He needed space. He needed to be alone for a minute. His vision is blurry, and for a moment he thinks it’s the alcohol. But no, fucking hell. He’s tearing up. At a goddamned club in Miami. What a great year, huh?

He sits on one of the couches with a view of the sea and breathes in the salty air. He closes his eyes to avoid tears, or worse, a whole breakdown. He does not have time for a breakdown, no matter what his therapist said.

He needs his bubble of personal space and some minutes to himself–

“Charles?”

He opens his eyes, a bit reluctantly, and looks up at Max. How did he find him? Has he been looking around, praying to catch him? Or was he just casually walking by and thought, huh, let’s stop a moment to talk to my ex-nemesis? Fun times, hah.

He realizes his eyes are full of tears at the same time as Max's. Max’s eyes widen, sitting quickly by his side. It feels nice, and Charles suppresses a sob.

His walls are down, a combination of alcohol and Max’s proximity, and all he wants is to cuddle up to Max, give in to the urge he has always had and kiss the freckle that frames Max’s lips. 

“Charles, hey, love. Can you hear me?” Max’s voice is soft, and it scratches all of Charles’ needs. He nods, biting his bottom lip and trying not to cry. “Okay, can you look at me?”

He shakes his head no and prays Max does not read into it. It’s just. Max’s eyes have always been Charles’ obsession. Deep blue, with the prettiest lashes known to mankind, and. Max always says so much with his eyes, wears his heart on his sleeve, and makes Charles feel untethered. 

“Tell me what I can do for you, honey. Please.” The emphasis on honey makes Charles tear up even more. Fuck, he needs Max. He needs Max for himself, maybe show everyone around them – Daniel Ricciardo, especially — that Max Verstappen is his.

But he is not. They’re not dating. They’re nothing. Charles always feels lost when he sees Max direct his soft smiles at someone that’s not him. Feels like he has traveled through time, feels the scratchy texture of the Sauber fireproofs, and feels the indifference in Max’s eyes when he looked at him back then.

Charles always tries to not be selfish and tries not to ask too much. But right now, with Max asking him what he needs, he can’t lie.

“Stay?” His voice sounds scratchy, even though he has avoided crying for now. He refuses to look up. He doesn’t want to look at Max while he feels like this. Lost, jealous, possessive. 

He feels Max’s nod against his arm, and he startles. Since when are they so close? He can smell Max’s cologne and it’s intoxicating, spicy but with enough vanilla to feel cozy. 

He feels Max’s sigh against his shoulder, and he lets himself enjoy the moment. Enjoy Max’s proximity, the smell of his sandalwood shampoo, everything that makes him Max.

It’s enough to calm him down. Enough for him to see things a bit clearer, without that much panic taking over his brain. Max is here. Max is sitting by his side, when he should be celebrating his incredible win, getting drunk with Daniel and Martijn.

But he stayed. Because Charles asked him to. It’s too much for his brain to catch up, and he can’t stop himself. He can’t help it, not with the amount of alcohol his Cosmopolitan had, not while having Max cuddling up with him.

“Max…” 

Max looks up at him, blue eyes full on display and face smushed against Charles’ arm. Fuck, he looks so beautiful. So freaking cute. Charles almost wants to kiss his nose, but he must refrain.

“Max, can I kiss you?” 

Max nods quickly, biting his bottom lip, worrying it under his teeth, and turning it a very pretty pink. As pink as the blush in Max’s ears, cheeks, and neck. He looks edible.

“Took you long enough, Leclerc. I thought you would never ask.” His smirk is ruined by the nervousness his eyes show, and really, Charles has never been patient. 

And he has always wanted Max Verstappen. So he cannot be blamed if their first kiss is a bit rushed, a bit too quick. Max smiles against his lips, and everything feels like a movie. He almost expects the techno music around them to switch to Taylor Swift.

Charles giggles, finally giving in and kissing Max’s nose, too. 

Max takes a hold of his face with one of his big hands and Charles feels the world around them disappear, his eyes focused on Max’s pretty, pink plump lips. He presses their lips together once more, and it feels like home. Max tastes like gintonic, a bit minty, and it’s heaven. Charles, being his bratty self, bites Max’s bottom lip, and finally gives fully into the kiss. 

It’s slick, hot and fucking perfect. Nothing could have prepared Charles for this, no matter how many fantasies he had as a teenager, not even the ones years later. This was his own personal heaven, with Max’s hand caressing his face softly and kissing the lights outta him.

He stops the kiss to breathe, and smiles at Max, dimples out in display. It feels unreal, having Max so close. So so so close that he can see the damned lip freckle, the one that has taunted him for years.

Without giving it too much tought, he closes in again, and it’s intoxicating to see Max close his eyes. He’s expecting a kiss, but Charles bites his freckle. Gently, extremely gentle, but. It’s there, it’s taunting Charles, and he had to take action.

Max moans, and Charles has a full-body reaction to it, and the urge to grind against Max’s thigh is too big to ignore it. 

They need to get out of here, right now. 

Or Charles will create a big mess for both Ferrari and Red Bull, they will call it Il Predestinato and the Golden Boots.

“Max, Max. Please, let’s go to the hotel. Please.”

He’s begging, pleading with the worst case of bedroom eyes he has ever used against someone. But somehow it works, and Max gets up immediately. Takes Charles’ hand on his, gently as he ever his with him, and guides them towards the private exit of the club.

“Let’s go, my love.”

[certifiedwerewolf]

*pops in*

Can I get a Kimball breakdown?

How I feel about this character

I don't like her. I really did try to. This time around. "Maybe without her fandom screeching in my ear I'll enjoy her more." I didn't. The truth is, Vanessa Kimball is spiteful and angry, and deliberately fucked over the running of her army to stick it to a man who spent most of their time on screen together begging her to work with him. She was the queen of disproportionate retribution. She got Doyle killed. And I want so badly to like her, because she is FASCINATING. She is SO interesting, as a character, as a writing study, her implications in the greater RvB canon, everything about her could and should delight me. But there it is and here we are. Ask me in another ten years.

2. All the people I ship romantically with this character

Tucker and Doyle are my go-to's, I was actually really fascinated by the possibility of her and Tucker during my watch-through. I think in a hypothetical au where Sharkface didn't have the WORST GODDAMN TIMING EVER, she and Doyle could have gotten a chance to talk and maybe found that middle ground. I also found myself interested in the idea of her and Wash, which I think I might have shipped for a short while last time too.

3. My non-romantic OTP for this character

Their fanbase might have been obnoxious and annoying as hell, but I really do think there was potential in a friendship between her and Carolina. What could have been if the RvB writers knew what the fuck they were doing.

4. My unpopular opinion about this character

She sucks and not in the fun character way. She just sucks. She's not even funny.

5. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

Kimball and Doyle as coleaders they can never take you away from me. Oh well, there's always TDOPFLID I guess.

[astralscrivener]

for the fic ask game! ★✎ϟ (for this one, in my case it's gotta be every angsty moment you write, especially every time keith cries or has a breakdown in soopits lmao <3<33)

★ what was the scene you most wanted to write in [fic]? what was the hardest scene to write?

gonna use SOOPITS for this question as well! in terms of chapters that are already posted, for what i wanted to write:

keith's almost assassination. i had been sitting on that for YEARS. that chapter started as a oneshot idea shortly after s3 aired (and the fandom put together in like 5 minutes that "shiro" was a clone). the oneshot never came to fruition, and then when i started SOOPITS i realized i needed to use it. desperately. the broganes angst. the klance angst. the chaos of "oh okay so we just have a secret assassin on our ship drifting in space. cool cool cool". very among us. i tried to write an among us oneshot a few years later during late 2020 and then realized that was essentially the entire s5-6 arc

the s6 finale (6.06 & 6.07). i had the ending of s6 planned FOREVERRRR i had the scene of lance in the black lion in my mind for YEEAAARSSSSS i had the keith & lance vs kuron + shiro vs sendak fights in my head FOREVERRRR i would constantly make music videos in my head to those chapters on my walks to class for a good 2 or 3 years. i dearly miss walking across the quad with starset or the score or hidden citizens blasting in my head.

the KEITH BREAKDOWN in OPERATION KURON (6.05). another chapter i had rattling around in my mind for years. like hey it sure is fucked up that your older brother is actually a clone who tried to kill you! you know all those walls you had up? it is NOT going to be enough to hold this breakdown off. MAN. MAN

hardest scene? the goddamn TRIAL. before the current chapter which is giving me grief (gameshow rewrite), the trial chapter took me AGES. i started it in like september 2019. by the time i updated it, it was ten months later. july 2020. covid had started. everyone's lives were in shambles. i rewrote it dozens of times. i watched judge judy as "research." i had extensive talks with nicole. i hated writing that chapter so bad but i feel like the ending was rewarding enough

✎ how do you think readers would guess a fic was yours if you posted anonymously?

so i actually do have a reliable answer for this. keith and lance almost always have a very "us against the world" kind of mindset in my fics, and i guess someone reading one of my fics one time didn't look at the author that closely and realized it was me when they did their whole "you and me" "us against the world" shtick so. devoted klance ig! disgustingly in love dumbasses!

ϟ tell me what moment/scene in [fic] made you sicko in the window.jpg to read and i’ll tell you which scene made me feel that way to write

my GODDDDDDD first of all thank you. i also go bonkers over writing keith being emotional. he's very repressed in public / in front of the team and in private he is a mess and emotional. boy has walls up

scenes that made me sicko in the window to WRITE are indeed all the scenes where keith is emotional, especially those scenes in s4 (particularly 4.05) where he tells off kuron. stand UP for yourself bestie !!!

also, all of the scenes in 6.06/6.07 with keith, matt, and lotor, and then in 7.01/.02/.03 with keith, matt, and pidge. i LOVE writing keith and matt as friends/relating to each other, but also i love writing keith and pidge as besties who relate to each other. i am having a GREAT time making matt avoid his own trauma.

oh and also? the entire operation kuron chapter. actually just all of 6.05-6.07. absolutely fucking bonkers. cackling at my monitor the whole time

thank u for the asks these are fun !!

fic ask game!

[i-am-an-arson-enthusiast]

sometimes i think wednesdays are cursed

you guessed it, it’s another post ranting about a shitty day but i’m writing this two days late 🤪

anyway. idk how much of this story i’ve told but someone who i thought was my friend asked my deadname. i know i’ve posted about it but who knows how depth they are. if you want more of a story go ahead and ask. so that’s the first wednesday that fucking sucked.

the next one is. a long one. i’ll try to shorten it. so tech doesn’t really give you any time at all to sit down and think about things bc by the time im done eating dinner it’s time for bed and i need my goddamn sleep. that adds to my stress and tech adds an UNGODLY amount of stress. like to the point of regular crying. so on wednesday the joke of the day was “yeah we have mental breakdowns on the daily back here”. and then we had two. one from my friend and one from me. and being stage manager, it was like fucking timed. i can’t just step away like others. i went over to the other side to talk with my friend and she really did help. then we had to close the red curtains but the person who does that doesn’t have an ear piece so i had to get my shit together and run over to tell him.

fast forward to me going home. i see my friend dmed me. and it says “for now on don’t talk to me” and by this point i was already breaking down all over again to my friend over text. i screenshotted it and sent it and we panic over it and in the span of twenty ish minutes my mental health plummeted the fastest it has ever before. i was at an all time low to the point where it physically hurt me. i was not ok and i would not have been ok.

but theennnnn he texted me apologising and we talked a bit :) and then he refriended me on discord and deleted that one message:) (which i never responded to so there’s a chance he is holding onto the idea that i never saw it) (who knows)

as of yesterday everything is ok and the whole thing was bc of the stress of tech and literally everything. which i get. so now im back to like a normal range in mental health. lower side of it but im surviving. my next goal in mental health is to start living for me and not for the people around me. bc i cant bear the idea of leaving them. and that includes a lot of my mutuals on here that i interact with a lot.

ok last thing: shoutout to the group therapy gc for having these very historical records in real time.

[mxtxfanatic]

Alright, finished Yu Wu, so now we have our character breakdowns!

Our Main Cast:

Murong Lian: I am so serious when I say that a sad (not even tragic, just fucking “sucks I guess, dude” sad!) backstory and working with the MCs towards a mutually beneficial goal IS NOT A REDEMPTION ARC.

Yue Chenqing: a lesson in why ignorance is NOT bliss and you should NOT blindly follow whatever your elders say. (Especially if your “respectable elder” is a known rapist with children he don’t even know about under his own roof falling in love with each other 😬). I expected that he’d experience some traumatic bullshit, but holy shit?

Jiang Yexue: I knew there was something off about him, but holy shit????? Hope he rots in hell, but also, he was obviously tainted by that dark cultivation he took in to save his brother’s life, so maybe the real villain who needs to rot in hell is their rapist daddy 💁🏽‍♀️

Murong Chuyi: I knew he liked Yue Chenqing deep down and that something must have happened to make him turn on Jiang Yexue, but holy shit???? Anyways, hope he gets to beat that fool’s AND his rapist daddy’s asses in the afterlife before reincarnating into the most peaceful next life. (On another note, wtf is up with meatbun and jumping into blood pools????)

The emperor: I CALLED IT! A MOTHERFUCKING SNAKE AND A COWARD 🗣🗣🗣 IF YOU TRUSTED HIM AT ANY POINT, DON’T TALK TO ME 🗣🗣🗣

Guoshi of Liao/Hua Po’an: everyone is afraid of this super ultra powerful, seemingly invincible guoshi and ain’t none of y’all stopped to think, “wow, this is suspicious; wonder if that one villain IN ALL OUR STORIES maybe didn’t die, especially since we keep seeing hints that the one who “killed” him and died with him is ALSO not dead!” What foolishness… Anyways, man had plans on plans and still couldn’t predict human kindness, what a tool lmao

Princess Mengze: everyone was playing 3D chess with politics but bitch was on 4D; I was shook 😳

Gu Mang: MY BOY! Wwx if he was written into a trauma porn novel. Stuck. To. His. Convictions!!! Every reveal of his was a whammy on top of a whammy 😭😭😭 Thought he was out here being Naruto-level foolish without the protagonist halo, but he was really out here playing 4D chess on human morality with the best of them! GIVE HIM HIS FLOWERS 💐 💐💐

Mo Xi: love how he loves Gu Mang. Hate how goddamn naive he is. At some points, instead of feeling emotionally overwhelmed, I was just getting secondhand embarrassment. Would obviously NOT survive a political intrigue novel.

Honorable mentions:

Lu Zhanxing: his death fucking suuuuuucked, but he was a real one.

Li Wei: standing up to the emperor’s men to protect your lord, LET’S GOOOOOOOOOO

Lan’er (Changfeng-jun’s daughter): they didn’t have to do her like that… (also, is she still alive???? We just kinda drop her and never check back in????)

Madam Jiang/Su Yurou: wish I could be this unbothered in the face of conflict, while having the balls to defy the most terrifying not-quite-human in the known world 😭 glad she survived 💙

Jiang Fuli: fuck, I’m glad HE survived! He deserves it!

Hong Shao: she walked into death bravely and heartbrokenly, and I wish she didn’t have to. I hope she and Li Qingqian reincarnate into a better life where they grow to be the old man and hag together, like she dreamed…

Li Qingqian: the way he found out that in attempting to save Hong Shao, he had actually killed his love AND that her murderer “was” the man who saved him? I’m glad Su Yurou got to tell him the truth, and I hope he was able to reunite with Hong Shao in the afterlife

[by-glass-and-waves]

oh dude dude what do you MEAN "sorry guys who are looking for delicious Courtship/Restart goodies" I LOVE DEPRESSION QUEST, and i love the fact that theres someone else out there that has a runaway narinder AU

the idea of a completely power hungry lamb who disregards narinder as a person is so uncommon, i dont think ive actually seen that dynamic played out in a story/hc tbh ??? so i am LIVING for this, it truly is the spice of life

n like letting him runaway n waits for him to come crawling back??? absolutely maliciously delicious content

but nARINDER OH NARINDER angry, break down, self imploding beloved!!! again there isnt enough completely broken down ISOLATED(emotionally) conceded narinders, so many au's have him conceded, but they always including the lamb trying to get him comfortable and okay, never narinder just being tolerated and treated like property or a trophy and i love that fucked up dynamic

i'd really love to know more abt baal and ayms place in the cult too, are they like mini trophies ? or are they just "eh another follower"

either way the idea of narinder self imploding to the point of complete isolation (running away) is such a good idea, im living for it !!! and the idea of a ratoo & narinder friendship from this has consumed my brain greatly, i love that idea i actually had a brain wave pic pop up in my brain, so i'll draw fanart of this AU later bc i adore it

WHOA I was at work and I was like "I got an aaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" oh man I'm glad you really like the idea! I think I did see some fics like this (well not Narinder dips fics)

I will let you know that these qs making me go "wait hm this would fit into the AU better than my original ideas" so please bear with me!! at any rate omg aw thank you for loving these idees maybe I should just masterpost and mark spoilers for whatever comes to mind here also this is gonna be a long answer post pardon me

so spoilers for Depression Quest and Courtship I guess?

also trigger warning: depression, thoughts of self harm, mentions of mental breakdown

So this is me not reading cotl shit in like, literally months in order to try to preserve my headcanonideas like a loser but damn whoaaa I'm happy that you really like this AU

The initial idea actually did have just plain old Lamb being all okay bb i'll be here waiting for you when you ready I won't push you, I'll let you run away and live your life bb just want you to be happy uwu like they did want Narinder to love them back but they were fine with just making him happy and brought back the Bishops and stuff so they could reconcile but as said before, things didn't seem the same for them

Then as Courtship took form I kind of moved those kinds of feelings Lamb had to the new AU and really honestly removed them from the equation because I wanted to focus on Narinder and Getting Over It™ and just living his own fucking life instead

What did remain was Narinder's complete and absolute breakdown when he locks himself into the house they built for him and his eventual escape. Like goddamn, I was like this man needs to break

The amount of broken furniture, crying and screaming onto the floor and bed, throwing items at whoever manages to get into the house, laying down and staring at the ceiling in a catatonic state, etc

I liked the idea of him meeting other people and them remarking on his fallen status or having to hide his identity when interacting or going to public places and it's pretty much how I came up with the Ratoo encounter/friendship

Imagine Kudaai laughing when he requests a scythe and giving him the smallest, lightest one for his weak upper extremities

addendum: like after escaping he does get better like he runs into kudaai and gets scythe at least but he still sucks since his hands/arms more likely to spaz more when he exerts himself too much (aka combat)

Imagine Narinder trying to stay inconspicuous when he goes to Plimbo's stall at the Lighthouse, etc

Once the idea of resurrecting the Bishops came up around the time I started writing Courtship I kind of went, tbh Lamb would only do that to get Narinder back and then that idea of the Lamb just stuck

The Lamb knew where he was the entire time. The Lamb let him think he was finally free from them. The Lamb decided to uproot his life when he thought he finally found peace (by reintroducing his siblings) and from there the Lamb became the kind of famous hero/whatever who would 100% use Narinder as a trophy SO and show them off while he feels awful and drinks every night to cope

i'd really love to know more abt baal and ayms place in the cult too, are they like mini trophies ? or are they just "eh another follower"

So initial idea was that Baal and Aym weren't crazy about it but came around after Lamb invited Forneus for a visit, then they would be like yes Master should see how good Lamb is

Now thinking it over, it could have a good twist to it:

Baal and Aym think that Narinder should come around because Lamb is a good person and his life would improve

In this, his guardians become his jailers. They've become the ones most actively working for his "rehabilitation", and Narinder hates it because he knows it's another way for the Lamb to break him. He's thinking that it's their mortality that made them cave so easily.

Once Narinder makes it out, they want to make their presence known once they find him, but Lamb explicitly commands them not to until they say it's time. So they go and check on him and obvs this is stwess for Narinder since he feels like he's being watched

Still though, Depression Quest is more Narinder-based than Narinder/Lamb relationship-based because it's him trying to live in a new Lamb-ruled world while trying not to show off his shitty power level or something, Lamb didn't really pull up much once he gets out except for really sending Baal and Aym to keep tabs on him and maybe probably when the Bishops are resurrected but even then it's just like... there's still this kind of sad underlying everything.

So fun fact: a few of Courtship's ideas originated in Depression Quest! Such as the shared love for gardening/camellias by Leshy and Narinder, and the relationship/dynamic between Kallamar and Narinder. I don't know why but their relationship felt fucking devastating once I came up with it hence why I think Chapter 9/Kallamar's quest in Courtship has been my favorite to read and write so far.

Courtship and Depression Quest do share quite a few things, so I'm worried I might echo too much of the same shit should I actually come to write it. While writing out this answer I posted an unedited bit on a prototype for Leshy quest and you may see some parallels to the one for Courtship :o

the idea of a ratoo & narinder friendship from this has consumed my brain greatly, i love that idea i actually had a brain wave pic pop up in my brain, so i'll draw fanart of this AU later bc i adore it

pls show me when you done I want it I'm so glad you like it and yes Ratoo and Narinder friendship is one and only

I think there was more but it's like 2am and I have to wake up in like 3 hours and I think I should just do a fucking masterpost on these AUs

[switchbrainedholylime]

In other news, the mun has a mental breakdown

Mental rambling where I spiral into madness. (tw: self-harm, depression, suicidal thoughts) 

As a bisexual woman, despite being cis, I’ve been directly impacted by JK Rowling’s transphobia. 

She’s gone on record saying that “people who menstruate” are only women. Turns out, not all women menstruate; I suffer from amorerrhea (lack of menstruation) due to my chemo regiment to battle my Hogkin’s Lymphoma. Thankfully I’m in remission, but my body never fully recovered from the treatment. I might have a scanty period every 6-8 months, so I’ve lost that connection with other cis women. 

Rowling has ALSO donated to anti-LGBTQ figures like Matt Walsh whose sole purpose is to make the lives of gay people, cis or trans, a living hell. 

So enter Hogwarts: Legacy. It’s doing massively well, despite calls for boycotting from minority advocacy groups. I thought that maybe, just maybe, my generation’s support for LGBTQ rights would be more powerful than their nostalgia. 

It wasn’t. Turns out I and all other LGBTQ+ people are worth less than fictional characters, ink on pages or code on a computer. I have less of an impact on people’s lives than FICTIONAL CHARACTERS. 

I’d matter more if I didn’t exist at all.  

That means that I don’t qualify as a human in the eyes of society. I’m more than an animal, less than a person. 

Despite being published in over 50 literary journals, my specialty is in poetry, which no one cares about nearly as much as fiction. The fiction I have written is awful. I’ll never have half of the success that Rowling has had. I’ll be forgotten after my death. 

I wonder why I even bother sometimes. I only keep going because my family would be devastated if I’m gone. I try to write uplifting messages on my arms instead with pen instead of cutting myself like I tried to in middle school.  

I thought that people cared for strangers. I had hope after we stopped the red wave after the midterms that the tides had turned against bigotry. 

Thanks for proving me wrong, assholes. I guess nothing will ever be more important to you than your goddamn nostalgia. 

I need to see a therapist, but I have Medicaid and no one takes that. The ones who DO are all booked up. 

There are people out there who’re buying MULTIPLE copies of Hogwarts Legacy JUST to screw over the “alphabet soup people”. That’s the equivalent of eating at another homophobic franchise, Chic-fil-A (let’s say a $10 meal) for a week at least. 

Granted, if you eat at Chic-fil-A for a week, homophobia’s not the ONLY problem you’ll be dealing with. 

It’s times like this where I just want Goku to fly down and punch JK Rowling in the fucking face. Dragon Ball’s WAY COOLER than HP anyway. 

Goku, where are you? Why can’t you save us from evil? You can defeat Frieza, you can defeat the TERFs. 

Thanks for listening to me ramble. 

[artpharos]

I doubt she'd ever know that I'm going through antidepressant withdrawals. I doubt she'd even care, even though she's the reason I'm on them in the first place. To date, I've spent $4k in mental health support because of her, I've went through 3 years of constant breakdowns and psychosomatic pains, I FINALLY caught depression after years of her trying to convince me I had it, and now I'm going through antidepressant withdrawals with my brain buzzing every minute and she won't even acknowledge that any of what I feel- my anger, my grief, my heartache- is even REAL.

When she first hurt me 3 years ago she begged for me to stay, then said that all my reasons why I was angry at her for hurting me was because I was depressed. That nobody else in the whole goddamn world spotted said depression because I only trusted her the most. Whenever I asked her why she even wanted me in her life, she said she loved my fics and art, and couldn't put into words why she liked me. That she didn't tell people why she liked them AT ALL in case they stopped taking her seriously if she said it too much. So she never told me WHY she 'loved' me; what she even respected about me, something to actually give me some context for her wanting me in her life after she treated me like shit because 'we were so close so I thought you wouldn't take me snapping at you repeatedly seriously'.

So since she can't fucking tell me ANYTHING and just expects me to fucking read her mind cuz communication is for people who aren't close apparently, I think that's bullcrap and she just wanted me around because she didn't like the feeling of being called out for being an asshole. That she truly only ever cared about what I produced or what I gave to her (art, fics, someone to tell her how SMART she is), and not ME as a person. She didn't want to 'learn' how to deal with me if I really did have ADHD lmao and thought I just need to fucking get over my actual friend that I was supporting daily through their mental health struggles dying. Nevermind that my grandpa and another friend have died since I last spoke to her and I am still fine.

She kept talking about how she missed her friend and how I wasn't her friend. Fair enough, her friend would just roll over and suffer with a smile no matter how many times she hurt her. She kept saying how she wanted us to go back to how things used to be.

Truthfully? I wish she would just. Fucking apologise for hurting me all these years. But that's a pipe dream so frankly I just want her to do the fucking bare minimum and acknowledge my feelings are real. But see, if I tell her about my feelings and it hurts her because its not packaged in a nicely logical way, it's emotional manipulation and I intend to hurt her!! So like. Guess to her, nothing I ever feel is real.

She didn't want me to think of her as a horrible person and I didn't, not even after I finally named my pain. But her choosing to walk away, choosing to say none of this is real hence it can't be her fault- I can't still think of her as anything but horrible.

And she gets off scott free from any consequence while I continue to suffer because of her. It's fucked up.

I'll be fine, though. Withdrawals are nothing compared to the three years she put me through.

I wish she could be a better person. She can't, because she already thinks she's God's gift or something. I still wish; every god damn day.

[kithtaehyung]

Hi Ryen,

I wanted to wait a little after you released Forfeit, but I want to say, firstly, no other writer can literally get me to stop whatever I’m doing to read the latest chapter of a fic 😂 I have zero self control when it comes to 3tan!

So, I was so deeply convinced that bro was Joon….but honestly the way you wrote him in was so cheeky and sweet at the same time, I was kind of glad that he wasn’t. I loved how you kept ticking off each member, it was so suspenseful 😂

I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind me asking (and a few random comments):

At the start with JK and Yoongi thinks “don’t say your name, not with that face. Not with all the stars you saw that one night in your eyes” - is this referring to a moment when Yoongi saw stars? And if so, which moment? 🫠

Girl, the way Yoongi thinks he’s not good enough is painful.

In the kitchen, when reader said she told JK she was seeing someone, and Yoongi asks “Who’re you seeing?” Did he really think she meant someone other than him? Initially I thought “oh he’s teasing her” but then his insecurities seem deep and I was second guessing.

When reader goes to leave, why does Yoongi just sit there for so long. Do you think if she hadn’t stalled and walked out the door, he would have followed?

“What you feel for Yoongi isn’t finite. There’s no shell, no number of pieces. No set definition” shit, she’s deep in love 🥹 I truly can’t wait for them to confess to each other.

Yoongi crying was enough to end me. I would love to know more of his backstory as to why he is the way he is (and who hurt him 😡). The way reader is slowly cracking him open is so interesting.

The sex - girl I can’t even get into it because I’ll have a mental breakdown at how hot it is. I’m living for the “one day” 👅👅👅

Whenever Yoongi says “my girl”, and “relax, baby” goddamn 💦💦💦

The spit. Holy fuck, I’m not even into it. But I was ✨into it✨

The dirty talk…I am 🌀 at this point.

The “where’s my hi” at the party. Fuck, the way reader keeps her cool like this sexy demon wasn’t plowing her into another dimension days ago 😂😂😂😂😂

Also, I was rereading Dalo and the moment when reader and Yoongi have sex, and hes holding her and says “you’re so beautiful”….for me, it makes my heart stop every time and I feel like this is his first real time being vulnerable with her. I feel like this is one of the moments when he really realised that he’s got deep feelings.

I’m so sorry, that was a lot longer and more random than I had intended. I love your writing so much Ryen, you are a gift to all of us 🫶🏼

🐨

koala i adore you. so much. UGH. full response under the cut bc i have a lot to say!

I wanted to wait a little after you released Forfeit, but I want to say, firstly, no other writer can literally get me to stop whatever I’m doing to read the latest chapter of a fic 😂 I have zero self control when it comes to 3tan!

DSFKDS this made me blush so damn hard!! i'm honored you feel that way and it's still surreal to me that this can happen with something i wrote.. like no joke. turns out i also have zero self control when it comes to it😂

So, I was so deeply convinced that bro was Joon….but honestly the way you wrote him in was so cheeky and sweet at the same time, I was kind of glad that he wasn’t. I loved how you kept ticking off each member, it was so suspenseful 😂

AWHHH this is good feedback, as well! i'm glad you're ok with the direction and i really couldn't wait for y'all to get to the actual reveal of it being none of the members. now you can imagine whomever yoy want<3

I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind me asking (and a few random comments): At the start with JK and Yoongi thinks “don’t say your name, not with that face. Not with all the stars you saw that one night in your eyes” - is this referring to a moment when Yoongi saw stars? And if so, which moment? 🫠

OH so this was referring to sidewalk talk, when reader and yoongi were on the playground. we read it from reader's pov about looking up at the stars before seeing yoongi in front of them<33 yoongi's just seeing it from his perspective here.

Girl, the way Yoongi thinks he’s not good enough is painful.

agreed..... hard agree.

In the kitchen, when reader said she told JK she was seeing someone, and Yoongi asks “Who’re you seeing?” Did he really think she meant someone other than him? Initially I thought “oh he’s teasing her” but then his insecurities seem deep and I was second guessing.

yeah, still water runs deep when it comes to him. based on his thought processes in dal segno, he doesn't think he's good enough for reader and he literally doesn't see a possibility of them being a thing. :(( it's truly heartbreaking bc he would literally do anything for this person..

When reader goes to leave, why does Yoongi just sit there for so long. Do you think if she hadn’t stalled and walked out the door, he would have followed?

this is gonna hurt, but i don't think so. and i'd also like to think that he would massively regret that.

“What you feel for Yoongi isn’t finite. There’s no shell, no number of pieces. No set definition” shit, she’s deep in love 🥹 I truly can’t wait for them to confess to each other.

GOD this whole part broke me down into millions of pieces and i couldn't think straight for like a week.

Yoongi crying was enough to end me. I would love to know more of his backstory as to why he is the way he is (and who hurt him 😡). The way reader is slowly cracking him open is so interesting.

yes! a lot of y'all wanna know about yoongi's past and i totally get that. i just didn't wanna unveil everything at once, you know? we're gonna keep getting stuff revealed in due time, though. the slow burn also comes with slow reveals, so i hope you're here for the ride<3

The sex - girl I can’t even get into it because I’ll have a mental breakdown at how hot it is. I’m living for the “one day” 👅👅 Whenever Yoongi says “my girl”, and “relax, baby” goddamn 💦💦💦 The spit. Holy fuck, I’m not even into it. But I was ✨into it✨ The dirty talk…I am 🌀 at this point.

i roped all of these together just so i could SCREAMMMM FCK I KNOW I KNOW LIKE WTF. the my girl, the relax, the sPIT, the FILTH. and he says later in flutter that he was going easy? nope goodbye i'm done lmfaoooooooofckooooo

The “where’s my hi” at the party. Fuck, the way reader keeps her cool like this sexy demon wasn’t plowing her into another dimension days ago 😂😂😂😂😂

HAHAHAHA STOP I CHOKED

Also, I was rereading Dalo and the moment when reader and Yoongi have sex, and hes holding her and says “you’re so beautiful”….for me, it makes my heart stop every time and I feel like this is his first real time being vulnerable with her. I feel like this is one of the moments when he really realised that he’s got deep feelings.

oh, gosh.. this part. i'm so glad you brought it up because you are so right. spot on. we've seen lots of him in the bedroom but this is truly the first time we see him stop just to say something so soft and intimate and unprompted. he knew how vulnerable reader was in the moment, so to join her in that space? that is the 3tan yoongi i know and cherish.

I’m so sorry, that was a lot longer and more random than I had intended. I love your writing so much Ryen, you are a gift to all of us 🫶🏼

i love it all, koala. thank you for your insights and commentary and all the lovely things! i'm so sorry it took this long but i finally got to provide you with a worthy reply<33 so here i am! you're a gift to me, too. truly.

[bloominginsanity]

My dad was able to explain fear and how to work through it so well that I apparently rationalized and created my own coping mechanisms for my OCD and didn't realize I actually had the disorder until I was 30.

No one can touch my room. I sound like a teenager saying this and in college I didn't actually care, but in my teenage years and when living in certain unsafe homes, I would have a goddamn break down if this was not listened to.

My life was high stress at one point, like HIGH STRESS. My brain redirected this to having utter and complete control of my room. One day, while I was at camp, my mom moved a stack of games from one shelf to another because she thought it would look nice. I came back, saw the change, and broke down sobbing, curled in a ball on my floor for twenty minutes. I had to move it back. I then moved it again to the same location later because she was right. It looked better that way. The problem was that I had to be the one to do it.

I knew it would change when I left home and I was right. I didn't care as much. The stress and the danger was gone from my life for the most part so the coping went away too. Fast forward to when I'm 30 and I move back into a high stress environment. My mom borrowed my sewing kit BY ACCIDENT. I was helping her with a craft project and apparently put it in the bag for her to take to work with her. She got back, unloaded it, and I found the kit. Out of order. It was a pretty raggedy thing in a ten-year-old plastic Ziploc with safety scissors and scraps of cloth. I had duct tape on the bag to cover the holes in it. But: The needles were out of order. The scissors were in the needle and stray-thread tin. There was a stray, white thread just floating around.

I stared. I hadn't had a breakdown in ten years. I told myself it was fine. I tapped my fingers on the table. Made a weird noise. Finally muffled a scream. Slammed my fist on the table to get the feeling of STRESS out. It didn't work. My brother asked what was wrong and I told him nothing because I KNEW it wasn't serious. I ended up in a ball on the floor trying not to sob as I told myself it didn't matter.

My mom apologized to me when she found me and I told her she didn't need to and that it wasn't her fault because I knew it wasn't. I was likely the one that had put it in there. I was still crying. It took me FIFTEEN minutes to be able to even look at it and fix it. I tried around ten minutes and I had to look away and stamp my feet to get the horrible feeling out and not cry. I was antsy for the next hour even after I fixed it. It doesn't even bother me to think about it now, four days later, but at the time I wanted to dig my nails into my own skin and make myself bleed just to distract myself from the feeling.

It was just a slightly messy sewing kit.

I never show signs otherwise. I check for my wallet, phone, and keys when I'm out several times but that's not all that odd. I've lost things before and am an expert at finding them. I guess I wash my hands a lot but I have dogs and I don't like getting sick. That's it.

My dad taught me that the repeating voice in my head that tells me everyone finds me annoying isn't real and that if you don't try that you'll never even know otherwise. He taught me how to identify what the fear looked like and what it was and how to call it a liar. Once I knew what to call it and what it was, I knew it was never who *I* was. It was normal to be scared and if other people could fight it then so could I.

[He taught me a lot actually. He taught me how to recognize social queues and what they meant. I got shouted at a lot as a child for not being able to react to them properly even if I saw them. Pretty sure the man is ND in some way and just found a super positive way to cope, which he passed down to me.]

I am still not normal, likely never will be, but I've been told so many times that no one would ever guess that I suppose I slot right in here. I didn't know it was actually called OCD until I was 30 and talking to another friend that had been diagnosed and thought 'that... sounds familiar.'

fuck it. shout out to "high functioning" neurodivergents

the ones who can mask easily, the ones who can get social cues, the ones who have managed to go most of their life not even knowing they were ND because they didn't present as the stereotypical ND person.

the ones who can pay attention in class, understand social etiquette, who understand societial expectations

the ones who don't feel neurodivergent enough bc they don't struggle in the same ways/areas a lot of NDs do, or they can't relate to other NDs' experiences because they always understood these things easily

the ones with high empathy, the ones who DO get the joke, the ones who are constantly told that they can't possibly be neurodivergent because they don't act like what you'd expect a neurodivergent person to act like.

you are neurodivergent enough. you are valid, and so are your experiences. not struggling as much as others do in some places doesn't mean you dont struggle at all. your condition and diagnosis is valid. your symptoms are valid. YOU ARE VALID. not checking all the supposed boxes doesn't mean you aren't neurodivergent. you are enough. you are valid. you are loved. you are valued. you matter. you belong in neurodivergent spaces, you deserve to use whatever resources are available to you, you are allowed to take up space in these communities. and i am so, so proud of you.

feel free to, and actually, i encourage you to reblog this with your experiences. we belong in this community as much as anyone else. please also tag this w/ any neurodivergent conditions i may have forgotten 💙

since this is getting lots of notes I'd like to add, even if you're undiagnosed or maybe self diagnosed, for whatever reason, (i.e. can't get access to a diagnosis, not being taken seriously, or just not wanting an official diagnosis, etc.) this still applies to you. actually especially to you folks. don't think for a second you're not valid just bc you don't have the paperwork or whatever to say it

[espoopee]

Strangely back to my pre-pandemic personality

It's been a month and unfortunately Tumblr isn't where I find myself hanging out frequently, but at least this is still my emotional and mental refuge, I guess.

So...

Ever since I broke up with my ex, I've been in a weird space where because I don't really have an outlet for affection and romantic urges, I tend to get frustrated and get very distracted. I understand that I now have some sort of freedom to go date whoever I want; that being said I'm reminded of my pre-pandemic romantic struggles of being attracted to a lot of guys, but not finding a lot of guys attracted to me. It's not really that big of an issue, but I do get irked at this really familiar feeling that I once thought I'd be over and beyond it.

As much as being attracted to lots of guys is very fun and honestly motivating to go dating, having this constant communication with one guy is very confusing, and not where I want myself to be at mentally.

Soooooo... storytime!

I met this one guy while playing Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. He caught my attention with his funny username (BigDickDaddy) and the fact that we were using the same weapon. Following our interaction, I decided to add him as a Steam friend because at the time, I was just adding people who were willing to talk and banter while playing. I didn't really care who they were, I just needed some fun people to play with.

We hit it off pretty well. He started playing later than I did, so I decided to help him out with grinds and missions. In the meantime, we started getting to know each other better. I wasn't really all that interested in him personally, but as we talked, it seemed clear that he was looking for a friend to play with as well. I figured, why not, let's be friends.

This went on for 2 or 3 more weeks of just consistently playing and hitting each other up when we felt like it. I started learning more about him, like that he has a girlfriend... Not that I cared at first. I did start feeling some type of way when he started showing me more attention, I suppose. We'd play for hours. I think it caught the attention of his girlfriend, who found it strange that we would always play, yet we don't really know each other. He said, "she asked why we play so much but we're not even Facebook friends."

So, I said to him that he can add me if he wants. I gave him my Facebook, and when I received his friend request, well... I was stunned. I saw his profile picture, and he was hella cute. I almost had a breakdown because I was afraid of this happening. I didn't want another unattainable attraction to another guy. But, as it happened so many times in my life already, it was inevitable. I knew from that point on that I could only control how I would act around him if I knew that I had no chance whatsoever. That being said, I figured there wouldn't be any harm in getting to know him some more if at least I can a friend in him...

We've had some really interesting conversations about ourselves, and what we do. It's kinda bizarre how I managed to hold his attention for so long. Now, it's slowed down a little bit. On one hand, I'm kinda thankful that I can have a little bit of distance and learn to focus on myself... but another part of me hates that and craves his attention so bad, particularly because I haven't yet learned to be content with myself as a single person, desperately craving affection that had been abandoned by my ex.

I'm honestly stuck in a peculiar situation that, from what comments on Reels on Instagram are saying (from those weird breakup-related videos), I'm not totally alone in feeling this way, but the introduction of this guy certainly adds new obstacles that I wasn't fully prepared for.

At the very least, I just don't want to jeopardize anything we have, what little of it, just because I find myself attracted to him. But... goddamn, it sucks. The real real real honesty from me is that I wanna be with him, I wanna go on a date with him, I wanna get to know him bone-deep, and I'm absolutely afraid that all of these desires are just gonna end up being unfulfilled fantasies and regrets I'll be carrying 'til the day I die. If anything, I'm already carrying some from previous experiences.

[sleepyivoryrose]

Tomorrow I'm visiting my mom at the hospital...I am pretty nervous. I normally don't travel alone, or travel at all, so I'm kinda scared I might get lost, even with a plan of how the train and the bus drive. Last time I travelled last year I came back only to find train strikes. I normally would have to travel 2 hours until I get home, but thank god one of my caretakers got me with their car from the station. I don't think they will do that again though, since they strictly mentioned it was an exception.

Also, even if I manage to travel safely to the hospital, I still have to ask for my mother at the reception, and my crippling social anxiety doesn't make that exactly easy.

And then, after I managed to travel safely and overcome my fears, I still am afraid of what state I might find my mom in. They told me she couldnt eat food for a while, and knowing her, she's been struggling with eating before she came to the hospital. Also, she's sort of a shut in? So I can imagine that she's scared out of her wits with so many unknown people. She hates hospitals and doctors too...I hope i can ease her mind a little bit, I'm sure my dad and my brother did a great job at that too.

The things you do for love, right?

I'm sure everything is going to turn out fine.

At least I hope so.

----------

On the other hand, I'm worried about the pooky (aka my cinammon roll friend), and how the pooky is feeling physically and emotionally worse by the day. Honestly? I am already proud of her she came this far. I sure would have had a mental breakdown...no, several in her position. She's really strong...I admire her from the bottom of my heart.

I don't know how much longer she can handle this though. I'm worried sick about her.

----

Nobody is doing necessarily great in my environment. That's life for ya. I wish I could do more, something, anything...this feeling of helplessness is driving me nuts (or even more nuts than I probably already am). I guess the only thing I can do is be there for them, listening, and hoping.

----

Did something good happen last days though? Aside from my usual fangirling, not really, I'm afraid. Life goes slowly by, uneventful and peaceful, and I wouldn't want it any other way. I do wish I could live alone in an appartment though, but I know it's not possible, since complete isolation could worsen my condition really quickly. But it would be nice to have some more privacy.

One of my caretakers is still trying to convince me to get into a workshop for the mentally ill, and I was already there, and it was goddamn awful, because the boss treats his sick and (by the way, working for less than minimum wage) workers like shit, since he has no patience for us. And of course, most people who work there are in a worse condition than I am, so they keep trying to make conversation, even though I told them I just want to work in peace.

Yeah...on the other hand; I can't have a "real" job, because I didn't work for over 10 years already, and I'm sure nobody wants to take someone who sits on their ass all day. My future looks bleak.

AAAAAHHH I'm spiraling down again. Positive thoughts! Positivity!

I'm going to do something with my favorite character designs. Probably something with pokemon, since their outfits are really flashy. Maybe work on one of the animal crossing islands.

I can do this, definitly.

I will be creative today, and tomorrow will be tomorrow. No use of thinking of another day than today.

[eddiestightywhities]

well eddie did have (another) breakdown not too long ago and his only son did leave him for his evil biological parents that he's been desperately trying to keep away from his precious boy for roundabout forever which means he had to grow a crisis stache that is really fckn gay bc he's a big fat closet homo who's work husband slash best friend slash love of his goddamn life has just come out as bisexual and got himself into a relationship with eddie's new sparring buddy that he now can't possibly keep sparring with bc it'd be waaaaaay too gay so yeah, guess it was just eddie's turn to get a nepo boost from his loving fire-dad!

eddie did one thing this whole episode other than looking pretty and it was putting out a single fire which buck also did on top of stopping the entire highway and starting the rescue when the plane landed but only eddie got a "good job." bobby really said eddie wins the nepo baby olympics today