#i could write a whole essay on the emotional significance of them

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

don’t even speak to me about all the little moments like this where you catch hints of miles’s accent having integrated itself into alex’s voice. just. don’t even speak to me.

[sortagaysortahigh]

Operation Exemies to Lovers | Cregan Stark

A/N: Now yall know i have not written and finished a fic in a hot minute so sorry if this reads a bit wonky. Yk I'm an enemies to lovers and exes to lovers girl, so why not combine them both into a modern!cregan stark fic? Also, this is dialogue heavy as that's kind of my thing, if it's not yours, welpt keep scrolling boo I aint mad!. I also fixed the inc*st family tree so you'll see that in this as well (i'll prob keep it for future modern AUs). Anyways lmk what you think and enjoy! Also, I suck at summaries so I pull quotes from my fics, sorry not sorry pookies

Summary: “So y’know those sappy novels Hel’s always reading, anyways I asked her about them and she had one where the two main characters were like totally at ends with each other but their friends were like ‘nah they should be smashing’ so we think, based on our research and our scholarly source-Helaena, we should force them to be around each other until they finally talk it out! Or well, y’know-f*ck it out”

Warnings: cussing, spelling and grammar errors (sue me!), kissing, mentions of smut/allusions to smut but no smut, arguing, Alyssane Blackwood slander (sorry girl), somewhat mean!reader, this is an AU where Aegon's not a bad guy!!!! just a clown <3, mentions of an ill parent, Baela be hitting Aegon (he earned it!), Aemond is still missing an eye sorry to the Aemond girls

Word Count: 6.4k (period I stuck to keeping it short and sweet)

Modern!Cregan Stark x Fem!Reader

“He’s staring at you again” you scoffed, rolling your eyes, doing your best to focus on highlighting the passages about the few Westerosi Civil Wars that had happened centuries ago. It was already difficult enough to focus in the crowded library, midterms were killing everyone. 

It wasn’t a shock for the once quiet and almost empty library to be packed, especially with student athletes who were desperately catching up on their studies in attempts to pass all of their midterms, write endless essays, and practically beg their professors for extra credit via email. 

You should’ve been able to focus on the task at hand, studying with your best friends Baela and Rhaena for your upcoming history midterm, the exam itself would focus heavily on the several majors wars that shaped westerosi society as a whole, and would even include the transition from government leadership as a monarchy into a democracy. 

Hell you’d even have to describe what was once known as the ‘Iron Throne’ and its historical significance. Truthfully the large metal hunk of junk was now sitting in the King’s Landing Red Keep Memorial Museum.

Usually the library was the easiest place for the three of you to study, it wasn’t as loud as your fourth floor flat in one of the student apartment buildings off campus, it was usually pretty clean and well kept, plus every resource you could possibly need was somewhere within the large building. 

However today, your usually comfortable red leather-lined chair felt stiff and was making you hot, not to mention the lack of air flow and increased temperature due to the amount of body heat on each floor, then the lights were either too bright or too dim, and all you wanted to do was slam the books shut, grab your laptop and leave.

“Let him stare.” you muttered as you tried to keep your gaze on the text in front of you, however it was getting increasingly difficult as a very specific pair of eyes were practically burning a hole into your side. 

Gods, he was so obnoxious.

“I don’t think it’s healthy for you to hold onto the grudge against him, of course he totally earned it! I’m not downplaying your emotions but anytime he’s around you stiffen up like a virgin afraid of dick” your jaw dropped at Baela’s words, now staring at her, brows furrowed in shock.

“Baela! You can’t say things like that” Rhaena almost immediately swatted at her sister’s arm, shaking her head before tucking one of her loose locks behind her ear. “You really take after father sometimes.” 

Baela simply shrugged, glancing back at the two tables that were usually empty, now they were filled with six of the school’s hockey players, all spread apart with a plethora of books, laptops, pens, and notepads covering the tables. That’s also not counting all of their bags laying on the floor besides their chairs. 

“I get that you two broke up on not so good terms, but you should be showing him that you don’t care about him! Not that he makes you so angry you’re about to explode like a bomb in Mario Party”.

With that Baela turned her gaze back to her laptop, however at the sound of several texts chiming in at once to both Baela and Rhaena’s phones, you knew that their cousins had texted them once again. It made sense that they’d all shared a group chat, especially considering how close in age they were, and how large the Targaryen/Hightower/Velaryon family was. 

Of course the first time Baela had broken down their family tree you were incredibly confused. Her mother Laena Velaryon was married to Daemon Targaryen, who happened to be the uncle to her cousins Jace, Luke, and Joffrey’s mother Rhaenyra. 

Now, Rhaenyra was married to Dr. Strong (or just Harwin as he’d asked you to call him once at a family gathering you’d been invited to, to which you quickly declined as he was your Literature professor), but based on the Targaryen’s political status within Westeros, their sons took their mother’s last name, not their father. 

Then comes Aegon and Aemond, now truthfully you’d met Aegon your second week of classes a few years ago when he’d caught you off guard, asked for your number, then got mad when you’d ghosted him after finding out he had a girlfriend! (Shame on him, truly). But you actually ended up being pretty good friends with the goof. 

Anyways, Aegon and Aemond were the children of Rhaenyra’s best friend, and now sister-in-law Alicent Hightower who married Rhaenyra’s only brother Baelon Targaryen. 

It’s also important to remember that throughout this entire family tree, which was in fact drawn out on construction paper for you, Alicent and Baelon also had two other children, Daeron and Halaena, both of them attending Sunspear University together. Then of course Rhaenyra and Dr.Strong (Harwin), have two much smaller sons, Aegon and Viserys, which was even more confusing considering you’d already met an Aegon.

Rhaena and Baela shared a look, and it was a look that worried you, so of course instead of being rational and brushing it off, you clenched your jaw as you slowly turned around, making eye contact with none other than your ex-boyfriend who’d been leaning his head against his hand and staring at you with what could only be described as a mournful lovesick expression.

You rolled your eyes, quickly turning back around before anyone else would look at you and do something that would probably piss you off. 

It also didn’t help that the cousins texting Baela and Rhaena were also seated at the table with your ex boyfriend. 

“Jace said that Cregan wants to talk to you but you blocked him, I don’t think you want to know what Aegon said, but it involved an eggplant emoji and a bed” you rolled your eyes, letting out a deep sigh while sitting up straight and shaking your head.

“He’s apologized a million times and has yet to tell me why he decided to go out of his way to not only break things off with me and tell me he still loved me in the same damn sentence, then go out the same night and end up on Aegon-Aegon of all people’s instagram story sucking face with that Blackwood bitch while she was on his lap.” 

You let out a cynical laugh of sorts, rolling your eyes once again. 

“Tell Cregan Stark that I’d rather fuck Aegon after one of his alley-way vomit sprees than ever talk to him again” however, before you could focus back on your studies, an amused laugh came from behind you before the chair next to you was pulled out, only for you to meet the gaze of Aegon Targaryen himself, a lopsided smile on his face with his brows wiggling in a playful suggestive manner.

“Well if I knew the easiest way to get you into my bed was to go drinking until I’m sick then I would’ve invited you out sooner baby” with that he leaned closer while making kissing noises, only to be met with your hand shoving his face away.

“Aeg, for the last time, she doesn’t want you like that” he feigned hurt at Rhaena, sliding back into the chair with his hand over his heart. 

“You wound me dear cousin! You wound me!” then he sat up straight, now looking back at you “so I was sent over here as a trusted messenger. My boy back there, you know him quite well, if y’know what I mean-” he wiggled his eyebrows up and down again, then you shoved him “-anyways, Cregan has been like all sulky and heartbroken and he really misses you. And he doesn’t want anything to do with Alysanne! She came onto him!, so can you give him another shot?”

With that you simply shook your head, quickly packing your things up while scoffing. 

“Tell your “boy back there”-” you spoke with air quotations “-that if he really gave a fuck about me, he shouldn’t have dumped me after two years for no god damn reason, then fucked that Blackwood bitch-who by the way is a fucking whore!” 

Your outburst was met with the looks of many, Rhaena quickly clearing her throat watching as you packed your things away. “What she means to say is, she doesn’t want to talk to him. I think it’s too fresh still”

Aegon scoffed “it’s been four months people! Four months! The summer ended, it’s a new semester, I think she can talk to him now” he glanced around the table, eyes widening as he watched Baela grasp quite the hefty textbook while glaring at him.

“Baela don’t hit me! I’m just saying! Listen-” but before he could finish you’d already gotten up and mumbled that you’d see them at home while you walked away.

Aegon paused, watching as you walked away, blatantly checking you out for a few moments, then you’d disappeared. He then turned around and motioned for someone to come to the table, this is what led both Jace and Luke to walk across the room and now sit where you were sitting and in the last empty seat of the table.

“Listen, we’re all tired of being caught in the middle of this awkward divorce alright. So we came up with a plan!” Baela shook her head while Rhaena sighed slightly.

“No offense Aeg, but your plans are always horrible, need I remind you of Aemond’s missing eyeball?” Luke winced slightly, remembering the day he’d accidentally hit Aemond in the eye with a firewood poker when swinging it behind him.

Truthfully, Luke had no idea Aemond had entered the room when he and Aegon were ‘dueling’ one another, however he’d felt his poker hit something, and he heard Aemond’s loud scream of pain. 

They’d all been kids when that happened, and to make it worse it occurred on their grandfather’s birthday when everyone had traveled to King’s Landing for a large birthday dinner/family holiday.

“She’s got a point there Aegon, but-guys-we all came up with the idea together!” Luke placed his hands on the shoulder of his cousin and his brother, smiling widely while Baela and Rhaena both shook their heads in disappointment.

“Okay, you win, but if the idea is bad, Baela’s going to smack Aegon with that textbook, so pray it’s not bad” they all nodded, Aegon scooting back slightly.

“So y’know those sappy novels Hel’s always reading, anyways I asked her about them and she had one where the two main characters were like totally at ends with each other but their friends were like ‘nah they should be smashing’ so we think, based on our research and our scholarly source-Helaena, we should force them to be around each other until they finally talk it out! Or well, y’know-fuck it out”

He paused to take a quick breath “But we can’t let them in on the plan, otherwise Cregan’s gonna be all like ‘oh my god no she hates me, the love of my life hates me I can’t torture her, blah blah blah, I’m so nice and honorable, blah blah’ and she’s gonna be like ‘fuck that, I’ll kill him for fucking that Blackwood bitch and dumping me for no god damn reason’. Also I don’t think he ever fucked Alysanne-but I did-niether here nor there though!” 

Jace and Luke looked at Baela and Rhaena as if they were waiting to be yelled at by their mother, meanwhile Aegon smiled and nodded after his long winded explanation.

Rhaena spoke first “y’know honestly, your impression of her is pretty spot on.” Baela nodded her head in agreement before adding in “but if this doesn’t work, and she finds out, she’ll want to kill all of you and Cregan. I’m sure you all have realized being on her shit list isn’t exactly the best”

Jace nodded, glancing back at Cregan who was finally focusing on his statistics work with a stoic expression on his face. “Listen, if it doesn’t work and she kicks our asses that’s fine, but we at least have to try! I mean come on Rhae you told me that she cries over him still! And he’s no better. There might not be tears but he’s so long winded and mopey”

He then sighed, patting Luke on the back “I think this is our best shot. I mean c’mon they’re some of your guys' closest friends, and Winterfell over there’s my best friend that I’m not related to-oddly enough they’re pretty rare these days. They used to be so happy together! Now look at them both”

Baela sighed, nodding her head as she finally set the books in her hands down “she’s definitely not really herself anymore. Maybe if it doesn’t work, then at least they’ll both get closure from their relationship”.

Aegon smiled, nodding rapidly again “see! You guys get it!. Also don’t tell Aemond either, y’know he’s too ‘I’ve got a stick up my ass’ sometimes. We can call it operation-uh what’s the book trope that Helaena called it again-one second everyone!” he paused, grabbing his phone from his pocket before quickly calling his sister.

“Hey Hel, yeah yeah I’m good, what did you call that book again! The one where they were like forced to be around eachother then fuck it out and get married and shit?” 

Several hundred miles away, Helaena was grasping her nose bridge as she let out a deep sigh, her brother truly was a character.

“Oh-okay! Got it-thanks so much Hel, love you too! Give Daeron my love and remind him to wrap it up with those Dornish baddies!” with that he hung up the phone before meeting Baela’s disgusted glare.

“You’re so gross, Aeg. And stop saying the word baddies-you sound so cringey!” he simply shrugged at her.

“Anyways, now that we’re done being rude and judgemental to our baddie eldest cousin who’s super smart, funny, and beautiful, we’ll call it operation enemies to lovers!” 

Rhaena raised a brow “wouldn’t it actually be exes to lovers? Since they’re exes? I guess they might also be enemies based on the way she wants to wring his neck-and not how she used to-” with that her eyes widened as she slapped a hand over her mouth.

Jace sighed “don’t worry Rhae, we already know about the shit he let her do to him. Young love, what can I say” 

Aegon nodded his head, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively once again, then he slightly elbowed Luke, who met his gaze with a laugh before they both spoke in unison “kinky innit”.

“Anyways-are we doing this or not? I’ve got a history midterm to study for and you three are interrupting it, and it’s bad enough that Aegon already made the smartest person we know leave” It was clear that Baela was losing her patience.

“Oh come on Bales! Y’know if you’re still interested I can set you up with ol Benji over there, heard he’s a freak in the she-” there it was, the book smacking him in the face “-ow Baela! Jesus! You’re just like your dad! Mean and ever so beautiful to look at” he winked.

“Gross man, she’s our cousin!” he shrugged “didn’t stop our ancestors, okay fine-fine! I didn’t mean it okay! Shit. you all are so violent. The blood of the dragon I guess”.

-

Three days have passed and the TarVelTower group chat had been in constant communication about ‘operation exemies to lovers’ with the additional confused replies from those that were not present in the library that day.

They were planning a game night, it was something they’d all done in the past, inviting their other friends to come along as well for drinks and a night of utter tomfoolery. Baela and Rhaena had done everything but swear on the Old Gods themselves that Cregan wouldn’t be there, meanwhile Jace, Luke, and Aegon had to practically beg Cregan to come to Jace’s for the game night.

It was also a plus that most of them lived in the same building. Dragonstone University wasn’t that large, not compared to other schools such as Sunspear, Driftmark, or even Harrenhall-although it was rumored that Harrenhal U was in fact haunted, that’s probably what brought so many to the school in the first place.

Baela and Rhaena had to drag you out of your bed after your post-class nap and usher you into the shower, stating that you ‘stunk of outside’, which was rather rude considering your only classes today were virtual. 

They’d mentioned the game night several times, and each time you asked if Cregan would be there, they’d said no, which you found a bit odd considering Jace was literally his best friend and probably closest confidant. Maybe his father had come down from Winterfell again, but you were thankful that he wouldn’t be present to ruin your mood.

All you had to do was take the elevator up two floors, so all you did was shower and throw on a pair of sweats and one of Aegon’s many discarded team sweatshirts. It had his number on it and even after washing it what felt like a million times, it still smelled like his overly strong cologne that he claimed ‘the ladies love’.

He’d also told you that maybe you were an ogre for not loving it, which of course even further solidified your friendship with the moron (lovingly).

You took time to braid your hair, knowing that you’d probably wake up hungover without a want or a need to brush it, so this was just easier. Then you’d foregone makeup, knowing you truly didn’t care how people saw you, especially not your friends. 

Of course the one thing you’d always contemplated wearing sat on your desk, the thin gold chain adorned with a small charm in the shape of a howling wolf. It was as if it sat mocking you because almost everyday you’d stare at it while getting ready.

You’d worn it everyday for a year after Cregan gifted it to you. He randomly showed up at your door one day, slightly out of breath, a wide smile on his face with his disheveled hair pulled back. One hand rubbed against his short beard, while the other held a small black gift bag. He looked as if he’d run here, then was contemplating the decision to run in the first place.

Then he’d kissed you gently, a smile you rarely wore now, adorned your face then.

When you invited him in, he was quick to follow, shutting and locking your door behind him while you made your way to the small kitchen, grabbing him something to drink as he caught his breath.

Then as you spun around to hand him the drink, he held the bag out for you, practically forcing you to open it (it wasn’t forceful at all, rather when you declined opening it immediately, he didn’t hesitate to place the strings of the bag between his teeth before picking you up, then plopping you down onto the couch, soft giggles leaving your lips when he climbed right on top of you.).

You remembered him watching as you opened it, he held himself up overtop you, while you easily pulled the small jewelry box out of the packaging, then when you opened it he looked almost nervous, as if you wouldn’t like it.

But you’d kissed him, pulling him down into your lips, thanking him between rushed kisses. 

You shook your head, snapping yourself out of it before grasping the necklace and shoving it into one of your desk drawers. Out of sight, out of mind, you’d tell yourself-until you’d go looking for a pen and see it again.

Rhaena’s voice knocked you out of your thoughts completely, she stood in your doorframe, her posture a little too straight, which would’ve normally thrown you off, but you couldn’t focus on that, not when you were trying to shake off the feeling of heartbreak.

“You ready? I’ve got the snacks already packed to bring up, you’ve just got to grab our blankets. Baela’s already there helping set up. Aeg said he’d give her twenty bucks if she’d actually arrive earlier than him for once” you laughed at that, shaking your head slightly.

It was no secret that Aegon and Baela were incredibly competitive, and as cousins, they had what could only be described as a sibling rivalry, always trying to one up one another when they could, and making stupid bets over random things.

You actually liked that they were all so close, when you’d befriended Rhaena, you never thought that she and her sister would come with a large family that would welcome you in with open arms.

“Yeah, just, let me-um-get my shoes, yeah my shoes. Sorry” you were mumbling and stuttering as you walked to the shoe rack beside your door, slipping your feet into your fuzzy slippers before following Rhaena to the living room, grasping the small pile of throw blankets before the both of you left your apartment. She was quick to lock the door, then you both headed upstairs.

You were still technically early when you arrived, and as you entered the apartment Aegon was handing Baela a $20 bill, while she smirked. Luke was laying on one of the couches on his phone, Jace was putting drinks in the fridge with the help of Benji who honestly looked happy to be there. Meanwhile Aemond sat reading whatever random philosophical book he’d chosen for the week, and to your surprise, Helaena was pulling what smelled like cookies out of the oven.

“Hel! You’re here!” she smiled when she saw you, placing the tray down before meeting your embrace. “Yea, I actually was visiting my parents and Aegon picked me up earlier.” you smiled at that, you enjoyed her company, even if it was a rare occurrence. 

By the time everyone was settled in, around forty-five minutes had passed, and everything was nice. For the first time in a while you weren’t on edge, which was definitely noticeable, and you’d actually managed to relax into the large bean bag below you. Even if it did remind you of a certain someone.

Then, it was as if you’d summoned the asshole himself.

Jace was quick to shoot up and walk to the door, glancing at his phone nervously. Then he opened the door, nervously laughing for a few moments.

Then you spotted him. Not before Aegon, who was already tipsy, had managed to shoot up from his spot on the ground “Cregan! Glad you could make it man!”.

Baela and Rhaena watched as you let out a deep sigh, it was clear you didn’t want to ruin the night, so you simply turned to face away from the door, burying yourself further into the bean bag, covering yourself in the throw blanket as much as you could.

It’s important to mention that the bean bag happened to be big enough for two people, and for a long time, it’s where you would sit with Cregan, well technically, given his size, you’d be cuddled up together, and now, as his gaze found you ignoring him on that bean bag, the gloomy cloud that followed him around had resurfaced.’

After a few tense moments of silence, everyone commenced what they were doing.

Aegon, still standing, held up a deck of cards.

“For today’s game night we’re gonna need to partner up! Rhaena, you’re with me tonight! I need your smarticle particles!” you blinked slowly, Rhaena was usually your partner. Then you sat in silence as you watched everyone partner up.

Baela was shoved into Benji-literally shoved by Aegon. 

Aemond chose Luke as he stated their team needed “balance”, which actually made a lot of sense considering Aemond was always somewhat brooding, and Luke was a ray of sunshine.

Jace glanced between Helaena and Cregan, but when Baela shot him a pointed look-missed completely by you-he chose Helaena.

Which of course left you with the one person you wanted nothing to do with.

Rhaena tried breaking the ice, watching as Cregan awkwardly sat in the armchair beside the beanbag. “It looks like our old winning team is back together!” you were the first to scoff.

“Hey! They used to cheat!” you couldn’t stop yourself from responding to Aegon “actually he waited until we broke up for that”. As you spoke, everyone’s eyes widened, meanwhile you remained in your spot, staring at your phone, mindlessly scrolling through instagram.

However, as good of a guy that Cregan Stark is, you were the only person that was ever able to bring a different side out of him. You two rarely fought, but when you did, it was almost catastrophic and usually ended in very rough sex, or a heartwarming apology after ignoring one another for a few days. 

But you’d never broken up, you both took time to cool off in whatever way you needed.

Things are different now.

“For the last time, she came onto me! I’ve told you this thousands of times!” As he raised his voice, the frustration in his tone was evident, and his accent sounded thicker than usual-a key indicator that he was upset. So instead of backing down, you scoffed, now looking at him, fury evident on your features. 

“Yeah because a man your fucking size was so easily overpowered by her right! She just waltzed right up to you and beat you into submission or something?! Oh fuck you Cregan!” 

The two of you held eye contact, anger and frustration evident.

Aegon slowly sat down, leaning towards Jace and whispering “I think it’s working”, meanwhile Jace shook his head, having been witness to the few fights that you’d actually had with Cregan in the past.

“What would you have wanted me to do, I was shitfaced! Was I supposed to shove her to the ground and tell her to go fuck herself?!” you nodded your head at that, now sitting up, even closer to him than before. He stared down at you as you stared up at him.

“Yeah actually, that’s the best fucking idea I’d say you’ve ever had!” he scoffed.

“We weren’t even together and you hold that against me! Still!” That's what sent you over the edge.

“You fucking dumped me for no god damn reason, told me you loved me, and then went and fucked that Blackwood Bitch! The same fucking day! As if I meant nothing to you, we were together for two years Cregan! Two fucking years!” 

He heard the crack in your voice, everyone did. As you stared at him, he could see the way your eyes glossed over, he knew you too well. He knew the tears were coming.

“I tried to talk to you-you didn’t wanna hear anything!” you shrugged, gathering your things as fast as you possibly could, now looking anywhere but him.

“You don’t fucking deserve to talk to me you asshole”. Then you stood up and did what you always do in these situations, you ran away and left.

He was left there in shock, staring at the door, jaw clenched while he watched you leave. 

“Well that’s one way to start a game night” 

“Aegon shut up!” cue the smack “Ow! Baela! Stop hitting me! Go hit Benji, he likes that shit!-ow! Seriously?! Jace and Luke, get your cousin!”

Then in unison “she’s your cousin too!”

And finally, Benji piped up “is she talking about my cousin?” 

Instead of watching you waltz away, Cregan stood up, grabbing his things and mumbling his own apologies. Then he left, he knew exactly where you lived, so instead of taking the elevator, he rushed down the stairs, trying to cool off. 

When he stood in front of your door, it felt like a routine, something his body was so used to. As if this was muscle memory for him.

Then he knocked, once. No response. 

Twice. Nothing. 

Three times-maybe third times a charm. Nothing.

He stood there, his forehead leaned against the door. Cregan Stark was not a man of regrets, hell he prided himself on actually being a good guy, he was raised to be respectful, to be kind, to be strong, Stark men were not assholes. They weren’t childish, they weren’t selfish, they were supposed to be honorable in every way.

But here he is, leaning against his ex-girlfriend’s door, still in love with her, full of regret for ever breaking things off. He hadn’t even explained himself. He wanted to-he’d tried that day, but you stormed out, tears that he’d caused flowing down your cheeks. 

Then he felt the door shift, and you stood there, wrapped in the same blanket, eyes red as you stared up at him.

Gods, all he wanted to do was tell you he loved you, that he needed you, that you made him feel whole.

“I don’t have any fight left in me Cregan. It’s been months, why can’t you just leave me alone.” 

“Because I love you.” you sighed, shaking your head “no you don’t. If you loved me you wouldn’t have left me.” 

Sure you might’ve been being dramatic, but truthfully, you’d been heartbroken for months, following your breakup you’d lost ten pounds in two weeks. You’d never felt worse, and now, you were starting to feel alright, but it was no secret that there had been many nights full of tears, hugging a sweatshirt that you’d never washed, hoping to preserve the smell of his cologne.

“Can you just fucking listen to me for five minutes, please, I’ve been trying to talk to you for so long, just please-let me talk to you” you shrugged.

“Why?” he blinked a few times, taking a deep breath, running a hand through his hair-hair that you used to always touch, forcing him to sit between your thighs while you braid his hair, laughing when he’d complain, or when he’d do poses for you after you’d finished.

“I love you, I’ve never stopped loving you, I go to sleep at night and my dreams are filled with you, your smile, your laugh, even your fucking frowns. I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone or anything. My heart fucking yearns for you. I can still feel the way you used to hold me, the way your breath felt against my neck, Gods, I think about you 24/7! I think about everything that I did, the way that I screwed up-I screwed us up. I love you! I’ll scream it from the fucking rooftops if that’s what you want!” 

You didn’t bother wiping away your tears, instead you stepped aside, leaving room for him to come in.

“You want to talk then talk.”

Then he walked inside, and shut the door the same way he used to. 

It truly was muscle memory, the way he walked to the couch and sat down in the same spot he was always in, then he waited for you.

He watched as you slowly sat next to him, still wrapped in a blanket like a sad burrito-Gods he spent too much time around Aegon. He didn’t hesitate to wipe the tears from under one of your eyes with his thumb, repeating the action on the other cheek.

“I didn’t want to break up with you. I never wanted to break up with you. My father’s-well he’s sick at home, I was going to leave, go back to Winterfell to take care of him, to take care of everyone. I just-I didn’t want you to be alone here, and I didn’t want to be your long distance boyfriend that you only ever see on fucking facetime. I just-I couldn’t do it.” 

You were silent, watching as he broke slightly, his voice cracking at the mention of his father, then at the mention of you being alone. 

It was no secret that Cregan and his father were close, you’d met Rickon Stark twice, and each time he’d embraced you with open arms and a warm heart. 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he shrugged.

“Because, I’m supposed to be strong, I’m supposed to know my duty to my family, I’m supposed to be there for them, and it was hard-hard to say that I had to leave you for an unknown amount of time. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to go a day without seeing you, you make me crazy in the best way, even now, whenever I see you on campus my heart practically flies out of my chest. Seeing you at my games, you’re like a ghost haunting me.” 

You slowly nodded, listening to him, watching the way he’d blink away his tears, the way his brows would furrow and jaw would clench slightly. 

“My dad’s the one who told me to stay. Told me not to throw my future away, that he’d be alright, y’know he’s a fighter-always has been. Told me to get my girl back-” he let out a small chuckle, the laugh laced in sadness “-but I think she doesn’t want me back. I went back up after we split up, just for a week, and he told me I was an idiot to leave it all behind. A full ride to Uni if I kept playing hockey? The girl of my dreams? Called me a bloke before he told me that he’s okay, he’s not letting go anytime soon” 

Cregan hadn’t been looking at you, he was focused on his hands, fists clenching slightly as he tried to swallow his own emotions. He hadn’t noticed the way that you’d been inching closer, not until your arms were wrapped around him, head leaning against his shoulder.

“You could’ve just told me from the beginning. I would’ve been your facetime girlfriend y’know? Would’ve figured out a way up there”

The familiarity of it all was what made him break, a small sob leaving his lips while you held him. It didn’t take long for you to shove him further into the couch and climb into his lap, the same way you used to when all you wanted to do was be as close to him as possible.

You held him, sat atop one of his thighs, arms wrapped around his shoulders while he cried into your shoulder. His arms gripping your waist, holding you against him. 

This is what should’ve happened all those months ago.

“I’m sorry for being a bitch” he laughed at that, and you felt his small smile. Meanwhile you ran a hand through his hair, fingers dancing through the dark locks before slowly running against his scalp. Your other hand traced small circles against his shoulder blade, you missed this.

You missed him.

“You weren’t a bitch-I probably deserved that.” you scoffed, moving back slightly, now holding eye contact with him as you brushed his tears away. “I was a bitch, I was the biggest bitch ever.”

He smiled, shaking his head “She really did come onto me. I did push her off-” you shushed him “I know. I believe you, I just-I dunno. I was hurt, then I saw that and it just stayed with me. I figured you dumped me for someone else, someone better-” he cut you off with a kiss.

It was so gentle, so soft, so sweet. Then he pulled away “there’s no one better than you for me. I’m sorry I wasn’t honest. I just-I didn’t want to look weak and I didn’t want to leave you and-” you shushed him again, this time holding a hand against his mouth.

“Shut the fuck up Cregan Stark.” Your tone was light hearted as you shook your head “You’re not weak for having emotions, and you aren’t weak for wanting to care for those that you love. Don’t be stupid, we’ve both been stupid enough.” he nodded his head, then you slid her hand down, now caressing his face, your thumb lightly pulling on his bottom lip.

“I missed you” you smiled, a small giggle leaving your lips.

“Based on the way you stare, I could tell” he rolled his eyes “gotta commit your beauty to memory somehow” you slightly shoved his shoulder “you cornball!” 

“I missed you too loverboy”

Then you kissed him again, a slow, passionate kiss full of emotions, smiles, and even a few giggles. He then slid his hands under your sweatshirt, and you quickly pulled apart, letting him take it off, leaving you in just your bralette, then his lips were on yours again.

Before anything else could happen the front door swung open, startling you both, leading to Cregan’s grip against you tightening, meanwhile Aegon and Jace both hit the floor, while Luke stood there awkwardly, Rhaena shook her head, and Baela looked as if she was being held back by Benji. Meanwhile Helaena and Aemond were nowhere to be seen.

At least until they moved closer to the doorway, both of them shaking their heads and muttering “fucking Aegon” in unison.

“I told you guys it would work! Look at them! Kissing and close!” Aegon still spoke, even from the floor while Jace was on top of him. Then Jace slowly rolled off, letting out an ‘oof’. 

“Were you all eavesdropping?” Aegon blinked a few times at your question, glancing back at everyone else. Then you noticed the flush on Luke’s face and Rhaena’s awkward expression. Plus Jace was nodding his head. 

“Why did the Gods make him our brother?” Aemond shook his head “I truly do not know.” 

“So are you two back together now?” 

You sighed, standing up and grasping Cregan’s hand, pulling him towards your bedroom.

Cregan glanced back, still laughing at the scene “yes. Now please, fuck off mate”

With that you pulled him into your room and locked the door.

“They’re all the worst” he nodded his head at you, he’d expected you to pull him into your bed, however you walked towards your desk, rummaging through the different drawers until you found something. 

You glanced at him “can you help me with this”, while holding up the necklace.

“I’d be honored” you rolled your eyes, a bright smile on your face while he walked over, taking the necklace then as gently as possible, clasping it around your neck. Then he left a line of open mouthed kisses from below your right ear, to the edge of your shoulder. 

“I love you” his voice was soft, a whisper, almost as if it was a secret shared between the both of you.

You smiled, spinning around, one hand now on his face, the other on the back of his neck, fingers tracing circles through his hair. “I love you too”

-

Taglist:

Girl it dont exist LMAO

[gayferrari]

we as a community need to get more rpf-y about the fact that charles' girlfriend's name is alex

I see your vision. However EYE am more interested in the fact that in a certain light she looks like she and Carlos could be related.

Long answer: this ask sent me down a bit of a thought spiral about how F1 fandom in general deals with IRL significant others, as opposed to other sports RPF fandoms I've lurked in, so you get an actual essay, sorry.

I think it's interesting how F1 fic writers tend to just ignore irl partners, way more than other sports fandoms. You know how the tag “AU: no girlfriend / no wives” gets A Lot of mileage elsewhere? In F1 it's hardly ever used, because wags are simply excluded by default. The only ships that sometimes remember partners exist (include them or deliberately write around them) are ships involving guys like Seb or Nico whose relationships are a big part of their lives and are probably harder to just push to the side.

By contrast, the younger crop of drivers have a big social media presence that's almost impossible to ignore BUT does not include their actual irl partners because it's all work mandated PR, so these men's F1 personas make it very easy to paint them as single. Even if their broader public personas (outside of F1) are very high profile and often includes very public relationships and friendships — it's not like they keep their relationships lowkey, you know? But people just choose not to dig into those layers of lore, probably simply because the stuff we get through team PR videos and grill the grid already gives us a lot to work with.

IDK, I just find it fascinating! I bet many people don't even notice, but TO ME it's kinda glaring how often everyone in fic is single because imo it's such a fundamental component of the elite athlete lifestyle how these guys always have someone to come home to (and do some emotional labour for them). It doesn't have to be their actual irl girlfriends — many people draw the RPF line at including semi-famous partners, and that's a totally understandable stance — but there aren't even that many OC girlfriends. It is something that stands out to me compared to, idk, hockey RPF to make the most obvious comparison.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT. Yeah, I'd actually be very interested in more fics where Charles has a girlfriend. Again, it doesn't have to be a fictional version of his actual rl girlfriend, it can just be an OC with a different name. BUT, Charles's whole serial monogamy thing is actually a really big part of his personality that I think fandom misses out on, because HE is the one who's assigned the role of girlfriend in most ships he's involved in. You know, the omegafication of Charles... I get why it's a popular trend, I've written it myself and enjoy reading it. But I think there are interesting things to be done, characterisation wise, drawing on the fact that irl he's very much A Dude, and also a serious relationship kinda guy, and a very basic kinda straight guy who yearns for three children by age 35. Like... I think taking THAT kind of man and giving him a sexuality crisis is an avenue full of potential that the fandom could explore more.

tldr: I fully respect people's decision NOT to engage with significant others in RPF but also I think it has potential if you're inclined to go that way! so yea I agree RPF fandom could and should do more with Charles having a girlfriend even if people choose not to RPF *this* specific girlfriend.

[epickiya722]

I'm new to the JJK fandom, and after one month of interacting with the fandom, I noticed that many view Gojo as a womanizer. I believe it to be false.

Maybe it's because of that one time Gege commented that he doesn't see Gojo being faithful to a woman (that man looks like a twink, so I don't blame you, Akutami). Nonetheless, I do not believe it means that Gojo is a playboy/ fuckboy.Let me tell you: while Gojo got the looks, it does not change the fact that he got no hoes He's a hoe repellent no matter the gender.

He is that type of guy that is really handsome, but the moment he opens his mouth, your perception of him changes so much that you would find Deadpool's left ass cheek more attractive. Hell, even Toji's worm. My dude is annoying as hell. He is rude, tactless, and privileged. Add to that the fact that he might also have mommy and daddy issues  because I'm sure he was not treated like a normal kid (but that is another discussion for another time).

Gojo might also have a lot of trust issues combined to the fact that he tends to isolate himself by not letting himself get too close to others. Like this guy is the strongest sorcerer, and his birth caused a shift in the Jujutsu world. Since his birth, people have been trying to kill him. Even the higher up in Jujutsu, see him as a nuisance and are waiting for the opportunity to do him dirty and you to tell me that he doesn't have trust issues? He has infinity on all the time, to the point that he does that subconsciously, and you want to tell me that he's gonna drop that just to get laid? So that he can get  a cursed technique aimed right at his balls?

And even if he is a playboy in the sense that it's not sexual and it's just emotional cheating. The dude feels like no one can relate to him. No one understands what it's like to be at the top, to be the strongest. So what would be the point?

I like Gojo, but in real life, being in a relationship with this man means you'll probably be his therapist because I know this guy has a lot of issues. At least he got money, so you'll be compensated I guess?

I'm rambling a lot, and it's not structured, but I also do not want to write a whole essay in your ask box.

In conclusion: It must be the cash cause it ain't your personality or whatever Beyoncé said.

What do you think?

When I tell you that "womanizer Gojo" is one of the characterizations I hate that some of the fandom has given him I HATE IT.

This is why we take the time to reread something and better understand it because in what world does a womanizing Gojo fits? Especially, in canon when it would be hard to maintain a romantic relationship given the risks Jujutsu sorcerers take? And with the description you gave are other reasons why Gojo wouldn't have a significant other.

Let's be honest, if there was one person who could handle Gojo it was Geto. This isn't me saying this as a shipper, but just stating a fact.

Like, if he would have a romantic partner, it would have him. Shoko's their friend, yes. But that is the most that she sees herself as. Chapter 220, she states hell would freeze over before she falls for any of those two. She's aware of the flaws they both have, but that doesn't she didn't want to be there for them.

One thing I like about Gojo is that despite the reputation he has as a sorcerer, he got his flaws that make him human. Just me, but I don't see the point of adding more flaws to him if I like him already as he is. Like, come on. Just make an OC, at this point.

I know sometimes canon can suck, but fanon? Is worse sometimes.

It's like how some people will depict Yuji drinking and eating anything because "Oh, he's a total dumbass".

I hate that. Yes, Yuji states he's dumb, but he has displayed he does have intelligence and sometimes even he ain't with the bullshit with others. When he said he'll eat anything, it was more on the lines of "I'll eat a cursed object to save people" not "I'll drink gasoline because I was dared to".

Like, damn, he ain't that careless! He ain't that stupid! (Just giving him the Kaminari treatment, huh?)

Just... I wish more people actually stop and think about what they're reading instead of running with it and going with a depiction that others say is "canon" (it's not) or "better than canon". Especially, with a media that isn't from your native country.

[slocumjoe]

If you were to rate the Fo4 companions from most to least favourite how would you rate them?

I can't list them in order, because I have too many feelings on them....and also, I love them all! It's just...there's such a Rollercoaster of quality of writing, of character concept, of VA performance, of actual attention and care given to the meat-and-potatoes aspects...

Like, I can say I have a favorite (Danse) and a least favorite (Piper) and a dude in the middle who I give not a crap about (Deacon), but I still like these characters??? They're fun! Its just, I like my idea of them more than what's actually there.

So, uhhhh

RORY TALKS ABOUT THE COMPANIONS 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

this is basically a long-post of a bunch of mini-essays, so grab a snack or nice bev and get cozy

Cait, to me, is a prime example of "this character sounds better on paper". I've already complained about her three greatest flaws; being bloated, being mishandled, and being a very confused character. If I were to describe Cait, it would be that she's a troubled young woman who was traumatized all her life, but understands that it's effected her heavily and wants to work past it and better herself.

In game, she's...an Irish Girl. She talks about drinking and fucking and fighting. If not that, she's detailing her absolutely horrific life. It gives me tonal whiplash. I feel like they were too busy adding things on rather than fleshing her out. I mean, really...what is the significance of the Tough Irish Girl type in the wasteland, where everyone acts that way? Is Cait an example of your average wastelander, someone whos supposed to show the daily life in this world? Well...no, that can't be it, she's put away from others, an outsider who doesn't fit in whatever circumstances she finds herself in. She doesn't belong with raiders, she doesn't fit into the average civilian life. So, is she about ostracization and how even after being nuked, there still is a society to ostracize people? That is brought up in text, but that's not at all Cait's thing, that concept is with Hancock.

I travel with Cait to quickly get her affinity up to speedrun her "recovery" (see the Cait breakdown to learn my thoughts on That Fucking Chair) because I want her to get better...but I don't like traveling with her that much. It's not just that she often disagrees with my usual choices, she's just rather flat. I don't get the impression that the writers really considered her psychology, what she stood for, what someone should or could take away from her.

But I like her conceptually. There's a lot of fun and emotional catharsis to be had with a traumatized character like her, someone who has to navigate life after escaping her bad situations, and not knowing what to do with the survival instincts she had to cultivate, but no longer needs.

Codsworth is inoffensive to me, and I like sassy but polite characters. I find them refreshing in settings like Fallout. I had more fun imagining his lines as thinly-veiled bitching than sincerity, though. I think he's fine, just simple. Simple is best, sometimes. I wouldn't trust Beth to give the indentured servitude robot an even remotely palatable story, given how they handled the synths and their whole thing...

But Codsworth, I like having him around. He's the lemon water to the black coffee, sugary soda, whiskey, and occasional cups of tar. He's needed at a palette cleanser.

Curie should have been a main plot companion, argue with the wall. She's a Ms. Nanny who becomes a synth, which are functionally human beings. She has a lot of narrative potential, being an example and counterargument for many different things.

Unfortunately, she's kept mostly a secret, being the most hidden companion, and she's left as a simple French maid fantasy. I'm not even sure why they bothered to make her a doctor. It has nothing to do with how she's actually handled and presented. Curie's more often blushing than meaningfully interacting with the world. She talks to Amari, she becomes a synth, and the rest of her story is just her going KYAA~ at the SS. I wish they gave her some edge, some weirdness. I like my version where she's this slightly pretentious, condescending, incredibly old-seeming entity that clearly doesnt come from around here.

Danse...my boy. My boy. I adore him. You don't need me to explain why. And you don't need me to explain why his incomplete writing infuriates me.

I've said before he's very similar to Hancock, and since I have something else I want to discuss about with Johnny down in this, I'll use Danse's slot to discuss it, very quickly.

Danse and Hancock are remarkably similar people and characters, even there is parts that drift or parallel in their differences.

Substance dependency (Hancock does chems, Danse is a canonical alcoholic)

They both struggled to find their footing and place in the world, and hate the people they were in their act 1's (Hancock's takes place during his founding of Goodneighbor, Danse's after BB)

They're fiercely loyal and protective of 'their people', even if it can take a LOT for them to consider someone 'their people'

Both are suicidal and identity plays a huge part (Hancock pretends to be someone he isn't, Danse is desperate to be the person he thought he was this whole time/hates that he isn't who he thought he was)

Both of these characters are two sides of the same coin. It's just that Danse's upbringing led him to believe in authority and control being the best way to help and take care of the wasteland, Hancock's upbringing (filled with corrupt authority and control) led him to believe in an egalitarian, we-all-lift mindset where the people have the power, he's just the guy who people talk to about any issues. It's somewhat implied that Cutler was similar to Hancock, judging by Danse's few lines about Cutler.

So uuuhhh Todd where the fuck is the last 2 arcs for danse and last arc for hancock? todd? todd where the fu

As said above, Deacon is nothing to me. I like him. I don't care about him much. I think he's fun to play with, but the moment you start getting into his backstory/angst, I slide right the fuck off.

Okay, the Barb thing. Dead wife. Fucking boring story, done to death. At the point I met Deacon, I had already met Mac, Nick, knew of Longfellow and his deal. So it was like "JESUS they really dont know any other reason for a dude to be sad, do they." But the thing that keeps me from caring about Deacon is that no one can agree if Barb is real. If that actually happened.

...his backstory is supposed to inform his character. Why is Deacon doing this? Because of his backstory. If his backstory isn't real, we know nothing about Deacon, and he is, functionally, not a character. Why does Deacon lie if Barb didnt happen? Dunno. He just...does. Why is Deacon helping synths? Uhh...we needed an RR companion? Deacon's character rides or dies on Barb. If she's real, then the rest of him makes sense. She's the windex and towel to the cloudy glass house that is the rest of him. If she isn't, Deacon...doesn't matter, in any meaningful way. He's a guy in the RR who lies about everything, which means you can't care about him. Because there is nothing to care about, because it's all bullshit.

So, that's my thoughts on Deacon, in-canon. I don't know what his deal is or if his proposed deal is genuine, so I can't click with him. But in my own canon, Barb is real, so my Deacon ken-doll does appeal to me. But in Fallout 4, in text, I regard him the same as I do Tom Bombadil. To give you an idea of how flimsy Deacon is in text, a prevailing fan theory from around 2017-18 was that Deacon was Mrs. Rosa's son. Mrs. Rosa was a pre-war neighbor. Her son was a kid. The fact that Deacon is so weird and fluid and almost omniscient isn't a plus for me, it isn't a point of fascination. It's a puzzle that I know doesn't have a finished product, so I leave and go hang out with Danse, who can't speak if he isn't being absurdly blunt.

Gage is a character that deserved a better DLC. The more I think about Nuka World the more I kinda wish it was just Gage and the handmade rifle, instead the map...but that's about Nuka World. Gage himself could have easily been a swing and a miss and fall face-first into the dirt, but he's a surprisingly well-written character? There are layers of psychology with him. You can look at an action or opinion he has, and map it to something that happened to him. You can literally unravel why he does what he does, is who he is. His writers had a concept for him, and they worked backwards to understand why he would become that way.

What really sells him is his VA. Rolston put his whole pussy into that performance. Gage has so many lines that would be utter cringe if not full-assed. The "That vault suit makes your ass look great" line comes to mind...i've seen modded followers with similar lines, and jesus christ i want to pepper spray some of them. It helps that Gage has multiple faucets to his personality. It also helps that he is intentionally distinct from the other raiders, and occasionally doesn't associate with them, himself. It gives him standards and principles, which help give him shape and dimension. Good character. He isn't my favorite, that's Danse, but he's up there.

Hancock is such a waste of a character and it boggles me no one else seems to think so.

He starts on a bad note because his core reason for existing, is Beth wanted a historical figure reference. There's a reason he gives you a history lesson about John Hancock, it's so everyone knows exaclty what Johnny Ghoulie is a reference to. It's not even so much a reference, because it is a direct mimicking. I cannot stand the moments in 4 where something exists because the team learned a fun historical trivia fact, and wanted to pepper in that they did research. I've already bitched about their love of this with the Railroad at some point on this blog.

I genuinely wouldn't mind Hancock if he wasn't pulling so limp-dickedly. It's specifically the contrivance of explaining why this dude is called John Hancock, in John Hancock's clothing. It's okay if they pull from history and allude to it, But Hancock is just...some history stuff tacked on, with no real thought or care. The clothing, the name, the catchphrase. I feel like this is Disney's Hamilton on Ice.

But moving away from that...what is the point of Hancock?

Is his character about drug use and addiction? NOPE, only Cait's addiction is noteworthy. Okay...idenity issues, since he's larping? Not really. It could be, but that's not at all of interest to the story/writing itself. The Hancock thing is an aesthetic, not a trait. So, don't have that either. Is his character about leadership, in any capacity? Kinda, I guess. He briefly mentions insecurities and guilt about it a few times. But if I said "Hancock's story is about leadership", most people would raise an eyebrow and ask why. Not because it's...wrong, it's just not prominent enough to say that's his story, definitively.

So...what is the point of him? What should I take away from Hancock? Duty to the people? Preston does that, and does it better/more explicitly. Regret about past actions? Mac does that. Protecting the people from political corruption? Piper's thing (AND WE'LL GET TO FUCKING PIPER.) What is there to Hancock that isn't done by another companion? It isn't his depression because ALL these bitches be suicidal. What is unique to Hancock? Pretending to be someone else? Deacon. Drugs? Cait. Trying to figure out who you are, removed from the expections that come with having been someone else? Nick. Leadership, and the failures of it? Danse. Struggling to navigate the world in a new, different body, as a new person, functionally? Curie.

The only thing I can think of is mentioned only twice, and is immediately brushed off; the questionable nature of your leader being buddy-buddy with you, and acting like 'one of the bros' even as they hold power over you and have resources you don't. Parasocial government, if you will. It's brought up by Finn and Bobby No-Nose and is shut down/forgotten.

So...the only thing unique to Hancock, and it's regulated to, like, 3 individual throw-away lines. 2 of which you can miss.

Great.

Again, I like him. I just like him when I'm writing him, and can actually have him work through his shit and concepts. But as he stands, he's just...hey, y'know John Hancock? New Vegas also pulled from history, but New Vegas had shit to say about it. There was debating. There was actual philosophy and politics. There wasn't some dude named Caesar who was just...hanging out. What does Fallout 4 say about John Hancock?

Here's something you can say about Hancock; Hancock owned slaves. He inherited them from his uncle, Thomas Hancock. He later freed them due to terms in Thomas' will. But the guy Fallout 4 meagerly puts up as a figure of freedom and independence, and duty to fellow man, was a slave owner, and had slave owning family.

So, what does that mean for our Hancock? Who looked up to this guy, mantled him, and this guy is, in some way, a perversion of his own ideals.

And our Hancock's favorite quote is from Lincoln. Who started the Civil War. Did Lincoln own slaves? Contested, i couldn't find any clear answers. But Hancock mantles a slave owner, using a quote from the president that would try to outlaw slavery, while pushing for freedom and independence and anarchist rhetoric.

Is that the best you can do with Hancock? No. But it's an example.

MacCready, I've compared to a can of Campbell's soup. He's simple, he's decently-done. He's not Codsworth's lemon water but he isn't Cait's tar. I often struggle to write MacCready because he's so simple. There's not much there, he isn't a complex character. He's not even a complex person. And I like that! I like that the grumpy mercenary is a normal guy, who's just going through the motions and has simple desires. His type is often tar and I'm happy to see that subverted.

Its just that his lack of complexity means there's not much to say about him that you don't already know. He's accessible, which is a good thing. Most people don't want to drink tar, but if you're reaching for a fun beverage, you're not often reaching for water, either.

I think the best thing about MacCready is how excellent he is as a romance option. I think he's the strongest romantic choice in the game, period, largely due to him being a simple guy. I would go for MacCready IRL, because he's a good dad, he has good work ethic, and he's emotionally available and isn't afraid to talk feelings, without being a clusterfuck of issues. I love Danse, but you have to talk him out of suicide before you do anything, and he himself will admit that there's going to be a lot of issues simply because he doesn't know what he's doing or what he wants out of his new life.

You don't get that with MacCready. He knows what he wants and who he is and what he cares about. He's such a solid romantic interest, and there's incredible fic potential with the Sole Survivor and MacCready both as soon-to-be grieving parents.

On the flipside, I can't understand people who romance Nick and think its all sunshine and roses. Mini-rant, but /rad-roche (i think thats their user?) has the right idea, with Nick being a hot mess of unresolved issues who is never not projecting or in denial. Nick is not fit for a romantic relationship, not in the state you see him in game. Especially not before Far Harbor. Especially if you don't get the good ending of Far Harbor. I know, bisexual women, I'm sorry. He's got more shit than Danse and Hancock combined. I write romantic Nick prompts as if this isn't the case, but make no mistake. Me giving yall what you want is not me under the impression that this is a good idea.

Anyway. Nick himself.

Dead wife. Booo. I've already complained about his dumbass quest, which i really dislike for all its contrivances. Also, I find him mismatched with the world around him, and I wish there was more attention paid to that. He's a stock character playing out in real life (in Fallout 4's real life, that is). He's a 40's noir flick detective. This character does not belong in a post-apocalypse. This is an urban setting character. Fallout is not urban.

But that doesn't mean he can't exist! I just wish they went more ham with it. I mean, how does a detective function in a lawless wasteland, full of secrets simply because there's so few people see shit happening, know what goes down? It's an information blackout, out there, and a detective is all about information. Nick deserved to be let loose and go full camp on it all. Instead, we got 2 piddly little piss stains of "mystery" side quests. With someone as clashing as Nick, you really need to either sand down the edges to make him fit, or make the fact he's so weird part of the Thing. Nick is played incredibly straight, and given that that man is clearly lgbtq+, i find that almost a waste. Let this man be deranged. This is why Far Harbor is best Nick. He's holding together in the base game, but i don't want him holding together. I want him to suffer. I want him to monolog like Hamlet before driving a cane into someone's forehead.

Now, as for Piper...

Oh, Piper.

You were doomed.

You were so fucking doomed.

I've written about Piper and her shitty paper multiple times, so if you want a refresher, go to my blog > pinned post > meta section, and find the Piper posts. My peer review of The Synthetic Truth will be your best look into what I think of Piper.

The thing is, if you removed her awfully done journalism aspect, I'd like her base form! When she isn't going on and on about shit that's either wrong, baseless, or presumptuous, she's sassy, she's community-orianted, she's mischievous, she's kinda sardonic. She has a sugar problem. She's a burnt out 20 year old with a parentification issue. There's a lot to like here! The problem is they set up the journalism, fuck it up, and then veer hard-right and crash into the "I'm raising a kid when I'm not even an adult either" thing, where it had no build up or time to unfold naturally.

In my own little world, Piper's journalism fuckups are addressed and have consequences. I don't want her smoothed out and perfect, I want her glaring flaws to be intentional and acknowledged. And that just doesn't happen in text.

Ive also got a ramble on my thoughts on Preston. I've said before I don't like his voice acting most of the time, and I actually got a lot of pushback?? But the people who disagreed didnt...disagree...they just pointed out that John Gentry had a gnarly recording circumstance. I think it was that his first takes weren't supposed to be the final product, because he wasn't really intended to be the VA? Something like that, I forget. Point is, I said John Gentry obviously had a rough time in the booth, and wasn't given a fair shot, and people went "No, his voice acting is good! John Gentry just had a rough time with his line recording and wasn't given a fair shot!"

M-ma'am. Thats...what I said.

If it makes anyone feel better, I don't like the majority of the voice acting in this game...a lot of it is very 'modded skyrim character.' Remember the Skyrim Romance Mod? Thats what most of it sounds like to me. Remember Mrs. Peabody? Holy shit. Do not let anyone involved in that cook ever again. I also have personal beef with Nate. The male VA for the SS...someone, somewhere, made a bunch of choices. It was the wrong one, frequently. (The only good male SS line i can think of is the one romancing Danse. Has some texture to it. It's shy and cute, very good)

As for Preston himself, love him, love my paragon good-guy characters. He's such a sweetheart but he's down for bloodshed. I adore those kinds of characters, those "do no harm, take no shit" types. He's treated as a fluffball by fanon (when not suffering racist ass takes or absolute disregard), but Preston has got some lovely edges to him. If you go through his dialogue page and his approvals, you'll find he can be hard at times. There are moments he approves of 'asshole' choices, which is very fun. I love this dude.

Anyway hot take. IF HE WAS WHITE, ALL OF THESE BITCHES WOULD LIKE HIM. YEAH. I SAID IT. He'd be a depressed white man who's buff and kind and snarky, and you Danse girlies, you Nick girlies, you Deacon girlies, all of them would love him too. He is tailor made for standom but nooo, he isn't #FFFFFF so I guess he's doomed to stupid ass settlement jokes.

Yall lack taste. Hawk puhtoo.

SPEAKING OF AWFUL FUCKING TASTE, LEAVE MY BABY X6-88 ALONE.

X6-88 is so unappreciated. Grotesquely so, by both Bethesda and fans.

X6-88, I've said many times, is a spoiled rich man's cat who sits all poised and hisses if you so much as look at it if you're below a certain tax bracket. He's fussy and egotistical and snippy and dislikes bugs, children, water, heights, and generally anything above ground. He gushes over Danse and thinks he's the coolest. He'll let you kill the Institute if you're Railroad or Minutemen and have high affinity with him. He'll brag about getting to travel with you with his courser buddies. He's a fucking dork.

X6-88 is a nerd/prep who could be goth if left in a Hot Topic to run wild, but until then, he's in a suit for his private school and he's going to sit on HIS bench at recess and snipe at the rival school children with his friends and then he goes home and complains that his english eacher failed him on his Roman history test for writing it in perfect Latin. That is X6-88.

If you don't like X6-88 we cannot be friends. Fuckiung look at him. He's such a little shit. He's perfect.

[toomanytookas]

I think I could write you an entire essay just on how brilliant your use of knowing eye contact is in this chapter.

I love how nuanced it is—how we see Joel and the reader find common ground, shared senses of grief and worry that the good won’t last, mutual laughter, and perhaps already just the slightest hints of a deep fondness. It’s so beautifully employed every instance you use it and I could really feel the energy of the connection of their eyes meeting.

I think this one was my favourite:

You glance at him, to find his eyes already on you, an emotion in them that you can’t place. Neither of you say a word, both quietly returning your eyes to the TV. 

The tension really is palpable and that whole scene felt electric in a way that leaves me so in awe of the way you can create an atmosphere with your words.

Something else that I really liked about this chapter were the elements of contrasting opening and closing.

First off, I loved this line so much: You don’t lock your door anymore, leaving it ajar, just like them

The way it shows not only that they are open to her but that she feels safe enough to mirror their trust is just so brilliant.

But that wonderful energy of openness made it feel even more significant when she closed her door to them after going in to get the comics.

Speaking of, oof, Jana, the way you wrote that whole bit was heartbreaking. Again, that idea of opening the closed was so meaningful here. It feels like it was made so real by this line: It’s stuffy, stagnant air that’s been untouched for too long, but it smells like him.

Memories nearing the surface because the room is being opened, her pushing through because of her attachment to Ellie, but then a sense of that progress getting nearly lost behind a newly shut door shortly after. Ouch ouch ouch. It’s so compelling.

I thought it was really interesting how there is also a sense of opening and closing when it comes to her disassociation. The juxtaposition of her using a book as a way to obscure what’s happening from Ellie and Joel (closing her reality to them), and him using conversations about books to keep her focused in the moment (keeping her open, engaged) is just so, so beautifully balanced.

Joel noticing her, beginning to understand her and support her, is just so fantastically captured, too—that sense of warmth and trust that is emerging. I love how concretely you are able to describe it while at the same time showing that it is sort of rooted in her inexplicable sense of his character. This was so wonderful:

Now that he’s healing, he’s someone who you trust to take responsibility, to take care of things if needed. You’re not sure how you know, but you’re certain that he is.

My heart always leaps with excitement a bit when I see you’ve updated this fic. Thank you so much for bringing us this beautiful albeit difficult tale.

just close your eyes

chapter 3 • series masterlist

pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

summary: An injured Joel and Ellie stumble into your home in the middle of the night. Against your better judgement, you decide to help them.

word count: ~2.2k

tags/warnings: post outbreak, slow burn, found family, age gap (sorry not sorry), able-bodied reader, angst, reader has a sad sad backstory and ptsd, hurt/comfort, fluff, eventual smut, vague description of an injury, implied death of a character, the angst is ANGSTING in this one

a/n: once again, i can't thank that jackson joel pedro photo enough for the inspiration that it's brought me. i hurt my own feelings with this chapter, and truth be told, it's gonna get worse from here.

follow @janaispunknotifs for fic updates and find my full masterlist here :)

dividers as always by the lovely @saradika-graphics 🤍

Over the following days, something of a routine forms between the three of you. 

Joel spends most of his time resting, asleep more often than not, the shape of him on your couch a picture that you grow familiar with. But as his fever goes down and the skin around his injury is less red than when you first laid eyes on it, you allow yourself the tentative hope that you might have been able to actually save him. 

You’re becoming less skittish around him, getting used to his rather gruff demeanor, slowly realizing that what Ellie said was indeed true, it’s not about you. You come to think he just doesn’t like needing and accepting help.

Ellie follows you around like a puppy, eager to soak up every scrap of knowledge that you can share with her. It’s not much, you think, mostly cooking, the task of turning supplies into various meals, given the limited resources that you have in this world. You like having her around, the almost constant stream of chatter and questions never annoying you.

It fills your usual silence, helps keeping you grounded in the present. Most of the time.

Now that you have company, it becomes painfully obvious to you how much time you spend in your head, just sitting and staring straight ahead, lost in your thoughts, oblivious to the time passing. You have taken to having a book open in your lap, to make it seem like you’re reading, but you find yourself looking down at the page without seeing it, not sure when you last turned it. 

It’s not what they would have wanted, you keep telling yourself, trying to shake yourself out of it. Well, it’s not like anything happened the way we wanted, the bitter voice in your head answers.

If Ellie or Joel notice, they don’t ask about it. You hear their voices in the night sometimes, both of them sleeping in your parents’ bedroom now, since the couch was starting to hurt Joel’s back. 

You don’t lock your door anymore, leaving it ajar, just like them. The thought of someone else being down here with you is soothing you, the fear of them being a possible threat basically nonexistent at this point. Instead, a different kind of fear sets in. 

They haven’t talked about where they are going, but you know that they’re not gonna stay forever. Once Joel is completely healed, and winter has given way to spring, they’ll most likely be off again, leaving you on your own again. You don’t want to grow attached, but it’s difficult not to, while being with other constantly. 

You and Joel are taking longer to warm up to each other than you and Ellie have, but you’ve gotten used to having him around you. It’s a quiet, but trustworthy, reassuring thing, his presence in your space. Now that he’s healing, he’s someone who you trust to take responsibility, to take care of things if needed. You’re not sure how you know, but you’re certain that he is.

One evening, Ellie finds the DVD collection that’s stashed away in the cabinet under the small TV in the corner of the room. You hadn’t watched anything in forever, not sure if it’s even still working, but her enthusiasm makes it impossible to turn her down. 

Even Joel pipes up at the prospect of a movie night, crouching down next to her to sift through the DVDs. They’re both drawn to the shitty action movies – usually not your preferred taste, but you find the corners of your mouth lifting when they both turn around simultaneously, looking for your approval of their choice. 

Joel pushes himself back up with a grunt, pressing the button on the TV and making it spring to life without issue. You settle deeper into the couch cushions, pulling a knitted blanket over yourself as you watch the opening credits play. 

It’s so comfortable, so normal, and you want to get lost in the feeling in a way that makes your heart ache. Ellie sits down beside you to share the blanket while Joel stretches his legs out on the other couch. A smile is tugging at his lips when he catches you looking at him, but it can’t hide the wariness in his eyes, mirroring your own. It’s the feeling of things being too good to be true, the fear of nothing good ever lasting, of the world crashing down around you again, that always accompanies you, and without asking, you know that he feels it too. You cast your eyes back to the screen, trying hard not to get yourself lost in the fear, but to enjoy the moments of peace while they last. 

Ellie loves the movie, her eyes wide at every action-packed sequence, gasping at every explosion. At one of the more absurd scenes, you can’t contain the burst of laughter that bubbles up your throat. You’re unexpectedly joined by the deeper rumble of Joel’s, a sound that you haven’t heard before. 

You glance at him, to find his eyes already on you, an emotion in them that you can’t place. Neither of you say a word, both quietly returning your eyes to the TV. 

When you’re lying in bed later that night, you still feel the smile on your face. 

While your closeness with Ellie came quickly, almost taking you by storm, it’s a quiet, slowly growing thing with Joel. 

It begins with him lingering in the kitchen when you’re preparing the morning coffee, asking you questions about the place, about keeping supplies, electricity, the safety measures. He helps you with cooking, grumbling about giving something back when you protest. 

He’s gruff, no comparison to Ellie’s lively chatter and endless questions, and it makes you nervous at first. But you get used to him, his more quiet demeanor, his dry humor. You can tell that he’s trying hard not to scare you again, avoiding sudden movements or getting loud, and while you appreciate it, you also can’t help but wonder how broken you must seem from the outside. 

He doesn’t ask prying questions about your past, how you’ve come to live here all alone, though you have to imagine that he’s curious. You don’t ask him about his either, even if you do wonder how he and Ellie ended up together. It’s a quiet mutual understanding and you’re grateful for it. 

You have to believe that he had his fair share of loss in his own life, that the both of them had; an inescapable reality at this point in the world’s history.

It’s like a silent camaraderie when he catches your eye as Ellie is reading out puns to the both of you once more, rolls his eyes in a way that still holds so much love for the girl next to you, but that fills you with the urge to giggle. It stops you in your tracks the first time it happens, the sensation so unfamiliar to you that you can’t place it for a second. 

When you smile at him, the corners of his mouth rise ever so slightly as well, before he huffs an exaggerated sigh at the joke that you just heard. It riles Ellie up, just like he wanted to, you suspect. But you block out her bickering at him, busy with your own thoughts. One thought in particular, one that you haven’t had about anyone since you were a teenager. 

Joel is kind of pretty when he smiles.

The both of them have also taken to working their way through the bookshelf that’s taking up most of one of the walls. It’s mostly guidebooks on hunting, gardening, self defense, anything that your father deemed possibly useful. Over time, you had added books from your old bedroom, the one upstairs, that you had hastily carried down the stairs, hoping for the familiar words to give you a sense of normalcy in a world where nothing was normal anymore. 

Joel sometimes talks to you about them, asking your opinion on which ones to read, discussing their contents with you. Over time, you realize that he does it when you’re zoning out, pulling you back into reality with the drawl of his low voice next to you. You’re thankful for it, not used to being cared for like this, but also mortified that as it seems, he does notice when you’re too deep inside your head.

It’s one of those afternoons, you’re just about to start preparing dinner, when Ellie asks if you have more books somewhere, about something cool. “Like what?” you reply, an easy smile on your face. 

“I don’t know,” she shrugs, “like comics, maybe? Ohh, or something about space?” 

It takes a moment before the words register, before they form a picture in your mind, the memory of exactly what she’s asking for. You stop in your tracks, frozen on your way to the kitchen. Your toes dig into the carpet beneath your bare feet. A faint trembling starts in your hands and slowly spreads through your body. 

Ellie says your name, an edge in her voice. You’re not sure what your face looks like. 

Your wide eyes find hers, looking up at you from where she was spread out on the floor, her hair splaying out over the scratchy rug, one of your books held over her head. You had joked about how that position couldn’t be comfortable a few minutes ago. 

You see Joel from the corner of your eye, slowly raising to his feet from the couch cushions. It feels like you can’t breathe, like you’re sucking in air but it doesn’t reach your lungs. 

A large, warm hand lands on your shoulder, making you jump. Joel rubs soothing circles over your back, your name a low rumble on his lips. 

“It’s– it’s not a problem if not,” Ellie murmurs, sitting up slowly, her eyes flicking between you and Joel, uncertainty written over her features. 

You force a shuddering breath in, using the sensation of Joel’s hand splayed over your back to ground yourself. Nodding your head, you will your voice to travel up your throat. 

“Yeah no, I– just a second.” 

Joel repeats your name, more questioning this time, but you ignore it, feet carrying you into the bathroom where you quickly shut the door behind you. Skin stretching over your knuckles, you stand over the sink, gripping its edges to stay upright. 

It’s what he would have wanted. He would have been so happy to share them. It’s true, you know what. 

You’re not sure what’s worse. Going in there yourself, crossing the threshold of a room that you haven’t entered in years, haven’t even opened the door to, or letting someone else do it, let them disturb the memory of a reality that you’ve tried to preserve in there. Too painful to touch, but too important to let go of. 

Steeling yourself, you return to the living area. Ellie and Joel are sitting close to each other, both of their heads flying up at the door opening. It’s obvious that they have been talking about you. You bite your lip. 

Ellie rises to her feet slowly, takes a tentative step toward you. “Listen, it’s not that important really–” She sounds like she’s talking to a skittish animal. 

You shake your head, not trusting your voice not to betray you. With a deep breath, you cross the room to the door beside yours. One of two that you keep firmly closed. 

It creaks on its hinges when you open it slowly, your hand shaking on the handle. You try not to look around, to keep your eyes closed to the truth that nothing changed in here, and yet everything changed. It’s stuffy, stagnant air that’s been untouched for too long, but it smells like him. Like he’s still here with you. 

You don’t see the unmade bed, still carrying the trace of the last time he got up, the stuffed lion beside the pillow. Don’t see the half finished drawings on the desk, or the mess of action figures in the corner. You grab the stack of comics from the nightstand, ignoring the way your vision blurs at the edges. Move on to the shelf, smaller than the one in the living room, blindly picking out random books. 

When you step out of the bedroom, quickly pulling the door shut behind you again, neither Joel or Ellie have moved. You can’t meet either one’s gaze, don’t want to see the expression in their eyes.

Ellie takes the stack of books from your outstretched hands, murmuring a thanks, and you sense that there are more words on the tip of her tongue. Questions, apologies, you don’t know and you don’t want to. 

Turning on your heels, you escape into your own room, closing the door as quickly as you can before you collapse on your bed. Tears flood your eyes in time with the memories flooding your head, threatening to pull you under and drown you under their waves. 

You hear their muffled voices through the door, but neither of them comes to disturb you. You’re thankful for it, not needing anyone to witness you in this state. Eventually, you drift off into sleep, your mind gladly giving way to unconsciousness.

The following night is the first time that Joel has to shake you awake from a nightmare.

thank you for reading 🤍 if you liked this, please consider reblogging, leaving a comment or sending an ask, it truly makes my day every single time!

[systemhead]

I am trying to write my first long-form essay in years. I am using this to guilt/embarrass myself into doing so. It is typically ill-advised to attempt to write anything involving soul searching on a Sunday.

It should really only be about one thing, but the rough draft form is continually spinning around three things that somehow feel connected, broadly:

It feels like history no longer exists anywhere, for anyone. And yet, I want to remember things, specifically my aunt. Through a sheer overwhelming volume of thoughts and discussions, things will somehow be lent weight in reality, keeping them tethered to it and unable to drift away from it forever.

The internet and tech utopianism are 100% dead. And I think I'm simultaneously mourning it and feeling mature enough to bid it good riddance.

I am obsessing over myself. This is symptomatic of a person who has felt very self-repressed and lonely for long stretches of their adult life. I still feel that way, but I'm also overindulging in it (though not as much as I once did). I would love to erase this aspect of myself more than anything else.

Keep reading (?)

The key is this: I wanted to write something long form. About my aunt, about myself, about the past, and about how much time I spend thinking about life without really living it. On one level you might call it a “capstone” relating to my first 10 years of real consciousness, ages 15 to 25. I wanted to say something about my issues and fixations. How all the things that I am most capable of analyzing, itemizing, and generally critiquing in the world etc., are things that I first overanalyze as issues or failures in myself.

One, for example: I notice that other people don’t rehearse their answers to potential questions a lot. I do. In an exercise that I find “fun” but that is also almost perfectly emblematic of how narcissistic I could be read as (and, yes, we know that one form of narcissism is endless self-pity and wallowing in failures and false starts in the long form.)

The “exercise” is hardly complicated: I imagine myself answering incredibly generous softball questions in a sort of high-brow interview show [think the sort of thing you watch authors do at universities or New Yorker panels].

It’s not as bad as “How do you manage to be so up-to-date on every major world news story?” or “J., how do you manage to capture so much knowledge and emotional depth in endless run-on sentences?” [jabs at myself]. It prompts me to interrogate how I feel about things separated from all the waves and waves of self-doubt and hatred I usually feel. It's for an "audience" after all. And the big question, the one I imagined in the shower that kicked this whole thing off, feels a little too embarrassing to write down. Still, it pointed in a significant enough direction, thought-wise, that it led me to immediately sit down at the computer and bang together more words in succession than I have in months if not years.

Roughly: "Lore" and "snappy, clever answers" do not constitute knowledge or intelligence. Least of all coherent thought.

Much like naming every senator or state representative currently in office in the U.S. is mistakenly seen as an impressive intellectual feat but doesn't mean anything when it comes to understanding politics, fun facts and baubles don't really point to any real comprehension.

In the past, I shared stories about my aunt like this, as party tricks, as fun toys to impress others, and, eventually, I realized, as totemic signifiers, something that could stand in for me. A card to throw up or a bandanna to flash to say, “Not only do I have a secret, not only am I in the know, but I also have trauma territory claim staked here.”

I will never know her. I will never know her. I will never know her.

She could have made me someone else. And now, I fear that I didn’t pick up the story when I should have because I was afraid of how it would make me feel about myself, which, if anything, feels more accurate than anything now. At heart, I am a born coward and avoid things that cause me discomfort.

It wasn’t until I really began experiencing my own feelings and life in a more complete and comprehensive way that my own perception of the story became something a little more serious, while also being less melodramatic.

Anyway, fun. Still could not write concisely to save my life.

[blognistia]

Review carefully: Emotional Journey in Denny Ja 16, Ballad Wahab and Wahib

In the world of Indonesian literature, Denny Ja 16 is one of the writers who has the ability to arouse the emotions of readers with his works that are full of emotional nuances. One of the chosen works from Denny JA 16 that should be studied in depth is "Ballad Wahab and Wahib". In this article, it will be carefully discussed about the emotional journey contained in this work. I. Background of the work "Ballad Wahab and Wahib" is an essay poem written by Denny JA 16. This essay poem tells about two twin brothers, Wahab and Wahib, who have a very different life. Wahab is a young man who is intelligent and talented, while Wahib is an unfortunate young man in his life. Both have a life journey full of twists and turns and full of emotions. II. Wahab emotional journey At the beginning of the story, Wahab was described as a young man who was intelligent and full of dreams. However, in his life journey, Wahab experienced many difficulties and trials. This made him experience significant emotional changes. Denny JA 16 succeeded in describing Wahab's emotional journey in great detail, so that the reader could feel every emotional change experienced by Wahab. III. Wahib's emotional journey Whereas Wahib, a twin brother Wahab, has a very different life. Wahib is a young young man in his life. In his life journey, Wahib experienced many failures and disappointment. Denny Ja 16 also succeeded in describing Wahib's emotional journey very well, so that the reader can feel every emotional change experienced by Wahib. IV. Similarity and differences in the emotional journey of the Wahab and Wahib Although Wahab and Wahib have a very different life, there are similarities in the emotional journey they experience. Both of them experienced failure, disappointment, and suffering. However, differences are also seen in the way they face and respond to these emotions. Wahab is more able to control his emotions and find solutions to overcome problems, while Wahib is more likely to be trapped in negative emotions and is difficult to break away from him. V. The message delivered by Denny Ja 16 Through the work of "Balada Wahab and Wahib", Denny Ja 16 conveyed a deep message about the emotional journey in one's life. He shows that life is not always easy and full of twists and turns. The emotions we face in our life journey can affect the way we respond and face problems. Denny Ja 16 also teaches the importance of controlling emotions and finding solutions to overcome the problems encountered. VI. Conclusion In the chosen work of Denny Ja 16, "Ballad Wahab and Wahib", an emotional journey becomes a very strong theme. Denny Ja 16 succeeded in describing the emotional journey of Wahab and Wahib in great detail, so that the reader can feel every emotional change experienced by the two characters. Through this work, Denny Ja 16 also conveys a deep message about the importance of controlling emotions and finding solutions in dealing with problems in life. In the whole, "Ballad Wahab and Wahib" is a literary work that can affect the emotions of readers. Denny Ja 16 has given a very interesting interpretation of emotional journey in life through this work. This work is not just a story, but is also a reflection of human life and emotions. Denny Ja 16 has shown expertise in describing complex emotional journey in this work. Through his professional writing, he is able to arouse the emotions of the reader and provide happiness. 

Check more: Review carefully: Emotional Journey in Denny JA 16, Ballad Wahab and Wahib

[ragingstillness]

The toxic boy mom emotional incest vibes are powerful in this one. @ultraviolet-glow and I were talking about this and they put it perfectly: “emotional incest but she hates him”

and don’t get me started on her pulling him about by his wrist and the significance of that. Excuse me while I flex my English degree: 

She’s pulling him, not leading him, or walking with him, she’s exerting her will over him. 

She’s pulling him around. There’s an implication there that this not only happened often but that Aleksander rarely had any idea where they were going. Baghra made all the decisions. 

She’s pulling him by his wrist. Not holding his hand, not taking his arm, she’s locked her hand around his arm in a spot that immobilizes his hand. He can’t fight back with the fingers of that hand. And considering what we’ve seen about how Grisha are treated, having control over one of his hands means that she could control if he could summon or not. What also locks around wrists? Shackles. 

It’s also relevant that she specifically is not holding his hand, a gesture often used by mothers with small children. Holding him by the wrist gives her power over him and also prevents him from interpreting the motion as affectionate. There’s a whole essay I could write here on how he’s clearly touched starved and poorly socialized but other people have already written it beautifully. She is refusing to show him any affection at all, during periods where she doesn’t need to avoid it. If the statement had been “she used to pull me around by my wrist whenever we were in danger” that’d be one story, but the true quote implies that she did this during everyday life when they were safe. There is no reason to avoid being affectionate with your child unless you hate them. There is no way to do this accidentally; this is intentional. 

Considering both their statuses as amplifiers this a) might be the only skin contact he ever got during that time and b) means that she can feed off of his amplification as well as her own, making her powerful at his expense. It’s giving me haunting vibes to the stag collar being used against Alina. 

Shadow and Bone 2x06

[fumifooms]

An unpolished review of Stranger Things 4′s Henry Creel and ableism. Eleven vs Henry, the good neurodivergent vs the dangerous mentally ill. Character analysis

Tldr, Stranger Things made some wild (insensitive) choices.

Umm so I watched the ep 7 of Stranger Things S4 and I have... Mixed feelings. I started writing this before volume 2 was out, and I’m finishing it in the end of july. I’ve had plenty of time to let it marinate, think and debate with others on it. It took this long for me to sort out my feelings and build up the courage to make any post in support of Henry Creel’s experiences and humanity, but I’ve gotten there, kind of.

I guess I should mention this too, kinda important, but I’m autistic. I was diagnosed at 18 and got all sorts of messed up and some internalized ableism I’ve worked through. The way I see it, currently in Stranger Things, the characters of Henry Creel, Eleven, Robin and even Will all have significant back-up to support them being autistic. Here what matters most is Henry’s, because his is the most overt and less masked, and Eleven’s due to the topic, but Henry having autism is the only actual diagnosis one I’m determined on defending. Regardless, canonically stated or not, much like being diagnosed or undiagnosed, it isn’t because you don’t have a label for it that you aren’t, and that the symptoms and experiences you have because of your autism don’t exist and don’t manifest. A character can have a mental illness or disorder without authorial intent, because things don’t exist in a vacuum. 

A few important things to keep in mind before we start, well summarized by the following posts. I’ll still be reiterating these things as I go though bc people have no chill:

https://nemevex.tumblr.com/post/676815383203840001/mental-illnesses-can-increase-the-chance-of-being

https://psychonarc.tumblr.com/post/664768075380441089/its-interesting-to-watch-neurotypicals-grapple

https://theegosystem.tumblr.com/post/657136958513037312/id-title-of-picture-says-how-can-someone-have-so

Tldr:  https://mibasai.tumblr.com/post/669402579694993408/reminder-that-if-your-horror-is-reliant-on  note: regardless of how many decent neurodivergent portrayals you have in your show, if one of them is an actively ableist portrayal, your show is still ableist. Being an ally to neurodivergent people isn’t about picking and choosing who is too scary to empathize with and not just “these few misfit kids were good and deserving of acceptance despite being a bit quirky all along”

shortest tldr: https://aeon-of-neon.tumblr.com/post/685452896681230336/also-can-i-just-say-the-autistic-child-is-evil

My tldr: The way Henry Creel was handled is literally autism & aspd fearmongering lol.

It may sound like I’m excusing Henry in this post, and I want to be clear that my goal isn’t to defend Henry’s actions, my goal is to defend Henry’s humanity and complexity as a full human with emotions and thoughts for whose whole identity isn’t the innate want to cause harm and be evil, since everyone is so set on strictly seeing him as such. Perhaps, you could use your empathy, which you condemn him for not having, to not deem him an irredeemable heartless monster whose abuse is justified.

Warnings for spoilers and discussion of heavy themes such as ableism, abuse, animal torture and the targeted ableist killing by the nazi Hans Asperger.

Disclaimer: This is not a clean essay. I was and am hurt and very defensive of these experiences and feelings which I identify and sympathize with, and I am confused. There are ways you can interpret the canon text in good faith, where everything is aligned in a way that lessens the ableist damage, but you have to dig and theorize so much that it doesn’t feel genuine to say that in this one case the narrative wouldn’t be ableist. I find it very hard to contain all my thoughts in one essay, especially since there’s so much analysis to set up before you can even attempt to humanize Henry’s mentality and choices, so I’ve chosen to reduce this as a casual review rather than an essay, and explain Henry Creel’s various ideologies and actions in other, later posts. I might come back to polish this one at some point later though, yet once again. I have written and rewritten the same points as below in so many ways scattered on multiple private platforms. To “polish” this for posting, I’ve spent literally 8 hours nonstop today. God. Anyways, let’s move onto the thing. 

Part of this essay was written before volume two and it’ll be apparent in the language and chronological order most times, but I did go back and organize ideas better and add in a few paragraphs so it might jump back and forth a bit.

The whole twist of Creel being One was sooo well executed and interesting and it had me hooked, I LOVED all of the build up to the reveal. I love mysteries that come together like puzzle pieces, and the way a lot of plot points and parts of the intrigue just tied together seamlessly felt so “wow” and satisfying. But then... They made him be evil because of neurodivergence...? 

Like, it’s not about giving your villain a complex backstory and grey morals, it’s about the framing. And yes, the framing absolutely was ableist.

The framing

Because, the show is explicitely saying that Creel is evil because he was inherently different since birth. The show suddenly stops highlighting the abuse and stygmatization he has suffered (such as “all the teachers and doctors said I was broken”, the corporal punishment for speaking to El which we were made to sympathize with before the reveal),and starts treating him like he’s some exotic beast, not like us TM, a monster.

And all this while having him say such neurodivergent things to say... It was actually painful for me to hear him say everything, especially the whole spiders thing, because it was so relatable and accurate, and for it to be framed with ominous music in tandem with the narrative and ambiance that we should be repulsed with everything that comes out of his mouth & everything he stands for. It honestly felt like the show was calling me crazy and evil because I was relating as he was talking.

But hey, I guess if they were going for historically accurate story & character tropes then ableism is def a pick. Wow, you’re so creative, the antisocial kid tortures animals and that lack of empathy means he’s a monster! It’s overdone, guys. It’s Split level of ableist horror sensationalization. It’s not that deep. Intention matters, we’re always saying how intention matters, why is Henry defiguring animals the proof of his demonic nature when it was done out of a lack of self-awareness to difference right from wrong, which kids are famous for not having, much like when you burn ants through a magnifier glass? It’s not that big of a jump. People hunt recreatively. People often hunt unethically. Are recreative hunters demonized by society at large? It was done humanely without any ill intention mind you, but was I demonic as a child when I held the corpse of hares my family got in hunting traps and not thinking anything of its death? Henry wanted to practice his skills, and that’s what he did, on living moving targets. It wasn’t done for a pleasure of animal pain, it was done in an objective efficient detached mindset. That doesn’t make it not disturbing or alright, it just means that doesn’t make him a subhuman or something. That kinda was the line when I debated about Henry being deserving of a modicum of sympathy with my mother for her, and it’s wild to see how quickly people are to refuse sympathy to another human because they sympathize with animals more and want to overtly attribute morality to its death. “Yeah Henry was abused in the labs and that sucks I guess, but he did torture those animals” to practice his skills, yeah! Even with Eleven we were shown that killing, and even just pushing someone back, with psychic powers isn’t that simple, straightforward and without other effects, and if Henry could kill quickly without pain and other disfigurations, then better practice would maybe be to disfigure intentionally instead of going straight for death. It seems terrible talking about this, and that’s because it is, but once again I’m explaining thought processes and how they’re not super wild demonic ones that people can’t understand. I had to bust out the “I can tolerate abusive and traumatic human bigotry, but I draw the line at animal abuse” quote and then my mom conceded lol. Y’all need to demistify these sensationalized things and put them down from the pedestral of innate morality you’ve put it on, the show is manipulating you and kids don’t experiment with killing animals because they’re some widow spider demons coming to kill everyone. Empathy doesn’t equal compassion. Kids are kids.

It’s the way Stranger Things wanted Eleven to push him away with disgust and horror with 0 nuance, even if they were the closest thing each other had to friends in such a cold, abusive place for so long. It’s the way all the abuse he endured was no longer treated as such, the way the show now showed that abuse as deserved. It’s the way the pieces of the puzzle all came together for the grand evil villain finale and the explanation for his motivations wasn’t “I am angry at the world/I want justice/they’ve kept us prisoners and mistreated us” but was “I’ve always been different”, and without saying it so obviously wanting the audience to continue that statement with “which makes me want to hurt and kill people”.

It’s the way the show suddenly did an 180 from before and after telling his backstory and wanting him to become entirely unsympathetic. God I hope I’m wrong and the second part of the season spins that on its head. It’s not the fact that Henry is ND [NeuroDivergent], I think with his story that’s interesting and compelling, but it’s the way the show wants us to shake in horror at the Big Bad ND. Henry is a traumatized abuse survivor, he needs support and guidance, not to be killed on sight, like the vibes are supporting in ep 7. Henry massacred everyone in the labs after he’s been forcefully kept under its control for years and mistreated there by everyone, after a lifetime of trauma and the strong self-preservation survival instincts it caused, and the person he risked himself so much to help, who has gone through so much so similarly to him, that he feels a connection with, just immediately turns on him murderously after seeing what he’s done, no attempt to talk, no confusion, no heartbroken words, just “oh yeah I guess you know who I really am now, I’mma have to kill you too ig” and “I can’t believe you were so evil all along :(( I hate you & I have to kill you now”. Why so black and white? Like I almost feel gaslighted, I can’t be the only one to think that a step was missed here, how did we go from extremely abusive living conditions to fully dehumanizing the marginalized victim with 0 recognition that at least part of his resentment and agressive lashing back is justified?? It would have been so much more compelling and heartbreaking of a scene like it seemed they wanted it to be if they had Henry attempt to comfort/explain it to Eleven more on her level, like how he’s doing it for them or how they hurt them and all. He did, in a way, but even that felt through the lenses that Henry is only capable of manipulation. I still believe by his massacre Henry thought he was doing the right thing/what he needed to do. They wanted to get out and leave the life behind, Henry wanted to make sure it’d never come back for them, or hell, never continue and bring more people into the misery, with maybe that “purging evil from the world” stance yeah since it seems like the show is going for a Thanos situation. The point isn’t that that motivation makes it ok, the point is that Henry isn’t depicted as some one dimensional monster born and raised villain. The way he cares for Eleven’s wellbeing is so obvious, how did it end like that? Surely if he felt like himself and Eleven were really so similar, he would have tried reasoning with her when he saw she wasn’t on board with what he had done?

The problem isn’t that Eleven, another traumatized abused child, reacted intensely and violently to the very personal and upsetting events, it’s that the show, the narrative, the atmosphere and everything, takes her side on her reaction of killing him without any second guessing was just and right without nuance. The show giving any hint at all that Henry might have been deserving of sympathy or a chance was in the last episode, executed very dismissively.

The good neurodivergent vs the bad neurodivergent, and the lack of nuance

God, the parallels between One and Eleven through the season now are nauseating, because it’s the trope of the “good misfit everyone should actually love” vs the “misfit that everyone is right to reject bc they deserve it and are inherently bad”. What???? What?????? How does that not destroy every meaningful lesson and theme you’ve ever attempted to build? It’s the model minority schema, guys. 

Do you know why Asperger’s is a very outdated term for “high-functioning” autism? Because it doesn’t exist, and was rooted in ableism. Asperger’s is a subjective assessment of an autistic person to evaluate if they’re smart despite being autistic and if they can function to the treshold they wish for, despite being autistic. Asperger’s was the difference between the “exceptional autistic genius that’s surhuman” trope and being labelled “mentally handiccaped”. You know what’s the difference between Asperger’s and autism? Masking. Masking, the act of suppressing your neurodivergence and mimicking neurotypical behavior which is detrimental to your mental health and exhausting to the point of often causing chronic fatigue. Masking, which is a defense mechanism and oftentime, a trauma response. The only way for them not to be rejected by society growing up, even through a lifetime of feeling like you don’t belong and not knowing what’s wrong with you, why you’re broken and why no one can fix you. Autism is a spectrum, it’s in the diagnosis’ name, and what that means is that everyone has different levels of symptoms, different limits and different tresholds. There is no “high-functioning” and “low-functioning”, it’s “how visible are your quirks, how easy is it for you to hide your problems in this society which was not made for people like you, how long and consistently can you keep it up, how much are you willing to damage yourself to fit in?”

Hans Asperger’s studies, in the era of world war 2, which resulted in the diagnosis and its different classification from autism, was literally, without going into gritty details, him gauging which autistic people seemed “smart” enough, functioning enough to be useful to the rest of society, which were exceptional enough to be worth studying and learning from, and differenciating those autistic people from the autistic people who should be sent to die.

I’ll be quoting this article for the next bit: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-truth-about-hans-aspergers-nazi-collusion/

Sheffer reveals how the Nazi aim of engineering a society they deemed ‘pure’, by killing people they saw as unworthy of life, led directly to the Holocaust.

With insight and careful historical research, Sheffer uncovers how, under Hitler’s regime, psychiatry—previously based on compassion and empathy—became part of an effort to classify the population of Germany, Austria and beyond as ‘genetically’ fit or unfit. In the context of the ‘euthanasia’ killing programmes, psychiatrists and other physicians had to determine who would live and who would be murdered. It is in this context that diagnostic labels such as ‘autistic psychopathy’ (coined by Asperger) were created.

Sheffer lays out the evidence, from sources such as medical records and referral letters, showing that Asperger was complicit in this Nazi killing machine. He protected children he deemed intelligent. But he also referred several children to Vienna’s Am Spiegelgrund clinic, which he undoubtedly knew was a centre of ‘child euthanasia’, part of what was later called Aktion T4.

This was where the children whom Nazi practitioners labelled ‘genetically inferior’ were murdered, because they were seen as incapable of social conformity, or had physical or psychological conditions judged undesirable. Some were starved, others given lethal injections. Their deaths were recorded as due to factors such as pneumonia.

Sheffer argues that Asperger supported the Nazi goal of eliminating children who could not fit in with the Volk: the fascist ideal of a homogeneous Aryan people.

This is incredibly serious for an Henry Creel tumblr essay, I am aware, and I am crying copy pasting this, and that is why this is important. Important for people to think about when they deem Henry Creel as a born monster. Why this is important to me. Do keep on telling me how Henry Creel was only ever good to imprison in a lab and experiment on, go on.

Because yes, Henry has explicitely neurodivergent experiences and displays over neurodivergent mannerism. Him not fitting in, having doctors trying to fix him as a person, and the whole feeling different (literally said by Henry as "I’ve always been different"). The whole relating to stygmatized animals is literally a very, very common experience in neurodivergent people with that sort of disorder. Even if it wasn’t intentional, it is so obvious that it cannot be ignored, and if the authors decided to ignore it anyways then that’s still ableism, you simply don’t want to admit your horror is rooted in ableism. But I do think it was intentional, because like I said they went out of their way this season to make Robin autistic. But especially because they did so many parallels with Henry and Eleven; they kept talking a about how "we’re the same you and me, we’re different" only being confirmed/reinforced by Henry being neurodivergent and saying neurodivergent experiences 24/7 and aaaaall the times people said like, "Oh Eleven is different. She doesn’t fit in" like so many times through the season and all the stuff in the labs and ugh. And yeah, the Eleven vs Henry parallels capitalize on ableist horror, the horror of the "good neurodivergent vs scary dangerous neurodivergent" trope, where one argues that one is fine and good while the other deserves no human rights. Because someone you don’t understand nor control having the power to snap under your abuse, just like any neurotypical, is a scary concept to many. It’s the unpredictable animal. You don’t trust that there is good in what you don’t know nor understand. And that goes both ways, you see no good in Henry, and Henry sees no good in humanity in kind, and with his experiences, it’s in part literally justified.

The thing with the Eleven vs Henry parallels though is that Henry was engineered to be “What if the villain was just like Eleven, but chose evil?”. That’s why in ep 8 the guys are like “Vecna is just like Eleven! How do we fight that?” That’s why the season kept having characters say how alike they are, having Henry say it, have other characters say how Eleven doesn’t fit in, all of it! They wanted dark!Eleven for the aesthetics, but didn’t bother making deeper themes, didn’t bother making it a true parallel because they wanted to dehumanize Henry as the epitome of categoric evil. It doesn’t work or register to the audience much, because they failed to treat him as they would have Eleven.  Literally, they did the "Eleven thought she did it but actually it was Henry" while continually pointing out how "similar" the two are. Henry is literally a narrative of dark!Eleven, except they don’t offer him the sympathy that they would have offered her had their roles truly been reversed. Oh hurray!! Eleven didn’t actually kill all these people, she’s too good for that! She could never, in fact she’d rather kill the meanie who did it in righteous anger! No need for an identity crisis! No need to feel such guilt! Yes, the good girl could never deal with such a morally ambiguous revelation of something terrible she has done, there is no hidden evil sides to El like you might have thought with her assaulting her bully, she’s clean! A murderer is born, not made! <3 Because there are ways to respond to trauma that make you innately evil, of course.

We had fricking Billy hargrove. Billy Hargrove. Billy "tries to run over kids and torments everyone personally" Hargrove. They had Billy Hargrove get more depth, sympathy and respect than Henry "I’m Eleven but if she had snapped" Creel. I’m sorry but if Billy gets to almost run over kids to make a point and gets largely forgiven by the fandom then why can’t Henry who’s been intensely abused for a decade in the place he’s breaking free from and lashing out, like, the line to end all lines. You want to tell me emotionally stunted abused boy violently lashing out in a breakdown at his agressive cellmates and captors of 10 years is marginally worse than Eleven wanting to use her powers on Angela and impulsively hitting her head with an object for verbal bullying of like, some months? Yeah Eleven kinda regretted it, kinda, and the injury wasn’t super serious, but the initial intent was there, the impulse was there, if you lose control and give into the impulse, are you  forgiven because the action failed to be as grave as you wished, or hadn’t thought through the possibility of serious/fatal damage? No, that makes you a Billy Hargrove who was willing to bet on kids’ lives that his sister would give into him before his car ran them over. Henry is dark!Eleven, indeed. Tell me, which of the two is the high-functioning autistic? We can talk all day about how they’re different, who is irredeemable and if that matters, but can’t we all just recognize the nuance? The shades of grey? It doesn’t have to be either "you’re an evil monster who can never change" or "misunderstood cinnamon roll who deserves all the good faith in the world", it can just be "you’re an ugly, hurting human being, and you suck, but I see you, and I recognize your pain and humanity. Your pain explains your actions, but doesn’t excuse them." A show shouldn’t bend the line of who has good in them and who doesn’t because one is your problematic fave while the other is supposed to be your big villain so you make him neurodivergent and different, forgetting that he, too, experienced the tragedy of his tragic backstory.

Framing is important. Stories create bias and hold bias, writing is biased and we as the audience are biased.

Let me ask you, when we kept getting told that Eleven killed a whole room of kid cellmates, what were your theories? No matter how much or little you thought about it, your instinct probably told you that in a moment of overwhelming emotions El had a violent burst of powers that she couldn’t/wouldn’t control. Did you think her lesser for it? Were you going to turn your back to her? What makes me so mad is the unwillingness of anyone to give similar good faith to Henry. This guy developed a “it’s me alone against the world that shunned me” mentality from a young age due to being ostracized by everyone in his life including his family, then handled traumatic truths about his family’s past misdeeds through superpowers and gained delusions of grandeur ideologies as a mechanism to give meaning to his life and otherizarion, was hospitalized against his will into the care of a doctor who groomed him for his purposes and unethically tested on him & then kept him a prisoner for roughly a decade (my guess). Is it really so hard to believe that his reaction to finally becoming free, getting back the power and agency they stole from him, and having to flee the place while workers of the establishment that abused him try to chain you back, you’d overly react? You wouldn’t have an emotional breakdown, an episode, a violent and vengeful burst? Who’s to say if your survival mode didn’t make you go on autopilot? That is an abused, mentally ill psychologically vulnerable young man who has never been treated with understanding or love nor therapy. He has spent more years in the lab than Eleven, and we all know how much it messed her up. In this same season 4 we saw how Eleven’s reaction to emotional distress is violence, when she tried to use her powers against her bully, and later with the rollerskate assault. We literally saw how the kids in the lab were pitched against each other and would torment each other, and use excessive force in experiment matches. They were literally raised to respond to conflict by being the stronger one in a fight. They want to survive and thrive, have learned survival of the fittest, and so prioritize themselves, it’s simple. ASPD is born from trauma. ASPD forms as a defense & coping mechanism. You would have forgiven Eleven for doing the same thing. Why is Henry Creel irredeemable even in the best world? Framing, is when.

Conclusions

You can’t just... Divorce things from their irl parallels or effects. You can’t have Henry Creel having explicitely neurodivergent experiences and encourage inherently fearing him for it. You absolutely CANNOT have the whole “these animals are misunderstood and perceived as scary by most, just like me” and DOUBLE DOWN on that by making that animal a scary symbolic thing for the main villain that is supposed to make your skin crawl and personify evil and has caused every horror that has happened in the show. It’s... It’s just so cruel. I don’t get it? I don’t understand. How can you have a speech on something just wanting to live its life unbothered and being stigmatized by everyone for no reason and going “yeah that’s 100% justified and you shouldn’t sympathize with them at all actually. If you do sympathize then that means there’s also something wrong with you”

And it’s such??? A wild take. It feels like the text is at war with itself, with what it sets up and states and what it does the next second. I can’t process that anything else but a sympathizing scene will happen in the climax with all the subtext of trauma and the contradictions that exists with the season as it currently is, but also I can’t see how they would handle a redemption or anything of the like, all while the episode/show is really going the “oh look at the scary mentally ill person!!” route so??? Wtf is going on. It’s such a wild 180, the before reveal and post-reveal season 4 characterisations, plotlines and themes feel so disjointed. What is up with the writing They literally went "I am so rejected by my peers that I latch onto this misunderstood, feared spider because I relate to its ostracization and struggle." And then the show goes "Yeah, you should fear him and those spiders. The spiders will come at you in horrific hallucinations, and Henry was born a murderous murder whose only way to cure is to be killed" that’s just so cruel of a narrative wow ok bruh

No, you can’t have the “omg this character is not normal, so scary” trap for your neurotypical audience and then at the last ep go “actually we were woke all along :)”. You didn’t frame this as some tragic character, you framed it as a monster who finally got unleashed, someone who tricked El into helping him commit atrocities despite it not being his intentions, attitude nor goal. It’s scary how quickly people are to believe the “Henry was manipulating Eleven all along” despite him never lying, pushing Eleven to do things, or even attempting to control her. Even at his most unstable and unfavorable to Eleven, during their confrontation, Eleven was the first to strike, and Henry didn’t say anything about forcing her to join him, just tried to convince her he is the righteous one and she should help him in his mission, tbh it kinda seems as if it hadn’t occured to him she might want to not join him at all. I’m not saying the threat at that point wasn’t there, I’m saying that to say everything Henry’s done was in the goal to manipulate and groom her with ill intentions is delusional, but that’s not a random conclusion, nor your fault. The show wants you to think that, with how his character’s demeanor shift, because he has stopped masking his more off-putting posture and tone, how the reveal of him being the big bad since season 1 comes into place at the same time, wow, he’s a mastermind! No, he’s an overpowered, lost, abused young guy who just digged himself deeper in his self-destructive coping mechanism. All the Vecna stuff comes in much, much later, and all he did before that was trying to show Eleven that she’s being abused and breaking her free of that abuse, then accepting her help when she offers to free him despite his reluctance. Was Henry wrong to tell her that Papa lies, to give her the chance to flee? Should he not have done that? And you might go “wait wait wait, you mean that facial expression and demeanor in the labs, besides a breakdown or mental illness episode, could also just be how Henry behaves when he’s not trying to appear neurotypical, when he’s not masking?”  Yes.  “Wow, it truly is so creepy, you can’t tell me anyone that isn’t a murderous freak would have body language like that! No wonder people wanted doctors to fix him and to forcibly internalize him into abusive psych wards, and keep him restrained!”  Wow, you have so many ableist conceptions to work through and get rid off, no wonder Henry wanted you dead <3

People would have been pissed if Henry was treated just as the abused sad boy who did a bad thing for a good reason, but it’s still necessary to acknowledge that abuse and how it further shaped the abuser they have become, and I’m pissed that he’s treated just as some emotionless monster who is incapable of good or nuance ever. It’s not about changing the story, it’s about giving the right amount of accountability while not making the character one note. Stranger Things having a one note evil monster human villain would have been fine, IF they didn’t make the character & their backstory so explicitely neurodivergent coded. How even do you screw up this bad. This was intentionally done, writing & framing doesn’t just happen. Why? The choice was either to capitalize on ableist demonization horror, or have it be subversed later on, but no matter what, it’s still a wildly ableist choice. You wrote Henry Creel as a complex human, why aren’t you treating him as one?

It’s very similar to Azula from atla, really. Child with traumatic childhood and misbehavior grows up somewhat and gets pictured as a mentally disturbed beacon of evil with no other motivation than inflicting pain ever. The show clearly shows aspects that would have you sympathize or understand to a degree, but has a strange obsession with playing ominous music every time they are on screen and manipulates the viewer to interpret every single of their actions as having ill intent. Azula was an abused child soldier who still tried to help her estranged brother despite getting nothing from it. Henry wanted to help El escape from the lab where she obviously should leave asap and asked nothing of her, the plan only changed because she, unprompted, took the initiative to help him in turn despite getting no encouragement before or after from him about it. The show & fandom in both cases are obsessed about all of their actions being manipulative, unwilling to consider that maybe yes, Azula didn’t want to have her brother killed and yes, maybe Henry just wanted to have the abused kid & kindred spirit he felt a connection with be free from the hell they lived in. If you don’t believe me about Azula, there are plenty of objective Azula scene & character analysis on Tumblr. This post is also interesting for the conversation at hand. I honestly could link so many things that support my other general claims and explain why things are wrong but man this could get so huge. This is such a prominent issue in pop culture and everyone is so ready to jump to the defense of ableist depictions of villains, ironically.

Is this why they made Robin autistic all of a sudden, because they knew their main villain storyline was ableist af... 🤭🤭 Anyways yeah Henry joins my pile of ND antagonists that were done dirty by canon

Henry Creel could have been written so well. The crumbs are all there, I could do a psychology analysis of him with his childhood and thought processes and have him still be exactly as he is on screen while being a complex, three dimensional villain. But nooo we get autism & ASPD fearmongering, alright.

There would have been soooo many ways to dehumanize Henry, to make him some heartless creepy monster, without making his whole aesthetic being neurodivergent = evil. They literally just had to not make his experiences be a copy of a neurodivergent kid growing up in an era very hostile and unaccommodating for people different like him. Like we see Eddie being treated, and even then Henry prob had it worse at least in some ways. They literally just had to not put his character through abuse and ostracization and then there would have been no reason to sympathize at all. A child who has enough issues to murder his family through fire is a child that has issues and needs help, not to be further demonized and cement their "me versus the world" mentality. They just had to not do these things, not even to do something else, just to take those out. Henry would have still been demonized by mannerism that is often shared with autistic people, amongst others, and would have still done all the horrible shit he did, but at least then the parallels would be much less worse, it wouldn’t be so overtly ableist and neurodivergent people wouldn’t feel hurt watching it.

Before this ends I do want to say that no, obviously, I don’t support Henry killing anyone, nor any of his bad actions. I don’t want to excuse it, and him getting some level of punishment is deserved, though rehabilitation is really more my jam, and if the punishment only reinforces the thought processes he gained as a defense mechanism... You know what I’m saying? It’s frankly immature to look at such an obviously morally complex story and characters and just, treat it the way they have? It’s disgusting. I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised about this from the show who depicts anything russian... That way though, lol... This was pretty emotional and unpolished, aka repetitive and ungraceful, but yeah I just hope I won’t cause a fandom war or get shit on or smth. It’s all just :(  The stench of ableism is just undeniable and I’m both mad and disappointed, I just hope the latter end of the season will amend it somewhat. Was the episode low on time or something? Did the whole “actually yeah your heart is supposed to wrench in sympathy for him and the show frames it as super tragic and sad for him to have been pushed to become this way” and by “this way” I mean irredeemable in their eyes just go over my head or something? Must be my autism <3  I’mma still watch the show, and I cast no moral judgements for other fans, especially since a lof of this is the framing of the show manipulating the audience, but if you love the whole Henry backstory and how it was executed, at least understand/aknowledge how deeply problematic it was handled.

Part two (yep, those were all part one thoughts)

UPDATE - season 4 part 2

Wow it really got better! Sike it only got worse. I had hope during many moments in ep 8 to be honest. I really thought Eleven was processing the trauma of Henry turning out to be evil and having mixed feelings and all, like with the scene where she watched Max & co talk about him and how to take him down. The fact that “Henry’s just like Eleven, a supernatural gifted kid & kinda doesn’t fit in” and “So, how do we take Henry, the monster, down?” were said so closely next to each other and so casually, coupled with Eleven’s upset expression, really had me thinking that Eleven was upset to see Henry, an ex-friend and kindred spirit, as this monster they had to put down, and to be likened to him so much. I even expected that maybe the next thing one would say would be “Well, what are Eleven’s weaknesses we could exploit to kill Henry?” which would have been horrifying for her for sure, to have that parallel so easily not only be drawn but exploited for the murder of one.

The neurodivergent lines and parallels about Eleven are also still ongoing, so that solidifies that Henry is intentionally neurodivergent coded as well.

Papa’s death

I have my beef with Papa’s death and how it was handled. 

Particularly, it’s really sad how all the other kids in the labs don’t matter beyond adding trauma flavor to Eleven. When she’s having cryptic flashback at first, she’s horrified at what she thinks she did, but not that much because of who they were. Afterward, she’s sad about it, but again, more in an horrified empathetic way rather than truly mourning them, it’s about her trauma, not them. Father is... Well it’s kind of left up to the audience to interpret how he reacted to Eleven, if like Henry said Papa only got more scared of her because of it, if he got intrigued by this new power and urges he thought she got, if he understood immediately that she freed 001 like implied, or if he was disapproving of Eleven for making him lose all his other experiments, or even sad at losing all these children. In the end, even if it’s very obvious to the audience that those kids were just traumatized children trying to get by in an abusive environment, how the show treats them is kinda dehumanizing, as mere plot devices. Eleven cried at the show of evil, because of guilt and maybe suppressed mourning, and Father pretty much dismisses their loss after the event. So that’s how their deaths were handled and shown, but how is the aftermath of it treated? Well it just isn’t mentioned. Not by any character, not beyond a “how could you let Henry be in proximity with these kids he ended up murdering!” which is about villifying Henry and questioning Father’s, an unquestionable figure of authority and all-knowing well-meaning caretaker put on a pedestral choices up to that point, and not really about the kids. Or a “all these deaths!” which isn’t about the kids, but about the virtue signalling. It’s not about them, it’s about Henry and the conflict between Eleven and Father, the arcs that the two are going through, of questioning that authority figure who’s always had a grip on her life, and of falling down his pedestral with others as well as with his own convictions. It’s not about them. 

The episode is about Eleven, and Father and Henry. The arc shown about Father getting what he deserves isn’t about all the horrible things Father has done, getting confronted with them, attempting to atone or repress their memories or anything, it’s about Eleven rejecting him and everything he has taught.  Let me repeat this. The episode where Father gets called out is about his treatment of Eleven, and Eleven first and foremost, if not ONLY. The level to which they acknowledge Father abused everyone else just as much as Eleven is very weak.

Please, let’s acknowledge how messed up, truly nauseatingly fucking MESSED UP it is that Papa gets told (paraphrasing bc I watched the ep in french) “You kept Henry imprisoned at the labs for so long... With all of us!” I was so positively stunned when Eleven said the first part with such resentful rage. Yes, Henry was abused, too! Papa kept all of you prisoners! He is why Henry got reaffirmed in his belief that humanity are a selfish and spineless disease to wipe out! He traumatized you all, traumatized him even further! But no. The reproach isn’t that Henry shouldn’t have been treated as some subhuman scientific experiment, it’s that he allowed monster murderous Henry to share their vicinity. That of course Papa should have known, if Henry was living with them for such a prolonged time, he was bound to eventually kill them! Can Henry just never have human contact ever again then?? How is anyone surprised Henry never got better when this is how everyone treats him. You don’t want Henry to get better, you want ease of mind from his existence, and killing him erases the problem just fine so why bother? Did you know, that a lot of professional therapists and programs deny cases that are “too severe”, even if the individual seeks help and self-improvement? A lot of people turn away patients with cluster b disorders just because the disorders, their perceived symptoms and perceived unstability scares them, even if the individual is harmless. Everyone tells pedos (regardless of criminal record if any) to seek help with a sneer, for example, but no one wants to be the person to offer that help, no even those whose literal job it is, and that’s why this question is one that is asked to anyone looking to become a psychologist. “Would you be willing/strong enough to accept to work with [insert type of patient]?”. Most of people’s answers are no. You don’t want them to get better, you want them to rot in prison away from the world until they die. I take no pleasure in saying this, but it is a real issue, and one that most people refuse to acknowledge. You don’t want Henry to get better, because you don’t trust his capacity nor worthiness of getting better, and that’s an issue, and that is ableist, but the blame is shared with the show because it encourages you to think that way, and the arguments it gives in support of this stance are ableist and insidious.

It really is truly horrifyingly dehumanizing to see how they categorically refuse to see Henry as a victim of abuse and trauma in any capacity, how they deny his complexity and capacity for non-evil so much. Eleven implies that yeah, it’s okay if Henry is locked up, in fact, he should never be allowed near anyone! He should have been killed as a baby! Because death was the only solution and getting him the earlier the better! It’s sad that Eleven doesn’t have even a shred of sympathy for him, considering how indeed similar they were and how they connected, how he was her only ally for such a harsh prolonged period of her life. She doesn’t even mourn the person she thought he was, couldn’t show the same sympathy for the victim of a same abuser the same way she has to the ones who injured and bullied her instead of helping her, albeit in a misguided way. The “You’re the monster” at Papa almost feels like an admittance that Henry isn’t fully to blame for his trauma? But mind the almost, the show still said Papa’s mistake was allowing the dangerous child he’s been abusing to be with other unstable kids. Yeah I’m sure it really helped how Papa encouraged violence (pitting the kids against each other in unfriendly fights, without punishing excessive use of strenght to hurt, and even rewarding shows of excessive violence by being impressed, beyond the obvious extra play time. Truly encouraging the survival of the fittest rule where the strong deserve to torment the weak) all while fueling his cynical hatred of humanity. I’m sure Henry would have grown to become Vecna no matter what happened to him, that the same would have happened if he got a shred of a healthy support system for once, if he hadn’t put into the hands of a system that wants him either assimilated or dead.

It doesn’t hurt because we needed speeches on the nature of abuse, it hurts because Stranger things is pushing ableist, anti-rehabilitation, anti-recovery narratives. Henry was born the devil, fated to become the dangerous monster he now is, and death is the only mercy for them all. It could be such an interesting complex take on Eleven’s character as well, of refusing all of Henry’s existing complexity and genuine interactions the two ever had because of the trauma the reveal caused, on how she needs to stop thinking so black and white, that she is not a monster for choosing fight in fight or flight, but still having an arc of deconstructing how she was taught to respond to conflict and distress by violence, because it is wrong. But no, we have milktoast pure evil vs born good and empathetic humans that must hatch it out and “no actually I’m not a monster I just needed to break free from your hold, Papa. But that guy? Yeah there was never any hope y’know some people are just born like that and can’t be fixed” 

BUT on the other hand! I got really scared when Father started talking about how all he did was selfless & for Eleven, BUT Eleven didn’t validate or reassure him at all in the end even not as a dying wish, which I really really liked. Like yeah, she can be conflicted and heartbroken and sad over his death, of course, she can hold his hand or whatever, but I’m really super glad she (and the writers) didn’t cross that line of giving him unearned peace and validation by lying about how all the horrible selfish abuse he did was done caringly in some twisted way, and I’m so glad that narrative wasn’t truly pushed. He’s a delusional man who did horrible things and died desperately trying to justify them, and that is fitting.

In conclusion, I continue to be hurt. The gaslighting of the show only makes me more upset. I question the validity of my interpretation and experiences, and wonder if I have the right to be hurt. It tests my sense of self and moral convictions. But logic prevails all and here I am like, 5k later still holding strong. It’s not about defending murder man, it’s about aknowledging the facts of the literal show that Henry was in fact a victim of abuse, how that shouldn’t be brushed off as something that didn’t influence him at all and that, worse, he deserved, and also the basic human compassion principle that everyone is capable of good if given the right environment.

2nd conclusion

Y’all love the “I am the righteous hand of god” tiktoks about the kids fighting back their abusive parent with weapons so much, but when it’s the fictional literal dehumanized kid that’s different and has been told he needs to be fixed all his life showing visions to his parents of their worst actions out of some misguided sense of justice, then lashes out and fights back against his family after they try to get him forcibly hospitalized (into the system that got him abusively imprisoned and groomed for a decade, might I add. Justified fear to have, let’s just say), then goes on some murderous crusade of the ones who hurt him and his bestie after a decade of imprisonment and relentless abuse and are still trying to drag him back into chains, and suddenly you can’t understand it at all? Suddenly violence and confrontation isn’t a response to abuse, a fight or flight survival mechanism, that you can stomach? Where’s the empowering framing and catharsis now?

Like idk how to get you to understand, it’s literally maladaptive abuse responses because you maladaptively develop when you live in abusive environments and get exposed to trauma. It’s literally the “but is it justice or justified to bully the bully” age-old dilemma. What’s not clicking?? That doesn’t make it right it just means Henry isn’t a demonic shell of a human being and you’re not only demonizing this fictional character but also everyone who went through a similar struggle a similar way. It’s not a hard thesis to grasp.

Just to be clear for the umpteenth time, none of Henry’s actions are acceptable. I personally don’t see any of his interactions with Eleven as intentionally manipulative or insidious, I genuinely think he was trying to help selflessly and genuinely connecting with no underlying or evil intentions. I personally see Henry’s response to being set free in the labs of going after everyone who hurt him and could continue the horrible legacy of the labs, people who could search for him and drag him back like we see Papa do with Eleven through the seasons, in some emotional rageful trauma response to be justified. Justified, not acceptable. 

Why would Henry kill everyone, including the kids? 1) We’re shown that the staff wants to chain him back and are very fine trying to use violence to do so. First and foremost, Henry fighting back is self-defense because he wants to get out and stay free. It’s pretty much life or death for him at that point, even if they only want to chain him again, it’s not much better than life, is it. That can easily spiral into killing everyone he comes across, because even if they run away they might be getting help or weapons, and at some point there’s no time to gauge a reaction. Then that can veryyy easily devolve into... 2) he’s having some sort of breakdown. After a decade stuck in a prison, he’s finally, finally free but the fight has just begun and as he has to defend himself against everyone coping & defense mechanisms activate and he’s put on autopilot, wether it makes him numb or with some twisted glee of satisfaction, both would sadly be responses of trauma that are valid to be seen as such. 3) The staff is trying to get him back. What if, even if he runs away, the labs would try to track him down and drag him back? That’s is a very sound hypothesis, and one confirmed since we see what happens with Eleven. The only true escape is to kill anyone that could come for him. Kill absolutely everyone involved in the labs. Also, since we see that Henry wanted to get Eleven out, him erasing everything of the labs could be a way to ensure others aren’t dragged into the experiments, for the legacy of the labs to be unable to live on. Though I don’t believe that Henry had so much foresight into the future at that stressful moment to have a reasoning like “I can’t let other superpowered kids alive or they might end up fighting against me”, and it’d feel disjointed from the rest and the tone as a main motivation. 5) Revenge. Those people imprisoned him and Eleven, bullied Eleven. He will kill them all for the way they hurt him and the one person he cares about. In his eyes, either they’re unworthy of life, or it’s really just to deal punishment and gain satisfaction from it. In this category I’d also put his life mission of exterminating humans, might as well start fulfilling it right away.

Why would he kill everyone but El? The show is very explicit about it. Henry sees himself in Eleven, a talented yet quiet and recluse misfit outcast, and feels some connection with her for it. Tbh it’s kind of canonicaly explicitely the neurodivergent spidey senses lmao. Anyways, and Henry got attached to her in that way, and wanted her free out of the labs. He didn’t want harm to come to her, she’s special, the exception, and if the opportunity arises he’d love to have her beside him as he does his genocide thing. He wouldn’t hurt El unprovoked, he even tried to talk/"reason" her into seeing things his way with his speech about his life and human nature. I think he sees himself as her guardian, in a way, a big reason for why he wanted her to wait safely in the closet.

The “visions of past guilt” he inflicted on his family is obviously a terrible, non-justifiable thing to do, but as a kid we’re taught very firmly that justice should be dealt and bad actions should be adressed, and to me it isn’t so wild that upon finding out the terrible horrible shit his family has done, would respond to that trauma by making them confront it alongside him who learned about it all, judging that they haven’t atoned for it enough since he, their son, never knew about it and never saw them sorry for it. It only solidified his unflattering view of humans as callous, immoral selfish creatures, and by then yeah I think that was set in stone enough for him to be ok with murder. But I do think killing his family was... Handled in the show in a weird way that makes it hard for me to suspend my disbelief and not just see the obvious attempt to dehumanize him fully? Like it was really cold, said matter of factly like “Yes, just as I’d planned they all died then and I wasn’t blamed for it. I never cared for them and I felt nothing but satisfaction at a plan well executed. I have never thought about them since, and continued my path into ridding the world of the human leeches”, and? Ok dude, go off I guess. Personally, so as for it not to totally break my interpretation of him as someone who isn’t a one dimensional personification of bloodlust, I see it as him overtly lashing out in the moment, and at the very grave results try to distance himself emotionally from it and act as if it doesn’t matter and he’d have done it anyways. An emotional lash out, response to fear and abuse and distress and a need to protect himself, like when he was free from the chip and the lab wanted to chain him back, like when Eleven got bullied to the point of meltdown.

And if I can give good faith to Eleven for not only being sad at the deaths of her cellmates out of guilt, and that she’s maybe suppressing all the positive she once associated with Henry and didn’t just do a one-dimensional emotionally detached 180 on her stance about him, then I can give good faith to a traumatized, abused Henry who’s never had a good support system and so latched onto spiders because he was just that lonely and otherized for making himself believe that his murder of his family was entirely planned and meaningful, because not being emotionally detached about it and realizing it was a senseless spill of blood would be too painful. I can give good faith that he doesn’t just have some black hole of bloodlust inside, and that if he does that’s born of a coping mechanism, but fundamentally it’s just flawed ideologies based on the need to give his difference and ostracization from other, normal humans, a deeper meaning than just “I have suffered so much because humans are flawed, and that suffering was senseless. But that’s okay, and I need to work through that and let things go, despite that in my era there are no ressources or common compassion for people like me”. Because “we all have good. They say that I’m evil and broken, but I think they’re the ones who are flawed, evil, and should be fixed. But I understand that that course of action is flawed, and none of us are evil and should be purged from the world. There is no need to continue the cycle of abuse and treat them like they have treated me. Coexisting won’t be easy, but I have to be the bigger person and try to make the world a better place in a way that doesn’t involve what they would do to me if they could. Murder is bad and shouldn’t be done, but they do bad things to me that shouldn’t be done and that’s deemed okay, but that doesn’t make murdering them okay because doing bad things don’t make them irredeemably bad people” isn’t the kind of lesson a literal child will usually work through and come to on his own, not when he’s hurting so much and trying to give meaning to his life, hence his “I must purge the world from humanity” mission. I think this might be my best way of phrasing this yet. Do you see? Do you see how cruel and senseless it is?

I want to continue watching Stranger Things, I liked the season so much before they pulled this, but it really hurts when they make me feel the urge to type out multiple essays attempting to defend an abuse victim’s humanity to the majority who is willingfully convinced that he doesn’t deserve basic compassion. I hate how even without looking at how people on tumblr talk about him, the ambiance and text of the show invalidate him so much and make me feel the need to add a paragraph on here about how “no, I haven’t had these experiences, I can just understand Henry’s way of thinking through logical hypothetics because as an autistic who’s only autistic I have learned to put myself in others’ shoes to mask better. No I haven’t killed animals willingly and no I never have violent meltdowns” because, while true, I know it’s because I’m so scared that people will look at this post and go “Look! If she can sympathize to these experiences, she’s dangerous and crazy, too!”, because that is the atmosphere Stranger Things season 4 has built up, and because I know from experience that some people will react like this, because I will be judged and my words and experiences will be devalued for it. 

I am desperately afraid of people knowing I don’t hate Henry Creel with every fiber of my being, that I like spiders too, and Harry Potter’s demonization of snakes only inspire me to preach how great they are, that I headcanon my faves to have ASPD and NPD and while it adds to their struggle it’s not treated as something to be fixed, that empathizing with morally ambiguous characters who prioritize themselves is healing to me, and that all of these help me cope with life and how rough and meaningless it is. But you know what? I know that, I aknowledge that. But I want, I choose to, stand by these things. I am against demonizing people for neurodivergence and mental health struggles when they should be getting help and compassion, and you should too. Henry Creel’s framing is actively damaging, to both stigmatized neurodivergent and/or mentally ill people who need help instead of judgement, and to the greater public who gets taught that neurodivergent people are beasts to be seen as threats to evaluate and contain. It reinforces wider ableism, as well as internalized ableism.

Episode 9

It took... Almost a month for me to do any sort of retrospective on this episode. My biggest wish was fulfilled. The show explicitely recognized that Henry was abused at the hands of Papa, too. And... It was very underwhelming. Pretty disappointing. But I got it! I can’t complain, right? Well I will anyways bc I will not be restrained.

The whole speech of “you were abused too, and you can become better it isn’t too late” by Eleven felt very tacked on, very out of nowhere, unearned and not genuine. You’re telling me that you tried to kill him like 3 times before trying to have a single convo of any kind, and in the end Vecna needed to pin you to the wall and threaten everything you hold dear for you to extend to him the barest shred of recognition of humanity and compassion and not quite believe your words even as you’re saying them? Yeah... Sure. To be honest, it felt a lot like virtue signalling Eleven being good and the better person more than really to make the characters or the audience entertain the thought that Vecna might have some good and capacity for growth in him somewhere. Once again, a scene about Henry’s trauma is more about Eleven than it truly is about him. But? As for acknowledging that Henry Creel is a victim of abuse and has gone through though shit, that’s good enough for me. But I debated a long time on if this essay should still be posted then, and I do think it should be. A small, half-hearted half-assed concession that his humanity existed at some point does not erase the framing and all the damage it has done.

A recurring thing I hate with how they did Henry is the aftermath with Eleven. Like, Henry was kind of her only ally in the place that abused her for so long? She was friends with him? They shared secrets, and some trust bond that didn’t seem wholy one-sided from Henry? And you’re just going to throw that all away and think the audience will believe there’s no remaining feelings about it? The show seems to go down the route that the reveal traumatized her a lot, so from then on she responded to Henry with immediate violence and intense hostility. If she sees him as a one-dimensional villain who manipulated her and can do no good, then she can’t be conflicted about the nice moments she shared with him, the good she thought she saw there, and the pain of losing the closest thing she had ever had to a friend. So she suppresses thinking deeper about Henry and respond to confrontation of him or the topic of him by being very hostile towards anything him. But then the last scene?? Doesn’t really work because she hasn’t undone that at all. She doesn’t sound sincere when she says it. Her back is to a literal and figurative wall, Vecna is going to kill all her friends, and now, now after trying to kill him many times over without even attempting to talk, now you’re going to appeal to his humanity? It doesn’t feel like a change of perspective, it feels like a desperate, last ditch attempt to win the war and get out alive. Which is why it feels fake af

It’s really ironic how Stranger Things season 4 really just reinforces Vecna’s beliefs. Humans are vermins who go by the survival of the fittest rule. Everyone treated Henry like shit at every stage of his life. Papa made the kids fight each other for basic needs rewards. He could flee the facility if he wanted because he was the strongest, but he wasn’t so Eleven won. Eleven was going to crush him mercilessly, but he had her by the throat, and suddenly she’s willing to allow the thought of him having a crumb of humanity.

Oh and I forgot to mention it but they used the psycho word derogatorily on Jason which... Just pretty much confirms that they don’t care about being insensitive and explicitely ableist. Jason doesn’t even truly fit most of the criterias, get it right. Jason alongside Henry is prob going to be one of the most hated Stranger Things character ever, and the writers knew that, which is why the choice of word as Lucas delivers a beating and he dies in the unleashment of the apocalypse without a spare glance all the more telling. Like, I do really hate Jason as much as the next person, but can we appreciate that the show explicitely showed us that he was grieving intensely, and how the way society behaved around Jason and people like him had a huge part in why he turned out the way he did? Get this, Jason is portrayed to have more emotional depth than Henry Creel! The bar is so low lol...

Final thoughts on the season

Ok hot take but not really, but I was lowkey pissed at how the season just, doesn’t talk about Lucas and sports at all? The show kinda implies that he joined the basketball team and everything just for the status, to be accepted and all, but does Lucas just not care about the sport at all?? Does he not like basketball?? Is he naturally gifted to have landed that winning score or did he spend many hours desperately training to have a chance of popular kids accepting him? We don’t know!! Why don’t we know when that’s like, such an obvious loose thread! I always kinda just thought that he, y’know, wanted to do basketball on the basketball team but the way it’s all done and how Lucas says smth like "I should never have joined the team bc they suck and i have u guys" in the last ep and I was like?? So was the basketball just a secondary thing to making the team or? To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with that narrative, it’s actually really compelling. But the thing is that the show doesn’t address it at all, it kinda implies it but doesn’t state anything or does anything with it so it kinda just dies a no closure death and feels off and ruins the potential when all the right cards for it were already laid out. Actually that last criticism is a common flaw i’ve found throughout the season tbh. Putting all the crumbs necessary for cool pay-off or plot twists, then just doing nothing with it or worse, dismissing them and contradicting them. Sooo are we just going to ignore Henry was abused for like, a decade and his parents wanted a doctor to fix him and apparently they’ve done terrible shit like possibly set fire on a baby or smth??? Ok yeah ig we’re just not going to address that at all until like the last 10 minutes half-heartedly maybe, also u get no deeper answers, and was Henry an abuse victim truly? Up for debate, apparently, which it shouldn’t bc it’s pretty explicity but the show likes to gaslight ig Ronance? Eddissy? Shit, we the writers def noticed the glaring chemistry but it’s too late to make changes to the script now so let’s just keep everything the same & have it both ways and never address the obvious sparks flying. Oh and let’s not ever have the main cast talk much about Chrissy or have Eddie like, grieve or talk about her at all besides self-pity and trauma? Was the whole Jason plotline really the biggest reason for Chrissy to be important? When you examine it deeper it, kinda just feels sour and stale. And I’ve got other examples but I’ll stop here, I kinda sound way too nitpicky. But point is, this season just had so many subplots that went nowhere with no closure, narratively or thematically.

The thing is! The show keeps wanting to act as if Henry is this unreasonable guy always scheming and manipulating but! He’s just a traumatized dude with murderous convictions! Convictions can be changed! The guy latched onto spiders as a kid, he’s never formed a meaningful relationship with anyone ever, never had someone to fully support him or help him through things, and the one kid he did form a connection with ends up stabbing him in the back without a second thought? How is that supposed to make him deescalate or deradicalize? How is that supposed to change his mind on being a loner and humans being beneath him? I’m not saying it was imperative for El to accept him or whatever, it makes a lotta sense she doesn’t, but I’m saying it’s no wonder how it further cements him in his way.  Even in the aftermath of her killing him, he can’t let go of the one bond he’s made fully. Eleven becomes his one true rival. She’s still special. He still cares, in a weird twisted way.

So the show wants us to see the reveal and be all "omg he was manipulating her all along!!" Um, no? If you think back on it at all, you’ll see that not really. Henry gives Eleven advice to survive in the labs and try to thrive as they can. "Papa always lies", yeah? That’s true? He gives her genuine advice that works. In a way, he’s also pushing her onto becoming the top kid, and using anger and power to do so, but again, he was taught that way too I don’t think we can fault him for that, especially not if it works. That place is built on that, if agression is the response that’s rewarded in those abusive living conditions, can we fault them for playing by the rules instead of getting crushed under the others’ boots? In a way, the other kids who bully El also represent the "it’s me against the world" mentality Henry has, it’s not just El’s bullies, it’s also Henry’s childhood bullies and everyone else trying to keep him down. It’s the ones who don’t understand him, who fear him, the neurotypical bullies. Okok yeah so- Henry wants to get Eleven out. He truly, genuinely wants to. He can run away himself, but if he can help her get out, her who he sees himself in, why wouldn’t he? He was never going to mention his chip. Eleven turned around at the last moment, so close to freedom, and was like, "Wait, I want you to come with :(". Henry shows her his chip, resigned, and doesn’t suggest anything about it. Eleven thinks of the way to help him and volunteers and insists. Henry doesn’t hurry about it, doesn’t cheer, doesn’t do anything. She frees him, and he’s grateful for it, and then after carving his way out of the labs with corpses they’ll run away together and idk find life goals outside in the world. Where?? Where was the manipulation?? Bc he gave her true advice?? Because he let her free him the way she thought up of?? He never suggested anything about it! Esp since like, Henry wasn’t even truly allowed to talk to them in the labs or anything. As soon as the reveal happens, El is in a "kill as soon as possible without mercy" mode. As soon as the reveal happens, the only right way to deal with Henry Creel is to kill him, and someone should have killed him as a baby so he couldn’t have hurt anyone and become the monster he was bound to become :) OKAY

Henry is, like implied earlier, in many ways like Billy. Hurt people hurt people. The cycle of abuse. To become stronger than his dad, able to survive in his household and then stand up to him, he had to toughen himself up and put himself in his dad’s shoes of what his dad values to be able to fight against it. He had to become strong, so he became twisted. And it worked. He’s alive, top of the school and household when his dad isn’t there. To become stronger than the monster he became a bigger one. It’s survival. With Henry, it’s more to prevent further pain and abuse, but it’s kind of the same thing. "I’m broken? I’m prophecized to become the dark lord and you’re terrified of me? You want to take away my power and autonomy because you’re scared of what I might do when you mistreat me? Well, if this is to be my destiny, I’ll give it to you, and then nothing will be able to chain me back"

And you see this is what I mean by the season being weird! Because like, the shows reinforces that that’s the correct way to see him! That he is a ticking bomb and heartless monster and Eleven and the guys, our moral heroes, should try to kill him without a thought. Well, except for that 1 throwaway speech in the last ep ig lol. Again: "I relate to this spider bc people hate and fear us but we just wanna be" = the show portraying him as the epitome of evil with no possibility for good or growth and everyone ever in the show thinks that about him. Again. This is always what I keep going back to. The spider. He wants to be like the spiders. He want to live carefreely and mind his business in lonesome peace. This kid is so broken, but the thing is that when I say that, I don’t mean that he was born this way. People never gave him or the spiders a chance to be something else. They broke him.

A kid doesn’t tap into his parents’ deepest regrets and make them relieve them in some twisted sense of justice for no reason? Are we not going to talk about the kid having to see his adult parents’, who are supposed to represent safety and morality to a kid, worst misdeeds and guilt? The trauma that that would cause? That craddle on fire. If the parents had to grow emotionally detached to their misdeeds to keep the guilt from drowning them, can we blame Henry from growing detached to whatever attachment he might have had with his family? Can we blame his nihilism, him not reflecting about his actions and the damage they cause? No one ever bothered to ask what hurt him.  Are we never gonna address that his parents have always wanted to fix him? And by the show’s portrayal, they’re taking the route that "Yes, Henry has something broken in him that should be fixed, but he can’t so instead let’s just imprison & kill him that’s the best and only thing you can do" I can’t express how incredibly ableist this is. Do you see why I’m so fricking mad that they used explicitely neurodivergent narratives in his origin story?? Do you see why the Henry vs Eleven parallels is, yeah, kinda cool, but narratively wise is a "dangerous scary neurodivergent vs good and useful neurodivergent, learn to differenciate them only one is valid" and how that, like, literally parallels society’s wider ableist stigmatization and the way nazis categorized autistic people into categories of who deserved to live because they were smart enough and who to kill? I was watching the origin story of Henry, feeling for the kid relating to spiders and so lonely and miserable, and as I related the show played ominous music and all about the framing was designed to make us recoil in horror at every word, so what does it mean if I’m relating when I should be intrinsically repulsed?

Damaging ableism

Killing animals and other shit he went through are things that some real, irl kids go through, and they shouldn’t be put on a kill list for it, they can grow, they’re kids. It’s called conduct disorder, and it can be helped and redirected with therapists. Conduct disorder and other maladaptive behaviors most often form from trauma and abusive living conditions. A kid’s animal abuse shouldn’t be the line you draw to judge their innate value and goodness. 

These below are very real things people with stigmatized disorders and mental illnesses face in real life, and things which Stranger Things supports with Henry Creel:  - Forced hospitalization and being involuntarily restrained are more common and more widely accepted.  - Having their diagnosis brought up in court to devalue their testimony and stances, to support a bias against them. - All of their actions ever are analyzed under the scope that their goal is to manipulate and/or done with ill intentions. Often tied with point above. - Similarly to above, having their feelings and experiences invalidated. Having their experiences gaslighted. Being seen as abusers immediately despite whatever they’ve done if anything, and unwillingness of being seen as abuse victim themselves, despite it being one of the biggest causes of some disorders. - Having their fight or flight and trauma responses judged as an action committed with full intents and capacities and as a way to assess their innate morality. - Can’t be trusted to make any choice ever, including what is good for them and their healing process. - Denied help by professionals due to being too much of a “tough/serious case”. Denied support by most for their diagnosis alone. - Not being able to open up about their issues to anyone because they will be judged and abandoned.

Other things Stranger Things encourages in dealing with neurodivergent people who make you uncomfortable with their symptoms: - Fearing and denying support for a neurodivergent child with or without conduct disorder, both if it’s your child or a patient. - The overall, extreme dehumanization of anyone who feels or seems creepy to you. Wether it be because of behavior, diagnosis or vibe, or whatever else.

I’ve debated with many of my friends on Henry Creel’s emotional turmor and humanity. My thesis every time: that Henry Creel was a victim of abuse and deserving of a sympathetic framing through it. Every time the other started hostile to the idea, very reluctant to the idea of him having emotional depth and issues that are born from pain and hurt. Every time, they ended up conceding that the show made things out to be much more black and white than they were. My point is that when doing these debates, a large portion of their points on how Henry never deserved sympathy were either ableist or easily explained by “yeah but that was largely caused by abuse, which is what I’m asking you to acknowledge”. Henry Creel’s portrayal actively drives people to be ableist and ungenerous to him, his experiences and his pain. Stranger Things said that Henry should have been forcibly hospitalized from a young age and never trusted in the presence of anyone, he should have been controlled as soon as possible and monitored carefully and closely. Stranger Things said Henry Creel isn’t capable of growing as a person, while never extending a genuine hand of help. Invalidated, evil and wrong on every point, abused for the majority of his life, Henry should have been able to grow and become better on his own without help because he doesn’t deserve help, and even with that growth who knows if he’s “truly” good now and if he deserves to be forgiven. When Henry Creel opened up about his perspective and life to the one person he had ever trusted and liked, that person immediately recoiled and violently lashed out at them. People keep using the ways Henry reacted to trauma as ammunition of how murderous and evil he is without attempting to seeing his point of view. People dismiss the idea of Henry having any positive intentions, thoughts, hobbies or feelings ever because he “has no empathy” and “insert other ableist reasoning”. The hatred of Henry Creel is one that is first and foremost built upon the denial of compassion. 

Hope? 

Yeah, if there’s one thing we can always hope for, it’s better for the next season. There are a lot of spots amiss. Will Stranger Things 5 come back and explain how his mother realized he was causing the visions? Will we learn more about the guilty horrific visions of their past horrible deeds? Is there any sort of redemption or de-escalation arc that’s on the table at all? 

This from the staff does give me hope. In the remaining time, Henry Creel’s character does a lot more harm to the neurodivergent community than good.

In the end, so far, the show tried as best as it could to fit Henry Creel in small square boxes. The same boxes that caused his core issues, and the same boxes that neurodivergent people don’t often fit into. 

Man. Wtf were they thinking. So much cool psychology themes potential but you make Vecna one note wtf. There is so much ground for interesting themes and you choose ableism wtf wtf. Why BLACK WIDOWS?? Why with that explanation??? If you wanted to make Henry a evil emotionless dude you should have chosen scorpions dude. Like? That tale of the scorpion that sunk itself and its ally after lying with the end punch of "Why did you sting me? Because I’m a scorpion." Would have been perfect and not ask for a deeper reading. But nooo it was "black widows are misunderstood and feared when they are just amoral beings that want to live and do nothing wrong” and for some reason they truly are born monsters according to the show.

I am sorry but the narrative of "I am so alienated from humanity that I will cling onto these ugly hated bugs living in my house that were just chilling to get any sense of belonging, we’re both so alike. We’re both miserable but have the power to not be helpless anymore. To have our turn being the ones in control of who has a right to live. And I’ll channel all that bitterness and hurt into making the world free of what has brought me pain and leave it objectively better for it" is just too raw and full of hurt that I will never not have empathy for him, and I will repeat this as many times as I have to.

Okay. This is as done as I’ll get it to be I think. Jesus. If people want to debate that’s fine but tbh I don’t think I’ll respond, I’ve debated and written so much already. Yeah some of this could be worded better but like, if you need me to be Shakespear to grant compassion I’m sorry to say that your compassion doesn’t mean much... To me, now, anyways.

Like I said it’s fine if u liked the way it was executed or whatever, you do you, as long as you acknowledge the problematic, deliberate choices I’ve done my job I think. If you don’t care about the ableist treatment though we’re gonna have beef, but pleaseee I’m anti-harassment just leave me alone and we’ll be fine.

Extra, lowkey relevant video to watch if you want, to grow perspective and empathy for those you deem too far gone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azRl1dI-Cts&ab_channel=TEDxTalks

[recordmcqueen]

@apiice​ for context here was the original post but as promised i will elaborate now that i have slept and recovered some braincells and immediately sold them to boifang in exchange for serotonin (dopamine?)

so like as a multishipper it doesn’t take that much for me to ship something like even jsut the Concept of a pairing without any onscreen interaction is enough for me to go ‘omg they could have something’ but that’s all it is. the whole ship exists as an assumed or headcanonned entity in my head and while i have gotten super invested in entire ships solely based on what they ‘could have been’ or ‘would be if they were together’, there’s not necessarily anything in the canon material to indicate that.

if we go to the more popular ships, usually there’s at least some kind of interaction onscreen or some moments of ship fuel or crumbs which for the purpose of this rant i will call Fanservice. fanservice-wise we actually get a heckton of goboi and gofang and ill go so far as to say that yayi in its entirety exists as these ‘fanservice’ moments until m0nsta dares to develop yaya and ying further as characters. of course ramenzo is 100% fanservice based because neither ramen nor kaizo nor anyone whos known them for that matter has ever actually addressed anything to suggest they were Actually a thing.

now is where the linked essay comes in because boifang isn’t just superficially the two most popular separate male characters in the show (i dont know why i included male i dont think the fandom cares much about the girls at all) being fujoshi slammed together (i mean ok yeah there are fujoshis but this essay is kind of the opposite of that perspective) for the sake of gay. its two characters who have CANONICALLY undergone character development in relation to each other in a significant arc ONSCREEN. yes bbb explored his emotions and yes fang stood up to his brother but fang actually went from isolating himself from people to actively trying to be bbb’s friend and bbb went from gatekeeping him from his friend group to literally sobbing when fang betrayed him.

whether monsta wants to acknowledge it or not after all this time, they very much did put boi and fang in a high stakes situation where they had a choice between being together or apart and they very much confirmed that they would go thru torture for each other like these two would die for each other whats not clicking 

so you have this very deep connection that they both have come to share and like you cant just write that development by accident it is Consistent through s3 and while it does get generally forgotten by galaxy (which is inherently a soft reboot) it’s definitely still there when we get scenes like ‘pergi je boboiboy’ (god my heart) so like someone on the monsta writing team really went and did that.

but at the same time someone on the monsta writing team ALSO decided that we are gonna get scenes like tHIS

and this

which are just blatant ship fuel for anyone who has ever shipped a ship??? this isn’t even all of them but im just here scratchign my head like

monsta. u did this. u did this and then u get mad at us for pointing it out. wHAT GIVESSSSS

[autisticbisexualemaskye]

[cracks knuckles] analyzing fandom culture is like. My Big Years-Long Interest and. as shitty as it is, the way franmaya is treated by the fanbase is quite. expected unfortunately. not only are they a sapphic ship (which is already a category overlooked by pretty much any non-sapphic out there), but... well.

in terms of ships, fandoms like things to come in neat little pairs. every single character has their significant other, and there is a neat little pathway of ships that don't intersect each other that a majority of the fanbase adheres to. ace attorney is DEFINITELY one of these fandoms, and that means "secondary" ships are often just included as a Given in the background of works regardless of whether the author cares about them or not. and... yeah. franmaya is first to fall victim to this. the authors don't know how to write either of them, but they include them because Oh Well, Why Not. unfortunately, because franmaya is a sapphic ship, it falls as prey to this Extra Hard. I've seen it in a lot of fandoms before (BNHA is the first that comes to mind), with a variety of ships, but sapphic ships are sadly ALWAYS treated the worst of the lot.

not only does franmaya fall prey to the issues in fandom shipping as a whole, but the way the ace attorney fanbase operates exacerbates this issue. in general, the ace attorney fandom is.... VERY canon compliant. very. I've never seen a fandom so focused on emulating the source material in its fanworks before. popular fanfictions are typically expanded retellings of the story or possible events post AA6 and popular fanart is typically comics in the same vein. this means that the fandom inevitably falls prey to one of the series's worst flaws - its refusal to pay attention to its female characters and let them process any of their emotions or really have agency outside of the men they serve. a lot of authors, without malicious intent, simply mimic how they see the characters portrayed in the story -- and because of that they spend ages fawning over edgeworth's Complicated Emotions(TM) and kinda just. leave the female characters stagnant unless they further a male character.

not only that, but.... I've never seen a fandom so centered around a single ship than ace attorney is with nrmtsu... I mean. it's nice in a lot of ways but. there's SO much else to the games to explore than just those two characters. and while this single-mindedness has lead to great things (and don't get me wrong, miles edgeworth is platonically my husband and I could talk about him for ages <3). it's also a great detriment to the fanbase in a lot of ways. it's also extra frustrating to see because... well. narumitsu and franmaya are very similar in a lot of ways (oh my GOD that's a whole other essay for another day). so it's really not fair that one gets So Much More Attention than the other????

so, in conclusion, all three of these things combine to lead us to this reality. which, while rooted in misogyny, is so vastly unintentional and deeply tied to the core of how the fandom functions that the only way to really fix it is to, well. talk about it! but it's really interesting to look at and in the near future I'm demanding character essays about all the female AA cast from Every Popular AA Writer before they write another word of narumitsu /hj

(woops! I. uh. infodumped all over ya there. meta analysis of fandoms goes brrrrrrr)

HI THIS IS LITERALLY EVERYTHING. I DONT KNOW IF THERES A SINGLE THING I COULD ADD TO THIS ANALYSIS. 10/10 THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ANON <3

[perhaps-in-anotherdream]

Hello! You may have answered this already but do you have a favorite Victor date?

Hello (´ ∀｀)ﾉ I love the way you’ve asked the question cause I honestly could never choose “one” favorite Victor date HAHAHA.

I really can’t choose a single one, so I hope you won’t mind this becoming a tiny list.... (• ▽ •;) If I had to select a few (I will be including some dates that haven’t been released in the global server yet)—

—

[it’s not a chronological order]

Innermost Thoughts Date (unreleased) – Victor’s 5th birthday date. This date is so so so SO beautifully written, everything about this is honestly utter perfection; I haven’t ever cried reading a date as much as I cried reading and re-reading this one. The feelings you feel when you love someone, that you can love someone like THAT and what you can do for them – and how those feelings can actually transcend your phone screen. The symbolism of single white rose, the love letter, the pure and raw emotions.... this date just takes you on a ride. If I could read one date for the rest of my life, as of now, it will probably be this one~ ಥ‿ಥ

-

Mind Quest: Deep Spring Tide Night (unreleased) – Most of the times it’s hard to arrange the whole setting into one AU date. So, even if you aren’t an AU enthusiast, this MQ is hopefully bound to change your mind. I was saying the other day, I could actually write an MQ sized essay on why this is SO EPIC AND A MASTERPIECE. But the MQ itself is very self explanatory, so~ If I’m given the chance, I will definitely try my hardest to squeeze this one in the list of only materials I can read for the rest of my life HAHAHA.

-

Mind Quest: Taste of Life – The traditional Chinese wedding date. This is another emotional rollercoaster. You can tell that I’m ALL in for emotional stuffs HAHA. It’s a very very beautifully written, meaningful piece. ✨

-

Deep Love Date – THE ELDREDGE KNOT. We have a strong tie gang based on this HAHA. When you know the story behind the knot he uses in the date, another new layer of significance is automatically added to everything in the date 🥺

-

Rainy-day Date – A date I come back to very often. I guess we all hit a point in our lives when you feel that there isn’t a single place on this earth where you could go, hitting the rock bottom. And so, this date is so so soothing and healing, rediscovering how he’s always been walking right alongside you while being the first glimmer of dawn that lights up your darkness, at the very same time. 💓

-

Eternal Promise Date – Victor taking MC to his departed mother’s house and completely revealing the memories he holds so so dear, and of course, MC’s first visit to her future in-laws after they started dating officially HAHA~ 💝

-

Dazzling Date – The much anticipated first kiss, just how well planned the entire layout of their journey was, as well as just how much worth the wait it was! After this date was released in CN, “Victor finally kissed me” once became the 6th most searched topic on Weibo HAHAHA.

-

Mind Quest: Ablaze Night – The full circle of their journey together and continuing to move forward, together and how they are recognized as “Victor x MC” by everyone. It’s emotions of all sorts, I mean ALL sorts. And this date adds a rocket speed to their relationship going forward with every content that follows. 🚀

-

Mind Quest: Preference (unreleased) – I absolutely adore every content that features Victor’s family members HAHAHA. Such a kind, loving, warm and welcoming family – even without sprites, I’d bet they’re absolutely beautiful 2D humans. Unfortunately, due to the censorship we will be getting the edited version of the date in EN server. Sadly the spiciness has been toned down by a few degrees, but it’s still a very beautiful and enjoyable date with a sweet and significant confession –

whether it’s the 11 year old Bro Vic from the playground in their childhood, or the CEO Victor, the Teacher Victor, the Chef Victor or the Ordinary Citizen Victor – no matter which side of him at which age, he’s always been the one she likes the most.

And of course, he reciprocates with something equal as an answer. (◠‿・)

Owh yes, did I mention, the adorable blushing Victor who blushes even fiercely cause MC says he doesn’t know how cute he is when he blushes HAHAHA~ (*´ω｀*)

-

Countryside Date (unreleased) – There are many, many Victor dates where they act like a couple who’ve been together for over 40 years throughout the date HAHAHA. But this date in particular, I don’t know why, I treasure very much. Probably because it screams “HOME”; which is unquestionably a Victor x MC theme. We get peeks inside their every day life together, their view towards life and future and just how much they emphasize on the “simple happiness of being with the one you love”. And how, again, nothing in the world matters as long as they can hold each other’s hand. 🥺

_––_ I should put an end to this cause my list could honestly go on forever HAHAHA~ ♡

[emsemotional]

Can I go all social worker for a second here? Can I write an essay? Okay maybe not an essay, my next semester starts tomorrow and I’m already tired. But a discussion board post? On the ACE study (which you need to look up if you don’t know about it, it’s so interesting), strengths perspective, attachment theory and family development? Yeah? I’m so sorry, I know for a fact that this interests literally no one but me. But here it is, my self indulgent discussion board post on the power of positive relationship examples and early attachment/unconditional positive regard.

The fact that Franny, Liam and Fred get to watch Ian and Mickey learn how to be married and grow together as a couple is both incredibly sweet and it will play a major role in their emotional development. It’s beneficial to the whole family- none of the Gallaghers really know what a mature long term relationship looks like.

But those kids, especially the younger ones, get to grow and develop in a completely different context than the rest of their family. Sure, money’s still tight and they live in the same house. Yes, they’ve all experienced some significant Adverse Childhood Experiences. Exposure to drug/alcohol abuse, household members in the criminal justice system, parental death, divorce/separation. You name it, all the Gallaghers have experienced it.

But do you know why Liam’s already creating a completely new path for himself? And why I’m certain that Franny and Fred have the ability to do the same? Early secure attachment. They actually had a parental figure that they could rely on for basic needs and comfort.

While the older kids had Fiona, there’s really only so much a child can do, and I highly doubt any of them had any secure attachment in infancy/early childhood. That’s a risk factor in and of itself. That’s reason to believe that none of them fully emotionally developed in childhood. They were in survival mode, relying on Fiona when she could be there, and consistently being let down by Frank and Monica.

While Liam, Franny and Fred all had varying levels of exposure to Frank, none of them ever had to rely on them. By the time Liam was born, the older kids were able to work together to take care of him. For the most part, if Liam had a need, it was met. It wasn’t perfect, but it was met. He learned that people will keep you safe and that the world is generally friendly. He never had to actually rely on Frank for much of anything, he was more like a deadbeat, weird uncle who sometimes showed up to take him on wacky adventures. Then he’d come home, Fiona would have made dinner, Lip would help him with homework, and he’d be loved and protected by his siblings. It’s similar for Franny and Fred- I’d even go as far as to bet that they developed relatively secure attachments with Debbie and Lip/Tami respectively. Debbie and Lip learned how to care for others by modeling after Fiona and because they had been cared for by Fiona in their own childhood.

So developmentally, the three of them have already experienced some protective factors. But the whole family really lacks exposure to healthy adult relationships. We see it time and time again throughout the show. Fiona, Lip and Debbie all struggle tremendously with relationships. Lip and Tami are trying, but there’s a long way to go with them. Say what you like about season 11, but I think it was a realistic portrayal of Ian and Mickey learning what marriage means to them. How would they know? They have no prior experience, no positive examples. Not only are they learning what marriage means to them, but they’re learning what marriage looks like in general. And they’re growing! Together! Learning about compromises and communication and how to be on the same side. It’s huge! I could write a whole essay just on this, on their growth as individuals and together.

But I can’t emphasize the importance of the kids observing this. Not only do they have improved emotional development but they get to model future relationships after Mickey and Ian’s. Even though they’re learning themselves, they get to see long term love and see two people truly have each other’s backs. They’re partners, they have been for years. The kids get to watch them resolve conflict without the threat of separation- they’re on the same team.

And not only does this increase the kids’ likelihood of developing these strong relationships in the future, but it also speaks to the healing power of relationships, romantic or platonic. Mickey and Ian both have experienced tremendous amounts of trauma, and I will argue with anyone who says that their relationship hasn’t been mutually healing.

And I know these are fictional characters but I really do think that Shameless’ portrayal of generational trauma and abuse is incredible. There’s so much emphasis on strengths perspective and resilience and I love that it all fits. It makes sense- for both family and individual development.

I’m so sorry that’s been my Ted talk.

[mollrat101]

Symbols Analysis: Red Hair

Part of the Ava and Deborah Could Be Endgame series where I talk about the evidence of Ava and Deborah’s romantic love story. This is part of my Symbols series where I talk about the various elements that serve their love story. You can read the whole series here on Tumblr or on A03. 

What’s this? An essay that I didn’t promise before season 2 and yet the muses forced me to spit this baby out? What can I say, I am Botticelli so taken in by the beauty and mystery of red hair that instead of painting I screeched about gay subtext via my keyboard. 

But yes, here’s where I talk about red hair symbolism and I promise to you all I am still working on the symbolism of Deborah’s flannel shirts and the other two last romantic parallels. If how easy it was to write this essay is any indication, hopefully those will come out soon. 

Enjoy! 

-----------------------------------------------

Because red hair is the rarest hair color in the world (1-2% of the world population), red hair can be quite powerful symbols in art and media. 

Artists have used red hair for centuries in their works to “suggest promiscuity, sensuality, deviousness, and—above all—otherness”. 

Cultural attitudes towards red hair throughout history have been, to put it mildly, mixed. 

“Throughout history, redheads have been feared and revered, loathed and adored, degraded and exalted. No other single human trait has provoked such a dichotomy of emotions in such a large number of fellow humans. It is as boiling is to freezing or despair is to hope. It is as hate is to love.” 

Redheads have been associated with witchcraft, sorcery and vampires which lead to a lot of persecution. Plus, there is some mix of other prejudices such as anti-Irish sentiment and anti-Semitism as red hair can be found in Ashkenazi Jewish populations (of which I believe Hannah is a part of). 

But on the other hand there’s also a long history of cultural attitudes where red hair is depicted as beautiful and erotic, as exemplified by the famous Birth of Venus by Botticelli where the goddess of love and beauty is depicted with red hair. 

“This business of being attracted to the color red is very hardwired into us,” Harvey said. Early humans developed the ability to differentiate between reds, greens, and blues as an evolutionary mechanism to help them (among other things) better forage for ripe, brightly colored fruits in overwhelmingly green forests. “And that’s even before all of the associations with fire, and warmth, and sun, and blood,” Harvey continued. Red is thus a highly visceral color associated with survival, sex, and strong emotion.

On its own Ava having red hair doesn’t have to be significant, but there are 4 key instances in the first season that suggest red hair is significant to the love story between Deborah and Ava. 

While the red hair symbolism is more relevant to Deborah’s desires, let’s talk briefly about the symbolism of red hair means for Ava herself. 

Ava, Red Hair and Differentness

Ava is a complex character and so in many ways she both lives up to and subverts stereotypes of a red-haired character. 

She can be temperamental, passionate, impulsive and a bit wild. Red hair tends to be associated with fire which I’ve mentioned before I see Ava as strongly connected to that element. 

The deviousness, while not true of Ava’s character as a whole as she’s not good at lying, is relevant considering the betrayal of Ava sending that email about Deborah. But that has less to do with following stereotypes so much as demonstrating that Ava is a human who is capable of both good and bad actions. 

Most redheads are portrayed as either nerdy (mostly men) or hypersexual (mostly women). Ava is both and neither at the same time, subverting the stereotype. She’s not exoticized or hypersexualized. She is a very sexually active and open person, yes, but it never feels fetishistic or like we are meant to view her as a sexual object. Ava’s sexuality exists as one important part of her, but certainly not her only or even her most important trait. Ava is portrayed as pretty uncool, which she admits herself. She’s socially awkward and a little inept, unfashionable and socially isolated. But she’s not nerdy in a traditional sense either. She’s not portrayed as academically gifted, in fact she drops out of college, but she is certainly intelligent. She doesn’t have stereotypical nerdy passions as she’s a comedy writer and she likes to use drugs and party. 

As I’ve said before, red hair historically has been associated with witchcraft and sorcery. While there’s no magic portrayed in the show, I have compared Ava to an angel before and that Ava does seem to have magically shown up in Deborah’s life just when she needed her. Ava is also incredibly intuitive and perceptive, which while not magical is certainly deemed a type of feminine knowledge similar to witchcraft. Also, a couple of times we see Ava somewhat predicting events such as Ruby’s breakup with Kelly and even her father’s death. Not a significant correlation, but one that I still thought was interesting. 

Ava can also be associated with some of red hair’s positive connotations like passion, fierceness, courage, determination, independence, love, sensuality, and vivaciousness. “Natural red hair is perceived as striking, unusual, and uncommon.” While that idea could be viewed negatively, it also seems to fit Ava in a nutshell. She is the different element coming into Deborah’s life and it’s hard not to be charmed by her (as Deborah is).  

I’m not sure if this is intentional, but one comparison you could make in terms of red-haired funny women is, of course, the most iconic of them all: Lucille Ball. 

Deborah is more of an analogy for Ball than Ava seeing as how she was a classic TV actress who created and starred in a sitcom with her husband. If you want more information about that comparison I’d recommend checking out @jj-lockd​’s video series about Frank and Deborah and Lucy and Desi over on Tik Tok (1, 2, 3). But nevertheless, the red hair certainly gives at least a brief comparison to Ava. 

One of the more significant negative associations Ava’s red hair could symbolize is further emphasizing how socially isolated Ava feels. 

“The popular stereotypes negatively affect the lives of people with red hair. They often have low self-esteem, experience insecurity, and feel a profound sense of being not only different from other people but also inferior. As implied by the phrase “red-headed stepchild,” people with red hair often feel neglected, mistreated, or unwanted.” 

Ava doesn’t feel like she belongs much anywhere: not in Waltham, not in Los Angeles and (as of right now) not in Las Vegas. While her hair is not attributed as the cause of this, it’s still a common trope in stories to have the red-haired person feel out of place. 

In modern times there has been a movement to push back against red-haired children being bullied by their peers. It’s not clear that Ava was bullied, but she does say she was “uncool” and clearly friendless in school. 

We also just see how desperately Ava wishes someone to take her pain seriously and seems to get rebuffed at every turn, most notably by Kayla and Jimmy. With her bad tweet, Ava gets orchestrated by her professional circle. In episode 3, we also learn that she was dumped by her ex-girlfriend Ruby three months ago. When we meet her mother, Nina, we also see how much her mother dismisses her and her ambitions. The one exception in terms of support is her father who seems quite proud of her, but unfortunately he passes away leaving her without that. I partially read Ava’s entitlement as stemming from her desperate desire to fill the void left behind by anyone really believing in her and her dreams. If no one was going to believe in her, she was going to believe in herself the logic goes. 

It’s a basic human need to be loved and appreciated and this is exactly what Deborah offers for Ava. Deborah doesn’t needlessly flatter her (like the British writers do) and she holds her accountable for her bad behavior, but she also listens to her and slowly starts to see and value Ava’s unique perspective and her gifts and show as much belief in her talent as Ava has for her. 

One part I see of Ava’s arc is to let go of this desire to be “cool” and to instead follow her genuine desires and values regardless of whether or not it receives external validation. For her to value herself and what she can uniquely contribute and to not see her differentness as negative which could all be encapsulated in her red hair. 

And part of why she can do that is because she’s received the love and acceptance she’s been looking for from Deborah. 

Many people don’t like red hair and will harshly judge those who have it, but it’s important for her to find someone who loves and admires this trait of hers. Maybe the same person who also seems to admire other “strange” parts of her appearance (*cough* hands *cough*). 

Which speaking of…

Deborah’s Desires

Despite Ava being the character with red hair, the symbolism of red hair shows up mostly prominently around Deborah. 

Earlier when I referenced the historical mixed cultural feelings of love and hate of red hair, of attraction and repulsion also perfectly encapsulates Deborah’s feelings towards Ava. Throughout much of season 1, Deborah is torn between letting Ava get closer and pushing her away. In one instance she will be turned off by some of Ava’s more abrasive sides but then Ava will surprise her in another, endearing Ava to her. 

When we meet Deborah she seems to be trapped in a life that doesn’t seem to quite make sense to her anymore, unable to figure out how to move out of the rut she’s found herself in. She seems to be sleepwalking through her life. 

Ava crashes into Deborah’s life and brings back classic things associated with fire and the color red: passion, creativity, determination, sensuality, courage, love and vitality. 

But as Ava is paralleled with Frank, we also see that Ava has the potential to also destroy Deborah. To be a wildfire due to her self-destructive habits that could burn Deborah’s life down. She won’t as the point is that Ava will right the wrongs committed by Frank, but the association with red and fire suggests it is possible though. After all, the most powerful and strongest loves need to exist with the possibility of great pain. Deborah will never find a perfect partner who will never hurt her, but needs to find a person who would make the possibility of pain worth it. To realize that the price you pay for walling yourself off from hurt is also to keep yourself from joy and love. 

There are 4 key instances of red hair in Deborah’s story that both reflect Deborah’s hidden desires both romantic and sexual, her desire for love and freedom but also how she can combine those desires with a real lasting love and a feeling of home. 

We’re going to go in chronological order. 

Josefina’s Introduction to Ava

Before Deborah even lays eyes on Ava, Josefina lets Deborah know she has a visitor. 

“Deborah, a girl is here from Jimmy, a redhead.” 

Now this is the only time I can recall where Ava’s red hair is actually mentioned by anyone. Like a lot of people with red hair, that’s often the first thing people notice about them so it makes sense that to make it clear who she’s talking about, Josefina mentions her hair. 

Josefina mentions the redhead part once she sees Deborah’s look of confusion, possibly thinking she needs to jog Deborah’s memory. Of course, she doesn’t know Deborah isn’t aware Jimmy sent Ava against her wishes yet. 

Okay great, so what? 

Well, this makes me think of another time in which Josefina says something that seems to reflect more on Deborah than what Josefina actually means. 

Josefina talking about her niece: “She has plans with her roommate. I don’t think it’s her roommate. I think it’s a girlfriend, but--”

I’ve mentioned before on my Tumblr how this is an interesting thing for Josefina to say in this moment because Ava has been Deborah’s roommate for the past 2 weeks. This conversation holds no relevance later, so you have to wonder why the writers kept this bit in unless the writers are trying to tell us something. Like that there is a possibility that Deborah and Ava being roommates and getting closer isn’t just platonic, there’s a potential for romance there. 

So back to the redhead comment. Is Josefina trying to suggest anything here? Like “hey, Deborah, there’s a red-haired girl here. I know how you like those, so brace yourself.” I mean I would love that, but I’m not sure it’s super conscious on Josefina’s part. 

Consider the fact that Josefina is Deboah’s house manager which means Josefina knows intimately every part of Deborah’s house which, as talked about by many people before in the fandom including myself, gives you a deep insight into Deborah’s unguarded self. 

Which means that Josefina has seen the Plum Brandy painting that sits in between Deborah’s bathroom and bedroom. A painting of a young red-haired woman. A painting of a person that Deborah keeps privately in her bedroom and not advertising to the world. A figure Deborah can see as she goes to sleep. 

Let’s talk about her next. 

The Plum Brandy painting

This painting is the inspiration for this essay. If you haven’t yet, please go read @lush-retina​’s beautiful analysis about this painting. 

Edouard Manet - Plum Brandy - 1877

“Plum Brandy is an image Deborah has woken up to for possibly many years, it is an image she walks towards every single morning. It is an image of Ava painted long ago on canvas, and on Deborah's inner eye.

Whether or not she fully grasps the profundity of it, Ava is depicted as an icon of hope, creativity, and intimacy in Deborah's life. Just as Ellen Andrée [the model] was a muse to Manet and many others.” 

Plum Brandy follows in the tradition of artists finding inspiration and beauty in women with red hair. As her analysis talks about, the painting can represent many of the associations of red hair with passion, creativity, inspiration and beauty. 

While the painting itself doesn’t sexualize the red haired woman (although there have been some interpretations), one could interpret her place in Deborah’s house to have sexual connotations as she lives in between Deborah’s bedroom and bathroom. Two places associated with vulnerability, nakedness and sometimes sexual intimacy. Places that many of us might share with only our lovers.

The Plum Brandy girl is seen as an object of beauty and comfort to Deborah as she is the first thing she sees when she wakes up and the last thing she sees before she goes to sleep, almost like a lover. She gently watches over Deborah. Considering she is buried deep in Deborah’s house where few will get to see her suggests she has a private meaning to Deborah, not one which Deborah would like to advertise to the rest of the world. 

As lush-retina nicely put it, if Deborah's house (according to the set designer) is symbolic of Deborah herself like a rose (there’s layers)-a red rose, if you will, furthering the romantic connotations- then that location in her house could be considered the pistil of the rose, the female reproductive part of the flower. And again the fact that it’s associated with the painting of a woman heavily suggests Deborah’s queer sexual desires and that Ava is Deborah’s romantic and sexual fantasy come to life. 

The real-life doppelganger of the Plum Brandy girl, Deborah has barred from entering her bedroom. A possible reading could be that Deborah isn’t quite ready for her private fantasy and the reality of getting what she secretly desires to collide quite yet. The possibility of humiliation, pain and confronting her long-repressed desires is too much for her to handle at this moment. For now, Deborah is comfortable with her painted doppelganger and letting her voice in via calling her, but likely soon she will crave more closeness and letting Ava cross more intimate boundaries. 

To sum up: the Plum Brandy girl represents Deborah’s romantic and sexual desires that she hides deep within her heart. Her red hair is meant to represent what Deborah most wants in her life: passion, creativity, love, courage and warmth, like a nice fire or the warmth of the sun. Ava is the person who brings all of this into her life and the painting represents how long Deborah has been yearning for Ava to find her. 

In the Waves painting

While having the time of her life blackmailing Marty, Deborah lays down in a bed that features a painting of a naked red-haired woman on it. 

This painting is called In the Waves. It was created by Paul Gauguin. 

From what I can gather from interpretations I’ve watched, the painting is meant to represent a desire to leave civilization in order to enter a more primitive, instinctual existence. The woman is throwing herself into the sea and therefore embracing nature instead of societal expectations. 

The painting can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. She could be throwing herself into the sea in despair and muffling her mouth in anguish. That’s a very sad interpretation considering there’s a connection between Ava and death and suicide. 

But the painting is placed in a bedroom, so let’s just assume there’s a sexier interpretation of it. 

Ivy, Ava’s parallel, is the one who bought this painting and put it in this bedroom. This is likely a spare bedroom considering how minimally it’s decorated, so in a way distancing from Marty’s bedroom and Deborah being associated with Marty’s private space in this moment. Even then, still bedrooms are associated with intimate and vulnerable acts like sleeping and sex. You could interpret the woman in the painting muffling her mouth as trying to stifle her cries of pleasure. 

Water is a widely used symbol for the subconscious which houses our deepest desires. Deborah being near the painting symbolizes Deb choosing to forget societal expectations and enter into an existence where she follows her natural desires. Following her very gay desires with Ava. 

However, one problem is that we later learn at the end of the episode that Ava can’t swim. One way to read this is that Ava can’t survive for long just being a desire in Deborah’s subconscious mind. She has to bring her to the surface in order for any of this to be realized.

In this scene, Deborah is getting her revenge on Marty screwing her out of her dates. She’s hitting him hard in a couple of ways and one way that’s more speculation based on this painting. 

She’s taking advantage of his young and naive partner by persuading her to go against Marty’s wishes and show her the house. In a way, this is payback for Marty constantly dismissing her as a potential partner he’ll show off in public because of her age. She takes advantage of Ivy’s naivety, desire for recognition, her and Marty’s weak bond and being easily impressionable. But more importantly, Deborah uses this to potentially screw over Marty financially (what he cares about most, let’s be real) by blackmailing him about his alimony payments. 

But of course, we know none of these schemes end up making a lasting impression on Marty. In their toxic relationship of one upping each other, Marty more or less comes out unscathed. Deborah is the one who suffers the most. She gets humiliated, harassed, assaulted, her career taken out of her control, belittled and left alone as Marty has no trouble finding another partner while Deborah struggles to find romantic and sexual fulfillment. 

But there is one potential way Deborah can finally break free of this toxic dynamic and get her revenge in the best possible way for her. 

The sweetest revenge Deborah could ever get on Marty is to enter into a happy romantic relationship with Ava. One where, unlike with him, she is supported and loved unconditionally, and she is sexually satisfied. And whether or not he’s pissed about it hardly matters, as Deborah is too happy to care. 

So in this scene Deborah uses the parallel!Ava (Ivy) to take pictures of her enjoying being in bed with painted!Ava and that’s just absolutely delightful. It’s as if Deb is preemptively rubbing it in Marty’s face and I believe we should support that journey for her. 

Marty is the kind of man Deborah thinks she should be with. If the painting is talking about bucking societal expectations, then Marty represents the toxic heteronormativity that has made Deborah so miserable. 

Ava represents freedom from those expectations. She represents Deborah following what she truly wants both as an artist and in her personal life. Following the idea of what red hair represents, Deborah is embracing more wildness, embracing differentness, and diving into a love so powerful and passionate it’s like a wave. 

Aidan

Wait, wouldn’t this say more about DJ because he is her partner? 

Well, remember that everything in this show is about Ava and Deborah (at least to some extent) so even this really says more about Deborah. 

First of all, I see DJ and Aidan as actually a romantic parallel to Deborah and Ava. Same first initials (DJ’s full name is even Deborah Junior) and same hair colors. 

But the other thing I find interesting is the idea that DJ and Deborah aren’t nearly as different as they think they are and how DJ’s choice of partner of Aidan could reflect that. 

Despite seeming to struggle to understand each other, DJ and Deborah actually have a quite a lot in common. They’re both creative, passionate, aggressive, fierce, they share a love of the dramatic and being the center of attention, and despite what Deborah says they share some taste in style (e.g. DJ desiring Deborah’s tennis bracelet). 

They also, I would argue, have a similar taste in the type of partner they would like. 

Aidan and Ava are both comfortable with letting their partners be more of the center of attention and they are unconditionally loving and supportive. 

And, of course, they both have red hair. Which I feel like isn’t an accident considering they are the only two red-haired people in the cast. 

We don’t know a ton about Aidan but a few things we do know is how much he means to DJ (“Ava, this is the love of my life”), how much he loves DJ, we know he’s a boxer so association with blood and vitality and we know has some history of not taking care of himself and/or self-destructive habits, similar to Ava and like a fire burning out of control (“Before you, I didn’t care what happened to me in the cage. But now, I gotta be careful. Because I can’t risk anything that would ruin the life we’re gonna build together.”). 

We don’t know if DJ has always had a thing for red-haired men, but let’s just imagine that’s true. 

I have no idea whether sexual attraction is genetic or not. Could relatives find the same traits in partners attractive? Honestly, I don’t know, I’m not a scientist. But luckily, this isn’t about science but a story and stories can create these parallels to signal something to the audience. 

If we take it true that the Plum Brandy girl represents Deborah’s romantic and sexual fantasy, then Deborah shares DJ’s love of red hair except for the opposite gender and she desires the same person who will be comforting, reliable and the love of her life in the same way Aidan is for DJ. 

Conclusion

While looking at all of these instances of red hair, overwhelmingly the evidence is about how Deborah doesn’t just see Ava as inspirational and a source of courage for her, but also that she is an object of beauty and desire for her. 

While red hair can symbolize how Ava might feel othered, same with how Deborah feels about Ava’s hands, what makes Ava different is desirable to Deborah. Not only does she accept it, but she is turned on by it. 

Deborah makes fun of many parts of Ava’s body, but all the parts she makes fun of are also traits that people tend to list as what they find most attractive: hands, lips, legs, breasts and, of course, hair. And you’ll notice that Deborah only makes fun of the cut of her hair, not the color of it. The Plum Brandy reveals that Deborah loves red hair. 

I feel just like how cultural attitudes reveal both adulation and repulsion for red hair, Deborah struggles with fighting between her private desires for a romantic and sexual relationship with a woman and the social stigma she’ll face to those who are disgusted by that choice and dislike it for being outside of what they consider normal. 

(Disclaimer: Just want to be clear here I’m not saying being discriminated based on red hair is the same thing as being discriminated for being queer. I’m just making an analogy.)

But for both of their characters, part of their story is about embracing their desires and values even if they aren’t understood, as it’s enough that they accept, love and see each other. 

What I hope for Deborah, as this symbol is most attached to her, is that she embraces its call for passion, love, courage, non-conformity and vitality and to let her desire and love for that finally be allowed into the light.

[soundsfaebutokay]

So I've recc'd this video before, but it deserves its own post because it's one of my favorite things on youtube. It's a Tedx Talk by comics writer, editor, and journalist Jay Edidin, and I really think that it will connect with a lot of people here.

If you live and breathe stories of all kinds, you might like this.

If you care about media representation, you might like this.

If you're neurodivergent, you might like this.

If you're interested in a gender transition story that veers from the norm, you might like this.

If you love the original Leverage and especially Parker, and understand how important it is that a character like her exists, you will definitely like this.

Transcript below the cut:

You Are Here: The Cartography of Stories

by Jay Edidin

I am autistic. And what this means in practice is that there are some things that are easier for me than they are for most people, and a great many things that are somewhat harder, and these affect my life in more or less overt ways. As it goes, I'm pretty lucky. I've been able to build a career around special interests and granular obsession. My main gig at the moment is explaining superhero comics continuity and publishing history for which work I am somehow paid in actual legal currency—which is both a triumph of the frivolous in an era of the frantically pragmatic, and a job that's really singularly suited to my strengths and also to my idiosyncrasies.

I like comics. I like stories in general, because they make sense to me in ways that the rest of the world and my own mind often don't. Self-knowledge is not an intuitive thing for me. What sense of self I have, I've built gradually and laboriously and mostly through long-term pattern recognition. For decades, I didn't even really have a self-image. If you'd asked me to draw myself, I would eventually have given you a pair of glasses and maybe a very messy scribble of hair, and that would've been about it. But what I do know—backwards, forwards, and in pretty much every way that matters—are stories. I know how they work. I understand their language, their complex inner clockwork, and I can use those things to extrapolate a sort of external compass that picks up where my internal one falls short. Stories—their forms, their structure, the sense of order inherent to them—give me the means to navigate what otherwise, at least for me, would be an impassable storm of unparsable data. Or stories are a periscope, angled to access the parts of myself I can't intuitively see. Or stories are a series of mirrors by which I can assemble a composite sketch of an identity I rarely recognize whole...which is how I worked out that I was transgender, in my early thirties, by way of a television show.

This is my story. And it's about narrative cartography, and representation, and why those things matter. It's about autism and it's about gender and it's about how they intersect. And it's about the kinds of people we know how to see, and the kinds of people we don't. It's not the kind of story that gets told a lot, you might hear a lot, because the narrative around gender transition and dysphoria in our culture is really, really prescriptive. It's basically the story of the kid who has known for their whole life that they're this and not that, and that story demands the kind of intuitive self-knowledge that I can't really do, and a kind of relationship to gender that I don't really have—which is part of why it took me so long to figure my own stuff out.

So, to what extent this story, my story has a beginning, it begins early in 2014 when I published an essay titled, "I See Your Value Now: Asperger's and the Art of Allegory." And it explored, among other things, the ways that I use narrative and narrative structures to navigate real life. And it got picked up in a number of fairly prominent places that got linked, and I casually followed the ensuing discussion. And I was surprised to discover that readers were fairly consistently assuming I was a man. Now, that in itself wasn't a new experience for me, even though at the time I was writing under a very unambiguously female byline. It had happened in the letter columns of comics I'd edited. It had happened when a parody Twitter account I'd created went viral. When I was on staff at Wired, I budgeted for fancy scotch by putting a dollar in a box every time a reader responded in a way that made it clear they were assuming I was a man in response to an article where my name was clearly visible, and then I had to stop doing that because it happened so often I couldn't afford to keep it up. But in all of those cases, the context, you know, the reasons were pretty obvious. The fields I'd worked in, the beats I covered, they were places where women had had to fight disproportionally hard for visibility and recognition. We live in a culture that assumes a male default, so given a neutral voice and a character limit, most readers will assume a male author.

But this was different, because this wasn't just a book I'd edited, it wasn't a story I'd reported—it was me, it was my story. And it made me uncomfortable, got under my skin in ways that the other stuff really hadn't. And so I did what I do when that happens, and I tried to sort of reverse-engineer it to look at the conclusions and peel them back to see the narratives behind them and the stories that made them tick. And I started this, I started this by going back to the text of the essay, and you know, examining it every way I could think of: looking at craft, looking at content. And in doing so, I was surprised to realize that while I had written about a number of characters with whom I identified closely, that every single one of those characters I'd written about was male. And that surprised me even more than the responses to the essay had, because I've spent my career writing and talking and thinking about gender and representation in popular media. In 2014, I'd been the feminist gadfly of an editorial department and multiple mastheads. I'd been a founding board member of an organization that existed to advocate for more and better representation of women and girls in comics characters and creators. And most of my favorite characters, the ones I'd actively seek out and follow, were women. Just not, apparently, the characters I saw myself in.

Now I still didn't realize it was me at this point. Remember: self-knowledge, not very intuitive for me. And while I had spent a lot of time thinking about gender, I'd never really bothered to think much about my own. I knew academically that the way other people read and interpreted my gender affected and had influenced a lifetime of social and professional interactions, and that those in turn had informed the person I'd grown up into during that time. But I really believed, like I just sort of had in the back of my head, that if you peeled away all of that social conditioning, you'd basically end up with what I got when I tried to draw a self-portrait. So: a pair of glasses, messy scribble of hair, and in this case, maybe also some very strong opinions about the X-Men. I mean, I knew something was off. I'd always known something was off, that my relationship to gender was messy and uncomfortable, but gender itself struck me as messy and uncomfortable, and it had never been a large enough part of how I defined myself to really feel like something that merited further study, and I had deadlines, and...so it was always on the back burner. So, I looked, I looked at what I had, at this improbable group of exclusively male characters. And I looked and I figured that if this wasn't me, then it had to be a result of the stories I had access to, to choose from, and the entertainment landscape I was looking at. And the funny thing is, I wasn't wrong, exactly. I just wasn't right either.

See, the characters I'd written about had one other significant trait in common aside from their gender, which is that they were all more or less explicitly, more or less heavily coded as autistic. And I thought, "Ah, yes. This explains it. This is under representation in fiction echoing under representation in life and vice versa." Because the characteristics that I'd honed in on, that I particularly identified with in these guys, were things like emotional unavailability and social awkwardness and granular obsession, and all of those are characteristics that are seen as unsympathetic and therefore unmarketable in female characters. Which is also why readers were assuming that I was a man.

Because, you see, here's the thing. I'm not the only one who uses stories to navigate the world. I'm just a little more deliberate about it. For humans, stories formed the bridge between data and understanding. They're where we look when we need to contextualize something new, or to recognize something we're pretty sure we've seen before. They're how we identify ourselves; they're how we locate ourselves and each other in the larger world. There were no fictional women like me; there weren't representations of women like me in media, and so readers were primed not to recognize women like me in real life either.

Now by this point, I had started writing a follow-up essay, and this one was also about autism and narratives, but specifically focused on how they intersected with gender and representation in media. And in context of this essay, I went about looking to see if I could find even one female character who had that cluster of traits I'd been looking for, and I was asking around in autistic communities. And I got a few more or less useful one-off suggestions, and some really, really splendid arguments about semantics and standards, and um...then I got one answer over and over and over in community after community after community. "Leverage," people told me. "You have to watch Leverage."

So I watched Leverage. Leverage is five seasons of ensemble heist drama. It's about a team of very skilled con artists who take down corrupt and powerful plutocrats and the like, and it's a lot of fun, and it's very clever, and it's clever enough that it doesn't really matter that it's pretty formulaic, and I enjoyed it a lot. But what's most important, what Leverage has is Parker.

Parker is a master thief, and she is the best of the best of the best in ways that all of Leverage's characters are the best of the best. And superficially, she looks like the kind of woman you see on TV. So she's young, and she's slender, and she's blonde, and she's attractive but in a sort of approachable way. And all of that familiarity is brilliant misdirection, because the thing is, there are no other women like Parker on TV. Because Parker—even if it's never explicitly stated in the show—Parker is coded incredibly clearly as autistic. Parker is socially awkward. Her speech tends to have limited inflection; what inflection it does have is repetitive and sounds rehearsed a lot of the time. She's not emotionally literate; she struggles with it, and the social skills she develops over the series, she learns by rote, like they're just another grift. When she's not scaling skyscrapers or cartwheeling through laser grids, she wears her body like an ill-fitting suit. Parker moves like me. And Parker, Parker was a revelation—she was a revolution unto herself. In a media landscape where unempathetic women usually exist to either be punished or "loved whole," Parker got to play the crabby savant. And she wasn't emotionally intuitive but it was never ever played as the product of abuse or trauma even though she had survived both of those—it was just part of her, as much as were her hands or her eyes. And she had a genuine character arc. My god, she had a genuine romantic arc, even. And none of that required her to turn into anything other than what she was. And in Parker I recognized a thousand tics and details of my life and my personality...but. I didn't recognize myself.

Why? What difference was there in Parker, you know, between Parker and the other characters I'd written about? Those characters, they'd spanned ethnicities and backgrounds and different media and appearances and the only other characteristic they all had in common was their gender. So that was where I started to look next, and I thought, "Well, okay, maybe, maybe it's masculinity. Maybe if Parker were less feminine, she'd click with me the way those other characters had." So then I tried to imagine a Parker with short hair, who's explicitly butch, and...nothing. So okay, I extended it in what seems like the only logical direction to extend it. I said, "Well, if it's not masculinity, what if it's actual maleness? What if Parker were a man?" Ah. Yeah.

In the end, everything changed, and nothing changed, which is often the way that it goes for me. Add a landmark, no matter how slight, and the map is irrevocably altered. Add a landmark, and paths that were invisible before open wide. Add a landmark, and you may not have moved, but suddenly you know where you are and where you can go.

I wasn't going to tell this story when I started planning this talk. I was gonna tell a similar story, it was about stories, like this is, about narratives and the ways that they influence our culture and vice versa. And it centered around a group of women at NASA who had basically rewritten the narrative around space exploration, and it was a lot more fun, and I still think it was more interesting. But it's also a story you can probably work out for yourselves. In fact it's a story some of you probably have, if you follow that kind of thing, which you probably do given that you're here. And this is a story, my story is not a story that I like to tell. It's not a fun story to talk about because it's very personal and I am a very private person. And it's not universal. And it's not always relatable, and it's definitely not aspirational. And it's not the kind of story that you tend to encounter unless you're already part of it...which is why I'm telling it now. Because the thing is, I'm not the only person who uses stories to parse the world and navigate it. I'm just a little more deliberate. Because I'm tired of having to rely on composite sketches.

Open your maps. Add a landmark. Reroute accordingly.