#i don't want to die but i just want someone to understand

[his-madness-keeps-him-sane]

I honestly think that the inability to understand the most basic ideas of ASOIAF characters comes from bad faith criticism, especially if they think that "long winter" is not a central plot point of the story.

Whatever about worldbuilding, I don't care about the freaking bees of Westeros (and the problem is again that Martin has a stick up his ass and should act more like Tolkien and embrace more the poetry and less the pedantry).

I understand and enjoy criticism (1- I think he deserves it, 2- I like to interact with different opinions of things I read/watch/whatever) but saying "winter is unimportant" explains why so many understand the books as a misanthrope story.

Because you have Jaime's journey after "being evil" or Sansa learning the game of thrones to survive while knowing that she doesn't want to become a Cersei.

There's a lot of dark and cruelty but the central conclusion is always the same: be clever!

That's where the TV show failed, in the book consequences matter!

Ned is not dead because he was "good", Ned is dead because he was DUMB!

Nobody said "oh but why did he have to die?" because we know why!

Every single death happens because someone didn't know how to play the game.

That's why Daenerys is doomed to become a fascist (the tv show was BAD but the general idea of Dany turning "bad" is there in the books too).

That's why I will always defend Sansa (arguably the biggest victim of fan's misogyny).

The characters, good or bad, are (usually) incredibly well written, with (usually) a lot of nuance.

From the anti chosen one/Prince Charming of Dany/Jon to the child soldier metaphors of Arya there's really a lot of though and care behind them all. And that's why the books have become impossible to finish. Too many complex pieces to play with.

Martin has A LOT to criticize and I wish he stopped with the bullshit (and the obsession with rape, and the racism, and the...) but I can't understand how someone can read those books and think "this author thinks humans are awful".

Everyone hates Cersei and then Martin goes "Take this, a Cersei POV chapter" and... Fuck.

Yes, she's bad. But suddenly she is a person, not a fairy tale evil queen. She has ambition, she's scared, she's a mother, she's a woman in a sexist world full of violence against women... And we learn all those fears and dreams directly from her, from the "evil queen".

One of the little things that the TV show did well was Joffrey's death.

I remember people being... Uncomfortable. Because while enjoying the death of a monster they realized "wow... He's just a 16 year old boy... Dying in his mother's arms..."

And that, and not "historical accuracy" or whatever Martin claims, is the true golden heart of ASOIAF.

That the world is awful and make us awful

And that it doesn't have to be like that.

That's why the winter IS central.

Because a looming doom should be enough to make them realize how dumb the whole "game of thrones" is (like, you know...the real world and climate change??? The pandemic and the totally insufficient collaboration between countries???) and yet they keep fighting for an ugly chair that kills you if you sit on it too hard because it's made out of the swords of a colonialist war.

IT'S NOT SUBTLE

For all its faults, what ASOIAF is saying (or should be if Martin stopped with the bullshit) is that the world is awful, but you don't have to, and that it's never too late to change.

That you can be good but you have to be CLEVER.

That the kids are the future and can be the change.

That the Starks were always right and the winter is coming.

And that the lone wolf dies but the pack survives.

And I don't think he's ever gonna finish the books, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the last book is called "A promise of Spring".

Say what you want about Martin and his stupidity and empty pride.

But ASOIAF, even if failing a lot in achieving it, is ultimately about hope.

Hope in spite of horror.

Btw, a disclaimer: I'm not even a fan anymore!

I haven't even read the last published book!

But to be a hater you have to admit the good parts too!

Listen to Orson Welles, the OG hater!

Jeez!

Disclaimer x2: I refuse to acknowledge any grammar or orthographic mistake, I can't read anymore 😌

Someone over on Discord asked, "I'm morbidly curious: How BAD is A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of the authenticity George claims it to be?"

My reply was straightforward:

The long and the short of it is that ASOIAF is basically a vehicle for GRRM to present both his rape fetish and his Hobbesian view on human nature and has less historical accuracy than Frozen or most other Disney movies.

That's actually a good way to think of it, now that I've said it--he's Family Unfriendly, they're Family Friendly, but both have the same relationship with History: just Pure Aesthetic with no consideration for how the worldbuilding would work.

[cjlouwho]

Twelve Christmases

chapter tags: discussions of a burn victim (nothing graphic), discussions of suicide and mental health, very brief mentions of things that happened in past chapters (Tommy's mom, military, red handkerchief, implied noncon), anxiety, depression, background character death, Tommy calls the crisis hotline

read below or on ao3

Day 10: 2022

“I'm calling Roberts in early, you can go home.”

“Captain Marks-”

“No, Kinard! What you did out there was careless. You could've gotten yourself killed.”

“And if I'd done nothing, that man would be dead.”

“He's gonna wish he were dead if he ever wakes up! He's got third degree burns on over seventy percent of his body! I don't mean to be harsh, Tommy, but you risked your life for a dead man walking!”

“So?” 

Marks took a deep breath, sitting back in his chair. “I'm gonna pretend I didn't just hear you say that. I know emotions are high right now, but you know as well as I do I can't have a pilot that isn't concerned about whether they live or die.”

“That's not-”

“Stop talking, Kinard,” Marks warned. “You're on the ground for five shifts, I'll reevaluate things myself after that. If I have any hesitation, for even a moment, about your intentions here, you're getting a psych eval. That'll put you on the ground forever. You understand me?”

Tommy pursed his lips, nodding his head. “I understand.”

“Good. Now, go home, enjoy the rest of your Christmas, come back next shift with a clear head.”

*****

By the time Tommy got home, it was nearing ten o'clock at night. His brain was a jumbled mess. It didn't seem to matter how many times he hit the punching bag in his garage, it was never enough.

After a quick shower, he thought about laying down.

But even the idea of that made him want to crawl out of his skin.

So, he began to pace.

He paced, and paced, and paced, with his hands on his hips. From the living room, to the kitchen, down the hall, and back again.

It all felt like too much. He wasn't just thinking about today. He was thinking about his mom. He was thinking about the military. He was thinking about the red handkerchief. He was thinking about waking up in a stranger's apartment with no clue what happened the night before.

He was thinking, thinking, thinking, pacing, pacing, pacing, and he needed it all to stop.

Just stop!

So he did something he never thought he'd do.

He wasn't even sure what made him do it.

All he remembered was pulling his phone out of his pocket and dialing the number.

988.

“988 crisis lifeline, this is Penny. How can I help you today?”

He froze.

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

He swallowed. Closed his eyes.

“I'm here.”

“Oh, good. May I ask who I'm speaking with?”

“Tommy,” no attempt to try for a fake name.

“Hi, Tommy! I'm Penny. I know I said it before, but I like to make sure the people I speak to heard me. Tommy, ca-”

“I'm not... I don't wanna kill myself,” Tommy interrupted, needing to make it clear. “I just needed someone to talk to.”

“Okay.” Her voice was soothing, familiar almost. A voice that Tommy hadn't heard in years. “That's what I'm here for, Tommy. What's on your mind?”

He tried to think of what to say. Tried to figure out the perfect way to start the conversation.

He was usually so put together.

But everything felt off.

“I hate Christmas.”

He wasn't sure why that was the first thing that popped into his brain at this moment, but it was out there now.

“A lot of people have complex feelings about holidays. It can be tough sometimes, no doubt about it.”

The tiny admission seemed to open a floodgate for Tommy. “My mom was thirty-eight when she died, and I'm thirty-eight now,” he explained. He was sure the words coming out of his mouth were just as jumbled as the thoughts in his head. “And she- she didn't die around Christmas. She actually died in June, so I don't know why I keep thinking about her today of all days, but I do. Not just her; I'm thinking about a lot of things. But it all sort of leads back to her at the end, I guess.”

“Was Christmas important to her?” Penny asked.

“She loved it when I was really little. Always liked looking at the lights and taking me to the mall to pick out things I wanted. I think my dad ruined Christmas for her though.”

“He wasn't big on the holiday?”

“He wasn't big on family. Looking back, I can see how being with him changed her. I didn't recognize it back then.”

“You were young. She probably didn't want you to recognize it.”

Tommy sighed, giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts. “She didn't get thirty-nine Christmases, you know? And that doesn't really seem fair. Because I'm here for my thirty-ninth Christmas and I don't even like the damn day. She deserved more. She deserved better.”

“It's never easy to understand why the people we love get taken from us too soon. It can be especially difficult when we lose them as a child.”

Tommy let out a humorless laugh. “She didn't get taken from me,” he bit out, “she left me.”

There was a pause on the line, then, “I'm sorry?”

“Yeah, she uh, she made that choice to leave herself. Stuck me with my dad, who never really gave a crap about me in the first place, and she... she was just gone.”

“I'm sorry about that, Tommy. That's a lot to have to deal with as a kid.”

“I don't ever talk about it, about her. I don't really have anyone to talk about it with. My dad never cared for emotions, so I just plaster a smile on my face and put my shoulders back and keep going.” Tommy shook his head, clearing his throat and wiping away the tears that were pooling in his eyes. “That's not why I called though. Not because of her.”

“Okay,” Penny replied. “Tell me why you called, Tommy.”

Tommy rolled his shoulders, trying to rid himself of some of the tension running through his body. “I did something stupid at work today, and I knew better. I just didn't care.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“I work for the fire department. I'm a firefighter pilot, but today I was on the ground. We were called to a fire at this house- well, more like a mansion- and we thought we had the place cleared. Then the daughter started yelling for her dad. I headed back inside and found him, um,” Tommy paused, taking in a shaky breath.

“It's okay, Tommy. Take your time.”

“He- He was at the source of the fire. A fairly large space heater exploded and the fire had spread quickly. The house was about to collapse, and I was being told to get out, but I stayed. Long story short, I was able to get the man out right before the structure collapsed. He was severely burned though. If he makes it, and it's a big if, he's going to wish he hadn't. My captain won't let me fly for a while now. Sent me home early.” He let out a humorless laugh. “I wasn't even supposed to work today. I took the shift because I hate this damn holiday.”

“You've mentioned that three times now,” Penny noted.

“What?”

“How much you dislike Christmas. Tommy, do you think that maybe the risk you took today had something to do with the fact it's Christmas? Emotions were already high, making you take risks you wouldn't usually take?”

“Hm,” Tommy hummed. “Maybe? I don't really know though, because I feel like I'm ready to take those same risks any day, anytime. I said it before, and I meant it, I'm not trying to die. I just... I don't think I care if I do. It didn't matter to me if I didn't make it out. We're all gonna die someday, you know? That's what I always figure. What's it matter if it's now?”

“I think it would matter to the people who love you. The people who care about you.”

“I don't think I know anyone well enough for them to be affected by my death.”

“Well, it would matter to me,” Penny replied matter-of-factly, and Tommy couldn't help but let out a laugh.

“I dunno, I can be kind of a bitch sometimes.”

“Thank God for that, I'd hate it if you were too perfect.”

“Well, I never said I wasn't perfect. Perfect and bitch can go together, right?”

“I think it's a great pairing.”

A smile lingered on Tommy's face. He couldn't remember the last time he spoke to someone so openly. “Penny?”

“I'm here.”

“Would you stay on the phone with me until Christmas is over?”

“Honey,” she answered, Tommy softening at the name, “I can honestly say there's nowhere else I'd rather be.”

Penny stayed on the phone with him until 12:01. She was willing to stay on the line longer, but by the time Tommy had watched the clock strike midnight, he was ready to go to bed.

He felt better. A little lighter than he had in a while.

He'd been in bed for about fifteen minutes, and was just dozing off when his phone buzzed.

It was Captain Marks.

The man from the house fire died on the operating table.

I know you wanted to save him, Tommy.

Unfortunately we can't save them all.

Tommy stared at the texts for a good ten minutes before switching over to the phone app and dialing 988 again.

[zedif-y]

this is just me rambling so maybe take it with a grain of salt, but i kind of hate how so much of fictional media makes unrequited feelings seem like such a depressing death sentence. like. i can't be the only one that feels that that's a little fucked up.

so love is selfless until you feel it so deeply that rejection makes you wonder if you are about to die. love is beautiful until it isn't returned in which case it is a curse. love is wanting the best for someone until the best turns out to not be you.

and maybe i'm jaded and maybe i'm just bitter but i think that's all fucked up. i think that you can have feelings for someone and continue being friends past any sort of rejection as long as nobody involved is weird about it. i think love can be an amazing feeling whether or not it is reciprocated the same way back.

i'd love to see stories where two people are friends and one is in love and the other isn't and they both know. and they're okay. and there isn't a secret pain, a hidden deep sorrow from within. there isn't scheming to change the situation, just an acceptance and an understanding between two people that yeah. you're important to me. our feelings are different but at its core they are the same.

am i insane? is this really that crazy of a concept?

because sure pining is a thing but doesn't that just stem from feeling like you aren't as valued by the person as much as you value them? does someone have to kiss you and take you out on dates labelled 'ROMANTIC' to say hey, if you disappeared from my life it would crush me. your presence is valued and i cherish the time we spend together.

is there something i'm not getting? is there something i just don't understand?

why can't love just be?

[mandareeboo]

I still don't understand why some people's first reaction to Millie crying over a positive pregnancy test is "Wait did she cheat on Moxxie??" Like BRUH. Even if all the normal and perfectly understandable reasons for being conflicted about an UNEXPECTED PREGNANCY don't come to your mind, why is cheating the first thing they think of?

M&M are literally wife-guy and husband-gall, cheating wouldn't even cross either of their minds. If someone tried seducing Millie she would go "That's flattering but nah, I'm married" and if they ignored that she would just punch them

I watch a lot of reaction videos (I'm that kind of guy lol) and the sheer majority of people that are like. Confused or misconstruing it entirely is baffling.

I've seen everything from "Why isn't she happy? You'd make a good mom, Millie. Get excited." to "Maybe Moxxie isn't the father??" come up, and it confuses the hell out of me. Like. Not everyone is excited to be pregnant? She literally JUST watched her best friend almost die a month ago in a targeted attempted hate crime and is working a barely legal business that's extremely dangerous?? They have a LOT of enemies???? We don't even know if Millie WANTS kids??????

Like. C'mon guys. We've known M&M for two fucking seasons now. They're the LITERAL REPRESENTION of a working, healthy, monogamous marriage to compare to Blitz's disaster of a life. If Millie was cheating, we'd fucking know. If Millie was assaulted (which is ANOTHER weird ass theory entirely. You really think the crew would just. Have her be assaulted off-screen? We'd at LEAST get some kind of hint of it. Also, people tend to assume it's Striker, who has shown clear discomfort with sex meeting his line of work at all, which is another can of worms), we'd fucking know.

[mandatory-blog-stop-asking]

I guess since I always write about X-Men when drunk, let me talk to you about Scott Summers.

Now look, Scott has a lot of haters, many of them my friends. I even agree with them. There's no easy way to take in Scott Summers. Because more than anything, Scott Summers is a question.

What do you do when they take it from you?

The answer can be many things. If you're Xavier, the answer is, you deny people their childhood. Scott, you're a child soldier by 13. You have just survived a traumatic plane crash in which your family seemingly all died. If you look at people, they die too, and it's your fault. You wear a literal filter to interact with everyone. Sometimes they tell you they're mad and you don't understand. The filter isn't thick enough. Xavier pats your head and tells you this is how it is. You have to be better. You have to be better than them. You have to be better than everybody.

If you're Magneto, the answer is your life. He had everything taken away from him so thoroughly, so long ago, that you, Scott, can't even fathom it. He's introduced to you while stealing nuclear warheads to threaten people who hate you. Every word Xavier has ever told you stings in your brain, like a worm. This is wrong. This is the enemy. He's doing it wrong. He's getting a bad grade at being a mutant. These feelings will poke at you for the rest of your life. You will come to disagree with them. By the time you're 40, you couldn't imagine a more steadfast ally than Magneto. He gets it, you see. No one else gets it like Max does.

If you're Jean Grey, the answer is fire. Create fire. Look for fire. Date a guy who can shoot fire from his eyes. Who can spit fire from his mouth and raise the dead with his words. Who can stand before the apocalypse and burn, burn as hard as fire can burn, as hot as a volcano, enough that the police are involved, that the Avengers are involved, that the gods are involved. Burn and burn and turn to ash and burn further until they stop telling you you're worthless. They never will. But Scott will never be one of them. He would rather burn everlasting than tell you you're less than what you think you are.

If you're Emma, it's kill them from the inside. Become part of the problem to make the problem go away. Meet the problem in their house. Fuck the problem. Buy the problem. Kill the problem by giving them a stroke. Emma thinks you, Scott, could be so much more. You could end the problem in a day, two days tops. You could rally them and radicalize them and make them see how insidious the problem is. But you never would. You tried, and it didn't agree to you. It got weird. You got weird.

If you're Logan, the answer is drinking. You drink and you try to forget, but you never do. You can't. You hang out with this guy, this beautiful, certain, consistent man, and you can't forget what you've lost, but you can make new memories. You can be someone else. You can put on a robe and lay down on a lazy chair and drink near Scott, overlooking the Earth, and you can think, I never want to forget this. I never want to not be here, with Scott, looking over everything. Feeling like I do, doing the things I do, having the relationship I do with him. But eventually it all goes away again, and you remember, right, I'm a violent person, I'm made for battle, I don't deserve love, I don't deserve Scott, I don't deserve anything. I deserve the woods. The wolves. The simplicity. The desire to forget, but never quite getting there. If you're Logan, you don't actually have an answer. Your whole life is a question without an answer.

And then you're Scott. You wonder what you should do when they take it from you. You're surrounded by people radicalized by their choices on how to react to that. You're radicalized by your mistakes. You're radicalized by the fights, the torture, the betrayal, the time in space, the time in hell, the time suffering. Every year of your life was the worst year of your life. Everything you've ever done is a thing to be mocked and used as a standard at the same time. No one knows who you are aside from the guy to listen to. You're 40. You're a father. You're tired. Your first instinct upon being given everything was gathering your family and moving; to the moon, even, where no one could hurt you. And then they took that away from you, too.

So, what do you do?

There's only really one answer.

You sigh, you put on the suit, you do some voice training, you call some friends. You do a speech. You suppress the feeling that it's futile, because that feeling is the oppressor, too. And you say it, like you've said it a thousand times, like you'll say it a thousand times more, like you were made to say, like you were taught to say, like your entire legacy will revolve around how you say this single phrase.

You will say this from your chest. You will say this when no one else is around and no one else is listening. You will say it because it's the right thing to say, and god damn it, at the end of the day, you will never acquiesce. You will never compromise. You will, in fact, always say it, for the rest of your life and beyond. When you're dead and buried and not coming back on the regular, people will still talk about how right you were when you said it, how righteous you sounded when you said it, and how certain you were when you said it.

You say it when they're attacking, you say it when you're attacking, you say it as a defense, you say it as a response, you say it as every figure of importance in your life has given way to compromise or disappointment; as everyone has left you, and has moved on, and has decided oppression doesn't equal a life poorly lived, and has asked you to lose their number because they can't do this anymore, it has taken too much from them and they don't want this to be their lives.

You say you understand, you lose their number, you stop relying on them, and you start saying it to others. Sometimes to people who are too young, but they get it. This is the only appropriate reaction, after all. You were Scott and you were 13 years old when you were a soldier. They can do that, too.

What do you do when they take everything away from you?

Scott Summers sighs and fills his chest with air.

When they take it all from you, Cyclops says "To me, my X-Men."

[double-u-qed]

for me personally, what strengthens my autistic prowl headcanon is that he's rather good on the principles of body language, taking stock of minute movements and understanding what it could mean. he overanalyzes and tries to predict the meaning behind it. but he doesn't have the full grasp on social matters, thus making people unpredictable because he doesn't truly understand or even just 'go with the flow' when it comes to people. he needs a script of sort to interact, and in a way, body language is that.

he can have all the data on someone he wants, preferring to think of people in numbers because numbers are safe and predictable (not as in, oh, Prowl is willing to let people die. when i say numbers here i mean it literally, as in his calculations that he can't help himself from running). the individuality of people, however.... he can't actually put his knowledge into practice when he's thinking too hard on how he should react to said body language.

im not necessarily applying this to idw1 specifically, btw (all prowls are autistic to me). because the thing about idw1 prowl, i do like seeing him in an autistic lens but he is also Just An Asshole. he can in fact be both (though there's something to be said on how certain characters are a touch unreliable in how they talk about him because they believe the worst of him (i.e., Fort Max feeling he was left for dead when Prowl was led to believe that he had died), as well as how the writers just wanted to make Prowl Always in the wrong, even though he very much had a point in saying the Autobots were hypocrites, even if Prowl is still a bad guy despite being a victim). that's a lot of words to say that i hate people looking at Prowl's worst traits and trying to justify them simply with 'he's autistic' lol. there can be a genuinely interesting conversation on how the way his processor works can be an allegory for being neurodivergent/autistic specifically, but alas.. prowl is extremely flawed, and that's okay! he can be flawed and still exist within the realm of your headcanon.

really i just mean it's a bit Interesting when that's all people go with. you can say it's a mix of both, and that's still better than painting a rather harmful picture of autism/autistic traits. they don't make you into an asshole, they make certain areas of life harder to navigate. in Prowl's case, i think you can definitely say that both his good and bad traits can be used for the headcanon, it's just that he also doesn't do himself any favors when it comes to people liking him, and he's well aware of that. he doesn't pretend to be a good person, but he still gets frustrated when people don't see things the way he does.

it's difficult even trying to articulate my thoughts here because i don't want to be misunderstood oughhh i just relate to him because i tend to answer rhetorical questions because i can't pick up on whether or not someone is being genuine in asking, but im really fucking good at reading body languages. it's like a game of life or death to me. i took classes for something that seems to come easier to people, building up the skill. all just to still not get people on a fundamental level. Oh well

[dawsonscreekwasalwaysbad]

one thing about cultural christianity that i don't see talked about enough is that i think it's something a lot of jews can also fall victim to. especially if you live in an area where there aren't a lot of other jews and so you don't have easy access to resources like hebrew school and synagogue and jewish centers. but also even if you do. i'm jewish, i grew up jewish, both my parents are jewish and so are their parents and so were their parents, plus i grew up and still live in a highly jewish area, where schools took off for the high holidays. most of my peers went to hebrew school, and seventh grade was universally considered bar mitzvah season. and i took those things for granted. as a kid i chose not to go to hebrew school, not to get bat mitzvahed, and so much of what i know now about judaism—about jewish culture, jewish traditions, jewish holidays, jewish values, jewish beliefs—i only learned from being on tumblr.

when i was younger, like five or six, i asked my mom what happens after you die, and she said that your soul goes to heaven. and so for years i thought heaven and hell were universal beliefs. i didn't learn that jews don't believe in heaven or hell until my late teens. and in hindsight i can see why my mom told me that—you don't really want to scare a little kid by telling them that when you die you're just dead. but still.

and i grew up celebrating christmas. not in the sense that my family would go to chinese restaurants and see a movie in theaters, but in the sense that we put up a tree and raced downstairs first thing in the morning to open presents under the tree and gather with our extended family and eat christmas ham. still, there are a lot of christmas traditions we don't partake in, like stockings and caroling and elf on the shelf. the other day i had a friend come over and i showed her how many jewish ornaments were on my christmas tree—we have a star of david, a rabbi bear, and our tree topper is a dreidel—and she said something about it being a nice intersection of cultures. and it felt weird to hear her say that. i don't blame her for it, i know she meant well, but it would make more sense for someone to say that about someone with one jewish parent and one christian parent. and like i said, both my parents are jews. christianity doesn't intersect with my jewish culture, it invades it. maybe it was sort of a wake up call for me: you can decorate a christmas tree as jewishly as you like, but at the end of the day it's still a christmas tree. and so whenever i explain to people that i didn't have a bat mitzvah or that i celebrate christmas, it makes me feel like a bad jew.

i don't mean to imply that celebrating christmas makes you less jewish, or that you should be ashamed of yourself if you do. i just feel that way about myself. it's sort of that mentality of "everyone's valid except me," how there are things you say about yourself that you would never ever say about a friend. personally i would love to stop celebrating christmas, but i don't think i'll ever be able to, because even if/when i move out, my family will keep inviting me home for the holidays. and they have every right to. my family loves christmas, they love celebrating it, and i can't force them to stop. that's their choice. this holiday sparks joy for them, but for me it just sparks frustration and fatigue. and i don't want to ruin it for them, but i do want them to understand why i'm tired of celebrating an extremely hegemonic holiday.

idk if i'm articulating this well. i'm not really involved in the "discourse" around cultural christianity to begin with, but whenever i see it talked about it's usually in reference to atheists who used to be christian. but it's a lot more pervasive than that and i don't see that acknowledged very often.

[fuji09]

Thank y'all both so much for what y'all added!

So many people don't understand that survival mode, isn't something easily overcome when you're in it for years. And Derek was in it for 6 years before we first met him. His fight or flight (and freeze!) response is literally why he reacts the way he does.

He sometimes fights, especially with hunters or the supernatural, it can be kill or be killed, with Kate and hunters, and sometimes just the people around him, he flees.

He looks scared so many times, he puts himself in danger to try to keep others from dying so many times, and he really is just a scared boy.

I hate that they changed his age, 19 was perfect for him. Him being 21 isn't too bad, plus it makes the trauma so much worse that he literally isn't a functioning adult 6 years later.

Derek is betrayed so many times that it's kinda gross. Derek can't risk trusting the wrong person again.

Derek keeps being hurt but because of his age, people don't care. Because he's a guy, he wasn't really raped. Derek keeps being blamed for everything because he's the only person that isn't allowed to fuck up, even though he does fuck up a lot. Derek is obviously power hungry because he killed Peter instead of *checks notes* letting a traumatized boy who was bitten against his will that doesn't want to be a werewolf and knows nothing about being a werewolf, in love with a hunter's daughter, would not be able to mentally handle killing someone, and has been a werewolf for like a few months and would not be able to handle being an alpha werewolf or handle more power than he already has trouble with, kill Peter because a rumor says killing the one who bit you could possibly turn you back to human.

Derek was traumatized, Derek was used and abused, Derek had to mercy kill his first love, Derek lost his entire family in the fire and feels guilty for it, Derek loses his last family member, Laura, who is also his alpha and probably the only person who actually interacted with him for 6 years, and Derek has been tortured, raped, and sexually assaulted.

But Derek isn't allowed to make mistakes because he isn't a minor. Derek isn't allowed to have ugly symptoms of PTSD because he's expected to just get over it. Derek isn't allowed to be scared because he should know better.

Derek literally feels he has to be useful to someone to be worthy of kindness.when he tells Scott he needs him alive to survive the hunters or tells Stiles he needs him alive to protect him from the Kanima, he's literally pleading with them to not let him die. Because they need him alive. Not because it's the right thing to do or because they care, but because Derek has to be of use for them to trust in these two teens that they won't let him die.

And I feel that's how a lot of people see Derek. He has to be useful to anyone and everyone all the time (whether he has the ability to do so or not) and if he's not or he makes a mistake, then clearly he deserves all the bad shit he gets.

It's heartbreaking. The lack of empathy for Derek in the show and within the fandom is appalling.

Derek Hale has PTSD. I think people tend to forget that he wasn't an ass for the hell of it. He put up a rough asshole front to protect himself. He has the ugly symptoms of PTSD. Does it excuse some of his actions? No. But he does deserve some understanding and empathy.

No matter what age you see him as, he just isn't a 'grown ass man'. He had no idea how to take care of himself. He was still mentally that 15 year old who lost everything and was traumatized beyond reason.

Derek continuously kept being kicked while he was down. The poor guy couldn't catch a break. Like have a heart y'all. He was never a villain. An antagonist at one point, yes. Villain, no.

Trauma literally rewires your brain, and that poor kid got enough trauma before the first episode. Derek needed lots of therapy, he needed friends, and he needed a pack.

Derek could literally trust no one. Not because he didn't want to, but because he couldn't. He tried his best with what he had, which wasn't much, and he fucked up at times. But he kept trying to do and be better.

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

When Somebody Needs You (Will Wood)

We’ll meet in the middle like pistols at dawn/Turn our backs, who's counting pace?/When the smoke clears are we friends?/Or strangers again?/Just a familiar face/Well aren’t we “us” sharing pronouns now?/So how could we separately heal?

"It feels like growing apart from someone that you knew so well that you were one person, a pair a group ya know? the mourning of it but also knowing that you can’t really control how people grow and change"

Against the Kitchen Floor (Will Wood)

And I swear! I will die trying!/I'm still in the process, but I'm making progress; I promise I honestly wanna prove improvement's possible, I swear!/I'm so fucking sorry! I'm not a good person, I'm barely a person at all, But someday I'll be perfect, and I'll make up for it all!

Less rare than scarce, less diamond then rough/Unlikely to be more than just the coal you failed to crush

I'm catatonic in your arms, crying, "How did I cause so much harm?"/I'm down pounding my head against the kitchen floor/Apologizing for my life and ever entering yours

The vertex of my redemption arc/I’m searching on that virgin heart

"The raw emotion! And I strongly relate to desperately wanting to improve for someone you love. I belt out this song when I feel really hopeless"

"my one OC. also me. also it's just a really good song. one of will's best imo. screaminbg"

"Literally hits almost all of my self-esteem issues. Feeling like people only care about you for your body? Check. Not understanding why anyone would want you? Check. Thinking that all you do is hurt people? Check. I don't cry very often but this song DEFINITELY made me teary"

"one of those if u aren’t paying attention to the lyrics ur like this is nice but once u hear them its an OW holy OW and guilt and I’m sorry feelings"

"Just. Loving someone but not feeling like you’re good enough and trying to improve."

"Not only does this song have lyrics that are deeply relatable to me, but this song also feels very deeply personal to the artist and I feel that anyone who listens to it for the first time has that same feeling of getting punched in the gut. Just the lyrics and the melody and Will Wood’s vocals make this song an absolute masterpiece and I cry every time I hear it."

"One reason I'm attached to this song is because my friend sent it to me and said "I'm kin assigning you this song" and ruined my life (/j) It messed me up because I've always had a hard time in my life figuring myself out and dealing with my emotions, and for what feels like the first time, this song has been able to near perfectly describe how I feel about myself and my impact on other people, and it always just meant so much to me that my friend who sent it to me knows me better than I know myself and shared the song with me and I love them dearly."

Against the Kitchen Floor submitted by @pixopolis + others

[cgspirl]

i think if i covered myself in fake blood and beat the shit out of the president of my college i think i'd get somewhere in life. i think i'd be happier

but i wouldn't be. it's the pertaining thoughts of the id that make me want to do those things. in truth, i'm gonna go to bed in a little bit wake up, go to class, and work on whatever assignments i need to work on before i go and have a lovely weekend with my romantic partner.

i think some part of me is so desperate for mindless, unstoppable, unrestrained violence because i'm deeply unhappy with where i am as a person in the current moment in time. i want to see something better in the mirror but instead i'm greeted with the same face i always am. but to those around me, they like that face! they like the face they see and they take joy in interacting with it and i don't understand why.

this face is miserable. i'm miserable. why would you want to be with something so miserable? and maybe it's because the misery is self-sustaining and i want to be miserable because it's what i know. i'm familiar in the anguish, not comfortable. doing my best when i can, trying my best when i can. giving up when it doesn't come easy because as the smartest in the room i have to know everything.

i really do think i'm tired. i think something inside me is so very, very tired and i have yet to let it rest because i am convinced it doesn't deserved to be loved so gently. that i don't deserve to be loved so gently when there's a hundred different people who would tell me otherwise. i don't want to love myself gently because i hate myself.

i want to be left in the dust of history so that i know i'll disappear when i'm dead. i don't want to be remembered for anything. i want to be forgotten because it's what i deserve. in my head i'm a god. i'm loved. i'm adored. the people love me. everyone loves me. in reality? i'm just another stranger passing in the night.

i think if i covered myself in blood and screamed at the top of my lungs in the middle of the library quad field at my school i think someone would finally understand. i don't want to go anywhere anymore. i don't want to be miserable anymore. i just want someone to understand that while i am reliable, i am burnt out.

i want to be able to say 'no' and not have to feel the urge to justify and reassure. 'no, i can't.' no 'sorry'. no apology. i think that's what i'm the most tired of: apologizing for being alive and trying to handle everything that gets thrown at me.

i'm so tired of justifying myself.

i want to cover myself in blood and scream at the top of my lungs and i don't want someone to ask if i'm okay. i want someone else to cover themselves to and join in. i want a choir of anguish at being alive because sometimes living is agony and there isn't a constructive way to get that agony out. sometimes it's covering yourself in blood and screaming until you can't scream anymore.

[raticalshoez]

i'm having hyperfixation drought so i did what i did best and created a crossover episode

[epicfirestormer]

I'm so incredibly Normal about these two games.

[sideprince]

I resent getting dragged into the discourse but it's wild to me that there are people out there who read the HP books and laud Harry for being brave and having a big heart and redeeming the wizarding world with his unusually great ability to love, yet can't comprehend how he could learn to appreciate Snape's sacrifice.

I'm very specifically thinking of the fact that Harry watches Snape die. Snape, who is lying on the floor, gripping Harry's robes, and whose eyes Harry is looking into and seeing the life leave. I don't understand how people can humanize some fictional characters and treat them as if they were real and completely dehumanize another. Not even for Snape's sake, but for Harry's sake, do these people not understand what it is to watch someone die? What's the expectation, that the Capacity For Love Posterchild protagonist steps out of character and doesn't care about the guy he watches bleed out and die suffering because you, as a reader, don't like him?

Which is it? Does Harry have a huge capacity to love or not? Pick a lane. Either you value this character trait in Harry or you don't. But you have to take or leave everything it comes with, otherwise you're a hypocrite. Or maybe illiterate.

I just don't GET it.

[justalittlebluetiefling]

The more we watch and the more we see Ludinus may be trying to use as his reason for doing all of this, I just... your actions have fucking consequences. You want to try to kill the gods, maybe don't be surprised when they try to stop you from doing that.

[airasora]

Came across yet another person online who insists that corporeal punishment is necessary to raise and discipline a child - and uses the argument that "gentle parenting" doesn't work because it creates brats. What they think gentle parenting is, is in fact permissive parenting - which is very much not the same.

So, allow me to share this metaphor here:

Parenting is like gardening. If you neglect your plants entirely, letting weeds grow unchecked, they’ll become overrun and struggle to thrive (permissive parenting).

But if you’re too harsh, constantly hacking at them or overwatering, you’ll damage their roots and stunt their growth (corporal punishment).

The key is balance: you support your plants with trellises or ties when they start to grow crooked (guidance), pull weeds to keep them on track (appropriate consequences), and prune gently to correct mistakes while still allowing them to grow naturally.

Discipline isn’t about force—it’s about providing structure and teaching your children how to thrive.

[suddencolds]

.~