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robotslenderman · 2 years ago

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I hope you don't mind me adding my thoughts but this just made me realise why I hate vampires that walk around in daylight, and why I love stories where they're complete monsters.

Because for me, vampirism is about disability.

I used to be physically disabled, and got so sick that I was in bed 22 hours a day for a few months. It took a year to get that sick, and it took another couple to make, miraculously, a near full recovery.

I was so sick that I turned into a complete and utter asshole because thinking took a shit ton of effort, let alone actively and wilfully burning energy I did not have to be nice to people. If I wanted someone to fuck off, I basically was dying to outright tell them to fuck off because I simply did not have the fucking spoons to reword it as "hey, do you mind stepping back a bit?"

It cost spoons to think. it cost so many spoons to think. It took so. many. fucking. spoons. to translate nasty phrases into respectful and kind phrases to use instead. every time someone talked to me it took a fucking spoon to process what they were saying. I'd have six spoons first thing in the morning, and if someone breathed too loudly next to me, I spent one spoon to not tell them to shut the fuck up you stupid piece of shit.

I just didn't have that brainpower. I didn't have that ability. I really cannot emphasise how bad my fatigue was. I had to psych myself up to roll over in bed. Speaking was an effort. Filtering what I said? Forget about it. I hated that I had to be nice to people. I hated that I had to be a decent human being and not an abusive POS. I hated that I desperately needed those spoons to be able to get out of bed so I could use the toilet instead of pissing myself (something which I seriously considered more than once) and had to "waste" them on not being a complete piece of shit to people. People would come up to me and talk to me and take my fucking spoons from me without my consent and I was expected to not swear at them for it.

And this post made me realise that being into VTM, into vampires, has been about me revisiting the trauma of when I was physically disabled over and over again and finding catharsis in a world where vampires are essentially expected to be psychopathic assholes. They're disabled -- they can't go out in sunlight, they can't drink anything but blood -- and in a way it's "okay" for them to respond to that by being complete and utter fucking dicks. (I mean, it's not, but you know what I mean, I hope; it's about it being expected and normal for them to be total bastards) I feel like every time I write a story about a vampire being an asshole I'm essentially telling that part of me that's still scarred from that long illness "it's okay you had to spend those spoons on not soiling yourself instead of being kind to people. it's okay you turned into a monster to survive. it's okay you prioritised yourself. you made people unhappy and miserable and you were dying to be abusive to take those spoons back but you were quite possibly dying, and you were doing what you had to do to keep yourself alive and not covered in piss and shit."

(I had a severely inflamed stomach from a near nonexistent stomach lining. I found out later that it's possible to get stomach ruptures from this, where the acid burns a hole through the stomach and leaks into the body. This is a medical emergency. Given how badly sick I was, I would not be surprised if this would have happened if I'd continued. I don't think I'm being dramatic. I think I really was dying, until my mother pulled me out of it by completely changing my diet and my stomach began to heal. It's a really long story as to why I wasn't in a hospital and stuff, but... yeah.)

Vampires losing their humanity to the Beast was, all along, a story about how I was losing my own. Because I really was. It took years to learn to be human again, to teach myself to be kind to people again -- I'm sure some of my followers remember a time when I was posting bitchy shit on my #dusty has opinions tags about the most petty, inane shit. It took much longer to recover on an emotional and mental level than it did physically. After nearly ten years, I'm finally starting to see the light in the tunnel -- I'm starting to feel like I'm becoming my pre-illness self again.

So like, vampires being able to walk around in daylight makes it no longer a story about disability for me, and for me, that's what vampirism is about.

I need to write asshole grimdark vampires to comfort and validate the version of me who had to choose between soiling herself and being kind to people.

so here's my thing right? everyone loves to talk about the ways various media waters down common monsters. specifically vampires and werewolves. specifically like- a vampire who doesn't have to drink human blood waters down the inhuman need to prey on humans. A werewolf who can control when they shift doesn't have the same implications as one who is tied to the moon. And I think there is truth to that. I'm not nearly as scared of a vampire who can survive on rats because I know they aren't completely depandant on getting my blood to survive. A werewolf who can shift whenever is a lot more like a regular shifter than specifically a werewolf.

but I don't think these things ruin the effect? Like primarily you have to consider what the monster Represents in the story and the genre you're working in. like it really comes down to what the author is trying to do and how well they pull it off. A story about someone turning into a vampire, loosing their sense of humanity, and slowly turning to hunting animals like a beast in the forest is a very different vampire horror story than a freshly turned vampire slowly loosing their ability to not drain the people they love. A werewolf who can shift whenever they want, learning to love the wolf and what it represents (anger, queerness, various Repression metaphors) and using the wolf to protect themselves and finding it freeing is a completely different story than someone unwillingly tied to a wolf, that changes against their will and that they have no control over. But that doesn't mean either story is a better depiction of their monsters just by plot beats. they're just different metaphors and versions.

#Dusty talks #VTM #vampblogging #chronic illness #god 2016 sucked so bad

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lesbiansforboromir · 4 years ago

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If a person wanted to write Boromir fic, do you have any tips on how to capture the Tolkieny tone in writing/best scenes to re-read for characterization?

LET ME SEE if I can’t compile a nice guide for you;

First thing’s first! Boromir does not include his own feelings into his statements unless it’s utterly against his will, such as the ring-controlled scene. In fact his discussion with Frodo is the first and last time he expresses his emotions verbally at all and even then it seems to be squeezed out of him in the midst of his ranting ‘how it ANGERS me’ like he is almost shocked at how angry he actually is in that moment, so much so that he can’t hold it back like normal.

‘I am’ statements in general don’t come often either. He doesn’t use ‘I’ at all if he can help it. If he is describing the war or some conflicts or battles, he uses ‘us’ or ‘we’ ‘Some said that it could be seen, like a great black horseman, a dark shadow under the moon. Wherever he came a madness filled our foes, but fear fell on our boldest, so that horse and man gave way and fled. Only a remnant of our eastern force came back, destroying the last bridge that still stood amid the ruins of Osgiliath. 'I was in the company that held the bridge, until it was cast down behind us. Four only were saved by swimming: my brother and myself and two others.’ Here he mentions himself only as an explanation for the circumstances, and goes quickly back to talking as a collective. (This is the first and last time he mentions Faramir too, and never by name)

The times when Boromir uses ‘I’ statements most is for defining his own actions and intent or when he is offering advice. 'I have let my horn cry at setting forth, and though thereafter we may walk in the shadows, I will not go forth as a thief in the night.' He is clear to himself and others about what he will and won’t accept. 'I will add a word of advice, if I may,' said Boromir. 'I was born under the shadow of the White Mountains and know something of journeys in the high places. We shall meet bitter cold, if no worse, before we come down on the other side. It will not help us to keep so secret that we are frozen to death. When we leave here, where there are still a few trees and bushes, each of us should carry a faggot of wood, as large as he can bear.' Note here he is also polite but in a confident manner. ‘If I may’ is added to acknowledge that he is not the leader of the company, but he is not shy with offering his advice and assuming it useful.

When he’s in more familiar and less strict circumstances, and actually sometimes even when he isn’t, Boromir has what I would call a... hint of sarcasm in his tone at all times. He’s always got a little sardonic wit with him, `Let those call it the wind who will; there are fell voices on the air; and these stones are aimed at us.' See? It’s not... OVERT but it’s definitely a little long suffering/etc. Boromir... talks like an old man I guess is my point. 'What do you say to fire?' asked Boromir suddenly. 'The choice seems near now between fire and death, Gandalf. Doubtless we shall be hidden from all unfriendly eyes when the snow has covered us, but that will not help us.' ESPECIALLY when he’s talking to Gandalf, there’s just a bit of dark humour and ‘cheek’. `I do not know which to hope,' said Boromir grimly: `that Gandalf will find what he seeks, or that coming to the cliff we shall find the gates lost for ever. All choices seem ill, and to be caught between wolves and the wall the likeliest chance. Lead on!' jhadsjd BITCHY... but very funny and he’s right. And here also, ‘wolves and the wall’, he tends towards almost... poetic isn’t quite the word but he likes sayings and flowing dialogue.

Continuing on from that point, Boromir is also generally... not WARM but he’s got a way of speaking that is comfortable and confident in comradery. Especially with Gimli, actually, he often makes these lighter sighed statements that have a lick of humour to them. Again, it’s never particularly overt, more of a constant underlying note in his wording, even in the latter parts of the fellowship. `Ah, it is as I said,' growled Gimli. 'It was no ordinary storm. It is the ill will of Caradhras. He does not love Elves and Dwarves, and that drift was laid to cut off our escape.' 'But happily your Caradhras has forgotten that you have Men with you,' said Boromir, who came up at that moment. `And doughty Men too, if I may say it; though lesser men with spades might have served you better.’ This is one of my favourite lines of his it’s just like... confident, not over proud, you can hear him grinning and the leetle wry tone he’s speaking in. Even here! In like the very last days of his life, he still has this quality!

We might labour far upstream and yet miss it in the fog. I fear we must leave the River now, and make for the portage-way as best we can from here.' `That would not be easy, even if we were all Men,' said Boromir. `Yet such as we are we will try it,' said Aragorn. 'Aye, we will,' said Gimli. `The legs of Men will lag on a rough road, while a Dwarf goes on, be the burden twice his own weight, Master Boromir! ' (later) 'Well, here we are, and here we must pass another night,' said Boromir. `We need sleep, and even if Aragorn had a mind to pass the Gates of Argonath by night, we are all too tired-except, no doubt, our sturdy dwarf.' Gimli made no reply: he was nodding as he sat.

AND ANOTHER THING. Whilst Boromir CAN be an orator and give long speeches, he tends towards economy of speech. This is especially noticeable, again, between him and Gandalf. Gandalf will go on for three paragraphs about something, patronising him, explaining a lot of unnecessary stuff to sound clever. And then Boromir will just answer with; `We do not know what he expects,' said Boromir. `He may watch all roads, likely and unlikely. In that case to enter Moria would be to walk into a trap, hardly better than knocking at the gates of the Dark Tower itself. The name of Moria is black.' And that’s it! AND HE’S FFUCKIN RIGHT GGSHAHGS

So you’re usually going to be trying to narrow down his speech to it’s bare essentials in order to get the point across and nothing more. Stream lined, impersonal, confident and clear are the hallmarks of Boromir’s speech patterns. NO. SHOUTING. Unless to be heard or in a brief flash of shock, immediately restrained afterwards. Actually if Boromir has any kind of outburst, he tends to walk away from whatever situation caused it rather than allow anything to escalate. Boromir’s verbal tone is almost always neutral, wry or reassuring/comfortable. From experience, I can tell you this is... GRUELLING to write. You want so desperately for him to say what he’s thinking and feeling, what’s important to him, but he’s utterly incapable unless briefly possessed by evil. Not even when he’s literally dying will this change, though that might be because it was Aragorn at his deathside. Which brings me onto my final point.

We actually have no idea how Boromir might interact with people he actually likes and is friends with, let alone his family. I’m inclined to believe that warm comradery element just becomes more overt but little else changes. But you’re entirely at liberty to decide for yourself. Certainly though it is different from how he behaves throughout the fellowship. We never really meet Boromir... is a thought I can hardly bare so we’re STOPPING now.

#boromir #chats #erran vs tolkien #lotr #tolkien #rescue-ram #asks

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beggingwolf · 3 years ago

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hi so I've just eaten too much ice cream, feel vaguely ill, and I'm here to tell you All About How I Failed At Outlining for SGKF this year!

that's partially just a fun tagline, but it's also a bit true. I told my friends I'd be trying to use several different outlining methods to try and knock out a plotty piece for the fest, and things did not go to plan!

important to begin with: I am what is referred to as a "pantser." I tend to just start writing. this is strangely contradictory to my personality, which deeply loves plans. unfortunately, what often happens is plans and outlines ruin my excitement and drive while working on a project (it tricks me into thinking I've done all the work and resolved the plot), leading me to abandon it.

and though I can throw together pretty words and made a decent fic, my fics never turned out as good as they could have been. I kept telling myself that if I planned in advanced and worked out what I was doing BEFORE I did it, I'd be able to craft a fic with such care and attention as to make it really SHINE.

so, uh, kinkfest rolls around, and since I was a mod I could see all the prompts before they even got released to the public, so I basically had a WHOLE EXTRA two-ish weeks to start planning and writing.

did I? NO.

so, despite the fact that I collect writing advice like a magpie , I'm not the greatest at implementing it. if you go into my SGKF google folder, you'll find a few instances of me TRYING to implement writing advice like metawriting:

(and you'll see some fics that didn't get finished/make it into the fest!)

my issue was (and still is) that I think I value every little word too much. this is a bad thing: I'm an overwriter by nature. when I get words down, I want to keep them because I feel like I worked hard for them, even if they're not great or don't actually serve the story in the way they should. that's not to say all my metawriting was bad; it wasn't. I tried it out for A Drowning in California as well [which will henceforth just be referred to as "California").

I had a whole subfolder for California. what kind of amazed me is how different my initial notes for the prompt are from what the story actually ended up being. here, take a look:

literally almost none of this is in california. the WWE and UFC stuff made it in, and so did sid wrestling with horny, but that was it. I was going to start this fic in the locker room, with sid wrestling someone, and it was seriously going to be a story about sex—about sid wanting to hold geno down in bed. that was the premise.

and instead, we got a really emotional story about familial rejection and the isolation it can make people feel. SO! something happened along the way, right?

when I started getting into the plot that would support this supposed sexfest, this is where I went at first:

geno wants the relationship to get serious, sid is like mentally still a 12 year old who just wants to wrestle people and doesn't want to talk about his emotions, and prefers to use physicality to communicate. this doesn't work for geno, who wants ... more

we can start to see the actual emotions come through, the things I was interested in: sid using touch to talk, and geno desperately wanting more

what did the most good for me, in the end, was "doing" the metawriting by talking with my friends.

I told them what i thought this story was about ("I'm thinking about making this a story about relationship-defining, maybe? and the communication needed for a lasting adult relationship? I think I'm going to set it in california/LA, where Sid has invited Geno along for the first time for his California Summer Fun/Training/Escape, whatever, and Geno's going to be emotionally preoccupied with Defining The Relationship—maybe they've been on-again-off-again? maybe they're just new to this, like almost a year deep, and they're not getting younger—and thinking this trip is about that [or hoping this trip is about that, and realizing it isn't, and being disappointed].") and they told me what jumped out at them.

Jes told me what would ramp up the tension would be a deadline of some sort; "Geno’s going to break up with Sid or make some decision or something, or there’s something approaching where they have to make a will they or won’t they decision of some kind related to the core ‘defining the relationship’ issue. Geno’s going back to russia and in previous summers they’ve always slept with other people while apart? or Sid has a wedding coming up and he’s offhandedly mentioned taking someone else as his plus one?"

I liked her thoughts. it made sense to add an external pressure to all this, and that wedding idea stuck out to me the most.

Lis said I should add a jealousy angle, so you can largely credit her for the club scene: "one thing i like to sort of headcanon/imply about sid's california trips is he uses them to hook up anonymously. so you could have, like, sid and geno seeing sid's friends, but also accidentally running into some of sid's friends. and geno's like oh, great, so here i am doing this horrible summertime training that i hate because i don't need to train in the offseason actually, and i'm learning what exactly sid gets up to when we're apart."

My magical solution these days is GOING FOR WALKS. do it if you're able. it clears out your brain. so on my walks I ended up deciding that I wanted a taylor crosby wedding. I like taylor as a character, and as a person with sisters I just like writing her in. best of all, she and sid are close and I like writing "I'd do anything for my family" sid.

and then I was like. oh. what if it's not that sid is afraid/nervous to bring geno, it's that he can't.

I... wasn't as conflicted as I thought I'd be about writing sid's parents as homophobic. I prefer to write them as supportive; I think troy crosby's been eviscerated more than he should have been in older fanworks, and though I respect their right to make fictional!troy whatever they want, I've been a little skeptical of outlandish takes on him ("he doesn't say I love you to his son because a camera caught them mid-interaction once!") ever since I read how the media has found him a convenient narrative villain while he tried to keep his underage son safe from the media as a child and while they needed to cook up Spicy Stories about squeaky-clean sid.

uh, tangent aside, I always thought I'd never write a "parents are the villains" story, but I did here. it felt right. it was easier, too, because they're not PRESENT in the story. I didn't have to write trina actually being horrible to her son. I just had to skirt the edges of the wound.

which works well on two fronts: I don't have to actively write the crosbys being horrible to sid, and I also leave more to the imagination of the reader, and that almost never fails to make the work better. whatever the reader imagines them saying to sid, it's going to be 10x more hurtful than anything I'd write.

I dug really deep on some personal emotions and fears I experience as a gay person for a lot of sid's arc here. sid is deeply imperfect in this story, and he's internalizing his pain and the horrible thing that's happened to him, which is making him pull away from his partner, and sid is not responding how geno wants, nor is he responding well, period, though he's trying in his own wounded, stilted way.

and beloved geno, whose tender heart is so hidden away for fear of someone hurting it. I really like writing geno; he's huffy and emotional and sometimes bitchy and feels things SO deeply.

once I had more of an idea, I was already working on a more detailed outline. this is where I seriously took Jes's advice and WROTE EVERYTHING OUT! it made it so much less daunting, because I didn't have to be figuring out my next steps AND crafting sentences at the same time. also this is where I tell you that the title of this post is mostly a lie, it was metawriting I failed at.

This outline also meant I avoided writing large swaths of things that should've been cut. Another beta told me I should delete three scenes and condense a bunch of emotions into the club scene, and she was SO right. Cutting events out of an outline is WAY easier than cutting out pages of text.

Ironically my outline kind of deteriorated after the club scene, but that's alright: after I wrote the club scene, I actually had a clear vision of what I wanted the end to be. I just had to trust myself. I CAN do this, I CAN still just write intuitively sometimes!

I think California did what I wanted it to do. I'd love to try something out that's longer and has more story arcs in it (jes has a post for that too!) but I think that's best saved for another, longer project, though 18k isn't short.

next up is maggie stief's writing seminar that I bought a month back. I'm going to start working on that this month and see how I like it. I have a few halloween fic ideas, plus spookfest, so these next two months we should be cooking in the kitchen!

#on writing

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tonya-the-chicken · 3 years ago

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I’m not going to change your views but it does feel a bit dismissive when you say it wasn’t that bad because he had rich parents who neglected him but hey they got a maid for him and he probably wasn’t outcasted or bullied so hey it’s not that bad right 🤷‍♀️! I don’t know he definitely didn’t have the worse out of the villains but I don’t know it felt a bit dismissive is all. Although we need to all remember these are fictional characters so have no idea why the other anon needed to get so aggressive! Also the person in the notes I don’t know how to say it but uh the whole the Todoroki’s had a rich father they didn’t have to work a day in their life take is not a good look. Just because someone has parents with money it doesn’t derail the fact that neglect can cause trauma.

Anyways for the real reason I sent this, you wonder why Dabi is so insane. Well take into account the neglect alongside the fact that he burnt to near death up on that hill alone at the age of what 13? That’s got to be extra traumatising, especially for a child that was already not mentally ok. We also don’t know what his circumstances were like after that fire, like was he homeless? Or picked up by someone nefarious? Kind of like AFO(not him exactly but someone nasty) who maybe fed on his brewing anger and hate instead of positive healing. I’m sure we will find out at some point? I don’t think it was just what happened in the Todoroki household or the fire that broke his mind? There had to be other factors after the fire after his “death”!

[[WARNING!!! I love Dabi as a character but I am not a woobifier so if you are too much into him don't read!!!! No complaints taken, y'all will be blocked for being rude I am too old to deal with people unable to interact with me in good faith (anon it's not for you, you are good and I can't understand your point of view I am just not as good as a person and too old for that shit)]]

I don't think I will change my mind either but I feel like the belief that every trauma is equally bad is just... Simply wrong. Like, we can legit compare this stuff and how badly it affects our brain, what do y'all think psychologists research 🤷‍♀️ Like, your therapist won't tell you this because it's not their job to make you understand you not the centre of the Earth (and it won't help because it is a legit trauma response that is very valid but is annoying you're fucking 25 yo). And to say that, neglectful parenthood is probably the worst parenthood style, as far as I know XD I wrote coursework about this (neglectful bitches are having a lot of need to make us the biggest victims (the bitches is me))... It also feels really American to me? Like, are we going to pretend people who got to live in a nice house and were neglect somehow got it as bad as people living in poverty or warzones? Hello? Imagine telling some orphan "I know you have no parents but actually, my trauma of my father not spending enough time with me is just as severe as yours". Bruh couldn't be me sorry... Like, even taking into account the fact that we can have weaker or stronger nervous systems or be more prone to depressive episodes *looks in the mirror and cries* I simply wouldn't find the guts to say my trauma is as severe as idk people who had physically abusive parents or no parents at all or who were disowned for being gay

And like **again** I am not saying that neglect is not traumatic I WAS NEGLECTED THIS IS TRAUMATIZING AS FUCK. I just am living in a country at war and with lots of discrimination problems and I like... Can't say I am the biggest victim. Sorry I can't though there were times when I was a lot more bitchy especially before being in therapy so I understand where you are coming from and I know what I am saying won't resonate with everyone (it's ok go on your own healing journey I believe in you) but this doesn't mean it is garbage and won't help me or someone else... I've already talked once about it but as a person, I am very easily irritated and envious and really not your local Jesus and partially my trauma turned me like this so being more humble about my sufferings helps me not be a complete bitch (believe me or not but people with traumas and mental illnesses are often insufferable *looks in the mirror* not me though I am perfect... BUT IT IS OK TO BE INSUFFERABLE OK??? like, bitch, that's normal. That's normal to stink when you are depressed it's ok to be a bitch when you are hurting. Forgive yourself because I forgive you (when you are not being an abusive asshole but if you apologize and explain yourself I will forgive that too)

The reason why I talk about the fact he is rich is that I've got a disease called leftism and I am a person of several marginalized identities and since this fandom LOVES looking at characters like real humans, I looked at Dabi this way. And if Dabi was a real human, I wouldn't sympathize with him one bit. I would fucking hate him for being the biggest entitled asshole who commits crimes for the reason his Daddy didn't give him attention. Bitch, my Dad didn't give me attention either! But somehow I don't kill people! And I don't even have money!!!! But like... I am not denying that neglectful parents are not a problem. It is. But he is overreacting, bro. He needs to humble down and recognize the fact he is a fucking idiot (he is). He has inherently so much more resources to recover and heal himself than I had... Yes, I am just being jealous at this point but honestly. Making an entire country suffer for you is not a good thing and y'all need to stop using trauma and mental illness as an excuse for people. No! Being abusive to people because of neglect is not valid, is overreacting and you had no reason to do that. I am dismissing your trauma because you are exaggerating it to make me sympathize with your asshole behaviour. I won't judge people with different sets of standards as I judge myself

I bet it would be dismissive and bad if I said it in conversation with someone who is currently struggling with mental health and is not a murderer. But guess what! I don't talk with humans and my friends the same way I talk on my Tumblr about fictional characters 🤷‍♀️ Not to mention I don't have rich friends akabsksbxm

I think with Dabi there's this whole thing where we saw him at 14 (poor baby boy) and 24 (a grown-ass boy) and... Like, I am so sorry for 14 years old Touya not receiving the help he needs (bruh so relatable) but I am not gonna act like 24 years old bitch can't get his ass to a psychiatrist (extremely unrelatable and infuriating). We shouldn't apply the same standards to kids and adults. We can talk all day long about how society is bad and how our parents ruined us but at some points, you gotta take your life into your own hands and do something and be an adult. And it's fucking hard when you're born with a shitty brain that was fucked up by your parents even more in a society where no one gives a fuck but I sincerely don't know another way to live. You will feel bad and want to die but you either keep on recovering or keep on getting worse and at this point getting worse is Dabi's *choice* That's how I live, that's my framework and I am, of course, extremely fortunate in a lot of ways but I just don't know how are you supposed to survive without the notion that grown people are responsible for themselves and their mental health. We can't act like adults are babies

But as a character, Dabi is fucking hot ngl. Like, do I sometimes want to murder my entire family, make them suffer AND commit terrorist attacks? We all do. Dabi is the dark fantasy of us neglectful bitches craving some attention. Gotta kill the president and tell everyone that my Dad sucks. Imagine the entire country hearing your Dad sucks? That's the juice, that's the dream. Trauma makes you vicious. I get the sentiment. Imagine all those fuckers who made you feel like shit pissing their pants and crying? Imagine your Mom being afraid of you the way you used to be afraid of her? People do have the desire for some violent justice but like... Think of bullied kids committing school shootings. But instead of a kid, it's a grown man who graduated school and who also have a rich father

Ok too much about irl stuff and philosophy shit. I know my way of talking is kinda brute so just know the way I treat people is different from that I treat fictional characters, in particular, I don't call real-life humans submissive and breedable... And stuff...

Damn Dabi is kinda good to project your hatred of your parents in bruh, I should write a fanfic about that (would be cathartic)

To the plotline, I am also very interested in what the hell happened with him after burning because... How the hell he wasn't found? I kind of DON'T want him to be groomed at this point because I feel like it won't be as cool as him just more naturally evolving into what he became. Like, surely, he is an asshole but consider this: as a villain, he is morally obligated to be an asshole

I feel like someone hiding him and Touya overstating the gruesomeness of his living conditions to the dude so he feels *bad* for him and hides him and feels sympathy and Touya gets attention but also begins to reassure himself in the fact his Dad needs to be punished... Idk it's a lot of mystery but I feel like more suffering won't deliver the point the way I want it... I mean it CAN be handled this way and initially I thought a lot about Dabi being brainwashed a bit or having his memories altered so it seems worse to him or even him being groomed or lied too but nowadays I am not into it. I mean I believe in Horikoshi and that he will handle him well 🛐

I talk a lot so I will summarize

If we judge him as a real human

14 yo Touya - DID NOTHING WRONG IN HIS LIFE PROTECT HIM

24 yo Dabi - go fuck yourself bitch you older than me and act like a child and kill people, I couldn't care less about your trauma rich boy

If you want me to talk as his psychologist

Yeah, it is painful and sad, I understand him so much and surely, his trauma is valid as is his hatred but probably revenge won't bring him what he wants. And what he wants is love and attention. But he gotta make choices that will lead to his healing. He needs to *want* to heal. And we will step by step go to the healing because it is possible. He is loved and he is enough. AND YOU ALL MOTHERFUCKERS WILL HEAL I BELIEVE IN YOU BESTIES

Also his therapist (behind his back)

You won't believe it but my client is the most infantile attention whore I've ever met

But if we talk about him as a character... Very delicious soup

If you talk with your friends

Please, if your friends are being abusive to you or someone else don't even LET them say how their trauma made them this way. No. Nothing allows you to be an abuser. Call them out and stop them and make them talk to the therapist. Like, surely, there are extreme situations like severe mental illnesses or extreme neglect where we should be more forgiving but babying adults won't do you any good and won't make them recover

Yeah, I guess this is what I forgot to say. When I say "it wasn't that bad" what I mean is that I would be more forgiving to people who had it worse. It's more of a personal measure where I can tolerate stuff from people who had particular traumas or from those who suffered greatly (it's not my place to be a bitch here). I can forgive 14 years old or a poor person for stealing stuff but not the 25-year-old man who got no need for money and is not a kleptomaniac. I would be more forgiving to Shigaraki than to Dabi because Shigaraki was groomed a whole lot. Same for Toga, who is not even an adult or Twice who is a poor orphan. But that doesn't mean I would forgive them completely. All of them are shitty people. It's just that they had fewer resources and possibilities to not be what they became while Dabi had more but he acts like he is extremely hurt and the biggest victim which is like... There will be people like this in your life, please, don't make friends with them, they WILL abuse you

I talked a lot damn. It's adhd I can't shut up

#asks #bnha #bnha manga spoilers #todoroki touya #bnha dabi #killing people is a legit coping mechanism #I mean I possibly do sound dismissive I am very brute in my talking but I really can't be bothered #all I am saying that I am not dismissing neglect what I am dismissing is the idea that is is bad enough to justify Dabi's reaction #neglect was bad Dabi's reaction is disproportionate though #you. don't get to kill people because your Dad didn't love you #you do get to kill people if those people killed your family #just so you understand #I got tired of talking

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mellometal · 3 years ago

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I know I said I don't associate myself with the Panic! fandom anymore, but this is something I have been ACHING to talk about. This is some bad timing, since it was Brent Wilson's birthday recently (yes, his birthday is July 20th, NOT August 20th; source: I've been following him on Twitter for five years and he's actually said this), but this is going to be about Brent and the whole situation with him.

Warning: What I'm about to say about the situation with Brent Wilson (original bassist) is heavily biased, since I do stan him. YEAH. I STAN BRENT MATTHEW WILSON, THE ORIGINAL BASSIST OF PANIC! AT THE DISCO. CRY ABOUT IT. STAY MAD. He's one of the ONLY members of Panic! At The Disco (past and present) who I give a fuck about, besides Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, and Ian Crawford.

Trigger warning: This will be talking about arrest, jail, drugs (doing and selling), weapons (guns), childbirth, parenthood, and some other things. If these things are triggering for you or make you uncomfortable in any way, you do not have to read this post. Consume media that sparks joy for you.

Disclaimer: I don't know Brent in real life, I'm not in his circle of friends or people he's closest to (like his wife Taylor, his parents, his brother Blake, his in-laws, his irl friends, coworkers, etc.), and this is not me acting like I do. I don't know what his life is like outside of Twitter. The only contact I've ever had with him has been on Twitter, but it was pretty limited.

My thoughts on this situation are MY opinion, any possibilities in my thoughts are just theories and not proven to be true, and I'm not trying to excuse whatever he was allegedly charged with.

Just for the record, I am willing to have a civil conversation with anyone who hates Brent. The minute you attack me or anyone else who likes Brent, or a whole bunch of you start circle jerking about how much you hate him, you're getting blocked. If all you're going to bring up is the shit Brent did when he was in his late teens instead of adding anything useful to the discussion, you're getting blocked too. I already know about that. It happened back in 2004-2006. They were all still kids, to a point. Brent has changed quite a bit since then. The whole "Hate on Brent Wilson" bandwagon is stupid, toxic, and I refuse to jump on it. I've never jumped on it when I was in the Panic! fandom, so why would I do it now?

Remember, without Brent bringing Br3nd0n Ur!3 into Panic!, your precious Br3nd0n wouldn't be successful today. JUST SO YA KNOW. (I'm very salty right now, if you can't already tell.)

If you would like to know about what happened with Brent, a few months ago, he was arrested on (alleged) drug charges and illegal possession of a weapon, along with a traffic violation and something to do with a probation violation too. He was set to go to court back in March for his sentencing, but that's the most recent information I've found. I don't know what the fuck is going on at this point. I don't know if he's been sentenced, if he's doing anything alternative like rehabilitation, nothing. (The reason why I said they're alleged charges is because I don't know if he's even been to court for sentencing or anything like that.)

People's reactions were mixed. Some actually LAUGHED and made a whole bunch of jokes about him being arrested (that's fucking insensitive and cruel). Some felt bad for Brent because he just became a dad (yes, he's a dad, but I'm not posting any pictures of the kid out of respect for Brent and Taylor). Some were shocked. Some weren't surprised (how and why????).

My reaction? It was pretty mixed. I was shocked. I thought I was having a fever dream and what I was seeing was fake at first. When I realized it wasn't fake, I was crushed. I felt absolutely horrible for Brent, Taylor, their kid, and all their loved ones. Like, I care about the guy a lot. Obviously.

Ironically, the band members and/or group members I stan are either the black sheep or they're just not as popular. Or they're the fucking scapegoat almost EVERYONE attacks for the stupidest shit. Brent's the black sheep as well as the scapegoat of Panic!, for example....and I would say that Ian is another black sheep too. Not for any negative reasons. He's simply not as popular, due to the fact he was only in Panic! during the Vices era for a short time. He's underrated as FUCK. I'm one of the black sheep in a lot of places [except for friend groups], even in my own family, so it explains why I stan Brent still.

I just want to say that selling drugs and doing drugs aren't inherently bad things to do. This doesn't mean that I'm for kids doing drugs and selling them. Absolutely not. I want people who do drugs or sell drugs to be treated like human beings. I also want them to be able to seek help easier without the judgment or being treated like a criminal. Personally, I don't do any of that, but I understand why someone would. (This kind of thing hits home for me.)

As far as the whole weapon thing is concerned (it was a gun), I personally don't like them and we need better gun control in the United States. I don't think I'd trust anyone who owns a gun because of the possibility that they would hurt me or worse in an argument or something. I've seen my abuser threaten to pull a gun out on my dad when I was a kid. Thankfully it wasn't loaded, but still. It was scary. I wouldn't own a gun because I'm autistic, mentally ill, and I'm afraid of what I might do in certain situations. If someone wants to own a gun for protection, hunting, target practice, or to collect them, fine. BUT YOU DON'T NEED A HUGE ASS GUN THAT THE MILITARY USES TO GO HUNTING OR FOR TARGET PRACTICE. I don't like them, I don't want one, I don't trust myself with one, guns scare me, and I want better gun control in the United States. It terrifies me that people openly carry. I understand that's the Second Amendment and all, but it doesn't change the fact that it terrifies me. As long as you're responsible with that kind of thing, I don't really care.

I don't know what Brent's reason was for (allegedly) owning a weapon (maybe for protection or something?), but it's none of my business.

In my opinion, this is all stupid shit. There are people who have done horrible things and they're STILL free people, but oh, god forbid you do or sell drugs! THAT'S bad. /s

Here's my response below. I'll type out everything, except for the disclaimers and what he was arrested for. I will start from the fifth paragraph on the first screenshot and continue from there. This is so anyone who has a hard time reading any of the screenshots can read them easier.

(My response was from around the time it was announced that he was arrested. Just so you know.)

First screenshot, fifth paragraph:

First off, I just want to say that this situation is a fucked up one for anyone to be in. I would never wish this on anyone. Especially because now, there's a baby involved, so this makes the situation worse. This is pretty difficult for me to put into words without coming off as bitchy or anything like that, so if I get bitchy here, I apologize.

Second screenshot, fifth paragraph:

I don't know what caused this mess to begin with, but I do know that Brent and his wife Taylor just had a baby a couple months ago (when I was typing this out initially). While it's a good thing for them, it can be assumed that this is also a very stressful time for them.

Combination of third and fourth screenshots (These are pretty much only theories; not facts, and they will be broken up into paragraphs):

The pandemic most likely isn’t helping their case. Las Vegas is a HUGE city and I’m sure A LOT of people there are REALLY struggling right now in all aspects. Maybe Brent and Taylor are struggling to pay off hospital bills or whatever (to put this into perspective, the average cost for hospital childbirth in Nevada is around $21,239, according to CBS News). The average salary for an accountant in Nevada is anywhere from $34k to $150k, and that all depends on education, experience (how long you’ve been in said career), certifications, and any additional skills. Take into account any other necessities they have to pay for, like their mortgage, bills, insurance, etc.

Let’s say that they did manage to pay everything else off, but they’re struggling to pay the hospital bills from when they had their baby. (Having a baby is fucking expensive in the United States, regardless of whether there are complications or not, and regardless of whether you have insurance or not.) Let’s say they’ve tried every single option out there, but nothing seems to give still. Maybe the drug selling was a last resort on Brent’s part. (As I’ve said, I don’t know the full story.)

The whole subject of drug paraphernalia hits home for me. My parents both did drugs when I was a kid. I’ve seen it a lot growing up. My dad was, in the past, in and out of jail for drugs and other things that aren’t relevant here. I’m not sure if my mom was in and out of jail for the same shit, but I know for a fact my dad was. Y’know, because he told me. ANYWAYS.

I get it. You gotta do what you gotta do. It’s not something I’d do personally, but I understand why somebody would do it. I wouldn’t treat them any differently. Maybe they’re selling drugs or whatever to keep themselves from losing their homes, put food on the table for their families, help pay their bills, pay for their education, whatever. It could be a number of things.

Fifth screenshot (people’s reactions to the news and my thoughts on them):

Now...let’s move on to how people are reacting to the news. There’s a lot of mixed reactions. A lot of people feel bad for Brent, especially since he and Taylor just had a baby a couple months ago (as I was typing this). Some people “aren’t surprised” because they were never fans of him in the first place. Others think this is amusing. I’ve seen some people who are solely involved in celebrity news (similar to TMZ) making jokes about the situation, which to me, is appalling.

Let me tell you something. It doesn’t matter if you’re a fan of Brent or not. This shit isn’t funny or cute in the slightest. It sure isn’t funny or cute to anyone who is being affected by the situation, which includes Brent himself, Taylor, their son, and all their loved ones. Like, full stop. Have some decency. Y’all are fucking gross. You can dislike Brent all you want, but he’s a real human being who fucked up. Personally, when I first heard the news, I couldn’t believe it at first. I thought I was having a fever dream. That is, until I looked it up and actually found that it was true. I was CRUSHED. Why? Because Brent is one of the last people I’d even expect to get into this whole mess.

Sixth screenshot (my thoughts):

If I’m being honest here...like, BRUTALLY honest, Brent needs to be put in REHAB, not jail. For anyone who has been here (on my Instagram) from when I used to dedicate this account to vintage Panic!, you know how I’ve never said anything but kind things about Brent. From the few times I’ve interacted with him a little bit on Twitter and from how I’ve seen him interact with others on the site, Brent is one of the sweetest people ever. I’m being genuine here. He’s a good guy who fucked up and did some dumb shit. Does that make him bad? No. Then again, as far as I’ve read about the current situation at hand, it’s too early to really determine anything. None of us know what caused him to have drug paraphernalia or anything else that he was arrested for in the first place.

Seventh screenshot (wrap-up):

I’m gonna wrap this up here. My heart aches for Brent, Taylor, their son, and all their loved ones. I hope that everything gets straightened out, all sides of the story come out, and that Brent can get his shit together again. Like he had been doing since he was kicked out of Panic!. I wish everyone involved nothing but the absolute best right now, given how fucked up the whole situation is. (Just to clear up any confusion, when I was referring to Taylor, I’m NOT referring to Taylor Swift or any other celebrity with the name Taylor. I’m referring to Brent’s wife.)

If you’ve read this far, thank you! If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I’ll try to answer as best as I can.

Have my thoughts on the situation changed since February - March of this year? No.

I think that Brent needs some kind of help. That's why I mentioned rehab. It's obvious to me that's the kind of help he needs. I don't believe jail is helpful in certain circumstances (like drug charges, traffic violations, and other nonviolent crimes)....at least in the United States. They treat people who do drugs and/or sell drugs like they're subhuman. Yet there are people who have committed violent, deplorable, horrific crimes, and they're still free people. Funny how that works. I'm not too educated about how the jail system works in other countries, so I can't exactly tell you how I feel about that system on an international standpoint.

Brent should be with his wife and child. I hope the guy gets his shit together again. I believe Brent WILL get his shit together. Genuinely. I would never wish anything bad on him.

I don't crucify Brent like a lot of people in the Panic! fandom do. The only reason I would hypothetically do so is if Brent actually committed violent, deplorable, horrific crimes (i.e., chomo bullshit, trafficking...like, extreme shit) that would warrant him being locked up and I'd drop him completely at that point. OBVIOUSLY I DON'T SEE HIM DOING ANYTHING LIKE THAT. EVER. THAT'S JUST HYPOTHETICAL.

Anyways....have a good day, y'all.

#mello speaks #brent wilson #panic! at the disco #tw drugs #tw possession of a weapon #tw weapon mention #brent matthew wilson #holy shit I'm talking about PANIC! despite not associating with the fandom anymore? wow!#cw arrest #i really hope they're okay though #this situation is a fucked up one for anyone to be in

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yououghtaknow · 4 years ago

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so i filled in this chart (made by @fingersmithbysarahwaters <3) on my twitter dot com account (@/genderhead if you want to see me post more Casual stuff). i am now going to explain it in depth because i am autistic and my special interest is my own show.

NOTE: the way i did this chart was that the "coded" column is who people see you as and the "girl" column is who you are. also i am not an expert in riverdale analysis, i simply know what i’ve heard my very smart friends talking about.

ARCHIE GIRLS

ARCHIE CODED

sandy my best friend sandy….. she is just such an archie in her core. cause archie is the Heart of the town, he’s the Heart of the friend group, and that is very sandy. on the surface, they’re very similar - both being very athletic people, both just really wanting to be liked by everyone, both being kind of lost at the beginning and in a manipulative relationship. but, at the end of the day, archie’s all about being there for the people he loves, and even though he’s spent a lot of time hating himself for his mistakes, he grows and moves on, much like sandy. also they’re both not that good at dancing but will still be in the school musicals to support their friends.

JUGHEAD CODED

jacob love……. he an archie girl at his core because he just wants to protect the people he loves. he is genuinely torn between music and football, and has to deal with knowing people have done bad things and that he can’t do anything about it. he may go about it the wrong way sometimes, but he’s just trying to do what’s best for his friends and himself, which makes him a bit more jughead coded. he’s very much trying to be perceived as a season 1 esque jughead in the fact that he knows he’s different in a deep inherent way and has a hard time articulating it for a while. he also has the trauma of abandonment from both of his parents and runs away to protect himself at one point.

BETTY CODED

ms eleanor early…. i needed to include some not so main characters to fill up the chart, and ellie’s character has always been quite interesting to me, because the roles that sonja and emma play in og skam are very typical of a gay drama, and combining them into one character i think makes her a lot more interesting. ellie is trying to be perceived as a season 1 betty, she has the blonde hair, the perfect upper middle class family, she has a crush on the perfect jock guy, but…. that isn’t really who she is. she’s a fierce protector of what she believes to be the truth and is always ready to stand up for herself and her friends. she thinks she’s a betty coded veronica girl but she is not. also ellie would absolutely name a band after herself.

VERONICA CODED

my best friend james cohen…… james is a very obvious archie girl. he’s very much the heart of his friend group, he literally almost went to jail trying to protect nick. he loves his found family so so dearly and he’s a nice boy who plays a guitar. but when we get into his veronica coding….. veronica is just such an interesting character to me (more on that later) but the way james relates to her. veronica is all about getting validation from her dad and male figures, whereas james is trying to get validation from his mum and female figures in his life. he also openly struggles with alcohol abuse and is very good at giving some one liners. he’s also kind of a mean girl in the first few seasons??? like he’s seen as that way from the pov character. also i believe that, if given the opportunity, james would open a speakeasy/casino underneath a local diner.

JUGHEAD GIRLS

ARCHIE CODED

i am about to interpret characters so wrong. so bryan is what people who don’t view riverdale through the correct lgbt lense think an archie coded jughead girl is like. he’s a jock, he’s been with a lot of girls, he’s kind of stupid (his archie coding) and he’s a bad boy™ who struggles with money problems and is in love with the perfect good girl (who is also a lesbian). he’s just the worst. i hate him.

JUGHEAD CODED

oh <3 would you look at that <3 it’s me <3 isaac yououghtaknowmp3/genderhead <3. i couldn’t think of another random character to included so i just did myself. i am jughead coded in the fact that i am weird i’m a weirdo i don’t “fit in” and i don’t want to fit in. i have always known there is something inherently Other about me and i haven’t tried to hide it ever. i also am a writer and use my writing as a way to process my real life trauma and things going on around me. also the scene where jughead burns down his childhood home and then sings seventeen (reprise) from heathers does affect me on a deep and personal level. i am a bit betty coded in the fact that i Am very much like that.

BETTY CODED

annabell!!!! i love them so so much, they are so fun to me. they’re very much later seasons betty coded, in that fact that i fully believe they have the serial killer genes. they know what they’re good at and they do it well, and they are trying to be seen as a serpent queen type figure, but…. at the end of the day, they do just use sardonic humour to relate to the world. they are covering up their mental illness with strange little jokes and enjoy making bitchy little comment in such a fun way. also they’re a nonbinary lesbian which i think is a very bettycoded jugheadgirl thing to do.

VERONICA CODED

nick my best friend nick!!!!! nick is very veronica coded in the daddy issues way. we see them have issues connecting to their dad and they try to find that bond with other male companions…… he also deals with some substance abuse problems and is very dramatic and uses a lot of pop culture references to cover up their actual issues. but, deep down in his heart, nick is a jughead because he cares deeply about the people around him, even though he has trouble showing it. also he is in love with james in a very similar way to how jughead is in love with archie. also i feel like all of their younger brothers can and will kin jellybean.

BETTY GIRLS

ARCHIE CODED

esther my bestie!!!!!!!! esther is trying so hard to be seen as an archie like figure. she wants to be the centre of the friend group, she wants to be in charge and know what’s going on at all times. she just really wants to be liked all of the time, but that is what makes her such a betty girl. she’s very perfection orientated, and she’s also very ambitious and clever in a betty way. betty’s whole relationship with donna sweett just has esther vibes. also the wig in a box scene in the hedwig episode where betty is trying to make everyone feel better??? very esther core.

JUGHEAD CODED

alistair. thomas. fletcher. god this boy is very jughead coded. from the first moment we see him, he’s Weird. he’s very season 1 jughead in the fact that he’s a gay little outsider trying to stay a gay little outsider but his curiosity gets him dragged into the main plot. also al tries to see the world through the lens of fiction, much like jughead. but at the end of the day, he is a betty. he is very intellectually smart and we see him struggle a lot with perfectionism over what we’ve seen so far. also he’s good at snarking with his siblings and he has fully psychoanalysed people at musical rehearsal for no reason other than to have fun. He’s also a betty for reasons i can’t get into on this night due to Spoilers but you’ll know it when the time comes.

BETTY CODED

rori!!!!!!!!!! rori is such such such a betty in every way. the pastel colours are very her. betty’s relationship with denying her mental illness is very her in the early season. even the betty/archie relationship is quite reminiscent of rori and james’s relationship (i mean this in a gay way not a barchie way). also the way people interpret betty and her sexuality reminds me a lot of rori, the whole performance of femininity riverdale betty specifically does…. also rori is very much a main character type of person and betty is thee main character of riverdale. also betty spending so much of the musical episodes with veronica is a very rori move.

VERONICA CODED

milo woods!!!!! my fave girlboss!!!! they’re very veronica coded in the fact that they are the cool, cultured, popular new kid in town with fancy style. also they are very “you’re gay? thank god, let’s be friends”. but they are very much a betty girl with their insecurities and their girlboss ways being a lot more subtle. like milo shows up out of nowhere like veronica, but psychoanalyses and romances the local lgbt community by being mean to them in a sincere and fun way. also the whole “i’m the daughter of the black hood” speech has milo energy.

VERONICA GIRLS

ARCHIE CODED

sophie!!!!! sophie is archie coded in the fact that she is just so cool and well liked and sporty and hot. like sophie’s whole introduction is like the “whoa! archie got hot!” scene only sandy has always thought she was hot. but sophie is such a veronica at the end of the day. like she is a hashtag girlboss in the sense that she’s the captain of the football team, she’s smart, she’s put together. but also she has a past where she’s been betrayed and assaulted and abused and she’s just trying to keep it all together at the end of the day. sophie kennedy i love you

JUGHEAD CODED

theo alterman. god he is weird, he is a weirdo. he wears dark clothes, he’s deeply sarcastic, but he’s always there for his friends in his own special way. also i feel like theo would fake his own death. he’s also canonically hyperfixated on dungeons and dragons which is an epic jughead moment. but he is very much a veronica girl in the fact that he is so bitchy and fun to his friends but is always there for them and trying to be a good friend. like he messes up a lot but he earnestly trying his best to empathise with his friends and be cool and good. he just wants to fit in so much but also the world according to chris is a very theo song

BETTY CODED

liz my friend elizabeth!!!! she is very betty coded. i mean, both of their names are elizabeth. they’re both blonde, they both deal with overbearing mothers, shitty fathers and high expectations. they both struggle with mental illness in a very repressed way and also liz is very intellectual. but she is such a veronica. liz is seeking out validation constantly and is willing to change who she is just to get people to like her. she’s also very desperate for friends and will always try her best to keep them. also liz says some absolutely wild lines in a fun veronica way. liz would say i recognise those abs anywhere about james.

VERONICA CODED

finally my best friend in the whole wide world brianna holland. oh bree. my love my light. they are just such a veronica girl. veronica’s relationship with femininity and sexuality is very similar to bree’s, with equating sex to both power and validation. in a way, bree is also seeking out her father in the men she’s had relations with in the past, but we see her grow from that and move on to a girl (like veronica should also do). also bree is just such a girlboss i love them so much. also they both have a secret sibling which gets a very dramatic reveal. it’s so intensely fun. also it’s about the reputation by taylor swift.

thank you for reading, stan riverdale, stan skam brighton, and please know that i wrote this instead of doing my final piece of coursework <3

#skam brighton #isaac speaks #genuinely the pain of having my special interest be the show that i write is just..... so strange #but alas here is my 5 page long mini essay about my funny little guys and riverdale #heart emoji

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sulietsexual · 5 years ago

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So, I finally saw the new Little Women on the weekend, and I have to say, I was ... really underwhelmed, especially given the extreme over-hype which has surrounded this film for months.

Little Women is my favourite novel of all time and, yes, I am an avid fan of the 1994 movie. The book always fills me with warmth and emotion and I love the March girls so much, each of them in their own way. I went into this film with muted expectations, so I wasn’t disappointed per se but it definitely left me wanting more.

Let me start with the positives; the film definitely has a certain charm to it. I appreciated that they tried to include a lot of dialogue from the novel. The cinematography was very pretty in places. And I genuinely loved the actresses who portrayed the March sisters. Saoirse Ronan’s Jo was vivacious and fun and she imbued the character with Jo’s clumsiness, lack of propriety (a little too much sometimes, which I will talk about later) and overall likability. I don’t know why everyone’s complaining about Emma Watson, as I found her Meg to be lovely. I thought she perfectly captured Meg’s softness and her gentle stoicism, although I could have done with a little more fire to her character, people tend to forget that Meg has a bit of a feisty side. Florence Pugh was great as older Amy, and bless her, she tried her hardest as young Amy, but I still maintain that Younger Amy needs to be played by a younger actress, otherwise she comes across as far too bitchy, as opposed to just bratty. Eliza Scanlan was fine as Beth, but I wish they’d given her more to do (more on this later).

As for the rest of the casting ... I was a bit underwhelmed. I was excited for Laura Dern as Marmee, but she disappointed me, which probably has more to do with the writing of the character. She felt far too modern and very under-developed. Timothee Chalamet (sp?) as Laurie was a total miscast, he was far too melancholy and kind of creepy? Laurie is supposed to be a cheeky and vivacious character, with the occasional fits of melancholy, not the other way around. Meryl Streep was wasted as Aunt March, but I knew she would be, given what a minor character Aunt March actually is in the book. None of the other actors made much of an impression on me, tbh.

Unfortunately, for me, the negatives are greater than the positives and one of the biggest complaints I have about this film is that it really seemed to lack soul and heart. Little Women is a novel which makes me cry every time I read it and I didn’t shed a single tear during this film. Scenes which I love from the novel left me cold during the film.

I appreciated that the film tried to include events from the novel which often aren’t portrayed onscreen, such as Meg buying the expensive silk knowing she couldn’t afford it, Beth and Mr Lawrence’s friendship, Amy telling Laurie off for his indolent ways and Marmee’s speech to Jo about how she is angry every day. But a combination of rushed dialogue, the weird back-and-forth jumps between past and present and a script which didn’t slow down to appreciate the emotions of the scenes meant that many of these scenes felt empty, as if everyone was simply going through the motions. The film is accurate to the book and captures many of the events, but it misses so many emotional beats. I want any adaptation of Little Women to fill me with warmth and emotion and this film just ... didn’t. A particularly egregious example is the fact that this movie didn’t film Beth’s death scene, opting instead to have Jo wake up to an empty bed, in a scene which is obviously supposed to mirror the previous scene and drive home how Jo “couldn’t save” Beth this time around, but all it does is undermine the emotion of Beth passing and the grief her family - particularly Jo - feel over watching her pass away.

And while we’re on the subject of Beth, can we talk about what a non-character she was? I know that Beth is the least developed of the sisters in the novel, and as such, adaptations sometimes tend to overlook her, but she was barely a character in this film. Even her illness - arguably the biggest component of her characterisation and arc - was overlooked and under-played. I didn’t feel any fear or trepidation for her when she first fell ill, and her entire sickness was so rushed and downplayed. Eliza Scanlan is an incredibly talented actress (just watch Sharp Objects for proof of this) and yet they gave her so little to do.

Laurie too became almost a non-character, and I feel that this was a result of the constant time jumps. There was no room for him to develop or grow and many of his Big Moments were omitted from the film (such as him sending for Mrs March when Beth is ill, the way he swears to keep their secrets and provides the PO Box for them, going to London to make himself worthy of Amy). Also that disgusting scene from the New Year’s Eve ball when he turns up half-dressed, drunk and with two women hanging off his arms; no where in the novel would Theodore Lawrence ever behave like that, and the fact that this scene was our second introduction to the character soured his entire characterisation. Laurie was such a pale shade of what he is in the novels, and because of this, his relationships with all the sisters is severely undermined and downplayed. You certainly won’t ship Jo/Laurie from this movie, but nor will you feel much semblance of friendship between the two, despite the fact that they’re such kindred spirits in the novel. He shares more scenes with Amy, but they’re devoid of feeling or emotion (and chemistry) and so his eventual marriage to her falls flat.

I think one of the reasons for Laurie’s lack of characterisation is the weird time jumps. I know that a lot of critics are praising this technique, but I hated it. For one, it was often confusing as to whether we were in the past or the present, given how quickly the scenes jumped between the two. Secondly, this style of storytelling severely undermined characterisation and character development, and it juxtaposed scenes in a very weird fashion, negating the original point of the scenes and the lessons the girls were supposed to learn from them. For example, Meg’s misbehaviour at the Moffats being directly juxtaposed with the scene in which she confesses to John that she bought the expensive silk makes Meg look like she hasn’t grown or changed in five years. We missed the beautiful scene where she confesses her “sins” to Marmee and the growth which came from that experience, and instead jumped straight into what looked like an unhappy marriage (and why in god’s name were we introduced to Meg and John’s marriage before they had even spoken to each other in the past? Once again, the development of this relationship was undermined by the fact that we saw their courtship in reverse - we didn’t get the impact of Meg promising to love John despite his poverty only to betray him by buying the expensive silk). And this is just one of many examples of this technique robbing us of the emotion of the scenes.

The film felt so rushed at times and because of this, it has a very modern feel to it which I really didn’t like. If you want to “modernize” the story, fine, but do so by placing it in a modern setting. Having a period setting while using modern dialogue and a modern sense of propriety didn’t work. A scene of Jo hiking her skirts up to her knees with her bloomers on display while in public was awful, as was the scene where she unabashedly started to strip down while Laurie was in the room, and both scenes just undermined the period setting and were extremely jarring. Again, because the film was so rushed and the dialogue so quick and rapid-fire, we lost the emotional impact of many scenes. Period pieces need to be slow, you need time to savour the dialogue and actions, to feel the emotions and take time to appreciate the depth of the events and relationships.

And speaking of relationships, I cannot get over how much this filmed missed the mark when it came to the sisters’ relationships. Such a huge part of the appeal of Little Women is the bonds between the sisters and this film just blew right past them! I didn’t feel any deep connection between the sisters, and this was particularly noticeable with Jo and Beth, who share such a deep bond in the book. I think part of this problem stemmed from the fact that it took five scenes for the sisters to actually share a scene together; our introduction to the girls happens in four separate scenes, with each of the girls by themselves, in their own setting. Compare (because I have to) with the 1994 movie, in which the first four scenes of the film focus on the girls together, only separating once Meg and Jo attend the Gardiners Christmas party. The sisters’ relationship is such a huge component of the novel, but this film spends little time or focus building it and it is definitely a big reason as to why the film feels so empty.

There is so much more I want to say (for example, the horrendous way in which the film somehow made Jo look like she’d regretted turning down Laurie and held onto said regret for five years and how they juxtaposed her sending him the letter saying she would marry him, which WTF, never happened in the novel, with Laurie returning, having married Amy, like, way to pit the two sisters directly against one another, which even the 1994 adaptation had sense enough not to do) but this post has already turned into a freakin’ essay and most of my grievances have been aired.

To end this (very long) rant on a positive note, I want to reiterate that this film was charming in many ways, and while I do have many complaints, it was still a decent adaptation of my favourite novel, which wasn’t so far removed from the source material that I couldn’t enjoy it. It will never match the emotional depth and warmth of the 1994 movie, but I can see myself coming around to it in the future and liking it for what it is. I just wish more care and effort had been put into it and it had concentrated more on the emotion of the novel rather than the events.

#little women #little women 2019 #little women spoilers #phew this was long #long post

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fuwafuwamedb · 5 years ago

Text

Cursed G Pt 16 (Gilgamesh, Hakuno)

Previous Part: One - HakuPOV / GilPOV, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

_____

“Well?”

“I’m cooking.”

The man returned from his trip to the bathroom to lean over her shoulder, glancing at the soup in the pot and wrinkling his nose. And, just like that, the peaceful mood was being broken.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he countered. “I merely thought that you would serve a king something worthy of being eaten. I suppose your meager meals will have to continue. I will simply await taking you to Uruk and introducing you to meals that will satisfy a stomach.”

“I think you’ll be fine.”

He still whined, all the way up until she had the food in bowls and the two of them were once more wrapped in blankets in the living room. Try as she might, she still ended up pressed against his chest once again when they were done eating. Her eyes were closing slowly on the view of the mindless television.

She woke up what seemed like moments later.

Birds chirped from outside the window. She could see the sun on the horizon once again.

A pair of arms were around her waist, her body pressed into the mattress as Gilgamesh lay nestled in her chest. His hair had drifted over his eyes a bit as he lay there with his mouth open, giving the subtlest of snores.

His weight was a bit more than she was accustomed to in bed, but it felt nice. It felt very nice.

Her lips met his forehead softly before she glanced at the clock.

Sunday afternoon…

Of course it was Sunday afternoon. She’d fallen asleep for a bit.

Her eyes closed once more, her body shifting a little in bed only to be yanked back under the man close by. When he pulled her in, she wrapped her arms around him. She pressed herself as much against him as he did her.

Those red eyes were opening, his face moving closer to hers once again.

How many times had they done this, she wondered quietly, feeling his lips press to hers. His mouth moved slowly, as did those hands on her chest.

“You slept all day again,” he murmured.

She hummed a bit.

Hard not to; she was content in her mind right now. The bed was comfortable. She had nothing happening, nothing stopping her. There was a pair of lips moving nicely against her own.

“Hakuno,” the man over her breathed.

His hand was moving between them, finding her legs and parting them.

Rather than thinking, she simply wrapped her legs around the man’s waist and listened to him chuckle. His body was moving to loom over her. She could feel a hand stroking gently, making her give the softest of moans...

And then the door was thrown open.

“HAKUNO!”

She screamed.

Gil yanked the blankets over them.

There was more shrieking as the woman in the doorway threw the door closed.

“SHE’S HAVING- GEEZ! AND WE CAME ALL THIS DAMN WAY!”

Someone was laughing in the distance. There was rumbling, something broke in the other room as another person was whistling.

“Who the hell was that?!”

Gilgamesh glared at the door, holing her to himself.

There was no need for questions like that though.There was only one woman who would be bitchy enough to complain after barging into someone’s room like that. Only one, currently dating Cu, somebody would dare to be that arrogant about entering another’s room that loudly.

It was obvious.

“Gil…” Hakuno glanced up at the man, finding him still hovering over her. “Gil, I have to-“

“Go.”

He didn’t even try to argue. She slipped from his arms, grabbing one of his shirts on the nightstand and slipping through the door.

Rin and Cu Chulainn were already in the midst of bickering as Rani and Sakura stood nearby. Cu was in the midst of pointing out about entering rooms and Rin was lamenting naked people being naked. From the sidelines, two women watched as the couple got after one another, both sighing.

“I knew we should have simply called out,” Rani argued.

“We didn’t know if she was here,” Sakura pointed out.

“What are you all even doing here?” Hakuno asked.

Rani and Sakura glanced over at her, both of them wincing a bit.

“I got worried,” Sakura explained. “I wanted to invite you out to eat, but we called a few times and you kept going to voicemail. Emiya said your boyfriend- ah, I mean- your fiance, is a bit rude so we got concerned and borrowed Emiya’s key.”

Sakura glanced around as she said that, frowning more. “Where’s G?”

“Dozing in my room,” Hakuno pointed out. “Cu! Rin! Guys! I’m not doing anything!”

Rin huffed, turning her attention over to her.

The others glanced over at her as well.

No.

They were all looking behind her right now. Their eyes were on the man who was no doubt standing just behind her person.

“Everyone seems to have been able to enter your home without permission,” the man purred, eyeing the lot of them. “I don’t seem to recall an open invitation being given.”

“Rin was worried about Hakuno,” Cu explained. “Sakura snagged the house key from Emiya.”

“And you didn’t inform them that I was here?”

Gilgamesh made it sound like he was some great comfort and protection.

Hakuno glanced over her shoulder at him, watching that almost bored expression that was currently making Cu Chulainn falter a bit.

“Have you tried stopping Hakuno before?”

The man smirked. “Typically, I have found Hakuno enjoys not stopping... It’s one of our many mutual interests.”

No, she didn’t need to hear this. The man was ruining her reputation for sure. Already she could see Sakura looking her over with great interest. The other two girls in the room were trying to find words and failing miserably.

“Alright,” Cu moved between them all, slapping a hand onto Gil’s shoulder. “Everyone, this is Gilgamesh. He’s kind of a dick, but he’s alright with Hakuno and he did me a favor in terms of work so… I mean, he’s still kind of an ass.”

“Excuse me?”

“Anyway!” Cu grinned. “Since we’re all awake and active, let’s head out to eat or something.”

“I need to go say hello to G first!” Sakura glanced down the hall, earning a laugh from Gil.

“You’re going to say hi to that cat?”

“Of course!”

Of course, she was. Sakura loved her beloved cat almost as much as she had. The girl had made a few efforts to try to get close to him. She’d doted on him and given him treats. She’d tried cuddling him and holding him.

At the time, she hadn’t bothered to worry about it.

Now though…

“G has been nestled in the bed I got him,” Gilgamesh told her simply. “Hakuno and I had a time getting him to sleep since he doesn’t seem to be feeling well.”

“He isn’t?”

The king wrapped his arms around her as he spoke to Sakura, keeping her close. “Hakuno and I have been up all night, tending to him. He’s been whining a great deal.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

Sakura looked to the others, earning shrugs.

Any comments they could make were stopped the moment that Gilgamesh wrapped his arms around her more and nipped at her person. She could feel her face warming as the others coughed uncomfortably.

There was really no way to make him stop at this time.

“I’ve been staying with Hakuno since she has decided to become my wife. Seeing her through the illness of her pet is nothing,” Gilgamesh purred.

“He’s that bad?”

“Vomited a few times on the floor. The medic said little.”

The others in the room shifted.

It was hard not to. Apparently, she was engaged, her cat had become sick, she was performing foreplay in her bedroom; things were as far from okay as possible.

Sakura was the first to move forward, beaming at Gilgamesh.

“I’m glad that you’re here for Hakuno. I got worried when she stopped talking to us as much. She’s seemed a bit down. Please take good care of her.”

The purple haired girl turned to the others.

“If Hakuno’s fine, then we should let her and Gilgamesh have their time together. I think Emiya will probably be mad that I stole his key. Maybe… Rin, could you help me make something-“

“Yeah, come on.”

Rin took her former sister’s hand, glancing over as they headed for the door.

“We’ll see you both tomorrow. Don’t forget to do your homework, Hakuno.”

Her homework…

SHIT!

But Cu was laughing and following after Rin, teasing her about something. Rani shrugged following along.

“Guys!”

The door shut.

Alone again with her no longer feline friend, Hakuno found herself without the assignment help. Her companion headed to the fridge, opening it and pulling out a beer bottle.

“They’re gullible.”

“They’re trusting.”

Not that the man would know anything about trusting. The goddess of his kingdom had turned him into a cat and had tossed him outside of his time. He was without a home or anything other than-

Hakuno groaned at her gleaming living room decorations.

There would be a lot of questions about this.

Thankfully, Gilgamesh was apparently enough of a distraction that the whole group had completely missed taking a look into her living room. None of them had even thought to ask about her sudden influx of gold and jewels.

Still, there was so much crap to do.

“What time is it?” Hakuno sighed.

“It is time for you to come back to bed.”

“I have to get that homework done, Gil.”

Lots of work. She was pretty sure she had forgone most of her work in lieu of having that one night with Gilgamesh. Then there was the surprise of yesterday and then today was just resting...

“Are your classes about my story still?”

“A couple,” she told him distractedly.

“Then you have your work done. Present me to your people and we shall discuss their heinous crimes against the tales around myself and my friend. Your tutors will learn soon enough what truths of myself and my people that they have found elusive thus far. We can broaden their understanding of the reality of my life and ensure proper teaching to the other noble children whom attend your teachings with you.”

Oh, she could see it now. Taking the great king of Uruk to class...

But she wasn’t going to think about that.

No, she closed her eyes and turned, walking back into his arms.

Perhaps just remaining close to him was enough. Maybe she could just keep him from saying anything. They could simply go back to watching television for a bit before she worked on her homework. The two of them could figure out how to introduce him to people and react to others without being a bit… guarded.

“Hakuno-“

“I can’t take you to school or work with me.”

The man laughed, brushing back her hair and looking into her face. “It’s highly amusing, Hakuno, you seem to think you have a choice in this matter. The fact is, I won’t allow you to leave my sight. Not for long, anyway. I claimed you before your people.”

“You did.”

The man snorted, “a man does not propose himself to a maiden only to be turned down. This is not one of those times where you can simply claim away my claims. You are mine at this point, maiden. In body and in mind.”

“I’m not-“

“Have you read about Sumerian marriages?”

She didn’t breathe a damn word.

Marriages were simple. One basically talked to the family or close guardians, gained permission or approval in general, and then would announce they were husband and wife. There was ceremonial perfume followed by…

Well, followed by…

Hakuno felt her face burning at the thought. Sakura and Cu had both accepted Gilgamesh now. They were both approving of this wedding.

“Have you?” He smirked, coming in closer and beginning to unbutton his shirt on her person. She could already tell he was thinking this conversation over.

“I read about your other wives,” she pointed out.

“Oh?”

Oh indeed. She wasn’t going to sacrifice herself for anything like that. She had tasks to complete here. She had friends and-

“You want something with more meaning?”

Wife to a king was the highest one went. What on earth was the-

“I have one position that is available. Should you be able to return us to Uruk, I would be vaguely interested in making you something more.”

His lips pressed against her own again.

“I will return you to Uruk.”

“Us.” Gilgamesh lifted her up, carrying her back to the bedroom. “You and I will return to my kingdom and you will meet Enkidu.”

Hakuno groaned again, going to speak when the door was pounded on.

Had Sakura forgotten something again?

This wouldn’t be the first time the girl had forgotten her keys, her phone, her shoes, her jacket- something of hers, at the house. Hakuno had to button back up the shirt she was wearing as Gilgamesh made a noise of complaint.

They looked to one another before Hakuno found herself back on her feet.

She rushed to the door, laughing.

“Did you guys forget something?” she asked, pulling the door open. “I didn’t see…anything…”

There was a supermodel on the other side of the door.

No, Rin?

No… The red eyes were definitely not Rin’s.

The gaudy, almost see through dress and the red lipstick was also a couple things that Rin would never have approved for herself. The woman before her was screaming of sexual misconduct and depravity.

Hakuno stared at her for a full minute, frowning.

Who on earth…

“Can I… help you?” she asked the woman.

The woman glanced over at her, running her eyes over her person. She could almost see the judgement; the eye twitch, the fixed gaze on her state of dress.

“My name is Ishtar. I’m looking for my lost ah… nephew. His name is Gilgamesh.”

Shit.

Without thinking, Hakuno simply slammed the door shut.

#drabble #drabbles

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theexistentiallyqueer · 5 years ago

Text

"but he murdered people”

This is a post about Goro Akechi, murder, its aftermath, trauma, and two things that are in real short fucking supply around here: critical thinking and empathy.

Listen, I’m a veteran of the Dragon Age fandom. If you want to talk about toxic fandoms, they’re your Bible. As far as your Judas Iscariots and Nebuchadnezzars go, I was one of them. I’ve seen it, I’ve done it, and I’m done with it. It’s exhausting to carry that much rage inside of you, to live it actively every second of every day, and to inflict it on other people and laugh about it. So I’ve been disengaged, largely, for a few years.

And now I’m in the Persona 5 fandom and find myself enthusiastically appreciating Goro Akechi, because who doesn’t love complex, morally flawed, ambiguously gay-coded characters? Shit, maybe you’re not on board, but I’ll sign right up. I’m a relative newcomer, despite being a longtime Persona fan and playing P5 around when it came out, because I didn’t engage with the fandom then. I jumped back in with the Royal announcement and absolutely saturated myself in this vibrant fan space. Invested in the idea of Akechi being explored as a fully fleshed-out character, I find myself following Goroboys. Which is great! Because so far, they’re all great! Nicest bunch of people you could ever hope to meet!

Except there’s Discourse. There’s always been Discourse, I find, but this is my first exposure to it in this fandom. This weekend was my first week of seeing Goro antis active, seeing people I follow, people I like and appreciate and some I considering genuine friends, actively attacked and harassed because they like a fictional teenage character who killed some other fictional people in a fictional world where you, playing as the main character, have the ability to perform a metaphysical lobotomy on people who literally can’t consent. Here I thought the only people who hated Akechi were white cishet men who saw his rage against a parent and said, “Nah, too bitchy for me,” because they’re too afraid to look in a mirror and see Masayoshi Shido’s fascist, misogynistic mug staring back.

Are you awake yet? Have I woken you up to the fact that Persona 5′s premise is a wish-fulfillment fantasy of “what if I could make the person who took advantage of me when I was a teenager apologize in front of the entire world by using an alternate fantasy dimension to completely violate their brain”?

I see my friends saying, “Wow, it’s amazing how people who hate Akechi can’t leave people who like Akechi alone,” and within an hour they have replies saying MURDER IS MURDER as if they know what murder actually is.

We’re about to get real personal up in here because maybe, only then, will some of you people take the hint that your behavior borders on actively bullying other people on the internet over a fictional character.

Ready? Here goes.

Murder is your mom picking you up from summer camp three weeks after your ninth birthday, driving you to your grandparents’ house, and telling you that when daddy was at work today, someone tried to steal the money, and they had a gun. Daddy was brave and Daddy died.

Murder is blacking out when you’re nine years old and coming to to yourself two houses away on a neighbor’s swing set with crickets chirping in your ears and the crushing reality of never seeing your father again turning your brain into static.

Murder is asking your mother if she asked for the death penalty, and your mother telling you, in a pleading voice, that she didn’t because he was mentally ill and it didn’t feel right. Murder is feeling angry afterwards because you feel like something was taken away from you, and something should be exchanged for that. Because that’s how fairness works, right? If you steal candy from the store, you have to give up your allowance for the next five months.

Murder is realizing you’re an atheist at fourteen and driving past the cemetery where your father’s remains are interred, and having the gut-punching, soul-suffocating realization of what never ever ever actually means. Murder is building an internal cosmology where forever means my atoms and yours, creating new life in perpetuity as the comfort you drag out of the west’s cold, uncaring atheism that never found its own poetry.

Murder is your first two years in college, when you discover social justice and realize the world is bigger than your own life experiences, and that violence at the bottom is a reactionary symptom against violence at the top. Murder is understanding the fact that the man who killed your father was himself a victim of a racist, ableist, capitalist society with a morally bankrupt healthcare system, and that every single one of those things is in and of itself is more hateful than the act of your father bleeding out in the parking lot, in the ambulance, on the operating table.

Murder is your mother confessing to you in college that your father was physically abusive of her and that she had threatened him, only weeks before he was killed, that she would leave and take her daughters with her if he didn’t change. Murder is knowing that your father ran after an armed robber because he was raised by a Sicilian father in a household overflowing with toxic masculinity, and what killed your father wasn’t a man with a gun: what killed your father was the patriarchy whispering in his ear, This theft emasculates you.

Murder is looking your own mother in the eye and telling her that one day you want to visit the man who killed your father and open your heart to him, because all you can think is, He didn’t plan this. He can’t have wanted this. What must it feel like to kill someone without intending to and then have to live with that for the rest of your life with no one to help you? Murder is the sound of betrayal in your mother’s voice when she responds, disbelieving.

Murder is spending years wanting to at least write to him, and then forgetting, and then going back, because you are a fluid, impermanent, imperfect person with your own flaws and failures and mental issues that hold you back from being the paragon you want to be. Murder is throwing yourself into the left and embracing prison abolition so hard it hurts, because you know that if the state can lock up someone who doesn’t “matter,” the state can lock up anyone.

Murder is throwing away or selling every childhood thing you ever possessed because you are not by nature a sentimental person, but never giving up that doll you were gifted, the doll you coveted and wanted more than anything else, three weeks before your father was shot and killed. You have no pictures, no mementos, no nothing, but she sits at the top of your bookshelf to this day, a weighty child goddess, the symbol of your torn and labyrinthine childhood.

Murder is having to see a bunch of petty-ass people using actual trauma that real life people have experienced and continue to experience to directly and repeatedly harass your friends online (and yourself, indirectly, by tagging their hateful shit) because you and your friends like a fictional fucking character who, by nature of being fictional, did not actually murder any real existing people.

Murder is building your entire identity around how you sympathize, deeply, with the person who killed your own father, because that takes hard work and deep empathy and the ability to see past a lot of bullshit just to get to that point, and having some fuck-ass anons act like none of that matters because there is (apparently, I must assume) some omnipotent god of justice saying “Fuck you and everything you’ve been through” that apparently only these bullies can hear.

Murder is seeing fandom moralizers talk about murder like they understand it. Like they’ve read this, plus the last ten-plus paragraphs, and decided they know best anyway because mommy and daddy always told them Criminals Are Bad and walked wide-eyed and innocent into a social network overrun with TERFs, exclusionists, and a rotten segment of the political left that acts like some extras straight out of The Crucible.

I have never once been triggered by anything relating to my father’s murder. I cried at the Resurrection Stone scene in The Deathly Hallows, I cried when I completed when I completed the DA2 DLC Legacy after the end of act 2. When I see a parent die, I have an emotional reaction, because it’s familiar.

But the Akechi antis who all say “but he killed people!”, The Akechi antis who say “murder is still murder”?

The murder of my father is still murder. The man who killed him, his murderer, is still regardless a human being, the man who killed him deserves sympathy and compassion and understanding and respect and, above all, a chance.

I am a living example of what’s left behind when someone is murdered. You can walk into the mausoleum where my father is interred, face his headstone, and let the earth open up beneath you and drop you into hell.

So most sincerely, from someone who lost their father to gun violence, to armed robbery, to murder: Stop fucking using our lived experiences as your justification to harass and bully people online for committing the Grave Moral Sin of just liking a video game character.

Between the fact that the American government is keeping real people in concentration camps and a bunch of strangers on the internet liking a twiggy teenage anime boy who used a fantasy world to kill people who don’t exist, which one is actually important to deserve your moral outrage?

You’ll die eventually; fascism won’t kill itself.

#persona #persona 5 #p5 #goro akechi #if you tell me you're sorry for my loss i'll literally hunt you down and eat you #this one goes out to the goroboys #pour one out kids #real tired of having a bunch of dungeon dwellers insinuate that i #a person who has experienced firsthand the trauma of losing a loved one to murder #am apparently delusional for liking a character who murdered people #you people probably all think tony stark is the best avenger #you probably watched the game of thrones finale and thought dany going mad queen was good writing #you probably think ''split'' is a good horror movie #you probably thought lala land should have won the oscar #you probably like ed sheeran #this is rebloggable fyi

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bellwitchfaggot · 5 years ago

Note

feel free to ignore if you want, but your thoughts on kinning are interesting how do you think people should approach kinning when looking at it through a mental illness lens? like should people not encourage their delusions or is it harmless?

Personally I think encouraging delusions is not necessarily good for your recovery in the long run, even "non malicious" delusions. If I let my bitchy but not particularly violent voices go unchecked then eventually I'm gonna start hearing...extremely violent voices. Theres not really a way to separate the benevolent voices from the malevolent voices

That being said, I do also think some people think things are "encouraging" delusions that like. Definitely arent. Theres no harm in ACKNOWLEDGING psychosis. You cant necessarily make it stop unless you have practice redirecting and grounding and practicing evidence based thinking, and even then, if you're someone with severe episodic psychosis, redirecting it like that only works to a certain extent.

So like, having a delusion like zoanthropy and having periods where ur like Holy Fuck I'm A Seal and just letting yourself ride that wave till it kinda calms down is NOT encouraging the delusion. You cant just ignore psychosis till it goes away. Or, you can, but ultimately processing it and acknowledging it (while also acknowledging it's your brain lying to you) is better for your ability to cope with and process psychosis

I think people who dont have psychosis sometimes dont understand that like. First of psychosis isnt really inherently good or bad. It just Is. And For people with psychotic disorders that will last lifelong, being psychosis free is not the goal. Its impractical. If you're schizophrenic you are always gonna have these issues. Acknowledging them and processing them is not the same as encouraging them, and is, in fact, an important part of coping with them

So I guess this is my long winded way of saying that encouraging them is definitely not healthy, but simply acknowledging them and not ignoring them isnt the same as encouraging them, if that makes sense. Psychosis is based ultimately in self esteem issues. Not gonna elaborate on that for now so this post doesnt get TOO long, but the majority of delusions in some way play on your self esteem issues. While I continue to work through my own self esteem issues, NOTHING is gonna stop me from seeing a character from a media I like, projecting on them, and then being like "well cool that's me now and I wholeheartedly believe I am them". I'm not gonna try to keep myself from doing that, cuz it's not realistic for me now, but I'm not gonna be like "oh theres no reason for this it's just absolute fact" either. I'm gonna be like "neat. Now I'm stricklander. I have bad taste in kins still and I'm going to change my discord icon and read a lot of fanfiction while reminding myself that this is a delusion and my brain is lying to me about it, and eventually the delusion will probably go dormant, at least for a while"

Idk I hope any of this makes sense I'm kind of an inarticulate and disorganized person. It's the schizophrenia

#txt #asks #anonymous #actuallyschizophrenic #actuallyschizoaffective #actuallypsychotic

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swampgallows · 5 years ago

Note

Kinda random and if you're not comfortable answering it's totally fine, but since you've mentioned your own "journey" with discovering you're asexual lately in some posts, could I ask for few more details on that? If it's not too personal? Like, were you generally off-put by intimacy or more a case of "it's okay I guess, it has to be done, but I'd be happy without"? Again, if not too personal

hey first thanks for understanding the very sensitive nature of this question. but it is an important one, and i want to do whatever i can to increase awareness about the diversity of the asexual experience. A lot of stories regarding the asexual “awakening” are usually people saying “Well, I was never interested, and then I learned it had a name.” For me, that wasn’t the case.

There’s some TMI below, including mentions of CSA, rape, abuse, sexual activity, and masturbation.

***

Accepting asexuality was difficult at first because I was always under the impression that I couldn’t be asexual if I fell in love with people. When it came to actual sex, though, I had always viewed it as this faraway “maybe” that Future Me had to deal with, rather than something I actively pursued or desired. My romantic partners did, however, so I was forced to confront the subject.

In high school, my peers were more comfortable with me being a closet pervert than having no sexual attraction whatsoever. This resulted in me faking or exaggerating attraction, usually to fictional characters, to seem more ‘normal’. By feigning that I had very picky or even impossible standards, I could imitate sexual attraction without having to be sexually active. Once I started dating and sex became an actual possibility, I found myself dreading it more and more. I “gave” as often as I could—anything to stave off “receiving”/penetration as long as possible. Throughout my teens and twenties I ran the gamut of kink and fetish and whatever, trying to figure out if maybe I just hadn’t found my “thing” yet, until I realized I was only doing it to conform and to please my partners.

I don’t know exactly when I started learning more about asexuality, but it was definitely through tumblr, which led me to AVEN. I actually have my sort-of “liveblogged” reading of the FAQ here, back in 2012 (age 22). Unfortunately a lot of my first exposure on tumblr came from skeptical LGBTQ bloggers and/or radfems, so I got a lot of misinformation and hatred at first. But I started following ace-specific blogs, learning about awareness and aphobia, and through further self-analysis began identifying as asexual.

I’m unfortunately also a CSA and abuse survivor, so that’s skewed a lot of my perception of what a healthy sexual identity or relationship looks like. Even up until my mid-twenties, fully embracing my asexual identity, I was still self-harming with sex. So if anyone says “Oh, you’re just asexual because you’re traumatized”, nah. I’m not asexual because sex was bad and traumatizing; sex was bad and traumatizing because I am asexual. All sex was sex I didn’t want to have, but I had it because I thought I had to do so in order to be loved. Now I’m further along in my healing that I don’t feel pressured to prove that I’m asexual “but not broken, and I can still have sex!” anymore.

An asexual identity gave me greater agency because I realized I was never obligated to have or enjoy sex. EVER. And so, if there is ever a time in which I feel like I might want to try it out again (for instance, should I ever be in a romantic relationship again) I can engage in the act without feeling incomplete or broken waiting for some epiphany that will never come. And since I was no longer pressured to feel sexual attraction toward anyone, I was later able to accept and identify as bi-ace, or biromantic asexual. There’s probably a “gray” thrown in there somewhere too, but I’ll figure that one out eventually.

***

Learning about asexuality also helped me more confidently maintain my sexual health. I became more open to things like masturbation because I didn’t feel like it had to be “preparation” for “the real thing”, as one of my doctors had put it. It can begin and end with masturbation, and I’m never obligated to do it, and I don’t have to do it for anybody but myself. Sex always felt like a performance for me, one that resulted in affection being taken away if i wasn’t “providing” for my partner.

I didn’t really feel an active desire to masturbate up until a few years ago too, so if you’re under 25, asexual, and feel like something’s wrong with you because you’re not masturbating or don’t like it, don’t worry about it. I used to be really uncomfortable with masturbation, even scared of it, and for a long time it felt wrong. A huge reason why I didn’t want to do it was because everybody told me I was fucked up for not already wanting it, or that I was in denial of my womanhood or some shit like that. On top of that, my partners pressured me to masturbate “for them” so often that it never felt like something for my own enjoyment; it was about proving to them that I wasn’t broken, or proving that I actually could orgasm, or that I was woman enough, or that I knew my body, or what the fuck ever. It was never about me having a good time, not really. It was about seguing to “well, if you can masturbate, then you can have sex.”

Masturbation is supposed to feel good. You have nothing to prove to anybody. If you don’t wanna do it, you don’t ever have to do it. If you feel like you “should” be doing it “by now”, don’t worry about it. Nobody’s keeping score. If you wanna try it out, go ahead! For a long time I was also scared about doing it alone, partially because I felt embarrassed and stupid but mostly because I felt like I was “wasting a performance” (due to trauma, internalized misogyny, etc.). These pressures have been so strong that up until recently, I struggled to “finish” because I felt forced, even within my own brain where nobody can see, to think of socially-approved sexual thoughts. When I thought instead about intimate things that made me happy, regardless of whether or not they might be “sexy” to some imaginary partner, I felt much more comfortable and fulfilled.

I’m kinda getting off-track with the masturbation talk but I’m just mentioning it because it’s a perspective that I wish somebody had offered me instead of just pitying me (or offering to help… YUCK!). When you don’t experience sexual attraction on top of having trauma, satiating bodily urges can be a challenge.

Ultimately… I love intimacy, and I crave physical closeness. I’m quite a cuddlebug with the people I love and trust, but that intimacy has been earned and cultivated over years and years of proven safety and understanding. I am hypervigilant about any of my actions being interpreted as sexual (or even romantic, which is another can of worms), which makes me a bit bitchy and cold at times. But until the world understands and accepts asexuality better, I have to be my own bulwark. I also have a lot of trauma and mental illness to learn to deal with, and I’m trudging along trying to get therapy in the meantime.

That’s the journey so far, I guess.

#asexuality #anon #ask #rape tw /#csa tw /#abuse cw /#tmi

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everyman0 · 5 years ago

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A PALE BLUE GHOST

over on the discord, i announced my decision to make another trip to the Edge to try my luck at finding any kind of clue that could help me make sense of it. patrick gave me a whole lot of lip about not using his fucking mirror and other bullshit, but ill save that for another post. this is a lot more fresh and painful for me.

going back outside was a mistake.

i journeyed the five hours it took to get to the impenetrable black wall of the Edge. my plan was to walk down its length, survey anything unusual, you know. obviously i wouldnt have been able to observe all of it in one day as ive mentioned the area it covers is rather large, but i felt some effort was better than none at all, and i wasnt exactly comfortable with the idea of spending the night this far away from the house. simple enough right? there was nothing out of place on the way out here, so i hardly expected what i saw just as i approached the wall.

it was jeff. sort of.

when i first saw him, he appeared almost like a reflection of me in the blackness. as i stepped closer to the wall, so did he step forward as well - until eventually seeming to step out of the wall entirely. we stood face to face, a mere foot apart, and i noticed then that his entire being was tinted with a pale blue.

i was terrified. i wanted to run away, but i couldnt make myself do it. so i asked timidly, "what are you doing here?"

jeff seems to come alive then.

"what? you told me to grab some stuff for the video today."

fucking bastard. i was still scared, but somehow i just knew he was mocking me. i frown, reaffirming my stance. i had to ask myself if jeff would even do such a thing to me...and then i figured yeah, probably - ghost or not.

"dont you dare pull that bullshit on me," i said, "those days are long gone." and they were.

jeff laughs. "don't you miss it? simpler times." he splays his hands out like an offering. "cant be all that bad to pretend, for a little while."

i squint my eyes at him - both of them. these days i dont bother wearing an eyepatch, since the point was for evans comfort to begin with. now it doesnt matter that i have a gaping fucking hole in my head for all to see.

i ball my fists at my sides. "i dont have time to pretend, and i dont have time for this conversation - so lets get to the point. why are you here?"

"to see my old friend again! and to tell you there's always more than meets the eye." jeff then taps a finger underneath his left eye, and a phantom pain throbs in my own empty socket. i try to ignore it.

"yeah, no shit," i say, and cross my arms. i was losing my patience. "if you're just going to spout vague nonsense at me like every other motherfucker does on a constant basis, i'm sorry to say but i will have to pass. i have more important things to do."

"like stand in front of this wall and bitch? is that what you're doing here?" jeff grins, and tilts his head at me. i just scoff, and deciding i had enough, i begin trying to do what i came to the wall for in the first place and begin walking parallel to it. jeff follows after me.

"im only bitching because here you are to distract me," i say, side-eyeing him, "so if you don't mind, kindly fuck off."

"i do mind, actually. why do you even want to leave? its paradise in here. no need to eat or drink, perfect climate, no irritating neighbors or awkward staredowns at the grocery store- you'd love it!"

i stop in my tracks. i hate that the sound of his voice is enough to get me to actually consider his words. but i do, and then i say:

"you know, for a while there, i did enjoy it. to an extent, anyways. you can only enjoy so much when you are all too aware of every little fucking thing. and maybe i could have handled the ghost thing, right? like you said, no neighbors or weird interactions. but then i saw this wall, and now i feel like a trapped animal - and im not okay with that."

"so if you couldnt see the wall, it'd be fine?"

i shake my head, "i came out here the first time to see if i could leave, and i wouldve kept walking if there was nothing to stop me. maybe i would have returned, after a while, had i done so. maybe not." i shrug, somewhat frustrated at the thought. "a wall is a wall, whether i can see it or not. seeing isnt the problem, the existence of the thing is."

"well yeah, but you can't just leave." jeff says it like its obvious. in hindsight, maybe it was. i could already imagine a few reasons as to why, but i wanted to pry out what jeff seems to think the answer is.

so i ask, "and why is that?"

jeff answers: "because there's...people, out there? like, innocent fuckin people, dude." well duh.

i roll my eyes, "im aware. but what does that have to do with me, exactly? habit is already somewhere else doing god knows what."

jeff looks on blankly. "we don't need two of you out there."

ouch. and unfortunately, on some level i believe it to be true. and the implication that i would intentionally hurt or even kill anyone like habit would...im sadly all too aware of the likelihood, really. it doesnt hurt because i feel bad, it hurts because i dont. however, i wasnt about to let this guy know that.

i say, "it's not like id be very social anyways. at this point, i dont think i could even stomach it."

jeff takes on a darker sort of air about him. "evidently so, based on how you treated evan. do you have your head screwed on straight, dude? because like, holy shit was that hard to watch."

i tense up, and i can feel a spark of anger rising from within me. guess it didnt matter what i tried to hide, jeff knew what weak points to hit.

"i was just trying to protect him."

"uh huh," he nods, "sorry vinny, but you're not the guardian in this one."

"clearly," i grumble, "but i was fucking trying, okay?" i was trying. jeff thought otherwise.

"yeah, trying to get everyone killed. thanks for that one, by the way. you've been self absorbed, irresponsible, reckless and horrible to everyone around you that isn't the entity playing games with our lives, and you can't keep pretending it's not true! do some soul searching. meditate. i don't care. but you're not leaving any time soon, so you'd better get used to it." jeff jabs me in the chest with a pointed finger.

it didnt take but a moment to process jeffs words, and ultimately, i agree with him. im a terrible fucking person. i just am. but i wasnt going to give jeff the satisfaction of me fessing up to it - because i felt like all of this was beginning to become unproductive bullshit and i wanted to do what i came all the way out here to do dammit.

i go to smack jeffs hand away from me, but i come to find that i simply pass through him like he was air. i felt the jab, though, even if superficially. this confirms my suspicion about the ghost thing, but jeff was different from the ghosts in the town; like being able to talk and acknowledge my existence.

i take a step back, "we'll see about that. who the fuck made this wall, hm? you of all things must know right? since you are apparently a plethora of knowledge of good and evil now. can you do that much for me jeff?"

jeff considers my words before he turns away from me to face the terrible wall, his hands on his hips, and his head craning back to presumably observe the wall's endless climb into the sky above.

"habit designed this gaudy architecture as part of his grand scheme. you probably could have figured that much, eh? but what you wouldnt know is that its been here since the very beginning, before you even arrived at the house." he looks back at me, "come on vin. you should know by now that habit is well prepared...even if this timeline is bonkers. you shouldnt need me to tell you that."

i grumble in annoyance, but consider his words carefully. sure, maybe i didnt need him to tell me habit was a suspect in all this, and maybe i could have figured that out just by doing what i had originally planned with scouting the perimeter of the wall. but...here jeff was, telling me things outright. it was a convenient time saver really, even if he was going about it in a bitchy way. i needed to take advantage of this.

"so, if habit made this cage to keep me in, why shouldnt i try to break out? why shouldnt i try to fight his subjugation?"

"one, because habit has eons of experience over you and you'll likely fuck something up really badly," jeff says, and turns towards me again. "two, you're part of this place now. removing you would shatter a really delicate balance. the house is a place of fluctuation, because there's not enough power to sustain herself. and you're radiating power, dude. would you really just abandon her like that, after all she's done to keep you safe and alive?"

ouch again...ugh. i dont usually feel guilty over a lot of things, but jeffs second point seemed to get to me.

i relent. i cower my head to stare at the ground. "i wouldnt have left her forever."

jeff gives me a disappointed sigh. "go back home, man. she's really worried about you."

i bite my lip and give the slightest of nods. i still want to do what i can to escape, and i hadnt forgotten about why i came to the wall in the first place...but jeff's words had me thinking about my desires for the house. in truth, the house and i have formed a strange sort of...i dunno, friendship? its the closest human word i can think for it. i would talk to her, she would listen. id even clean up her rooms, even though ive observed that she can do it by herself.

i think she may be the only thing in this world that can understand me now.

so i feel like in some weird way, the house cares about me. she has done quite a few favors for me, after all; favors that kept me safer. jeff was right again, and i couldnt shake the wrongness of abandoning the house enough to continue talking my way out of this bind.

it was time to go then. but first, i look back up at jeff.

"what about you?" i ask, my mood seriously taking a nose dive off a cliff. sad and desperate and pathetic and lonely. "you came all this way from wherever, however you did it, to tell me all this...are you going to leave me now too, just like evan?" fuck. "i wouldn't blame you if you did...but i have to admit, it was nice seeing you again."

and truthfully, it was - despite the treatment i received. its fine. i deserved it.

jeff leans in, and i can feel the pity in his eyes as he puts a hand on my shoulder.

"that choice isn't mine to make."

and then he shoves me away from the wall with a force that sends me tumbling across the ground a good few feet. i think it fucked up my shoulder. its fine. deserved that too.

and then i went home.

#evrymn0 #phase???#everymanhybrid

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thelittlestcheshire · 5 years ago

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+ Hey Mom!

Dear Maman;

I don’t know why I keep writing you, perhaps it’s because in some ways - I feel like you’re the only one who’d understand everything; even if you’re not here to listen. Grand-maman keeps telling me just how similar you were at my age, for years I thought she was just confusing me with Effie, or Ella. A few lost marbles in her old age, but over Christmas, she actually gave me your journals. I suppose this isn’t the way you would have wanted me to learn about you, but they help. It gives me hope that, maybe, if you were still alive today, you’d actually be able to talk me through all of this. I suppose we Andrieux women are forged in fire, perhaps like that quote about the stars. Withering, dying, beautiful, brilliant. From all the stories, I can’t imagine arrière grand-mère’s tale is much different the rest of ours, I suppose I wish I knew her better when I was still able to.

I wish I could write to you to tell you about how wonderful things are going here, how the clouds have cleared and we’ve finally reached the end of the tunnel but I’m afraid that’s not quite the case yet. I keep having the nightmares, every night I wake up screaming. Reaching for you, trying to stop it - feeling almost as if your blood is back on my hands and I’ll never quite be able to clean it off of my skin. I feel like they’re actually getting worse, I’m sorry maman. I keep hearing you’d want me to move on, but I can’t. I let you down, I’ve probably let you down so many times over the years it’s not funny. With him, for following down the path you went down you’d never want me to follow down. I’m sorry I still can’t shake the feeling that it should have been me, that you should still be here.

Sometimes it feels like I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing; like I’m being torn in different directions all the time, and I thought coming back to school would make things easier but it’s even worse. All I want is to go home, but I don’t even know which home anymore. Manhattan, Paris, Luxor? Nothing feels right. I still feel like that poor little lambie, maman. “Birds and the butterflies, pecking out its eyes” and all. Sometimes, I think the sensation is getting worse. Perhaps it’s thanks to everything going on here with the circle.

I’ve been drinking again, Emmett has been too. Sometimes, after the nightmares, I still call him and he talks me down like when we were children. I don’t tell him about the circle, about what’s going on here, I can’t bring myself to hear the concern I’m certain you’re feeling as you watch from above. You’d be so disappointed in me, drinking, sleeping around, trying so desperately to keep father happy and failing every step of the way. I haven’t been going to Mass, I haven’t gone to confessional, I’ve been letting you down every step of the way. And yet, when I read your journals, I feel closer to you than ever before. You made so many mistakes, and yet, you became the best mother a girl could have ever asked for - we were so lucky you were ours, I just wish you never had to go.

I wish I could go back in time and change it, I wish I knew who pulled the trigger, I wish I could tell him how much I hope he burns for everything he did to you and our family. If we have answers, nobody will tell me, maybe it’s for my sake, maybe it’s for his, maybe it’s even for yours. You weren’t the type to wish ill on others, grand-papa says that’s the one trait I got from my father. I just hope you understand why I feel the way I do, that you don’t hate me for the anger, for the guilt, for the throbbing pain I feel sometimes when someone says your name.

I’m back in therapy again, I think you’d be happy about that - he’s pushing me, but it’s helping. I still refuse to do the homework he gives me, there’s no way I’m bringing mental health packets anywhere near these people, they’d eat me alive, but I think he’s starting to understand why a bit? Not that I’m telling him the truth either about the Circle shit, I told him something about a bitchy cheerleader named Barbara who likes to torture people and while I don’t think he’s completely buying it, he’s not pushing. Sorry for the language, I’m trying not to swear in this, I promise I remember how much you hated hearing those words.

In some better news, Logan’s doing better! At least, that’s what he keeps telling us. I’m scared, he lied the last time things were getting bad, and I’m not there to keep an eye on him. I’m not there to intervene and take care of him if he needs me to, I’m here. I keep reminding myself Jonah is right there, that the better twin has him and it’s going to be okay. That none of us are ever going to let him down again because we can’t afford to lose him, but I’m scared. I’m always scared lately, I really wish I was able to cut out my heart at this point. All of these emotions would go away, it’d no longer matter how much I think about everything going on as I stare at my ceiling late a night because it’d no longer hurt. I wish I could, but I can’t. Human biology hasn’t gotten there quite yet, I’m afraid. Let’s add that to the list of things I’d like to happen, probably after bionics - Mass Effect style.

Impossible wishes, but maybe you’d get a chuckle from them.

Jamie and I still can’t see eye to eye, it’s the same old argument. He slept with my boyfriend, he refuses to apologize, and he’s massive jerk every time I see him and I react. I think he knows it upsets father when I react, so he’s doing it to keep his spot as the favorite without competition. as if I’d want that spot. I’d just love it if father would actually show up next year for Christmas so I don’t have to give his presents to the secretary to deliver to his office, but that’s about it at this point. I’m sure things would be different if you were still here, I really miss you. I can’t believe it’s almost been ten years.

Otherwise, I know I mentioned Emmett is still my emotional support human, but did you see he’s going to propose to Camellia. Jamie’s throwing a fit, screaming everyone’s too young, but I know Cam - it’s going to be a long engagement anyway. I’m happy for them, I wish you had been able to meet her. You’d love her, she might be a model but I swear I’ve never seen anyone light up at the words “poisonous spider” the way she does. She’s so down to earth, I’m looking forward to meeting her father the next time he’s in the states. I’ve heard so much about the famous wildlife photographer, Pascal Lima, but meeting him? That’s going to be amazing. Jonah is doing well, he has a new girlfriend, he’s still photographing all the dogs he gets to pet and turning it into a scrapbook - I wish I was more like him sometimes. So full of life, so happy to be alive. I miss him a lot this time, but I suppose it’s okay. I have my own electric bright spot keeping my on my toes here.

I’ve written to you about Elliot before though, so I suppose in this exercise, you already know exactly who I’m on about. I wish you could meet him, Lucy, Ian, Adrian, Callie, and Sora, they’re some of the best friends a girl can have - you know? I’m used to this feeling, but sometimes, I wish I could actually have confirmation for this gut feeling - that you’d like my friends, that you’d be happy I found people who make me feel good about myself regardless of all the fucked up things that have happened. That leave me feeling like, that maybe, someday, if I put enough hard work in, maybe I could actually matter and be more than just a person who existed. Like I could actually go after my dreams and make it, if I wanted to. Anyway, let me cover the rest of what I want to discuss and wrap this up. I’m sure heaven has better things to do than reading a letter your daughter wrote.

I don’t know how guardian angels work if it’s actually a thing and what-not, but if it is - I need you to do me a massive favor. Please send someone to keep an eye on Effie and Ella. I’m really worried about them, they look up to me so much, and the last thing I want is for them to become fucked up like me. To become so disappointing their own father can’t even look at them without being reminded, that one, that one destroyed my family. I’ve noticed Effie counting calories, I’ve heard the puking she’s tried to hide in the bathroom. Logan and I are trying to nudge her towards help gently, I don’t know what will set her off, but I can’t watch another sibling go down the path of destruction and yet, I don’t know if my attempts to help will make things worse or keep her safe. And Ella, she’s already asking to go to the MAC counter, for leather pants and crop tops. She’s so young, I can still remember braiding her hair and watching Sesame Street during breakfast with her. She’s growing up so fast and I want to pull her back, hand her a doll, and say “no, you need to enjoy this before it’s too late; before you spend your nights worrying about children at home and ‘that test was an A-, how could you let everyone down with an A-, you’re a worthless, disgusting person for being less than perfect.’”

Before you turn out like your big sister.

Maman, did you feel this way with Tatie Adeline? Were you this scared, looking at your decisions and praying that she wouldn’t make your mistakes, that she’d be better? I feel like I failed the girls, that I failed you, and I don’t know how to fix any of this. I’m trying my best, but maman, please, if it’s possible, help me keep her from making my mistakes. From feeling like alcohol is the only thing that’ll keep her together once everything feels like it’s about to shatter on the floor around her, from getting testing for STDs at least once a month because she thinks flings are better than heartbreak, from believing - even for a second, she’s not worth more than every single star in the sky or that I don’t love her and Effie with every fiber of my being. Help me do a better job of filling your shoes so I do better by them than I did for myself.

I’m sorry I’m writing about my problems again, I promise it’s not all bad here though. Remember what I said about my friends? Lucy and I might vacation this summer if things go to plan, I think I’m going to try to drag Sora to a few baseball games this year, and Elliot genuinely makes me feel like music - it’s strange to think about sometimes. I’d say don’t ask, but, it’s not like you could if you wanted to. My boys are a pretty good pick me up, Ian and Adrian - of course, even with everything going on in all our lives. I’m okay, really - I’m doing better, it’s really great here. So please don’t do that thing with your nose, if that’s something you’re able to do up there. Can’t say I really know for sure what the deal is, but I hope you’re okay.

I love you, maman. I’ll write to you again soon.

Love always,

#//so this is long and I'm emotional #//ask me to tag if I forgot any tws #murder tw #death tw #blood tw #violence tw #drugs tw #Anonymous #alcohol tw #alcohol mention tw #vomiting tw #vomit mention tw #eating disorder tw #answered #all of my heroes died all alone ( musings )#musings ( elswood family )

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what-even-is-thiss · 6 years ago

Text

I wrote a creative essay about my least favorite aunt. Yeet.

Read it if you’d like. I’m just happy to finally get the damage she caused me mostly dealt with to the point where I feel comfortable writing about it.

Language Barrier

Whenever I speak in German my expressions and hand gestures suddenly become ridiculously animated, like I’m trying to make up for my lack of vocabulary with a sign language that hasn’t been invented yet. One that only I know the meaning of. I flap my hands around like a maniac and point to things I don’t know the words for and make broken sentences that sound like a caveman made them as I misgender inanimate objects left and right.

Das. Das. That. That. This. This.

I can physically feel my brain rewiring itself. I speak like fool. Wrong order spoken are words. Sometimes anxiety make cry me. Social kind.

However, I speak much more German than my uncle’s mother and stepfather speak of English so I’m forced to use what I can and hope they can understand my thick American accent as we stay with them in Southern Germany. Everyone keeps trying to reassure me that my German is very good, but I can’t stop out of order speaking.

Kann ich habe Brot mehr bitte? Can I having bread more please?

I want to crawl into a hole and die.

My grandmother warned me that a person can grow tired of the amount of bread that Germans eat and according to that Bible thing that we both read man cannot live by bread alone. I’m starting to understand both of those things, eating bread and jam for breakfast yet again because I don’t like butter with marmalade and there’s no cheese left.

The weather, unlike my breakfast or Deutsche Grammatik, is perfect. Slightly cold, sunny and overcast at the same time. The neighborhood that my uncle’s parents live in is beautiful, suburban, on the edge of Schwartzwald, known in English as the Black Forest. I can’t remember the name of the town but I do know that we tried to get a brewery tour and my aunt, her twins, and I waited in the van as my uncle talked loudly at somebody in a local dialect until he got out of them that they don’t do tours anymore.

We went to a rope climbing course instead. My uncle, tall and skinny, balding, fit, took the twins, boy and girl, skinny like their dad, not taking after their mother, my mother’s sister, and went rope climbing in Schwartzwald.

I’m stuck talking with my aunt as we stand below the ropes course and I’m tired of speaking in German so we both take time to find comfort in each other’s distinctly Californian manner of speaking.

My aunt is a character. That’s a polite way to describe her if you don’t want to speak ill of someone that’s not in the room. She wears no makeup except for when she’s getting her picture taken or going somewhere important and she always looks stressed and tired with her eyes just a little too wide open. She’s maybe four inches shorter than me but she has the ability to make me feel like I only come up to her waist. In my mind she’s always wearing a knee length beige skirt and a green t-shirt even though she owns other articles of clothing than that, including more than 20 pairs of shoes. Her eyes are wide and her hands move in an animated fashion even when she speaks English. When she speaks German she becomes an exaggerated version of herself, perhaps to make up for her thick American accent and occasionally sketchy grammar. She has lived in Switzerland since the 90s and spoken German since the 80s. I once asked her how to tell what a noun’s grammatical gender is. She told me that she had no idea.

I didn’t know my mother for very long before she died but my grandmother tells me that when my mom was young, to describe her sister, she quoted a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The one about the little girl with the little curl who when she was good she was very good and when she was bad she was horrid.

My aunt’s hair is straight, but other than that the poem describes her very well. Today would be a day she was horrid.

I don’t claim to be a perfect human being. I can be a bitch sometimes just like anybody else. The thing is though, my aunt never let me know when I was doing something bitchy like a normal person would. Instead she let me keep on doing it until she was ready to explode. And then she exploded.

Or, no. Not exactly being bitchy. Just doing something that she didn’t understand or like. She’s a very animated person and her voice goes like

And

Up.

Down.

All the time.

She’s very expressive. I, on the other hand, am not that excitable. I smile, yes, I cry, yes, but I try to be stoic. I like being stoic. It feels natural. I don’t want to express to everyone around me every time I am excited or upset. In my opinion it’s none of their business. I also tend to express gratitude through actions and gift giving rather than hurting my face and voice smiling and screaming all of the time.

I had thought bringing gifts from America, delivering onto my aunt’s family the ever elusive box of grits and Bakersfield candy and trinkets from Disneyland Anaheim would show gratitude. I was under the impression that helping to cook dinner, pack the van, refill the ice trays, take care of the twins, carry the groceries, clean the house, would show how much I loved her. I learned though, in a firestorm under the canopy of dark trees and children riding on zip lines that our love languages didn’t translate properly and she thought that my lack of expressiveness meant that I hated her. She was hysterical about it. I then expressed myself by changing into a lovely shade of red and producing saltwater from my eyes.

Climbing hills is a thing you get used to when you spend time in Central Europe. Walking for three or four kilometers isn’t such a feat in a valley, where the ground is flat and rarely changes, but in hilly terrain you quickly learn just how long that distance is and how much walking can hurt. Locals take no pity on you because they expect that everyone has those muscles built up in their legs when you’ve never had to use your legs like that for long stretches of time before.

Navigating emotion and expectations at home is easy. There is one language being spoken and everyone uses it to tell each other what’s wrong. When staying with my aunt for long periods of time, however, you start to understand emotional exhaustion. Something that would take half a minute to communicate takes up ten minutes of screaming because she expected you to know everything. A flat crowded city turns into a hilly countryside with no help for miles. You quickly learn how to swear in German because she pushes her husband to screaming as well.

Scheiße.

Eventually my uncle finished with the ropes course and pulled me away from her. He gently explained to me in English what we were going to be doing for the next few days. I stopped leaking water from my eyes and tried to remember what had prompted her to start yelling at me but I couldn’t figure it out. Another talent she has. Distracting you from linear events.

While I was in Germany there was a terrorist attack in Münich. Brexit was fresh in everyone’s minds. My first presidential election would be happening in November. I only understood about half of what was said on the news. My little cousins and their dad took turns translating for me. I had the feeling that I still wasn’t getting the whole story.

My aunt and uncle have twins. Test Tube Babies. The girl is the older twin but strangely enough doesn’t hold it over her brother’s head, which would fit perfectly with her personality. The boy takes after his mother in some respects, namely her loud voice.

When we went to Prague we stayed in a campground because that’s a lot cheaper than a hotel and that family affords a second house because they’re stingy. Almost every morning it was a struggle to get the boy out of bed. He and his sister were almost ten and he screamed and refused to move. He cried. He was loud. No amount of discipline worked. His sister stood around quietly going about her business, as did I. We did the same thing when her parents got into screaming matches.

Prague is an old city. A busy city. I loved it, even with all of the pay toilets and Czech bluntness. Even when an angry Czech lady smoking a cigarette yelled at me in broken English for not knowing that I had to pay for the restroom. The old castles and cathedrals and statues and just the right amount of dirtiness in the subway more than made up for it.

My aunt payed for me to go look at a museum that she didn’t want to look at. She told me to take all the time I wanted as the rest of the family waited outside. I didn’t sense any passive aggressiveness that time, so I did. It was a complex that was part of the Prague art museum, a system spread out around the city. The section I walked through by myself was a collection of medieval Roman Catholic art. Stained glass windows, paintings, tapestries. I’m a Lutheran that lives with atheists, so my experience with Catholic art is mostly non existent. Atheists don’t have religious figures to draw and Lutherans are extremely stingy with their images, worried about crossing into the realm of idolatry.

One thing I noticed was that Mary appeared everywhere, even in stories I thought she didn’t belong. In some images she stood equal with Jesus, reminding me of a female God. She seemed mature, different from the outcasted teenage mother I had told children about in Sunday School classes. Different from the refugee that had been painted for me in sermons. I wondered what kind of mother this Mary was. I wondered what her Hebrew sounded like. Or, maybe this Mary spoke Czech and the Mary in Germany spoke German and the Mary in the Vatican spoke Latin and the Mary my Catholic friends at home looked to spoke Spanish. Maybe if I prayed to Mary she would speak English. Maybe she would turn out to speak German and would look down at the frantic dancing of my hands, trying to find meaning in it.

But I don’t pray to Mary, and neither do my aunt or uncle. I report to them what I saw and my observations about Mary. Namely that she seems to be everywhere. My aunt doesn’t quite pick up on the fact that I simply find it interesting and takes it as an invitation to rant about Catholics. I squint at her as we walk back to the subway. I’m trying to figure out if I’d somehow been speaking another language. She certainly seems to be. Maybe it’s a generational gap. Maybe it’s just her, but I try to turn the conversation back to a tone of tolerance rather than complaint. A battle I quickly lose.

Later, in a public park in that busy city, my aunt yelled at me and cried because I had been calling her by her first name rather than Aunt. I nearly start leaking again. I shake. I think she’s speaking English but I don’t understand it. I physically step away from her as she accuses me of not seeing her as family. At the bottom of the hill we’re standing on a dog plays fetch with his owner. Neither of them take notice of the screaming middle aged American woman throwing accusations her deceased sister’s child as her own children zone out and wait for it to be over. No help comes. Nobody translates for me and Google Translate doesn’t have a setting for this.

Twenty minutes later she jokes with me as we find a rare but welcome burrito shop. I buy a mango soda imported from Mexico and it softens my homesickness. We eat on the steps of a light rail station. I laugh. The twins laugh and bounce around, talking to each other in a mixture of English, Swiss-German, and high German. The boy takes a bite out of my burrito and thinks the fact I can eat something that spicy makes me the coolest person in the world. My aunt laughs with me. We make plans for when we go to Southern Germany and visit her husband's parents. That’s where his dentist is. He needs a bit of work done. We’ll have fun, she promises. We had a good time in Prague. I put the bad times in a shoebox for later and then agree with her.

After she yells at me in Schwartzwald for not showing emotion I go quiet. I put more things in the shoebox I’ve made in my mind to deal with later. I learn that all of them have been eavesdropping on the phone calls I’ve been making to my dad and friends back home. My aunt approaches me about how I complained about the yelling. I’m suddenly paranoid and wonder if she read some of the postcards I sent out. I watch my words now and put the ones that might set off her fuse in the box. The little house outside of Zurich has started to feel like home when I return to it and I’m slightly disgusted at that realization. The flowers all make my eyes water and I’m not given nearly enough allergy pills. I still don’t understand what language she’s speaking. Her words are in English or German, as are mine, but we still don’t understand each other.

Currants, especially the red ones, are beautiful fruit. Not easy to find in stores, even in Europe, so you’ve gotta pick them yourself. My aunt and uncle have a small city of currant bushes living in their backyard that hugs the bank of the stream that runs through the neighborhood. They’re beautiful and inviting, asking you to eat them please, but when you do your face scrunches up at the tartness. I never did care for sour tastes, so I found my own way to make the currants sweet by baking them into scones. At first my aunt was sceptical of my scones but after some reassurance from her kids that they didn’t taste like cinnamon she tried them and agreed that I did a good job. They were sweet and went really well with milk or tea. We all enjoyed them very much. Nobody had to translate anything.

Every member of that family gives excellent hugs when you can get them. They share drinks and food with each other, a concept that shocked me at first, but I quickly fell into the rhythm of it with them. They bought me my first beer and took me to Worms, Germany. I loved that place. I got to see one of the first print versions of Luther’s German translation of the bible. I ate pastries and tea with them at an outdoor cafe. It was cold and wet in the middle of the summer and the cobblestones made it even gloomier. The moving feet on the sidewalk seemed to have a language of its own and the new architecture standing by the old had no words to be translated but told a story nonetheless.

My experience in Europe was like Europe itself. Americans expect it to be shiny and beautiful, and it is, but you also have to pay to use the restroom which leads people to piss in the street. You will also find cigarette machines on almost every corner. There is one right outside my aunt and uncle’s second house. The packages of cigarettes have pictures of black lungs and diseased gums on them. The people smoke anyways. Europeans are people. They have drama, they worry about money, they cry, they abuse, they kick, they scream, they love. All the problems you had in America won’t disappear over there, and in fact you might find some new problems you didn’t expect. Like not finding salsa or not knowing how to deal with carnival rides that have no line and are boarded like a much more violent version of musical chairs. And don’t expect to practice your target language there either. The people will hear your accent and excitedly try and use you to practice English. And even if you do speak the language, don’t expect to understand with everyone. Hand gestures can only go so far.

When I got home I left the German language behind me for the most part. I also slowly cut off most contact with my aunt’s family. Six weeks spent putting things in a shoebox and not speaking whatever language my aunt was speaking with English and German words was enough for me. By the time I opened my shoebox a few months later it was rotten, smelly, and leaking. It took over a year to clean it out and it’s still warped and stained, containing whispers of my own desperate language that would never penetrate my aunt’s skull or jump over the barrier we had built together.

My rotten shoebox is revolting to look at, and while I was cleaning it parts of the mess got onto the happy memories but thankfully they’re still there. The cathedrals, the warm hugs, the new foods, and comforting rain are all there. Late nights and early mornings, potato pancakes and beer, museums and trees and the times I could honestly say; Ja, ich bin glücklich. Yes, I am happy. And thankfully that sentence is easy to translate.

#roman wrote a thing #religion mention #roman said a thing

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