#i’m literally just a survivor of trauma using fiction to cope

[freakishhorror]

“incest is an irl traumatic thing! shipping it in fiction-“ i have experienced and am a victim of incest . shut the fuck up and stop talking over survivors trying to cope !!!!

[target-core]

since you made that post, I’d love to share some of my own personal experience enjoying billford fluff, as survivor of an abusive relationship (though this is absolutely not me speaking for every survivor btw) if you don’t mind!! just because I think it’s an interesting perspective to bring to the table and I don’t want to repeat what the other asks have already said (and you seem curious and I love sharing thoughts about this)

tbob means absolutely everything to me but, in my head, it's already more or less reached the pinnacle of showing the darkest parts of their relationship and, to me, nothing else can fully compete with that. plus, when I'm in fandom spaces, I often use it to unwind and relax, and I just do not have the time or energy to use that space to engage with fictional versions of traumatic events that I have already been through, in excruciating detail. not only because I'm in a headspace where I just can't handle being triggered atm (unlike reading tbob, where I know what to expect and have coping skills already prepared) but also, personally, the concept can seem boring to me sometimes. I've already lived through this and spent years processing the meaning of it. I don't need to see fictional characters I love do the exact same thing repeatedly. especially since my own experience with my own suffering tends to be very mundane and tedious, and that’s part of why it’s miserable (no one ever talks about how boring pain is god .. but that’s a topic for a different conversation that has barely anything to do with this).

but obviously, I still want to engage with fandom spaces, even if I tend to avoid certain aspects of it (not even necessarily by default, it's just a pattern I've noticed with myself). so what can I engage with instead??? well I love these character dearly, devoid of whatever awful things they may or may not have done (looking at you especially bill, you motherfucker). I love their weird and nerdy personalities, I love their relatable backstories, I love how you can explore other themes through them (such as neurodivergency and trauma as a mental condition, rather than as an experience), and I love also how they can actually be really romantic, in a twisted weird way. I mean, merging bodies and minds, calling someone your “muse,” or even just the idea of a demon falling in love with a scientist who’s studying him just feels objectively romantic to me, in a strange and eerie way. not to mention (as I think someone else has said), not all abusive relationships are 100% bad all the time. in fact, that can be why they are so difficult to leave, because when you love someone you want to cling to the good. and I don’t think the good should ever be dismissed or invalidated, no matter how awful the bad is or how much it outweighs the good. plus also, if we’re going back to comparing billford to my own abusive relationship, those two really aren’t a perfect 1:1 comparison. not only because they’re fictional characters living in a world with magic and we aren’t, but also because they’re more like amalgamations of ideas than they are real people. and I love exploring those ideas on their own merits, regardless of the abuse.

so now that I think about it, I don’t even know if “fluff” is an adequate enough descriptor of what I like .. or if it is fluff, it still has some level of darkness or weirdness to it too, even if it’s small. I guess it’s more like I just enjoy the lighter, more whimsical aspects of billford that have more nuance to it .. but also billford is just so inherently incredibly dark that this feels fluffy by comparison. but also that’s literally just my own limited perspective (and I’m not even always consistent with it .. like I said this is just a pattern I’ve noticed with myself). I definitely don’t think it’s the only way to enjoy the ship and I absolutely 10000% get why other people might not feel the same and would want to explore the darker, more abusive aspects to them (technically I also do, just not via fandom). I’m never going to begrudge anyone who wants that and I hope this isn’t interpreted as a dunk on people who do <3333 I just love these stupid characters and their relationship so much and I think talking about this sort of thing is really really fun and interesting

anyways I’ve written probably way too much (and if I don’t stop now then I never will) so if you’ve gotten this far then thank you!! hope you have a wonderful day or night or whatever time it is where you are

Thank you so much for your ask !! :) please don’t apologize for them being too long, I really don’t mind

I have been in abusive relationship(s… lol🥲) myself, and I think with Billford I kind of do the opposite of escapism where I latch onto the darker parts and keep thinking about how it connects to my life over and over and over.. I’m gonna be real, I think the way I engage with them is actually kind of unhealthy LOL but it does make for interesting art and analysis in my head, so I guess it isn’t all that bad..?

I don’t mean to imply their relationship is all darkness. I think there’s levity to be found too… and as you said, abusive relationships aren’t bad all the time. There is genuinely cute stuff that happens between them, even though I tend to view those moments more cynically. I think for those nicer parts, I can’t enjoy them as much *because* I view them so cynically, because I project onto them. It feels too real for me to think of those moments as genuine because it opens up the possibility of a world where things could’ve been better. It’s hard for me to explain, I apologize if I don’t make any sense.

I really really do not want my original post to be viewed as a dunk either. Different interpretations are the spice of life!!! It’s all awesome. I enjoy seeing them in anything. I was more just genuinely curious on why the common interpretation is lighter than what’s presented. I feel like that might’ve not come across as well as I intended, and I’m sorry about that.

Thank you again for your ask!

[sazandorable]

About moderating and banning content on AO3!

Okay so! I haven’t had the spoons to do this for a while but I cracked and ranted about it on twitter which is... not... conducive to long rants, so!

This is a h u g e discussion part of the l o n g history that led to the creation of AO3, which older, more informed, and more articulate people have talked about at length and can be found around if you look (I reblog some of it in my AO3 and fandom history tags for the curious). So I won’t go into that here, nor into the practical reasons why it’s not even possible to put that system in place anyway.

Arbitrarily, or the purpose of this post, because it’s the biggest topic I’ve seen brought up lately, I’ll be talking about fic depicting underage characters in se*ual situations, but honestly I could hold the exact same conversation on literally any controversial content.

This is about why you, specifically, if you are a content creator and especially if you are marginalised and especially if you are queer and especially especially if you are sensitive to fiction depicting certain things... do not, actually, want a banning system on AO3.

What? Of course we do. There’s a lot of p*do shit on AO3 and p*do shit is gross. No one should condone that, wtf? It would be easy to do — just periodically delete the entire Underage tag!

What will happen if that is done is that people will re-upload and continue to write it, they’ll just stop tagging and you will run into it with zero warning nor ability to filter it out. Again, this is not a theoretical — we know this is what happens. When I was a teen, adult content (all adult content) was not allowed on FF.NET; it was everywhere regardless, and without tags. The exact same thing happened on tumblr when adult content was banned as well. It’s not a matter of “staff not handling it well” — it just doesn’t work.

To keep safe the people who need to be able to exclude that tag, that tag needs to exist and be used.

Well, shucks. A reporting system then?

A reporting system would operate in one of two ways:

-an algorithm, which would delete a lot of stuff we wouldn’t want it to delete.

-humans, which is... the bigger problem.

An algorithm sounds great. We do want it to delete everything.

Okay. What about the daddy k*nk fics between consenting adult characters? What about the fics featuring characters that are children in the canon but are adults in the fic? What about the fics about teenagers exploring their se*uality together, written by adults about the experiences they remember having or wish they could have had? What about the thousands of SasuNaru and Drarry and other shounen and YA fics that will get written, by teens or by people who remember being teens? What about the se*ually explicit fic written by teens who are se*ually active in real life? What about the fics about CSA as trauma, about healing from it? What about the fics written by survivors of CSA to cope about their trauma? What about the fics that clearly show that it’s evil and traumatic? What about the super dark, harrowing, but beautiful and artistic that I’m glad I read even though it fucked me up for days? What about the ones that were really shitty but also horribly hot?

Well, some of these are still not okay, but maybe some might be. It depends on how it’s written. We’ll have humans moderating content and deciding, then.

Okay.

The thing is, I don’t know which of the things I just listed were okay for you to be depicted in fiction and which were too much. Odds are I don’t agree with you. Odds are if I asked 10 people randomly picked off the street, not everyone would agree.

Odds are, even if AO3 arbitrarily decided on which of those are allowed and which are not, you would not agree with their choice, and you would still be unhappy with the decision. (Or you would be happy, but your friends wouldn’t.)

Odds are, different AO3 content moderators might not agree on whether a given fic qualifies or not — is it artistic enough? Does it show enough that these actions are evil and wrong? Can the author prove they’re a teenager? Can the author prove they are a CSA victim? Can the author prove that this is to help them cope with their trauma? The author seem to be functioning alright, they mustn’t really be traumatised!

You know what I mean! There’s absolute, objectively gross shit out there that is not artistic and should not be published.

I agree that there’s vile stuff out there that makes me sick and that I think is very clearly just ped*philic trash. But there is no way to, 1) stop those from getting published anyway, 2) take those down and preserve the safety of everything else.

If we start forbidding some things, there’s two ways to go about it.

One single, clear, arbitrary rule — for instance, absolutely no adult content featuring characters under 18 (leaving aside the fact that this would not even work for the reason cited above). So we lose all the stuff from teenagers, all the coming of age stories about adolescence, all the stuff from CSA survivors; people who need to write it can’t publish it anymore, and people who need to read it can’t anymore either (and as a cool bonus, they’re told it’s wrong and made to feel bad about it). Depending on whether the rules applies to characters that are under 18 in the canon, we lose entire fandoms.

Or, subjective moderation by humans, according to what they estimate to be gross.

Let’s assume all moderators can agree on what’s gross or not.

If there is a system in place to ban some underage works because “gross shit”, then that means other gross stuff can be taken down on account of being gross and harmful.

Yeah! Gross stuff should be taken down! Come on, surely everyone agrees on what’s gross and harmful.

Ah.

But the problem is.

Here is a list of things I have seen — with my eyes seen — called harmful to be depicted in fiction:

Murder

Non-con

Inc*st

Cannibalism

Torture

Self-harm

Mental illness

Drugs

Racism

K*nk

Non-negotiated k*nk, but healthy k*nk is ok

Spanking k*nk

BDSM where the woman is a bottom, but woman top is ok

Healthy depictions of BDSM

Unhealthy depictions of BDSM

Queer people doing bad things

Abusive relationships

Rival/Enemies to lovers

Redemption stories

A happy relationship between a 17 yo and an 18 yo

A happy relationship between a 20 yo and a 60 yo

A happy relationship between a boss and their employee, or a college teacher and a student

A happy relationship between a 14 yo boy and an older teenage boy, because that’s reminiscent of older men preying on younger gay boys IRL

Se*ual content featuring a character whose age is unclear in canon and some people headcanon them as being underage, some as being a young adult

Loving, consensual fluff between characters that are evil villains, because it romanticises them and their actions

Dark content shipping female characters

Fluffy content shipping female characters, because it’s misogynistic to act like lesbians are only soft all the time

Consensual s*x featuring a canonically asexual character, because it implies that all aces can and should still have se*

Fics about the same canonically asexual character hating s*x, because that erases the experience of s*x-positive aces

Shipping a character who is perceived by some fans as queer-coded with a character of a different s*x

The tendency to ship a black character with white characters

Fluffy drunk s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Sleep s*x, because that’s not actually consensual

Trans characters not experiencing dysphoria, because that idealises the trans experience

Consensual s*x between adults that are not married

LGBT+ content, because kids shouldn’t see that.

I guarantee you: you, I, and 10 random people plucked from the street will not agree on what, in that list, is and isn’t okay to publish and consume fiction of.

So why should your taste be the one followed? Why should it be the taste of mods you don’t know? Why should anyone get to dictate? What if the mods think your OTP is gross and your NOTP is fine?

This is the slippery slope argument.

Yes, it is the slippery slope argument. Because we know it happens. Because we’ve been there, because I’ve seen it happen myself twice already and I’m not even thirty. Because we know people do complain loudly about all of these things.

And because the second there is a banning system in place, assholes will use the system to abuse it and get stuff they just don’t like taken down using the “it is gross” argument, and one day you’ll wake up and the beautiful fic that helped you come to terms with your abuse/trauma/identity/orientation/k*nk for feet will be taken down and wonderful vulnerable creative people will have been harassed out of fandom because they argued with 1 person who didn’t like their foot k*nk fic that happened to also feature, for instance, a CSA trauma backstory.

Again: not exaggerating. Not theoretical. It happens, we know it happens, AO3 was created literally because it happens.

I still fucking hate that stuff.

That is completely fine and normal. No one likes everything. Me too! Most of the dark stuff is niche and the creators know only few people will like it the same way they do.

(For the record, I get grossed out and triggered by fics about an asexual character who does not like s*x having s*x with their partner to make them happy. Deep in my gut everything screams that that’s fucked up, terrifying and harmful, how can people write that. But I recognise that there are people who love and need that, and I leave those people and their content alone.

OTOH, I read a lot of otherwise dark shit and I enjoy it in the same way I enjoyed, say, Hannibal, in the same way some people enjoy true crime documentaries, horror movies or r*pe fantasy k*nk. It helps me explore stuff that I like to see in fiction, in a safe, controlled way. I’m also asexual, 90% s*x-repulsed IRL, and, obviously, I would never abuse a child. For that matter, I wouldn’t kill and eat people, either, nor would I do 90% of the tamer k*nky stuff I read.

Of course, Hannibal was fucked up and lots of people probably think Hannibal was gross and should not have been aired — but as exemplified by the fact that it was created, aired and watched, lots of people thought it was fine, interesting and even fun to watch.)

You can and should curate your experience and protect yourself. The AO3 website now allows you to exclude certain tags, and people have developed tools to help with that such as plugins that save your filters or hide fics that contain certain words.

But no, it isn’t going to, and it shouldn’t, get banned.

[thinking-about-fiction]

Literally. It's so embarrassing. And it's not just harassment as in online bullying these people recently doxxed a recent r*pe survivor over false allegations over fiction and she lost her job and income. These self named "antis" celebrated. Someone posted a su!cide note (unconfirmed if they died or not) because of how much antis bullied them an there was a 30,000 note post going around on here celebrating their possible death, saying they hoped more died. They go into the inboxes of CSA victims to tell them they deserved their abuse. I myself have been dogpiled by over a dozen at a time (some get hundreds at a time so I'm lucky) and told "well you ship that nasty ship, you must have enjoyed being abused! I hope it happens again!" There's so much disgusting shit they've said. There's a blog on Tumblr called @anti-receipts that shows just how disgusting the things they say are, saying victims lie about their abuse, deserved it, etc is their favorite thing to say. All over fiction. It's horrifying. they call everyone who disagrees with them a proshipper and assume we're all into all horrible things but that's not true, proship does not mean problematic. Most of us have severe triggers and most of us are survivors. And I don't even label myself proship. I just label myself not an anti, because I would never say the disgusting things they do over fiction.

Whoa. I haven't been part of online fandom for very long so I didn't know it was that bad. That's horrible.

I don't know if I would call myself a proshipper or not. I just think that people don't deserve to get bullied over fiction. I am not personally a trauma victim, but if somebody is, and consuming that specific content is their way to cope, then that is completely valid and I am glad they found a coping mechanism.

Even if they are not a trauma victim, enjoying content in fiction does not mean condoning it in real life.

Maybe somebody loves watching dramas with lots of cheating, or murder mysteries where a friend or family member was the murderer. That doesn't mean they condone it in real life. That's just what intrigues them in fiction. Fiction allows you to consume things with no consequences (well, it's supposed to be with no consequences).

Anyway, I am in no way comfortable with ships involving abuse, rape, incest, pedophilia, or inappropriate age gaps. But if someone ships such a thing, I am not going to yell at them. I'm not their mom. I'm not the ship police.

Plus I know what it's like to be yelled at online (though it was for something completely different, and I kinda deserved it). It sucks. It hurts. If you aren't used to it, it can feel like the worst thing ever.

Doxxing is a whole other level though. And death threats and suicide notes too.

People who do this, answer me this.

Do you really want someone to lose their job or die over what they enjoy in fiction???????

Think about it. An actual life. Someone with a family and friends. Gone/ruined because they ship something problematic in fiction. That whole group of family and friends are now devastated, or the family is now poor. Children could starve guys. The children you were just trying to "protect".

People who don't care about actual lives and livelihood genuinely scare me.

[helion-ism]

I wanted to write about something that is very important to me: the way people perceive nesta and elain in this fandom (I know that a lot of people have valid reasons to criticise them and I’m not doing this to say they are perfect because how boring would that be.) and an important part of that is nesta‘s trauma vs elain‘s trauma

I think it’s self-explanatory when I say that obviously everybody deals with trauma differently, in fiction and in real life, but I got intrigued by how different elain and nesta seem to be dealing with that, so I looked it up and found something very interesting so this is kinda a long post

nesta

there is something called emotional dysregulation, where trauma survivors have difficulty regulation emotions like anger, anxiety, sadness and shame (even more so when the trauma occured at a young age). one of the methods these trauma survivors use to attempt to regain emotional control is “self-medication” or rather substance abuse, even though it is more likely to further emotional dysregulation. others are disordered eating, compulsive behaviour (like overworking), denial of emotions, and so on. (though there are more positive behaviours to regain emotional control such as physical activity) 

traumatic stress leads to two extremes: you either feel too much or too little. I think with nesta it is pretty much clear that nesta has always been the kind of person who feels too much, it’s why feyre painted those flames on her drawer, because she was always burning. what did feyre say about her in acomaf?

“I think Nesta feels everything— sees too much; sees and feels it all. And she burns with it. Keeping that wall up helps from being overwhelmed, from caring too greatly.”

a big part of nesta’s personality is who she was as a teenager and young woman, before she got made. she blamed her father for what happened to their family, she was furious with him and wanted to make him suffer. she got consumed by it, which is why in the end it was feyre who had to provide for the family. (I’m gonna be real honest here, how were so many of you guys reading the books and blaming nesta and elain for making feyre go out and hunt when her father was literally right there lol. like ... why blame the parent when the sisters are right there, huh?) being thrown into poverty, when she lived a comfortable life and was always made to believe she’d marry a prince or lord some day, it must not have been easy for her as she was the oldest but still a child. you guys, she was a kid. how can that not leave a lasting impression on her? and how can anyone blame her for that?

what do we see in acofas after the war ended? nesta fucks strangers and drinks a lot, maybe too much, doesn’t eat enough, to cope with what happened to her. so why does she do it? do distract herself from her memories, from her nightmares, from every sound that reminds her of what happened when she was thrown into the cauldron and what happened during the war. she spins out of control with her body to stop feeling too much and start numbing the pain (which I assume is why she drinks so much, it’s a great way of making you forget your problems and sleeping with strangers is a way of numbing any emotions too). 

in acosf, we see her choose a family, we see her find gwyn and emerie and we see her accept cassian as a friend (and more), but we also see her start training with him, we see her challenge herself to go down those stairs and eventually, she does not only get physically stronger, gains weight, but she also becomes more confident internally. I feel like a big part of nesta was always to come off as cold and unapproachable, but this is not at all how we see her with gwyn and emerie, and cassian notices too:

With Gwyn … he wondered whether Nesta liked the girl because with her, she was simply Nesta. Perhaps she felt that way around Emerie, too.

obviously, I feel like this is not something that one can overcome within just one book and there’s more for nesta to learn. do I think she’s completely healed? no, but when is one ever? she has started to heal and that’s good enough for me. but I’m just so annoyed when I see people call nesta abusive and other things when they’re not even trying to understand her. 

elain

in acosf nesta says elain just needed time to adjust to the world and person she’s become, but is that it? I don’t think so, not when it is so clear to me that she has not in fact adjusted to this new life.

initially, in acowar, elain is the complete opposite to nesta. which makes me believe she’s dealing with her trauma by numbing, a biological process where emotions are detached from thoughts and behaviours. elain is basically described to be this shell, doing nothing but sitting in her room and craving sunshine. I think she was mainly in a state of shock until things started changing a little bit. (and she was also probably overwhelmed because of her seer abilities)

elain has been sheltered her entire life, first by her family, especially father & nesta and feyre who never once blamed elain for anything but rather focused on nesta, then she met graysen & got engaged and their relationship was apparently very strong (she seems to have loved him and also she gave her virginity to him), and then she went to the night court where she‘s basically been underestimated and coddled the entire time AND she lets them do it most of the time 

“But I wonder if everyone has spent so long assuming Elainis sweet and innocent that she felt she had to be that way or else she'd disappoint you all.” 

that’s what rhys says about her, like he knows there is more to her when even feyre and nesta don’t seem to see it, but this has changed in acosf, not only from rhys’ pov, but also during chapter 58 when nesta tells elain to fuck off

Elain blinked. Nesta blinked back, horror lurching through her. And then Elain burst out laughing. Howling, half-sobbing laughs that sent her bending over at the waist, gasping for breath. Nesta just stared, torn between questions and wanting to throw herself into the icy Sidra. “I— I’m so sorry—” Elain held up a hand, wiping her eyes with the other. “You’ve never said such a thing to me!” She laughed again. “I think that’s a good sign, isn’t it?“

look at her reaction when somebody is finally saying something to her but not sugar-coating it. she laughs. there’s no way of knowing what elain really feels all the time, but you have to admit, this reaction hints that that’s something elain has wanted for a long time. like she’s surprised that nesta is so bold and harsh with her, she says that nesta has never spoken to her in such a way and she’s not actually offended by it. to me it seems like she’s tired of everyone treating her like a child and maybe that scene was somewhat of a revelation to her. 

she’s been so passive for a majority of the series that fans have started calling her useless and plain, but man, I just disgree. as I said, there is valid criticism to be found everywhere (like the way she treats nesta in acosf, but in the end, I don’t really blame her for it when I think she’s still dealing with her own problems). but elain has started to make use of her agency when she helped kill the king of hybern or decided to give azriel back that necklace (for whatever reason, we don’t know yet) even though it seems like she’s still primarily passive most of the time.

so this leads me to hope that things will improve greatly for elain in the following books, especially in her own book. 

basically we have two opposites here in how people deal with trauma. elain is passive and quiet, I believe she still suffers a lot, there might be more to her abilities and that might be a part of why she’s changed her behaviour so drastically to lucien since acowar and all that. but a huge factor is also the way people treat her and implicitly force her to just continue with this coping mechanism. she’s a people pleaser and if that’s what people expect her to do ... then that’s what she’ll do until something eventually happens.

nesta is very wild and bold in her behaviour. we’ve seen her regain control over her emotions in acosf and we’ve seen her accept her new body, her new self. when cassian told her that there is nothing broken to be fixed and that she has to start forgiving herself too, I think that was a gamechanger for her. because when nesta started to forgive herself and deal with her own guilt and shame, that’s when she could truly begin healing. and I love that for her. 

[tomdutch]

I just wanna try and explain this from a phychological perspective.some people, to deal with the trauma in their life, write about it. and that's okay.

they share this writing because they know that there are people out there that can relate to the trauma and use the writing as a way of coping.

in fact, many therapists use writing as a way to help their patients. whether it be about rape or attempted murder it still works the same.

it's not sexualising abuse or rape or incest or whatever, it's dealing with trauma. people deal with that in their own way and if you don't like their way then that's okay but just dont send hate to the accounts. just block them.

you deserve to feel safe in your own in the same way they deserve to feel safe on theirs. have a good day.

i know many therapists use writing as a way to help, my own therapist gave me this advice. you know what she didn’t tell me to do though? to write it about an underage character and post it online and tag it as smut for the entire world to read and masturbate to. it is quite literally something that is meant only for you and your health professional to know about. the minute you post it for an audience to enjoy, it is no longer a therapeutic tool, it’s you sexualizing something for others to get off to, others who you have no way of checking are also victims and survivors and not just freaks and perverts, like it almost always is. also literally nobody writes out their trauma graphically in porno format like smut??? nobody writes AUs of their trauma with fictional characters in a format meant to jerk off to and to find sexual and hot???

exhibit a of that: the person i called out yesterday is not writing it to cope, they’ve made so many posts about how much the enjoy writing incest and rape and pedophilia and how it turns them on.... y’all are absolutely sick and depraved.

and frankly why don’t YOU just block me and get the fuck away from me instead of invading my space and trying to convince me that the most traumatic event of my life is something that’s totally normal to jerk off to. while you’re at it please jump in front of a train <3 like in what world do you think it’s ok for me to say “i am feeling so unsafe and triggered by ppl telling me they’re getting off to rape as a rape and pedophilia survivor” and for you to respond with a long ass ask like “ACTUALLY it’s perfectly ok bc i’m decontextualizing and misconstruing medical advice given to survivors of rape and pedophilia”

this is the last ask i respond to about this. anybody else who’s got twisted disgusting INHUMANE shit to say will simply get blocked and reported for harassment.

[treestargarden]

wonder egg priority, episode 6, “punch-drunk day” analysis under the cut

tw: child sexual abuse, grooming, suicide mention, rape denial

the haters

these guys are freaky. akka claims they are created from the envy and spite the seeno evils feel against ai and the other girls for being “heroic.” i have a feeling these are meant to be metaphorically either people who want to obstruct healing or the thoughts in survivors heads that obstruct the healing. like a person vs self or person vs person plot device for conflict. 

akka says “you have done too much in this world that makes you noticeable.” ai and the other girls have been successful in their egg worlds that the enemies have “evolved” or leveled up to obstruct their success. its kinda of like the concept in therapy where it gets worse before it gets better, right? 

for instance, i can remember when i first started being honest about my childhood trauma with a previous therapist. i was definitely making leaps and bounds in recovery, but i hit a rough spot in the middle of my treatment where i didn’t sleep for days because i actually had several nightmares about a) dying and b) the person killing me was revealed. after getting through this tough time, i stopped having as many nightmares, but it was definitely an obstacle in my healing. i felt like... my assailant was reaching into my psyche and literally ripping my progress away. 

in a way, that’s what the haters are like. they see that ai and co. are getting progressively better with their wonder eggs, so the seeno evils have evolved to try to obstruct that progress. 

yae

yae opens up to ai, admitting she killed herself, because she sees too much. ai immediately compares this to the movie “the sixth sense,” to which yae admits frustration that nobody believes her (it isn’t a fantasy, so why would it be compared to a piece of fiction). 

yae’s killer manifests in a very similar fashion; ai is unable to sense the killer at all until its too late. but it isn’t until ai is directly attacked by the killer that she believes yae’s frustration, hurt, and trauma--she immediately recognizes the issue as similar to her own with mr. sawaki (which will be addressed next). the metaphor with this wonder egg girl is that when it comes to traumas or hurts that have happened to individuals, many people outside of those events tend to question the sanity (putting yae in a mental hospital) or disregard the survivor’s claims (momoe claiming mr. sawaki is a good person, simply because they are related). in some cases, survivors are only believed by survivors of the same prepetrator (why ai finally understands the hurt yae feels /after/ she is attacked by the invisible killer). 

what’s interesting about yae’s character is she is often seen finicking with her prayer beads (they look like jade). at one point, closer to the end of ai’s fight with the invisible wonder killer, yae throws her prayer beads at ai. as ai reaches out for the beads, the killer is visible. this can easily portray that sometimes our comforts (or coping mechanisms) are what makes our healing harder (i’ll go into more detail when i talk about mr. sawaki). BUT that these... “items” illustrating coping can be used by another person to aid in our own healing!

what i mean is that... consider yae’s beads as the cause of her seeing too much. because nobody else has her specific prayer beads, nobody else can see the things she has been traumatized by. but when she “offers” her beads to ai, ai can use them to see yae’s wonder killer! once she she’s the wonder killer, ai can kill them and save yae. 

essentially, what causes a survivor pain can be utilized by another person to assist a survivor in healing. 

mr. sawaki

god this part gets complicated. 

so momoe constantly tells ai mr. sawaki is a good man and that ai has it all wrong! they are constantly denying ai’s grief and pain and trauma. this is very similar to yae’s experience--people denying yae’s trauma existed in the first place, that she was crazy, or seeing what wasn’t actually there. 

if we recall, ai never specifically had a relationship with mr. sawaki other than him being the school counselor. there was a small scene in this episode, though, when he complimented ai’s eyes. i posit it was probably during an “art session” early on with ai. 

i felt... wronged... by neiru’s accusation that ai had a crush on mr. sawaki when she admitted she didn’t want her mom to date him. abusers can be charming, especially when they have been grooming a child. and it can be... confusing feeling soft towards a person even if you know what they are doing to you feels wrong. i’m not sure what else to say to this effect, so i’ll move onto my next point about ai and mr. sawaki. 

it was... really out of left field that ai decided to go back to school, even more out of left field that she decided to tell mr. sawaki about her decision. but then i gave the episode another watch before writing this all out. remember what i said about yae giving her bracelet that was causing her own hurt to ai so that ai could help yae?

basically, up to this point, ai’s coping mechanism has been to stay home from school. to avoid seeing mr. sawaki. but now that its a possibility that he will be dating ai’s mother, its a lot more... likely that ai would be seeing mr. sawaki more often at home than she would at school. he would visit her home once a week, but if he was dating ai’s mother... it could easily turn into more frequent visits for longer and more uncomfortable periods. 

ai probably recognizes this possibility, and so she decided to go back to school, where, yes, mr. sawaki works, but she may a) not have to see him the entire time or b) there will be people around when she does see him so it would be “safer.” 

its also possible that at school, she won’t be as isolated as she was at home, and can begin looking for help in other ways, too. i’m very interested to see where this goes. 

akka and ura-akka as game masters

so obviously the writers are familiar with madoka magica, right?

jokes aside, akka and ura-akka are very analagous to games masters. they aren’t competing themselves, but they do have a hand in the game. they provide the girls with a game to revive (so they say) their dead friends. they have the power to provide the girls with tips, “power-ups,” and other such tools while in their wonder egg worlds. 

basically, the 2 act as gods controlling the environment the girls interact with in the wonder egg worlds. its already been established that the akkas can shapeshift (very beginning when ai meets akka as a beetle). the mannequins are a... simple form they take on that is both human (in form) and inhuman (not alive). both familiar and unfamiliar. they create the wonder worlds based on each girls’ specifici experiences (familiar) and add fantasy and horror elements such as the bosses, the seeno evils, now the haters (unfamiliar). 

the akkas are definitely neutral in this scenario; constantly upping the ante for the girls, but also providing feedback and tools when they feel they need it. the akkas don’t necessarily wanna see the girls win, but they also don’t want to see the girls lose. basically, they just wanna see how far they can tests the girls’ wits, attitudes, problem-solving, persistance, etc. i’m not so sure, personally, the girls will get their friends back, i think its just a convenient lie to see how far they can push humans. 

[shrimpmandan]

Okay even though I’m for all intents and purposes pro-ship can I just talk about how fucking obnoxious some pro-shippers are.

I get it. A lot of us are abuse victims in some way so we interact with morbid fiction to cope and process with it. But a lot of antis are abuse victims as well, and deserve to have their limits and triggers respected. Not everyone copes by looking at incest porn, okay? For many victims, things of that nature can be *extremely* triggering, so they opt to just block all pro-shippers or request them to not interact as to not risk seeing that content. And y’know what I see? Pro-shippers being like “LMAOOO THE FANPOL IS WORRIED ABOUT ME RUINING THEIR FANDOM EXPERIENCE”. Literally they’re just curating their experience, you fucking twat. Respecting abuse survivors means respecting ones different from yourself and this goes for both sides.

The reason I’m pro-ship isn’t to ‘stick it to the antis’ or whatever. I’m pro-ship because I understand that some people cope with fiction, and I do as well. I struggled for years with feeling like a terrible person because of this fact, which I’ve only recently come to terms with that because of the pro-ship community being so positive and welcoming. I also think, overall, we should focus our hatred towards actual abusers and not... drawings. Getting mad at a cartoon or piece of fanfiction is literally not helping anyone in this situation. We could be spending our energy, I dunno, spreading abuse awareness? Providing support to each other? Donating to or spreading the word about abuse-related charities? There is nothing beneficial about calling people freaks over fictional media.

All I want is to not be treated like I’m on-par with my abusers for how I cope. That is it. I see many antis get concerned that this is unhealthy, but for me this has had no major negative effects on my mental health really. I’m in a healthy relationship and all that looking at that content does is give me a dopamine boost. I feel like ships have helped me process my trauma, before I was even aware that I had it at all.

Just respect each other for fucks sake. Respect other people’s coping mechanisms AND other people’s triggers. Don’t harass people you insufferable cunts. I hate this discourse with my whole heart. It shouldn’t BE discourse at all. Don’t call me a “disgusting freak”, and don’t intentionally trigger ‘fanpol’, okay? Okay.

[daz4i]

non-con and r/pe fics are not ~problematic~ content you fucking tool, neither is child p/rn, which ao3 ALLOWS to run rampant on their site. this is also the site that has been in beta for YEARS and doesn’t have the most basic feature aka a block button because it would be ‘too complicated’ to add. shut the fuck up and sit down south park fan

yknow i was originally planning to not answer this bc of the way you’ve “presented” your point, but i do wanna clear what i said while ignoring your needless aggressiveness even tho it’s clear you’re not looking for a real discussion but just looking for an outlet to your anger. you probably won’t read my answer anyway but maybe if any of my followers share the same views, it’s good for me to explain lol. i actually put effort into it rather than throwing insults so it’s long, therefore under the cut

i feel like you’re purposely misinterperting me, once again probably just for the sake of being angry, but ok. yeah it’s more than problematic content, but man when i’m typing tags half asleep what else am i supposed to call it. fine, the writers are the ones who are ~problematic~, phrasing issue, does this part even really matter...? 

this fucked up content (is that better phrasing for you?) makes roughly 1% of the content on the site, from what i’ve heard (obviously i could be wrong, because it’s also really hard for people to measure considering the nature of a proper tagging system, aka if a fic has mentioned rape in it as in a character’s trauma people should tag it, but then is the data analyzer supposed to count it as rape content? probably not. anyway, i kinda went off topic), so i wouldn’t call that “run rampant”

either way, ao3 lets people host this content because of what i mentioned - you can’t actually monitor it unless you have real people running fic by fic to check, which is literally impossible, especially when your team is made of volunteers

and. as i’ve said in my tags. it beats the original purpose of ao3, which is to allow whatever fan content people want to make, due to fandom history

and like, this may seem obvious to you, but how can they choose exactly what counts as content that’s supposed to be blocked? when you say cp, do you mean fics abt highschooler anime characters? this probably counts, but what if the person who wrote the fic is 16 y/o for example? is it just as bad? what if the characters in the fic are aged up? where do you draw the line? (don’t bring up that one “don’t make sexual illustration or written content of minors” law, it’s about real minors, people on tumblr have a tendency to misinterpert that one and think it means cartoon characters) and how do you enforce these rules about stuff like rape? as i said, do you just delete every content that mentions it? what if someone’s venting their experience through a fic and does it in a proper way that doesn’t romanticize it? is it still not allowed? there’s too many “if”s and “but”s for this stuff, and if you try to enforce any rules about them you’ll end up censoring harmless content and survivors coping with their trauma through fiction, and as i said, this beats ao3′s original point which is to allow people to post the content they want with no censorship like previous fan content sites and hosts tried to. this is literally what ao3 was made for. 

ao3 has a proper tagging system and now a blacklisting system just so you won’t have to deal with this type of content that you don’t want to see. and yeah, if people don’t use it right it’s a problem, but it’s a them problem, not ao3′s problem. honestly, you don’t even have to use ao3 at all and you can easily avoid all of this if you want. 

as for the beta thing, i mean, okay? i don’t know enough about web design to see the problem with the site being in beta for years, esp considering they’re still adding features and tweaks. dunno what you might need a block feature on a fic site for (i mean, mean comments? i guess? bc if you don’t wanna see a certain author in search results you can blacklist them after all) but k, legit criticism, but don’t forget they’re also a team of volunteers and have life outside of this site too, obviously it won’t evolve as fast as sites made by people who work at it and get paid to do it. 

anyway, tldr, this shit is unfortunately all or nothing because of the nature of fandom spaces and content blocking, and ao3 would rather go with all (as in all content is allowed). if you disagree with their approach then don’t use the site, idk what to tell you. no one’s forcing you to go on it or look at fucked up content. 

i probably won’t want to further discuss this, esp not with you if you’re gonna approach it like that bc as i said it’s obvious you’re not going to have a proper discussion, and also i think i said my opinion here and hope it’s clear enough? if you disagree with me aight, if i bother you cool just unfollow me. don’t be a dick

[love-takes-work]

The episode that hits you the hardest

There are many Steven Universe episodes that are basically designed to put your emotions through the spin cycle and hang you up to dry. We've all been there during one episode or another--excited, dismayed, inspired, devastated, blown away. But some of us have an episode that kicks us hard in the gut for personal reasons. An episode that's not just emotional, but intimately catastrophic for us. What's yours?

For me, that episode is "Cry for Help."

The character I relate to the most in the show, by far, is Garnet. A lot of people who love her say it's because she's ~so cool~ and aspirational with her self confidence (and believe me, I think that too) and because her relationship is inspiring, but for me, it's because I've never seen a fictional character get stability so right.

She may be on the stoic side and very much the strong and silent type, but she's not stable due to being unfeeling. She's definitely a squishy bundle of feelings under there. But she's utterly in control, knows her strengths and limitations, isn't ever self-deprecating about her talents, and understands herself in a complete and clear way. She can still be surprised or hurt. Being stable isn't about being numb.

Nearly all of the problems Garnet has to handle belong to someone else, and she rarely struggles with herself.

Characters like her and people like me find themselves, willingly and not so willingly, throwing life preservers and providing lifelines to people who are not stable. Many factors figure into why--you do it because you can, or because you know something about their problem, or because you love the person--but if you're a Garnet in a world of insecure Amethysts, inexperienced Stevens, and desperate Pearls, you've probably saved a person or two.

In "Cry for Help," we see Garnet exploited for her strength and stability--betrayed by Pearl, her literal oldest friend in the world--and we see how it (pretty much literally) tears her apart.

It's HARD to rattle someone as stable as Garnet so she shakes apart into her component pieces. It is very very hard to do that to someone with their feet so solidly on the ground. And when it happens, sometimes the pain that comes from it is so intense that you're not sure who you are anymore.

Let me elaborate in the context of the show. The Crystal Gems decide to destroy the partially rebuilt Communication Hub because Peridot's been using it to send messages to the enemy. But they can't destroy it the way they did last time because the Fusion chosen to handle the job, Sugilite, compromised everyone's safety. Garnet fusing with Amethyst is a no-go.

Garnet's handling of breaking that news to Amethyst left a few things to be desired, but ultimately, Pearl was so grateful and joyous to be chosen instead that it's hard not to be excited.

And even though Sardonyx was formed for a functional reason, it was also SO MUCH FUN!

They destroyed the Hub together and both personally enjoyed themselves. Even though Pearl was the most demonstrative about how much fun she had, you can see how caught up Garnet was in the joy. She loves fusion too, and she loves Pearl too, and she loves being Sardonyx too.

"Why don't we do that more often?" says Pearl.

Garnet and Pearl have an incredible history. They've known each other for over 5,500 years. They were allies and soldiers in a lengthy war, they endured hideous traumas together, and they are the only survivors of the final battle. They understand each other like no one else can. Surely they can trust one another.

Garnet found out she couldn't trust Pearl. It turned out Pearl enjoyed the fusion experience so much that she lied about similar threats to tempt Garnet into fusing with her again, and Garnet allowed herself to get distracted, never seeing the possibility of her oldest friend hurting her in such a personal way.

She was devastated. First it came out first as boiling, earsplitting anger.

And then it cooled to icy, silent rage.

What did Garnet say in the moment it happened? Almost all of her lines are about Pearl's actions derailing the mission.

"That's why I couldn't see us finding Peridot." "You've been fixing the Hub." "Peridot's out there somewhere and Pearl's been distracting us with NOTHING!"

She pretends the important thing is how she compromised the mission. But she also says another thing.

"You tricked me."

In this moment, everyone understands why she was furious to be misled. But I don't think the others recognized the depth of this wound because Garnet is very good at concealing her vulnerability. She doesn't want her team to think its leader has the capacity to be personally hurt in a way that limits her usefulness in a crisis. She's supposed to be strong and never let the others doubt her competence. And her confidence has never been a lie--she has never had to put on a face when it comes to that. But in this moment? She slammed all the doors shut. She had been sliced open with a very sharp knife and had to turn quickly so no one would see her guts. (Not the first time she’s done that, either.)

Because of the way she focused on the mission's importance, Pearl bumbled her way through antagonist-trapping attempts for multiple episodes trying to get back in Garnet's favor. And that was probably even more painful for Garnet--that Pearl fundamentally did not understand why a betrayal of this nature was so devastating. She had JUST been through a fusion-related trauma discovering the fusion experiments in the Kindergarten; the sanctity of consent in fusion had just been highlighted for her, in opposition to an extreme example of its violation, and then she gets personally subjected to false pretenses for fusion that negate her reasons for consent.

Pearl made up emergencies to steal Garnet's time and energy, and made her feel foolish for trusting her. She misrepresented the issue because she desired an intimate experience, and tricked Garnet into providing it under those false circumstances. Most importantly, she compromised the integrity of her body and mind using fusion--something Garnet is passionate about, something Garnet fought to defend and define, something at the core of Garnet's identity. Pearl perverted something sacred to Garnet and then she doesn't even realize how wrong it was. It must have been so awful for Garnet to discover that Pearl can lie as easily as she breathes just to get something she wants--something Garnet probably would have been willing to give to her if it had been requested in honesty!--and that she isn't really free to tell her how much it hurt because her longstanding trust had been used against her.

And that's the thing about relating to a character as strongly as I relate to Garnet. When you're the strong one but you're HURT, you still can't let yourself lash out at someone like Pearl. You could crush someone whose daily existence is so tortured and fragile. You know you won't do it. You'd be the bad guy if you stood there on your pedestal of stability and told them how much they've disappointed you, how much they've disgusted you, how much revulsion you feel at the breach of trust. Pearl and Garnet have both experienced trauma, but Garnet doesn't define herself by it--she has coping mechanisms Pearl lacks, and even at the peak of her anger she knows it would not be right to unleash all of that on a traumatized person who barely knows how to cope with her own destructive, damaged thoughts. 

Garnet is the victim in this situation, but she's still got to think about how her brittle friend will handle the process of healing from what SHE did to them both. The silent treatment was horrible for Pearl--it made her frantic and drove her to additional terrible decisions--but it was the kindest thing Garnet could do while still simmering under the surface, smoldering with her own unhealed bruises.

Garnet took herself away to handle the internal conflict Pearl's breach caused in her. She went away with Steven and Greg, who wouldn't really be as affected by watching her breakdown as the others would, and even though that breakdown wasn't strictly controlled or ideal either, it was a choice she made during a personal crisis. Garnet fell apart. 

I recognize this technique. Some people--myself included--can choose where and when to process emotions (including freakouts and breakdowns), but can first and foremost decide to hold it together when it's important. I could give you six examples from within the last two years when I had to do stuff like that. I'm not better than anybody else because I can. I have effective coping mechanisms. Many people don't have a choice about whether they freak out or if they get triggered. I'm fortunate. I use it to TAKE CARE OF THINGS IN THE MOMENT that I might have some nightmares about later, but I'm not going to fall apart NOW. I need to be able to do that for people who don't have the option. That's one of the things Garnet does well, too. That's why we've only seen her come apart unwillingly if she was lethally damaged or fundamentally shaken to the core.

When Garnet reconciled with Pearl at the end of "Friend Ship," she spoke very little about her own pain. She knew that making Pearl feel even guiltier about her betrayal was not going to be constructive. She already felt bad. She didn't go on at length about how hurt she was--she just said "I fell apart over this." "Ruby and Sapphire were in turmoil over how you deceived me." "I came undone." Most of what she said was focused on helping Pearl understand why her loneliness, her insecurity, and her weakness are not excuses to steal someone else's strength away from them without their permission. 

"You lied to me. You need to learn that there are consequences to your actions." 

"It's not easy being in control. I have weaknesses too. But I choose not to let them consume me." 

"I struggle to stay strong because I know the impact I have on everyone. Please understand, Pearl. You have an impact too."

Garnet knew all along that everything she said and did--even in a crisis--would be an example for everyone else. She's rarely allowed to have selfish moments where she gives in to whimsy, sacrifices responsibilities for self care, compromises others' comfort for her needs. She was caught in the crossfire of Pearl's desperation and was betrayed intimately, but even after all was said and done, she still had to counsel Pearl through the consequences she pulled down on herself. 

Even after all this, she does still care deeply for Pearl, and I'm sure it's painful to watch her struggle. But Garnet still had to be the one to answer "how can I make you forgive me?" with an explanation of why she can't. And you believe Pearl when she speaks about how useless she feels on her own. She's not manipulating Garnet or lying about how ineffectual and incompetent she feels. The problem is, she's still making all of that Garnet's problem. And Garnet accepts the responsibility of solving it.

She wants to be mad. The Ruby in Garnet is happy to state loudly that she DESERVES to be mad. Shouldn't she be allowed to stew, to rage, to feel? She was treated unforgivably and then had to tolerate Pearl doing backflips in the wrong direction to coax an undeserved resolution out of her. But she also wants to be practical. The fatalistic Sapphire in Garnet is ready to move on because she sees the big picture and knows her emotions aren't that critical when they're fighting to save the planet.

I went through a protracted "battle" like this recently. I had to solve a problem that was way bigger than me that started before I was born. I had to spend a lot of time, money, and energy learning things I never wanted to know and handling issues I wasn't even supposed to know about. And along the way I was treated horribly by several people, most notably the main person I was trying to protect. Sometimes it seemed like they were doing everything in their power to sabotage my efforts to help them, but I was patient and supportive, even when they were very rude, even when they refused to help accomplish the small things they could handle on their own, even when they treated ME like I was the source of their pain despite being the one trying to stop it. 

One of my allies said it was baffling that I kept helping at all considering how I was treated. They were gobsmacked how I still offered respect and kindness to someone who was inadvertently causing me so much stress. And I always said the same thing: I do it because I can, because if I don't the consequences (which I will ALSO have to handle) will be worse, and because everyone else is in way worse shape than I am. 

Yes, maybe I contain a little Ruby raging about how unfair this is and how personally hurt I am, but that's what texting my friends is for. I also contain a little Sapphire telling me I have to get A if I don't want B to happen, and I chose the uphill battle that let me achieve A. Ruby and Sapphire are both right. I deserved to be furious. I also needed to get the job done, and I did.

Ultimately Garnet learned that Pearl is a damaged person acting out of desperation, and even though the betrayal was personal and not okay in any way, it was rooted in loneliness and sorrow that Garnet does not experience. Stable people often help unstable people when they care about them. They shouldn't have to sacrifice themselves to do so, but they are usually able to figure out where the line is for how much they can reasonably give of themselves. Sometimes, when stable people still care about the people who hurt them, we feel like we've lost the rights to our feelings. That voicing those thoughts will just make it worse. That we will be the cruel one if we react incorrectly to being wronged. We solve it on our own. We go away and get a grip and come back ready to fight.

But seeing that, boy. Seeing the fresh wound in "Cry for Help" and knowing how that feels, when you're reeling and wondering how you're going to build yourself back up (while pretending nobody knocked you down), feeling so raw and punctured by someone you REALLY don't want to stop trusting . . . you wonder, if another person can do that to me, am I really that stable?

Or, conversely, would I even be stable if I didn't care about anyone strongly enough that their betrayal could be my undoing?

"Jailbreak" is my favorite episode, but "Cry for Help" eats me alive every time I watch it.

[puremchanzo]

Don’t know what to do

Hi

I know I’ve been gone for a while but it’s for a few reasons.

I’ve been doing a lot of personal growth lately and i don’t really have the same, er, opinions I used to have when I first started this blog. I’m not as concerned about what other people ship (as long as it’s not literally illegal) because simply, I have better priorities about what I should be putting my mental energy into. And I feel like that might upset people since I’m not really an “anti” anymore since I feel like putting so much effort into the lives of people I’ll never meet.

So I’ve kinda abandoned this blog, because I didn’t want to upset people. I still believe that shipping minors and adults is NOT okay. But, other than that, I don’t think that limiting what people will write in fiction will actually solve any problems.

Please continue to hold people accountable for being racist or homophobic, but I don’t believe that we should hate people for coping with thoughts and feelings they can’t control.

Because I’ve been sexually assaulted, twice, and I feel that pushing down the thoughts I have as immoral or that I’m a bad survivor, is counterintuitive to self growth in healing. So no, I DONT think it’s okay to call survivors “freaks” by indulging in media that some would consider bad, because as long as they aren’t hurting themselves or others, and keeping their content flagged and protected from those who don’t want to see, I don’t care. Because I struggle with intrusive thoughts, a lot, and that’s what most of these people are going through.

And while some say that it’s not a good way to cope, well, you don’t know that. You don’t know the person, because everyone is an individual. Unless you are a liscensed therapist, you have no right to tell strangers online how to cope with trauma. And some people just like to explore certain topics, as long as they are respectful, why care?

I had this change of heart recently when I realized I worried so much about the actions of others, I never thought about how it all affected me, at th end of the day. And it wasn’t good. I was hupervigilant, overly stressed, constantly worried, etc. it wasn’t good. And when I stopped caring and tried to look at things from their perspective, I didn’t mind as much. Because at the end of the day, fandom is a place to enjoy and escape reality, this shitty shitty fucking world, and who am I to tell others how to enjoy things. (As long as it’s not illegal).

So, with that, if you want to unfollow me that’s fine, if you have anymore questions for me, ask them! But please send me asks like “are you a freak now?” Because no, I’m not, I’m just a human dealing with my trauma without bringing other people down anymore. I still love mchanzo, but I kinda abandoned the fandom due to how toxic some people are. And I realize a lot of minors follow me, and I apologize if I let you down, and to my old friends as well. But I feel like I can’t just leave/be on hiatus without explaining why. And I hope this post can give you insight.

I might return in the future, but for now I’m officially on a hiatus

[mask-of-hate]

So, just an honest question. You don’t like incest, that’s understandable its gross end of story. But do you have an issue with people who fallow the separate time line of laurie and michael myers where they are not related? Do you have a problem when people ship them together? Ive read a few of your posts and they are a little difficult to understand.

Hopefully then I can make my stance clear here;

I have a problem with people starting drama. If arguing incest was what was taken from my posts then I have been misunderstood. I didn't even start talking about incest for a bit, I've been on this rant for months because people were trying to pin this drama on me before I even started saying I was considering trying to write it. What set me off is aggressive bios for lauries I had found who followed only 1978 and 2018 because "it doesn't have the incest" basically. Despite that it does and that there are other 'problematic' themes too. It was directed more at fans than character versions so that's what sparked all this because I was wondering what the hell was up with that behavior.

I don't have a problem with literally any incarnation of Michael or Laurie that anyone else writes so long as they follow really basic roleplay rules. I don't like people controlling how other people write.

Just put it simply as being respectful. No need to start drama anywhere.

Shipping is fine, even if someone outright ships them as an incestuous relationship I can be an adult and just not say anything and stay in my lane when it makes me uncomfortable. I expect other people to do the same.

I like horror, especially horror that evokes a reaction from me. Disgust is a pretty intense reaction. Horror like that sticks with me a lot better than stuff that doesn't actually affect me emotionally. I write awful villains and have for years, long before I even considered Michael as a muse. To me, dislikable traits are something you want in an antagonist. It doesn't have to be as extreme as incest, but since it's already present in a lot of people's minds I have been open to considering writing it when I can muster up the balls to do it. Boy, it takes a lot to do it though yikes.

Just because I write it doesnt mean I support it. I write rape. Do I support it? Engage in it? Hell fucking no. I am a child sexual assault survivor and it helps me cope with the traume because I can control the situation, and it makes someone happy in the process. I have positive feelings associated with it now (from making other people happy instead of just feeling used and discarded and unable to voice I even have the trauma) Fiction does not equal reality.

Also I can back away and take days or even weeks to get the balls up to write uncomfortable stuff, while my notifications reblogging a very outdated article about the incestuous themes is very sudden and not easy to cope with, especially when it comes in a sudden flood. Big difference, and why I am behaving so erratic right now because I am trying hard to not let it get to me.

My posts are likely difficult to understand because I'm not really trying to prove a point, I'm at work and busy often when writing so my attention isn't even fully on tumblr, as well as having a lot of my points spread out over several different posts.

I will answer more asks like this as long as they remain respectful.

[a-polite-melody]

"I just care more abouy real victims" funny cause every anti ive ever met is a survivor?? Fighting against something that does ans is used to hurt us? Fuck off with that shit fiction is used commonly to groom more victims and was used for many of us and the fact i cant be safe in fandoms as a survivor HURTS ME AS A SURVIVOR. Or are the people hurt by what you deem less important unreal now?

There are survivors on both anti and anti-anti sides. What’s your point?

I’m an abuse survivor. Antis aren’t protecting me in fandoms. They’re demonizing people like me who don’t deal with or cope with their trauma in an “acceptable” way. Even when it’s properly tagged. Even when it’s made very clear what it is and you have to click through a warning to see the content.

I’m important to me, thanks. My continued healing as a survivor matters to me. And sure, some people don’t like the way I and others like me deal with our shit. But as long as its tagged, I really don’t care.

Anything. Literally anything. Can be used to groom victims. Candy? Been used as a grooming tool. Can’t eat that anymore I guess. Can’t show candy in media as something tasty because it could be used to groom people.

Anyway, this is why I don’t consider myself either an anti or an anti-anti. There are people on both sides who are absolutely shit. There are antis like you who yell at other survivors who do things you don’t like, and there are anti-antis who don’t tag or go out of their way to trigger people. I don’t want to be associated with either and want to continue to say “I don’t fucking care about the content of fictional material, I’d rather focus on actually helping victims, not on yelling at some of them for not being just exactly like me.”

[eat-my-ass--discourse]

you’re clearly not a pedophile, but you do need to understand that some coping mechanisms are not healthy and that trauma is not an excuse for consuming harmful content. i think the people calling you a pedo are gross, like it’s totally inappropriate to call survivors that, but at the same time, listen to those that criticize your consumption of harmful media without accusing you of pedophilia, because ptsd does not excuse being into incest, pedophilia, racism, and other things.

the funniest part is i never said i was into any of that shit in the first place, i literally just said i don’t care if other people are because it doesn’t affect me. that and people need to stop trying to tell me which coping mechanisms are helpful for ME. yall love to claim i’m “retraumatizing” myself or some shit but my brain knows how to tell the difference between real abuse and fictional stories, so no, i don’t get “retraumatized” by fictional shit. neither do most others who use it to cope. just stop telling survivors how we can cope? just because it doesn’t work for you, doesn’t mean ALL trauma survivors are affected by it.

[bigskydreaming]

Okay but for real, I really am going to go write something productive now but one last thing, cuz I just saw this hot take and I gotta say something:

“Pedophiles aren’t writing and reading underage fics. They’re more likely to be the ones cheerfully saying it’s problematic as a way to gain the trust of “woke” underage children.“

So I’m just gonna say this about this galaxy brain take and leave it right here and then I’m done with that for tonight:

1) Bryan Singer

2) That highly suggestive and innuendo-laden scene between underage Bobby Drake and adult Logan in X2.

3) The sheer volume of gay teens aka Bryan Singer’s preferred victim-pool, who have cited that scene as so hot, ideal, or even their fucking sexual awakening.

But pedophiles don’t write fiction and there’s never anything exploitative or influential about people writing pedophilic dynamics into fiction.

LOL. Right.

That’s self-serving BS, because fandom has created an environment that cares more about the comfort and feelings of people who WRITE about things like abuse, racism, rape, incest, etc, than they do about the comfort and feelings of people who are AFFECTED by these things.

And then they’ll happily cite ‘some people write these things to cope’ whether that ‘some people’ includes them or not, because they know perfectly well nobody’s going to put them on the spot and ask if they’re ‘some people’, because then that can just be spun as gatekeeping.

And so merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, everyone avoids confronting the fact that the problem has never been one of censorship, but one of priorities, and conflict of interest.

And the fact that you can’t care so much about rape and rape survivors and then turn around and knowingly and unapologetically create content that REQUIRES rape culture to flourish, and feeds off it. And so on and so forth.

The fact that sometimes its put up and shut up time, and the reason you all are so goddamn defensive about this is because you don’t want to face the fact that you’ve already MADE your priorities perfectly clear time and time again, every time you’ve chosen to leap to the defense of FICS by going on the attack against PEOPLE, most of whom are...again....the people directly affected by the content being fetishized for entertainment. 

The fact so many of you guys treat trigger warnings like liability waivers ie “listen, if you keep reading past this point its totally your fault, don’t blame me” instead of simply an effort to look out for readers and their mental and emotional well-being, the way you all like to CLAIM you use them for.

Listen, I’m All Cops Are Bad and have been for a loooooong fucking time. I don’t want to defund the police, I’m fully in the ABOLISH the police category.

Rub a couple brain cells together and maybe spark the realization that this kind of worldview is ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY OPPOSITE the idea of the censorship you all trot out as the bogeyman.

It makes no sense, and if you took two seconds away from being defensive, you’d SEE that.

My entire thing....is the kind of society and community and culture that thrives WITHOUT EXTERNAL ENFORCEMENT.....because its members practice PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY.

So no, I don’t want to censor anybody, I don’t want to gatekeep anybody, I don’t want to go up to each and every person who writes fic I don’t personally like or agree with and demand they trot out their trauma or identity credentials to verify they’re allowed to write this content or what the fuck ever....

I literally just want people to ASK THEMSELVES:

“Do the things I do and prioritize in fandom actually match up with the things I claim to prioritize in general?”

And like, why the fuck would you have to give ME your answer when you don’t even know me and I don’t even know you?

You don’t.

Because its not about me. Its not about giving me an answer.

Its literally just about YOU and asking YOURSELF these kinds of questions.

And if you don’t like the answer you come up with?

The problem is not that you were bullied into confronting that. 

The problem is - and always HAS been - that you’re not comfortable with your fandom choices and actions and priorities unless you can pretend they’re something else entirely, or inconsequential, or just plain don’t matter.

[sandflakedraws]

Hey so I've been considering checking out abot for a while now. But before I do, I wanna know what the draw is for you. What do you like so much about it ?

Strap yourself in, we’re about to go through one longass hell of a ride. Fair warning that this gushy love letter has a good chunk of spoils for canon mp100 and abot alike, so do with that what you will. (though i keep most of the spoils to the earlier chapters so i can leave some firsthand experience left)

ABoT has 5 main (not all) attractions for me, most of which are incredibly personal :1. nuanced, actually mature depiction of abuse2. lack of a ‘perfect savior’3. plotting cause+effect4. scene setting (okay this one is more a taste thing that i happen to really love)5. incredible writing all around

Part 1. Nuanced, actually mature depiction of abuse.

I was an abused and neglected child. As such, it’s very easy to see where some of the appeal of this type of fanfic would come from. Course, I’d encourage a looksie regardless because it’s written with respect to the subject matter, and because fics like these have great potential to expand on human understanding and empathy.

THAT SAID ! In order to talk about the depiction of abuse in abot, I first need to talk about the abuse in mp100 canon.

To be frank, I think phantomrose96 handles it better than mp100. Especially the execution and aftermath of said topic.

For comparison I’m going to use the Mogami arc (an arc i do like, perhaps less than the majority of fandom, tho this’ll likely shed a light on why)

The depiction of abuse between abot and canon have some similarities. In both cases, Mob is uprooted from his foundations of support, and the strain goes on for a lengthy amount of time. Canon!Mob’s experiences are 6 months long, and abot!Mob is 4 years. The differences start hereafter, though.

For starters, with canon!Mob, we learn about his torture mainly through his own POV, with Mogami making commentary. His firsthand experience is bolded and put at the forefront, and functions as the end note of the scenes which feature them. Mob is isolated, ostracized, and bullied. He is beat up at several points. One such instance sees him lose a tooth. His bullies torture a cat to death, smash a brick on his head, and stab him with an exacto knife.The ‘maturity’ of canon!Mob’s abuse comes firstly from the severity and cruelty of it. And secondly, for how it could drive him into using his psychic powers against people willingly. It highlights that one can be as shaped by their surroundings as by their choices.It’s dark, and it’s weighty.

However, the abuse in the arc is used a mechanic, and is glossed over once its primary use is over with. No abuse in this vein crops up after this arc.

The point of it’s presence is to raise the stakes, to showcase “this is fucked up” and then move on when the lesson is learned. We only get 2 peaks that Mob even remembers it. Once is with Mob acting quite fearful when Mogami shows up again, and the other when Mob goes to help a cat off a pole.

Still, the fact remains that it’s never mentioned for the rest of mp100. 

And thusly, Mob is presented with no means to process or deal with the trauma other than to, presumably, remain quiet about it. Or otherwise, for the reader to assume that the experience was relegated to subconsciousness. After all, we’re told expressly with Minori that the memory begins to fade as early as a day after. 

This stance can be detrimental to those who experience abuse, as it can imply that no help exists for the survivor to seek. That it’s better to simply forget about it, and move on without guidance.

Which, y’know, could work fine if it was ONE’s intention to showcase that some people don’t deal with trauma outright, keeping it hidden.

But there is a difference between “purposefully writing someone to seem unaffected when they really are” and “purposefully writing a macguffin to clear the way of an old arc to make room for a new one" 

I love ONE’s writing, I do, but it seems very clear to me that he was giving himself an out for having to write long reaching consequences of such a brutal arc going forward. Folks can get from the arc what they want, and that’s hella valid. I mean, shit, my trauma was never front and center either when I was Mob’s age. 

However, there’s a clear delineation between coincidence and intentionality. 

By having the abuse all happen in a dreamlike world, he gives himself an out. The characters are more or less able to skirt around the issue, or otherwise forget about it.ONE thereby dodges having to write further complications to the story he wants to tell.

Enter A Breach of Trust.

In Abot, the aftermath of being abused is a part of Mob’s day to day life, like actual trauma do. And here, the process of dealing and coping with said abuse is the main function of it’s appearance in the fanfic.

The four years Mob spends on his own are broadly covered in a punchy ~1k words at the beginning of chapter 4 (the fic is 133k words long, for comparison). They are to let you know the nature of Mob’s problems, without lingering unnecessarily on them, exploiting them, or making them voyeuristic. And in fact, Mob gets out of the Mogami house in chapter 8 (again, in a fic 24 chaps long).

The rest of the chapters where Mob makes an appearance are about addressing what he went through, and trying to help him. 

As opposed to mp100 canon, we learn a lot of information as to the nature of what mob experienced through Reigen. He often has sad or horrified responses, as one could expect to have in his shoes. But his response is not the end note of the scenes which feature them. Instead, it’s the actions he and Mob take, in equal turns, to bring about change which gets the end note.

I’ll use the milk scene in chapter 11 as an example.

Reigen learns a piece of information about Mob’s life, namely that he was denied milk:

“You have milk?”

“Uh…yeah. Not even expired. I bought it like two days ago.”

“But Shishou said…” Mob swallowed the words. His breathing picked up, eyes flickering across the single carton of milk in Reigen’s fridge. Slowly, his voice almost choked, Mob answered, “Yes, yes please…”

Reigen’s response:

He couldn’t fathom what sort of world the kid had just escaped, but he knew now he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to make Mob relive it, not if it was something so horrific that a single glass of warm milk could move him to tears.

The end note of the scene (literally the last line):

“Here,” Reigen said, sliding his mug across the oaken table. “Have mine too…”

Abot, unlike a good chunk of media, seeks not to use traumatic experiences as a throwaway mechanic for a separate, main focus. Or as a stand in for faux character depth or grittiness. I’m lookin at you Kaneki Ken.  Or worse, as an inevitable reality. No.

The actual maturity of abot!Mob’s abuse, which I’ve been hootin about with the title card, comes from its application to Mob.

It will not be brushed off as a bad dream. It will not be relegated to subconscious, or forgotten. It is not a ‘shortcut to coolness’, or a ‘dark history’ to earn abot!mob some tragic backstory cred. Nor will it be “solved” with a single long talk, or hug, or even to just put Mob back in his house.

Abot seeks to offer a more layered, real world approach to it. That trauma, fictional or not, does not make you cooler. That it takes several, seemingly small steps to start on the path of recovery. And that there is no reaching your “before” status, but just changing the shape of your “after”.

For that matter! Mob also has agency of his own. It is not Reigen that springs Mob from the Mogami house, but rather Mob himself, taking matters into his own hands. 

There was no plan to it. Mob moved. He raced to the door and the inky world beyond. His feet collided with cold stone. Stone became grass, which sheared away before each footfall, leaving wet pulp and mud beneath his beating steps. The vastness of the open sky and the world stretching off in all directions, even after four years, could not overwhelm him more than the image of his dead Shishou scorched behind his eyelids.

Mob will fight on matters he considers important, calling the cops, for example.

Mob’s jaw moved, his wide eyes steeled over, harder now, resolve tight in his face. He looked up to Reigen. “I…wouldn’t like that, Mr. Reigen.”

He’ll voice his own opinion, draw his own conclusions, set his own goals.

His hands twisted in his lap, eyes dropping to them for a moment before they flickered up with new, burning resolve. “…If you could teach me…”

“Teach you?”

Mob nodded vigorously. “How you’re getting rid of it.”

And Mob is not relegated to cowering at all times either.  He’ll enjoy things he likes, build himself up, amongst other things.

The rain drenched him. Through the blues and pinks, water could pass. Water wasn’t living, so it wasn’t stopped, it wasn’t shredded. But it felt alive enough to Mob. It felt like something that wanted to reach him, and could.

Mob shut his eyes and smiled. Even if he couldn’t suppress the barrier now, that wasn’t reason enough to give up, not this time around. This time was different.

Rest assured that this journey is as much an active choice on Mob’s part, as it is Reigen’s. Reigen is simply a guide for Mob. And he’s meandering through his guidance half the time, which brings me to part deux.

Part 2. Lack of a perfect savior

I will be the first to admit that Reigen is hilariously flawed. Abot!Reigen likewise. And yes! This is another reason why I like Abot ^^

Preface in place before I talk about this, I am. a tough ass customer. We just had a whole previous section of analysis to illustrate that (which confession time, i cut that down by half), but to go more in depth - It is extremely easy to take me out of a story. And this is because, ironically, I love storytelling.

For better or worse, when I’m consuming media, I cannot turn off the storytelling part of my brain. Ergo, if I see something that can be improved, I’m launched back into a 4th person perspective, no longer engaging directly with the content. Sometimes it’s minor enough where I don’t mind any. But unfortunately, more often than not, it’s enough to get me to drop things when too many instances pile up. 

And as one of those Hoity Toity Connoisseurs of the hurt/comfort genre, the human version of the Messianic Archetype™ is both a common occurrence, and a surefire way to get me to drop your story upon first sight.

I cannot engage with media that have regular ass people know exactly how to react, what to say, what to read into, on the first try, when the nature of human existence so chaotic and varied.

Maybe that kid is hiding under the table because you’re wearing fuchsia, maybe it’s because your voice sounds like someone they had a nightmare about, maybe its because the lights hurt their eyes, maybe it’s because they feel safer in cramped spaces, maybe they’re eating ants. You don’t know. They don’t know. Getting things wrong is as much a part of the process as getting things right.

SO!!! ONCE MORE WITH FEELING!!! ABOT!!!

Phantomrose makes it clear, as early as Reigen & Mob’s first meeting, that we’re dealing with a regular ass human fuckup, even in the midst of the rose filter from Mob’s POV.

In the scene, Reigen is presented as being undoubtedly ignorant as to the true nature of what the hell is going on. He, mistakenly, does not believe that the barrier is real. All he knows that is Mob has come from some Yikes and needs help. Oh, and in Reigen’s limited knowledge, he thinks there’s a confirmed Dead Man off somewhere too.

And yet, despite the pressing circumstances, or y’know, having a presumed corpse he should probably mention to somebody, Reigen does not call the cops.

“Okay. Okay… Do you—just—do you want to come to my house? Just for tonight. It’s…late. Don’t feel like dealing with any more police officers tonight anyway. Maybe we just…go sleep. Get you some clothes or, a shower probably. It’s…I’m tired. You’ve got to be tired too.”

We get an explanation for this later on, in chapter 14…

What if he ran off again, back to his dead Shishou’s basement…?

…but. Were the audience not clued into Mob’s circumstances, one would argue that though well intentioned, Reigen’s messing up. And despite the many things Reigen does to help Mob (which he does, he really does) this motif continues throughout the fic.

With Reigen sometimes saying insensitive things to Mob.

“No, I’m…” Mob paused. He hiccupped, voice still hitching, body still trembling. “I’m sorry Shishou is dead. I did something to make him kill himself. I know it.”

“Good, Mob. Good…”

Mob stared up, jaw slack, baffled.

With Reigen often acting as much as his own interest as in Mob’s.

“Toast, Mob, it’s going to be toast. And eggs. And yes. This is breakfast for both of us, and you’re going to help.” Reigen looked the boy over, and the feeling in his chest was almost manic. He was looking at something maybe he could fix.

Where Reigen will make logical assumptions, but false ones nonetheless.

“I’m going to grab just a handful of things from those aisles, okay? Not going far. I just want you to stay here, with the paper, and pick up our order when it’s ready. Okay? It’s another exercise. I’m still here. I’m still suppressing the barrier. I just think you’re strong enough to stand here for a moment by yourself. Can you do that?”

–carved things up, sliced them, killed them…

Mob’s mind filled with static.

He nodded. It was the only thing he could think to do.

Reigen smiled, and stood up from his crouched position. He turned on his heel, toward the left side of the store. He rounded the edge of the counter, and suddenly he was gone.

And yes ! As a survivor, this shit is important to me. 

These scenes showcase that comfort does not have to be found gift wrapped, pure and untainted, and delivered by an angel spluttering down from the shiniest parts of heaven. No. It can be found in people who are flawed and sometimes selfish and who are just trying. It can be found in folks like abot!Reigen.

In folks who weren’t predestined by some holy undertaking, but rather who are just making the best of the circumstances they find themselves thrust into.

SPEAKING OF WHICH,

Part 3. Plotting cause + effect 

I’ll be honest and say this is something I learned very recently from Phanrose. 

From my creative perspective, as long as an action is in character for someone, I can find a way to make it happen. A good showcase for this is, ironically enough, Attic Au, and it’s many incarnations. I can adapt to circumstances to cause what I want to happen. 

This is, again, a tie-in to the way I rationalize the chaotic nature of human existence. Sometimes shit can just do, and as long as you pull hard enough emotionally, you can get people on board. So I spend a lot of time on the “why”, with my “hows” remaining fairly lose and interchangeable.

Abot takes this in the opposite direction. She says ‘okay but what if I use the chaotic nature of human existence to cause everything to bump into eachother’.

And honestly I’m kinda tripping over it ?? Like it’s extremely fun ? Connecting all these dots? And it doesn’t feel convenient either. It feels like a logical progression.

To use early examples, as I have been for the most part:

Jun hires Reigen to investigate her husband Tetsuo disappearing at weird hours.

“That’s really all I want from this.” She looked up now, palms in her lap, eyes set to Reigen. “I want you to just figure out what’s going on because I can’t.”

Reigen then discovers that Tetsuo is being possessed.

A thousand memories assaulted him at once, tainted with the raw smell of incense, the grittiness of salt between his fingers and under his nails, dimmed lights and candles and incantations and that dread in the air, like pressure, that he felt whenever a Spirits and Such case turned out to be real.

Reigen decides to confront Mogami 2 different times. The first time he learns his identity, and the second time Reigen gets too close to hitting on Mob’s presence for Mogami’s comfort.

“Why did you buy cough syrup today?” Reigen blurted out. “You miss that taste too? Tetsuo doesn’t have a cold. It’s not for him. You got other puppets I don’t know about?!”

Mogami threatens to kill Tetsuo and take Reigen, so Reigen makes a bargain (with newly cut up hand to make his 1 sigil out of 1000 work).

Reigen thrust his hands down and out, body displayed unprotected. Sweat slid down his face, soaked through his suit, mixed with the blood in his palm. “Come possess me! Space for rent right here, y-yeah? Yeah! Not gonna resist. Not gonna fight. All I’m gonna do is slam you with these tags if you get too close!” 

The tag works, banishing Mogami. Mob notices the lack of Mogami’s presence, and goes looking for him.

Even when Mogami left the house, his aura only ever grew fainter, steadily diffused as Mogami established distance between himself and the house. It was an easy blip to detect at all times. It was a constant thrumming presence in Mob’s life for the last four years.

And it had vanished in an explosion that left Mob’s psychic core ringing.

“…Shishou?” Mob called through the door.

Upon finding Mogami’s corpse in the attic, Mob makes for the streets, thinking Mogami has freshly killed himself and that he can no longer stay there.

Mob shot down the hall, took the stairs two at a time with his hand skimming the banister. His mind wasn’t clearing. His thoughts weren’t forming. The reality of what he’d seen beat in heavier against him with each passing second. Mob let out another keening crying, finding no response in the black house.

Another brush of wind, Mob turned toward the foyer. He’d been right—the front door had been left open.

This makes for a wonderful storytelling device. Firstly, it makes the audience both wary and excited for the consequences of any actions in the future. If any action can seemingly build off one another, what’s to say a throwaway moment wont come back to haunt us? 

Plus! Aside from making scenes engaging, it also subverts some tropes while it’s at it.

Reigen, despite literally being a PI, does not find Mob on a missing person’s case. And does not discover Mob either of the times he followed Tetsuo into the Mogami house. Instead he only finds Mob by the boy crashing into him. Which only happens again because of a set up in chapter 3.

This carries on and spills over into Ritsu’s plotline too! Which nbnmbxn, I haven’t touched on as much in order to leave a good chunk of story there to peruse as you will.

I’ve learned a lot just from watching pr96 chisel out a story. And you wanna know what else I’ve learned?

Part 4. Scene setting 

OKAY I FESS UP THIS IS JUST ME HAVING A THING FOR SETTINGS BEING INCORPORATED INTO THE ATMOSPHERE OF THE SCENE OKAY, OKAY.

With that out of the way, she’s damn good at it yall.

Phantomrose96 likes to employ what I call mood scenery. Where the physical objects present in a setting take a backseat to how the characters feel about it, and therefore flesh it out all the better.

Compare how Reigen sees his apartment:

Reigen cringed a bit as he looked about, taking in, remembering the mess decorating the living room. The ashtray on the table overflowed with cigarette butts, staining the wood around it with sooty acrid residue. Three empty plates were pushed to the table’s edge, scraped of food and left to stagnate for…how many days, Reigen wasn’t sure. Empty beer cans gathered in a herd near them, a few on the floor, leaving sticky coagulated rings around their rim and smelling of staleness, of stagnant fermentation.

With how Mob sees it:

Mob’s apprehension eased off. The look was replaced entirely with something like confusion. He pulled out of his blanket cocoon, let his eyes rove over the apartment in full inspection. The confusion never left his face.

“It’s so much cleaner than Shishou’s house.”

Scenes like this are peppered and expertly handled throughout the entirety of abot. 

As a comic illustrator, I often struggle with coming up with backgrounds that tell you a bit about the circumstances of the people who live there, and about the mood of someone viewing it. But Phananarosa does it.

And, like. every setting is like this. Instead of getting fatigue at scene changes, I eagerly dive in because what’s not to love !!! It captures just enough details that it can be fleshed out, without boring the audience with a surplus of inconsequential details.

Teruki walked past the rows of lockers. Further back were bathroom stalls. Three sinks lined up beneath a wall-length mirror. This area existed as its own pocket, seemingly separate from the rest of the lockers, and the light only scarcely touched it. The shadows grew heavy along a gradient, the farthest sink half shrouded in darkness. Even farther back, crowned by a single burnt-out hanging light, was a row of four showerheads, no curtains separating one from the next.

It is no coincidence that some of the backgrounds I consider to be some of my better ones, are ones I made for abot.

It’s very apparent that Phanro9 knows what she’s doing with the words she chooses to dress these with. And, you guessed it, TIME TO SEGUE INTO

Part 5. Incredible writing all around

Okay now I can just gush about some the extra little details that GhostFlower96 uses that just make her tale that much more fun to read.

Amazing dialogue. Especially in Reigen’s case.

“Gottaswirl the eggs to seal in the moisture. Gotta just…put extra butteron the toast, I guess, so you don’t taste the black part cuz that’sprobably bitter, so you—never mind I’ll make different toast thatisn’t burned, gimme your plate.”

You ever tire of reading fics where the characters sound the same ? Spectreblossom has got you covered!

He thrust a hand out, palm open to Ritsu. “My name is Teruki Hanazawa. I’m the esper who’s better than you.”

Ritsu stared at the offered hand. He fought the instinct to step back. “The spirits didn’t say anyone owned them.” He paused, and weighed his options. “And who says you’re stronger than I am?”

Say you wanna feel ur heartstrings tugged because god oh god he’s a mess but he’s still good for something. we got a fresh supply

Beside them, the rice pot boiled over, glutinous water dripping down the black pot’s side and charring against the newly cleaned grating. The sauce bowl sat stagnant and undissolved, a colloid of new and stale ingredients perhaps unsalvageable for the recipe. Broken spoons, filthy sponges, open containers of starch and sugar and soy sauce littered the counter tops, the smell of something burning lingering overtop.

And at the center of the mess, Mob sliced the knife clean through the red bell pepper.

You wanna be haunted by singular closing lines? Already on it.

Thebarrier swept back around Mob, like the curtain drawn at the close ofa play.

Kids ? Being written like kids ? In phantomroseyboboeybananafanafofoseyfiphimomoseyphantomrosey’s fanfic? It’s more likely than you think! 

“After this, can we go back to the park?” Mob asked. He wobbled, tilting his head over his shoulder to ask Mogami directly.

“We go to the park every day.” Mogami answered. He walked the sidewalk, thin silver hair catching sunlight and twists of icy wind. The hollow pockets beneath his eyes were deep, but not unkind, intently watchful of Mob who dipped and wavered with each balance-beam step.

“Yeah, because I like it.”

You want some de-glorification of teenage violence? Boy have I just the thing.

He felt 9 again, scared, weak, unsafe, and he cried quietly while he watched the consciousness leave Teruki’s body.

Limp and loose, Teruki’s hands dropped from the tie around his neck.

You like metaflours and symbopolism ? WE GOT THAT TOO

Reigen looked over his shoulder. Mob shut the door behind them, turning to investigate the apartment with wide captive eyes. “…It’s warm,” he muttered, and stepped in line behind Reigen.

You wanna feel like you got punched in your chest ? Even on things you knew already ? Even things you had every tool in your belt to see coming?

Reigen stopped. He lost track of his own words as his focus fell entirely on the sight in front of him. The kid was standing halfway between the bathroom and the living room, his hair still a bit wet, and his borrowed clothes soft and loose. He stood a head shorter than Reigen, and his wide eyes stared back, lost, waiting for instruction. Waiting as though he needed permission to even get his sheets and go to bed.God, it really was just a kid…

fuck ing , d we . g o t       tHat    t o o         goddammit

If you wanna read, you can start here ! Or here, on tumblr.