#idk my metaphor has gotten away from me

[existennialmemes]

We are definitely going down, down, but Sugar, it doesn't feel like we're getting any swings in

[bunnihearted]

being too weird and unlikable and off putting and always being shunned and turned into an outcast everywhere i go and not having felt the connection and healing friendship has on you for so many years has really done a number on me

[vasquez-rocks]

i know most ppl haven’t seen it yet but wanted to write something abt how annoyed some of the critical discourse abt I Saw the TV Glow is making me. MAJOR SPOILERS below the break, be warned!!

so idk i’ve seen so many reviews of the film positing that it’s about the dangers of obsessive fandom and overidentification with fictional characters, esp vis a vis real life self-actualization/coming out. (like, essentially every review has some of this in it, from what i’ve seen.) and, like: i don’t think that’s wrong, but i also think it’s massively underselling what schoenbrun is doing here. the metaphor of the show’s bleed-over is so smart because works in both directions at once.

like, in one direction: when maddy asks owen to come into the show by burying himself alive, you can read it as her asking him to abandon his real-life responsibilities, and the material facts of his real life body, in favor of a fantasy life where everything is already fixed. she’s inviting him to skip over the hard, messy work of transitioning and to sink even deeper into the analgesic obsessions he uses to numb his dysphoria. in this interpretation, it’s, like, the equivalent of overprioritizing “transition goals” instead of actually medically/legally/socially transitioning if that’s what you want, living forever in the ideal instead of taking difficult steps to change the material. (also, uh, if you don’t think she’s literally correct about the nature of reality, she is in fact asking him to kill himself. there’s that.)

BUT! it also works the other way. when maddy tells owen that the show is real, that their lives are just the buried dreams of dying girls in another life, she terrifies him by confronting him with something he’s always known about himself: he was supposed to be a girl. what she proposes is radical, dangerous, seemingly unhinged, and based on a childish fixation: all the things scared closeted trans people worry transition is, basically. on a more figurative level, too, the feeling she’s telling owen is real – that his real life is just a dream within a dream, that his home is not his home, that he belongs somewhere else, that he is supposed to be SOMEONE else – is something so, so, so many closeted trans people have felt before, myself so much included. when he sobs in the shower, yelling “this isn’t my home!” at his dad, i felt a sense of identification stronger than i’ve almost ever gotten from art before. when maddy finally calls him isabel, it’s the gentlest thing i can imagine.

in this read – which i do love, while thinking the other one is simultaneously true – it’s less “come sink deeper into delusion with me instead of dealing with your own life” and more “it’s going to be terrifying, but that childish dream of being a girl you once held wasn’t childish, and it can be real if you’re courageous enough.” he says he runs away from the football field because he thinks maddy’s not mentally well; it takes very little analysis of subtext to figure out he’s running away because he’s afraid of how much he wants what she’s offering. and, of course, the idea of the visible world being an illusion laid atop the world in which one is one’s truest self is a classic trope of trans cinema going all the way back to the matrix. (also: while i’m pretty death-of-the-author-pilled in most media analysis, it kinda seems like schoenbrun themself has interpreted the film in this way, as they’ve spoken at length in interviews about how, to them, transition felt like asking to be buried alive.)

all of which is to say: i think the film IS commenting on fandom, obsession, overidentification, and the ease with which queer people can sink into art as a way to dissociate from real life. but i think it makes the film so much more cynical and so much less tender to treat it as the ONLY read of the film’s relationship with the pink opaque. art, especially the sort of slow, metaphor-laden art schoenbrun makes, is best when it is complex and productively contradictory. the pink opaque is a problem, and an escape, and a fantasy, and it’s real, and one day isabel is going to wake up.

[sceletaflores]

•｡ꪆৎ ˚⋅ wip wednesday!

thanks for the tag angel baby @guiltyasdave <3 • 18+ under the cut! MDNI!

wip #1 • far too familiar a stranger…feat. logan howlett (& crimson!)

a long time ago, logan howlett knew a woman with your face…

i couldn’t not write a ‘worst!logan coming face to face with his tragically dead love interest but from wade’s universe after wade forced her to help them stop the TVA and hating her for bringing up that time in his life until he doesn’t anymore’ fic.

it's crimson because i felt that making whole new mutant reader would be sort of confusing so this fic is in the to the bone universe but it's not the same timeline...if that makes sense lmao

Wade Wilson is the worst neighbor in the entire fucking world. It’s really something you should have known sooner, like ‘the very first day in your new place ending with him breaking in through your window fully suited up after counting the floors wrong and bleeding all over your brand new pottery barn throw rug because he was still a little too concussed to walk’ sooner. Even after that whole fiasco left you with a broken window latch and a beyond fucked non-refundable $80 carpet, you still let yourself entertain his crazy. Just like everyone else whose life Wade crashed into, both physically or metaphorically. And once he's in, you can never really get him back out again. So yeah, maybe this whole thing is your fault. Maybe getting thrown into a barren, dusty void with two somewhat failed X-Men is just all your bad karma manifesting in one huge finger from the universe.

wip #2 • red and yellow kill a fellow! feat. logan howlett & wade wilson

logan doesn’t appreciate you letting wade get one up on him…

finally finally finally getting off my ass and writing logan x reader x wade! i was inspired by this one episode of satc (which is like my favorite show ever bee tee dubs) where charlotte goes out with two guys at the same time and she has sex with one but not the other until one of them catches her with the other guy and they all break it off.

my vision is a little different cause instead of getting mad and leaving when logan finds out reader fucked wade and not him, he figures it's his turn to get even. aka wade in the cuck chair and loving it.

The three of you pass a BMW sitting in a no parking zone, all four windows rolled down as Madonna blasts through the speakers. "So," Wade says, voice breaking the silence for the first time in five minutes. "Who white-washed your guts better?" You nearly trip over your own feet, whipping your head to gape at Wade. "Fucking excuse me?" "You know," Wade shrugs, like it's a perfectly normal thing to ask. The leisurely pace of his stroll not slowing, his hands still stuffed in the pockets of his jeans. "Who carved the lyrical railway better?" He just keeps going as you stare at him with a repulsed look on your face. "The number one stud that's stuffin' your muffin? That's takin the ol' bald-headed gnome for a satisfying stroll in the misty forest. Pick one hot stuff, they all mean the same thing." Before you can even answer there's a rough, questioning grunt from your right and your stomach flips. Oh. Logan, he was still here too. Still here and right next to you, listening. Oh yeah. "You fucked?" You still haven't slept with Logan yet. You turn to him face slowly, eyes a hair wide as you take in the sharp raise of his brow. "Um..." "Whoops," Wade snorts from somewhere behind your shoulder. "Cat's out the bag."

wip #3 • it's the easiest thing (just love me and eat me) feat. logan howlett

it’s not often that logan needs this, but you’re always more than happy to give it to him when he does…

the same requested sub!logan fic from last wednesday just with a new name and weirder energy! like this has really gotten away from me and turned into something that i can't really explain well enough to make it sound like chill...

lots of religious imagery and symbolism...and some metaphors of cannibalism...idk i'm just a girl with religious trauma and a weird blood fetish sue me.

You've come to think that being in bed with Logan is like being in church. The familiar weight of his body pressing you into the mattress is the alter. The heat of it like laying in the burning flame of a candle. The strong planes of his muscles each a different scripture that you take in by touch alone, skating your hands over his skin with something close to worship. Each bead of sweat on his skin feels sacred, a testament to the intensity between you, as though every part of him has been crafted for this moment of devotion. The hard length of his cock carves a place for itself inside you, each heavy smack of his hips punching another desperate sound out of your slack lips. His breath, deep and ragged, is a chant that pulls you into reverence. It puffs against the wild beat of your pulse, his lips brushing over the fever hot plane of your skin. The sound of your name pulled from his mouth sounds like a prayer answered. You can’t help but close your eyes, not in exhaustion, but in a kind of spiritual surrender, like by shutting out the world, you can truly grasp the divinity of it. There's a holiness to the way he holds you—like you’re the only thing worth believing in.

kisses!

no pressure tags! @ebodebo @artemis-b-writes @avocado-writing @superhoeva

[cintax3rror]

Good Morning Tumblr

I haven't done an analysis post in a little bit but I have gotten into Mystic Messenger again recently, now that I finally have enough to do 707's route, I'm late, I know...

This analysis may have already been realized by people years ago BUT I DONT CARE I LOVE SEVEN AND WOULD LIKE TO SHARE MY THOUGHTS WITH THE CLASS ok ty and ofc

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SPOILERS BELOW FOR 707'S ROUTE IF YOU'RE LATE LIKE ME >_0

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So this is about 707's robot dog that spits fire,

This dog was made by Seven because he simply couldn't focus, this dog is brought up again in the chat below.

Seven has feelings for MC by this point, he built this robot to distract himself from these feelings, love had been foreign to him up until this point. He doesn't like it and wants to push it away. That being said however, he only doesn't like it because he CAN'T be in love. While he would LIKE to have a life where he could be in love... he can't because of his job as a hacker who deals with a lot of dangerous situations, if he fell in love it wouldn't just be him that's in jeopardy, his love would be too. Furthermore, now that he's in love with MC, he's refusing it to not have her in harm's way. Even though he refuses to talk about his feelings, straight up denying it, he still doesn't hide his feelings totally. When I say that it's pretty obvious like duh Cintax there's context clues everywhere that he likes MC I get that but what I mean is I think he QUITE LITERALLY built his feelings. Remember that robot dog? It's a cute little thing but it's angry and spitting out fire. I may be heavily reaching here from this point on but stick with me, this dog, I think, is a manifestation of Seven right now. More specifically, his feelings. The dog is supposed to be a representation of how his feelings have made him the complete opposite of how he normally acts. Seven likes cats, no, that's an understatement, he LOVES cats. But the choice to make him build a dog instead speaks more volume to me... why would a cat obsessed person... build a dog instead? I know he doesn't HATE dogs (I think) but it's still a weird choice, why would the devs make him build a dog instead of a cat? If he wants to distract himself wouldn't he want to do that by building something he LOVES? Dogs have been seen as the complete opposite of cats for years before this one, as this is apparent, Seven is acting the complete opposite of himself BECAUSE of his feelings for MC. This dog is him, the complete opposite of himself who is a cat lover, he's completely lost because of his feelings and he hates it. The dog is spitting out fire, looking furious, he hates the fact he's in love and is in such a state of confusion and denial. He's so confused why he keeps worrying about her, why he keeps thinking about her, why he wants to hear her voice.

This kind of concept, he wants to enjoy it so much but because of his job he feels he can't indulge. Cutting back to the chatroom, Yoosung says, "Don't throw away the robot..." the reason as to why Yoosung cares about the dog so much is a bit blurry but I can read this as Yoosung saying "Don't throw away your feelings..." if we lean more into the assumption that this dog is a manifestation of Seven's feelings. This puts a whole new perspective. Yoosung doesn't want Seven to turn or toss away his feelings, he wants the opposite. Previously, I don't have screenshots for this one but when this dog is first brought up, some group members talk about how Seven should give MC the dog. And going with the metaphor I'm running with, this could be seen as a metaphor of Seven giving all his feelings to MC, messy part and all, it also shows the fire with how dangerous he is, part of his true self, almost nothing like how he was before due to his hatred towards his own heart.

Don't throw away your feelings Seven, though it feels like you have to.

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Idk if this is gonna be brought up later I JUST got done with day 8 as I finish writing this... help me. Who knew you needed a heart made out of netherite to survive this damn route I'M IN SHAMBLES OVER HERE. I KNEW THERE WAS MORE TO HIM BUT ???????????

Anyway, if you really read allat,, thank you, you're cool >_0

To patch the hole, here's some silly cats and until next time >_0!!

[dhs-in-distress]

Well now I'm curious 👀

God, I wish I could project my brain waves onto this screen cause words do not do the absolute insanity that is Scatters’ choices justice.

Like, it‘s complicated. He has issues and traumas that caused a lot of his personality quirks and in the end it‘s possible for him to learn, become a better person and ultimately be the truest and best version of himself. That‘s later down the line though, a large portion of his character journey is just,, pain and suffering, often self inflicted as well. Like that one guy said: „It‘s like a car crash in slow motion, terrible and painful to watch, but you just can‘t look away.“

To name a few things Scatters actively does to self sabotage:

- hurting others on purpose, sometimes physically but mostly just by being terrible to them. This is solely so he doesn‘t have the opportunity to form meaningful connections (one of if not the only exception to this is Cliffjumper, who also does this exact same thing (only on his off time ofc, mostly…), which made the two kind of gravitate towards one another because they remind each other of themselves. They only call each other „acquaintances“ but do care deeply about one another. Which leads me right into my next point!)

- delusion. Telling himself that everyone (even the people who despite everything still believe he can change for the better) hates him and that he hates them even more and that he shouldn‘t form bonds with others anymore. That it‘s better for everyone involved that way. That he doesn‘t have to hurt them and push them away if he just never gets involved. That he should di- ANYWAY.

- running away. Yes I mean that literally. I‘ve managed to accidentally make Scatters physically running away from people and problems alike a,, thing he does regularly. If you can‘t keep them away metaphorically you gotta improvise I guess!

- betrayal. In the non-lethal way, not the Scar and Mufasa kinda way. Though if it had gotten too bad too quickly in the beginning he might‘ve… . Anyway, betrayal is similar to the first point, just even worse. If someone somehow manages to attach themselves emotionally to him, and he‘s failed in making himself believe that they hate him and that he hates them, only disappointing and betraying them will make them see that he‘s not worth having around. „It‘s for their own good“ he said angstily before disappearing into the shadows (probably to cry).

So yeah, in a way the consequences for his actions are the entire goal, doing terrible things so that others will see him as a bad person, treat him badly and ostracise him. But the real consequences are that he wasn‘t ready for team prime. Cause he betrays them, on purpose, three times. (Well it‘s 4 but I‘m not getting into that right now.) The first time everything goes according to plan, bad actions, getting hated. Somehow they (mostly) manage to forgive him, begrudgingly take him back in after he almost dies „because no one deserves to die, even if they‘re a bad person“ (or something like that). It severely throws Scatters off his game, cause that never really happened before and he doesn’t know how to feel now. The second time he lets it slip that „that was the whole point“ when they question him about his intentions and that he‘s (being) a terrible person. He‘s also a lot less enthusiastic about it and does something a lot less bad, which helps in getting OP suspicious and accepting him back him again. The third and final time Scatters finally breaks down about how everything was really just about getting them to finally hate him, so that he can let himself hate them again too. Because somewhere along the way he‘d grown fond of them and that‘s just not right. He can‘t explain why though, other than that he can‘t let anyone else do this to him, or let himself do something to them… that things such as these never well.

Then emotional honesty happens,, or something, idk I might need to stop now while I still can before I fall over into another rant about the team dynamics and the actual work Scatters needs to do and begrudgingly does to let himself like other people again and let himself be helped and MOVE ON FROM HIS 1 MILLION YEAR LONG DEAD BOYFRIEND FFS. THAT GUY CAUSED ALL OF THIS SHIT ANYWAY! Where was I,,, right I should probably stop and go to bed now. If some of this comes across weird or wrong or completely incomprehensible it‘s because I didn‘t prove read ANY of it. Wow now I‘m sabotaging myself, I‘m just like him fr! (/j)

Anyway, tldr: the consequences are everything that happens to him which is sometimes his goal but surprisingly even more shit happens to him that wasn’t on purpose which is absolutely terrible,, and therapy hopefully. Oh and prison too technically, they do lock him up each time cause he always steals something along the way, sometimes a little more than others (cough bank robbery). But yeah uuh the vulnerability problems are only one thing, there‘s also the stockades ptsd, which I already ranted about, the OTHER dead boyfriend trauma, which I could go so in depth about I might dig myself into an early grave and also the earth‘s core, and all of the war stuff.

God I should stop torturing my OCs at some point, I think they‘ve bad enough…

[tenpintsofsundrop]

Spencer Reid + Migraines

(Chronic pain as a metaphor for emotional baggage or emotional blocks in media)

TLDR; I hate it when media uses pain (especially irl chronic pain conditions) as a metaphor for emotional trauma and allows a character to be healed once they have gotten over their trauma.

So this is a rant I've had building up for a while now, especially because I've seen quite a few people on my dashboard talking about Maeve/the Maeve storyline, and how she was introduced to the show as Spencer's doctor who magically "cured" his headaches with vitamins? Apparently (I don't remember the details because I haven't seen those episodes in so long, but yikes).

I am a chronic pain sufferer and I have been formally diagnosed with chronic migraines. Because of a medication used to treat chronic migraines, I haven't had an attack in more than three years (save for one outlier).

Migraines are an intensely serious medical problem, and it's weird to me that Spencer was clearly having migraine attacks on the show and they didn't address it as it's own medical problem? They just acted like he was having some light headaches and needed to ignore it and get over the problem or "find the root cause" - aka stop being sad and then your brain will get better???

When I was originally watching the Season 6 episodes where Spencer starts struggling with his "headaches", I have never related to something more in my life. Especially because at that point in my life, I was still have 2 or 3 migraine attacks per month, and seeing him wearing sunglasses indoors, aggressively bouncing his leg to try and distract from the pain while sitting in a hospital waiting room, rubbing his eye sockets, flinching at the light - that was and sometimes still is my life.

When the doctors determined that he didn't have epilepsy, didn't have a tumor, etc. I was like "okay, so they're gonna treat him for migraines and acknowledge that migraines are a really detrimental chronic pain condition."

But no. They just have him the whole "idk. You're not dying so the pain must be cause you're like... sad."

And I totally understand Spencer not wanting to take medication because of his past with Dualdid, but there are so many non-narcotic options for pain treatment. Especially because his character is very into science, it would have been interesting to see him exploring alternative (very traditional) medicine like acupuncture or massage, while acknowledging his past drug addiction as a problem and saying that he doesn't want to relapse.

Hell, it would have even been nice for them to acknowledge that his caffeine addiction could have been affecting his headaches and for there to be a little subplot where he was super irritable because his doctor asked him to quit coffee to see if it made his headaches go away. (Because one of the first migraine treatments is quitting caffeine, chocolate, or alcohol - common trigger foods.)

But instead, the show presented his headaches as a physical presentation of his emotional pain. Which is something incredibly common for shows to do - the other example I can think of is Weeds. But in general I fucking hate the idea that chronic pain is just an embodiment of emotional trauma, and once you get over that emotional trauma, you are "cured". (Because it was narratively implied in the show that part of the reason Maeve was able to cure his headaches is because he was in love with her, not because of the weird pills she gave him.)

For once, I would like to see a show acknowledge chronic pain as a problem that is 100% out of the control of a person, and even though it's not life threatening, it still fucking sucks. And while it might be treatable, it is incurable. Like HELLO

Don't treat it like some emotional arc that the person has to get over and not a problem that people have to realistically battle for their whole lives. I HATE the metaphor that pain is just a manifestation of negative emotions and it will go away once you acknowledge your trauma or battle those negative emotions.

I so badly wanted them to acknowledge Spencer as a chronic migraine patient and treat him as such.

But anyway. That's it

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

hey, do you have any jikook fics to recommend? I loved your two last ones, i sent you an ask saying thank you for the recommendation but seems like it got lost in the lights lol. So yeah i loved those recommendations (i did already read one of it but re-read it on your recommendation) so if you have any more to recommend I'd love it. For preferences just kinda long or like 50k+ words with good writing. Sorry if it seems demanding idk how to work with this language 😅

Sorry anon, your message must have indeed gotten lost somewhere among the others. But to compensate for that and to not be rude, I'll offer you some quick recs now.

First one would be Agency. It's a/b/o and I know I said I'm not a fan of it, but somehow I gave this one a chance and I don't regret it. It was a critical take on the concept and the dynamics, challenging traditional notions of a/b/o and more so, the author used it as a criticism/mirror to the control the talent agencies and companies have over their trainees and signed artists. The a/b/o trope turned into a metaphor on how one had control over their body and how that body is used for various purposes by other people. I think it was a really interest way to make a critique on kpop as well and it made me think of the way we talk about idols as well, often times if not fully, on the line of objectification.

There's few people that I like the way they write Jungkook as a character because they stay away from ridiculous stereotypes and also give him so much depth. Rkiveink is one of them and I think Floodlight has been read by so many, but it's definitely high on my rec list.

God, are you there? I never thought I would power through a chaptered fic that had a serious taekook relationship and also some yoonmin, but damn, it was worth it. If you're willing to give this a chance, I don't think you would regret it. I did it because I've read other fics from the same author so I trusted the process. The summary doesn't tell you much, but jikook are really fun in this one and by the time in gets to the tension, and the flirting while knowing they shouldn't be doing it, you'll be on the edge of your seat. I actually read this while it was ongoing and I couldn't wait for the next chapter.

[moondal514]

Idk what dvawtk is but i haven’t even finished getting into link click cuz of you yet, you add new fandoms so fast i can’t keep up 😭 like don’t get me wrong i love that for you but i’m 6 flights of stairs lower on the fandom mountain bent over and out of breath still desperately trying to finish orv. I glance up to see you critically considering yet another new fandom blorbo. In the distance further up the mountain i can see hunxi-after-hours cackling maniacally as they start a 1 million word webnovel about an octopus plushie that’s actually some sort of touch-starved elder god? I let out a small sob and add two more things to my to-read list. This metaphor has gotten away from me but you get the point

omg anon you’re killing me 😂. it’s not a race i promise, there’s no need to try to keep up with me and my ever-growing collection of fandoms now that i’ve been freed of my single-minded aftg brainrot

and if i’m being honest i need to do a full orv reread cuz i actually read it in 2022 and then a couple months ago i got into the fandom and i don’t remember like 75% of the novel 😂

also extremely flattering flattering for you to mention me in the same breath as hunxi-after-hours who is an icon and a great influence on my own to-read and to-watch list

(btw dvawtk is short for ‘devil venerable also wants to know.’ it’s an entertaining relatively short webnovel that you can find the english translation for here. i started reading it cuz i saw a post on here calling yin hanjiang the most insane man in danmei, which i thought is a bold claim. it’s fun time very much of the svsss-vein as it’s all about attempting to deconstruct romance tropes and critiquing male power fantasy stories)

cheering you on anon! here’s to collecting blorbos to cope with the horrors 🥂

[iiusia]

2, 3, 4, 13, 21, 23, and 24! I WANNA KNOW ABOUT YOUR OLIVIAVERSE YES YES

2. Summarize this au in 5 sentences.

im always so bad at this kinda stuff but i will try my best

olivia saves herself and tries to slowly relearn how to live. eli's been saving himself every day for years. mariam tries to keep them (and herself) together. they love each other so much :(. it'll work out, eventually.

3. Did anything inspire this au?

lichrally any story ive read that has slice of life/bittersweetness TBH!! but for the latest thing id say the line tender by kate allen / après céleste by maude nepveu villeneuve (french book saurry)

4. What is a major change you made?

this story used to have magical realism with birds as a thouroughline but i ended cutting that part out i felt like it was Too Much for this story yk... but i do wanna end up writing magical realism sometime soon

(that's why there's a bird in the parking lot in that snippet i posted a while back!!)

13. Write a lil snippet set in this verse.

thought id give a little uni arc olivia + lauren (for the first time? i think?)

Lauren pulls the headphones away from her ear. "Anybody you want to talk to?" Olivia, who's sitting on the small couch bolted to the side of the ship, gives a dismissive wave. "No," she says, still typing away furiously at her laptop. Lauren frowns and lowers the headphones to her neck. "Are you sure? It's been two weeks. No one that needs to know that you're not dead?" Olivia's fingers still, and she shoots Lauren a quick smile, all teeth. It's somewhat tight at the edges. "Nope," she says, shutting her laptop screen and gingerly setting it aside. "It's fine. I'm going to go get some fresh air. All that screentime is starting to make my eyes hurt." She leaves before Lauren can get a word in edgewise.

21. What makes you most excited about this fic?

i just LOVE writing these guys. you dont understand they live in my head so much that putting them down into words is a relief. like i just think that a dynamic like theirs is so fun to write... its about the deep love its about the loyalty its about the care its about the you-might-mess-up-sometimes-but-i-will-love-you-anyways DO YOU UNDERSTANDDDDDD

23. Do you have other ideas for how to continue this au/other fics that could be written in the same universe?

honestly the way im writing this now its kind of just disconnected scenes for fun yk so i could write Literally Anything... BUT for the sake of answering this question i do want to write more scenes for what i call the uni arc (olivia moves away for uni and everything she's tried to ignore blows up in her face)

24. Ramble about something you haven't gotten to talk about yet.

okay. honestly. been trying to figure it out but i lowkey want to make this story christian in some way?? idk like theres christian poetry there's christian fiction (mostly fantasy) but i havent ever read a christian story with These Vibes you know. i want to write a good story that is also christian!! is that too much to ask!!! i have no idea how .... honestly everything i think of sounds cringe and corny but maybe thats the like. social conditioning talking. fantasy stories have it easy because they can have magic and stuff so its easy to integrate but for this story thats like. the POINT is that its realistic and down to earth and they're all just People trying to get by. i cant really make it an allegory or a metaphor yk? it has to be real .... but then if i say "olivia starts to believe in her uni arc and becomes a christian" that just sounds silly to me!! (or maybe. again. its just that the worlds pov is that christianity is corny and silly and it could actually be good but IDK!!!)

[stormratyaps]

BPD characters (hc)

I want to follow the anti psych tag so bad but it is FULL of triggering words :// anyways to distract myself here's a list of characters I hc with BPD.

TW: this post mentions symptoms of BPD including sewerslide ideation, substance abuse (nothing graphic)

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blitzø - helluva boss

okay I'll get to angel in a second but I feel like no one really talks about how BPD coded blitz is? He's actually quite relatable for me. He suffers from extreme self loathing, self destructive behaviour, unstable relationships, splitting, obsession with FPs (millie and moxie), impulsive spending, isolating himself, anger outbursts... and especially in apology tour (but also earlier episodes if you ever allow me to yap) we see how this pattern is something he isn't actively choosing and that he actually really wants to get away from. I know most of his character traits and behaviours are for the sake of comedy which is why making a deep character analysis is always a bit tricky in this case but I just think he is so bpd coded and I hope they give him a good healing/self discovery arc in the rest of the series.

angel dust - hazbin hotel

Okok let's talk about everyone's fave. Struggles with feeling of emptiness, low self esteem overcompensated by a sense a grandiosity, substance abuse issues, hypersexuality and not to mention increeeeedibly emotionally unstable (let's not forget how euphoria is also a common bpd experience, we not only see him miserable but I think accurate displays of euphoric episodes as well, as is the case for Blitz btw)

saira - we are ladyparts

I was struck by how bpd coded this character was to me - I believe I was just figuring out that I have bpd when I was watching this show, so that might have had sth to do with it. She has this episode where she splits really hard on her friends and consequently isolates herself and. yeah. It's been a while since I watched it so I can't really point out other details rn but I remember thinking this so I reccommend you go watch this show and see for yourself.

blackbeard - our flag means death

Oof ok. I know season 2 was a MESS. I did not like it. But. However. That being said. The BPD representation is real. Do I love that there were basically no retrubitions for how Ed (blackbeard) treated the others during his split/episode? No. I don't love to see that. I wish he'd gotten some kind of genuine redemption arc with introspection and feelings of guilt and putting in the work to be better and all that. But yea. Season 2 sucked ass. Anyway him splitting on Stede (his FP) is so real and the subsequent borderline episode that follows is. Yeah. He has all the textbook symptoms (not only in season 2!!) impulisivity, unstability, extreme moodswings, no sense of self, mirroring, FP attachment, substance abuse issues and self destructive behaviours, paranoia/flashbacks, sewerslidality...

carmy - the bear

me when???when he???this representation means so much to me actually personally. !!! The paranoia, the anger issues, the self distructive behaviour, the intensely low self esteem, the flashbacks (ptsd babey), the hallucinations - Idk if they're hallucinations or just some kind of metaphorical liberty from the showwriters but I choose to hc how I choose to hc !! he also just! splits all the time!! He needs therapy so bad omg . This show is basically an anxiety attack with a few pauses so you can enjoy looking at the food ig

merlin and morgana - merlin

I feel like this is my least well defendable hc. Like I just relate and think that they kinda have BPD. But also if you said bitch where I wouldn't really be able to tell you. So yea. I feel like Merlin developed it throughout the later seasons and Morgana shows symptoms from the beginning. Both are just extremely traumatised and definitely have PTSD. So there's that.

[mooseonabreak]

This is gonna be kinda long and it’s mostly me rambling/venting, so feel free to ignore it.

Brother asked me to help him find any of his surviving baby pictures (a lot of our baby pictures were destroyed in an accident; most of the remaining ones are of me) and we stumbled across one of my mother’s high school and college photo albums. It’s so strange flipping through stills of her girlhood and seeing faces of people I never got to know or people I barely know in their older years but were so important to my mom in her youth. Saw pictures of her friends, cousins, aunts and uncles– all people I don’t know but people she held so close to her. Saw pictures of her in her college years when she was still chasing after her dreams of becoming a fashion designer and participated in fashion shows. There wasn’t a trace of the wrinkles or grey hairs or disillusionment that come with growing older. She was just a girl.

We found notes from her teachers and friends that told fragments of a story we’ll never know. A hand written apology from someone named Barbara. A thank you note from someone named Christine. We found browning dress patterns tucked between the album pages and pictures that never got tucked inside the plastic sleeves for display. I found envelopes with images of my mother on her graduation day to celebrate her special day that were never sent out. There were so many.

I don’t know why I’m saying all this or even posting it, but seeing a different version of my mom from who I’ve gotten so used to seeing has me feeling nostalgic for someone I never knew. She’s always been My Mom to me. I never got to know her when she was just Her. Obviously not. And I won’t ever because my mere existence means she can’t go back to being just Her. My existence can’t be separated from my mother’s. I saw someone else looking through those pictures, and I guess I feel a little guilty about killing her (metaphorically), because as soon as I stepped into the scene– even if I was just a concept, a theory, I was just a clump of cells and not a person yet– things changed for her.

It’s like survivor’s guilt, I guess. That girl from those pictures and that past locked away by time died so I could live. I’ve heard bits and pieces of what she was like when she was younger, but I’ll never know the full story. She doesn’t talk about it. I wonder if my brother felt the same way flipping through the photo album. Maybe I’m just overthinking everything. Idk. I don’t think I’ll tell my mom what we found either. If I feel this way about it, I don’t know how she’ll react if I tell her.

[livvyofthelake]

i am currently experiencing the craziest high a human being can achieve just sitting on her couch i've just been taking deep breaths trying to chill out for ten minutes it's terrible anyway i need to Post about my friend alec. first of all he was there for me in eighth grade do not ever underestimate our bond i know i don't talk about him much these days and you might believe i don't really care about him but you have got to understand that my history with this fictional man runs deeper than any of yours and even when i had nothing i had alec. the bond a gay middle schooler who reads fantasy has with alec lightwood is completely indescribable unless you also experienced it but like. liken it to whatever you guys have with the angel from supernatural maybe idk. anyway the thing that has always gotten me about alec and magnus is that alec is a shadowhunter yes, but more than that he hates the government always. (i have problems with the show for reasons related to this but i am not talking about freeforms shadowhunters rn she is not my friend ok she is like my occassional late night hookup who hates me but the pussy is insane. sorry for that metaphor) anyway the way that at every turn magnus expects alec to be a Shadowhunter with that shadowhunter sense of duty and loyalty to their government and their way of doing things and their penchant for hero complexes, and at every turn alec is something different. because alec is someone who has experienced so many of the injustices of shadowhunter government and tradition, his parents were in a hate cult that they were manipulated into joining because of the ineffectiveness of their government and their desire to make the world a more just place, and they got out and were punished for it, and by extentsion their whole family was punished for it. because their governemt wants to show that it's all powerful and no one can go against it without facing life altering consequences. alec's best friend was raised by a man who taught him that being a shadowhunter was about hatred for demons, when really it's about love for humanity. alec is surrounded by people who have suffered at the hands of tradition, and he consistently turns away from it and doesn't let it break him or the peeple he loves. being a shadowhunter means having a duty to their cause, but to alec being a shadowhunter is about having a duty to the people he loves. in city of heavenly fire magnus is talking to luke and he says "sometimes it comes down to a choice between saving one person and saving the whole world, and i'm selfish enough to want the person who loves me to choose me. but nephilim will always choose the world" and later in the book when magnus belives he needs to sacrifice himself to save everyone he tells alec not to stay with him, and to go back to the world, and alec says "i don't want the world, i want you" and it makes me crazy and i think about it like once a week every week my whole life. he doesn't want the world! because the world without love is meaningless!! alec is a shadowhunter and he will always be a shadowhunter and a hero but there's no point to being a hero if there's no love... he doesn't care about duty half as much as he cares about love. and that is always what sets alec apart as a shadowhunter and as a leader, in queen of air and darkness (helena this is maybe a spoiler but don't worry about it it's not going to ruin your experience with tda if you know this) he gets voted as the new consul to represent the half of the clave that isn't part of horace dearborn's new hate group (shadowhunters always have hate cults it's like their thing it's like how americans have white supremacists. actually horace and zara dearborn are literally an allegory for trump, remember tda is a book series born out of the trump era, qoaad came out in 2018)

and the crucial thing about alec agreeing to be the consul was that he was NOT going to be a traditional consul. he was never going to do the ceremony and tradition bullshit their society likes to demand from it's government officials, alec saw his father get caught up in shadowhunter government and he watched him die for it and he would never involve himself in those traditions. he hates the inhumanity of shadowhunter tradition, that is literally the entire point of tmi and clary, the entire plot of those 6 books is that a group of young peple who fucking hate the government are instrumental to saving the world because their ideology directly contradicts the emotionless traditions of their leaders. alec is a leader because he is a revolutionary, not because he is traditional. that's what's so cool about it, he didn't just become the consul. he became the consul of a divided society and he is on the side of everything that is good and right and equal, while the other side wants to hide in tradition and rot away. that is the whole point!!! love is the point!!! being a shadowhunter is about love! they were never meant to be perfect stoic warriors, they were created out of love for humanity, they exist to protect people, to bring some level of peace to the world, and through time they forgot that, and alec (and clary) are the people that lead them back to remembering why they do what they do, why they fight this endless war, why they have to keep doing it. god. just truly one of the characters of all time. i need to just hit post now this is getting crazy

[transfemlogan]

is it too late to ask about your problems with canon moceit. im really curious cuz i like their canon dynamic

ITS NEVER TOO LATE !!!

okay so okay. okay. okay.

i will say i do not like patton ships in general, minus royality, so some of my moceit dislike stems from that. like again im very neutral on ships, but i tend to stray away from patton ships. hes 1 of my least fave characters so i just dont like imagining him in dynamics.

BUT! a lot of my moceit hate stems fron how they're written. i don't like how janus'& patton's relationship in canon is written. i know we havent gotten a lot of in canon interactions bcuz its been almost 4 years but it feels very, very fast past & like... not how a relationship should span.

i know people get so pissy when you say this but it is inherently pattons fault that the dark sides exist— it's all of the light sides fault, dont get me wrong, but it is especially patton's fault metaphorically. i am not trying to demonise him or hate on him or like say he's the villain or whatever dumb shit, but patton represents thomas' morality. the dark sides exist because thomas views them as inherently evil & thomas' views and opinions are morality. that is the definition of morality.

metaphorically speaking, thomas' morality is the reasons the dark sides exist and patton represents his morality.

janus is a dark side. he was casted aside because thomas views lying as an inherently a bad thing because he is catholic. patton casted janus side because patton thought lying was an inherently bad thing.

so when i see like... janus & patton interact in the into the unknown video or in the 5 years video it's so strange to me to see there be 0 awkwardness. no grudges held against each other. no mishaps or underlying opinions. theyre just ... friends?

like, if you are pushed and demonised by this person, you are not going to just casually talk to them after getting accepted. i cant even remember if patton apologised to janus at all in POF. & like janus knows how pattom treats roman & c!tjomas & i know janus isnt going to demonise patton back (well. glances at how he treated roman. maybe he would.) BUT THERE SHOULD BE SOME SORT OF LIKE. "HEY U STILL DID THIS SHITTY THING TO ME."

like it's not a one time thing, for like 30+ years thomas did not know he had a deceitful side or a dark creativity or whatever the hell orange is. this is 30 years that the dark sides were demonised and treated like this. this is years of their life. that shit fucks with you. it's like getting bullies for years and now all of a sudden your bullies are like "ok ur fine now" except way fucking worse.

& especially for patton to not be hesitant to trust janus still or slip up and say something that implies that he still doesnt agree w/ lying or something or like. saying something that he knows is bad now but has thought for years so it's just a habit.

the fact that there's no hesitation on either of their ends to me is sooo EUGHH. like it'd be way more interesting to see them stumble over their friendship & struggle but they just DONT. DO THAT. & ITS TERRIBLE I HATE IT.

& i hate the idea of them ever being in a romantic relationship with each other. like... patton, you demonised this guy for fucking years. you treated him like shit but now you're nice and attracted to him. like it feels like one of those awfully written enemies 2 lovers. like thats.. very weird to me.

outside of canon, i think their dynamic is kind of fun. like . not exactky polar oppisites like how remus & patton are or virgil & patton are but not exactly different sides of the same coin like how janus & logan are. but like. i dont even know how 2 describe their dynamic. reaching for the same goal with the same methods but very very very different opinions.

IDK LIKE. YEAH i understand the reason 4 why people ship them, but they have the same issues as prinxiety 4 me i think. like acting as if their past can just disappear like that. 30 years is a lot of time of your life to be treated like that, and a simple "i trust you" or whatever will never erase that. & im not saying they cant try or that they shouldnt (they definitely should!). just that there needs to be more push back. more struggles within their relationship for it to feel realistic. (& a romantic relationship just icks me out. janus you should not get into a relationship with that man.)

ERRMM AND ALSO JANUS IS ALREADY DATING LOGAN NOT PATTON SOOO PATTON CAN GO AWAY 🙄🙄🙄 /J /SILLY

(if any moceit shippers want 2 talk abt moceit on this post, feel free !!!) (also the opposite is true, if u hate moceit like me feel free 2 express that also.)

[faebriel]

i’m in the midst of death note brainrot (again) and would love to hear your thoughts on misa’s character

I WAS LITERALLY SAYING THE OTHER DAY TO MY PARTNER THAT I CAN FEEL AN AUTUMN DEATH NOTE REWATCH COMING ON..... maybe maybe maybe

misa is so freaking fascinating to me!! maybe next death note rewatch will be an extra special misa focus edition 🔍 she's just so fucked up in such a fun way that tbh i kind of feel is a missed opportunity, especially in the latter half of the story (the anime at least - haven't read the manga). she's so self-centred and i love that for her. her motivation to be kira pours from her own heart. while light has never personally suffered at the hands of crime afaik, misa very much has - both her family's deaths and her own being attached. her devotion to the cause is not just for the sake of saving the world but for saving herself, back on that night. it's like this vicarious way she can get back at "criminals" because she couldn't prevent her own family dying. it's ground into her!! that is the kind of experience you can't just shake out of her!! you can set misa on any path away from kira and i truly think she would barrel right onto it because the existence of kira gives her those warm and fuzzy feelings of retribution or maybe even safety that just like, filters right into her obsessive love for light

i like that even though she's clearly devoted to light, she's still an independent operator (well as much as the writing allows at certain times. eyeroll). i think light's whole attitude around "managing" her approach to being kira is so fkn illustrative of the derision with which he views a lot of people lol. there's something so interesting about how he views misa as impulsive and emotionally driven, so she's deranged, but obviously he is different even though their core beliefs are the same. like you might be using strategy but your goal is the same. idk

YOTSUBA ARC MISA AND POST TIMESKIP MISA ARE SO SPECIAL TO ME PERSONALLY. yotsuba arc because i'm like. oh my god the fact that she is not given ANY narrative space to either literally or metaphorically beat L's ass is a fucking choice BUT the fact that her dislike of him seems to come out as purely petty spats while he and light are chained together is so fucking funny. hater arc, but also, you could write a 9k character study unpacking all of this. it all kind of loops around to this iron-clad optimism that everything is somehow gonna turn out alright... and at that point in time, she doesn't even know how much shit she's gotten herself into. i do really really love that moment in this arc where misa gets her memories back after visiting the tower (when matsuda falls off a balcony. you know the one) but light doesn't have his and L is not even clued into what's happened. and light so so so wants to catch kira and clear his name and misa's sitting there like :)) like, i know she's gonna conspire to give light his memories back ASAP because that's The Plan but come on that brief glimpse in time is so fun and for misa her access to the death note & shinigami is such an important and consistent bargaining tool in her own survival. it was cool to see her have a monopoly on it, no matter how brief

they're so fucking worsties

there's definitely something to say here about her relationship with rem too but honestly i'm gonna have to go back to sources on this one. for me i've always kind of felt some parts of the fandom try to bend rem and misa into the "cute background lesbian couple" template that so many fandoms run on and i'm like. mate. you're not selling me. rem loves misa but misa is just too awful and/or deranged for all of that. i've always kind of felt their relationship was tragic in part because misa didn't fully understand the depth of rem's love for her / took it for granted until rem died. but again, i need to go back to sources

OH and this is getting long but i have the softest spot of all for post-timeskip misa. she is so me and my husband by mitski core. her life is falling to shit around her. her lifespan has been quartered. and she gives up her memories!! her knowledge of the death note has always been her key to survival and light sweet talks her into giving it up and this is the bit where i start hollering and screaming. and from then on, she doesn't even realise how much shit she's in. it's not just that she's in a failing engagement. it's that her fiance has wrung her for everything she had to give and she is being left to the wayside. her suspicion that light is having an affair is almost framed as comical but it's all she fucking has!!! she loves him because it's all she has. she has to choose between light and kira like this is some cosmic fucking joke and she cheers on light apparently trying to catch kira because she loves him. because what else exists in her memory from the last five years of her life???? FUCK

post-timeskip misa is genuinely fucking tragic to me because like. through the sheer power of sweet talking light manages to entirely defang her. she's lost rem. she has a book, she has the eyes, but she uses them solely under light's discretion. and then she gives up her memories because light asks. and like she is 100% a terrible person with the whole mass murdering thing but that kind of adds to it in a way. you get me

[toournextadventure]

not to, like, monologue, but I've been thinking about bird symbolism and how it ties in with Everyone But Her? and idk if that's something you intentionally worked in or if I'm reading into too much

people love using birds as a symbol for freedom, and birds in cages representing various kinds of isolation. but they often leave out what happens when the bird gets out, right?

Bird!Reader has, at some level, gotten out of her birdcage. she's at Nevermore, and she has an adoptive family. but she's not free from the effects Kristi and Marcus had on her- and that's where the harness comes in. she's a free bird... but she's still restricted. she covers up the parts of her that her parents hated, ties down both a part of her body and a part of her personality.

people who have escaped abusive situations often still feel pressure to take up as little space as possible, they worry about needing too much from other people/the world, because they're used to love being conditional. and Birdy takes that in a sort of literal direction, especially in the most recent chapter.

idk if I'm explaining this very well? I swear my thoughts were more organized ten minutes ago, oops. anyway, I'm just vibing with the way Birdy's wings work themselves into the narrative, the way they can showcase a type of healing that goes beyond what most people realize. again, idk if that makes sense, sorry for rambling

-signed, your friendly neighborhood crow

I hope you know I'm officially in love with you now, we shall get married at dawn. I'm putting the rest of my incredibly long rant answer under the cut so I don't take up too much space (just like Birdy 👀)

No but seriously, you hit the nail right on the head, you are NOT reading too much into it. All of it is very much tied into her trauma, her healing, and the physical representation of that in her wings. I personally specialised in trauma and all kinds of domestic/household abuse (in real life and in literature) in uni, so it's something that I love to explore in literature as well. Most people see trauma/abuse in one light (most because they, thankfully, haven't experienced it), so I love to explore all the nuances and symbolism that comes with it.

Initially it didn't start that way in the story, I was aiming on making Birdy much more like... like a Fallen Angel archetype. Something innocent, holy, belongs on a pedestal, but brought down by something out of her control and no matter how hard she tries, she can never get back to where she used to be. How something so innocent could be so tainted against her desire.

But then, like you mentioned, the bird aspect just popped up. It started off as a joke cause I threw in a few bird-like behaviours, but then as chapters went on and we slowly started to get into her background, it became the perfect metaphor for her trauma and healing, and it could easily be shown through her wings. She very much treats her trauma like something to push down, to ignore, but her wings give it away. They're the physical representation of everything; why her parents' love was conditional, why she's different, and eventually how she heals (as we slowly start to see in the Addams household).

And it (hopefully) shows that yes, healing isn't linear and we can see that with the harness (like you mentioned again, it's like you read my mind). She wears it outside, when she's with others, if she isn't 100% sure that she will be "allowed" to be free with new groups or in new locations. It becomes a crutch because, in her mind, "they can't hate me if they don't know I have wings."

But then we see the parts where she finally takes the harness off, on her own free will or not. When she goes on the date with Wednesday and, though terrified, let's Wednesday remove the harness. When she, increasingly often, doesn't have the harness on when hanging out in Enid and Wednesday's dorm room. When the Addams tell her - and continuously remind her - that she doesn't have to wear the harness in their house because she is free and loved.

So yes, while she's technically free of the abusive home she grew up in, it never leaves her. She always has and always will still deal with the aftermath, and though she may not discuss it it's shown very clearly through the harness and her wings. And her entire journey of healing and growth will continue to be shown through her wings.

And I can't say anymore otherwise I'll spoil the ginormous storyline that I've got planned, but long story short, you're right! It's the symbolism of the wings and it's going to remain a big part. Not a necessary part to understand, but if you need to know Birdy's mental state, just look for the wings 😌