#im so emotional about this fictional character its unhealthy

[kirbofoolinaround]

This is not smart.

[quodekash]

HOLY FRICK THE EPISODE CAME OUT 17 AND A HALF HOURS AGO BUT I COULDNT WATCH IT BC I WAS CAMPING WITH NEXT TO NO SERVICE

BUT IM HOME NOW SO ITS TIME TO DIE AND EXPLODE AND EXPLODE AGAIN AND THEN DIE AGAIN AND SCREAM A LOT

...why do I feel like she doesnt actually like him but she just thinks she likes him

I mean its entirely possible she does

but im just putting it out there that she might not

AHA

SHE SAYS SHE JUST WANTS TO STUDY AT THE SAME UNI AS HIM

NOT THAT SHE LIKES HIM OR WANTS TO BE WITH HIM IN A ROMANTIC SENSE

BADABING BADABOOM KANG IS JUST DRAMATIC AND THINKS THAT MEANS SHE LIKES HIM

maybe

again, its very possible she does actually like sailom

oh honeyyyyy

my boy :(((

he sad :(((((((((

OML IM LAUGHING SO HARD

HIS JUMPER SAYS 'BOY'

HE IS INDEED ONE OF THOSE

WHY AM I FINDING THIS SO FUNNY

I DONT THINK ANYONE ELSE LAUGHED AT THIS BUT HERE I AM LOSING MY MIND

nO

HEY

WHY

DUDE WE NEED THIS PLOT TO PROGRESS YOU CANT JUST QUIT

DO YOU REMEMBER HOW MUCH PINING YOU GUYS HAD WHEN YOU HAD TO FIRE HIM FOR LIKE FIVE DAYS?????? YOU GUYS WERE FRIKIN HOPELESS

YOU COULDVE TALKED TO ECAH OTHER AND YOU DIDNT

AND NOW YOU THINK YOU CAN SURVIVE JUST QUITTING???? NUH UH, NOT ON MY WATCH SON

...oh

well now im sad

WELL NOW IM S A D D E R

OH HONEY

MY BOY NEEDS VALIDATION

IM GONNA CRY

AWWWWHHHHHHHHH

lmaoooo the super slow dramatic shots as he questions everything

she's just a lesbian kang, calm down bro

IM SORRY, I CANT GET OVER HIS BOY SHIRT

GUYS THEYRE SITTING NEXT TO EACH OTHER

I THINK THEY MIGHTVE FINALLY FIGURED OUT HOW TO INTERACT OUTSIDE OF TUTORING????

OML LOOK AT HOW PIMFAH'S SITTING

SHES SO GAY

and valid. I would sit that attentively if it were me as well, june is too too pretty hOW IS SHE SO PRETTY

bro was just offered a footy position by a senior, and he's thinking about sailom. gay as all hell

AAAAAAA

GUYNAWA TIME OMGOMGOMGOMG

IM SO EXCITEDDDDDDD

HEEHEEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE YES NAWA’S GONNA REPLACE HIM AN THEN GUYNAVA ARE GONNA PLAY ON THE SAME TEAMMMMMMM

also lmao he's good at catching balls

that sentence will definitely send both of them into insane amounts of gay panic

THIS IS SO SOUNDWIN OF THEM AND I CANT EXPLAIN IT, I LOVE THEM SO MUCH

HOLY FRICK WE'RE NEARLY HALFWAY THROUGH THE SERIES AND WE'RE GETTING A DECENT AMOUNT OF PROGRESS FOR THESE TWO, IM SO EXCITED

HELP I CANT TELL IF SHES KIDDING OR NOT SOMEONE HELP ME

DOES SHE LIKE HIM??? DOES SHE NOT LIKE HIM???? DOES SHE JUST ADMIRE HIM PLATONICALLY?????? H E L P

also: she better be about to make a joke about like "oh well, im heartbroken now. i thought you could spend time with me, but it turns out your heart is only for kanghan, as i expected" and we can all watch sailom gay panic

oh. she was serious.

dANG IT

OH NO SHES SO SAD

NOW IM SO SAD

FRICK DANG IT

OH NOOOO

HONEYYYYYYY

FRICKKKKKKK

I LOVE HER SO MUCH

oh :(

its a metaphor :(

i usually love metaphors but this one is sad

i didnt expect to get so invested in this sailom/pimfah thing

i think i just love pimfah a lot

shes so important to me

and so is sailom

and so is kanghan

i get unhealthy emotional attachments to fictional characters and also to real people and because of that i cant let anything go and i hoard things and memories and people for fear that i will be left alone

anyway-

bro

the grabbing each other's shirts??? the rain??? the yelling at each other????

this is literally that scene from the pilot trailer

where they yell at each other about hating the other, and then kiss

(i think about that scene probably more than is strictly necessary)

W H A T

i-

wh-

h- he

he tOLD HIM????

RIGHT OFF THE BAT JUST LIKE THAT????

(yes dr seuss i did- sorry, now is not the time for sanders sides references)

um.

im.

uh

well i think i just died

boy is Shook™️

i mean valid

but his expression is so funny to me and im laughing again

his older brother senses are tingling

they👏were👏paired👏together👏randomly👏therefore👏they👏are👏soulmates👏

i love them so much

HE WAS THE FIRST ONE TO HIS SIDE I CANT

IM FINE IM FINE IM FINE

✨i ran out of images✨

[butterflyeffectiveless]

not tagging, rant

saying that someone is ableist because they have a different interpretation of Toffee is kind of unfair

: some look at his character from the standpoint of him being an experienced war veteran with resentment issues, and taking into consideration that he literally lives for centuries which could affect his worldview and personality in ways human people could not be.

plus Toffee is a fictional character, whose story was not explored in canon, so any indication that he is the way he is because of him being autistic , although Valid, could be 80% self-projection rather than canon interpretation.

Saying that you headcanon him as autistic and headcanon his behavior, ideas and gestures as autistic traits is valid and interesting and you have all the right to do so, but perception of other interpretations of his character as ableist is deeply misplaced. 

Being a sociopath is by definition a result of the character’s unhealthy environment and influence that rewired said character’s views and behavioral patterns, so headcanoning Toffee as a sociopath can be valid too.  Just because someone perceives Toffee as sociopathic or violent (being a sociopath and violent are two different things though) , it doesn’t mean they are being ableist. 

There Are cases when people mistakenly assume a person is awful or emotionless when in reality they show autistic traits, but Toffee is Not one of those cases. When people start talking about a character who was written as autistic, that they are evil or that their behavior is awful, they are being ableist. But in Toffee’s case, his character was not explored, his environment was not explored. He did not explicitly show traits that were written to be neurodivergent. (To be fair, Toffe is incredibly charming and can get around people, which is something that autistic people usually struggle with due to struggle to communicate. In fact, he is rather good at emoting.)

When you talk about Toffee as a character who is autistic and people saying he is not when he shows traits simialr to autism, you most likely talk about an alternative interpretation of him. When people talk about Toffee as a bloodthirsty merciless man, they are talking about Another interpretation of him. Both yours and their interpretations have the right to exist.

Im Not saying that autistic people who see themselves in him are bad. Im not saying that they are wrong to headcanon him as autistic. Im Not saying that people being uset at how they are treated due to their neurodivergency is invalid. All of that is valid.

I just ask people not to accuse others of being ableist because they headcanon him as someone awful. It’s lovely that you are being passionate about Toffee but in your passion you tend to blend canon with fanon interpretations and wrongly assume things about people who see your favorite character differently.

Im Not saying Toffee can’t be autistic. Toffee can be autistic, because autistic traits vary from person to person. I do see why they hc Toffee as autistic.

But , Toffee may also be not autistic for same reasons. Because autistic traits vary. He may even have other type of neurodivergency. 

And, when people say he’s an awful  person (monster), they could also be self-projecting. They could be projecting their trauma. And, saying someone is awful and cold blooded killer because of murdering is actually a valid point, its not ableist.

[mieczyhale]

.

gonna be completely honest: “character walks by a doorway and overhears other character say Bad Thing completely out of context, then walks away before they hear that the rest of the thing wasn’t actually bad” or plots along those lines, the misunderstanding that leads to hurt that leads to comfort, gotta be one of my favorite things in fiction. 

a character (especially the kind who is insecure / has trust / abandonment issues) getting hurt emotionally by something they heard or saw, double when it involves someone they love/trust that they thought loved/trusted them in return?? reading about their pain?? and then the person they overheard not knowing whats happened and being worried about the person because they’re acting different or avoiding them or whatever?? actions??? situations?? emotions?? everything involved with the concept - all the possibilities - that then end with the resolution / misunderstanding being fixed and the comfort and love and reassurance-

it’s good shit

the hurt/comfort of it all. the drama of it all. the hurt/comfort of it all. 

idc if people think its a “lazy” trope (which btw what the fuck is a lazy trope?? shut the fuck up lmao) or that “miscommunication plots are dumb / make me mad” okay well that’s entirely a /you/ problem, its got nothing to do with anyone else, so maybe control the content you take in and leave writers alone you can enjoy your healthy, communication filled, conflict-less* story (”but there are other conflict options!” DONT CARE. “lack of communication isnt a good conflict” TO YOU. it isn’t a good conflict to you) but i wont. TO ME that sounds dull. “they just need to talk” yes but they wont!! because they’re (probably) human beings!! who are flawed and fucked up and strong but fragile and full of love and miscommunication / misunderstandings / accidentally hurting the people you love are all very real life things!! and i wanna read about it happening to my favorite characters, just as much as i wanna read about them involved in physical pain or end of the world problems.

 *again: i don’t care that there are other conflict options, i KNOW they exist, i read a lot of them. love me a good conflict. but as this post is about a specific KIND, because y’all are shitting on it and hate when people write it, the lack of it is what i meant by ‘conflict-less’ (i feel like i’m not explaining that well AT ALL but whatever. i fucking know what i mean)

(but also like.. y’all really do sound like you hate all unhealthy things when you bitch about this topic. like you want your story to be Pure and Lacking Conflict or whatever. the same vibe as people who bitch about “unhealthy / toxic” ships and the “if you write it you must endorse it” crowd. y’all sound the same)

this is exhausting

irritating too, yes, but also just.... ughh?? not just the bitching about it part, because that’s on me, but reading that kind of stuff. those kinds of takes.

i’ve been in fandom too long for this (which means you’d think i wouldn’t care about opinions anymore, and normally i don’t - not enough to post about them anyway - but i’m in A Mood so *gestures at whole post*)

anyway

note:: if none of this actually makes sense, bc i absolutely kept losing focus while typing, then sorry. but im not trying to make this nice, this is more about me needing to vent and less about you getting my opinion. that’s just a bonus - or a negative. your choice.

[your-turn-to-role]

hi okay i hate sending asks to people without knowing them but you seem kind so im trying: during the break, i’ve been working my way through VM, and i’m at episode 75. my question, because i’ve read some of your more recent meta, is “what’s Percy’s deal?” i know he’s loved by the fandom, but i can’t find myself relating to him, and i find his assertions that he’s the only one with a plan offputting. is there more context you can give to me about percy’s character that explains his motivations?

aww, thank you!

(and yeah, asks like this are totally fine, i totally get that anxiety, good job on sending this!)

i mean, first off, you don't have to like a character everyone else does? if you don't relate to percy you can just, not relate to percy, that's fine

(and to be fair, as much as i love him as a character, i would not want him as a friend, because he's a very flawed person that has a lot to work on, but in fiction those traits are interesting to watch rather than difficult to deal with)

but, percy's deal! the short answer is people generally like him because taliesin's funny and charismatic and he does morally grey right, which is rare and a fun thing to explore (also in his relationships with other people, the entire vex-vax-percy-keyleth square is full of neat parallels and opposites and interesting things and i have whole essays in my head on all six combos there)

i don’t know which posts you’ve read so i’ll link this one here too, just to cover a couple more of the generally unnoticed aspects of his character, and things i like about percy

he’s also far from perfect, as you’ve noted, he does tend to believe he’s the smartest person in any given room, because he’s young and clever and used to being that, which you’re allowed to find off putting, but i will say i find he does that less than a lot of characters of his general archetype? he listens to pike, he listens to keyleth, he listens to vex, he respects when they have more knowledge than him on a particular subject, he’s not above asking for help. and generally most of the arguments he has with keyleth on that subject aren’t him asserting he knows more than her, but more a matter of principles and values (they’re a really interesting pair that way, they have similar backgrounds, both children of royalty running away from the crown, but they’re such opposites. percy is a natural leader who would rather anyone rule than him, keyleth fumbles her way through all of it but sticks to it because she doesn’t want to let anyone down, percy is a pragmatist, keyleth is an idealist, they both are too focused on the big picture but in two completely different ways, i could write a whole other post on this, but to get to my point, they wouldn’t be such good balances for each other if percy didn’t absolutely respect where keyleth is coming from)

for the long answer, i’m gonna break this down into parts and try to get to the core of percy's character and why he is the way he is

(under the cut bc this gets long)

1 - heavy trauma

like... this is the really really big one. percy, at age 17 or 18, had his entire life up to that point completely destroyed. his family was killed, his friends were killed, people he trusted like family (professor anders, who was a more present figure in percy's life than his actual parents) betrayed him and helped the briarwoods, he was imprisoned in his own castle's dungeons and tortured for information, they threw his siblings' bodies in there with him to make a point, cassandra helped him escape but as far as he knew she died helping him. he has two years of his life after that he straight up doesn't remember, his hair turned white from the stress of it. 

trying to go after ripley the first time didn't work, he was captured and left to starve in a prison cell, for the first few months of travelling with vox machina he genuinely believed it wasn't real, because realistically no one was gonna come save him, this was just a hallucination of his dying mind. returning to whitestone he was forced to confront the fact that literally everyone he ever knew growing up (with the sole exception of archibald) was either dead or working with the briarwoods, and even after retaking the city there's a lot that can never be repaired. 

and he's just... never really dealt with any of this? like, he gave vox machina the technical details of what happened to him in the briarwood arc, because they needed to know that information, but the first time he actually started processing his trauma, the first time he admits it out loud to anyone, is the final episode of campaign one. before then it had been occasional snide or handwavey comments, and like, he'll let himself feel the anger over it (in the beginning of the story he encouraged it, because then he didn't have to feel anything else), but he's never processed the grief, never admitted to himself how badly that affected him

which means he's got a lot of pent up emotions in there that he just keeps burying, and sometimes they come out in unhealthy ways. having so much taken from him also makes him really motivated to keep the things he does have - he’s got some deep set abandonment issues and takes any kind of betrayal really badly, don’t know if you’ve got up to the scanlan stuff by the time i post this, but that’s something to keep in mind as to why he acts the way he does there. (and it’s not more explicit because percy was raised nobility, keeping a brave face through anything is part of who he is, he tends to cover emotions he’s insecure about in snark or indifference or, for the intense ones, anger, because those are the things he thinks he’s allowed to show, but the real emotions show up occasionally, when they’re particularly strong, or if you’re reading between the lines. he really does care a lot about vox machina)

2 - legacy and loyalty. 

speaking of nobility, it's hard to do a character study on percy without mentioning whitestone and the house of de rolo. this is the number one thing to percy. he was raised to respect title and name, and most importantly, raised to respect the people he represents - both the townsfolk of whitestone and also percy's ancestors and future de rolo generations. whitestone is more important than any one life, he has a duty to protect and serve it, and that comes before any personal wants he may have. it's also important to him for family reasons - he was a pretty lonely child, but he loved reading about the history of the city, all the weird ghost stories whitestone had even before the briarwoods. it probably made him feel more connected to all of that, this is the place he belongs. and after his family dies, it becomes even more important, because this is his connection to them. the soul of a city lives as long as its people, by protecting what's left, he keeps a little bit of what came before

(and also in just tidbits to understand percy's character, he sees all cities and man-made things the same way - in a world where some races live for centuries or millennia, their history exists mostly by word of mouth, you can physically talk to people who were around 500 years ago and get their take on things - humans don't have that, they get 100 years at most, so the things they build are vital to their heritage. this is how you keep people alive long after they're gone, by honouring what they created. and especially for someone so concerned with legacy and history, percy literally says abandoning westruun would be blasphemy, because the place people grew up is important, yes it's better that they live, but letting the city be abandoned and destroyed would be an irreparable act of violence.) 

this is the number one thing on percy's mind when evaluating anything about himself, where do i come from, and what do i leave behind? which is a question that has a lot of moments to be tested, because of my next point...

3 - pragmatism and terrible thoughts

when it comes down to it, percy is a very ends justify the means kind of person. he finds it very easy to square away any kind of collateral damage as long as it gets him to his end goal. see: trial of the take, where he's fine to catch his friends in the blast radius of a new bomb design because he's so excited that it worked, preparing to fight vorugal and resigning himself to potentially having to kill innocent people to kill the dragon (he wasn’t okay with that, but he would do it), also his conscious decision to let ripley go, knowing she would lead to the deaths of thousands because it was her or the briarwoods and he wanted revenge 

(this is by his own admission his lowest point and worst mistake, because as mentioned, he thinks about the consequences of his actions near constantly, he knew she would reproduce his guns and they would lead to a whole new form of warfare. but in that moment he was just blinded by grief and way too emotionally burnt out and did not have the capacity to care. and he spends the rest of the campaign and honestly probably the rest of his life trying to make up for that one)

he's also, by his own admission, someone who has a lot of bad thoughts he doesn't act on, he's very clever and creative and ideas for ways to use those skills for violence or vengeance come easily to him (like, percy as an actual villain would be ripley but worse, ripley's intelligent but a very direct point a to point b kind of thinker, percy has multiple times criticised her lack of imagination, a percy with her lack of morals would be terrifying)

(honestly this is why i was seeing percy so much in taliesin's narrative telephone, because "sometimes i wake up having dreamed of a terrible thing, and normally i just file that away for things that i would never do, because i wanna maintain friendships, but then LIAM did something to me." and the whole being absolutely fine with throwing the rest of the cast under the bus just to enact revenge on liam was quintessential percy)

but we’ve seen the pragmatic anti hero everywhere, anyone can be a terrible person, and have reasons for it, that alone doesn’t make an interesting character (at least not for me)

what does, is my last point

4 - trying to be good

i still vividly remember when i first watched campaign one, being really surprised at how much percy asked for help? like, i went in expecting the usual full on demon possession storyline, i expected percy to hide how bad it was, i expected him to make poor decisions without realising he was doing it until he was in too deep to back out

and like, he had some of that. but at the first sign of things being out of his control, he asked his friends for help. he let pike greater restoration him. he told vax to kill him if things ever got too out of hand. he was really, genuinely scared about what he got himself into and what he might do because of it. there was never a point where he pretended, even to himself, that making a deal with orthax was okay. the minute he realised there was a demon involved, he was working to stop it. and yeah, by the time he realised it was already a bit too late, there were already some things out of his control (and also taliesin kept having the worst rolls against the whitestone corruption which was really fun on a meta level), which is how things got as bad as they did. but honestly, all things considered, there’s very little to criticise about the way percy handled himself in the briarwood arc. 

and he keeps doing that, trying to get better. he struggles with it, he struggles a lot, against his anger issues, against all the trauma, against the fact that he really doesn’t want to be here and things would be so much easier if he were dead. but he recognises he holds grudges too easily, so he starts actively trying to forgive those who’ve wronged him (this is something he and vex have in common, and something they were working on together before they were together, which probably helped a lot in getting them to that point as well). he recognises he makes poor decisions when he’s angry, so he starts learning to step back in those moments and leave the decisions to someone else. he has never not owned up to his mistakes, he takes responsibility for everything he’s done, and if he notices a problem he can’t solve himself, he asks for help.

and i find that fun to explore. like, percy’s been likened to hamlet in the actual show, and i was the kid who got super obsessed with hamlet when i was like 15 because i was in that same mental space of suicidal self hatred and existential melancholy but also thinking i was the smartest person in any given room and being too young to have gotten over the arrogance that makes you ignore everyone else’s needs for the sake of indulging your own problems. and then i got older and realised there are smarter ways to go about things, like having empathy and appreciating the light in the world and not being a dickhead to people because it makes you feel better, and maybe hamlet can be justified and in the wrong at the same time. and while there’s some stuff i won’t spoil for you, percy after ripley kills him is definitely starting to learn that, which you rarely see in the hamlet archetype, bc everyone’s like “ah yes so Deep so Important who cares what bad things this person did they had Trauma and are Clever”

well, percy cares about the bad things he did, and cares about not doing those anymore. so like, he’s still a disaster of a person bc he’s like 23 and no one has their life together at 23, especially not someone in percy’s situation, and honestly i find that fun to watch as well bc i like watching characters make stupid mistakes and do stuff i’d never approve of in real life, and as i mentioned at the start, taliesin makes captivating and funny characters. but yeah, that’s generally where percy’s at, most of the time

[learn-and-accept]

Okay but actually fuck that ending

[juni-ravenhall]

hope everyones aware that skye’s mom is abusive (based on mistfall short stories audio) and if ur parents are like this they are most likely abusive and youve been brainwashed / gaslighted to think “this is normal” (and potentially “its my fault not theirs” or “its not their fault its [other excuses for mistreating you]”)

just saying bc like, in this short story we only get to see how skye thinks “maybe im ungrateful” (the homeless scene) and “i should try to pacify / cheer up my parent” (spend her money on a gift for the mom) which both are unhealthy things that skye should not have to worry about. (mistfall so far, hasn’t had enough story for us to know if it will be shown that “yes skye’s mom is toxic and skye has no blame in this and later she’ll go to therapy” or anything, im not saying it wont, but usually stories dont educate kids enough about what abuse is and usually do victimblame or act as if it’s partially the kids’ fault/responsibility so im just concerned about this in media in general.)

1) you have every right to be upset and do not need to feel grateful if your parent behaves in toxic ways towards you, it’s their responsibility as the adult parent to not be toxic towards their child, and no amount of “but i fed you! but you have a roof over your head! but you have toys!” etc is an excuse for abuse / toxicity. skye does not need to feel guilty for being upset in this situation, though its common for abuse victims to feel this way. (parents need to go to therapy etc if they are unhealthy / immature and cant care for their child properly which includes in emotional / mental ways.)

2) a child is NEVER responsible for their parents’ feelings whatsoever. making your kid feel guilt or shame and that they need to “perform” in order to get your love and respect is seriously fucked up (and common in abusive parents and partners) no matter what the “performance” means. (can be “behave according to my rules”, “get good grades”. in this case skye is feeling forced to apologise / present peace offerings for things she didn’t even do - but often it’s not even healthy when it’s something the child did do, because mistakes should also be handled with love and care and respect as a learning moment without fear)

just a rant but i get very pissed off when i see abusive parents and i get worried when it’s in media directed to kids (in cases where it either is normalised and presented as if its “just normal family life lol”, or in cases like mistfall where we simply dont know where the story will go and how the characters will develop, but like, the quality of the writing doesnt give me high hopes.)

it’s not in any way wrong to portray abusive family situations in fiction (its important for ppl to have media to relate to!) but when the target audience is children / young people, its important that there is an educational healthy message wrapped into it because the absolute bulk of child abuse goes unknown even by the victims (unaware that their parents didn’t have the right to treat them this way; unaware what’s normal or healthy; etc). 

anyway, my point of this was that if you don’t know if you’ve been abused but you relate to skye’s relationship with her mom / feelings and behaviours towards her mom, that’s a red flag. feel free to msg me (but im offline a lot rn bc im in a bad depressive episode) if you want to ask questions about abuse or talk about it because ive educated myself a hell of a lot about emotional / mental abuse and toxic families / relationships in order to try to figure out what the fuck happened in my life. (and better than msg:ing me - book an appointment with a counsellor at your local health clinic or online! there are abuse victim help centers and stuff too! look for whatever is easy for you to reach out to!)

[crimeronan]

that last post i reblogged made me reminisce about the times i actually Have become the subject of ppls ire and it’s kind of. amazing. putting under a read more so as not to subject people to Wank but. if u wanna know what 8 years of blogging has wrought on “i enjoy things in non-mainstream ways” Maximum Aggro and “i’ve had several posts about autism and psychosis go viral” Extreme Difficulty

here are things ive gotten several anon hate and the occasional dedicated ongoing hateblogging campaign over

“diagnosing” characters with autism

a whole bunch of other autism-related stuff that is Unfortunately not fun so i will not detail it

shipping the raven cycle ot6

“wanting ronan and blue to have sex,” notable especially because the blogger who mounted the campaign somehow didnt notice id written at least 5 posts about ronan and blue as platonic metamours & talked at length about how ronans gay & specifically stated, repeatedly, that its important to me that their relationship is platonic and nonsexual

posting a humorous contextless snippet of an RP btwn me n my partner where ronan asserted that being monogamous would be miserable

(because it was part of my malicious campaign to oppress monogamous people and invalidate their relationships)

saying adam and ronan aren’t inherently made for each other and had to work for their relationship

saying gansey is actually capable of having healthy relationships and that i even think he has some in the actual canon text

saying gansey is a good friend

(you will think this is facetious but this was honest to god an intense point of controversy and hatemail. the context is people were already mad about [pick anything on this list] and padded their manifestos with my gansey positivity)

(but it’s So funny to imagine a horde of people just blacking out in red-misted rage upon seeing the words “gansey good”..... a concept that causes enough wrath to fuel death threats violence bait and graphic content submissions...... let’s please imagine that’s what happened)

having polyamorous homestuck ships

especially ones where m/m couples were still together and just as committed and passionate and in love..... but also dating a woman too

saying zuko can be interpreted as autistic

problematic because it’s impossible for autism and trauma-related emotional issues to exist in one person

(the joke is i was writing abt him bein me. an autistic person with trauma feelings)

(this isn’t even the autism stuff that was Unfun this is amazing autism stuff)

writing about psychotic characters who have a fairly adjusted humorous grip on reality

bc it delegitimized the Seriousness of Psychosis

and could Reinforce The Delusions Of Actual Psychotic People

especially notable due to me tagging the posts in question with “i’m psychotic”

because. they were humorous posts about how i’d like to see my day-to-day life represented. because i’m an actual psychotic people

im sure other things have happened im forgetting but these are the biggest highlights that come to mind

(not included: things that only got me sent one hate message from a clear troll. too many of those to try to remember)

then the things i EXPECT to be attacked for (enjoying fictional violence, writing messy unhealthy relationships, prioritizing platonic mlm/wlw relationships over canon gays, wanting my faves to commit murder, etc) have like..... yet to cause an issue for me

(this is not an invitation to cause an issue for me.)

[littlebabycrybtch]

bro..... im sooo tired of ppl being whiny freaks about ppl liking fictional shit ‘~too much~’. like bitches are literally fully convinced if you prefer acting out certain ideas in fiction but not irl, thats not your normal preferential boundaries but rather your brain is a mental illness BOMB and you need to be fucking hospitalized for being imaginative and having autonomy. like yall if its not taboo or smth shut uuuuhp man you’re not ‘concerned for their health’ or w/e you’re fully just tryna get away with being a nihilistic asshole who lacks sympathetic reasoning skills. listen to me. fiction is valuable. the thoughts we have on it are important. the personal lack of value you happen to put on a media is next to worthless. its not a fuckin waste of time dude, creators are people, who live in the real world, they experience it and have ideas through it and about it, they form and tweak their ideas while still definitely existing in the real world, and then put that back into the world with a new angle and new perspective, to share with other people definitely encountering it in , you guessed it , the real world. thats not disconnected. its not nothing. these things do not magically appear from fairytale land, they are created. stories mean smth, people tell them for a reason, its ok to feel smth for any story, why would we even tell them if not with the intention to impact others emotionally somehow i mean??? fiction does not Just affect reality, it is valuable to real life society, it is a functioning thriving part OF reality. 

humans have told stories since the dawn of our existence. it is literally all but an inherent species trait for us to imagine things, its tied to each and every one of us, and to reject ‘fantasy’ as smth worthless to human life is frankly just fuckin wrong and weird of you. bitch we are Supposed to get outside the box, the fandom ppl you cringe your pants over arent thinking abt fake shit too much, you guys very often just arent exercising abstract thought and imagination enough, which actually hurts your ability to engage with it critically in all the ways its meant to be. if you dont see the value in fiction its because you put in no effort to form the analysis skills. in other words, you idiots dont get the hype bc you’re too stupid to get how you're supposed to compare a book to the real world it came from. ‘uu but cmon not everythings valuable what about [tumblr designated cringe media]-’ 1. ok! somehow you havent come to this conclusion yourself yet but thats not real, whatever ppl get to enjoy is not all abt you, your bias means less than dirt to others outside of hivemind social medias, you can keep it to yourself, ppl shouldnt care about it bc it means nothing outside of ur own space, its literally funny to me that you’re so elitist you want me to cater my interests to you, Your Standard Of Quality Isnt Universal, 2. ranking the values of fiction is the waste of time here, if you compare mlp to pride and prejudice ill dissect your teeth, different emotional impacts from tragic to funny to Just A Vibe are all able to be assessed as ‘valuable to somebody else so leave well enough alone’ if you dont have 2010+ funnyman brainrot disease that makes you incapable of reflecting on anything you can find a way to joke abt first.

i mean seriously like. whenever randos start engaging with medias you ppl dont like or in ways you dont get, the strawmans yall make up to get to be cringe culture vultures abt such benign shit, and almost Always at the expense of neurodivergent people with a deeply rooted undertone of extreme ableism might i add..... its just so selfish. u have a brain ok, you’re manipulative but we both know you dont Actually think ppl automatically default to being a waifu obsessed incel rotting away at their basement computer, stagnating their social skills and straying further and further from reality with each passing day, a poor disturbed wretch that you just HAVE to save from themselves, all bc they say they. prefer fictional porn or w/e to having sex irl. buddy thats not a big deal, theyre normal, just different from you. theyre fine, you’re just uncomfortable. as a functioning adult you’re gonna have to try and recognize that sometimes that feelings gonna be 100% on you, and you cant always just lie abt the validity of it to make ppl feel obligated into agreeing with you. this is gonna be one fragment of their personhood and your self obsessed brain imploding over how unrelatable that is doesnt fucking matter, grow up bitch like. how detached do you have to be to think thats so unstable or morally wrong.... its just a completely inconsequential preferential decision that only affects them and isnt a wrong choice at all cuz nobody has to get their dick wet if they dont wanna for any reason ever and thats gotta be that tbh.... and it kills me cuz they still inherently experience the real world and are capable of thinking abt it critically,,, even tho they... masturbate to drawings or w/e the fuck ppl think is unhealthy ???? like? imagination is just fun we dont need to moderate it anymore than we moderate other fun activities i mean lol ksdjfsd this is the DEFINITION of ‘just vibing’ no one FUCKING cares and it deosnt fucking matter the way you desperately try to make ppl think it does just so u get to be loud abt ur shortcomings as a decent understanding person. 

‘uuuuuu im sorry but thats unhealthy :///’ you sound like a goddamn maniac dude stories are not unhealthy having feelings abt them is not unhealthy thinking some anime bitch that was DRAWN TO BE HOT , IS HOT, is not UNHEALTHY and you clowns arent convincing anybody you ‘care’ abt that concept anyways !! im losign my mind here skdlsdfsd medias are literally DESIGNED TO DO THIS TO PEOPLE... WE’RE SUPPOSED TO FEEL THINGS FOR IT.... IT IS WHAT MAKES THE ART WE’VE TAKEN PART IN FOR CENTURIES, “ART”.... ITS JUST... HAVING IDEAS AND EXPERIENCING IMAGINATION..... whats wildly unhealthy actually is yalls toxic obsession with ‘harsh truth’ and validating your stupid ass cwinge feewings to the point where everything that gives your underdeveloped selfish ass hives has to be a matter of health and morals and whats ‘best’ for everyone. u dont know that shit!!!! ur a petty brat and im not ur mommy ok i wont baby you so u dont feel like the shitty whiny person you are, you need to grow and do better and think outside urself already, dont put the responsibility of making u feel right for judging somebodies benign hobbies on me. i wont bc its wrong and unnecessary. you’re not a savior no ones falling for that lmao you’re just a bitch girl xoxo get over it shit truly does not matter. let them write nsfw self insert fics instead of banging !! 

to make it real do yall really not Get that basic consent kinda doesnt just mean ‘no when im not in the mood at the time’ but it means ‘no if i just dont fuckin feel like having sex ever for literally any reason at all bc i choose what i do’ and pressuring them, even with what your warped brain translates as the best of intentions, is inherently disgusting? especially with the ‘i know how to help you’ attitude like......... ohhh die soonly ew lmao! lay off this nasty shit already please it doesnt matter! stop trying to make it matter!! its not hurting you or them you stupid tumblr phd ass!! and like again yeah some media shits just truly gross but tbr now its like even That kind of shit, the Real social issues caused by Actually problematic media that ppl should discuss Genuinely without ulterior motives, is being used more and more rampantly as just a stepping stone to get to the needless mockery of other harmless things in the media they want an excuse to bag on.......... like a bitch cant just be grown and talk about problems at face value without getting a bully jab in. smhhhhh you all fuckin suck please just stop talking already. so anyways yeah being attracted to fictional characters instead of real people or w/e IS funny, funny how many boyfriends they have when u have none xoxo theyre having fun and you can die sad abt it they get to die 5 times in an angsty fantasy fic and be brought back with mouth to mouth by fuckin kakashi every time and then they go get lunch irl while ur updating tinder bitch ... different fucking strokes ig !

[girldraki]

So you mention daydream siblings a lot they seem to be different from “ regular”, and I’ve tried to understand but I don’t quite get how they work? I know They originated from daydreams but other stuff seems more confusing....

it's.. pretty understandable that yoyre confused tbh. they're kind of a complex topic? the full explanation is long so ive put it under the cut.

long story short, they used to be characters completely controlled by mod to daydream as a coping mechanism. mod stopped being host but we still needed to daydream, so they became more fully fledged headmates. their primary Thing is still enacting daydreams but they're generally autonomous people like everyone else in here

when mod was about eleven, they started daydreaming as a primary emotional coping mechanism. hardcore.

they technically qualified and we sort of do still as a whole as a maladaptive daydreamer (mental health classification for excessive daydreaming to the point where it negatively impacts your lifestyle)

the like. video game avatars i guess is the best metaphor for this? the characters they used for this were the daydream siblings, four, cyan and mink (and later alter/omega, lavender, and dacty). they started out as characters entirely controlled by mod.

by the time we discovered we were a system, it had been five years since this started, and daydreaming was the default coping mechanism for us. like, uncontrollably so. "start pacing, listening to music, and mumbling to ourself in public after seeing something upsetting" so.

this was something that only mod had control of, which is probably part of why they were the host for so long-- i cannot overstate how important this was and is as a coping mechanism for us

mod stopped fronting, though. almost completely. which lead to this vacuum where nobody able to control the daydream characters was around, but we were still in exactly the kind of emotional distress we had to cope with through daydreaming

so then they became more. full fledged headmates i guess to fill that void? like they would front to daydream still, but they started interacting with the world and other people and generally bridging the gap of autonomy.

they still do the daydream thing, which im sure you've noticed, and there's some friction because while it's much less unhealthy than it used to be its still. kinda self destructive in a lot of ways and not as proactive as some of us would like.

they also kinda talk like they're fictional characters interacting with reality through literary analysis and that's partly because they were initially written as self-aware to an extent and partly a coping thing we all do. it's a distancing tactic. we are working on it

[onlyxmcbride]

This was not wrote by me but I had to share it 💔

Credits to addieanatomy on instagram.

its so difficult for me to understand those who never feel the slightest bit of sympathy for norma and those who blame norma for being a bad mother, for nurturing her child into a serial killer. since the beginning on the series, norma had been a whole person. she has a backstory filled with emotional abuse and neglect at the hands of her awful parents. and emotional and sexual assault at the hands of her brother. and then she gets married to an abusive husband with a son born of incest because of her brother raping her. and another son who blacks out and becomes violent to the point of murder. norman blacked out and murdered her abusive husband/his father and had no idea. and he continues to kill several ppl that come into his life. but that’s just a whole other discussion for a later date. it makes my blood boil when i see ppl want to hate norma and blame her for all norman does. they want to. hate norma for what norman is. in some ways. yes. i can see why we all should give her some blame. because of numerous events in her life, norma’s incredibly broken which doesnt make motherhood too promising for her. i mean. i would argue that the worst thing norma has done has been having a lack of understanding the causes and effects of her actions. and just having a lack of insight in general.

norma feels that nothing outside of her and her care is safe for her and her beloved child. but eventually, she starts to see norman as a threat, to herself and himself. okay and quite honestly. im surprised norma didn’t end up being the damn serial killer given her fucking upbringing and the experiences she faced… anyway. alright norma definitely allowed for levels of intimacy between her and norman that are pretty uncomfortable. and some ppl would say shes reluctant to admit that there is something wrong with her beautiful child. but in my opinion. i believe she was always fully aware of normans troubles and knew that theres was smth wrong with him. but like i said before. she didnt see safety in anything outside herself. bc shes so fucking stubborn! but she truly believed that she was the answer to normans problem and she thought she could help him and protect him. i think it is very harsh for ppl to classify norma and anything she does as a mother as being neglectful. or abusive.,..,. she certainly comes close but. she doesnt cross the line into that territory. and yes. she did tell norman things he shouldnt have to know as her son. like. the situation with her brother. but. if u think about normas role as a mother overall. within the context of her own life experiences. she tries really fucking. hard. to be a the perfect and ideal mother. and i believe her efforts should be applauded considering she had no good mother or father to have as an example for her parenting. this woman did whatever she could to protect her son. and when she realized that she couldnt give him the help he needed,... she sought out help. she went to pineview. she begged dr edwards or whatever to help her son. she did her best to get her son the aid he needed in order to not be a threat to himself, norma and everyone else.

i would find it absolutely ridiculous if u didnt feel an iota a sympathy for norma in that moment in 401. she even explained herself in that moment with dr edwards. she realized that she couldnt control what she thought she could. and that she was afraid of going to the doctors bc she thought they could take him away from her. and i believe that she didnt want him taken away bc he was the last bit of love she had left in her life. she had no one. she loved norman so passionately bc they were all each other ever had. its just. in that fucking moment with dr edwards. norma was showing so much of herself. so much honesty. which is smth she tends not to do. and she was revealing in that moment that literally. like all parents. she didnt really know… exactly what she was doing. she was just hoping that what she thought was best,.,. was good. and she had a moment of great fear that what she was doing was hurting her child. and she wanted to do smth else to change and make it better for both of them. all norma has ever had is good intentions. love makes u do crazy things. and she did crazy things out of the sometimes dangerous love she had for her child. but she cant take full blame for what norman is and became. being the parent of a psychopath is not gonna be fucking easy and a literal cake walk with a manual on how to succeed. all norma fucking wanted was a normal life for her and her son. and normal life that she never got to have throughout her childhood. and teenage years. and into her married life with both of her husbands.

she could never catch a fucking break. and she never did. she never. fucking. did. shitty childhood, 2 shitty marriages, a kid who resulted from being raped by her brother, a kid that was more than just mentally unstable. and her own mental wellbeing never treated was just. the fucking cherry on top. and even after she dies she didn’t even get peace until after norman died, considering he was lugging her dead body around. when ppl talk about norma, her mental health is not often in the conversation. but quite honestly. norma's entire mental state had to have been absolutely exhausting for her. she needed serious help. and she needed it well before norman even came into the her life. i think the only time she realized that… this isnt how normal people live. is when she was with alex... alex gave her a real glimpse into a type of normalcy she had never experienced. honestly. i would like to believe she eventually would have gone into therapy had she survived. and even if norman had stayed at the live-in hospital and didnt try to kill her, she and alex were not going to magically start living a beautiful, good life. she was going to need some serious therapy herself. and i just know she wouldnt bring herself to do that all by herself. i think if anyone could help her decide to help herself... that person would without and doubt be alex. norma truly was beaten down by life at every corner. anyone in her shoes with that kind of history and mental wellbeing would be in an unbelievable amount of pain on the inside. when thinking about how this all plays into her relationship with norman... i just think she loved norman to the best of her ability. but it was from a perspective warped by extreme mental illness, fatigue and injury of her own. to add to this exhausting amount of mental turmoil, came her exhausting love for norman. god i love this woman so much. she is everything to me.

This hit me so damn hard. People ask why I love this show so much and the reason is above. Vera Farmiga portrays Norma so brilliantly and I couldn't think of anyone else who could do it better.

Romanticizing the relationship she and Norman had is unhealthy yes, but she loved her son so much she would do anything to keep him safe. Norma Bates is a fucking warrior- fictional character or not.

[horrifically]

2+3, 5+6!!!

2. what's your favorite type of book to read + share your essentials

i love anything that's emotional/tragic just because if im going to take the time to read it, i want it to be earth shattering. idk if "essentials" just means fav book but i cant think of any rn

3. top five fictional characters + what you love about them

1. anna from possession bc i relate to her on an unhealthy level

2. margot verger from hannibal bc she's gay

3. sherlock holmes from granada productions and i love him bc hes gay

4. literally any character that katharine hepburn plays bc its like shes just playing herself and all of them are strong willed

5. hannibal lecter from nbc hannibal bc well............ 😐

5. do you have a happy place? describe it!

unfortunately i do not 😭

6. describe an outfit you'd wear to a red carpet or post a pic of your favorite look

the whole point of red carpets is to be campy so id wear smth like this

send me an ask!

[mythicamagic]

so um,, do you have any anime recommendations that a DL fan would get into? like one that has dark elements but also perfectly balances with sweetness?? im rlly into twisted multi-dimensional characters that are also capable of being shipped

DL is pretty uh…unique, in that its probably the most blatant about what exactly it is as a dark romance franchise. So I’ve tried to recommend similar elements as you’ve said ^^

Amnesia Memories

Amnesia is more on the romance side of things, but there are technically ‘two’ yandere love interests and a bunch of ‘dark’ moments. The anime is extremely bare-bones so I’d highly recommend the otome game over it. You can find it on Steam on sale most of the time for £2 here so I doubt it’s much wherever you live.

Dance with Devils

Or as I like to call it - watered down DL with singing. It’s a cute show though with ‘some’ creative choices that could be considered dark (looking at you Shiki) and nice aesthetics with catchy songs.

Vampire Knight

The most frustrating love triangle ever. Get outta here Twilight. This is the real shit that played with my 14 year old emotions (Zerooo) I’d say to watch it if you like DL and you’re in the mood for teen drama. It’s got the usual vampire romance elements.

Future Diary

Featuring female yandere Yuno Gasai. It’s gory, it’s twisted action fun, it’s riddled with plot holes and has an unhealthy romance. Turn your brain off for this one and enjoy.

Baccano

Hell yeah, Baccano is amazing. It’s got murderers, thieves, immortals and psychopaths. But that doesn’t mean there’s no romance, in fact there’s at least five couples I can think of in the show, including a guy who vows constantly to one day kill his fiancé. And she’s into it. (Just be aware that its like Pulp Fiction so the story has three plots. Also the beginning is the end. Give it a few episodes and you’ll get to grips with the 3 main stories going on.)

Madoka Magica (I’ve only seen the series though)

It’s dark yet looks cute on the surface. There’s a bond of friendship between the girls, which can be the only positive thing going on at the time in this often hopeless feeling anime. Very nice fight scenes with a blend of animation styles.

Higurashi When They Cry

Extremely gory and not for the faint of heart. It’s a mystery type of anime that heavily dives into paranoia. 

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

Anime film featuring vampires that has a gothic aesthetic and the forbidden human x vampire lovers. Very Horror-Esque with action and not a whole lot of dialogue from the main lead, but it’s memorable to me.

Castlevania

Features a cool style and likeable, snarky characters with traditional vampires and a dark atmosphere that’s counteracted by a sense of humour.

Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo 

This is a revenge-driven story with a batshit insane art style that pretty much operates on Treasure Planet logic. The Count is a bit like Dracula, which a magnetic personality which draws you into trusting him because he’s just so gosh darn charming. Then he’ll betray you and laugh at you for ever believing his lies. I love him. (He reminds me of Karl Heinz)

Blind Recommendation would be - Shiki. Apparently its a horror featuring vampires that I’ve never gotten around to watching, but will eventually. 

[not-a-space-alien]

hey its me again wall of text sorry not sorry

k i saw your little treatise justifying zadr and yknow its a cartoon its not the worst thing ever of course nobody is gonna sue you for reblogging fanart or burn you at the stake or w/e and im glad you decided to open yourself up to a differing opinion but zim IS portrayed as an adult. there was even an unfinished episode where zim’s childhood and growing up training from start to finish would be shown so by the time of the pilot he is definitely a full grown developed adult by irken standards especially if hes a former member of an elite military force like the invaders. jhonen has said that the irony and sad comedy of zims character is that hes a grown ass man and a war veteran to boot who VOLUNTARILY goes to an elementary school every day and throws hands with an 11 year old boy who should be well below his notice because he’s that pathetic and desperate for validation that he’ll stoop to seeking it from a child. it also sets up a dynamic between them where dib is CHALLENGED by having to go up against an adult with way more experience than him while dib is just a child, so when he wins its more meaningful, which is a common trope in childrens fiction that an underdog young hero has to take down a powerful adult villain.

jhonen might joke a lot but he’s serious about this part of the characterization of zim and dib and he even went to great lengths to make dib look and act more like a kid in ETF (more emotional and naive, designed to look smaller/softer, going in depth with his relationship to his dad and sister and needing his dad to protect him at the end when he’s too overrun to fight alone) just to drive home the point of how young he is. it was a very deliberate move and jhonen knows what hes doing ESPECIALLY since he also left zim pretty much unchanged and also includes gags about zim’s relative maturity like animating him briefly grimacing because his joints are sore and the part where he pretty much gestures to his crotch and goes “theyre afraid to look at ALL-A THIS”. like you would not see jhonen do that sort of joke with an underage character ok. dont confuse his social awkwardness and self deprecating/trolling humor for not knowing the difference between right and wrong and not acknowledge when he means something sincerely because he doesn’t just clown on people and troll ALL THE TIME 24/7 hes a human, and times have changed with more awareness on issues such as the grooming of minors so he can go back on things he may have said in the past that he doesn’t agree with now or said by mistake. he has said enough times that zim is older than any human alive that its safe to take his word for it by now. judging by the one strip he did in JTHM about johnny murdering a pedophile who was about to prey on squee i think his stance on protecting kids is pretty clear. also i wouldnt put it past jhonen to have redesigned membrane to be more chaddy looking to divert the adult fandom’s attention away from dib and throw the fangirls a bone but thats a whole nother can of worms lol.

and the justification that zim is immature so hes essentially on dib’s level is a reversal of something lots of kids hear from either creepy or ignorant adults who tell them theyre “so mature for their age”. no matter how emotionally mature you are it wont ever compensate for the number of years youve been alive so that’s not very sound logic, and even in fic where theyre both adults it’s still pretty weird because it doesn’t erase their history where zim knew dib as a kid. that’s sort of like a grownup waiting with bated breath until a kid is “legal” so they can start dating. kinda like when jacob imprints on bella’s newborn daughter in twilight then having it handwaved away by saying he’ll wait till she’s grown up, which understandably drew a huge amount of criticism. it’s a loophole that might be mildly acceptable in some cases but the context leaves it colored with a residual ickiness that sets off some red flags for me and a lot of other people.

also you said zim is an alien and therefore the situation itself is unrealistic, but the reason invader zim’s writing resonates with people is because zim is written with very HUMAN emotions and motivations and part of the humor again is how irkens despite being aliens from another planet mirror some of humanity’s worst flaws such as being petty, gluttonous, willfully ignorant, arrogantly believing they are special and better than everyone else, easily manipulated by propaganda, all too eager to greedily colonize other societies etc making them not so different from us at all. so the premise out of context might not seem realistic but the idea of a sad burnout adult who doesn’t realize how humiliating it is to be consistently outsmarted by a kid less than half their age IS realistic and applicable to human interaction since we’ve likely all met someone like this before at one point in our lives for example a schoolteacher who has a personal vendetta against one or more of their students and has nothing better to do than antagonize them, or a really dumb parent that you fight with a lot.

another thing, i know you and other fans probably have a lot of sentimental value and nostalgia attached to zadr because you probably shipped it back when you were a kid yourself and you cant be blamed for something you liked as a kid, but youre an adult now, and you have to listen to the portion of kids in the fandom who dont like zadr and say without question that the age gap makes them uncomfortable. those kids ARE the priority. we’re grown up now and we have to put our feelings aside for them because that’s part of being responsible and mature. i feel like zim himself is a pretty good example of how not to act at our age [shrug emoji]

and anyway a lot of the same elements of zadr can be explored with zadf just as well with just as much potential for cute moments and as a bonus is it’s not creepy

You do bring up some good points, and I’m not saying you’re wrong...  But honestly I’m still not convinced.  I mean, stuff that Jhonen said, the thing is even if it’s the author saying it it’s still outside of canon, that’s the reason why Neil Gaiman got flack for Good Omens because they didn’t write an actual kiss or hug or hand-hold between Aziraphale and Crowley yet Neil Gaiman went on Twitter saying they were queer representation.  I still don’t really put much stock into what he says because the unfinished episodes and Jhonen’s commentary don’t really change the dynamic that’s actually in the show.  And again...Jhonen said if there were going to be romance in the show it would be Zim/Gaz, so he’s either a huge hypocrite or doesn’t view Zim as being incompatible with Gaz.

I do think it’s much better when Dib is an adult and it just makes more sense, and I actually do prefer zadf to zadr and if i were going to ever write fanfiction or make fanart it would probably just be zadf, just because i know this does have some stuff to think about and I totally respect that you have a different view of it, but i honestly just don’t see it that way.  The analogy with Jacob imprinting on Bella’s child in Twilight isn’t really the same thing honestly.  The author in that situation tried to make it not......that....by saying that imprinting isn’t always a romantic relationship thing, and that Jacob would be more of an older brother, but honestly that doesn’t really negate the impact of grooming that kid would have with Jacob around.  The idea that Zim would somehow be grooming Dib seems really silly to me although you’re right, I think his characterization in Into the Florpus has evolved somewhat especially with regard to Dib wanting to get his father’s approval, but again Zim has parallels with that in trying to please the Tallest.  the world-building and characterizations are inconsistent and scattershot at best.  Like no, zim isn’t waiting for him to turn legal, that’s absurd, they’re nemeses coming at each other then learning to be friends.  You’re right that that doesn’t have to be zadr but I still tag it as zadr so people can block it if they want to.

Like, I’ve seen people ship Zim with Professor Membrane instead of Dib.  That seems very weird to me.  that professor membrane would have a relationship with someone who literally goes to his son’s elementary school and who doesn’t know anything at all about human behavior and emotions.

I feel like with this discussion people don’t really understand the problem with age gaps. With age gaps, it’s not a matter of mature/immature, it’s about development.  A ten year age gap sounds like a lot right?  a 25-year-old and a 15-year old would absolutely have a predatory “relationship.”  But a 35- and a 45-year old, that’s perfectly fine.  Having a difference in age doesn’t automatically make the relationship unhealthy.  so if Dib is 25 and Zim is [whatever the hell aliens years i still don’t really take Jhonen’s word for it bc he’s not consistent], that’s doesn’t mean it has to be bad.  The thing about telling minors they’re “so mature for their age” to try and convince them that a person interested in them isn’t a pedophile is that we know a human being who is 15 isn’t developmentally at the same level as a 25-year-old regardless of their behavior.  What is Zim?  All we have to go on is how he acts, and he acts like Dib is an equal match, it’s not “he’s immature for his age,” it’s very unclear.  Raw number of years isn’t the ultimate decider, for example in DnD lore elves reach maturity at, like, 100 years old so a 25-yo human trying to get with a 50-year-old elf would be predatory to the young elf even though the “younger” one is technically twice as old as the human.  Do you see what I’m saying?

I also don’t really buy the idea that Invader Zim’s writing resonates with people because Zim is ~~so human~~.  The guy steals a bunch of kid’s organs in one episode and flies into a tantrum over the slightest inconvenience.  You have to be reading really deeply into it and dig into some old internet archives of things Jhonen Vasquez has said to paint it as realistic.  You can do some interesting things with it wrt like, Zim being defective and starting to experience human emotions but that’s mostly fanon.

Well, you’ve given me some things to think about, thanks for explaining your side to me.  I’m still going to tag things as #zadr so people can block if it can’t plausibly be categorized as zadf.  I’m not actually making any fan content for Invader Zim so the point is kind of moot, but if I ever do I’ll definitely take this into consideration.

[scripttorture]

Sleep Deprivation

It’s really past time we talked about sleep deprivation. It’s a mainstay of modern torture and it’s been used for hundreds of years.

It’s also one of the clean (non-scarring) tortures that’s most regularly dismissed. The damage it causes is downplayed. And we often don’t even recognise it when it’s shown in fiction.

Sleep is a physiological need, like eating, drinking and breathing. Deprived of it we start to become ill and eventually die.

I’m breaking this down into sections, we’ll start with ‘normal’ sleep, talk about what sleep deprivation does to physical and mental health and then talk about how torturers deprive victims of sleep.

I’ll finish up by talking about how the long term symptoms of torture can impact sleep.

How much sleep is enough and what is normal sleep?

There is some variation in sleep patterns between individuals but if you let someone sleep for as long as they like most people sleep for around 7-9 hours a night. When we’re ill we tend to sleep more.

If you plot life expectancy against average hours of sleep a night you get a sort of U shaped graph. People who routinely sleep less then 7-9 hours a night have shorter lives and so do people who sleep more.

But there’s no evidence that sleeping too much actually causes poor health. People who sleep more on average may have underlying health conditions that shorten their lives.

And we have a lot of evidence that sleeping less causes poor health.

Sleep is divided into two types, REM and NREM sleep. That stands for Rapid Eye Movement sleep and Non Rapid Eye Movement sleep. Most people know REM sleep as dreaming sleep. Both are essential for human health.

All animals that have been tested sleep but only birds and mammals have been shown to dream. There’s also considerable variation in how long different species need to sleep for, most animals seem to need more than humans.

We sleep in cycles, chunks of time roughly an hour and a half long when we go through different stages of sleep. The initial cycles focus heavily on NREM sleep and as the night goes on we have more REM sleep, but every cycle contains a little of both.

The time of day we’re most likely to naturally fall asleep and naturally wake up varies with age in a non-linear fashion. Young children wake up early and tire early. Teenagers famously stay up late and sleep in late. The elderly wake up incredibly early and sleep incredibly early. This variation, along with individual variation, is thought to serve a protective function: humans are pack animals and varied sleep patterns within a group ensure that someone is awake most of the time in case of emergency.

It’s perfectly healthy for the time we want to go to sleep to vary, but the amount we need to sleep is more or less consistent after infancy.

Drugs, including caffeine, may effect our ability to fall asleep or our perception of how sleepy we are but they do not fulfil our need for sleep.

Keep in mind that even a character who is voluntarily depriving themselves of sleep will feel the effects. Repeated experiments have shown that we can be consciously aware we’re sleep deprived and aware of the effects of sleep deprivation but can not compensate for them.

Your character can’t get around the effects of sleep deprivation by willpower any more then a drunk can get around the effects of alcohol. Stimulants might keep them awake and raise their reaction time but they don’t effect other symptoms and may make some symptoms worse.

We need sleep after roughly sixteen hours of being awake. After that point our ability to function well starts to drop.

Effects of sleep deprivation

We’re still in the process of pinning down all the effects of sleep deprivation. Some of these effects are things we know happen but we don’t know why.

The more sleep deprived a character is the more symptoms they’d have, both physical and mental. Some of these symptoms are apparent after just one night of poor sleep (for the purposes of this post five hours sleep the previous night). I’m going to mark these early symptoms with an asterix (*) so you can easily recognise them.

Keep in mind that these effects are cumulative.

A character who gets into a pattern of not sleeping enough will get worse rather then staying at a steady level. The longer the character isn’t sleeping the more symptoms they should develop.

Physical symptoms

Shakes

Headaches*

Muscular pain

Increased blood pressure*

Reduced alertness*

Lower immune response leading to:

Increased infections

Longer recovery times

Longer reaction times*

Worse reflexes*

Lower natural testosterone levels and lower sperm counts

Abnormal menstrual cycles and lower fertility levels

Hunger*

Poor coordination*

Increased chance of accidents*

Subtle changes to physical appearance that cause a character to appear unhealthy*

Microsleeps (short periods of unconsciousness)

Psychological symptoms

Agitation

Reduced ability to interpret other people’s emotions*

Increased feelings of distrust towards other people*

Paranoia

Hallucinations

Increased chance of substance abuse

Confusion*

Memory loss*

Impaired ability to learn*

Increased risk of developing false memories

Suicidal thoughts and urges

Delirium

Markedly reduced concentration*

Consistently underestimating their level of impairment*

Impaired ability to think logically*

Increase in depressive and anxious symptoms, possibly inducing depression and anxiety

Reduced creativity*

Reduced problem solving ability*

Reduced ability to plan*

Increased risk of violent behaviour

Symptoms similar to psychosis in the long term

Long term effects

These aren’t symptoms exactly, these are a list of conditions people who are chronically sleep deprived are more likely to get. They develop several years later, usually in the 40-50s at the earliest.

Any amount of sleep deprivation is thought to increase the chances of these conditions but the longer and more consistently a character is sleep deprived the more likely they are.

Diabetes

Cancer (various kinds)

Heart failure (and coronary heart disease)

Strokes

Dementia, especially Alzheimer’s

Higher miscarriage rates

Vaccines may be less effective if the person was sleep deprived before the vaccine was administered because the immune response is suppressed. Research on this isn’t quite as thorough yet and it isn’t clear if the smaller immune response actually equates to less immunity against the real disease.

Sleep deprivation is also thought to increase weight gain. It makes people feel hungrier and crave unhealthy foods. While not nearly as serious as the other effects here it is a noted long term effect and as such I felt it needed to be included. Especially since there is a correlation between higher weight and sleep disorders.

How torturers deprive people of sleep.

Sleep deprivation is sometimes portrayed as a ‘modern’ innovation. This is untrue. Scottish witch trials used it heavily in attempts to force confessions and the Spanish Inquisition explicitly forbid its use (they thought the delirium and hallucinations would prevent victims from truly confessing and repenting their sins).

Not all of these methods would result in total sleep deprivation (ie absolutely no sleep in 24 hours). Some of them would lead to less sleep, poor sleep or disrupted sleep. This is still profoundly harmful.

Some of these methods could fit easily with a historical setting. Some wouldn’t. Some would work better in a pseudo-interrogation or forced confession scenario. If you’re planning on using sleep deprivation in your story pick a method that you feel fits your plot and setting best.

And if you’re not planning on using sleep deprivation but you see something you have used on this list take a moment to think about what you might be implying.  

Poor cell conditions including:

-Constant light

-Constant noise

-Insufficient room to sleep

-Wet cells

-Extreme temperatures in cells

-Lack of beds and bedding

Stress positions such as forced standing. These are generally used for between 24-48 hours continuously meaning they’re automatically combined with sleep deprivation.

Constant use of restraints, especially if the restraints stop the character from fully extending their limbs or fully lowering their limbs.

Forced exercise such as forced walking (this was used in Scottish witch trials).

Forced labour for prolonged periods.

Guards disturbing the sleep of prisoners. For example shaking people awake every few minutes.

Prolonged interrogation without rest such as relay interrogation. Relay interrogation involves switching interrogators regularly so that prisoners can be kept in interrogation for over 24 hours at a time.

Starvation, hunger reduces our ability to sleep well and get as much sleep as we need. When combined with poor cell conditions poor sleep becomes inevitable.

Denying medical treatment to injured characters.

Poor sleep in survivors

Most of the long term symptoms of torture have the potential to disrupt sleep.

Depression, anxiety, hypervigilance and suicidal thoughts can all prevent survivors getting to sleep and disrupt sleep.

PTSD often involves intense nightmares which can both disturb sleep and make a survivor dread falling asleep. The majority of PTSD sufferers have difficulty sleeping.

Chronic pain can prevent sleep and many of the drugs commonly used to treat it can also lead to disturbed sleep. Like commonly abused addictive drugs pain medication can lead to poor quality sleep.

This doesn’t necessarily mean every survivor will have trouble sleep or be sleep deprived. While a lot of people with mental health problems have poorer sleep not everyone does. Medication for depression and anxiety can sometimes help people sleep and this in turn can reduce the intensity of symptoms.

Think about the combination of symptoms you’ve chosen for your character and consider whether they could lead to long term sleep loss.

Our need for sleep isn’t something we can debate, bribe or drug away. It’s a fundamental part of our biology.

Losing sleep is serious, being actively deprived of it is abusive. Be aware of what your story is doing and be prepared to show the consequences.

Sources

Why Torture doesn’t work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation by S O’Mara, Harvard University Press, 2015

Why We Sleep by M Walker, Penguin, 2017 - This book contains references to a lot of sleep research papers and is a very good introduction to the subject. Walker and Jagust conducted research together on the link between lack of sleep and Alzheimer’s. He also recommends D Dinges’ (University of Pennsylvania) body of work on sleep and concentration, response time and car accidents.

The Mystery of Sleep by M Kryger, Yale University Press, 2017

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[strawberryybird]

Me sees the character songs post, immediately wants to know what character songs you have for the characters and why.

ok so. welcome to the rabbit hole that is my music taste and what is my no.1 most frequently done activity.. plastering emotions i have for fictional characters all over my music taste. I restricted myself to ¾ songs for each character & then to Edie, Hubert, Dorothea, Lysithea & Byleth because otherwise we’d be here all day (and those are the Primary Daydream Candidates rn)

under a rm because as im sure we’ve all seen.. i just don’t fucking stop.. also i got weirdly deep about some of these topics. i don’t know how to tag it. tread careful?

Here are some songs.. welcome to my (notoriously bad) music taste. alsoi go in Very heavy handed about it all. i make only a few apologies:

Edelgard:Everybody wants to rule the word - tears for fears. (ucan go with Lorde’s cover but i prefer the original bc im like that.) i meanit’s pretty heavy handed but it’s such an Edelgard song it !!!! fuels my ficwriting. if it’s not so very Edelgard’s relationship with twsitd then idk whatto tell you. plus it’s an iconic song

Medicine - daughter. (daughter is My Favourite Band. Ever. I cannot articulate how much ilove their (and ex:re’s) music!!) anway. this is a hegegard song & i don’ttake constructive criticism. I’ll reiterate this better in other descriptions,but please don’t take my inclusion of a song about such a topic as adevaluation of it in any way, that’s not my intention. The reason I go so feralfor Hegegard is because im no stranger to watching someone you care about hurt themselvesin a way you can’t stop, and that’s what the AM ending evokes in me. Hence: asong I love that one can read the same story in. And then the lyrics ‘You couldstill be / What you want to / What you said you were / When I met you” just !! parallelsEdge of Dawn’s lyrics about regret & overall I’m very feral about this.

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper - blue oystercult. this is PRIME Edelgard telling freshly-awokenbyleth she’s been waging war for 5 years. also !!!! “Seasonsdon’t fear the reaper / Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain, we can be likethey are” >>> “The Edge of Dawn (Seasons ofWarfare) (フレスベルグの少女～風花雪月～,lit. Girl of Hresvelg ~Wind, Flower, Snow, Moon~)” .. the link is tenuous but coincidence?? is it, fuck.

Seneca - Novo Amor. this is another one of those songs that could mean something different to everyone. very easy to project onto, is novo amor. I like the story of being prepared to run and break ties at any given moment, but ending up - emotionally or physically - in the same place one always was. apart from the glaring tie of how Edelgard returned to garreg mach, this song is a lot of me trying to repatriate Edelgard’s lack of emotional arc in the game by saying . well. this song. 

You can call me Al -  paul simon. am i projecting edeleth thoughts onto my favourite song? it’s morelikely than you think!!! but also i like the chorus and all the exasperating ‘call me el’jokes i can make.. i may be half writing a fic based on this song.

Dorothea:Agnes - glass animals. so i have significant emotions about edelthea at the best of times !! and this song !!! really bloody hits it home !! yes I knowit’s got a really heavy and real subject matter and I’m not trying to devalueit or minimise it.. but the story - about watching someone close to you hurtthemselves/get hurt, and doing so in ways you can’t stop them from - is adamn real one. And a Lot of why I love Dorothea’s character in the gamebecause she’s the one who can’t stop her friends from getting hurt – through exposureto warfare .. or  stopping Edelgard becomingthe monster at the end of the story. Even though she’s one of the healers onthe beagle’s team. And I feel that.

Ex’s and Oh’s – Elle King. So you know that one spn fanvid featuringthis song about all of dean winchester’s relationships? That, but for my flirting Queen Dorothea Arnault. (and I have the dumbest most fun little headcanon thatonce Dorothea and Sylvain derailed a lgbt+ society meeting whilst Edie wastrying to go over the budget by blasting this song and dancing on the table.The idea makes me laugh)

Hold My Girl – George Ezra. The whole thing about wanting just that onemoment to cherish the people you love for one moment more before you have goout face the world? If that’s not the timeskip’d Dorothea Arnault Aesthetic, Idon’t know what is.

(Call Me Out – sea girls. On a much lighter note, this song is fueling the later half of mydrafts of road trip au. And it’s literally because of that one verse. im gayshut up.)

Hubert:Red Right Hand – nick cave and the bad seeds. Is it on the nose? Is itheavy handed? Oh u fuckin bet but that won’t stop me!!! A) it’s a good song. ItIs. B) I like narrative songs. C) Any ‘red right hand’ symbolism in Anycharacter has me love them immediately and also plonk this song in the middleof any playlist about them. sure, the artic monkeys version might be a bit more on hubert’s brand.. but my mileage varies about it lmao

I had fortress by bear’s den earmarked for Hubie, as I think it’s easilyread about boundaries and a one sided intense relationship & that’s! Hubiebaybee! But I can’t possibly cover unhealthy relationships without shoving thealbum Hospice by The Antlers into every which way of it. It’s by no meansdirectly translatable to Edelgard and hubert’s relationship and it’s arguable ifI should even mention it in the same sentence as a bloody fictional character… that beingsaid, I’ve been having emotions about:Shiva – the antlers. This song specifically reads to me to be a really goodarticulation of my own thoughts about Hubert’s perspective of Edie getting experimentedon. heavy but damn. I like that. I just see a lot of what their teen years togethermust have been like in Shiva.

Time – Pink Floyd. Ok so.. it’s like Hubert in parallel bc I think thissong is a lot about searching for a purpose/reason or a quote unquote bloodyred path in life. And I may have been listening to it when I watched Hubert/DorotheaA support & now it’s just permanently associated with it bc it complementedit so well. And I like it. So . it stays. It’s very much a beagles song to meas well.

Lysithea:The Beautiful Dream – George Ezra. Ok so I read this Edelysithea ficwith this on repeat bc the title reminded me of it, and then I stuck it onrepeat because it worked too well and now.. im crying.. and i like the inflection of Lysithea’s bitterness over the titular lyric. (but also, it remains one of my steadfast edeleth songs.. sorry lys)

Secrets (Cellar Door) – Radical Face. Another Edelgard&/Lysitheasong!! I really like their relationship ok. And given the song itself can beread straight or an allegory for whatever you particularly want, but the storyis just too on the nose for me not to mention it here.(also general advocation of listening to the whole of radical face’s musicbecause I’ve loved it for years now & the work is beautiful.) (also it’swonderful for fe awakening projection. Or ur own.)

Oh Children – nick cave and the bad seeds. there’s a million different interpretations of this song, but to try nail a few onto Lysithea.. there’s the harry potter use of making/finding a light in the depths of tragedy & i love that for Lys. there’s the whole ‘the kids aren’t alright’ theme and it’s various depths. and i like narrative lyrics to plaster my large fictional-character-caused-emotions onto, so make of this one what you will.

Marianne (and Lysithea too if you like)Bad Blood – Radical Face. Ok so. This is one of my favourite songs in bloodyexistence, and it’s so loaded with meaning & it has a metric tonne of it. Icould wax lyrical about how much I love Radical Face’s work. I don’t want myinclusion of this song (specifically this one) to in any way devalue it. Butmusic is ofc incredibly subjective, and so is my reading of a lot of threehouses – in case it’s not bloody obvious by now. There’s a Lot of stories onecould take from Marianne’s character (and none of them are More Valid^tm thanany other), and I do see a very personal story in her – as I do in this song. Hgghhghive just spent 10 minutes trying to find an impersonal way to talk about twovery personal and relative stories, which naturally doesn’t work. That, and theway I read her story is Real Fucking Dicey for tumblr.com. so if this song is about accepting rejection because of parts of yourself so deep they’re in your blood, i think.. y’all can see.. where my neurodivergent gay self is going with this..

Byleth:Something to Believe In – Tom Walker. Yeah. You’re bloody welcome. If this isn’ta completely on the nose Byleth song, I’ll eat Dorothea’s hat.

Don’t Let the Man – Fatboy Slim. ~ And the sign said green-hairedpartially possessed emotionally void mercenaries need not apply for aprofessorship at the country’s most prestigious academic centre… ~

Emigrate - Novo Amor. this just fucking Got Me in the ‘actively choosing crimson flower’ feelings. im an emotional wreak but its aight. the lyrics just matched up too well for me to let it go !!!

Alps - Novo Amor. this hit me in the ‘i miss the gremlin child sothis’ feelings one day and now it’s permanently stuck that way.

Make Them Gold – chvrches. (this is very much associated with awakening’sfuture past kids and also the Carmilla series in my mind But!!) I love a story about‘if we’re all falling, we’re going down together’ and the magical power of teamwork, and how it brings out the best in people.. & that’s what this song& Byleth kinda bloody stand for ya know??

woooh.. oh my god . i need another cup of tea.